Broken Solitude

[Roald]

Roald woke suddenly from a nightmare, or more likely a recollection of his past, fully awake instantly without the usual grogginess that would crowd a man's mind just as they left the realms of sleep, he woke as if he were a man in constant danger always having to be alert. He wasn't any more though, it was just a habit, something left behind from his not so savoury profession in the past. Stretching his quite oversized body out he quickly removed himself from the wooden framed bed that dominated this particular room, the rest of the room simply being a cabinet and an incredibly small table tucked into the corner

Picking his smithing apron off of a peg Roald slipped it over the rough brown homespuns that he was currently wearing, a small smile growing on his face as the familiar weight settled on his shoulders. Even the thought of smithing brought a smile to his face, he so enjoyed the feeling of creating new things and watching the sparks fly as he hammered something into shape, turning a lump of iron into something that would be useful to others. He had a great amount of love for smithing, the ability to create things that were useful to others and to himself was something that he was proud of and would pursue, and although it'd started off as simply something to help him survive in this new life for him now it had developed into a love. It could almost be said that he put a little bit of himself into everything that he forged, and now he was preparing once again to start the days work once again and begin the forging process anew.

Slipping out of the bedroom and into the only other room in the house Roald entered his workspace, not the biggest by any person's standards but plenty enough for him. He had nothing even vaguely approaching a proper forge, having to make do with what he had simply on the basis that he couldn't quite afford to buy himself a proper forge, he hadn't the coin or the expertise on how to make one at this point in time and so he made do. Ambling over to the workbench Roald picked up a large hammer for himself and a pair of tongs, slipping his other hand below the workbench in order to pick up an iron ingot for himself for this days work. 

Unfortunately though his hands didn't make contact with an iron ingot, and after a few seconds of scrabbling when he looked down he realised that he didn't actually have any iron ingots, he'd used them all up and now his stores were empty. Roald sighed heavily before replacing the tongs and hammer back where he'd found them, slowly raising his blacksmithing apron off of his head again and returning it to it's hook in the other room he then went back to his bedroom and removed a sack from under his bed, taking gold from the sack before replacing it.

It looked like it was time for another run to get himself some ingredients, Helkorth could be a good choice but he didn't fancy the idea of going into a town today, it was a lovely day, he'd just pop down to the highway and see if he could find Kable, he usually had adequate enough wares for Roald's usage.

---

Stamina: 25/26

[Roald]

Kable's wares had been sufficient, well not his actual wares most of them were incredibly poorly made in fact and he was surprised anyone would actually buy them, but his iron was good enough bar a few scratches. Then again, if you could screw up something so simple as an iron ingot then you should just quite blacksmithing, as far as he was concerned he didn't even know how someone with any sort of training or experience at all could manage such a thing, most people with no training or experience could probably even manage to do that much. Even he when he had first started hadn't been able to screw that up, it was nice that Kable's caravan was able to provide it though, although the fact that they moved around a bit could become troubling as he would never know if Kable was there or if he'd have to look for his own.

Then again, he was nestled into the bloody foothills, they were mountains and likely to contain at least some metals, if he could find a way to mine himself some of those metals then he could start smelting it up himself and be set, wouldn't have to pay Kable his fees for it he could just dig it up himself, and he'd probably have more variety. Although if he did it himself he wouldn't have as consistent a supply as Kable could provide, he wouldn't always find metal whereas Kable would likely always have some in stock. Either way though that was a thought for another day, once he had some sort of digging tool he would have a look at that, for now though he wasn't to interested in the idea. If his need for metal ever increased to the point Kable wasn't enough or where it was becoming to expensive he could look into that, for now he just needed to get on with things how they were.

Slipping off his brown homespuns he replaced them with a blacksmithing apron, large leather gloves and a pair of rough black trousers to finish off the outfit. While he wasn't actually sure what it was he wanted to make currently, he was hoping that by getting into his familiar clothing for the task and being in his workshop would help to jog the creative process somewhat. If it didn't, well at least just by simply taking off the apron and gloves he could do anything else he might want.

It had been a nice day, and it was moving into a fairly nice evening, the sun was going down slowly but surely and if he didn't move soon his house would be plunged into darkness, the candles that he usually used had burnt quite low but were usable and so he placed them on his workbench and around the house like normal, they were quite inefficient and easily toppled but they were what he had to use as he had no source of light he could keep permanently on, even the fire from his makeshift forge was allowed to die down when not in use to save on wood.

