The Vile Forge

“...and that is how the War of the Blackened ended! So, what is the takeaway from this story, students?” asked the voice of Scholar Balk, his meaty, scaly, green-hued fingers pointing up at the board.

“When in doubt, purge everyone?” one of the students snickered in the back. Everyone chuckled slightly, and the Scholar slapped his forehead with his enormous hand and sighed. Mortius only leaned in closely to listen while everyone else joked. So far, he’d managed to only attend two classes, Religions and now History. It was like a whole barrage of new information and, as Scholar Balk had said to him before class began, he needed to unlearn everything he thought he knew from Oxilian. There, the only worthwhile knowledge he’d gained was learning to write, count and other everyday basics. History as he knew it was far more vast and different to what he’d thought of already. Wars, treaties, land grabs and so much more. The most interesting thing he’d learned so far was that the Warlocks were the second most widespread species throughout the whole world, second only to the Fél who were much more common than he’d realised. It was because of this, and something called the Rise of the Fél, that the world spoke the common language, Fōlclicg. The War of the Blackened was a war of territory, when the D�"monas from Abarys attempted to expand further into Griermar, but the Warlocks used a country-destroying ritual to wipe out their armies and send them back. Now, only a tenuous agreement between the Imperium and the Red Court kept the D�"monas free to live in Muraxus and Ras’lain, two countries in the northern part of Griermar where the weather was closer to what the D�"monas were used to.

“No, that’s not it. The lesson here is never to underestimate your opponents and what tricks they may have under their sleeves. The D�"monas continued to bring more and more reinforcements from Abarys, sending battalions piece by piece to confuse the enemy, prompting the Warlocks to use their most deadly weapon in their arsenal”, Balk explained sternly, giving them all a long and piercing look. Mortius wrote down all of his notes and flipped through the pages. Only two lessons and already he’d filled so much. Learning was so intriguing, and the more he found out, the more his thoughts wandered back again. Ania would have loved these classes. As the lesson ended and lunch began, Mortius was brought out of his thoughts as he started walking off to the elevators, where he planned to go to something called the Forge he’d heard about. A place where new students made their own weapons. Since it was still only his second day in the Institute, it was worth exploring as Winkle suggested, and learning more about this place.

“Hey! It’s lunch time! Where are you heading?” asked Clive, who had chased Mortius down after getting out of his class. 

“The Forge, I wanna see how these things are made”, he replied, holding up his staff. Clive’s face lit up with anticipation. It seemed that either he’d never seen a weapon being made or simply enjoyed seeing them made, and all thoughts of going for lunch flew out of the window as he ushered Mortius into the elevator compartment. Together the two made their way up to the eighth floor, where the teacher’s offices were. As the compartment opened, Mortius looked around. They saw the other mystery doors that Winkle left unexplained, and his curiosity continued to grow. It seemed this school had a whole host of mysteries just begging to be unlocked, but now was the time for baby steps. The two marched down the hall to the room on the right and opened the tiny white door. Clive and Mortius had to crouch slightly to get in since the weird design flaw stopped them from properly entering. As Mortius entered the room, he saw that it looked significantly different to what he thought. It was all completely black, dark and spiky lanterns adorning the walls. The ceiling had an enormous pattern upon it, similar to the circles Mortius saw when he first travelled to the Institute and on the floor in the Morzust Circle lounge room. Looking ahead, the room was scattered with tables and workbenches, a few students bustling here and there and carrying materials like metals, leather, fabrics and glass. There were various tools on the shelves, such as hammers, cutters, bore spikes and other standard instruments. Still, the most eye-catching item was the huge monolithic thing at the back of the room, carved ever so intricately to look like a fire pit with holes scattered above. There, encompassing the entire width of the wall, was what Mortius assumed to be the Forge. It had a giant maw of a mouth with various racks inside. On it were metals, leathers and papers galore, and every student seemed to be taking turns placing multiple items on it and sitting before it. The liquid that should’ve been molten red was instead a dark sludge-like green colour, slightly similar to the Void Pools outside. Adorned on the sides of the Forge were little slits that looked like eyes, some glowing slightly. 

“What the f**k is that?”, Mortius asked in surprise, knowing what it was but finding it highly unbelievable.

