I'm a what now?

Cercyon

The Gods Must Be Crazy

So to catch up with Wifilisburg‎, several days ago and about 11 centuries in the future, there was a bit of a ruckus, and after a lot of back and forthing to multiple nexus-points in time, we determined that the best way to seal this temporal rift was to seal it at the beginning, which was 9 AD. We managed that after a few attempts and stuck in the year 9. Things were good, world keeps spinning, and we'll eventually get back to the thing.

Ah, oops?

The next morning, I was a happy whistling kind of guy and enjoying the morning sunrise. And then I realized I was enjoying the morning sunrise. That was bad, because, well, vampires have exceptional allergies to the sun. But I didn't. I was watching the sun rise and liking it. In a toga. Which was odd, because I hadn't worn one of those for awhile. It was a theme party, okay?

But initial shocks and confusion done with, I followed my nose (literally) to the main camp Where I found myself at the forge. This is not my thing. Except that it is. I was watching the smith at work and immediately clicking in on what he was doing and what he wasn't. We spoke about it and I started having flashbacks to doing support work with intelligent consultants; discussing things in what was almost our own language. I think he was exhausted or he was being asked to do the impossible, so he invited me to give it a go. And then I amazed everyone by just grabbing the blazing hot ingot and going to work.

The iron was crap, the tools were iffy, and I'm not sure how I knew that, but at the same time, the chieftain wanted a sword that was built for slashing. I knew I could rework it with enough heat to get something that would hold up. Hours later, I had a crowd and a sword that was definitely going to be to the chieftains' liking - as well as a semi-melted anvil. Might need to dial down the thermostat next time. I toweled off sort of, but that wasn't much to worry about - the thing that was that I had in fact crafted a masterpiece. Not bad for my first time. We took it to the chieftain who roared his approval and everyone was in their happy place. The drinks flowed, the food was good, and even though I was a Roman, skill seemed to override birthplace. I was compared favorably to the dwarves of old, and the sword was given a proper name.

Somewhere along the the line, when I was still marginally sober, the chieftain called me to him and had his four daughters lined up. Apparently I was picking up a wife somewhere. Good smiths may be hard to find, and I was getting picked up before someone else could find out what we got. Not gonna lie, it was a great time. I selected the second daughter of the four because well...being the middle child is heck.

and the next morning, bright and early and things had to get fixed. Me and the other smith and the apprentices got working on rebuilding the forge; a little rebuild on the smelter to make it more efficient, and then we cast the ores to ingots so that we knew what we had on hand and not just guessing. After all that, tools were needed. I killed the anvil and dented that hammer to hell, so I remade them in, well, it's not iron, but it's a fairly crude steel. But it'll do. And it was apparently miraculous, because the smith laid his hands on it and scorched the shit out of his hands - however he was taking them as holy marks.

Sweet baby Jesus. Or...something. It felt good. As I'm going through this, it feels like I'm a god. A young god, but a god nonetheless. And honestly, is this...art, or craft, or...what the heck. I should be cautious with this. But first, I have food, and a wife to take care of.

Next morning was time to go to work. I had myself a nice time and started doling out assignments and also working the crowd a bit, teaching them what was to me common sense. The crowd parted and I found Bolverk - or Thorimir now. Being a forge god seemed to suit the times, and while he wasn't totally thrown, it wasn't precisely my thing. Except that it is now. After a little thought, he threw out the idea that we should go get some meteroic iron from a place a couple days ride from here. Guarded by a Lindworm, which did nothing for me. But, we could get some damn good iron, and I could make him a warhammer. Oh yeah. That sounded like actual fun, so I made sure everything was going good and knocked off earlyish so I could tell Missus Cercyon and my father-in-law that I was going on a road trip. I was promptly given two bodyguards, because he did not want his smith getting killed. Meanwhile, all the other women were clustered around my wife and having girl talk. From her expressions and the way the other women were sneaking glances back at me, I had done something good. Quite possibly more than once.

Dawn rose, and with it, I felt alive-er. The first fires of the dawn, or something. While we were riding, I started talking with Thorimir about this warhammer. Big is the general word, but at the same time it's going to make a statement. It's going to be a full days' work, and probably a good fourth of the time is going to be spent on the tweaking of it. That said, when a god makes a weapon for another god, that shit will be done to specifications.

We encountered bandits of a sort the first night out, no really big thing except for the part where I was throwing javelins of fire at a few people with astounding effect. That's...impressive. Note to self, see if I can do a weapon. That said, one of my guardsmen took an arrow to the kidney, which was not good. On the up side, Lady Mortis (Just Mors now,) fixed him up nicely - however in exchange I had to make her a bow. That I can do.

The morning was interesting, to say the least. We found the crater, reminded each other about the Lindworms' abilities, don't look it in the eye, and made our way cautiously down the crater. Oh. Oh happy day. We loaded up the horses because I'll walk if it mean I can have a few more pounds of this ore. Dense, workable, this is a dream ore for this era. And we hadn't woken the Lindworm. Everything's coming up Millhouse.

Until it opened its' eye and froze me. Gods dammit (Me dammit?) And then bad things happened. I got bit and ragdolled, but fortunately the only thing that got wrecked was my clothes. Someday I'm going to come back from something wearing what I brought with me, but it is not this day. The thing was flipping huge, and fire wasn't helping for shit. I was however able to blind one eye with a nice arrow shot along with Mors, Thorimir was on its' head trying to either stab its' head or tame it for a suitable mount. In any case, it reeked with its' breath and one of the men charged it and actually eviscerated it as it ran over the guys' sword.

He's getting a raise.

And with that, we did some butchers' work, getting the hide and some bones and other things that were going to be needed for this bow and warhammer combo. And I am definitely making a hammer for myself out of this. But the clocks' ticking and we need to send a party back with a wagon for the rest of this.

So the todo list is now a bigass warhammer for Thorimir, a bow for Lady Mors, jewelry for the wife, a hammer for me, and then I'll take a nap. After that, there'll be a battle to win.