*Date: 33,480 First Quarter - Iron Confederacy*
The forge's fire had become Demir's heartbeat. Every morning he lit it, every night he quenched it only when his arms failed him. Hammer up, hammer down. Sparks burst, iron sang, and sweat pooled beneath his armor.
"One week I have. I need to get to that expedition and muster any advantages possible now that my friends are okay," he muttered to himself.
He had promised too much. Too many faces looked at him with hunger not for food but for protection - armor, steel, hope.
"What the hell did I do?" Demir thought on the first night. "Seven full sets. That's ten days of hammering without rest. With help maybe I can scrape it in a week. But this isn't just work. It's a promise. And if I fail, I'll never be able to look them in the eyes again."
So he set his plan: one set a day for the settlement, and every night, after the fire cooled, he would return to his personal trial and weapon forging. Sword after sword, each failing to take a good shape and rune etching, each stubborn and plain.
The first chestplate rang into shape. His palms were blistered by noon.
Killgor, the assassin, drifted into the forge, leaning against the doorframe like a shadow that didn't belong in daylight. "You're really going at it, Strovan. Thought you said you were an armorsmith, not a blacksmith slave."
Demir kept hammering, sparks spraying across his apron. "I am an armorsmith. This is survival. I promised them armor."
Killgor smirked. "Promises in this world are heavier than iron. What do you think you'll gain? Respect? Council favor? Or just a broken back?"
Demir paused, lifted the half-shaped chestplate, and set it on the anvil. "I'll gain something you old players never understand."
The assassin tilted his head. "Which is?"
"Progress at your hands" Demir lifted the hammer again, the conversation ended.
The second set nearly buckled his arms. His body ached, but he endured.
That afternoon, a young knight approached the forge, his chainmail patched with leather straps, one shoulder exposed like a wound. He bowed clumsily.
"Strovan... please. They call me Rellan. I - I need armor. Even scraps. If you forge me a set, I'll owe you. My life, if need be. The goblin scraps are worthless."
Demir set the greaves he'd been shaping aside. "You'll wait your turn. I can only promise what I can make. No more. After the expedition I can make more."
Rellan's eyes shone with desperation. "Please, my squad is gone. I can't face another raid like this."
Demir tightened his jaw. "I said no more. If I take more orders, I'll fail them all."
The knight lowered his head in shame, muttering, "Then may the forge favor you." He left without another word, leaving Demir with guilt heavy as the iron he worked.
By the third day, Demir's arms screamed with every swing. He dunked his head in water, steam rising from his sweat.
Timmy came, standing awkwardly in the doorway. His twin was missing - no, not missing, but wandering.
"Demir... Sin's not right," Timmy said. His voice was quiet, steady, but his eyes carried storm. "He hasn't stopped talking about revenge. He's been leaving the walls at night. I can't stop him."
Demir set down his hammer, the steel ringing with the sound of a closing door. "Sin's carrying too much grief. He thinks fighting is the only way to breathe."
Timmy's lip trembled. "But he's my brother. If he gets himself killed, what's left for me?"
Demir crouched, resting a soot-covered hand on Timmy's shoulder. "You keep living. For both of you. And I'll watch him. I promise."
The boy nodded, though his eyes held no faith, only fear.
Another set, another night. By now, Demir's body was moving on instinct, muscle and hammer dancing without his mind.
Selene came to him in the late afternoon, her hands carrying a cloth with water. She pressed it into his palms.
"You're killing yourself, Demir," she said softly. "Slow down. Rest. The dead won't thank you, and the living need you alive."
Demir drank, wiped his mouth, and shoved the cloth back to her. "I can't stop. Not yet. Every swing is a promise kept. Every plate means one less grave."
She stared at him with something between pity and pride. "Then don't forget - you're not a forge. You're a man. And men break."
But Demir had already turned back to the fire.
The forge became his prison, his chapel, his trial. His shoulders burned, his fingers blistered raw, but the armor took shape - bent, dented, imperfect, yet strong enough to matter.
At night he hammered swords. Each time he tried to create a rune slot, it fizzled, sputtered, and died. By the sixth night, his best attempt was an E-rank blade. Something sturdy, but the rune wasn't activating.
Marco looked at the sword and said, "No, I am not seeing any stat effect let alone Power Rune's effect."
He stared at it long into the night, rage boiling. "Why won't you take?" he whispered to the steel. "What am I missing?"
The blade gave no answer.
By the seventh day, Demir had forged armor for seven souls. The forge stank of smoke and sweat. He was barely standing.
Thalia came, her cloak trailing ash as she entered. She studied the bent E-rank sword on the rack, then him - hollow-eyed, trembling, still hammering.
"Strovan," she said evenly, "you've proven yourself. But maybe because you can't forge for me anything I can use or maybe because I can't stand watching you suffer. I'll tell you this: you can rest. There's no immediate danger. This world doesn't ask us to win. Only to survive."
Demir raised his head, eyes bloodshot, voice rough. "No. We can do more. We can win. Take down the covenant, force this world open, beat it like a game, because if all we do is survive - then what's the point?"
For the first time, Thalia's lips twitched with something like a smile. "You're a fool."
"Maybe," Demir rasped. "But a fool with a hammer."
Before she could answer, a scout burst into the forge, panting. "Thalia! The council calls for you. An emergency meeting."
Her eyes narrowed. "Why?"
The scout swallowed, eyes darting to Demir, then back. "Goblins. We took out two goblin scouts near a valley a night out."
Thalia looked at Demir. "Congrats Demir, you got an extra stop on the way of expedition."
The hammer slipped from Demir's hand, clanging against the floor.
The week was over. The real trial was about to begin.