The Runesmith

“Hm...”

The sounds of hammering metal were heard in the dim-lit room. Each time the hammer descended on the heated steel plate it produced more sparks that brightened this workshop.

Bernir was at it again, this time around he had moved up to the upper body part. He used his tongs to place the piece of metal into the runic forge. Thanks to the whole thing being run on electricity he didn’t need to worry about blowing any wind into this forge with the bellows.

Instead, there was a little crank on the side that when wound up in the right direction would make the forge produce heat. He had no idea how this tool really worked as his boss was quite cryptic about it. It didn’t matter as the important part was that it made crafting items a lot easier.

He continued striking the metal frequently and consistently until he got it in a somewhat rounder shape. He was aiming to craft the cuirass portion today, at least the front side before the day ended.

The whole process was sped up thanks to some of the machines that Roland had left behind. Before he needed to mold everything into shape with his hammer but now things like drilling holes, quick sharpening, or even cutting were possible.

It was now quite easy for him to create the desired shape from the diagram. Then drill some holes through which he could rivet the parts to each other. The most bothersome parts were still the areas for the mana stones. These grooves needed to fit the mana stones just right, otherwise, they could either fall out or be crushed during combat.

After most of the day had passed Bernir was left with a deep steel armor part. It was the breastplate this time around, what was left was giving it a nice shining before attempting the creation of the rear plate. When both parts were connected they would form the full deep steel cuirass.

“Good... intermediate grade...”

Bernir used the identifying monocle on the piece of armor before putting it to the side. With this, he would have the lower portion along with the chest almost done. Then came the arms, shoulders and the last would be the helmet.

He didn’t bother with putting any intricate designs on this armor. After it was put through Runecrafting it would already be quite stylish. With the addition of mana crystals, it would look even better, this would also add to the all-around cost.

“I hope the boss will like it...”

Bernir yawned out while putting the piece of armor on an armor rack. Together with all the other pieces, he had made it was looking fine.

“Was it supposed to be three weeks? Or four...”

Bernir had been busy working but that didn’t mean that he liked living here alone. Without his boss’s frowny face it didn’t seem right. He hoped that he would return soon, he was very much interested in all the runic contraptions that he made and how he could aid in their creations.

For him a proper dwarven craftsman it was quite an honor to work on the costly magical equipment. His boss also had a knack for it, he was able to come up with various items that always blew Bernir away.

He was looking at one of them just now. It had a spherical shape and was up on a thin stand. On the stand was a little indent for his thumb. When he injected some of his mana a bright green illusion would appear. It depicted the whole workshop and he could even see the tunnels around it.

“This never gets old... let me see...”

Bernir had lived mostly a mundane life thus a magical item like this was quite a novelty. His boss even told him to use it often as it detected if there were any people or monsters nearby.

After a minute of glancing at this light show, he removed his thumb. It was time to go up, get cleaned, and have one last drink before going to bed. At least that was the plan but before he could go out he heard a whistling sound.

“What the?”

It was followed by a red light going up in the corner of the workshop. This was something that his boss had warned him about. He quickly moved back to the detection device and turned it back on.

The red light and whistling meant that something was amiss. This was an alarm feature and would only activate if someone was close to the property. Blue dots, there were four of them and they were all close to each other.

Roland had given him an explanation about the various colors. Red would be monsters, green would be regular animals and then there was blue, people from the many races.

“They are close by... maybe an adventurer party just looking around?”

This workshop was close to the city and between the dungeon. From time to time adventurers did come through here, some of them even hunted the animals in the forest as well as the lesser monsters.

“But why would they still be here at this hour...”

It was quite late, close to midnight. Everything had gone dark and there was no light outside. The city was bright from the outside so it was easy to spot but this house was not. He was sure to put out any lights when going down into the workshop so as to not waste any electricity that could go into the runic tools.

He started to sweat, memories of the party of thugs that ambushed him in the forest started coming back to him. The moment of weakness passed soon as he managed to snap back to reality.

“No... this time it won’t be the same...”