“The Vile Forge. It’s where I made this little guy. His name is Ohlier”. Mortius looked down at the orb around Clive’s neck, seeming big enough to fill his palm. It seemed to glow slightly as if reacting to its name. It was quite a sight to see. The soft glow of the golden light within it was entrancing, though it didn’t last long. Mortius then looked at his staff and wondered, what was his staff’s name? If it even had one. A conversation he and his mother were long overdue for. Mortius looked away from the forge and saw students gathering materials at the workstations.

“All weapons are made with unique materials the students gather. Creating your weapon is the most common way to get one, but few people can inherit them, like you”, Clive explained as they walked around the room. Mortius frowned a little at this, feeling as if he were meant to be inferior for not using the Forge.

“All the circles usually use their specific weapons of choice. Drust, like me, uses these orbs called Ouros. Like other weapons, these orbs are the focus of our capability. We borrow their power through the Scribus, the imprint of the language on our skin.” Clive demonstrated as he placed his hands on his orb and concentrated. There was a slight vibration felt by Mortius as he slowly dragged his hands away from it, and writing appeared on his arms, glowing in silver light. As he opened his eyes, they were completely lit up in gold, his iris and pupils nowhere to be seen.

“Fe’ore”, he said as a small flame appeared between his hands, floating gracefully and warmly in the air.

“When we cast spells, we see the words in front of us to speak. The ouros can also be used for fighting as floating projectiles which we can control telekinetically. The stronger your bond with your weapon, the more effective the control is.”

“So what about the books and metals then?”, Mortius asked. Clive smiled and took him to one of the benches to explain. Kherza used tomes for their fights to record all the spells they learned over their lifetime. The more spells they learned, the bigger the tome. This explained why the book the High Scholar had was so massive. To create a tome, Kherza required the skin of a creature, some type of cloth to create the book and bark from a tree to make the pages along with a core, the stone, jewel, mineral or whatever else that is encased in the centre of the tome to channel the magical property to the user.

“So, for example. Here you have the tanned hide of a Ƿolgebæn, the significance of which is deliberated by the maker, but for Ƿolgebæn, it's usually linked to the legend of Velebrathe, one of the fabled warriors in Ælfcynn history. It’s said he rode a giant Ƿolgebæn into battles and was near-indestructible when on it. Then there are pages made from the wood of the gasīr, and this core appears to be mistglæs. A very common focus”, Clive explained as he pointed over every material. Mortius looked over all the materials on the bench and was deeply intrigued. It seemed that the materials for these weapons and items were mainly mixed between things in the human world and those in other places. 

The two moved on to another bench with a student currently working at it. This was another Angel like Clive, also in the Dresti circle, and was fiddling with a black shaded material on his bench. Clive explained that Drust often sought out the volcanic ciristōl as these seemed to have more visceral magical properties and were more accepting of magical use, the most popular and straightforward choice usually being this strange smooth black material called vǣsciristōl. The only other materials required for the ouros were a core and a selection of metal for the decoration of the ouros. Students usually crafted this decoration themselves before placing the materials inside the forge. The decor this student was going for looked like a depiction of a massive, grand gate that Clive explained were similar to the gates of Aeden. It was golden in colour and, apparently, made from gold-painted vanadium.

“How do you guys get your hands on these materials?”, Mortius asked.

“Easy, you just go to any Scholar in the Institute with your list of desired materials and portals are set up for you to use, which will get you to possible locations of your desired material, since some are found in multiple places”. It was a fascinating concept to think about as they moved on to a Gardah workbench. This one was empty and had no materials, but instructions were hung above the bench area. Gardah crafting their weapons seemed to have the easiest time as they only needed metal for the blade, and a material for the hilt of their weapon or the strap on their shield. However, it appeared that there was the option of a core for Gardah weapons as well in order to amplify its capability, though Gardah rarely opted for full-blown spell usage. Gardah used precious and rare metals more commonly for their weapons, and the idea of using base metals was relatively uncommon. Mortius was also caught by, what looked to be, the Gardah symbol that he still hadn’t seen yet. A pair of swords crossed over each other on a giant sigil and adorned at the top with a crown, all intense blue. As Mortius read and listened to Clive, something else caught his eye.

“What’s this about home material? What’s that?”.

