A rugged and sturdy wooden cabin with an added forge for blacksmithing. Both fireplace and forge serve to keep the house warm and inviting. A table and some chairs are arranged in front of the fire, but the interior is absent any bed or kitchens.

The connected forge is housed in its own room adjacent to the simple log cabin, but the wood here has been treated with oils and saps to prevent them from easily catching on fire. Tools are neatly arranged along one wall, within easy reach of the fire and anvil dominating this space.

Spark breathed in the acrid air of the forge mingling with the new scents of the freshly hewn and constructed lumber around him. He was protected from the elements, had a roof above and most importantly a place to explore, device and master his craft as a smith. He let the metal of his hands run along the metal of hammers and tongs. He let out a content sigh.

The smithy was sparsely decorated, and the shelves could definitely hold more inventory. With a shrug he conceded. "Everyone has to start somewhere."

He did have some materials, and some gold pieces to offer in trade for whatever metalwork adventurers would bring into town.

With the sappy feelings tucked away, Spark picked up his tools and started working a piece of iron with the steady sound of metal on metal, a sound that would become commonplace in Smith's Gambit.

Heavy footfalls could be heard outside the blacksmithing establishment for a short while before the sound of a meaty fist impacting on the door reverberated through the wooden foundations of the home.

If this call was hopefully answered by a sign of affirmation and permission to enter, the door would burst open from it's hinges, as if eager to get out of the way of the man behind it.

A blast of cold air melt the near-scolding heat inside the room, creating a flux of juxtaposed environmental conditions... It was offputting, like a whole sauna experience packed into a single moment, though much drier.

A shirtless blue genasi wearing a pair of thick, filthy and haggard trousers lined with fur and bundles of insulating leaves stood just beyond the doorframe. He had a small smile on his face and his eyes were intense but not unkind.

"Greetings, friend Spark. Sadly, this day, I am here for work and not bonding. I feel guilt my first journey to your place in town is this way..." the man blabbers solemnly.

"To give more information, I need your skills of creating metal items. Of course, I will pay in gold." he continues, "I think you know, but this is not for me. The day before now, my tournament did end. The victor wants this..." he looks in his pockets for a moment before pulling out a sheet of paper with crude design details on it, likely taken by him as notes while being lectured.

"as their award! This item will be golden. I have the rare metal, for you to make it. My only two wonders is if you will do this, and how much I need to pay you if you choose to accept."

He sticks out his hand towards the sapient construct, "Will you help me with this creation, Spark? You are the town's only smith, I think you know!" his entire personality seemed to have become less serious now that he was done reciting whatever business information he had surely memorized on his way here.

It was much more like how he usually was. Tidelan seemed to always become an actor when he was in an unfamiliar situation. His affection for Spark seemed genuine, though. It was doubtful if he knew enough about politics to fake something like that. It also stood to question whether or not he would put up with people he did not like living in the same town as the people he did.

Spark certainly welcomed visitors to his shop, and it was no less so with Tidelan. "Come in, friend Tidelan," Spark mirrored the greeting with a raised hand holding a smith's hammer as the other held a pair of thongs thrust into the fires of his forge. "I will be with you in no time."

After a few more passes with the hammer, Spark was content the item was coming along nicely, and so he doused it in oil before stowing his tools and coming up to the crude wooden table that served as a countertop.

"Let me have a look at this." The warforged bent over to study the plans. "Congratulations on completing your first tournament. It seemed very exciting for the whole town. Great job raising everyone's morale in these bleak lands."

The drawing wasn't much to go from, but he got the gist of it. Nodding slowly he scratched at a non-existent itch on his hard, smooth chin. "I think this is doable," he looked up at Tidelan with a smile. "I'm not the only smith in Smith's Gambit, however." He chuckled at the apparent play on words to give meaning to his jest, as Smith himself was just that, a smith.

"I'm happy to help you, though." Spark hastened to add, sure that the mayor had enough on his plate. "Not least because what you want is a jeweller and not a blacksmith." Spark chuckled again, and would probably have winked had he possessed eyelids.

