11 No One said it Was Easy

I woke up very early the next day. With no food to eat, I could only go outside to complete my tasks. There were three wells throughout the village. I chose the one closest to the square, located in the centre of the village. A few buckets laid around it, which meant they at least provided more than one bucket.

Taking a look at the map, I had to figure out the best rout to take. 'I should probably start with the households furthest from the well. That way, the closer locations will be easier to complete'. With my route decided, I began filling the buckets with water. Out of five buckets, three were broken, or at least had holes in them. 'I'm not sure whether they are just old, or they did that on purpose', I thought. Two buckets was as I could carry anyway, and both seemed alright.

It took me over an hour to finish the task, due to one of the buckets leaking. Thankfully my choice of route was really useful, and even with one bucket it wasn't that bad. 'I'll have to check the other two wells. Doing this tomorrow, with one bucket no less, would be annoying', I figured. My next task was at the Woodcutter's Lodge. I wasn't in a rush, this was a perfect chance for some rest.

The Woodcutter's Lodge was about five minutes away from the village's square. Of course it took my about fifteen minutes to get there, but no one seemed to care. I wasn't about to test that though. Maybe the lodge was just outside the village, but they wouldn't simply let me go out without a pair of eyes. I tried to observe my surroundings, until my suspicions came true. There was a man, perhaps twice as old as me, standing next to the village's gate.

He didn't say anything, simply stood there with his arms crossed, while supporting himself on the wooden palisade. I wasn't interested in a conversation either, and simply headed to the Woodcutter's Lodge. Rather than a lodge, a better description would be a hut. A rather simple hut at that. There was a single window and door, whatever was inside was anyone's guess.

Since no one was outside, I decided to know on the doors. *knock, knock* "I'm here for my task". Shortly after a groan, a middle aged man came out of the lodge. He looked me up and down, then simply commanded, "Follow me".

Next to his lodge, a few large logs were arranged in a nice stack. He pointed at the logs, then at the axe stuck to a stump of a tree. "I don't think you need any other explanation. Chop the wood, that is your job. I don't need huge pieces! Make sure to chop each log in four pieces, got it?", he said. With a nod from me, the man turned around to leave. Before he did, he added, "Next time, don't wake me up. Just do the job, that's it".

I grabbed the axe and checked it out. 'Hehe... Of course they wouldn't give me anything sharp', I thought. Perhaps they didn't feel like providing a proper axe, or perhaps they were afraid. I wasn't leaning towards them being afraid. Either way, with the axe in hand, my second task began.

After a few minutes of work, I began to sweat. 'This axe is shit!', I exclaimed in my mind. I had to use more strength, just to split the stupid logs. The worst part was that my strength was lacking to begin with. I was already quite weak, and they even had the balls to give me that rubbish axe.

This made me really angry, so the solution was slowed down pace. The task didn't specify the amount. In other words, they'd get what they'd get. After about half an hour of log splitting, I had enough. 'I need a break. This is just stupid. That axe is as good as piece of scrap... Bunch of bastards' I dropped the axe, and sat on the stump while shaking my hands.

A few minutes went by before someone shouted, "GO BACK TO WORK". I looked around, but found no one. 'Who the hell shouted that?' I asked myself, and picked the axe back up. Even though I was tired, I persisted for about an hour. This made my hands really sore, I couldn't even hold the stupid axe anymore. Though someone again shouted at me to get back to work, the amount of time was longer. 'Seems they realise I can't keep working constantly, so they allow breaks', I thought.

I persisted with the task for another half an hour, ten stopped all together. Nobody shouted at me even after fifteen minutes. 'That means the task is done. Good, I'm so hungry', with that in mind, I headed back to my house.

Back at my house, I noticed some food waiting for me on the table. A large bowl of porridge, and two stale loaves of bread. 'There's some water too... How generous'. Though the porridge was lukewarm and the bread stale, I didn't care at the point. My stomach demanded food, any food was fine. The meal provided was bigger compared to before, but not enough for my body. 'I really need to get some additional food. Meat especially, this will help out a lot', I thought while laying down in my bed.

My break went by very quickly. With no other option, I left the house, and headed towards the Blacksmith's Workshop. The workshop was a bit different, than what I saw in Freemount Village. It was actually inside a house, and not outside it. This struck me as weird, but perhaps the house was converted to be a workshop. Inside, a large muscular man pointed at a wall and said, "Grab the hammer from over there, and come back here". I did as instructed, and returned to the blacksmith with a hammer in hand.

"Watch what I'm doing carefully, this will be your job from now on". First thing, he took a few lumps of some kind of ore, and threw that into a furnace. He then retrieved a molten liquid, which he poured into some sort of mould. He then cooled it down a bit, though it remained red hot. Next he took out the metal from the mould, and hammered it. He did it for couple of minutes, until the metal got flattened out completely. He then placed it into the furnace again, melted, hammered it and so on.

He did that three time, before melting it again then pouring it into a different mould. He submerged it in water to cool it down, which produced a lot of steam. He had four large barrels with water, and used all of them consecutively. The last barrel produced no steam really, which meant the metal must've cooled enough. With that taken care of, he pried the metal from the mould, and it was an ingot.

This was my job supposedly at the Workshop. When the ingot was ready, he turned towards me and said, "Now that you know what to do, this will be your work from now on. Remember, to repeat this process three time, and then cool it down completely". He said no more. Instead he packed some stuff and left. I was left there alone, and I was actually glad about that. 'So, better get to work then' I thought.

It wasn't overly difficult to remember what he did. Therefore, I started repeating the process. I melted the ore, then poured it into the mould, and then the problems started. When I hammered the bar, it was very hard to flatten. I had to use a lot of strength, just to flatten it completely like the blacksmith did. I was out of strength, and decided to rest a bit. This time, I didn't hear any voice saying I should be back at work, therefore I rested for a bit longer.

It took my about an hour, just to actually create one ingot. I watched the blacksmith's demonstration, which mean I already lost some time beforehand, and another hour just to create one ingot. 'I don't need to worry about the amount though. The list didn't state the amount either. Just do whatever the blacksmith said. I will make one more, and that's it... If I can make it at all' I thought.

Ultimately, I managed to finish the second ingot too. I was tired, and rested till the end of my work. A few minutes before I left, the Blacksmith returned and asked me to show him my ingots. I showed him the two ingots I created. He asked "Only two?", to which he received my nod. He then examined both ingots, and said "You may leave now". I did just that.

On my way to my house I thought, 'My next task is working in the fields. I need to rest properly now'. I had a feeling that they were saving the best for the last. Of course in my case, it would be the worst. I had no food to eat, therefore I could only lie down on my bed.