Book Three: Finding Power

Morning comes quickly. Between the buildup of earth mana messing with my feelings and having Emily close at my side, I actually sleep really well compared to usual. I do work on converting it as soon as I wake up though, since it's really troublesome. At breakfast, I tell Emily that I'm going to the blacksmith today to ask more about metals, and she wishes me luck. "And make sure you're respectful!" she repeats a number of times. After breakfast, I get a basket from Mister Fredricson. I don't think my questions will take all day, so I'll have to gather some in the forest so I can have dinner tonight. Now that I think about it, I guess he was letting me off easy the last few days since I was in recovering in bed?

Either way, I turn my thoughts to my goals and we all head out for the day. I grab everything from my room. The pins, the rust, coin, tin, all of it. Since it's hard to carry it all in my robes, I use the bandages from the guards to wrap them all up. They're still covered in lele fruit from when I ripped them all off, but they still get the job done. Given how expensive cloth is, I feel a bad that they used so much of it on me, but I need it right now. I take the wrapped up stuff and put it all in the basket so I don't drop it. Then I check the bandages wrapping my arms are tied well, but remove the one on my head. The cuts are healing already, and the bandage will just attract unwanted attention. I head back downstairs.

I hesitate a little before I go outside. It's safe at home... Immediately shaking myself, I remember what I have to do today. I'm going to do something, figure out whatever I can so I might be able to survive. I can't let myself be scared of just going outside. Ignoring my nerves, I head out.

It won't be much longer until the third bell, so I go say goodbye to Emily in the nearby plaza and leave right away. I'm... definitely drawing too many eyes. It was bad before, but now it feels like every person nearby is staring straight at me. So much for removing the bandage on my head, my bright white robe is so out of place out here, especially in this area of town, that I start running south along the main street to cover ground as quickly as I can. The eyes of strangers make my skin crawl...

I tell myself it's the leftover earth mana, but that doesn't help at all.

It takes a while to make it all the way south to the main plaza. The blacksmith shop is just to the northwest of the plaza, like the guard barracks. The northwest district still makes me nervous, and anxious, and I really don't want to go there. I keep reassuring myself that I can see the smoke from the blacksmith from the central plaza. There's no way I can get lost.

I rush up a couple blocks, keeping my eyes on anyone nearby. And then, I go directly by the garrison. It's only two blocks off North Main Street. Apparently, the blacksmith is just around the corner, one block further north from the barracks. I'm actually kind of surprised it's so close, I didn't realize it before. That makes me... a little less worried at least. When I reach the door, I knock without any hesitation. As nervous as I am about meeting Gremory again, being out here like this is way worse.

It doesn't take too long before the door opens, Gremory standing inside. "Why, good morning, little one..." His gaze suddenly travels up and down my clothes. "What are you wearing?"

"Uhh, that's a long story," I grin and scratch my head a little so I don't let the worry show. "Anyway, I was wondering if I could ask a few questions about metals if it wouldn't be too much trouble?"

"Sure, come on in," he leads me inside while asking, "so what would you like to know about today?" He sits at his spot near the forge while I let the wonderful, familiar, and safe heat wash over me.

I exhale slowly, relaxing, then say, "Well, I wanted to ask about some of the properties of different metals." He raises an eyebrow. I set down my basket on the floor, quickly unwrapping the hinge pins. I snap them apart and hand him one. "This is the first I was wondering about. I'm pretty sure it's iron, right?"

"Hmm, yeah, looks like cast iron to me..." He gives a couple smacks with his hammer. "Yup, feels like iron." Then he turns it around in his hands a couple times. "Looks like a pin from a door hinge. Where'd you get this anyway?"

"Hehe, that's a... really long story..." I giggle awkwardly so I don't just start telling him how I was kidnapped. I still have some earth mana, so I need to be a bit careful. "I was wondering about it attracting other metals. Do you know about that?"

"Attracting other metals?" he asks like he's not really sure what I mean.

"Uhh, I mean how it sticks to other metals, like your anvil?" I ask. He presses it against the anvil a couple times then shrugs.

"I have heard about a special metal that sticks to other metals..." He thinks for a few moments. "It's supposed to be called magnetite."

"Magnetite?" I mutter the unfamiliar word.

"But that's a really rare metal people find up in the mountains or something." He shakes his head. "This is just iron." He hands it back to me. I furrow my eyebrows, looking down at it. Iron isn't supposed to attract other metal?

"Hmm, then what's the difference between iron and magnetite? Why does this iron does attract other metal?

He raises an eyebrow. "No it doesn't." I blink a few times.

"Yes it does." I say, tapping it to the anvil. "What?" I don't feel it pulling at all. "I don't understand..." I touch the other one to the anvil and it still sticks like I expect. "I... I don't know why, but this one doesn't stick anymore. This one still does though," I explain while holding up the other pin. Still looking unconvinced, he takes it and presses it against the anvil himself. Then his expression finally changes.