---

Stamina: 24/26

[Roald]

However as he was setting down one of his candles with his elbow he knocked over another, pooling the wax all over his workbench and causing the flames to lick at it's wooden surface. Luckily he suffocated it before it got to big, but it could have been a real issue if he hadn't squashed the problem so fast. Candles were good and all but it was so much trouble to go through, you had to light several to fill even the smallest room, the wax could pool everywhere, the lightest breeze blew them out and they were difficult to move around with without spilling wax or getting them blown out. He needed something stronger than a simple candle.

And then the idea came to him, he had the supplies now so why not try out something, he'd seen lanterns before in many different places, they were commonplace, why had he never thought before of putting some in his house. Maybe it was because before they'd seemed a bit useless, he'd needed the iron for different things, but for now he had no need for the stock of iron that he had sitting under his workbench, so why not try and improve his home a little, or at least stop himself from burning the place down with an accidental nudge of his elbow.

Adding some kindling to his fire he slowly fed it, nurturing it like a small child until the flames grew to a decent height for his makeshift forge to function. As soon as was possible an iron ingot was placed within the forge to warm as Roald pulled out various hammers and smaller implements that he could then use to shape the iron, lining them up on his workbench in order of weight and usage, although the rest of his house might be quite sparse and he had no real personal belongings so to speak, his tools were the only thing he really cared for and as such he had several of each now lined up on his bench.

As soon as it began to glow he took it out, laying the ingot flat and with great swings of his arm setting his hammer to it as he sought to pound it into shape, lengthening it and trying to make it into the circular shape that he'd need in order to create a decent looking lantern. Iron didn't seem to be the best idea for this, it was quite resistant and required time to work but still it was what he had so it was what he'd use.

---

Knowledge (10) +Iron Smithing I (5) +Simple (30) = Threshold: 45

NPZcgAQa

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As annoying as it was sometimes failures did happen, the iron cooled badly as he plunged it into his quenching bucket and the entire thing cracked apart from several points where he'd made it to thin. It was his first time trying to make a lantern though and so he was still optimistic, he had six more bars if the need be.

---

Stamina: 23/26·

[Roald]

He was dissapointed with his failure of course, I mean who wasn't dissapointed when something they'd tried to make had failed, it wasn't a good feeling, but where with others it'd cause them to become disheartened with him it was only a stepping stone. It had been his first time trying to make a lantern or anything even vaguely like one and so he wasn't that surprised that he hadn't managed it, he knew where he'd gone wrong though in thinning the metal far to much in certain spots which meant that he could do it better next time. Failure was a good teacher, and he was determined to learn from it, blacksmithing was only the second thing in his life he'd been good at, and the first was not something that he was proud of at all.

Unfortunately however he had wasted a piece of iron on it, and iron was not something that he particularly had in abundance at this moment, he could at some point if he wanted to but for now it was something that he had bought and had essentially wasted. Hopefully he wouldn't waste much more, he considered himself a decent blacksmith but unfortunately there was always that chance of failure, he'd just have to live with it.

Prompted by the need to continue he wiped the swear off of his brow and placed another ingot into the fire, this time not allowing it to stay in for quite so long so that it didn't become quite as malleable. He was hoping that by doing this it would mean that if he used the same number of hammer blows it wouldn't thin out as much as it wasn't as heated so it wouldn't crack up this time. The sound of metal on metal rang out as he repeatedly swung his hammer in long slow movements, aiming for several precise hits rather than the flurry of lesser blows frequently employed by lesser smiths, here patience was most definitely his ally.

---

Knowledge (10) + Iron Smithing I (5) + Simple (30) = Threshold: 45

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Aaaaand once again it failed, it was unfortunate but it happened. It seemed as if a lantern was simply something far to different from anything he'd made before for him to get it just right, he didn't even know what had happened this time but as soon as he'd finished his hammering and lifted it to place in his quenching bucket the thing fell apart onto the floor of his workshop, causing him to frantically have to pick it all up before it burnt through the floor. 

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Stamina: 22/26

[Roald]

Ok so maybe lanterns weren't his strong point, he'd never actually made anything similar before so it was understandable, but still two failures was quite a hard thing for him to come to terms with, he disliked failure quite a lot and this was quite significant for him. It didn't help that those two failures meant that out of the seven pieces of iron that he had started with he now only had five left, iron was expensive, he couldn't afford to keep wasting it like this unfortunately, if he had a more abundant supply of iron sure he'd continue attempting to make this lantern. For now though he was done with the lantern, he couldn't afford the supplies for a start, that and two failures in a row at something he'd thought before he was rather good at had slightly dampened his spirits.

