The day progressed in a trance of metal and sweat. The sun reached its zenith, transforming the forge's zinc roof into a secondary furnace, but inside, the heat was different—it was a heat with purpose.
The ten bars became twenty.
The wagon hooks, curved and crude pieces, piled up in a cooling barrel, hissing furiously as King plunged them into the brackish water. The tssing sound was the only rest for the ears after hours of hammering.
"Enough with the hooks," growled the Old Blacksmith, wiping the soot from his brow. "That's apprentice work. Let's see if the goliath has precision and if the dredge has patience."
He brought a block of carbon steel, darker and denser than common iron. He placed it on the central anvil.
"I want a reinforced plow blade. If you get the angle wrong, it'll crack on the first stone in the field. If the fire fails, it'll be as soft as cheese." Ignis straightened her posture. Her eyes, vertical slits of amber, shone with a new intensity. She didn't just extend her hands; she leaned over the furnace, whispering words in an ancient language that sounded like crackling embers. The fire changed color, shifting from copper to a dazzling bluish-white.
"Now, King," she commanded, her voice vibrating with the heat.
King didn't use the large hammer. He picked up a smaller one, with a rounded face. The rhythm changed. No longer were blows that would knock down walls, but rhythmic, rapid, almost musical taps.
Clang-clink-clang.
He rotated the piece with the pincers in his left hand and struck with his right, shaping the blade's tip with surprising delicacy for someone whose punch could knock down stones.
The blacksmith watched, motionless. He saw the silent coordination between the two: when the metal's color changed to a dull cherry, Ignis blew a burst of concentrated heat exactly where King's hammer would fall next. They didn't need orders. They were a single system.
By late afternoon, the plow blade gleamed, perfectly symmetrical, with a temper that reflected the orange light of dusk like an obsidian mirror.
The old man took a file and ran it along the edge of the piece. The sound was sharp, clean. He nodded once.
"You're not blacksmiths," he said, putting the file back in his leather apron. "But you're good tools."
He walked to a chest in the back and took out two small suede pouches. He tossed one to each of them. The weight indicated it wasn't just copper.
"Payment. And extra for the wall the big guy knocked down yesterday."
I considered the damage as publicity; Half the street came to see who the stone-punching monster was. Ignis put away the coins, feeling the day's heat finally leave his scales, which now seemed dull from the coal dust.
"And the gauntlets?" King asked, looking at the remaining steel.
The blacksmith pointed to a corner of the forge where a piece of meteoric iron lay, a rare, dark ore with silvery veins.
"Use the forge for another hour. Whatever's left of that ore is yours. It's hard to bend, but if the dredge manages to melt it and the goliath manages to tame it... there won't be a shield in the world that can withstand its punch."
King looked at Ignis. She displayed a smile full of sharp teeth, her hands already beginning to shine again.
"An hour?" she challenged. "In half an hour I'll turn that metal as liquid as wine."
King walked to the meteor block, feeling the weight of the hammer in his hand as if it were an extension of his own arm.
"Then warm it up," said the goliath, his voice deep and satisfied. "I'll take care of the rest."
The next morning's sun found King and Ignis not at the forge, but rather walking through the narrow commercial streets leading to the central market. King carried his new gauntlets—now reinforced with meteoric iron that gleamed with a cold, bluish hue in the light—and Ignis sported a new rustic silk scarf, bought with coins from the Old Smith.
They were passing a spice stall when the air seemed to lighten slightly, or perhaps become sharper. Amidst the movement of merchants and soldiers, one figure stood out for its impeccable posture and the subtle sheen of a well-kept traveling cloak.
Lirien stood before a map seller, examining a parchment with a slightly furrowed brow. She didn't seem to belong in all that dust, but she moved through it with the confidence of someone who knows every shortcut in the capital.
Ignis was the first to notice, letting out a low whistle that made some passersby glare.
"Well, if it isn't the Royal Bodyguard..." exclaimed the dragon-like creature, approaching with her hands on her hips.
Lirien looked up. Her clear eyes scanned King's massive figure and stopped at Ignis's scales. She closed the map with a quick movement, but a small smile crept onto her face.
"King. Ignis," she greeted, her voice like silk on stone. "I see Quegoes is still standing, which honestly surprises me after hearing the reports about a certain wall being torn down in a forge yesterday afternoon."
King stopped beside them, crossing his arms. His shadow covered half the map stall.
"The wall was old," he said, his voice resonating in his chest. "The blacksmith didn't complain."
Lirien let out a short, crystalline laugh.
"He wouldn't complain. That old man lives off tales of brute force. But I didn't expect to find you so soon. I was just looking for news of two 'noisy foreigners' who had won the bag of coins in the arena."
She tucked the map into her belt and crossed her arms, assuming a more serious posture.
"Your rest seems to have been productive, but the news coming from the South isn't good. The trail you left when you arrived here… other people are following it too. And they don't want to offer work in forges."
Lirien was different. Without the ceremonial silver plate armor she usually wore beside the throne, she looked almost ordinary—if the only elf in all of Aloscalia could ever go unnoticed. He wore a moss-green linen tunic and carried his longbow, a white wooden bow, slung over his shoulder, without the formalities of the Royal Guard.
"— A day off?" Ignis tilted his head, the scales on his neck gleaming. "I thought royal guards slept standing up, holding their spears and dreaming of protocol."
Lirien sighed, a sigh that carried centuries of patience.
"Even monuments need a break, Ignis. And the King is too busy with bureaucrats today to notice that his 'shadow' went out to buy fruit and maps."
