Chapter 97 – Bonus Log: The Smith’s Daughter
Rimiri had never expected her life to end up like… well… this.
Her life had been quiet. Not easy, but not exciting either. Her pa was a blacksmith, level 18, pretty decent level for someone his age. He had seen stable employment, of course. There were always things that needed to be smithed. Nails, hammers, hoes, saws, horseshoes… normal things. Occasionally fixing a sword or dagger or some other weapon for an adventurer that didn’t want the wait times the guild unfortunately had for their contracted blacksmiths, even though that route was cheaper.
She had grown up with a stable life because of her pa. Even when her mum passed away. He pa worked harder to make sure he could give Rimiri as normal a life as he could. He saw she got to go to school in Glasshold. Saw she was always clothed and fed. Made sure they made rent to their landlord every month. But he worked himself to the bone for it. And by the time she was old enough to be able to start apprenticing with him and his boss, he was so… tired. Aged more than he should have. Rimiri hated that.
She was grown now. And wanted to take care of her pa in return. She had been apprenticing with one blacksmith or another for years and at the age of 16 she was already level 10. Ironforge class. Even had a skill – smelt sense. She could smelt iron and steel and even silver if she was lucky enough to work with it, and it let her feel exactly the ratios she needed, the flux, the timing, the heat. Her pa was so proud she got that skill, just like he had, and at such a young age.
She had worked very hard to get there. Had made countless numbers of nails, hammering them out until late at night. Had apprenticed temporarily with a farrier to make sure she could make horseshoes perfectly. Had tried and tried and tried again to apprentice with the adventurer’s guild blacksmiths to learn weapons – always denied. Too many people seeking such a thing. Not enough connections or pull to actually get it.
And then – a break.
A crown-mandated order to establish more true settlements in the wilds around Glasshold, instead of scattered tiny clans hidden here and there. An attempt to tame the wild. Dangerous, possibly, depending on the location. On proximity to the wastes. But potentially lucrative.
Naturally, building a settlement required skilled workers. Laborers. Some settlement groups were larger, better funded, and could afford to recruit higher level workers. Others… not so much.
Rimiri had seen the posters, had heard of talks, and had talked to her pa about it. She had gone to a potential settlement’s head. Demonstrated work. Came with letters of recommendation from her teachers and mentors vouching for her work ethic. And would be bringing her pa with her, higher level but seeking lighter work. 2 blacksmiths. This settlement had been small but decently funded, and backed by a local merchant.
Discussions were had. The position was offered. A magical contract signed. Rimiri secured work for her and her pa, for decent pay, and it came with a small house so long as they helped to build it, in return for a 2 year contract to help establish this settlement. With how it all worked out, it was quite good money, her pa could stop complicated orders that required urgency and dozens of backbreaking hours, and Rimiri potentially would gain several levels.
It had worked out exactly like that.
Rimiri was 18 now, and the 2 year contract had ended with her and her pa in a decent house they’d helped build, in a small little village near a river, hidden inside a dense little forest. The village sent lumber down-river for processing at another recently established village. They grew what food they could in the harsh cold northern climate. Her and her pa stayed and bought the smithy they’d been using during the contracted time, and supplied tools to both villages. Fixed axes, fixed the big saw at the sawmill sometimes.
And then those… things started showing up. Undead things. Relentless things that kept coming if you hit them and seemed not to feel pain. Draugr.
Rimiri got experience making swords. Not good ones, mind you, that wasn’t her expertise – but her pa’s skills made up for what she was still learning. A few village men started up a militia of sorts to fend the things off. It worked… for a time.
Until word came about the milling village down the river being attacked by a horde in the dead of night. The village of 30 or so people reduced to 12, fled down river to Rimiri’s village, seeking refuge, carrying warnings and the injured and only what they’d been able to pack hastily into rucksacks before fleeing.
Rimiri did not sleep that night. Not one wink. The village was certain they were next, and the militia was up in arms and scaring everyone simply because they, themselves, were frightened, too. Three nights passed. Tensions rose as fear and uncertainty rose. The lumber village fighting with the milling village over what to do. Elders fighting elders. Someone sent running to Glasshold to request aid, only to come back injured and shaken and near tears because Glasshold had no hands to spare, they were seeing to securing other larger, more profitable settlements first.
They were on their own.
