Tinkering and Smithing

After my brake down, my mind seemed to be clearer. Ideas and observations seemed to come more easily…

Sitting at my workbench was great many tiny tinker toys. I discovered that using the vis from my wand could replace crystals a lot of the time. I even made anther lens without having to spend any more of my few crystals.

People may also be surprised to see a floating rock. No, the rock wasn't floating by itself. There was a cool little contraption under it. In my many days of tinkering away, I found that if you spin an aer and terra crystal around each other gravity would seemingly invert for a short distance. Me just setting this tiny thing spinning lifts a rock a meter up. The diameter is small though, about the size of my hand. Maybe I could do something with this later?

The rock was also special it was harder than normal stone. It was about as tough as iron, while weighing less than the rock was originally. It really was a great building material. The only downside is it needs a crystal component. Testing with some mundus, this is what I'm calling vis crystal dust, let me know how much one crystal can make. One crystal can make roughly eight square meters worth. The gem dust of the crystals I have called ordo, terra, ect mundus.

I have also been studying my mom's book of big words. She was so proud. Mom says the bigger the word, the smarter I sound. I thought that it looked pretty stupid when I stuttered out a misspoken phrase. She however found it adorable.

I've also been working on a bucket that would work like Jerry. The newly dubbed essentia was unusable in the slime's body. I've only made a small amount of progress.

I was writing the small bits of knowledge down in a book mom helped me get. My tiny amount of coin wasn't enough.

"Honey, you are going to come eat right now!" A shout from outside my room called.

"But mom, I'm doing really important things right now."

"Don't give me that sh.. um excuse Dave. You have been in your room for a week straight. Come eat, then get out of this house for the rest of the day." In a threatening tone "Do I need to take all your new toys?"

My shoulders slumped as I gave up. "No mom."

After eating, with a look of shame, I marched from my room to the great unknown beyond. Ok, maybe I was exaggerating. I had used up, pretty much, all of my inspiration. I probably needed to go look at the world a bit.

Along my peaceful stroll, I heard a great bout of clanging. Uh, it feels like my thoughts could form an epic poem if I'm not careful. This is what reading mom's books gets me. If I try to talk to other kids, it doesn't go well. My vocabulary was different from a lot of kids. Well, I just used vocabulary in a sentence. It doesn't mean others were stupid, they just were not exposed to the same words.

Dad didn't use as much words as mom does. He seemed to understand them, but didn't speak them often. Dad once told me that depending on the person mom was speaking to, she could fart eloquence. He then proceeded to tell me not to repeat that.

But, back to the clanging. I had come across a smithy. The forging of common tools was a sight to see. From a swords to a simple iron hoe, you could see it all on the shelves.

"Hey boy, are ya goin' ta buy any thin'"

I felt as though he missed a few letters. But that reminded me of my money problems. I thought about the art of forging metal. It seemed like being a thaumaturge needed a lot of side professions. Every time I wanted to do something, it seemed like I needed to know something else. That feeling was as bad as the one I had now. That person was looking at me like I was stupid. I then proceeded to realize, it had been over two minutes ago that he had asked me a question. And, I probably looked like an idiot staring into space.

"No mister, I want to learn how to smith." I said with my best innocent look.

"You sure you up for that, boy. And call me Binge."

That look on his face was starting to make me mad. It was my fault though, for bungling up my first impression. "Yes I'm sure Mr Binge."

"K' boy, just put on these clothes. Ya don't want hot embers on yer skin." He tosses a bundle at me.

Went to change in the back room to change, and when I came back another thing was tossed at my face.

"Put that apron on so we can get started. Don't have all day now do we?"

I had a feeling I would dislike him soon.

"Now this boy, is an iron ingot. Good weight and good size for trainin' ye."

I looked and was so excited. Wait, no I wasn't.

"This is all you get for now. The first lessons will be ta control the heat, in this here forge. And then I'll need ta show ya how hot this needs to be to do what ya want with it."

"Okay…"

Well then Binge proceeded to tell me about the drowning out, shrinking and etc of the metal. It sure was more than banging a hammer around, even if it involved banging a hammer around.

"So boy, ready ta get started?"

"Yep!"

And so my studies as a smith had begun. Such things might be useless to me now, but back then it was the opposite. I even find myself nostalgic over Binge's annoying way of speaking…