Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

After the movie, Fin, Mina, and Seth just wanted to visit the ice café from last time, when Gallwell contacted them, that he had arrived. When they came to the location, there was quite a commotion. It seemed that he had arrived for a while.

Seth looked up and down the bear that posed as a man. A mountain ridge of muscle, the stature of a giant, and a very enviable bushy beard. Subconsciously, the blacksmith touched his own, soft chin. Even since Eos had hexed it away, his bushy friend never returned again.

Then he looked at the destroyed restaurant on the left and the young girl behind him. Both were currently surrounded by guards and every single of the golem knights was wearing the light green Polyarkanate armor. They had become a rare sight since most of them were tasked to help Mark Baker in Y-City.

Blood still dripping from Gallwell’s hands, had Seth suspecting that he had something to do with the two corpses that had been placed outside the restaurant. There were also a bunch of injured people who were kept back by the guard but were looking worriedly at the girl.

“Who wants to explain what is going on here?” Seth asked an open question to the crowd.

“Who are you?” the guard captain, identified by a small golden badge on his armor, asked.

“Who I am?” the bard asked with a lifted eyebrow when he remembered that he was still in casual clothes. With a quick change using the system function, he was instantly clad in his dark Scorpio Armor.

“T-Tower Master?!” the guard captain immediately exclaimed. Seth wasn’t sure whether she should be happy or sad that his armor was more famous than his face.

“Now you recognize me. Start explaining what is going on here.”

“Ah, erm, from what we know this girl was pursued by unidentified assailants and was thrown into the shop during the fight. Mr. Rupertz here, who was dining in this place, lost his food as a consequence and proceeded to kill the assailants,” the policeman/guard recounted what had happened according to witness testimony.

“And what were you doing just now, surrounding the victims like criminals?” the bard asked

"It is not clear whether they are victims yet. After all, this man just killed two people. We only wanted to apprehend them for questioning to clear things up, when your lordship came,” the guard assured them that they didn’t intend anything apart from taking them in for questioning.

“Is what he said correct, Rupertz?” he finally turned to the man in question, who had silently watched on during their conversation. Seth couldn’t bother going to the next station, they would just do a short quest now.

“Please call me Gallwell, Tower Master. Yes, it is true,” he suddenly spoke surprisingly eloquently. Seth nodded.

“Girl, who are these people?” this time the bard turned directly to the girl, who had been hiding behind the massive man. If somebody could clear things up, it would be her.

“T-They call themselves the Church of Dark Mercy, followers of Gatris, the Goddess of Dark Mercy;” the girl squeaked after a moment of enduring Seth’s questioning gaze.

“And why are they after you?”

“I...” She looked around at the crowd and her teachers. It was obvious that whatever it was, she didn’t want to talk about it in such a public setting. “Is there a more private setting we can go to?” Mina asked the guard captain, seeing the girl's reaction.

“This restaurant had private rooms on the upper floor,” he answered a little awkwardly.

“Then let’s go there. You can come too,” Seth told the captain. This way the two suspects would stay under police surveillance. With the Tower Master around, there was no chance for the protocol, so the guard captain accepted this olive branch and the group quickly moved to a private room on the upper floor of the damaged restaurant.

Now, away from prying eyes, the girl finally opened up. Her name was Felice, and she was one of the refugees of Sigma. After some hesitation, she revealed the full story of what had happened. Everything from the time they arrived in Delta, to when their parents were poisoned with the drugs and finally to the point where she managed to flee to look for help, only to run into the arms of the Church of Dark Mercy.

Her story was accompanied by clenched fists and grinding teeth from all of the audience. Then she came to the point a few weeks prior. She had finally reached the age to enter the system and choose a class but was struck with a forced class, probably because of the ritual she had been forced to take part in.

“After they found me, they kept bothering me and today they wanted to take me by force,” she said with tears in her eyes. She didn’t quite know what they meant when the believers said, “A Lamb was meant for slaughter”, but she knew that it probably wasn’t anything good for her as the lamb.

“I see, I think we can forgive Gallwell for being a little rough with such an attacker, right?” Seth asked, especially the guard captain. The man only silently nodded.

“And you will give her protection, I hope?” he added, getting another nod, though this one had some hesitation. Looking at the teachers outside and the two corpses, these priests were not run-of-the-mill criminals.

Suddenly, Fin stepped toward her (walking over the table) and hesitatingly brought out -Golmini. The miniature golem Seth had once made for her.

“T-Take it, it will protect you!” she pressed out reluctantly. Although the golem looked small and Seth had made it quite a while ago, the blacksmith had kept improving it whenever he had a level up or learned a new skill. The current Golmini was by no means weaker than an adventurer around lv.75.

“Protect her well!” she said to Golmini, tiny tears in her big black eyes. Seth couldn’t get himself to undermine Fin’s resolve of letting go of Golmini, by giving Felice one of the Golem Knights. The girl looked unsure but accepted when she saw Seth’s silent nod in the back.

“Can you bring her home, Captain? You are okay with this Gallwell, right?”

The leader of Gamma Resistance nodded, and the guard left the room together with the girl and her new golem. Finally, the two of them could get down to business and talk about the reason they had met today.

“Look here, Tower Master, this is the material blessed by my patron. Tyr himself told me to look for you, do you think you can process it?” he asked cautiously, as he carefully place the chunk of ore on the table between them

Folding away the edges of the fabric he had rolled the material into, he revealed a chunk of bright, silvery metal with fine dark golden lines in it, the size of a head. It was slightly similar to <Divine Arpegium> which was silver with a golden hue, but the gold here was much darker and clearly split from the silver. It was almost like pattern-welded steel or cumai, pattern-welded copper.

“What a beautiful metal,” Mina voiced what was on Seth’s mind.

< Tyr’s Asgardian Electrum, Crafting material

Special

A piece of epic <Well Electrum> which holds a strong power of purity and life, that was blessed by the god Tyr, granting it the powers of War, Justice, and Leadership.>

The description of the material was not very long, but it was definitely a special material.

“What do you think, can you do it?” Gallwell asked almost nervously.

“Of course, but what do you even want me to make for you?” the blacksmith asked, completely in his element as a craftsman now. He definitely wanted to work with the material, the only question was what the customer wanted and what he was willing to pay.

“A war hammer would be nice, my old one broke when he fought the guardian of this nugget,” the big man said sadly and brought out the pieces of what used to be an epic war hammer. Hearing his commission, Seth immediately had an idea when looking at the material.

“I can do that, but what are you willing to pay?” Seth finally asked the important question. Gallwell answered with silence, as he thought about what he could pay.

Does this work? I still need money to get new armor, or at least repair this one...” he said and brought out the head of something that almost looked like a dragon. The table he placed it on made some precarious cracking noises and he placed the severed body part.

<Head of a Guivre, Relic.

Needs further processing>