LIGHTNOVELONLINE Dwarves of the Deep: Iron Repairs
I spend the next few days—four by Jaemes’ count—scrubbing out the rust from the other pieces of my armor. It’s even more depressing work than doing the breastplate was, for the thinner arm, shoulder, leg plates as well as my helmet turn out to be more rust than metal. My boots fared even worse than these, since a lot of my wandering was trekking through shallow streams; on top of the rusted plates, the leather soles are totally rotted away.
It’s incredible that I didn't notice the damage—like the old tale of the frog being boiled alive, not noticing the heat of the water increasing in small increments, I was oblivious to the fact that my armor was falling apart a little further with every step I took.
My gauntlets are the worst. Their fine plates, so carefully designed to slide over each other, are now nothing but lumpy masses of red. Once I work them over with the vinegar, only the runes remain, each fused to a thin skein of metal protected from decay by incandesite bonding.
I give each armor plate another once over with the vinegar and cloth to get out the very last stubborn flecks of red, then I lay everything out on the floor in front of the furnace to get a clear look in the fiery glow.
More than half the metal has been scrubbed away. What remains is a steel skeleton.
I allow myself a day of rest, or at least what I guess is about a day, then return to the forge to do what I can with the iron plates Nthazes was kind enough to provide me with.
Cutting out pieces to fit each gap exactly would be foolish, I decide, because eventually I will have to remove them and do the same with titanium. Instead I decide to create a new suit of iron armor of relatively thin plates, then weld the framework of my remaining steel armor onto it.
At least, that’s what I will do for the breastplate, back, legs, arms and pauldrons. The boots and gauntlets are too damaged and too fiddly for this method to be possible. I’ll have to make simple iron boots and gauntlets for now—unruned too, since I don’t have any reagent.
I decide to do my left pauldron first. I cut out an appropriately sized section of iron and hammer it roughly into shape. Once it is approximately the right dimensions, I place the remains of my original pauldron over it and make precise measurements so I can alter it to fit exactly.
Fitting it exactly proves to be tricky. Every time I think I have got the shape just right, it turns out that the iron has warped beyond what I calculated so that the curve doesn’t match up or the edges are askew. Eventually I realize I have no choice but to give up on getting it totally exact, and I settle on good enough.
Now for the welding. I put the iron pauldron into the front of the furnace, and a tungsten crucible containing some iron offcuts, beaten very thin, into the back. Then I turn up the heat as high as it will go. Once the pauldron is glowing yellow hot I remove it and place it on the anvil. I wait a while longer then remove the crucible. Inside, the iron scraps are white and on the very edge of melting.
I gently lay the near-melted, card-thin iron scraps upon the yellow-hot iron where the remaining metal of the original pauldron will make contact. Then I put down my tongs, put on an extra pair of thick leather gloves, and embark on the most nerve-wracking part of the operation.
I take up the original pauldron and fit it exactly over the new one. I press down hard, squidging the near molten patches of white iron down like glue, and put my face right down close and press all around even harder to make sure there are no gaps between the two plates. Next, I put my craft into the furnace and heat it until the steel part is glowing blood red and the runes are shining dangerously. When those of fire-resistance begin to quiver, I quickly pull the pauldron out, worried they might explode.
I let it rest on the anvil to slowly cool. I can’t do any water or oil quenching to harden the iron in this piece—I worry that the shock of a quick temperature change would break the layers apart, since steel has a slightly higher heat capacity than iron, and thus cools down slightly slower.
Fortunately they don’t break apart. There is no awful cracking sound of separation. I’m still not satisfied though, and to make sure there are absolutely no gaps, once the pauldron is fully cooled, I pick it up and examine every millimeter of it closely. There are none. I’ve managed to weld together the two almost perfectly, though the general shape does look a little warped.
Good enough. I sit on the steps and rest for a while. That was some of the most strenuous, stressful forging I’ve ever done, and I still have many, many more plates to go. Some of which are much bigger, some trickier shaped.
I groan, then stand up to start work on the right pauldron.
The repairs drag out to a week, then to a month. I begin to feel a little guilty about my use of the Guards of the Deep Darkness’s forges, my eating of their food, my drinking of their ale, et cetera, while doing absolutely nothing in return for them.
