Continued from here.
In fact, it did not take mere moments to construct a workable forge area. Rorom underestimated just how much heat was needed to make a metal shaping-hot. An open flame simply wouldn't suffice. They'd need a rotary blower, a furnace, and fuel enough to burn for their purposes.
Rorom, to his credit, had at least assembled a makeshift anvil, which was an arrangement of ingots slotted on top of a wooden board. Not great, but enough to craft a series of nails, and perhaps even some fish hooks for the nets they'd get to making.
So the basics having been assembled, it was not quite enough for their purposes of building a forge. Rorom had to bring in Mastrel a few times, to figure the construction of a larger forge. They pooled what they knew of mud-brick construction between Mastrel's knowledge of building materials, and Rorom's knowledge of gathering and surveying for earthen materials. This turned out a more or less simple task, once they directed the villagers to gathering the dirt they'd need, and another set of villagers to gather some plant fibers from near the river. The proximity of Havardr to Scaltoth made the finding of the plant fibers easy, although many were understandably superstitious, avoidant of the Scaltoth for its dark reputation.
When night came on the first of the crew's stay in the village, they listened to the villagers tales of harrowing warning, of fright-filled souls harried by tattooed and masked women from a cannibal village in the northern Scaltoth.
"And so..." Said one villager, reciting a horror story during which many of the men folk of their village were taken as meat-animals, while a few women were taken for conversion to their vile and blasphemous cult. "The last they ever knew of their kin were the cook-fires, rising in plumes over the Scaltoth..."
Rorom shuddered to hear it, wondering what could drive mortal souls to engage in such depravity. Likely they were born into it, but what madness could prompt a person to be converted to such a lifestyle, as there were many accounts where women were taken to bolster their ranks.
He shook his head, trying to clear the very concept of a tribe on their borders, that would take captives for nothing more than an evening meal. Why had the government of this island not done anything about the savages on their doorstep? He supposed a few years of having self-rule after the despotism of the Pirate Lords wasn't quite enough to get that much done. But still...
They rose the next morning, renewing their efforts to build the half-constructed forge and rotary bellows with their decided mudbrick construction. They fired the bricks level by level as they went, villagers contributing small sticks and kindling to the fuel, while Rorom helped the process of lighting that fuel with the dancing of fire, by dint of his Defiance magics.
