The Online Craftsmaster

Scrappy was still riding with the dwarves and was admiringly gazing and the beauty of the City of Stahl. He didn't know that his Arrival there caused major problems somewhere else, some place Scrappy couldn't even dare to imagine. But he just was entranced by the amount of metal that was used in this city. Everywhere he looked he saw metal buildings, metal tools and every item that could be made out of metal was made out of metal.

Scrappy did find it funny that when he reached the big gate that was leading to the main part of the city he and the group of dwarves were stopped and separately escorted into a room and then covered with some fine cloth. Suddenly some dwarves poured metal filings over them after which they took the cloth away and the group could now enter the City.

One of the dwarves apologized and explained that they were tested so that no magnetism comes into the city. He told Scrappy an old Story about several dwarves that died a horrible death when a Dwarven child brought a magnet into the city and ran around an oil tank that exploded by special magic that happened when magnetism and metals come together. Another Dwarf heard their chat and also told a story about a dwarf that unknowingly brought some magnetic ore into the city and when stepped onto the metal floor the magnetic ore was attracted to it and broke his spine killing him with that.

Scrappy attentively listened to the story and couldn't help but think about a piece of scrap that drew other pieces of scrap to it and sighed happily dreaming about it. But listening to stories wasn't the only thing Scrappy did, he just couldn't help himself from looking around in search for Scrap he could take with him without the dwarves noticing it.

At first Scrappy started to use his small portals the tamper with the metal wagon they were riding on what resulted in a breakdown of the vehicle. The dwarves looked at the wagon and cursed, why would this wagon break down when they had a special guest that helped one of their own. It was unacceptable so one of the dwarves ran of to get a new wagon while every other dwarf apologized and bowed down to Scrappy.

Scrappy still used that break to get more scrap first he used one of his portals and grabbed a strange hot bowl one of the female dwarves layed on her windowsill. It had a strange brown substance in it covered with several slices of fruit. Scrappy threw the contents away while no one was looking and they landed right in the lap of a poor old dwarf that was sleeping on a bench near the window Scrappy took the bowl from.

While that was happening the Dwarf that went away came back with a new wagon and everyone got on and they carried on with their travel to the palace. Suddenly you could hear an outcry by a female dwarf, she came running out of her house holding a wooden rolling pin in her hand, even Scrappy started to feel fear when he saw her and thought that that wooden rolling pin must be some kind of divine weapon or something. As the wagon Scrappy was on turned around a corner he could just hear painful outcries of a poor dwarf.

But Scrappy´s thirst for more Scrap wasn't quenched but decided that he wouldn't mess with the wagon anymore as he wanted to see more of the Scrap this City had to offer. The second thing Scrappy decided not to collect anymore were these strange bowls with the brown content with fruits, even he had developed a slight fear of rolling pins after the scene with the female dwarf.

But now Scrappy something he was interested in a dwarf was operating a machine that was producing buckets by pressing down a giant stamp down on a yellow hot piece of steel. The Dwarves that were riding the wagon with him noticed his interested and proudly started describing and explaining the massive machine while Scrappy started to steal the finished buckets without anyone noticing.

After he stole dozens of those buckets the wagon started driving again and soon after you could hear a dwarf yell at another dwarf that he should stop to slack of and produce more buckets. Also while no one was watching Scrappy he let out the sylphids sending them around the city to search for special and Scrap that was especially good to collect, not that any Scrap was unworthy of being collected but there was so much here that Scrappy had to decide which scrap he should take first before coming back later to take the rest.

Soon they reached the palace and giant silver doors left Scrappy standing before them in awe but not because of the strange dwarves that were artfully carved into it. Suddenly the doors opened and a Dwarf in an attire of a blacksmith wearing a crown stepped out of the palace. He had a white beard that had hundreds of metal pieces woven into it and reached down to the floor, his face was covered in soot and ash. He had countless wrinkles but also a hearty welcome smile. The Dwarf welcomed Scrappy with a hearty laugh while Scrappy suddenly had the urged to gift something to the dwarven king. He took out a small piece of the metal that was molten by the dragon and Scrappy haphazardly casted into some rough bars. Strangely enough it changed again and got some strange purple streaks in it while Scrappy suddenly couldn't find the purple heart anymore.

Well Scrappy gave the king the metal bar even though his Mana crystal was aching and the dwarven king took and looked at it closely with an astonished face. The dwarven king thought to himself that this piece of metal was the most perfect alloy that he has ever seen even though he felt that something was missing.

The dwarven king was old and wise and knew much about the world so he could read metal like it was a book. He saw all kinds of metals in all kinds of ratios in that bar resulting in a strong durable alloy, but that wasn't all. When he used his innate ability as the dwarven king he saw that the alloy contained five of the six elemental soul strengths. He saw that ore from the deepest depths of the ocean was used for the Soul Strength of water, while a dragon's breath added the Soul Strength of Fire. He also discovered that an concentrated earth crystal was used on it to give it the soul strength of earth, such a crystal could only be found by the race of troglodytes that was deeply connected with the earth.

The dwarven king couldn't imagine what this small creature did to get one of these crystals, but even more astonished was he by the last two soul strengths. The Soul Strength of Wind and the Soul Strength of darkness, for the soul strength of wind he must have founds one of the ancient races that is connected to wind and must have gotten their blessing, while for the soul strength of darkness even the dwarven King didn't know what this creature had done. The only thing that came to his mind was killing a being that was so dark, evil and twisted that it terrorized civilizations for millenia.

Just from that bar of metal the Dwarven king knew that he had to treat this guest as good as possible even though he knew that this alloy would probably never be finished as the last soul strength that was missing was the soul strength of light something that could only be given by a god, preferably by the god of light himself.

After the King came back to from his thoughts about the metal ingot he asked Scrappy to come inside and showed him around the palace which resulted in many servants that were questioning themselves later as dozens of metal items suddenly vanished and couldn't be found anymore.

But what no one knew a person with evil intentions was watching the king and Scrappy as they were walking through the palace. This person observed Scrappy´s whole journey and even took some measures to steer Scrappy into some special places. But now that Scrappy had finished the task the man in the shadows wanted him to do, he now had only eyes for the end result the metal bar that Scrappy gave to the dwarven king.

But he had to be careful he didn't want to be noticed so that no one would suspect him to have anything to do with what would happen in the future. He had planned everything for fifteen years and finally there was a sliver of chance for success so he decided to take everything into his own plans. He would create the perfect army and achieve immortality at the same time...