Bernir looked to the wall, on it a somewhat strange-looking tube with a large gun chamber attached to it. To the side, there was also a vest with pockets, in them quite the assortment of various colored spheres.

After recovering his gaze moved back to the lit-up hologram. The four blue dots were still in one place, before acting he needed to make sure that they were actually enemies and not some passersby.

.....

“Is everyone ready?”

One of the hooded men called out, all of them were here for one thing and that was to get rich. They knew that the problematic owner of this house had left on a dungeon expedition. It would take at least another week for him to return which would give them enough time to skip town.

“Yes!”

The other three thieves nodded while the boss looked to the large wall. This house was a bit strange, the bottom part was hardwood but there was a metallic fence with barbed wire above it.

“Remember, it’s only one blacksmith, he should not pose a threat, kill him on sight.”

The group had been looking at this area for a whole week and came prepared with a plan. They knew about the only resident inside and were aware that he would pose no threat to them. All of them were tier 2 rogues with their boss being at the highest level.

“Let’s go!”

They all nodded at each other and silently moved towards the fenced of home. They moved in from the back going altogether. There was something strange about this fence, thus they knew that it would be best to evade it.

One of the hooded men stopped and moved his hands together. With his help, the other three were able to easily vault over this barbed wire without even touching it once. The fourth on the other hand had to take on a running start to barely jump off the fence. He almost touched one of those metallic barbs and felt a strange sensation wash over his body as he was passing by.

“Wait...we need to be careful...”

The group knew that there was something strange with this whole house. One of the thieves that was versed in traps crouched down while activating his skill. From the outside they could not tell that there were any traps but when being so close by it was easy to notice.

“The ground has been dug up...”

He did not know what was buried there but he knew that there was something. There were various possibilities here, traps came in various shapes and sizes. This being a runsesmiths home they speculated that they were magical in nature. Instead of trying to disarm them, it was better to just evade setting them off.

“Use that item to be sure...”

One of the men took out something that looked like a pocket watch. After injecting some of his mana into it the item reacted. It sent out a dim blue light that when making contact with the ‘traps’ illuminated them in red color.

“It’s working...Let us continue...”

They used this item to show them the way. There were quite a large amount of these traps. The sheer number made them think that there was something good waiting for them inside of that home. No one would bother to place so many if there were no treasures inside to plunder.

It seemed like they would make it, they were already halfway into the backyard before something happened.

Suddenly the boss of the thieves heard a strange noise, he glanced up and thanks to his night vision skill he could see some kind of small orb. This was his first mistake, this orb suddenly burst into a bright light blinding him along with his party of three.

“W-what?”

The whole place was illuminated by this golf ball-sized orb. Thanks to it the group of four was clearly visible even during this pitch dark night.

“There you are...”

They heard a voice coming, instead of from the main house it seemed to be coming from a different location, this being the log cabin to the side. They all turned to see who it was, being still blinded they could vaguely see a blurry person. This person was holding something in his hand that looked like a tube with a handle on it.

“Take this!”

A sound of pressurized air was heard as something was launched towards the group of stunned thieves. The boss even when in distress kept his cool. He knew that there were still traps all over this place so he quickly backtracked through the path that he had already taken.

This left his party members open to the incoming attack. They saw another sphere traveling towards them but before they could react it collided with the ground next to them.

Instantly it turned into a large ball of flames. The closest person to it was thrown to the side, his dark robe catching on fire. This wasn’t quite over as when he tumbled he collided with one of the many traps on the ground. This produced another large explosion that caused him to instantly die on the spot.

“You think you can come here and rob us?”

The voice of an angry half-dwarf echoed through the area and was followed by many explosions. Due to the chaotic nature of his attack, the thieves had a hard time reacting.

“N-nooo.... agh....”

Even without the glowing orb of light above them the whole place was well lit up by the explosions. The thief boss was the only one fast enough to evade the initial bombardment and was also able to recover from the blinding effect.

What he saw was his maimed party members. One looked dead while the other had his legs blown off, the third one was curled up while missing an arm. It was clear that this was a bad idea but he was still alive. He looked in the direction of the man that caused this, a slightly larger dwarf that lived here.

