"I will be certain to bring great honor upon your works, master smith," Jorfr said as he returned to the ground, well aware that Ingvald's disposition precluded him from accepting the very idea that someone felt indebted for a gift.

"I look forward to turning away clan elders trying to get me to make knockoffs for them. Be on your way, I doubt Runar would be happy if you just left without visiting him beforehand."

Jorfr didn't quite leave yet, standing in place, stroking his beard as he fished through memory. There was something there, a name for the great gift he had just received, he just had to remember. An obscure legend.

"...Garganta's Girdle and Garganta's Greaves."

"Huh? Oh. Oh right, that invincible giant that could walk up sheer cliffs. Leave it to a sagacaller to remember that tale. Good name. Be on your way, then."

And so it was.

Ingvald was well aware of Garganta, that work of ancient artifice which his clan had once used as a guardian and means of conveyance for their clifftop ritual sites. He had, after all, built the thing, over a millennium ago. He wondered if it was still there, guarding that ritual site, watching over the desolate crater which had once been the birthplace of the continent's greatest smiths. His name wasn't Ingvald back then... But then, he no longer remembered what it had been.

Forgehand walked back into his smithy and returned to work. It was all he knew how to do, and not being able to smith was akin to not being able to breathe for him.

It had been a long, long while since he'd had hope that a new generation might instill some lasting change; something more enduring than a couple centuries.

The sheer quantity of spoils and gifts which the Newman Sect representatives received before their departure was such that they had to source two additional storage artifacts. Before now, Zelsys hadn’t even known the storage limits of her own White Marble Tablet; its capacity seemed slightly more than that of an Ikesian cargo tractor, with the complicating factor that certain objects of arcane potency took up more capacity than they ought to. Some, such as Carnifex Fulguris in its cleaver form, simply could not be stored within the Tablet at all; the Fog Vortex would reject them. It was doubly strange, then, that Pateirian Huén took up exactly as much capacity as one would expect from small coins, despite the Silver Eagles and Golden Tigers being fairly potent in the power they held.

During their final visit with the godsmith, Ingvald handed over a whole crate with the things he had still been working on, mostly bullets and shell casings, but also some miscellaneous smaller items such as brooches and buckles. It felt somewhat like he had used it as an excuse to dump many of the smaller trinkets he'd turned out since receiving the Teutobochus Fallen Star, knowing that they would get the requisite level of use he demanded for his creations. At the bottom of the crate, Zel found a small box with a set of six daggerlike blades, plainly designed to replace those she used at the ends of her braids.

Zel had originally plotted the return trip such that they would pass through several places despite not needing to; Stormbloom Hill, the Logging Hamlet, Fort 57, and Arches. However, in the end, they split. She and Zefaris headed to the Logging Hamlet, while Jorfr and Victor would visit some old hidden Three Kings Era ruins before the two groups would reconvene at Fort 57. Koschei's knowledge, though fragmentary, was nonetheless vast.

Down the Long Road which cut through the Ikes Mountains to join Borea and Ikesia, an eclectic collection of steeds rode. Two great iron beasts roaring down the road, a blackstone dragonfly humming overhead, and a giant beast of flaming bones sprinting along.

Elsewhere in the world, halfway across the continent, a peasant boy trudged through the woods in search of things to harvest and sell. Shao Lei had a good eye for herbs and mushrooms, and a strong enough back to carry great amounts of wood if his haul of more valuable goods turned out particularly poor… But his secret was an unearthly knack for finding special plants. Plants imbued with essence beyond what was natural, plants which could be used to concoct pills of great efficacy. They were rare and difficult to sell without being killed or robbed, but his home town’s eccentric herbalist bought them from him readily. Each harvest of just one such herb could set Shao Lei for weeks, but he knew better than to live off the money and then scramble when it was about to run out. He had nearly saved up enough to buy himself a nice protection talisman to go with the sword he carried for defense against wild beasts… And bandits. Something had stirred him to push himself to strength, a strange dream he’d had recently, one coinciding with a warning about the demonic dao influencing people to thoughts of revolt against fate. Shao knew that his dream could not be that, as it stirred him only to become stronger so he could protect others weaker than himself; a flame burning brightly enough to illuminate all darkness.

Physically, he wasn’t a particularly outstanding specimen. Neither particularly tall nor muscular, but he was strong and fast where it counted, and his appearance was innocuous enough to not draw too much attention, but good enough that people treated him somewhat better than normal. He was well aware of this, and though he was not vain, he took care of this small talent which the heavens had bestowed upon him just as fastidiously as he took care of the rest of his body.

The young man was torn from his aimless mental wandering by the twinge of his special sense. Following it led him to a strange grove of bamboo that somehow drove his gaze away from itself, forcing him to stare at the ground and navigate blindly. Within it, he found a skeleton with curious robes... And between the corpse’s legs grew the source of that twinge.