She glanced at King, noticing the different metallic sheen on his gauntlets. "I see you made good use of the arena gold. Meteoric iron? The old blacksmith must have been very pleased with you… or afraid of having the rest of his workshop demolished."
King uncrossed his arms, the weight of the new gauntlets feeling natural, almost as if the metal were part of his bones.
"It's honest metal," said the goliath. "What does a royal guard do on the street when not hunting for trouble?"
Lirien glanced at the crowd for a second. Being the only one of her kind in a human kingdom was a silent burden; each curious glance was a reminder of her loneliness.
"I was looking for something that wouldn't feel the weight of duty for a few hours." — She turned to the two of them, a fainter glint in her eyes. — But fate seems to want me to bump into the two noisiest fellows in the capital. Since we're all "free," I heard there's an inn near the south gate that serves mead that would make a dwarf weep with joy.
Ignis chuckled, taking a step forward.
— Mead? Now you're speaking my language, big-eared one! King was practically carrying rocks for fun out of sheer boredom.
King simply nodded with a short movement of his head. He respected Lirien. She was quick, exuded a lethal aura, and above all, was almost silent—the opposite of him in almost everything, which made her a formidable ally (or adversary).
Before they went to the tavern, they heard a loud explosion coming from the direction of the castle. They turned in unison. A column of thick, black smoke rose toward the blue sky, emanating directly from the West Wing of the castle, where the chapel stood.
The column of black smoke rising from the West Wing of the castle acted like an accusing finger pointed at the sky. For King, Ignis, and Lirien, this was not just a fire; it was a sign that the world as they knew it had just cracked.
Lirien was the first to react. Her face, previously relaxed by the brief moment of respite, became a cold porcelain mask. Her elven eyes captured not only the smoke but also the remnants of dark energy that still crackled in the air.
"The chapel..." she whispered, her hand instinctively reaching for the white wooden arch. "The Queen was going there with the Archbishop and the children."
Ignis felt the heat of the explosion even before the sound finished reverberating. Her scales bristled and a low growl escaped her throat. The smell carried by the wind wasn't of burning wood, but of sulfur and something she recognized from her deepest nightmares: the odor of Samael.
When Lirien, Ignis, and King arrived at the scene, they heard a sharp, agonizing scream coming from what would be the Archbishop. The scream that escaped the chapel didn't seem to come from a human throat; it was a high-pitched, bubbling, continuous sound, as if metal were being forced to scream. The sound of Valthor being cooked alive from the inside ricocheted off the heavy oak and iron doors, hitting Lirien, Ignis, and King like a physical punch.
"OPEN THIS DOOR! NOW!" Lirien screamed, her elven composure shattering before the audible horror.
The entrance to the royal chapel was no simple passageway; It was a barrier reinforced with protective magic and solid steel locks. But, for the three who had just emerged from a forge, it was merely a mechanical obstacle between them and the massacre.
King was the first to lunge. He didn't use his shoulder; he used what he had just created. The Goliath roared, a guttural sound that vibrated in everyone's chest, and delivered a direct punch to the center of the oak tree with his new meteoric-iron gauntlet.
The sound was like a cannon shot. The bluish meteoric iron gleamed with a cold light on impact. The ten-centimeter-thick wood cracked, a vertical fissure opening from top to bottom, but Samael's magical latches held the door in place.
Ignis didn't wait for the second blow. She positioned herself beside King, her scales glowing an incandescent red.
"GET OUT OF THE WAY, BIG GUY! LET'S MELT THIS CURSE!"
She took a deep breath, expanding her chest until the plates of her neck were almost white with heat. She didn't launch a fireball; she concentrated her breath into a continuous, thin jet, aiming directly at the iron hinges. The metal began to weep orange tears of molten iron, hissing against the cold stone, but the door wouldn't budge.
Lirien, realizing that brute force and fire were forging a path, pulled a heavy arrow from her quiver. She didn't aim at the wood, but at the cracks where the sealing magic glowed a pale gold.
Valthor's cry was replaced by the children's, further increasing Lirien's anguish and reinforcing the urgency of opening the door.
"By the blood of the ancients, break!" she chanted, firing the arrow with a force that would have broken a common bow in two. The enchanted tip struck the magical barrier at the exact moment King delivered the second blow.
With the hinges melted by Ignis and the seal weakened by Lirien, King's second blow was the final verdict. The meteoric iron pierced the wood, and the entire door was ripped from its stone jambs, pulled out, and hurled towards the wall by King.
Smoke and blood vapor billowed from the room like a wave of suffocating heat.
When the dust settled, the three froze on the threshold. Valthor's scream had finally ceased, replaced by the sinister sound of something boiling.
On the floor, the Archbishop's charred and unrecognizable body still smoldered.
Sapphire was on her knees, her eyes fixed on the void. Noah was in shock, Aqua lay in a fetal position, and at the center of it all, standing over the corpse of the man she had just tortured, was the twenty-five-year-old.
He wiped a bead of sweat from his perfect face, looking at the newcomers with a calmness that was more terrifying than the massacre itself.
???: "Well... I wasn't expecting you. But you arrived just in time for the applause. The cleric gave a... thrilling performance."
He looked at King's gauntlet, which was still sparking from the collision.
Samael: Beautiful metal, Goliath. But is it capable of punching something that has no weight?
Lirien, Ignis, and King are now inside. The battle that will decide the future of the capital begins the moment the first drop of Valthor's blood cools on the ground.