The thief boss could see him pointing a strange rod at him. It flung something his way that was round in shape. He was ready this time around and reacted accordingly. Having superior agility he quickly stepped to the side while also being careful of where he stepped in.

This flung sphere collided somewhere close to where he used to stand. Instead of exploding into a ball of fire as he expected it sprayed some kind of liquid all over the place. The pressure was so high that it got onto his own clothes. His party members were unable to react at all as they were quite immobilized.

“Wait, is this...”

He quickly removed his robe and threw it to the side before hearing another orb being fired off. The moment it collided with the ground it produced a fireball. This ball of fire when coming in contact with the liquid lit it up even more.

The three-party members that were already injured started burning up as everything went up in flames. The liquid was flammable oil that when coming in contact with the flames continued to burn everything in a set radius.

The thief boss looked into the distance, he could see the man that killed his men standing there. There wasn’t much distance between the two but he was unsure of that weapon he was holding. It decimated his party of tier 2 rogues in a matter of moments.

Then an opportunity arose, he could see the half-dwarf opening this strange weapon up, in his hands some orbs that were previously flung at him and his party. It looked that this was some kind of archer-like weapon and he needed to reload.

The old thief boss made a decision, he charged towards his opponent. He could see him fumbling around during reloading. The old thief was unwilling to leave without getting something in return. He lost all his men and would need to find a new party but that would require funds. These he could receive by killing this half-dwarf and selling that weapon that he had.

During the initial blast, quite a bit of the traps had been activated. He now had a path towards his enemy. In both of his hands, he was holding sharp daggers. The half-dwarf managed to insert the ammunition in, his hand went to the crank on the side but before he could use it the thief boss threw one of his daggers.

“Ahh....”

The thrown dagger embedded itself in Bernir’s shoulder and brought him tumbling down to the ground. The thief grinned as he saw his enemy lose his weapon. He had aimed for the arm that was holding the weapon in place and was successful. Now, what remained was to get closer and go for the throat.

He could see the half-dwarf going for something on his vest and he judged it to be some sidearm. Nothing that he couldn’t handle so he prepared for it as he jumped in for the kill. His sharp knife went towards Bernir’s uninjured hand while he on the other handheld an item out.

“Huh?”

The thief expected it to be some kind of bladed weapon, like a dagger or knife. Instead, he saw a small card-sized parchment with some strange runic symbols on it. It was now too late, the tip of his dagger collided with the runic writing but the item was already activated.

“ARghhhh....”

A flash of electricity erupted from this small card causing the thief to stop. The man could feel a massive amount of lightning energy going through his body as he was affected by the spell. His skin started melting as he was flung back.

“Y-you b-bastard...”

He was still alive but his body was numb. This was due to being hit directly by a tier 2 electric spell that came out of that small runic card.

“I’m going to kill you... then I’ll kill your family...”

The man started shouting at Bernir while not being able to get off the ground. He knew what was about to happen, rage took him over as he still couldn’t believe that he was done in by a blacksmith.

“Go to hell!”

Bernir fired off one last grenade towards the remaining assailant. It caused another explosion that made quick work of this thief.

“Hah...”

The victor was now clear. The four home invaders were left devastated in the yard. Their body parts were scattered in various places and some were even burning up. Bernir could barely stand up while having a dagger stuck in his shoulder.

“This is going to take a while to clean up...”

He chuckled to himself weakly while also looking at the dead bodies. He started to become nauseous, the body parts were everywhere and this was the first time that he killed a person himself. Before barfing all over the place he quickly turned around.

“I need to get a health potion...”

Bernir waddled over to the log cabin while trying not to pass out. This dagger had lowered his health pool by a third and he was losing more due to the bleeding status. The attack was over but he needed medical aid after which he would need to douse the fire and take care of the bodies.

The night was not quite over but he had been victorious. He didn’t come out unscathed but he managed to protect his new home.

“I did it boss...ugh... this hurts... how do those adventurer types do this...”

He mumbled while disappearing into the cabin, before pulling out the dagger he needed to make sure that he had some healing potions to douse on this deep wound.

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