Oslo grabbed the copper trumpet dangling from his hip with a rough, heavy motion. He set the engraved mouthpiece to his thick lips and blew a signal so sharp and shrill that it sliced through the entire workshop, shaking dust loose from the highest vaulted ceilings to drift down through the air.
Behind the wooden partitions, copper vats, and stacks of spare iron, about five Yerfs immediately came crawling into view. They literally tumbled over their own chubby paws, waving their hairy arms wildly while making nervous, squeaking sounds. Oslo looked down at the little creatures, dropped his heavy shoulders, and unleashed a torrent of unintelligible, babbling noises. It was a bizarre blend of clicks, grunts, and short commands. The Yerfs nodded so hard their entire bodies swayed, brought their hairy fists up to their foreheads in an exaggerated salute, and rolled like a bunch of possessed balls straight toward the dark back wall of the forge.
With a chorus of shrieks, stomping, and heavy panting, the creatures dragged a massive wooden board onto an intact stretch of the forge floor beside the jagged crater left by Renuardo’s landing. The thing was twice as tall as they were and stood upside down, caked in a thick, greasy layer of soot and sawdust. Oslo approached it with long, heavy strides, grabbed the upper rim, and flipped the entire board around with one massive pull.
“LOOK AT THIS…” the blacksmith roared, slamming his open palm against the wood with a dull, thundering crash. “…MY MASTERPIECE!”
The board was a colossal explosion of information. Sheets of rice paper soaked in black ink hung everywhere, alongside yellowed geometric sketches and extremely detailed blueprints of Thokcha armor. Black lines crisscrossed across the paper, connecting drawn runes, names of forgotten Void techniques, and even page numbers referencing ancient chronicles of the Voidslinger. Mounted along the edges of the wood were small, hand-carved figurines illustrating the strangest combat stances.
Oslo tapped his knobby finger forcefully against one of the largest sketches. “We start at the first concept! Something that comes remarkably close to the legendary Void Doppelgänger!” He turned his head and stared at Faustus with wide eyes. “You split off a portion of your Void and grant it a temporary, humanoid form. Not a simple illusion or a weak clone, you understand? More like an autonomous Void Avatar! That way you can chill at the edge of the battlefield enjoying the view… while your Void Avatar utterly demolishes the entire fight fifty meters away. And when the situation demands it, you teleport straight to that avatar without a single second of delay! That is how a real Voidslinger is supposed to fight!”
Faustus stared at the ink drawing on the paper. The image of a dark entity moving independently from its host made the hairs on his arms stand up.
“But we’ve barely scratched the surface!” Oslo continued excitedly. The oil flow in his heavy goggles clacked upward as his thick thumb slid over to a second blueprint. “Partially turning your own body into Void! No more of that simple flashing from point A to point B. No, you need to learn how to let individual muscle groups and bones liquefy directly into the shadows! Picture this: an enemy swings a devastating strike straight at your chest. At the exact moment of impact, your entire torso transforms into pure Void, and that fist passes right through you without leaving a single scratch! Or you shift just a single arm. An enemy blade cuts right through your shadow arm, while your other physical hand cold bloodedly slashes their throat!”
The old blacksmith grinned so impossibly wide that his ragged gray beard nearly covered his eyes. “And the coolest part of it all: letting a body part temporarily exist completely detached from your physical location! Your hand disappears into the Void right near your own shoulder blade… and pops out on the other side of the room right next to your opponent’s head! Or how about pulling Void weapons directly out of yourself? From dark chains to razor sharp spears, from a massive scythe to God knows what else you can dream up!”
Silence descended over the testing platform. Everyone stared at the board and the blacksmith’s overwhelming explanation with wide eyes and silent bewilderment. This went so much deeper than the simple shadow flashing Faustus had relied on until now.
Faustus stared in complete disbelief at the intricate patterns, slowly passed his hand over his face, and let out a deep sigh. “Wait… are you actually serious right now, Oslo?” Faustus asked, his voice cracking with pure fascination. “I have literally never… and I mean never, thought this deeply about my own powers. I always thought I could just slip through shadows and move around quickly. But this? A detached arm popping out of thin air meters away, pulling weapons out of my own shadow, dissolving my whole torso when someone swings at me? Man… that is on a completely, completely different level!”
Oslo swelled instantly with pure pride. He set his massive hands deep onto his hips and let out a low, satisfied rumble.
“Honestly,” Faustus continued, a broad, almost wild grin spreading across his face, “you completely shattered my entire idea of what I can do in a single blow and rebuilt it from scratch. This is genuinely the most insane shit I’ve ever seen.”
Silarias and Nyx turned their heads at the exact same time. They looked at Davinci with inquiring, almost jealous expressions. “Uhh…” Silarias began, pointing a finger toward the papers on the wooden board. “Our gears aren’t final, right? We’re definitely going to get a deep dive like this into our powers later too!”
Davinci rested his staff calmly on the stone, chuckled softly into his beard, and shook his head at his own leisure. “All in good time, kids. This is only our very first day in this workshop.”
Silarias and Nyx exchanged glances and burst into a short, relieved laugh together.