“Oh, home material is when students use materials from their places of origin, such as Warlocks using materials from the mountains in Griermar, D�"monas using materials from Bathörah or Merweard using Baeille materials. Cliriōm is a common favourite for all Mer thanks to its versatility in magic usage”, he explained. Mortius nodded and looked back at some of the examples of materials. Vōlumait was a mineral found only in Bathörah, an Unholy City in Abarys. ĀÞiristōl, a gemstone that could only be mined from the Unmere Clider, a cavern in Krajaan. Mortius was surprised to see details of more rare materials, such as metal fragments from something called the Battle of Carçaldah and pages from the Book of Elier. Continuing the tour, Mortius finally arrived at a Morzestus bench, the sigil of Morzust looking huge and proud on the tabletop. Morzestus also only required two materials, metal or wood for their staff or any other material deemed fit, and a core for the top of the staff. Any decorations were made after the staff was already put through the Forge, which was interesting. Mortius looked toward his staff and looked at Clive’s ouros.

“So what did you make yours from?” he asked.

“Well, my ouros is made entirely from home material. Glass from the gate to Aeden in Elier makes the orb and the core is a nugget of metal made from fragments of Gabriel’s Horn. The wings were made from the same metal”. Mortius marvelled at the numerous cool items that made up Clive’s orb, and it almost made him excited to find out what his staff was made of. Asking how he could figure this out, Clive pointed to a man in the corner of the room, surrounded by towers of books and materials.

“That’s Glowehr. He’s one of the few of his kind left in the world. He can tell you what your staff is made of”, Clive said as he pointed to the corner. Mortius saw a small, podgy man with a squished expression almost entirely hidden by the giant abundance of beard covering his face. He was balding to the point of no return, but the few wisps of ginger hair he had left were waving everywhere and pointed out like static. Glowehr grumbled and shuffled around, leaping from here to there despite being so wide, trying to find multiple books simultaneously. It wasn’t for five minutes until he finally spotted and approached the boys.

“Well, hello there, new blood”, he said with a deep and husky voice, taking out a giant pipe only half the length of his beard and taking a huge smoke.

“Hi, I wanted to know what my staff is made of”, Mortius said as he handed it over.

“Ah. You’re one of those weak chinned milk drinkers that goes to papa for his weapon, eh? Can’t make the trips to do it yourself, can you?” he sneered. Mortius was incensed by this, and his mouth got ahead of his brain.

“Big words from such a small man surrounded by his book fortress. I can bet you wouldn’t have the bravery to even leave this room if you caught a slight scent of danger”, he proudly scoffed back. Glowehr looked up at him for a few seconds and smiled. Even chuckling a little.

“Fire in your heart. You’ll go far here, boy. As for the staff, I can’t say much. The handle here is marvellous, pure galiōm. A rare and valuable metal. This jewel, however… baffling. I can’t seem to identify it at all”. Glowehr’s eyes lit up and glowed as he stared deep into the jewel, but he groaned and shook his head after a few seconds.

“No idea. That’s a first for me. This jewel is not something any Ūndon has ever encountered. I can tell you that the material used for these intricate designs on the smaller jewels is simply Þunorglæs, still rare but not as much as galiōm. You’ll have to figure out the jewel by yourself, lad”, he said as he handed the staff back and continued looking through his books. Well, that was a bust, but Mortius saw Clive’s face, which looked in a state of excited shock.

“Galiōm?! That is insane! What must your parent have gone through to get his hands on that much galiōm?!” he asked excitedly. Mortius simply shrugged since he couldn’t say, and even if he knew, he wouldn’t want to talk about it anyway. Suddenly, a student came charging through the door, screaming the same sentence repeatedly: “It’s done! It’s done!”. Mortius and Clive simply watched as he ran straight to the forge and waited eagerly in front of one of the slits. The glowing became more intense, and the slit slowly opened like an eye. Inside were raging green flames and a pair of swords. The small-statured Gardah student gazed into the fire in amazement and immediately reached in with both hands. Mortius went to stop him, but Clive shot his arm out and shook his head. The student groaned in pain as he slowly pulled the swords out and fell to his knees, breathing heavily with the flames still engulfing his forearms and hands. On both his seared arms were the imprints of many different tiny runes, exactly the same as those on Clive’s arms.

“Every student that uses the Forge is left with the Vile Mark, a signifier to all that you created your own weapon. It’s sort of like a mark of higher respect. Most of the students at the Institute have these marks”, he explained. Mortius felt slightly jealous, thinking he’d want this mark too but going through that burning pain seemed less worth it.

“Well, I think I’ve seen enough. We’ve both probably got classes to get to”, Mortius remarked. Clive gave a slight nod, and the two left the room, occasionally looking back at the boy who’d slowly gotten up and begun bragging to everyone about his new weapons and markings.