"Well I'll be... It does stick. But it looks like iron, just like the other one... Where did you pick these up?"

"Uhh..." I scratch my head. "I just got them out of door hinges..."

That only makes him furrow his brows further. "You took them out of hinges... why?"

"Well, I was taking a door off of a wall, but like I said, it's a really long story. What I really wanted to know was about the metals themselves."

"Right, right," he nods. "So they're from regular door hinges, but they act like magnetite?" He rubs his chin briefly. "Sorry, but I can't really say. I've never worked with anything like magnetite before. You'd have to ask... maybe a higher class blacksmith, or a specialty craftsman," he shrugs a bit. "They would be more likely to have hands-on experience with magnetite. I can't really say for sure."

I nod slowly. "Well, thanks for the advice. I'll have to see if I can learn more about that from someone else." He hands me back the pin again and I return it to the basket. "I was also wondering about other metals. I have uhh... some questions about them." I have some trouble explaining though, since I can't really tell him about mana... "I guess the first thing I was wondering about was, umm, one type of metal I found. It broke really easily though. What metal might do that?"

"If a child says it broke easily..." he mutters, "most likely mollite, it's the weakest metal around."

"Do you have any here?" I ask, trying to hold back my excitement.

"Sure, I don't use it much because it's so weak though." He grabs an ingot from a box, inspects it briefly, then hands it to me. "This is mollite," he says.

"Yes! This is the metal," I nod as soon as I touch it. That just makes him raise an eyebrow again. I have a little bit stuck in my arms, but I should definitely get more. Some that's... not embedded inside my body... "Is it hard to get? Or expensive?" I ask.

"No no, it's the cheapest metal there is," he chuckles. "Like I said, it's so soft it's almost useless." So everyone thinks mollite is useless? Since they can't use mana, they don't have any use for it like I do. Then I should be able to get some? I grin happily.

"That's great! About how much should it cost for some of it?"

"That depends what you want made out of it obviously," he laughs. I blink a few times. I don't need anything made out of it, I just need the material.

"Umm, the shape doesn't really matter... What about ingots like this?" I ask while handing him back the ingot.

"Well, an ingot runs me two nuvrites from the supplier," he explains, though he's clearly skeptical.

"Wow, even I can afford something like that... What's a supplier?" I ask.

"The refinery, they smelt the ores into usable ingots," Gremory says.

"Oh, so that's where the ingots come from..." I mutter. I don't know exactly what 'smelting' or 'ore' mean, but that isn't really related to what we're talking about, so I'll leave that for later.

"So, any more questions?" he asks, clearly expecting me not to be finished yet.

"Well, sort of." I scratch my cheek nervously. I'm really not sure just how much I should ask. No, I have to ask as much as I can so I can learn everything I can. "Well, it's like the weird iron that acts like magnetite, there are some other metals that I was wondering about their uhh... unique properties."

"No need to talk in circles, what do you mean?" He sounds a bit annoyed that I'm being evasive.

"Well, to put it plainly... Have you ever seen tin glow before?" I make myself ask.

"Tin? Glow? Never," he shakes his head. "You saw tin glow?"

"Well yeah, just a bit... I don't really understand why though. I was wondering if there are any other metals with strange properties like that." I immediately try to redirect the conversation toward other metals since that's a dangerous topic.

"Nothing like what you're talking about. Only unique metal out there is ignium."

"Ignium?" I ask.

"Never seen ignium before?" he asks. "Common fire starter. I guess you haven't started a fire yourself then." He pulls a small metal block from a counter and shows it to me. "You just scratch the surface, and you get fire," he dashes it against the edge of the anvil, small flecks coming off and scattering across the floor. After a few moments, the flecks of metal suddenly ignite. Of course there's nothing to burn on the floor, so the tiny fires soon go out.

"Wow, the metal creates fire all on its own?" I ask.

"Yup, it's the only metal that's different from the others, far as I know anyway. Something wrong?" he asks.

"Ah!" I look up, realizing my troubled feelings were showing. "I'm sorry, it's just that I noticed some strange interactions between metals and I thought you would be able to explain them to me but it seems that you can't..." I blurt out before I can stop myself. "I-I didn't mean for that to come out like that-" I stutter and flail my hands apologetically.

"Bah," he waves it off. "I know when I'm outside my area of expertise. There's always people out there who know more than you do, finding them's the hard part. I could tell you for a day and night about the structural properties of every kind of metal, but it looks like you're into something a bit different. First place I'd always check if you want real in depth info on these things would be the refinery. Those smelters are the ones who get the stuff out of the rocks in the ground, so they know all sorts of things I have no need of. That's also where you'll be able to buy some cheap ingots yourself. Like I tell my trainees, hands-on practice and testing your skills is the best way to improve. Can't be that much different with learning, right?"

"Sure, thanks a lot, Mister Gremory, sir." I give him a big nod. "But uh, what is a refinery? And a smelter?"

