Metalwork on the Farm

[Mishka Larraq]

Mishka's foot pressed down upon the pump that worked the bellows once more. Turning the metal rod over in her hands, Mishka leaned as close to the oven-like forge as she could tolerate and examined the long rectangular cube of yellow-orange beskar. <Perfect.> She thought to herself as she pulled the beskar from the fire and stepped towards the anvil.

Her armor in the house, Mishka was clothed in a simple cloth and leather. With leather boots, Mishka stepped upon stone floors as she approached the anvil. A smith needed to feel the heat of their forge upon their skin to know that the temperature was right. They needed to feel the weight of the hammer and the vibrations of the strike through their arm to know that their actions were both precise and correct. One could not make Beskar while hiding within a Beskar shell. They had to expose themselves to every element that their creation was to be exposed to.

 

[Mishka Larraq]

With a precisely calibrated strength, Mishka brought the hammer down upon the metal, thin flakes already starting to form where the outer layers were exposed to air. Sparks flew as metal struck metal and Mishka brought the hammer back up for another strike. Again the hammer came down and sparks flew. Mishka adjusting the position of the orange-hot metal over the anvil ever so slightly from base to tip before the next swing came down. With each strike, small physical changes presented themselves as Mishka shaped the metal to her will. Wider, flatter, thinner. Each strike bringing the metal close to the shape Mishka needed it to be, starting near the base and working towards the tip.

When at last the tip was as wide and flat as she needed it to be, Mishka sprinkled dirt and powdered carbons over the metal before returning it to the flame. Her foot worked the pump, the bellows forced oxygen into the forge, and the fire grew hotter. Mishka's eyes watched the metal intently as it slowly changed from dark orange to bright yellow in color, the dirt and carbons burning away as she rotated the metal slowly. Beads of sweat rolled down her face and the back of her neck. Her training telling her that the temperature of the forge was perfect.

 

[Mishka Larraq]

When the rod of metal had reached the ideal color, Mishka pulled it from the forge and again brought it to the anvil. This time though, Mishka brought her grandfather's hammer down much stronger than before. This time, Mishka did not flatten the metal. She bent it. Again and again she struck the metal until it had folded nearly upon itself. A think sprinkling of carbons went into the space between the metal before Mishka made the final few blows... and then the metal was upon itself. Half the length and twice the thickness.

Mishka repositioned the metal over the anvil and began to strike again. Each blow from the hammer precise and calculated, her left hand slowly inching the metal's position over the anvil from the base towards the tip. Her hammer again pounded upon the metal until it had once more regained the desired shape. Once more it would be sprinkled with dirts and carbons. And once more the metal would be returned to the forge.

 

[Mishka Larraq]

The forge (both the building and the oven-like creation within it) was old. Some say that the forge was the first building erected by the Larraq Clan when the settled the farmstead that Mishka had been raised upon. Though none really know for sure. Thick, sturdy wood pillars were spaced every so often along the walls of the forge. Not one had been replaced in five generations. The ceiling was similarly made of thick wooden beams.

One would assume that a forge would need to be made from stone, or metal, or anything but wood. But the wooden pillars that made the Larraq forge were thick and old and could hold up to more heat than a traditional Durasteel I-beam. It simply withstood heat better than metal.

The wood was old and strong, like the old way of doing things.
Don't forget the old ways.

That was what her grandfather had always told her and that was what Mishka thought about as her foot worked the bellows and the piece of beskar grew from dark orange to bright yellow, nearly white once again.

 

[Mishka Larraq]

Mishka turned from the forge and again approached the anvil. Her boots trodding upon the dirt and stone and straw that made up the floor of her family's forge. With one hand still holding the metal rod firmly, Mishka picked up her grandfather's hammer and lined up the near-molten metal at the end of the rod with the anvil. Again she repeated the process. As the heat of the forge enveloped her, sweat beads rolling down her skin, Mishka delivered precisely aimed strikes upon the metal she forged with precise application of strength. Again she bent the metal over, again she sprinkled carbons between the sides before delivering the final blows, and again she worked the metal until it was nearly flat. Mishka toiled away at the repetitive task of forging a Beskad, losing herself within the work itself, losing track of time, and entering a near-meditative state as she worked the beskar.

Return to the fire. Work the billows. Rotate the metal. Heat the metal. Remove the metal. Bend the metal. Flatten the metal. Shape the metal. Strengthen the metal.

She did this 13 times, folding the metal upon itself, strengthening the metal each time she did so.

 

[Mishka Larraq]

Vaguely, Mishka was aware that day had given way to night outside the forge. At some point anyway. She hadn't truly noticed until she had finished at what she had set out to do for the day. <Not bad.> Mishka thought to herself as she regarded the unfinished blade, turning it round and round in the air to examine every inch of it. It wasn't as good as her grandfather could make, but it would be a good blade none-the-less.

Placing the blade on a shelf full of other unfinished projects, Mishka set about the task of tidying up the forge for the night. Hammers were cleaned and put away, anvils were brushed clean, floors were swept, and the fires of the forge were slowly allowed to die. When the last traces of her labor of the day had been swept away, Mishka looked up from her work for the first time in hours. The world outside the forge was cold and dark and filled with the noise of a thousand chirping insects. Her mother would have probably wanted her in the house hours ago... But her mother understood that good work could not be rushed.

With a sore and weary body that she only truly now felt, Mishka trudged along the half-mile path that led from the family forge to the large country house that she shared with her immediate family. Her mother would likely have a slowly cooling plate of food waiting for her on the kitchen table. And, if she was lucky, a hot bath already drawn up and waiting for her as well.

