Of course, Micky had received more homework from Merry. Though, he was actually interested in alchemy, so it was as bad as the rest of his homework. But, it was still starting to pile up. And by that he meant a physical pile of scrolls for him to learn.

Micky woke up the next day, had his knew training torture with the adventurers guild and went to the blacksmith this time. He would spend at least 2-3 days a month each on these four classes. The other primary classes that he would be going to were edicute, court affairs, sterwardship, house affairs, government affairs, and really a lot of affairs. There were a few outliers in his mandatory learning like dancing and horsemanship (being different from how not to fall of a horse 101 they were going to receive in the adventurers class).

But right now Micky was on his way to the blacksmith, or at least A blacksmith. There were two known blacksmiths in town. This was the BEST blacksmith in town though. Micky figured he could have his throwing daggers made here while he was at it.

Micky walked into the blacksmith’s shop. There was no front room, no show room, just the forge room with a few of the wares scattered around the place. There was a barrel with the sign ‘broke strokes for broke folks’ that had a bunch of random weapons stuck inside. Micky took a look inside and saw that they were all decent gear. He wondered if this was the ‘poor stuff’ what the good stuff was. Not that he was a weapon nut, or that he could judge a blade that much better then a wild goblin.

“Anybody hear? I’m Micky! I was sent to learn?” Yelled Micky. Then a stone in the corner moved.

No the stone in the corner rose. Or was it an unused furnace? Micky wasn’t sure, but the fact it was moving unnerved him. But who was he to judge. He was pretty sure that it wasn’t normal for a blacksmith’s smithy to move on it’s own but you never knew what odd things people would have in their profession. Micky once knew this farmer that…

Oh! It wasn’t a stone or a furnace, it was a troll! Why was a troll here?

“Hello? I’m Micky.” Micky said, he presumed that if he headed off that conversation then he wouldn’t have the same problem as he did with the enchanter.

“What you want?” Said the troll.

“I’m here to learn? Do you know where the blacksmith is?” Said Micky.

“I am the blacksmith. What, you think because ‘m not some dwarven smith I can’t mak gud geer’?” Said the troll. He was a giant slab of stone, not even mucle. Micky was pretty sure if he said that he was Micky’s grandmother Micky would have agreed.

“No sir! I think you could do better then any dwarf!” Micky said quickly.

“Hmph, talking sweet won’t get you anything here. Now git ova heya. I’ma show you somfin’ and you ganna do it.” Said the tsundere troll.

Micky walked up to the troll as he lifted up a hammer almost as big as Micky. The troll then heated up a piece of copper. This was not quick though.

Micky stared into the fire as the troll told him what he was looking for. The two of them stood side by side. Micky was given the tongs to play with the copper piece as it was being heated up. The troll would tell him how to do what he needed to do, and how to heat the copper evenly and thoroughly. He also told Micky what would happen and how to tell if he did something wrong.

Eventually the copper was glowing cherry red, and the troll told Micky to pull it out and place it on the anvil really quick. “Now what you want to make?” Said the troll.

Micky had to think about that for a few seconds, though the answer was blatantly obvious. “Throwing daggers.” he said.

“Oh, those are terrible fur first timers. All dat balancing and uniformity. I’d say choose somfin’ else but you seem pretty set on dat’.” Said the troll. Micky had to admit he would be disappointed if he couldn’t make the only thing he really needed.

“I will make a few dagga’s but you make houseware. If a dagga doesn’t fly right, you die an battle and makes me look bad, if yu’ fok’ isn’t balanced, yu not going to stab yu self… probably.” Said the troll, he didn’t seem all that confident in Micky for some reason.

Micky nodded and held the piece of copper where the troll told him to, making sure to keep the copper glowing the whole time. The troll would then hammer away, fold, extrude, and idly shape the mettle to his whims. Very quickly he sliced the piece in half and then half again. By the time he was done he had several pieces. Micky would then be instructed to put the pieces back into the fire to warm it up.

Of course, Micky was only in charge of one piece. The troll quickly grabbed a pair of tongs for himself and got to work making a dagger after another. Micky was just helping him with one of the daggers. By the end of it there was a ten piece set of daggers sitting in front of them looking identical, well mostly identical one of them looked a little off.

“Now we gots to balance dem’ and shappen dem’ and den rebalance dem’ jus to mak sure.” Said the tusndere troll.

“But aren’t they already the same? Well, except that one there, but mostly the same?” Said Micky.

“Ahh, bu’ they ain’t da same now arr day? Day all differnt on da’ innside. Dats y gotta balance em’.” said the troll as he laid one on his thicc meaty finger. He slowly rolled the finger back and forth until he found the balance and then marked it off with a piece of charcoal. He then marked off the balance in the other direction and moved on to the next dagger.

Very quickly Micky found that they weren’t the same despite looking exactly the same. The balance on some of them was exeedignly wild compared to the rest. The troll then went back to the fires with these, and while he went back to the fires with the rest of them as well, he only made small changes to the rest. When he finished he was left with, again, more identical daggers, though less then what they started with. Oddly enough Micky’s dagger that they worked on was not one of the ones with a wild balance.

Finally they were ready to sharpen the daggers after another few rounds of balancing to make sure that all of the daggers were balanced around just past the center of the dagger. After that was done the troll took Micky over to the stone wheel and showed him how to sharpen the daggers. “Now you don’t want to use da’ wheel fur’ shappenan da dagga’, jus getten it close ta; shappenan. For da finnishin touche’s you wan’ ta do dat de old fashion’ way.” so the troll grabbed a sharpening stone and passed that to Micky for later.

The troll then again, sharpened and balanced the blades. When he was forging the blades he only got them ‘mostly’ balanced, when he was sharpeneing them he was far more exact. Then he went through the finishing touches on one of the daggers and let Micky do the rest. Micky was very tired just from this small little portion. By the time he finished sharpeneing the daggers he was almost ready to quit then and there. But then again, it was his turn at the forge you know?

So the troll just let him have at it. I mean, Micky just needed to get the general shape of cutlery anyway right? So the troll would give him the odd advice while staying back and letting Micky figure out most of his own mistakes. By the end of it Micky had a two pronged fork with uneven prongs, a two sided knife, that the troll just looked at him funny for making, why the extra side? The troll thought, and a spoon that looked like it had been beaten up just outside of the smithy and was trying to hide the fact.

Micky was too beat to try again, or move from the trolls meaty paw that slammed down on his back. Micky was so tired even gravity seemed to say ‘meh, we’ll get to that later’ as he didn’t move from the interaction, despite Micky being pretty sure he just got a new bruise to add to his collection. “Ya did… well you made somfin’ and I think you might be able ta use it… maybe?” Said the tsundere troll, trying his best not to hurt Micky’s feelings.

“Alright now, you jus’ need to do that about a hundred more times. Don’ worry I’ll watch ya from over here. Make whateva you want!” Said the tsun troll. Micky was looking at the devil!