4 Chapter 4 The story of the secret room
The garage was only having some equipment and an old car that had rusted up and probably couldn't be used anymore . It looked so simple and was not the place you would have imagined to have housed a smithy.
The small garage was not the place where his smithy was actually located. It had a small staircase that led to a door that opened below to the basement and it was a huge room.
The smithy was located outside of the house in the earlier days ,but it was shifted underground.
It used to be a wine cellar with the most expensive wines racked up on the shelves but after the trade of blacksmithing dwindled , John and his father Alistor thought it was better to convert the wine cellar to the place where they would smith, and it was not easy task to convert a wine cellar into a smithy, but John and his father made it happen , they created a perfect smithy that could maintain its function being underground.
John made sure there was enough ventilation and air to work in there of course he even made sure that most of the smoke and dust were cleaned up by special equipments for the process in the entire house this was the only piece of work with advanced equipment and it had cost them a fortune, the most advanced building techniques were used by John and Alistor to build the place and of course the main architect of the entire process was Jessica John's wife who had meticulously planned the entire room to provide everything necessary for the people and the blacksmith inside the smithy.
The forge and even the equipment used were perfectly made for sustaining the underground smithy. Everyone wondered why they needed to create a smithy underground which almost cost them a fortune while it could have been kept on the surface and worked like a normal smithy.
John's family had a bad history with wine, they lost most of their wonderful works and money to gambling and drinking, so to avoid all of this and to lead a perfect life, John and his father vowed to never touch wine again or gamble in their lives except for when they attended the lord's supper .
It was the time when John had just gotten married and his father was furious that John's grandpa Benjamin had lost a lot of family's money on horse betting. It was a time when their blacksmithing was at its peak , even though they couldn't make swords and other pieces of equipment of ancient Warcraft , they were helpful in the wars taking place all over the world by providing carefully fabricated handcrafted bullets , fancy rifles, artilleries and other armaments , some say they were even capable of making bombs .
Rumours they say, but it was also why John and his father had to hide the smithy underground. Ben was an overlord who owned most of the riches in the land ,the areas surrounding the house was all under his name. But his wealth was slowly dwindling away when he started to gamble seriously, his drinking habit also had gotten out of hand.
Alistor knew that it was not going to end well because after the world wars and other wars were over, newer guns and advancements started to take over the field of military ,people no longer desired fancy rifles and the smithy also couldn't create advanced weaponry which were being created at an enormous pace . So, to safeguard the smithy and continue the legacy they destroyed the wine cellar and they started to build this underground smithy with the help of Jessica who had finished her architecture degree in one of the oldest and most prestigious colleges in the world.
Ben had gone for a long trip to different parts of the world in order to learn about how he could recover his almost lost business, but he couldn't find a way to redeem it, blacksmithing was dwindling at a faster pace to machinery which create arms for people.
Ben returned after two years with a heavy heart and his habit had gotten even worse. The years he had gone , he spent more than half of his fortune that he had saved up and his ancestors had saved up.
One day after Ben returned home , seeing his wine cellar gone he was perplexed , but he saw two youngsters working hardly on the forge to create a sword . A blacksmith must always blacksmith so that his hand doesn't forget the trade of blacksmithing. They were trying to forge a sword to remember how it was made , because they had spent most of their years making rifles and other armaments they wanted to be in touch with how they created a swords and other ancient weaponry.
Ben was in a half drunk state when he entered the forge, but seeing his son and grandson work their hardest to create something, he was getting back on his feet, it was almost time for them to stop forging because they had made the sword. Ben walked towards them , that is when they noticed Ben had entered the smithy. Ben looked at the sword they had created and gave out a small sigh, "it's wonderful but not up to the mark".
Ben suddenly went near the billows and pumped up the forge and took some materials and started to forge ,it took hours but Alistor and John stood and watched Ben forge the sword in awe as they were seeing a master at work.
Even though Ben was half drunk he was working on the sword like a machine. When he was about to finish the sword, he started speaking , "Listen to me sons, I know I haven't been a good father and grandfather , do you know the reason I started to drink?my father's times were not filled with war, but ever since I was born, I have made weapons of war, my hands have never stopped hammering to create a weapon. I created weapons and watched it destroy people . But I didn't think much about it as I felt I was not the cause of it , but the people who used it to kill people, but it all changed when my brother Antony died fighting for the people using the weapons I created and supplied. My weapons had reached both sides during the war and I felt I had wronged my own blood , so I started to drink every time I made a deal in order to forget the pain caused. But it doesn't stop , the guilt is not gone and my hands couldn't give up on trade. So, every time I made a trade I drank and I drank and look where I ended up".
A drop of tear fell out of his eyes when he finished the sword. The sword was too brilliant that it was the best piece of work Ben had created in his entire life. And it was the last piece of work that got sold for a hefty price before the entirety of the business slowly came to an end. Ben passed away in his sleep the third day after making the sword.
John remembered this incident as he walked through the door along with Alex. The forge was not operating, the fire had to be rekindled. John started to work on the forge and he started to forge a sword as Alex watched him patiently as if he was observing the whole thing. He would often think of asking whether he need some help but kept quiet, mesmerized by the work John was doing.
Ever since Ben's death John and his father had been trying their best to recreate a sword of same calibre as Ben's sword and Alistor passed away too ,not being able to make it and John also was getting old.
After six long hours the sword was ready. John had entirely forgotten about the presence of Alex as he had been engrossed in his work. Alex on the other hand observed everything John did and was at it till the end, most of the kids would have gotten bored at a point and would have gone to do their own things. But it was different with Alex , After seeing John work , he developed a desire to craft , a strong desire to make the flames of the forge work for him to create a piece of work like John had done.
This piece was also another failure not a failure but it didn't meet the standard of Ben's sword that John had in his mind , John often wondered how a half drunk man was able to create a piece of work so beautiful, elegant and strong ,he was never able to understand the concept of how Ben was able to create such a work.
Alex was waiting for John to finish up his work and slowly approached him. John was testing out the sword and let out a small sigh to show his discontent, Alex was noticing all this. "Grandpa ,can I learn to do what you are doing?".
