“That was horrifying! Did it hurt? That looked nothing like when Gary got his skill.” Elena sputtered.

  “Hurt is the wrong word for it. Definitely a little alien, but it made me feel powerful.” Harvey responded, inspecting his arms. Thin strands of red, orange, and silver had joined the solitary faded blue line of his class that ran throughout his weave. He didn’t recognize any pattern, they just danced around each other as they moved through his body. “I don’t know how I’m going to explain all these tattoos to my mom, she’s pretty religious and won’t be happy about this.”

  “I’m sure that will be the last thing she’s worried about, she’ll just be happy to see her baby boy again,” Elena replied.

  “Good point.” Harvey smiled. “I hope that didn’t scare you too much. You’ll need to get your own profession pretty soon. Have any ideas?”

  “No clue. I don’t even know where to start,” she replied.

  “I basically bought mine from the shop. There’s a tab filled with these guidebooks, and after I read the blacksmithing one, I got a notification from the system. They’re pretty expensive, but I doubt they’re required. Maybe you can get an idea there?” Harvey encouraged, exiting the church.

  They meandered back to the general store, and he scarfed down a quick lunch while she perused the options. He was starving and desperately needed the break after working all night. He thanked the heavens that warm cooked meals were so easy to come by, nearly gagging as he thought about carving up a Stonetusk for dinner. He could do it if he had to, but ham sandwiches were better when he didn’t kill the animal they came from.

  When nothing caught her eye, they headed back to the forge. His weave buzzed as he entered the birthplace of his new profession, and he couldn’t wait to get started. Elena got busy cleaning the mess he’d left the night before while Harvey retrieved five chunks of ore from the pile. Unlike the essence-infused ore that was almost completely refined, these chunks were still a mix of rock and rust-red metal. The two would separate when he melted it down, but the more stone he could clean off beforehand, the cleaner his pour would be.

  First, he took the broken pan from the original grindstone and filled it with dirt outside. Pouring some of his water in, he mixed until he had coarse mud that he globbed onto the cracked grout, filling as many holes as possible. When he’d finished transforming the beautiful, rustic forge into a muddy mess, he dumped the pan in the yard and used the rest of his water to wash his hands clean.

  He was about to step inside when he had an idea. The pan was shallow and flat, making it perfect for holding his first mold. The guide mentioned a technique called sand casting, where you carve the rough shape you want in two halves of a clamshell box, then clamp them together and pour in your metal through a hole in the top. He didn’t have the sand or the tools to make decent molds, but he wasn’t aiming to make anything fancy.

  For now, pouring into wet dirt would let him create basic rods and ingots that he could dust off once they cooled down.

  He laughed at how quick and dirty his tests would be compared to the multiple code reviews and pull requests that came with every little change he made at work. The dirt on his hands felt good. Dirty hands were allowed to make mistakes without worrying about implications on shareholder value. Whatever that even meant at the end of the day.

  Pulling his stool next to the anvil, he set one knee and began chiseling away at his ore. With a combination of old wire brushes and recently sharpened tools, he cleaned until he had a pile of what he hoped was mostly iron. Honestly, it was kind of hard to tell.

  It hadn’t taken Elena long to clean, so she’d been watching him work. As he began shoveling charcoal from the kiln into the firepot, she asked for a piece and took a seat at an empty worktable.

  “Do you care if I draw on this?” she asked.

  “Um, no, I guess not,” Harvey replied, confused. She was a little old to be drawing on tables, but it didn’t bother him, and gave her a way to pass the time.

  He kept shoveling, creating a pile under the hood and a separate sitting on the open-air flatstone, ready to be raked in as the fire burned down. When he was done, he walked the crucible to the grindstone to wash the slag caked onto its spout in the basin. Just as he went to dip into the water, he caught himself. It was already cracked, and any water in the seams would expand in the forge and destroy the thing.

  Taking a deep breath, he reminded himself to slow down. He liked to jump right in, but there wasn’t an undo command anymore. He needed to make sure he had a plan before his forge reached thousands of degrees.

  His first goal was to make some workable nails so that the building crew could start making repairs. If he could pour anything resembling an iron rod, he’d be able to pound it into shape before pulling out the metal to a tip and chiseling it off the end. They wouldn’t make it to any hardware store shelves back home, but they wouldn’t look too out of place in their new frontier home.

  His fingers hurt as he strained to pick the slag clean from the crucible, the uneven shards of stone and metal carving into him. Debating for a moment, he bent down and picked up the hem of his robe, finding a shredded piece and tearing off a makeshift rag. It worked. Great for him, but not a great sign for the future of his clothing.

  He placed the crucible on the anvil before piling it full of ore. It was already heavy, a ceramic bucket the size of a beach toy you’d use to make sand castles, but with the ore, it weighed at least 30 pounds. He grabbed the crucible tongs and tested the weight. His arms strained, and he nearly dropped it as he momentarily forgot he needed to clamp down on the sides while lifting. If it weren’t for the 4 points in strength he’d got from his profession and race levels, he would’ve lost control immediately. Getting a handle on the correct grip, he tentatively moved it back and forth from the firepot and his mold.

