Preparations

13. preparations.

“I am glad to hear that, I have sent for someone to reach out for our ancestor, I am sure she will be willing to help us.”

“Ancestor? You wouldn’t be talking about the dragon who gave birth to your species?”  I ask dreading the answer.

“Yes, I would. The speed of our travels would be incomparable to that if we just walked and time is of the essence here if we want to save as many people as we can.”

“So, what is our plan?” Luna asks her.

“We should probably head north, the races in the south are a lot more powerful and shouldn’t be affected by this dark power and even if they are they should be able to handle it. In the east the races are quite powerful but most can’t defend against the dark power but our power isn’t sufficient for helping them. Therefore, we must go north and grow stronger as we go along.”

“You should go to our blacksmith to get new equipment, it is free for you so get what you want.” Ong says.

“We will have dinner here so return by sunset. Until then you can do what you like here, everyone here is in your debt so they will treat you favorably.” The elder adds.

 We rise from the table and walk back to the corridor where you can see the city, we walk to the end of the corridor and Luna opens the door to outside.

“Well there are probably many powerful people in the world who will stop the skeleton lord so don’t worry about it too much thinking that the fate of the world is in our hands. We will mostly just save as much people as we can before the threat is dealt with.” Luna says as we walk outside.

That’s probably correct, even though saving the world sounds nice we will mostly only save people on this trip but it is still an important thing to do.

“Yes, but saving people is important and I am happy as long as we are able to do as much as we can for them.” I announce.

We keep walking and soon reach the village.

“I really need to get a replacement for my sword and shield, all I have is the dagger Ryan gave me.”

“Yeah, and I need a new shield. I can get a few replacements for Ryan´s daggers.”

“Shouldn’t we just get all get new armors as we are here? We will be fighting a lot from now on so might as, well right?” Alice says.

“Yes, we should get new armor here even if our old ones aren’t broken, as long as the quality here is decent enough. We don’t know when we will get another chance like this and there are lives at stake including ours, it is not a time to be considerate or modest.” Luna says with a strict tone while looking at me.

Sure, I was thinking that maybe it would be too imposing to just barge in there and ask to take everything when some of our armors still work fine and all but I guess she does make a point.

“Fine but at least give them our old ones for some compensation we won’t need them anyway and they would only be excess package if we took them with us.”

“Spares are important but I guess carrying too much is more of an impairment in a long journey.”

“And our mobility would lessen and if we do not have time to drop our package in a fight they would just slow us down excessively.”

We reach the blacksmith after Martin asked a few people living here for directions. There is an anvil outside and a furnace and a dragonnier person hammering a glowing piece with a hammer on top of the anvil. As we walk closer the person looks up and stops hammering.

“Hey, you are the dwarves that saved us, right?”

The voice sounded like a woman’s voice that surprised me a little, I didn’t think that there would be woman blacksmiths in other races as well.

“We were told that we could get equipment here for free.” Luna says to the blacksmith.

“We are incredibly grateful for this and hope it won’t hurt your business too much.” I say quickly after Luna.

“Yes, feel free to take whatever you want and don’t worry I will be compensated for it of course. There is just one thing, the armors that have been made already are made for our people so they are too big for you guys.

Well the children size would fit you so there are a few but they all have holes in the back so our wings would fit through them. I can make a few armor pieces that fit you perfectly but a complete armor for all of you would be out of the question if I only have one night to finish them.”

“Then make breastplate armor pieces for Melissa, Ryan and Martin The rest of us can manage with the children armor pieces. The hand and leg parts shouldn’t be too different from ours so I think we will be all right.” Luna decides.

“Why us?” I ask her.

“Because you two are frontline and face the most danger and Ryan’s is completely destroyed after the last fight.” Luna explains.

“All right, fine.”

It feels too excess to get a custom-made armor piece when my old one is still fine but I can’t afford to mess up in a fight or the people behind me can get hurt.

Luna nods a little after I consented and then turned back to the blacksmith.

“You have weapons here, too right?”

“Yes, and if you need something special I can probably manage to make one in addition to the armor pieces.”

“We will go look inside and I will talk to you later if we need something. Ryan will be here later to get measurements so make the other ones first.”

“All right, Melissa can you come first to take measurements?”

“Yes.”

As I said that Alice walked up to the blacksmith and started whispering to her ear, at the end of it the blacksmith asks Alice if she is sure and after Alice nods.

“All right, Melissa come and I will take your measurements.”

I walk behind the blacksmith inside the house we walk past the shop part of the house where all kinds of armor pieces and weapons were lying around. There were few weapons on the walls and even fewer inside glass cases.

We go behind the counter and there is a doorway and we go through it, inside is a small room with leather pieces and small equipment. She tells me not to move and she started to measure with a piece of thread.

I want to ask about what Alice was talking to her about but I guess it’s a secret if she went all the way to whisper the things to her.

“How did you end up as a blacksmith?” I ask her instead.

“My father was a blacksmith so I just inherited it I guess.”

“Did you ever want to do something else than blacksmith?”

“I wanted to make clothes but I always did enjoy watching my father smith and it would be a waste not to become one as we have this place and all but I do make clothes on my free time too so it’s not like I decided to do either. Of course, I won’t become as great blacksmith as my father was because I do not focus solely on it but I think its fine.”

She looked quite sad when she said that and a tear rolled down her cheek.

“Are you all right?”

“Sorry it’s just that he died in the fire and I was trying to stay strong until I have made your armors but I really loved my father and I can’t believe he is gone.”

She started sobbing and well to her knees, I turned around and hugged her, her scales were warm and smooth to touch. I didn’t think that there were some that died in the fire. I grip her tighter as I think how I should have been faster in helping them. We stay like that for a moment before she wipes away her tears and stands up.

“Thank you for that, I have to get you your armors so you can go and save other people. I can’t make you waste your time for my sake.”

“It is all right.”

She continued to take measurements as I thought how I wanted to say that I was sorry for not being able to save her father but that wouldn’t make her feel better so I did not say it.

Chapter twelve. Chapter fourteen.