Kellenor: Richard I was wondering… your shield has maintained is shimmer quite well. I’m was hoping perhaps that you could assist me in enhancing my own? I have been given a gift and it would seem fit to empower my shield and find someone to set a stone for me. In the backside of so if and when I feel doubt and weak I can glance up into the back of my shield and be reminded that there is always hope as long as we have faith. I’d be more than willing to assist you in some venture in similar vain?
Richard smiles.
“I would be happy to set a stone for you, and indeed, would be happy to have aou aid me in producing one for myself. I fear purchase of the necessary elements may be beyond the depths of my coffers, however, as I spend much of my accumulated wealth of the past year back in Deneval improving my own equipment.
But as you say, to be reminded of Madriel’s Light as darkness encroaches would be a boon indeed.”
There’s a burst of steam and a loud hiss, as Richard quenches a finished horseshoe in the water trough, and tosses it on the bar of finished shoes.
“That’s the last of that set.” He says to the mute Sutak hammering away next to him.
He takes off his apron, and puts his tunic back on.
“I’m taking a break, I need to see a friend about an engraving. I’ll be back in a short while.”
He departs, searching for Jax, expecting to find in the Souk, if not the bar of the pits.
You’ll find Jax in the Souk, weighted down under a plethora of purchased good. The rat Tarstis striding beside him.
Richard waves them down.
“Gentlemen, I hope the day finds you well.”
He looks to Tarstis.
“I wonder if I might steal your friend from you for a moment… There’s a matter of a gift for which I must consult Mr. Spin privately, if I may.”
He looks to Jax.
“May I procure a moment of your time?”
“Of course, carry on Tarstis, I’ll meet you at the manor.”
“How can I help you Sir Paladin”
Richard takes Jax aside, and speaks in a low voice.
“I’ve heard you speaking to Tarstis in what I can only assume is his native tongue, and I was wondering if you were, by chance, able to write in it?”
“I can write slitherin well enough aye, though my knowledge isn’t perfect… but simple phrases and such yes… why do you ask? (Jax grins) composing my old friend a love note?”
Richard chuckles.
“Not as such, but I am building him a sort of shield, and I’d like to engrave it.”
He hands Jax a bit of parchment with a short, and somewhat uncommon Corianic phrase written on it in Ladean.
He also takes out a quill and a pot of ink.
“Can you translate this?”
Jax studies it for a moment, then copies the phrase in the broad slashing strokes of the slitherin language. “Heh heh, not a phrase that typically comes to mind when I think of Tarstis, but then again, he’s taken quite a shine to you Sir Richard, maybe he’ll make a paladin of himself haha”
Richard smiles.
“Perhaps. Either way, you have my thanks.”
So saying, Richard takes his leave, and moves off into the Souk.
He buys a skin of wine there, and makes his way back to the smithy.
Once there he takes a long pull on the wineskin, before tossing it to the Sutak smith to enjoy, and sits down at the leatherworking table, where he as already cut shapes of tanned hide that will ultimately become Tarstis’s bracers.
The tools and materials available to him in this shanty town are rude at best, but in many ways, that makes them more right for the recipient, and modest for sake of the gods.
As he sets to work, he begins a droning recitation of coreanic prayers, repeating again and again, and again.
The bracers will come in two sections, one for each upper arm, one for each forearm.
The forearm section he studs with horseshoe nails, pointed outward, and bent backward, creating crude hooked spikes for catching weapons, gripping an opponent, or climbing a bank.
To the upper sections, he forms a smallish buckler. Layering wood, sheet beaten bronze, leather, and rawhide, to form a solid shield about the size of a platter, to protect the great rat’s shoulders.
Leaving the rawhide covering unfinished, to provide a pale-white base color to the shields, he takes red paint, and quarters the shields with a cross of four outwardly thrusting swords… Corean’s Sigil.
Trading the red paint for black, and and sets to the upper right hand quarter of the shields…
A noble house deserves a noble coat of arms.
In the upper quadrant, he paints the prow of a ship, melding into the tail of a serpent that twists down to the bottom of the quadrant.
Finally, his prayers shift, as he takes the engraver’s tools, and begins carving the slytherin phrase into the inner wrist of the lower bracers.
Once finished, he returns to the furnace, and places a Shelzari gold piece he’d traded one of the other sailors for, into the smelting pot… Pirate’s gold.
Once the gold is melted, it is poured over a wide bar mold, barely covering the bottom in a thin foil.
The prayers continue, as the foil is scraped free, and pressed into the slytherin lettering, creating a light golden inlay.
“Corean the path to you for some is a long and twisting road… May you recognize this offering, that this gift may be another step on that road.”
Along the Merchant Souk, through the Commons of Commerce, and passed the walk of the gods, the hunch-backed caliban makes his way heavily to Kellenor’s garden and stall.
“Kellenor, I hope you’ll forgive my intrusion. I’ve known this of you for some time, but have never commented on it… You hear the mark of the Eternal Flame, that represents Corian and Madriel joined in a single purpose.”
He hesitates, and wrings the fingers of his titanic hand.
“You must have, by this point, felt Corian in your heart… And I could use your advice, and your guidance.”
“Of course sir. I have mentioned my recent blessings from my goddess and to aid the blade of curing this world is my mission. But I too have duty to uphold and so the price sadly must be paid in gold. Instead of hearts of the faith ever growing which is much preferred.”
“We shall hallow the smithy for corian and the mother of mercy to forge your destiny to create a new.”
“ but please sir Richard don’t let your valiant righteousness delude your senses”
Richard chuckles.
“I think, for once, my senses are not deluded, and indeed I would seek to re-dedicate myself to Corean’s cause, with the new wisdom he has granted me.”
He chews his lip.
“Gold, thanks to Althum, I suddenly have in plenty. So let not the costs of such an endeavor concern you.”
Much to both of your chagrin, the Eternal Flame you speak of, sign of the alliance between Corean & Madriel, is being used to roast sweet meats often as not, or even as a cook fire. Perhaps this was an unwise place for it…
Richard sets aside the disrespect to the holy artifact for the moment, and leads Kellenor back to the Smithy.
The Smithy is a building in shambles, the wooden slats of the walls barely holding themselves together against the gentle winds off the sea. The furnace is good stonework, though, and the various anvils and tools are in manageable condition.
Old Man Findhar sleeps heavily in a chair in a corner, having already drunk himself unconscious, despite the early hour. His snores punctuate the ringing metal as the Sutak Slave And young Amir work away.
His state is something of a minor miracle in itself, given the noise being made, and more than once Richard has wondered that the man would sleep through the Titan’s war, were it taking place on his doorstep.
Richard gives the Sutak a skin of wine, and gives young Amir a gold piece, and hide them both take the day off, while he and Kellenor set to sanctifying the area.
The next morning, Richard brings his sword…
In concert with Kellenor’s prayers, he etched the base of the blade with a line from Corean’s Oath of Vengeance.
There Shall be no Mercy for the Truly Wicked
For if these Greater Evils are allowed to wreak ruin on the world
It will be because I failed to stop them
Together, they re-dedicate both the blade and Richard himself to Corean’s cause.
“Lord, this blade, like the stories that speak of your own, was forged with love and light and hope, in a place of darkness and despair.
But the threats of this world grow, and as the shadows loom deeper, I must face the greatest of these evils, and bequeath your justice upon them, lest they wreak ruin upon the breadth of this land.
With this blade I re-dedicate myself to your service, that I might Avenge those already made victims, and that no quarter be shown to those that would make many more.”