For now he'd just sleep on it, it was to late really for him to be trying out any more smithing, his skin was covered in a sheen of sweat from the heavy hammering, the hammering in his mind being the most likely reason why he'd failed to make the lanterns, he'd been to harsh on the metal. Anyway, for now he'd leave it, maybe he'd have better luck the next day, maybe he wouldn't, maybe he would try something different if something came to him in his sleep. Sleep was when people came up with their best ideas, which was rather ironic considering it was the time when you weren't really trying to, but still, he hoped it would work.

Removing the leather apron and placing it on a hook he then slowly pulled each finger out of his thick leather gloves before placing them on top of the battered wooden table in his bedroom and then sliding himself into bed. He stared up at the ceiling for a few minutes as he ran through what he'd done and tried to figure where he had gone so wrong that both times he had failed. Failure wasn't a new idea to him by any means, he'd failed at a large variety of things, that didn't mean he enjoyed it though, he just had to try and figure out a way to sort out this problem and turned those failures into successes. 

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Stamina: 21/26

[Roald]

Flames leaped from shattered house to house, great holes in the sides of those houses giving the appearance that a large monster had taken a bit, craters in the ground everywhere along with broken bodies and furniture where scattered along the floor. Screams carried on the wind for miles as Roald strode through it all, noticing a body cowering behind some barrels he strode over, easily deflecting a meagre slice of a woodcutting axe before reaching one large meaty fist and covering the mans face before lifting him up into the air and.....

A sheen of sweat covered his body as Roald awoke, instead of his normal controlled awakening into a complete mindset he instead found himself awakening to the receding edge of a horrible nightmare. Well for most it would have been a nightmare, but for Roald it was instead a memory, one he thought he'd locked away, it seems they weren't as easily forgotten. Then again, with the things he'd done maybe it was a form of punishment that he had a conscience, that he could remember unlike some of the others who'd committed acts as bad or worse in the name of the sorceror king. He couldn't live with what he'd done, that'd been why he'd come out here anyway, as far from Fordeth as one could get and away from any cities where he could potentially be recognised, he'd taken great pains to ensure that now he'd be as safe as he could be but even that hadn't helped the memories jumping at him suddenly.

It took him a few minutes of laying in that bed before he was strong enough to get up. In situations like these he knew no way of getting over them, time would be the only healer when he had one of these attacks, it always took him some time afterwards before he could gather the strength to do anything.

Once he had gotten up though he started his day, albeit rather slowly but after several minutes of movement gradually working himself back up to normal. The first order of the day was going outside and breathing in the clean air, checking that his shack was in good repair and that it wouldn't fall on him when he went to sleep that night, ensuring the wood was still strong and not rotting or been eaten into by animals.

He took several moments to quite simply take a few deep lungfuls of the clean mountain air, it truly was different to what he'd lived in, although the city air might not be that much more polluted you could still smell the human population around you quite easily. Here though it was a lot more pure and he loved that, it reminded him of how far away from anything he was, which he liked.

---

20/26

[Roald]

After this he went back inside and fixed himself a lean breakfast, an unfortunate effect of livign far from cities was that food was what he could buy in bulk once or twice a month supplemented with whatever he could forage from his surroundings, so to say the least the food wasn't particularly amazing. You could survive on it quite easily, but it was quite bland and tasteless usually, although occasionally if he found one he'd add a dragonfruit to it just to make it more interesting. Today though he hadn't any dragonfruit left and so he'd just eaten a bland and boring meal as he looked across the verenaild plains, he had a fair view around himself, and if you looked really carefully you could even see Helkorth in the distance.

Once done with eating he could really begin his day, he wasn't going to start work on an empty stomach, that'd be pretty silly of him to do, if he didn't eat now he'd get so caught up in his work that he'd forget even that he had to eat and most likely would end up not eating at all until he finished. He knew this much about himself and so always remembered to eat before now, after on one of his more busy days he hadn't eaten a bite from morning till evening as he'd gotten carried away with his smithing.

Roald pulled the heavy leather apron over his head once again, sliding his hands into the two leather gloves and taking a step towards his makeshift forge, feeding it from a pile next to it and stoking it up to a temperature he could work with. It didn't take long and soon he had it just where he wanted it. Roald pulled an ingot from the noticeably depleted stack underneath his workbench, running his thumb over the metal and turning it this way and that, trying to envisage him turning this into a lantern, he hadn't given up on making a lantern, only put it on hold for him to try later, that later being now. 

Placing the ingot in the fire Roald carefully selected a smaller hammer than the last and stood ready with it in one hand and a pair of tongs in the other, waiting for the iron to change colour as it gradually got hotter. As soon as he saw it begin to change he reached in and whisked the ingot away where he began hammering it in short precise strokes, bending some pieces and flattening others, putting some back into the fire even in order to join two or make them even softer. 

