“Newman. Why go this far? You could always reforge your blade again, when you are tougher and have the resources to make it easier for yourself.”

“I… Feel the need to slay the vile beasts of this world. Regardless of how many legs they walk on, what honeyed words they speak, or what misbegotten delusions of divinity they boast. That the likes of Xiān Dì dare to pollute this world I live in with their evil… They are courting death. One I will gladly give them. I can’t help it. This fire in my gut won’t let me stand by and let evil go unopposed when I know I am able to do something,” she said, waiting only a moment before turning to walk away - in no small part because this cold was starting to get under her skin.

“Xiān Dì… The Emperor of Pateiria?!” she heard Ingvald utter in disbelief as she left.

Zel stopped by the other smith’s shop before heading to the inn. He seemed downright taken aback at her arrival, and she couldn’t tell whether it was due to her appearance or the fact she had a reference from Ingvald. The smith was young, barely in his twenties by her estimate, and neither the scale nor the equipment of his forge matched his young age. She guessed that he was probably a protegé of some sort to the Forgehand. Despite his apparent greenness, Ingvald’s reference combined with her own gut feeling made her trust the young man’s expertise.

He was eager to accept her contract, quoting a far lower price than she’d expected, not even approaching the cost of contracting Oedo to build three new Sturmgandrs.

The only reservation he had was such: “...Are you sure the measurements are right? By the blueprints, these should be the size of a Tundra Bear each and weigh about as much.”

Taking out her Tablet and retrieving one of the engine parts, Zel explained: “Yeah, honestly the sheer size of them was one of the reasons I bought one to begin with. They’re built to carry two men in machine-armor while going over a hundred kilometers an hour for eight hours straight. See how big this is? That’s just the exhaust recycler, wait ‘til you see the reaction chamber. It looks like a tiny sun being born and exploding every time the engine cycles.”

She departed that place with her Tablet freed from the burden of three Sturmgandrs’ worth in engine parts, having left the young blacksmith enthralled with the aforementioned essentech.

Rendezvousing with her comrades at an inn called the Silverhand, she shared with them what had transpired while they were apart, especially what agreements and transactions had been made. She omitted certain specifics, leaving these for a later, more private setting. The tavern in question was, on the surface, unremarkable by comparison to the Wolfblade, but its smaller scale and more homely atmosphere had a superior appeal in Zel’s opinion. It helped that the service felt far more welcoming and personal as compared to the Wolfblade’s commercial atmosphere.

Zel had been fully prepared to dine quickly and get on with things, but it turned out that the others had gone out of their way to wait for her return, and so the four of them shared in a meal consisting of a full smoked pig alongside a wide variety of sides, although the pig was small. Dense, starchy tubers vaguely adjacent to potatoes played a major role, as did a thick white dipping sauce based on some sort of dairy and flavored with lively, spring-evoking herbs. Another of the sides was a dense bread containing various nuts and seeds, slathered in butter and honey. The pig, too, was flavorful, vaguely fruity smokiness mingling with salt and bold, stinging, colorful spices that so perfectly contrasted with the white sauce. It all somehow worked.

While nibbling flesh off of two of the pig’s ribs Zel absent-mindedly bit off a piece from one of the bones, only to decide to not avoid them when she found that they didn’t offer up meaningful resistance. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Zel’s teeth crushed the pig’s softened bones as easily as they ripped its flesh, at least the thinner ones. She didn’t think to try biting through a thigh bone or something of the sort, even if she felt she would have been able.

Their return to the Hulson longhouse had them walk right into a multi-segmented sled train parked out front, a trail of blood behind it and four gigantic tundra bears in front. The armor-plated giant head of a mammoth-like animal occupied one sled, while various supplies took up several others, from food to nets and restraints.

“Looks like the rest of my clan has returned from the hunt,” Jorfr remarked as they passed by.

.”Wonder where the rest of that mammoth went…” Zel said.

Jorfr shrugged: “This is just the hunters’ transport. Most of the spoils are shipped on sled trains many times this one’s size and stored either in our own warehouses or ones we rent from the city until they are frozen or broken down into wares.”

They entered the longhouse and in its great hall were met by a group of ten all arrayed around the table. A feast was underway. All eyes suddenly focused on the four new arrivals as conversation ground to a halt, only for the noise to restart as Jorfr’s family rose up to greet him and his foreign shield-siblings. Zel went along with the flow of things, trying to stand out as little as possible while the attention was on Jorfr, though even this didn’t work for long.

“Jorfr! I hear your hammer’s shaft was broken in a glorious battle. You’ve seen the mammoth-head we brought back, did you not? You ought to make yourself a new one from one of the big guy’s tusks!” his golden-haired father, Gunnar, insisted right out the gate. He nearly squeezed the breath out of Jorfr with a hug before he remembered that his son still had a barely-closed fist-sized hole in his right lung.