 

[Mishka Larraq]

True to form, Mishka's mother did not disappoint. A warm meal of steamed vegetables, baked root, and grilled Shantual meat waited for her alongside a tall glass of fruit juice. Simple, healthy, filled with nutrients, and definitely filling. It was the common meal for the Larraq family. All of the ingredients grew or were raised on the property. And even though she had had it thousands of times, Mishka still loved it.

Warm meal in her belly, Mishka found herself up to her ears in warm, soothing water. Lightly salted and sprinkled with warming spices and flower-scented soap, Mishka could feel the water as it saturated her skin, cleansed it of soot and sweat and grease, and revitalized it with the minerals contained within the water itself. A deep sigh escaped Mishka as she slid deeper into the warm water and let the soothing warmth wipe away the strain of the oppressive heat of from the forge.

She had let herself bask in the waters of her bath until the water grew as cold as the night air outside. A healthy six hours of sleep in a warm bed had followed, and Mishka had awoken to another warm meal courtesy of her mother. Dressed, fed, rested, and ready for another long day, Mishka brushed her teeth and rushed from her parents house and into the brisk morning air, sky just starting to blue from the approaching dawn.

 

[Mishka Larraq]

Mishka arrived at the forge to find her grandfather already at work on him next creation. A hug and a peck on the cheek was how she greeted her grandfather, not wanting to distract him too much from the task that held his attention. Her own attention quickly found its way to the blade she had spent all of yesterday forging and shaping. Sitting on a simple wood bench, Mishka rested the blade across her knees and began the long, tedious process of sharpening the blade. Starting from where the hilt would eventually be, Mishka slowly, carefully, and precisely slid a course stone along the edge of the blade until she reached the tip. She repeated this process five times, each time applying precise and uniform pressure upon the blade as she ground the stone across its surface. After this, she flipped the blade and did another six passes of the opposite edge. Next she inverted the blade. This time placing the hilt-to-be on her right side, the point on her left, and repeating the process with her left hand.

Again and again Mishka ground away at the edges of the blade. Using the same course stone, Mishka worked each of the four edges for six precise strokes before moving to the next. For an entire day Mishka repeated this process until she again found herself walking home for a hot meal and a bath. The next day and the day after that would be a repeat of the process. For three whole days Mishka sharpened the blade. Each day moving from a course stone to a finer one. Each day needing to sharpen a smaller and smaller area of blade edge and each time bringing both the edge itself and the blade's tip closer and closer to perfection.

<Almost.> Mishka thought to herself as she regarded her work at the end of the third day of sharpening.

 

[Mishka Larraq]

The next day began like the previous four. Mishka woke to a hot breakfast and made her way to the forge, the pale blue of an approaching dawn lighting her way in lue of the sun itself. Again her grandfather was ahead of her, already hard at work. And again she greeted him with a hug and a peck on the cheek before she began her own work. She found her blade on the shelf where she had left it the night before, among a dozen and a half unfinished projects of varying stages of completion.

The blade was not yet complete. No matter how precise her hand during its construction, the metal still contained impurities and faults that needed to be removed before the final treatment. After a quick sanding of whatever grit could have managed to accumulate since she finished with it the night before, Mishka gave the blade an acid bath. It was a quick process. Dip it into a hollow tube of acid, let it rest for a quick moment, then remove it as quickly as it had been placed in. The goal, was for every inch of the blade to spend a uniform amount of time in the acid bath. The blade had to stay in the acid long enough for the corrosive liquid to highlight the small, distinctive patterns that could only be achieved by bending and folding a blade over and over again to strengthen it with carbons, yet removed quickly enough to keep the corrosive liquid from scarring or weakening the outer layer of the metal.

Mishka quickly placed the blade into an angled trough and turned on the faucet, causing cold water to flow over the blade and wash it of the corrosive acid. Turning the blade over and making sure that the off-color liquid had been removed, Mishka pulled the blade from the water and began to dry the blade. Already she could see the shine of her work upon the length of the blade. <Beautiful.> Mishka thought to herself.

 

[Mishka Larraq]

Pulling her eyes away from her own work, Mishka once more placed the blade within the fires of the forge. Her feet upon the billows and her eyes upon the blade as it slowly, ever so slowly, heated up again, Mishka let her exposed skin be the thermometer by which she judged the temperature of the fire. When the blade was finally hot enough to be pliable, yet not hot enough to bend under its own weight, Mishka pulled the blade from the forge and dipped it into a bucket of boiling water. The water, though boiling, was a far different temperature than the blade. Introducing the two to each other sent steam billowing into the air as the sword rapidly cooled and ceased to glow. The difference in temperature between the two was perfect though. Were she to have dipped the blade in cold water, she'd have ruined her creation. Instead, the precisely calibrated heating and cooling of the blade would give the weapon she crafted a very specific rigidity as the process removed any imperfections within the metal itself and created blade that possessed even mass and density throughout its length.

Mishka repeated the tempering process three more times. Heating the blade, cooling the blade, inspecting the blade. On the fourth and final tempering, Mishka deemed the blade complete. Nearly. For the rest of the day, Mishka again ran a stone along the length of the blade as she gave it its final edge. When the blade itself was as sharp as a razor, Mishka called it a day.

With a small, satisfied smile, Mishka placed the sword on a different shelf than she had for the past several days. It was... almost done. Tomorrow she would start on the hilt, pommel, and sheath.