That night those things had finally attacked. The militia held them off as much as they could, giving others time to flee. Pa had joined them. He wasn’t a fighter. Rimiri had begged him not to, begged him to come with her, then tried to stay and fight with him.
Her pa had hugged her, so very hard. Hand smoothing down the back of her hair like he used to do when she woke to nightmares as a child.
And then just as quickly, he released her and pushed her firmly back until someone else’s arms caught at her. One of the young farmers, who was also fleeing.
“I love you, Riri.” Her pa had said even as he turned to join the militiamen, sword in hand. To the farmer: “Take her, and don’t you dare let her come back here, boy.” The farmer had carried her off, he was stronger than her and more keen on listening to her father than listening to her. There had simply been no time to stay and argue the point.
Rimiri knew that was the last she’d ever see of her pa.
She had cried, truly cried, and she was not the least bit proud of that fact, but she had cried and begged them to let her go back or to convince her pa to come with them, and nobody had listened to her.
Her pa had played dirty, too – the farmer boy he entrusted her to, a sturdy young man a few years older than her named Sorrel, was sweet on her and not at all keen to see her die a fool’s death simply because her pa had decided that was the way he’d go out.
The survivors, all 21 of them, had spent 3 nights in the cold harsh wilderness. Surviving on small game and whatever meager scraps they’d been able to pack before fleeing. Fending off the lone draugr here and there. Trying to make their way back towards Glasshold, hoping they might seek refuge there or in one of the larger villages along the way. But they had an awful long way to go. Their villages had been truly frontier settlements, quite far from any major city or village. Valuable only in that they had decent lumberjacks, carpenters, and millwrights, and access to a river to move goods further in the direction of Glasshold by boat.
The fourth day… they had thought they were done for. A horde found them. Not a huge one, only maybe 20 in number, but…
Nobody in their group was a fighter. Not really. They were mostly women, children, farmers… the makeshift militia back at the village had been mostly their lumberjacks, armed with axes and a few swords. And they’d either all died or been unable to catch up yet… and that included her pa.
Sorrel and the few of the farmers had only a few tools to turn into makeshift weapons. A hoe. A sickle. Not much else, they’d obviously not been thinking – oh yes let me take my farming tools while fleeing undead monsters.
Rimiri had a dagger. No idea how to use it, but willing to try if it gave the mothers and children time to escape. She stood next to Sorrel, holding the dagger in shaky hands until he traded it with her for his hoe – giving her a tool with more reach, easier to keep a target at a distance that way. She would have thought it was sweet if she hadn’t been so certain they were both about to die.
And then…
Loud echoing sharp snaps, like a whip cracking next to your ear. Rimiri flinched hard, as did the others. Some even dropped to the ground, fearing it was some attack from the undead things, maybe.
Crack! Crack-crack-crack!
One, five, eight shots. Each one met with a sick impact of rotting flesh of a draugr, each one sending the chosen draugr down, where it did not move again. The shots came again and again, until the entire horde was down. They’d not even gotten close to the fleeing villagers or the handful of people lined up to fend them off.
That was how Rimiri, Sorrel, and the rest of the fleeing villagers met Riona and her team.
That was how they came to be refugees taken in by Threeburrow.
Threeburrow was a rather interesting place. Rimiri had met all sorts of people while apprenticing all over Glasshold, had met a kobold once before, and had seen a goblin innkeeper once on the outskirts of the city. She’d never met a gnoll before, though. And all she knew of all 3 species was simply that they were outcasts. Looked down upon, though Rimiri is not entirely sure why except that they’re not human and they’re not northern human specifically.
She had yet to have a negative experience with any of them, and her pa had raised her to be fair and kind to everyone until given a reason to be anything to the contrary. He had always said that’s a lesson her mum would have wanted her to have. And, well, the people of Threeburrow were, in fact, fair and kind. More than that, really.
The village survivors had been cold and hungry and frightened when they arrived at Threeburrow. They had immediately been given warm food, blankets, and a place to rest. A few of the injured ones in their group were tended to with potions and…
A healer. A real healer.
Oh. Oh that was… rare. Ridiculously rare, even in big cities like Glasshold. And insanely expensive. And how did a settlement of outcast species have a real life elven healer??
Rimiri chose not to dwell on the how and merely accepted it for the blessing that it was. The healer’s name was Ironha. She was rather nice, actually, and amiable to letting others watch and learn from her. She had an apprentice, as well, and was actively teaching a small group of people how to work on wounds and magical injuries.