  Practicing pouring into the mold, he did lose control. The crucible tumbled out of the tongs and plopped into the dirt.

  Panic erupted as he threw the tongs aside and extracted the crucible, his heart racing until he saw the crack hadn’t gotten any wider. There wasn’t anything for his tongs to grab onto, so the shape alone would cause it to tumble if he tilted too far.

  After a few more practice runs, he got ready for his first real attempt. He prepped his mold and lit the forge.

  “It’s probably going to get pretty hot in here, just fyi,” Harvey announced.

  “I’m from Las Vegas, I can take the heat,” Elena replied.

  “No kidding, I’m from Phoenix!” Harvey replied, a cheeky grin on his face.

  “Here it comes…” Elena said, before Harvey could finish.

  “Did you know it’s hotter in Phoenix than Vegas? It’s too bad you guys don’t have the same cool Saguaro cacti we do.” Harvey laughed, rattling off the array of jabs every Arizonan made at their desert neighbors.

  She scoffed before turning away to continue drawing, her hands black from working the charcoal.

  Orange flames began dancing up through his pile of fuel. It would take a lot to reach the insane temperatures he needed to melt his iron, and he would have to watch the fire carefully. Delicately placing the crucible in a gap, he used a shovel to surround the whole thing in fuel. Carefully working the bellows, wincing at each crack of the leather, he began feeding the fire.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  It didn’t take long for the entire smithy to turn into a sauna, but instead of a soothing heat purging his skin as he sweat, he was being swallowed by a wet, dirty robe. He debated peeling it off, but the undershirt beneath didn’t have sleeves, and it was bad enough he didn’t have leather gloves to protect his hands as he worked. He endured, the cotton sticking to his skin like a sweaty hug.

  Occasionally, he nudged in more fuel, careful not to knock the crucible or spill charcoal into the ore. He couldn’t see into the crucible while it was stuck under the hood, so he really had no way of knowing when the ore had fully melted. His impulse was to constantly check on it like a kid waiting for brownies in the oven, but moving it meant an opportunity to tip it over or cool it down early.

  Maybe it was the extra willpower, or maybe it was fear of ruining his first attempt, but he managed to keep his focus on the bellows. He could hear the fire roar with delight after each blow, the smell of ash and soot filling the room around him. Sweat rolled down his face, and he had to look down at the floor to keep it out of his eyes.

  When his patience finally ran out, he risked checking the progress of his melt. It would waste a lot of heat if it wasn’t ready yet, but the forge had enough fuel stockpiled for a few mistakes.

  Peering through the smoke flying up into the chimney, he gently moved the tongs around the crucible. Firmly squeezing the handles together, he lifted, quickly pulling his arms to his sides to balance them. Peering down, he saw a pool of dark gray metal already starting to harden. Quickly, he moved to his mold and began pouring.

  Molten iron cascaded down, carrying chunks of stone slag with it as it splashed over his mold. He’d poured too fast, and the heavy liquid slumped into a misshapen glob. The wet dirt hissed and popped when it met the white hot metal, spraying towards him. He flinched but held the tongs tight until he’d poured as much as he could without dropping the crucible. Setting it down on the edge of the forge, a gentle burn in his chest and pulse in his ink heralded a new notification.

  A new creation has been made | Crude Iron Slab | Minor Essence Gained

  It wasn’t enough for a level, but it appeared the system recognized his effort. It was ugly, misshapen, and would need a lot of work before he could turn it into anything useful. But he had made it with his own hands, and it would become fundamental supplies this town desperately needed.

  There wasn’t much else he could do until it cooled, and if he tossed it in water, it would harden too fast and be difficult to work with later. He’d just have to wait, so he wandered over to Elena.

  “How’s the draw…” his words caught in his throat when he saw the table. It was like a black and white photo had been stained into the wood, the image of a young man smiling on top of a mountain. His brain could barely compute the level of detail she’d brought out with only a chunk of charcoal on a coarse wooden workbench. “Wow.”

  “I think it turned out ok. Wish I had all my stuff from home.” Elena replied, embarrassed.

  “Ok? This is amazing! Were you a professional artist or something?” Harvey asked.

  “Professional? No way, just a hobby.” Elena replied.

  “17-year-old hobbyists don’t make art like this. If you weren’t planning on an art career already, I’m telling you now it’s your calling.”

  “Thanks…” She said with an uncomfortable grin.

  “Who’s the guy?” Harvey asked.

  “My brother, James. He would have been a year or two younger than you.” Elena replied, wincing when Harvey caught the implication.

  “Would have been… is he dead?” Harvey asked solemnly.