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Knowledge (10) Iron Smithing I (5) Simple (30) Mind of Metal (5) Threshold = 50

SBeSCooa

Success: 
Iron Lantern
Distance: 3 yards
Brightness 2 

---

He could feel it going well this time as he hammered, nothing was breaking, nothing was to hard or soft and it all seemed to be going exactly to plan. And it had, when he was done he ended up with a perfectly good looking iron lantern. One of his rare smiles came out over his success, he'd brought another creation into the world that had come only from a small ingot of iron.

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Stamina: 19/26

[Roald]

It was hard to figure out what he should do now, at some point down the line there was definitely the idea that he should get more iron, his own supplies wouldn't last long now considering he'd used up three pieces within a few days of getting it. Not even just taht though, to make it worse two of those pieces had been completely wasted, they were complete failures during him trying to make a lantern. If he carried on like this he'd be out of iron within the next few days, that then meaning he'd have to go back to Kable or to someone in order to get more, a prospect which he wasn't particularly fond of.

Every time he went somewhere where there were others he ran the chance of being recognised, sure not many people woudl actually know what he looked like but everytime he went into a public place there was always that small chance that he could be, that being the reason that he very rarely went out other than to buy food and the occasional supply of smithing ingredients. Unfortunately this month he might be forced to go out more if he kept running through his iron, it'd be good if he could find a way to get more back at once though that way he could spread out his trips a lot more and mean that he got more at once to last him longer. While he was there he could probably even pick up some leather, it could be a good idea as then he could add more to his metalworkings, a leather handle or a layer between metal and skin could be useful as well as allowing him to make more comfortable items. Unfortunately his experience with leather was average at best, it wasn't something that he often had requests for and as such he hadn't put much time or effort into it particularly but he was sure it couldn't  be that hard to learn.

One thing that he had considered making had been some weapons or armour for himself, maybe just a simple sword or axe for when he occasionally went hunting in order to supplement his diet with some meat. Or to help him deal with the other predators like wolves and such that would occasionally interrupt his hunt. He could quite easily name several types of arms and armour off the top of his head, as well as their strengths and weaknesses, but something held him back from creating himself instruments of war. He'd always simply intimidated or ran away from other predators instead of involving himself in violent altercations, and the thought of himself becoming violent towards them and attacking them with weapons lead to a dangerous thought. If he once again became a violent man it could well be his first step down the path to what he was before, something he never wanted to even think of again let alone once again become. It was for that reason only he'd never made himself any weapons or armour, for others to defend themselves it was fine but never for himself.

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Stamina: 18/26

[Roald]

One of the issues unfortunately associated with his current way of living was the flow of information, information didn't usually get to him as quickly as he'd like, if it got to him at all, due to his isolated lifestyle. If he ever did get information then usually it was weeks after it had become common knowledge, that being on the best end. This meant that if rumours of his existance did ever begin to circulate then he'd be far to slow to hear about them to do anything about it, and although it seemed like quite a remote chance it ruled his very existance, the chance that he'd be found out to still be alive and hunted. 

That meant that he liked to improve his chances as much as he could, keeping himself in decent physical condition and having a few ways he could possibly escape before he was caught or killed, and at last result he always had that. The magic that lay dormant in him, he hadn't used it in years and yet still he could always feel it inside him. He knew that should he want to he could quite easily succumb to it again, but he refused to for fear of what he had once done with it, it would make his life much easier in a lot of ways but there was also the chance it'd turn him back into what he was with it's influence and the sense of strength and power it provided him. That and if he used it to openly he would very quickly be singled as a mage, and even if no one figured out his identity he would still be reported to the SKC and people would  be sent to capture or kill him. He knew most of Julgrava's mage hunters from his days at that black work, and in his current state he didn't particularly like his chances against any of them, he was out of practice in the wielding of weapons or the strategies associated with fighting, the nearest he'd come since he'd left had been striking a hammer to metal. And he'd be forced to use his magic, in a straight confrontation he'd lose without it, it would be use it or die, but he was terribly out of practice and still wouldn't put up as much of a fight as would be required to survive.

It was a black thought that he'd be found, but one that always lingered in the back of his subconscious even in his happiest moments, his past hung over him like a dark cloud affecting his every movement and thought, he had dreams of turning himself towards good and fighting back at the SKC, but he couldn't see himself working the RJG any better and going solo against the might of the kingdom would do nothing but get him killed. 

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Stamina: 17/26