1 The miracles of Arcor

Like each other day, you could hear the sounds of the forge from far away. It wasn't a particularly outstanding building. Like every house, it was made from grey, unpolished stone, clay, and mud. In order to make more room for the emergent smoke, the roof was slightly heightened, and two little, open windows represented the only irregularities within the building. It was the home of the young Corwyn, doing his daily handicraft, as usual.

But strangely enough, there was no smoke emerging from the chimney on this particular day. Not even the all so familiar sound of the hammer hitting on metal could be heard. Instead, a light, strange buzz was in the air.

(It will work this time!), thought Corwyn, before he took a deep breath. His attention was only for the phenomenon happening right in front of him. Between his hands, a flashy light was burning, illuminating Corwyn and the room in a white, slightly blue light. The origin of the light was whirring between his hands, twisting and transforming, slowly and surely taking the shape of an object. Corwyn pulled his hands farther apart, and the object responded, stretching itself farther as well. Under full concentration, he changed the object, and it began to slowly take shape. While one end took the form of a cylindrical, handle-like figure, the rest became more flat and wider, and the other end turned out more narrow.

(Yes! This is it!)

After another, final breath, Corwyn guided his hands nearer to the object again and applied pressure. The room was filled with an even brighter light, making a look at the figure nearly impossible. Then, all of a sudden, the light extinguished, and what was radiating in white light a second ago, lost its shine and fell on the table, with a clanking sound.

Sweating, but satisfied, Corwyn marveled at his work. The sword looked sharp and stable, and if he didn't know better, he wouldn't notice it was forged differently from the natural way. Its weight could be compared to that of a normal sword, and after a few swings, Corwyn was certain that the sword could not be distinguished from one of the many swords lying in his forge. Now, the only step left to do was to confirm that it could also be used as a weapon, in other words, he had to test the sword's durability. Corwyn took another sword from a stash of weapons in the room, holding it in his right hand, while he got a hold of the new sword with his left hand. He hauled off, and then hit the new sword with the one in his right hand. There was a clanking sound, sparks were flying in every direction, but the weapon held. Another two, three tries later, both weapons were still intact. Now sparks were flying once again, but this time, inside Corwyn's head. After many failures, he finally managed to make the seemingly impossible possible, creating metal out of nowhere.

Well, technically it didn't come out of nowhere but was rather made from something else, something invisible to the naked eye. It was the energy that pulsated through this entire world, an energy called Arcor.

Arcor was running through this world like veins, creating flows of pure energy. They formed a complex network, invisible to the eyes of regular lifeforms. However, all those veins met at certain points, knots formed between the singular lines made of Arcor. Those points were called "wells" by the populace, because they embodied the highest concentration of Arcor possible, being the source of power for many humans, as well as being the centers of most big cities. Some humans could use that energy, manipulating it in many different ways. While the first category could transform Arcor into different kinds of elements and materials, like fire or water, even light, the second category used it to manipulate objects in certain ways. For centuries, humanity used Arcor in order to control primitive machines or golems, as well as changing the shape of specific materials. There were countless ways in using Arcor, and each human being was differently gifted in using it.

However, what remained a sad truth was that humans, although there were countless ways of using the strange energy, had only limited capabilities in using it. Independently from their natural talent, their ability to use Arcor was highly dependent on the concentration of Arcor in the area. The weaker the concentration, the harder it was for a human to draw in enough Arcor in a short amount of time. Therefore, using it outside of the "wells" and veins became nearly impossible, or at least, took a huge amount of time.

That was probably the main reason why most of Hadika´s population – that's what humanity called this world – lived around those "wells" because the concentration was strongest at these particular points within the Arcor-network. Corwyn´s hometown, Quorin, was located at a "well" as well, and the humans who got talent in manipulating Arcor used it in order to make life easier for everyone.

Corwyn was also gifted with a talent in manipulating Arcor, as he was capable of turning the energy into solid metal. He discovered this ability around five years ago, shortly after he took over the forge from his father, who left the city with some companions back then, at the age of fourteen. At first, he was only playing around with it, forming simple things like an orb or an arrowhead. But ever since then, he continued to improve, and now, he had finally succeeded in forming a complete weapon.

Satisfied with himself, Corwyn, now nineteen, sat down on a nearby chair, leaning back and letting the sunlight coming through the windows touch his face. He could hear the noise of the street. It had to be around noon. Right now, the streets would be full of workers, getting back into their homes in order to eat their lunch, and traders, praising their wares in front of the crowd. Corwyn usually got his orders in the morning, and his customers only came again in the evening for their wares, after their daily work was done. So Corwyn was always alone in his forge in the afternoon, and he was normally quite busy at this time of the day.

But on this particular day, there were unusually few orders for him to complete, and he already finished those in the morning. So now, there wasn't really anything urgent for him to do, and his little experiment only took one hour of his time. He still had a full afternoon of time in front of him.

(Who would've thought there would be times when I don´t have enough work?)

Corwyn grimaced. Although a pause was always welcome, he wasn't the type of guy who could sit around doing nothing for a long period of time. He played around with the sword held in his hand until suddenly, a thought crossed his mind. He would simply pay "him" a visit. He surely would have time for Corwyn.

Determined to end his laziness, Corwyn got up, packing two loaves of bread into his bag made of brown leather, putting the new sword into a sheath, and left the forge through the door. He had to blink at the sudden shower of bright sunlight, after leaving his dark forge.

(Nobody can complain about the bad weather in Quorin, I guess...)

Since the city was within the vast desert of Hakata, which stretched far throughout the continent and took about half of the continent's landmass, sunshine throughout the day and a dry air were a given. The desert was an arid, life-threatening place, and without the existence of the wells of Arcor, humanity would have been extinguished in this area long ago. But there were only few cities with natural access to water, and since settlements around those cities had neither enough Arcor nor water to survive by themselves, they were under the total control of the big cities. Because of this lack of water, the population in Hakata decreased to a third of its amount a century ago, and most of the former independent settlements became deserted places, now functioning as hideouts for bandits and other kinds of rogues. Therefore, only a few people had the guts to cross the desert on a regular basis, mostly traders who had the money to pay a strong escort, and they demanded absurd prices for their wares.

Some time ago, Corwyn wanted to buy an ingot of Sancrin-Steel from the famous city of smiths, Corlina, but the metal was so expensive, he couldn't even hope to buy enough for a single sword. Back then, Corwyn swore to himself that if he ever got to Corlina, he would buy that damn metal for probably a quarter of its price here, but right now, this was nothing more than a distant dream to him.

Ending his gloomy thought process, Corwyn walked along the main street of the trader's district, taking in the well-known sight of the workers heading home, the traders praising their wares, and the soldiers patrolling. No matter how often he had already seen it, Corwyn would never get tired of the variety of different kinds of cooking ingredients, weapons, tools and jewelry. Normally, he would take his time browsing through the variety of products, but since he already had a destination in mind, he didn't want to waste unnecessary time.

A few minutes later, he already arrived at the center of the city.