“Aren’t there any jobs I can do?” I ask Commander Cathez one mealtime. “When my armor’s repaired I plan to help with the foraging, but until then... Well, I’ve been here for quite a while already. I don’t want to be a freeloader.”
“Hmm?” he says, looking up from his meal—my eyes have adjusted slightly so that the tiny candles on the walls are enough, just, to make out shapes by.
“I’ve been here more than a month—”
“A what?”
“I mean, kind of a long time, and I haven’t done anything. Just used your stuff.”
“You’ve promised to help once it’s done though. That’s enough for me.”
“The repairs are taking a while though. And besides, I could use some money to start saving up for materials.”
“Money? We work on an honor system here, young dwarf. Do a task, earn the right to use a certain amount of material.”
“They keep track of it on a big stone tablet,” Jaemes tells me. “The more tasks you do, the bigger the number next to your name gets. Then you subtract some numbers every time you take some material.”
“Oh,” I say, scratching my head.
“Basically it’s money but more complicated and inconvenient.”
“It’s not money, it’s honor,” Cathez says stubbornly. “But if you’re keen to win some, I suppose I can set you some tasks. Nothing interesting though—cleaning and cooking.”
“I’m happy to help,” I say eagerly.
So from then on when I’m not working on repairing my armor I’m sweeping, mopping, cooking or assisting with unloading the ale imports. As expected, there is no roster for any of these. I just ask what needs doing then do it. My contributions are marked off on the Tablet of Honor, a truly massive obelisk near to Runethane Yurok’s chambers.
I get to know my way around the fortress quite well, though I still need to keep one hand on the wall as I walk to stop myself losing my bearings, and I also get to know my fellow runeknights better. My conversations with them only serve to strengthen my belief that this place is a perfect bastion of harmonious brotherhood—and brothers they all are: I learn that the Guards of the Deep Darkness is a strictly male order. Female runeknights down here would only cause distraction, at least according to Runethane Yurok.
Though I do learn that a few of my comrades have wives at a trading post a few miles up from here.
I’m now used to the rhythm of life down here, so far as there can be rhythm in a land without time. Wake up, forge, do tasks, sleep, repeat it all again. Every few sleeps I ask Jaemes how long has passed. Sometimes I’ll have longer conversations with him too—if being lectured like I’m a student at this ‘university’ he came from can be called conversation. My other main friend is Nthazes, and my conversations with him go the other way—I do most of the talking, answering his hundreds of questions about every detail of life up above.
Even the most minor aspects fascinate him. One mealtime he asks me about what we drink ‘up there’.
“Beer and ale, mostly. Water sometimes. Wine on special occasions,”
“Wine?”
“Like beer, but made from fruit.”
“That dried stuff? I suppose you soak it in water?”
“Dried? No, fresh fruit.”
“It doesn’t start out as dried? No, I suppose it mustn’t,” he laughs.
“It grows on these things called trees on the surface. I’ve never seen them apart from in books, though. They’re a bit like mushrooms. The fruit dangles off them.”
“Then it gets made into this wine?”
“Yes... Actually, I think the fruit wine is made from doesn’t come from trees. I’m not too sure. In any case, it gets mashed up in barrels and left to ferment.”
“What does this wine taste like? Is it very similar to beer?”
“No, it’s more sour. I’ve only had it a couple times. Didn't really like it.”
“I see. Still, I’m looking forward to trying it someday. And seeing some fruit that isn’t dried up. How’s your armor coming, by the way? Nearly repaired yet?”
“Nearly,” I say, grimacing. “The breastplate is proving very tricky. I tried to do it in one piece, but the iron warped horribly and I had to pull the whole thing apart. So now I’m doing it in sections, but then I have to weld those sections together at their sides while not overheating the runes, and it’s a massive pain.”
“Sounds like a boring job, if I’m honest. Repairs are the worst part of being a runeknight. I much prefer creating something new.”
“Me too, but it can’t be helped.”
“Ah, but you ought to take a break and come back to it if you’re having trouble. How about forging your ears?”
“If you have time to show me how.”
He grins. “There you are talking about this time again. I’ll show you right now. Now is the only real time there is, after all.”