  “He…” the words choked in her mouth as tears gathered in her eyes, “killed himself last year. Jumped off this mountain. Our family loves to hike at Red Rock, a national park just outside town, and whenever it wasn’t 110 degrees outside, we would go. We got to stay in shape and find a nice place to enjoy the outdoors in the middle of the desert.”

  Harvey listened intently, nodding along as his heart ached. He thought of his own sister, barely holding it together while relaying his own story.

  “Our parents decided to get divorced last year. It was messy, lots of fighting and custody battles. He didn’t live at home anymore, but would come over all the time for family dinners and our hiking trips. Most of the time, dinner turned into shouting matches, and he and I would just hide in my room, talking about life or painting together. One weekend, we were supposed to meet him for a hike, but my parents just couldn’t stop fighting, and we ended up getting there three hours late.” She started sobbing.

  Harvey tentatively wrapped her in a hug, tears rolling down his own cheeks as he pressed his lips tight to his teeth. It was a brother’s embrace, trying to reassure her even though he felt his own guilt and shame writhing within him.

  “When we finally got there, we found his car but couldn’t find him anywhere. We searched all day, and eventually called search and rescue to help us look. When they finally did…” She struggled to get the words out. “When…”

  Harvey waited as her body jolted, each shake sending a shock to his soul. Her story painted a dark picture, and he could understand what pushed him to the ledge and sent him tumbling over. He also understood how unfair it must feel to Elena. In a way, she’d lost her parents and her brother all at once. The traditions and life she loved were ripped away by things she couldn’t control.

  “They’re saying he jumped. My mom keeps saying he would never do that. That he just slipped, but I know the truth!” Elena screamed.

  They sat together for a long moment. He held her tight to his chest, feeling her breathing slow down as her strained muscles, locking him in a vice grip, slowly relaxed.

  “I’m so sorry. Nobody should have to go through that. Not your brother, and not you.” Harvey sighed.

  She pulled away, angry red eyes staring up at him. “No? Then why did you do the same thing to your sister!” Her voice cracked, full of pain. ”How could you leave her behind in a world you couldn’t bear to live in yourself! You said I remind you of her? Well, here’s your chance to explain yourself!”

  The forge cracked and hissed behind them, charcoal cracking like a knuckle as his mind raced for an answer.

  “I…” he felt the stain on his chest throb as waves of panic and adrenaline coursed through his veins. He wasn’t angry. He was embarrassed. He’d thought about it a lot the past few days, and the more he stewed, the less justified he felt. “I don’t know what to say. I never planned on taking my own life. It all happened so fast.”

  “What, so you decided to just give up on everything because you had a bad day?” Elena wailed.

  “No! Of course not. Life had been piling on for months, and I felt like I was stuck in a tunnel with no light at either end. Just stumbling into walls as I tried to get a grip. Every day was hard, but that final mistake came like a freight train out of nowhere.” Harvey muttered.

  “That still gives you no excuse! You don’t think I felt the same pain he did? You think I haven’t thought about doing the same thing?” Elena yelled.

  Harvey’s grip around her tightened, worried she’d fly off the handle and hurt herself just like he had.

  “You didn’t, did you? How did you die?” Harvey implored.

  “What? What does that have to do with anything?” Elena asked.

  “Everyone here died the day we arrived. How did you die?” He pushed.

  “I don’t know!” She screamed, pushing away from him. “I was just minding my own business driving down the road when I heard a crunch, everything went black, and I woke up in the void.”

  Harvey’s face went pale. The living flesh nearly matched the pallid gray skin of his dead side. Had he killed Elena?

  “Were you in Vegas when it happened?” He asked.

  “What? Yes! Stop changing the subject, you’re supposed to be answering me!”

  Relief flooded through him. If anyone had died in his crash, they would be here in the trial with him. He knew that, but he knew he wasn’t ready to face that truth yet.

  “Why. Did. You. Do. It.” She asked, biting off every word.

  “Because I was angry. I’d bitten off way more than I could chew at work and was getting hounded by my boss every day. I never saw my girlfriend because I was stuck at the office all the time, so to get back at me, she cheated with some random guy at a club. I never see my family anymore because I can’t escape the need to be a great brother and a corporate assassin all at the same time. I wanted it all. A great career, a happy girlfriend, and a happy family. Instead, I screwed up everything, and I couldn’t handle failing everyone all at once.” Harvey sobbed.

  Elena’s eyes softened as he met her gaze, his own eyes matching the anguished pink of hers.

  “I never planned on ending my life, but that didn’t stop me from doing it,” Harvey whispered.

  “I miss him so much.” Elena sobbed, pulling herself into his chest.

  “I know he misses you, too.” Harvey sobbed, wrapping his arms around her tight as he dried his cheeks on his wet robe. Tears and sweat mixed as the forge blazed around them, but neither pulled away.

  Looking at the lifelike drawing, he thought about her brother.

  I’ll be there for your sister, James, the way I wish I’d been there for mine. I don’t blame you for what you did, and I’m sorry you didn’t get a second chance to make things right. I’ll make it up for both of us. Harvey thought.