The Coreborn

The man doesn't even look up as she walks in, simply signalling her to sit down before he continues to work. Though baffled Angela has an ingrained respect for her elders and sits. Quickly she becomes entranced in the hammering; though it seems simple at first, the longer she watches the more complex it seems.

Her trance is broken as the hammering stops and the dwarf finally turns to look at her, staring at her with a scowl that seems too big for his face.

"so yer the one thas been makin them there shitty blades ay?"

Angela is quite indignant at that comment. "Shitty?" Of course she knew that her blades weren't amazing, but given that she had just started they were still pretty damn good.

"Aye, whit sort o' a master teaches this sort o' rubbish" The smith huffs and puffs before taking out a pipe, lighting it with a flame that comes out of nowhere. "Ah would 'ave yer 'ead if ye were mah disciple. Say, who is yer master anyways?"

By now Angela was fairly fed up of this constant abuse, it wasn't her fault she had been taught wrong, she had just been following whatever the book said. Her indignance made her rather grumpy and her replies were rather brisk. "I dont have one. I taught myself."

The smith was visually taken aback by this and his expression softened a little. "Ye dont have a master? Maybe ye do 'ave some talent then, musta taken ye ages tae learn then."

Hearing this Angela showed a proud expression, though she tried to hide it. "Took me a couple of days, built my own forge and everything." The smith's expression changed from pity to disbelief, though fleeting, back to a neutral expression.

"Three days eh, maybe ah've underestimated ye, that's pretty high talent... for a human."

Angela's prideful face beamed at that but she was slightly confused at why he added human, wasn't he one too?

"tell ye what, ill take ye as an apprentice, and ye can learn the art of forging from a real earthborn. In return yer gonna provide me with food and metals, ye can mine em right 'ere in this mountain."

It seemed like a pretty good deal to Angela given that she could materialise food and metals whenever she needed to, she nodded her head enthusiastically and the dwarf grinned before turning back to his forge.

Angela wasnt sure what to do but the 'earthborn' called out as if he could read her thoughts her. "Are ye coming or nae?" Hurrying over and sitting down, Angela opened her eyas and cocked her ears, trying to absorb all the information she was about to learn.

"first o' all, forget everythin' ye've been learnin cause that'll cause ye nothin' but hassle down the road. For now im gonna teach ye how tae heat metal the proper way."

Saying this, the earthborn puts a bar into the forge.

"If ye really want to control the temperature like a true master, yer gonna 'ave tae use a billows, not that silly wee rune o' yers." He starts pumping the billows up and down at a varying speed and the fire jumps up before staying at a bizzarely unchanging level. Usually when using a billows to stoke a fire the flames would jump up when the billows were contracted and go down a bit when the billows were expanding; the way it was working just now defied logic.

The longer she watched, the more obvious the rythmn became to her. Down, fast up, fast down, fast up, down fast up, back to the start. Angela had no clue as to why the rythmn caused the flames to behave that way but she was eager to try it herself so she waited in anticipation untill the earthborn was done.

Finally the earthborn was done and motioned for her to give it a try. As she started to pump Angela found that it was a hell of a lot harder than it looked. Not only was the rythmn hard to grasp but even pumping the bellows was tricky, her weak arms struggling to get a single rotation done.

The earthborn shakes his head at the side before calling to her to stop. "That's enough... ye can stop now, come back to me once ye've got some strength in ye." Angela dejectedly stops, she knew just as well she wasn't strong enough.

Reaching the entrance to the cave angela had a sudden thought. "You still havent told me your name."

The earthborn grunts. "just call me Duergo, i used to have a last name... long ago, but i dont use that anymore."

Bowing her head, angela replies with a curtsy as she had been taught to do when showing respect. "Angela, Angela snow, a pleasure to meet you Duergo." She then leaves, her head still a little bit down, ashamed of her weakness as she makes her way back to her shack.