"Right right, little one like you wouldn't know where the metal comes from now, would you?" he laughs to himself. "The refinery is where they refine the natural ore the miners dig up into usable metal we blacksmiths can make into actual products." That's pretty easy to understand.

"And the ore is...?"

"Rocks. Lot of rocks," he says while nodding. Rocks? Metal comes from rocks? That seems really strange, rocks don't look anything like any of the metals I've seen. I wonder why? In any case, I'll just leave that for now.

"So where can I find this place?" I move onto the next thing.

"The company I work with is near the northeast district, along the northeast wall. Can't give you an introduction there, since you aren't part of my workshop, but I figure you'll work something out, especially if you mention you'd like to buy something."

"Ok, where are they along the northeast wall? How do I find the right place?" I try to clarify. I really, really, really, really don't want to go wandering around without a good idea of my destination.

"It's called the Ebock company, it says so on their building but... You probably can't read, can you?"

I tilt my head, not sure what he's talking about. "I don't know, what does 'read' mean?"

Now he's confused. "Well, that's a no, but you don't know about reading at all? It's this." He grabs something off a table and shows it to me. It's a piece of thin wood with some sort of markings on it. I see a few numbers scattered here and there as well, but don't understand what it is. "This here is writing," Gremory explains. Writing, I've heard that word before... "It lets you put words down on something so someone else can read them. I use them for orders, tells me everything I need about each order I make."

"Hmm..." I mumble. So instead of speaking the words, it's possible to write them down so they can be seen instead of heard? Wait, that's not hard to understand at all, we do the exact same thing with numbers! So I've already been reading numbers this whole time. "Ah! I get it. Sorry, I can only read numbers, not words," I shake my head.

"Huh, that's a bit troublesome," he scratches his chin. "Best I can do is write down the word for you so you can match it up by sight. Even if you can't read it, that'll get you to the right place," he shrugs.

"Thanks a lot," I smile in return. He glances around but seems unsure of what to use, so I grab one of the bandages out of my basket and hold it up. He takes it, lays it on the anvil, and uses the soot stained on his fingers to rub dark marks into the cloth. It only takes him a few moments before he finishes. Somehow I thought it would be longer.

"This says 'Ebock.'" He says it slowly, pointing to each of the individual marks as he speaks.

"Eh-b-o-ck," I repeat after him, eyes following each of the marks. The way he goes over them, it kind of seems like each mark is equivalent to a sound when saying the word it corresponds to. So this word is made of four marks, 'E', 'b', 'o', and 'ck'. I nod a few times. "I think I've got it."

"Good good," Gremory smiles. "The other place you'd most likely learn more would would be higher class specialty merchants, but you can pretty much give up on that."

"Why is that?" I ask. I think I have a vague idea based on what I learned about the different classes, but I want to make sure my common sense is starting to be correct about things like this.

"Places like that won't even let a kid like you in the door. I don't mind any, but high class shops don't let dirty-" he hesitates for just an instant, "little kids go in there, you know?"

"Right," I say. So at least my thinking was right. Like my roommates said that night, higher class people don't want lower class people like us in their nice places. Of course if we're all dirty they wouldn't want us there, we would just track our filth all over, like at the orphanage. It took me all day to clean when I arrived, but all that work was undone in a single night by all of the children coming home dirty from the forest. "I'll keep that in mind."

Gremory scratches his chin while he looks at me. "For the Ebock company... your clothes look weird, but pretty clean, so you'll probably be fine going there. As long as you're looking to buy something... I think." He seems less sure about that than I'm comfortable with, but there's no helping it.

"Ok, thank you for all the information."

"You're welcome. I guess it's about time you got going. If you have any more interesting questions, I'll be glad to entertain you another day. Time for me to get back to work." I nod happily, and turn to leave. "Thanks a lot, I'll be sure to come back if I have more questions!" I call and head out.

As soon as I'm outside, the sunlight is somewhat blinding compared to the workshop lit only by the forge. Once my eyes adjust, I immediately notice a problem. Even after just standing inside for a bit, I'm covered in soot now. The best I can do is rub it off of my face and hands with my robe. It's starting to turn gray again, but still far too bright, so it's still drawing the attention of anyone on the street.

I try to push away those worries for now and ignore the eyes that are always following me. I have to go all the way to the eastern end of the city to find the refinery. Maybe someone there can tell me a little more about the different metals. If that doesn't work, I'll just have to test them out myself. Testing and learning more. It's not exactly what Gremory said, but at least it gave me the idea. For that I'll need to get whatever metals I can. And for that, I'll need money and information.

First thing to do: I need to learn what metals there are. Only then will I have some idea of what metals to even ask about. Then I need to attempt to learn whatever I can about those metals. If that doesn't work, I find out which ones I can afford. And then earn enough money to buy them so I can test them myself.

"I finally have a plan..." I say happily. There are lots of steps, but I actually know what to do. Having some idea which direction to go is one thing, having a solid, laid out set of steps to follow is entirely different. I quickly head across the North Main Street, into the northeast district which I know much better. And where I can avoid people as much as possible.