A busy morning

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The rhythmic pounding of a hammer on iron pierced the early morning silence. The ping of the hammer helped Markus to enter a trance like state, allowing his mind to wander to the events of the past few months.

The journey across the Sea of Storms, despite sounding awful, was somehow even worse than Markus had anticipated. Most of his time was spent below decks, trying (and failing) to not be ill. What little time he spent socializing did, however, result in him crossing paths with the master blacksmith of Lowood, who, upon learning of Markus’s qualifications, hired him on the spot.

“What a lucky coincidence…” Markus mused, losing focus and smashing himself in the thumb. He immediately screamed in agony, causing a flock of birds to lift off from a nearby tree. Upon regaining his composure, he began work again

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Once again, Markus began to reminisce.

Upon reaching the mainland, Markus began the brief process of unloading his gear, luckily, he did not pack very much, only the essentials. Soon thereafter, he began work on his first of many jobs working for the master blacksmith; horseshoes for a noble’s horse. Despite some muttered complaints about the undignified nature of the work, Markus got it done in record time.

As the days went on, the nature of his jobs became more and more important, beginning with repairing a helmet with large dent in the side. Upon asking the soldier what had happened to the helmet, the soldier said some obviously fabricated story of a monster attacking his unit. Upon being prompted to tell the truth, however, he confessed that he had slipped and hit a rock, and that it took three men to remove the helmet.

Thud

A loud sound startled Markus out of his head. A quick investigation revealed that he had gotten so lost in thought that he had knocked the spear head off of his anvil. A brief stream of profanities later, and he was off to the races again.

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In more recent times, Markus’s orders became more combat focused. Just the other day he was asked to repair three sets of scale mail, each with different pieces missing. Upon questioning, he could not get a concrete answer out of the officer who had brought him the pieces. In the same vein, most, if not all of his recent jobs have been repairing or crafting various weapons and armor for increasingly high ranking officials. In fact, all of his fellow blacksmiths have been having a steady increase in the number of weapons requested. Markus decided to think nothing of it.

Markus snapped out of his memories to realize that the spearhead was now deformed and fully cooled. He swore and put it back into the forge to melt again and be re-cast.
“Well, at least it’s a beautiful morning!” he said, to no one in particular, as he resumed his work.

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