I'm a what now?
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.
Plans are what you make
...life happened. Once we got back, I spent a little time supervising the ore offload, and then went to spend some time with the wife. Surprise one, she's like...6 months pregnant. This was surprising because I don't remember her being pregnant 3 days ago, much less that far along. However, she was rather enthused about my return, and well...she wasn't getting any more pregnant, so there was a little honeymoon activity, after which we went to take a bath in the river. Which was awkward-ish, because there were other women both up and down river doing their washup and I was being eyed. I think I tick the boxes for foreign and handsome, and there could possibly be jealousy? Or it could also be that my bride of 3 days is way way pregnant. I'm going with the latter. The things that I think of while giving the pregnant wife a backrub.
So we were relaxing, and then some old geezer tried to geeze his way across the river. Okay, I'll be honest I shouldn't call him old, given I'm, well, I'd have to sit down and do the math. Centuries. We're going with centuries. Guy fell in the river and was in the shit, so I dove in. Who wouldn't? Okay I shouldn't think about that - I'm running into the weeds and there's a guy drowning over thataway. I jumped in and swam, grabbed the old guy and went with the current and got back to the shore.
Apparently that was surprising. Unfortunately the poor guy lost his sandal, so I gave him mine for the walk to the main camp. I'm not sure if he made it okay as the first convenient shrub was declared an impromptu make-out location by the wife. That was...exhilarating. And surprising. And overall kinda neat. But eventually I made my way to the forge to supervise more and get to work with the projects. And that was interrupted; apparently someone had some prophecy to spit at me, Mors, and Thorimir. Mors was busy. Stunningly busy. Seriously, there is something about this place that is permanent spring - if you listen really closely you can hear Barry White.
Sadly, Mors was not coming out so I shouted encouragement to her partner-priest-whatever the heck he is. The worst part about was when she came out with the "I will remember this" look. Yep. I'mma pay for that later. Prophecy delivered, in short - Morpheus is in trouble and got sold; the guy who sold him took his forces and bailed right the hell out. Personally I thought Thorimir had right of first refusal on that sort of thing. But...that's where the fun began. We found out who and went a-walking with our fighting stuff; it's kind of a tradition at this point. The annoying thing was that the clock was ticking and I had several things to make before the fight.
Running through everything was rough, since I only had a few shots in the barrel. But dang, what a shot. Fireballs, minotaurs, and...I'm finding myself to be good with this - something to noodle through later. The harshest part was when I found myself totally lost, having made a defensive fire-circle while Thorimir and Mors took a nap. I'm not normally on good terms with the gods, but I was praying to Hephaestus. And holy shit he answered. But there was a fast conversation because we had; I think it's a thing - smiths kinda kepe it simple and honest. Also, can I still be weirded out that I think of myself as a smith? Of all the things in my existence, this could be the new one.
Anyway, Big H gave me a little help for finding Morpheus, but we had to go to Olympus later. Like...well, this year. Anyway, it made tracking easier, we found him. He was not pleased about having to go to Olympus. Seriously. Anyway, at that point his captor shut down his realm and we are in fact up a creek. Did I mention the minotaurs? Cause they're here. And grumpy.
And that was where the fun really began,
