Stoking the Flames

[Tyr]

Home. What is home? There are so many various answers it would make your head spin to try and piece them together into one coherent idea. It changed with each individual, some might have one, some might have many, a few could find home anywhere. Tyr was one with many, he could be at home anywhere the people were friendly or there was something needing doing. It just so happened he also had a place he lived at.

The Artificery he had created for his Duchy, a place of creation and cooperation, also served as his residence for the most part. Sure there was that wonderful house his parents had owned, which was really his now, but that place was empty and gloomy. Here at least there was fire, passion, energy. The beginnings of a water wheel to harness the river, a hearty forge fire to help bend and shape iron, even a side room with a tanning vat for the would-be leatherworker.
 It was a place meant for the creation of great things, where craftsmen could ply their trades freely to rebuild the shatter world around them.

Trouble was it was almost always empty.  There weren't many who could dedicate themselves to the crafts these days, and those that could often weren't the type to wander.  They were snapped up quickly by those who could afford to hire them.  Everyone needed better things these days, only a few had the money to get them.  And when a forge goes empty the fire tends to die.  But where there is patience there is hope, underneath all the ashes and dust you may yet find a few burning coals with which to restart.

And that's where we find Tyr, slowly digging through the ashes of his forge waiting to find a brief flash of heat from the remaining embers.  Even grand creations sometimes have very humble beginnings.
(9/10 SM)

[Tyr]

Ash hung heavy in the air as Tyr pushed through the remnants of his forge fire looking for an ember. They were still warm, odds were good he would have something soon. He slowly worked his way in from the outer edge, letting the slowly increasing heat alert him to the presence of live coals. It was never a fun time when you just started patting around and ended up with your hand flat smack against a hot coal. Still, pain was one of the best teachers of caution.

Once the ground was painted a nice even gray, and the middle area had been cleared away, Tyr backed away and opened a window. Might as well finish this the easy way. Wiping his hands on his newly acquired armor the would-be smith moved over to his bellows and gave a light push. Ash blasted up into the chimney with the light rush of air, but a warm orange glow stayed behind. The living coals gleamed as they received oxygen, the radiated heat coaxing their fellows back to life. With his small pile found, Tyr threw some kindling over it and gave the bellows a few more light touches. He had a blaze within moments, and with the addition of some logs and coals, he'd soon have his forge fire back up and running.

In the mean time, clean up. The open window was slowly filtering the ash out of the air, but there was still a layer of it all over the floor. Breaking out a good ol' broom the Duke got to sweeping up. It was a good thing he rarely had much in the way of actual administrative work for his land, gave him plenty of time to get messy and use his hands again. Plus the money his position brought made everything easier.
(8/10 SM)

[Tyr]

With each sweep of the broom Tyr planned his way through yet more ideas. Farms, mills, walls, mines, everything his duchy could use now or in the future. Ways to expand the economy, defense, comfort of life. He was good at planning, and great at making, it was the time, money, and resources he was having to work on. Plans could progress as quickly as you thought about them, reality tended to be a whole lot slower.

And it sucked.

But such was life. Everything had to start somewhere, and this was the beginning of his plans. Putting an ingot in the newly built fire, Tyr kept up the cleaning until it was white hot and ready for working. Out came the apron, hammer, and tongs, and down went the ingot onto the anvil. Starting was easy, you never knew how each ingot you had would handle so folding it a couple times gave you a pretty good idea. It also tended to help strengthen the end product but then who cared about that really?

Tyr quickly fell into a familiar rhythm with his hammer, splitting the iron in half, folding it over, reshaping it into a rectangular bar. After six folds the iron seemed about right for shaping, so one more run through the fire and he got started. He knew what a pick looked like, so making it was a relatively simple idea. Just needed to hammer out the fine details. Heh, blacksmithing pun. First the block was made longer and thinner. The spike was the important part so that came first. Creating the curve on the horn, refining the end down to a point, making sure it was solid and strong, reheating the iron all the while to keep it malleable.