Straightening up while holding the piece of paper he smiled more earnestly. "It is no matter, friend. All manner of metals have passed through the Great Forge, and all manner of things that can be fashioned has been fashioned in that place." Spark's voice took on the air of someone intoning a prayer or a blessing.

"Now to business. It is in large parts up to yourself how much this will cost, and it depends on how much rare metal you wish to put into it. The more material that needs to be worked on, the more expensive it will be. Have you with you what you wish to smelt into this medallion?"

Tidelan explains himself to Spark in broken common. Fortunately, his message gets across with his careful choice of words. It takes a while.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:42, Fri 23 Apr 2021.

Spark nodded and as they discussed back and forth, they eventually landed on an agreeable item. "Certainly the wearer won't wish for a medallion too heavy to wear." Spark mused more to himself than to his customer.

"Very well, let me use 50 of these coins as a base for the item. It should make it substantial without creating a weapon. Half of this will be made into an offering."

Spark considered the notes one more time and nodded. "I think I will be able to create what the wearer has wished for."

Tidelan nods sluggishly, his energy seems to have faded after a long session of planning.

"I do not know of this offering, but it is your work, now. How much does this cost?"

Spark seemed to notice that his talk of ideas of form and fit, design and utility had worn Tidelan out. Such was the way of a craftsman consumed by his craft to the point that payment became secondary.

With a superfluous clearing of his throat, Spark put the design down. "Forgive me, I get easily carried away when talking about crafting metal. I will take another 50 gold pieces, so the entire piece with materials and my work will cost you a total of 100 gold."

He sat on a stool and tapped the pads of his fingers against each other. "Is this agreeable to you?"

Tidelan nodded eagerly. "Yes, it is agreeable. So, it is agreed. I am much at peace with this choice.", then he gave a foreign salute of respect to Spark before turning and leaving the room, "I hope you work well. I will come again.... after a few days, I think."

OOC: -100 Gold Pieces!

Spark thanked Tidelan for his commission. "You can retrieve the medallion tomorrow."

The cleric could have rushed the process even further, but he didn't see the need, and so he gave himself time to properly set up an altar and make ready for the ritual of forging.

Over the course of the rest of the day and well into the evening, Spark worked methodically to prepare. He offered prayers and invocations as he cleared and cleaned the forge thoroughly.

When he was ready and the shop was closed for the day, Spark set about the task in earnest. He knelt before his forge and placed fifty gold coins in several stacks upon his anvil, which was now resting on the solid timber floor.

The warforged touched his smith's hammer to the symbol engraved on his chest and asked for guidance. "Everything has passed through the Great Forge; let some of that pass through this vessel and allow another creation to exist in this world."

The cog symbol on Spark's chest lit up briefly, and so did the matching symbol on the hammer; one cog found another and then started turning. He could feel the divine power flowing from within him, through him and into his tools.

Then Spark started working, and for the next hour, he was bathed not only in the light of the fires from his own forge, but his shadow danced all around him as if he was surrounded by forges casting a brighter, more intense light.

Anyone nearby would be able to hear the hammer striking anvil, but this time it seemed deeper and somehow more profound. As the hour-long ritual concluded, the strange effect of a giant cog turning one tooth over could again be heard, reverberating through the forge and echoing into infinity.

Spark laid down his tools and beheld his creation.

A medallion almost one hand wide, in the shape of an eye. It was a ring of gold, with clasps ready to hold a crystal in its centre. The smooth surface of the gold was seemingly unworked as if the piece has been moulded this way, but that was impossible as, at regular intervals, black streaks of some other mineral drew lines from the centre outwards, in the style of rays. As the smith held the medallion by its chain and I spun lazily, he could see how light would catch the darker minerals and intensify, making it look like rays of darkness emanated from the centre.

Spark was pleased and offered a final prayer to his benefactor. "This humble apprentice bows in gratitude for the inspiration I have been shown and the blessing that has been placed on me. Long may the hammer strike, and the fires of the Forge burn."

Then he took his rest while also making sure the piece was properly polished, and before Tidelan came to retrieve it, Spark had put together a wooden crate that would hold the piece on a bed of animal fur.