Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

He had just left the stage when he spotted Cade in the crowd close by. He waved at her. It had been some time since Seth had not seen her since Sigma.

“Did you watch the show?” he greeted her when she came closer.

“Yes, unfortunately, I couldn’t react in time to stop him from running.”

She seemed almost a little guilty when she said that.

“No need to worry. I prepared someone to track them in case they used some weird skill.”

While everyone else from Minas Mar was busy directing the slowly dissolving crowd, Seth and Cade made some small talk to catch up. She told him, that she was still with Princess Leana. It was not hard for the blacksmith to guess, that Leana had sent some people as a safety net.

They had not talked for long when a solemn melody interrupted their conversation. It was the ringtone of Seth’s communication orb.

“Oh, excuse me for a moment. Al, did you find their hideout?” he spoke into the small crystal orb.

“Well, no. He fled outside of Delta and probably noticed me following him. When he came to a halt he was completely exhausted. Instead of begging for his life, he announced that I would never catch him alive and blew himself up…,” the melodious voice from the orb explained grimly.

Seth could help to feel disappointed but he didn’t let it enter his voice.

“It’s alright. No big deal, just come back.”

He ended the call and turned back to Cade.

“Sorry for the interruption.”

“Seems like it didn’t go as you wanted it to?”

The blacksmith couldn’t help but let out a small sigh.

“You win some, you lose some. It already happened, no need to linger over it,” he shrugged and let it go.

“That’s a remarkable attitude,” Cade praised.

“Thanks, well it seems like everyone is more or less finished. I will return to Minas Mar now. And don’t forget-“

“Yeah, yeah. I will look for Minas Mar if I look for a better place to stay.” she interrupted him.

Maybe had offered her a job once too often? After they separated, Seth and most of the others who had no more tasks in Delta returned to Minas Mar.

“Tower Master?” a young man called upon him just after their return.

“Yes? Errm, Carl?” he tried to remember the man’s name. He was one of the assistants that Mary had recruited for administrative matters.

“Yes,” he smiled when Seth got his name right. “We are done with the paperwork you requested for the twenty people. We registered them as citizens of Delta and prepared Ids and passports for them.”

“Great. We will make a meeting to explain everything to them and hand those out.”

The new Faer had acclimatized to their new environment in Minas Mar over the past two days. Since Seth had offered them freedom, he had also asked Mary to prepare the necessary paperwork for them to live in Urth.

Seth always had a hard time imagining how those criminal organizations and big corporations in movies were able to pull it off. He still didn’t quite understand the process, but it seemed that a lot of money used in the right places could really go a long way.

It came also in handy, that Urth had not yet adopted Chrona’s Technology to check people’s status automatically. Mixing people with the race of “Artificial Humans” and ages ranging in the centuries among the people of Delta could get a lot harder at that point.

After the short interruption, Seth and the others went to the canteen, where the chimeras and most of the others were waiting for them. In celebration of the official start of their expansion and the return of the Chimeras earlier this week, they held a big party.

Aside from the Chimeras, Tijaahk, and the Oathguard, there were also the first and second generations of the Faer taking part. The first generation had returned with the Chimeras, meeting their new juniors for the first time.

After the party, about half, eleven to be specific, of the first batch of new Faer decided to stay with Minas Mar. The others wanted to look for their fortune on their own before making a final decision. Most of those that wanted to stay had been soldiers in their previous life and found a liking in the structure of the Oathguard.

Two of them wanted to work as crafters while one wished to continue her previous work as a scribe in the administrative sector. This way Seth as the head of the crafting people gained two new subordinates. One was a bowyer, a specialization of a carpenter, the other was a shoemaker, the specialization of a tailor who worked with leather and mostly made shoes.

While bowyer was slightly more special. both were rather common crafting classes in the medieval-style world. According to their own statements, they had quite similar stories.

The shoemaker, Daimon, had been conscripted by the army and died on the battlefield with the regret of never being able to see his family again. When Seth asked why he decided to follow him, the shoemaker quite frankly answered that he knew that he couldn’t go on like this.

He was stuck as a ghost, because he couldn’t let go of his wish, despite knowing it was a wish that couldn’t be fulfilled. He had been dead for decades when he was captured by Tano’Mol’s people. At this point, there was no way his wife or daughter would still be alive. He rather wished to join Minas Mar’s workforce, and use his second chance to find something new to live for.

The latter part was the reason for many souls that had agreed to come with him. They didn’t have a way to move on to the afterlife. A chance for reincarnation didn’t come every day, so they grasped it.

The bowyer Bess worked as a bowyer and hunter for a low-ranking noble in their castle. When the stronghold was besieged and finally fell, she didn’t manage to flee and died a rather gruesome death.

Seth found these two quite funny, as they seemed to have an appearance closest to what they had been like when they were alive. Most Faer saw themselves in a better light than they would have looked as a human, giving them above-average looks and physiques, independent of sex.

Daimon and Bess on the other hand… the first was an older man past his prime with a scraggly beard. His arms were still burly, despite his body looking rather gaunt. The typical image of a man who worked hard for his whole life.

Bess on the other hand was a mountain of a woman. Her height was close to Seth, and she was almost as burly as him, if not a little more. With every breath, her bosom rose and sank like an empire. She wasn’t ugly, but also no great beauty.

It didn’t seem like any of them embellished themselves in any way, compared to the other Faer who sometimes seemed like they used app filters during their self-reflection. It just made them more sympathetic to Seth.

They also fit right in. There was a big stock of leather that Daimon could use to improve his skills quickly, while Bess could do the same with woods from the Hangingtree. They could sell their product at the Copper Anvil at first until their skill ranks caught up with the dwarfs.

Although Seth had his way to work with leather and wood, they were not his preferred materials. He was glad, that he could soon be able to leave these parts to professionals. Since most of the big things were over, and he pushed the follow-up work on others, he could concentrate on his own task.

Primarily mastering his new armor and working on the other Faer. He also kept looking for materials for his rings and the equipment for the other, but the situation seemed black on that side.