A dangerous game for a lonely smith... [P]

Jamie stared at the metal in her hands.

It was supposed to be a sign. She was supposed to be making a sign. But it just... was not forming right. The metal was cooling... wrong. Bending when it should not, in ways it should not.

She had been sold a bad batch. And she was fucking pissed.

How the fuck was she supposed to work when people were selling her bad metal? The way this was bending, it was a shitty alloy, NOT the iron she had paid for.

Aluminum? No, enough to have this big an effect would have affected the weight too much.

Copper? No, that alloy would not look like this.

Frankly, Jamie was stumped. It might not even be an alloy, just impurities. In desperation, she threw more coals into the furnace and started heating the metal enough to brake it into smallish pieces. Pieces that would fit into a crucible to be melted down. She was HOPING that if these were impurities, they would either evaporate off or separate off. She was not super hopeful about this outcome, but it was no impossible. Say, if the impurities were in the original form, rather than in the metal itself, and the some forging had just moved them.

The really awkward thing was that... the sign was supposed to be done today. Jamie had gotten caught up in some other jobs, and had just completely forgotten to work on the sign. Now she was so far behind schedule, there was NO way she was getting this done on time. That would be a pay hit, and she now desperately needed the money.

[275 words, so 300 with event, since this is my daily 250 post for August 3rd]

So.

Jamie threw the metal onto the table, groaning in frustration. Not only would she be paid less now... she might honestly be in danger. First off, she was not exactly in the best part of town, or anything.

She was in an actual town, at least. Better than camping.

But she needed to scrounge up work. And working at a smithy that had not been maintained for years? It took her SO long to get the place even REMOTELY workable. She had basic tools. At least the furnace aged gracefully and that was super helpful. She had one thing that worked, and worked well, and seemingly would keep working.

Most of the initial molds were also fine, though she had to spend awhile deep cleaning them.

She had already made a few swords to order.

She felt awful, making swords for these people. This was a small, middle of nowhere town. The people she was working for... they did not work here. They did not live here.

There was a reason the only place in town that was fancy was the inn.

So here she was, doing jobs for people she REALLY did not want to be helping.

Because she REALLY fucking needed the money. Plus it was still smithing. Even if she hated the people she was making things for, at least she was doing something she liked...

She also knew the metal she'd been able to get was not that great a quality, even if they claimed it was the highest quality available. That made her a bit happier.

It also brought a question: was the rest of the world this behind?

[275, so 550 total in topic, and that makes 1100 words with the new counting change]

Where Jamie lived, molds were not the preferred way of making swords. It was an OPTION, certainly, but it was inferior if the metal was not very high quality. You had a few options with metal. If you had very high quality material, molds could make very high quality weapons. If your metal was less than amazing? Folding the metal helped build up strength and ability, but was not the only option.

Back home, they had the ability to mass refine metals, so material was almost never an issue. Then for actually forming the metal, there were these steam powered automatic hammers.

Now Jamie was having to actually hammer them manually. That was so much more difficult and time consuming! An auto hammer could hit every few seconds. Hitting it yourself, Jame was lucky when a swing took only double that time, and it absolutely limited how much she could get done in a day.

Plus, she had had to do some folding. She was NOT going to do enough to make the weapons high quality, but... she did not want these weapons dulling too quickly or, in the worst case, falling apart. These were not clients that would take an apology well, she was fairly certain. So while she doubted the metal was bad enough to fall apart...

No chances were to be taken.

Perhaps the biggest thing she missed from home, however, was the extruder. You would work the metal into approximately the correct shape, and then throw it into a giant... pusher machine, basically? You heated the metal super high, and then pressure forced it through a small hole. Boom, shaped metal!

[275 / 550 words, and August 5th post]

Seriously, extruding was SO much easier than using molds. First off, you could fold the metal BEFORE extruding, if you really wanted to, whereas with molds, if you needed to fold? The mold existed ONLY to get you the right amount of material. Because the folding process would completely change the shape, making the mold pointless.

And since Jamie could eyeball most amounts, and knew how to operate a scale for any other amount, she did not really need the molds. Although... she had used them earlier, for swords, which she knew she would still have to fold.

Why did she use a mold?

Because fully melting the metal was going to help anyways. And once it was melted, she could poor some into the mold, rapid cool it with some water, then pour another into the mold, and repeat. All in all, it still took longer than chunking and heating separately would have, but it was less work. Bonus points: while the metal was reaching molten temps, she was able to work on another project: cleaning the place and getting tools ready and/or repaired. Because this place WAS still a dysfunctional mess, even with how much effort she had already put into getting it working again.

But anyways, NONE OF THAT HELPED HER WITH THE SIGN.

The client would be by soon enough, and she could not possibly make a decent product with what she had. Jamie was screwed.

That is... until there came a knock at her door. A man. In fact, it was the client. Strange, to be sure. Why would he be here already?

Nope, he was here to cancel the order. He threw some money on the ground, not the full cost, but just a little, and ran off in a very big hurry.


(Exit)

[300 words, that makes 2250 word equivalent in this topic]

Claiming 22 stats
August 6th event claims
Trained:
https://www.narutoroleplaygame.com/t26860-summoning-iron-maiden (1500)
https://www.narutoroleplaygame.com/t22717-generic-sealing-technique (250)
https://www.narutoroleplaygame.com/t40833-invisible-seals (250)
https://www.narutoroleplaygame.com/t24335-v6-medical-ninjutsu (Level 1 - 250)

Approved