A few of the students had these odd devices they were using while learning. Rimiri wasn’t really sure what they were. She'd seen other devices around Threeburrow, too. Strange small things that had voices inside them. Only a few people had those, and nobody had really explained what they were yet.
Rimiri had been learning quite a lot since they arrived here, just over a week ago. Threeburrow was managed by a three-person council. Ygrana oversaw the goblins, Kraggir oversaw the kobolds, and Rurran oversaw the gnolls. The goblins seemed to be the normal laborers of the group, though some of the gnolls worked alongside them. Other refugees did too. The gnolls hunted and provided defense directly around the settlement, while small mixed-species teams wielding the strange weapons that made the cracking sounds patrolled the area further afield. The kobolds primarily worked in the mines below, and in a few small forges outside. Naturally, Rimiri was drawn to the forges.
There she learned the primary resource being mined here was, in fact, mana stones. Rare, hard to obtain, usually only found in very dangerous places. But valuable. The raw mana stones were extracted from the mines, taken to the forges, and processed. Impurities removed. From there, many of the mana stones were sent out from Threeburrow to an allied settlement Rimiri had heard of quite a bit now, and where Ironha and her apprentice apparently had come from: Furoughfore.
Rimiri had taken to helping in the forges. Hammering out nails, fixing tools, helping with the mana stone refinements once she was shown how to. So much work, and learning new things, she’d gained another level in just a week’s time. Level 12 now. And her class evolved into Ironforge Refiner. Which, of course, made her work harder, because it was helping her grow, but mostly because it gave her something to do.
Because if she didn’t have something to do, she’d think about her pa.
There were other refugees in Threeburrow, and apparently a good amount in Furoughfore. Many of them had lost someone. All of them had lost homes and their old lives. Rimiri kept reminding herself she’s not the only one to lose someone here. There are children here that have become orphaned from the draugr attacks. And they were running around playing with goblin and kobold and gnoll children. She was not a child. She was a blacksmith, and an adult now. She could handle this. Her pa raised her to handle anything. He’d raised her to be strong, to be kind where she could be kind, to keep her chin up, her shoulders squared, and her hands steady.
Sorrel stopped by the forges to visit her often. He was helping Threeburrow where he could, helping with repairs, manual labor, even trying his hand in the mines. Little success so far, but his attempts to help had been appreciated by Threeburrow all the same. He often brought her some bread and a waterskin, because he knew she tended to forget to eat and drink when she was in the swing of things. He was always checking to make sure she was okay. It was sweet of him, and it meant… a lot. To her. She almost forgave him for making her leave her pa behind.
She was busy working at the forge when newcomers came into the settlement. With the biggest damn goat she’d ever seen in her life. What in the world… and… wait is that an Orc-kin? Yes, it definitely is. She’s tall and strong-looking, with armor impressive enough to make Rimiri’s hands itch to examine it closer – she should have looked into armorer apprenticeships in Glasshold. And a big war hammer that even someone with Rimiri’s low blacksmith-variant level could tell is definitely enchanted someway somehow.
The orc woman came in with the giant goat thing that was pulling a wagon, a human man at the drivers seat, a beast-kin woman with a small rabbit-like creature on her shoulder, and a young gnoll Rimiri had not seen at Threeburrow yet. What an interesting group. Riona’s team escorted them in, talking easily to them. One of the goblin foregmasters saw Rimiri staring and supplied names to her. Mazoga. Marron. Tanna. Those three come from Furoughfore and had apparently gone to Glasshold for trading. The gnoll was Rurrak, related to Rurran. Rimiri took this information in and nodded. Truly, these two settlements were so… interesting. Diverse.
The newcomers came in and got settled and started tending to matters. At one point Rimiri saw Ironha usher all of them toward the place that had been designated for the sick and injured, likely to give them all a proper exam. Rimiri kept working.
Sorrel came again near evening, bringing enough bread to share and two bowls of stew, and enough concern in his eyes to convince Rimiri to finish for the day and actually eat something. They sat on the ground against the side of the forge, close enough that she could lean against him if she wanted to. It was quieter over here, less rowdy with kids running around and away from all the excitement over the return of the orc-kin’s group. Sorrel was a bit quieter than usual tonight, and kept looking at her while she picked at her food. Worried, no doubt, but maybe also chewing something else over. And then he took a slow breath and spoke.