The spot for a handle was easy. Punch one side mostly through in one heat, flip it over and punch the spot over the hardy hole to drop the metal out. Set a drift through it to even the sides out and bam, hole complete. All that was left then was the counterweight. This was another easy part, no spike needed here. Just a tapering block that ended in a flat wedge. Easy. The really annoying part was what came last. Quenching iron was the real test, heating the final product to just the right temperature then plunging it into some water for rapid cooling. Done right it tempered the iron and made it stronger, done wrong it made it too soft to sharpen or too brittle to use.

---

Iron Smithing I check to make a pickaxe. (7/10 SM)
 

-Pick-axe Created!-

[Tyr]

The metal hissed as it sat in the water, Tyr gauging by color how long it needed. Pulled it out he tested the head with his hammer, giving it one quick tap on the side to see if it would shatter. Satisfied the pick was solid and strong, he put it aside. He had more things to forge today than just one pickaxe. He aimed to make his people completely self sufficient, and that meant both lumber and food. Farming would be great to get started immediately, but first he'd need the materials to build a farm or two, and that meant getting lumber.

Heating up another ingot the Duke went about his business quickly. Axes were fairly easy in concept , smash one end into a flat blade and keep the other fairly solid for weight. Again the difficulty was making it solid without making it brittle or weak. Shaping wasn't much of an issue here though so Tyr took it as hammering practice. Something his old blacksmith teacher Watts used to say about a million strikes. It did help over time, knowing where to hit something and how hard made shaping easier and quicker. Speed was important too, the fewer heats an ingot took in the shaping the better the end product.

Smashing out the blade Tyr gave it one final tempering heat and dunked it in the water as well. Two in a row would be fantastic, and it would definitely be a start to getting his Duchy under way.

---

(6/10 SM)
Iron Smithing I to forge an Axe.

[Tyr]

The axe only had a short tempering time, he didn't need the edge to retain the edge so much as it's general shape. Weight drove an axe into a tree almost as much as the blade did, whereas a pick needed its' spike to punch through rock so much more. With those two tools completed the Duke moved onto the next in his set. Once the people had access to wood and stone they'd need to be able to actually build things with it. That meant more hand tools, this time namely a hammer. There was some hilarity to forging a hammer with a hammer, but it still needed to be done.

However the difficulty here was smashing the ingot into a squatter block than it was, and then tempering it just right to avoid it cracking apart in the barrel. Cooling a giant block of hot metal all at once was slightly difficult. Starting from the beginning Tyr folded the ingot into itself a few dozen times to create a folded cube of metal. Final shaping was stretching the middle out just a bit, making it longer than it was wide or tall, and blunting the corners. Easy for the most part, just time consuming.

And then, as always, came the final test. Into the water it went!

---

(5/10 SM)
Iron Smithing I to forge a hammer.

[Tyr]

The hammer head came out almost perfectly as well, and Tyr decided to forge right ahead, heh another one, and try his hand at making some farm tools. Namely a hoe simply because it was the easiest possible thing. Scythes and sickles got tricky, spades were hard to shape perfectly, but hoes were simple. Mostly flat edges and a spot for a handle? He could hammer that out with his eye closed.

Maybe. But now wasn't the time to try. Heating up the ingot like the rest Tyr flattened the front half of the ingot and tilted the other half up. He hammered the curves in against the anvil horn, flattened the head again, and punched the hole for the handle. Really it was an incredibly simple thing to forge, which was generally why it was made from scrap iron half the time. When you have something that resists being shaped might as well turn it into something that was impossibly easy to make. He just had to use an ingot this time because he had no iron left to cannibalize for the making of tools.

It almost didn't need to be tempered, but simply for the sake of getting better at the trade Tyr tempered the how like the rest of his tools. One final solid heat, then into the barrel it went.

---

(4/10 SM)
Iron Smithing I to forge a hoe.

[Tyr]

Four for four Tyr decided to quit while he was ahead. Besides, he needed some people to get their hands on the tools and start using 'em. If the Duchy was to progress at all they would need wood and stone to build with, and then of course to start getting the buildings under way. These things took time, best to use all they had. The completed tools were wrapped into a small sack for easy carrying, and Tyr heaped some more wood on the fire. The more fuel it had to burn the better a chance there would be some coals still burning when he returned again. With one last glance around the workshop the Duke heaved his sack over a shoulder and walked out the door, smiling the contented grin of an accomplished craftsman.