“There’s a small group of us likely to head over to Furoughfore in a few days,” he told her while tearing apart a piece of dense bread and dipping it into his stew. Rimiri glanced up at him. He took a moment to chew before continuing. “I’m… not very useful down here. I carry things around for people, but… my class is in farming.” Rimiri nodded quietly, she knew this. Her chest ached just a little, stomach twisting, she could already see the direction this conversation was heading. “I… I know you’re waiting here to see if the scouting parties come across your pa and the others. But it’s been over a week already. If… if they were going to make it-”
“Don’t. Please, Sorrel.” Rimiri asked quietly, looking down into her bowl. She could already feel her eyes stinging. She could not hear that. She could not handle it. She knew he was right, even without him spelling it out – if her pa was going to make it, he’d have wound up here already. She knew. She just… she couldn’t handle hearing someone say it out loud. If it wasn’t said out loud, it couldn’t be final.
Sorrel, to his credit, took it in stride. His expression was entirely apologetic. Gentle, and sad on her behalf. “There’s space for fields up in Furoughfore, I’m told. Better forges, too. Plus, more of a need for smiths and farmers, since they're growing nicely.” He continued, skirting around his previous line because he knew it would be too painful for her. He had always been considerate like that. It’s why her pa had liked him, and had encouraged him when he realized Sorrel was rather taken with her. Rimiri liked Sorrel, too, and she knew… she knew Sorrel had been planning to ask her pa about possibly courting her. All official-like. That had been before all this had happened, of course.
“I heard they do more things with mana stones up there. And that there are ore deposits in the mountain that could be mined and worked with, in time.” Sorrel carried on, looking at her fully now. “It would be a really good place for you to learn more about your new class. And maybe get some more levels or skills.”
Rimiri looked up at him properly now, taking him in, and realizing what he was suggesting. Fields for his farming class to be useful. Potential for her Ironforge Refiner class to grow. The silent bitter truth under it all: her pa likely had not made it. Waiting here much longer will serve no one. We would both be more useful there.
And Sorrel’s unspoken question she could see clearly in his eyes now.
Will you come with me?
She blinked a few times, looking down again, hating that she could feel tears in her eyes. He was right. She knew he was right. She hated that he was right… hated it very much. But she couldn’t hate him for it. He was just trying to look out for her. He was trying to be there for her, in his own way, after she had lost her father. He’d lost his home, just the same as she had. They both had to start over from the ground up, and that start had to happen somewhere. Better a place where their skills and classes would be of better use.
“Riri?” Sorrel asked gently when she hadn’t said anything for a while. The nickname was bittersweet. Her mum’s nickname for her as a baby had turned into her pa’s teasing pet-name for her. Sorrel was the only one she had let call her that, aside from them. She turned her eyes back up to him, struggling very hard against the tears, and nodded.
“I’ll go with you. To Furoughfore.” She told him quietly. He seemed relieved by that, if also a bit saddened, as well.
“I’ll let the others know.”
They ate mostly in silence after that. And when Rimiri leaned against him, he put his arm around her shoulders, and politely said nothing to the fact that she was crying. Just held her a little closer while chatter and laughter came from the background, from the burrows where people were gathering to eat together and catch up with people they’d missed and had been able to see again.
It was perhaps only an hour later, when Rimiri was heading toward where she and a few other women had set up cots, that a call came from the main gates and someone was sent running, calling for a healer. Rimiri tensed, worried, and hesitated to head inside. She looked toward the gates as they opened just enough to let in a small party, one of the scouting parties with the strange weapons. A few haggard-looking human men stumbled in with them. One of the gnoll scouts was struggling under the weight of the very bulky man he fire-carried over his shoulders. A human man with shaggy blond hair and a very distinct old burn scar on his left forearm.
Rimiri froze.
Ironha rushed past her, coming outside from within one of the burrows, asking crisp pointed questions. Something about necrotic disease and how advanced was it? Then even Ironha looked relieved at the answer from the scout.
“Good, the potion should take care of that easily. No other injuries?”
“No, just the one.”
“He’s quite lucky then. Let’s get him inside.” Ironha said, taking control of the scene easily.
Rimiri just kept staring. Frozen. Focused entirely at that scar that was entirely too familiar and praying, begging, pleading with any deity that would listen to please, please, please not let his be a cruel joke. And when the gnoll shifted his burden and the human man’s face was shown just a bit better…
Rimiri couldn’t hold back her sob of relief.
Pa!