Faustus stepped onto the intact stretch of platform beside the crater and began putting Oslo’s initial instructions into practice. He channeled the dark energy of his Void through his forearms. The finely tuned Thokcha responded almost instantly; the milled runes began pulsing with a deep, purple black glow, smoothly adopting the frequency. Oslo stood at the edge of the circle, practically shaking with anticipation. Seeing a true Voidslinger bring his designs to life brought a wild, almost childish spark to the old blacksmith’s eyes.
No Oslo, focus… you can really build something incredible here, the blacksmith told himself in a brief, intense inner monologue, clenching his heavy fists so tightly that his knuckles turned white to keep himself from bouncing around out of pure excitement.
Faustus felt an unusually warm sense of satisfaction rising as he witnessed that intense dedication. He could see in every line on the board how much care, time, and raw precision Oslo had poured into these concepts. Hard to grasp that someone put this much effort into my powers, Faustus thought to himself, feeling the flow of shadow energy slice through his wrists. Well… maybe I should just embrace it. I have a sneaking suspicion that Davinci is secretly a massive fan of all those old Voidslinger stories too.
Oslo observed the first successful shadow swirls forming tightly around Faustus’s gauntlets and rubbed his soot covered forehead wearily. He wanted to bring today’s trial to a slow close. “Good, good… we better continue this another day. You lot must be starving by now. Little humans have big appetites… go take proper care of yourselves first!”
Miki and Ren immediately started jumping enthusiastically from the sidelines. “Yes! Food! Food!”
In the background, the dozens of Yerfs were already slowly packing away the crates, heavy wrenches, and loose parts. But before anyone could take a single step toward the massive exit, a deep, absurdly confident voice rang out from the stone testing platform.
“HMMM… so… take a real good look.”
Oslo, Davinci, and the rest of the group turned around in one fluid motion. Faustus stood beside the crater on the intact stretch of the testing area. A slick grin adorned his face as he gave a subtle wink and a signal to a few Yerfs standing near the wooden hoists.
Three Yerfs reacted instantly. They grabbed a massive copper pulley and pulled down with all their weight. Three heavy, wooden storage crates and a whole line of massive training dummies were catapulted high into the air at breathtaking speed.
Faustus broke into a hard sprint along the intact strip of forge floor, cut sharply around the crater’s broken rim, and transformed into a series of flashing, pitch black shadow streaks in a fraction of a second. He shot a densely compressed ball of Void energy straight upward, flashed behind it at neck breaking speed, and sat right on top of it mid flight. With his head and shoulders entirely enveloped in a temporary coating of black, liquid Void, he wove mid air between the floating dummies and crates. Performing downright impossible maneuvers, he flashed from point to point. With every warp, he tagged each crate and dummy in a fraction of a millisecond, leaving an invisible charge of shadow power behind.
With a loud, atmospheric bang, he flashed back down. He landed firmly and silently on the clear stretch beside the crater. Loose fragments along its broken rim rattled with the force of his arrival. He raised his two hands, blew briefly across his fingertips as if they were two smoking revolver barrels, and casually stowed his hands away.
On his very first step forward, all the floating crates and dummies high above him exploded simultaneously. A massive shockwave of thousands of wooden splinters and padding filled the air, completely obliterated by the delayed impact of his Void projectiles.
Davinci and Oslo hyped up the fantastic spectacle to the absolute max. Oslo began screeching so absurdly hard out of pure, unadulterated excitement that his voice cracked completely. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he passed out cold with a dull thud against the oak balustrade.
Davinci fought with everything he had to hold back his roaring laughter, coughed quickly a few times, and gestured toward the gate with a wide sweep of his arm. “Come, come… we need to head back anyway. Time to get something to eat, students.”
Miki and Ren immediately leaped meters into the air with joy. “Yeees! Food! Awesome! I’m hungry enough to eat two kids!” Miki shouted, while the rest of the fighters laughed loudly like a bunch of ravenous teenagers and began ambling out behind Davinci.
Zax adjusted the sleeping Bonk across his shoulders and followed carefully, keeping his brother’s head clear of the doorway. Miki and Ren hurried up to the observation walkway to collect Renuardo. Each took one of his forearms, and together they dragged him toward the exit, his heels scraping along the stone. They paused at the steps and eased him down between them before resuming their determined march across the forge floor.
Renuardo lifted his head just enough to look back. Beside the crater, the winged Dire Wolf, the feathered turtle, and the Bulletshrimp dissolved into faint streams of spiritual light. The last glimmers faded as Miki and Ren hauled him past the scattered rubble toward the gate.
At the threshold, a small Yerfian hurried after Miki, holding a delicate metal tiara above its head with both hairy paws. It gave her sleeve a hesitant tug.
Miki stopped. Ren kept hold of Renuardo’s other arm while she gently lowered her side and crouched toward the little creature. The tiara was a slender band with a few small, rounded points, its polished edges catching the furnace light.
“For me?” she asked, glancing from the ornament to the Yerfian with the uncertain wonder of a child being handed an unexpected present.
The creature pushed it toward her. Miki accepted it carefully in both hands.
“I… uh, thank you, little friend.”
The Yerfian let out a piercing squeal, spun around, and fled into the workshop, its tiny feet pattering frantically across the stone. It vanished behind a copper vat before Miki could say anything else.
She blinked after it, then looked down at the tiara. A small smile softened her face as she settled it into her hair. She took Renuardo’s arm again, and she and Ren resumed dragging him through the doorway.
Faustus and Silarias were the very last to remain standing by the massive, open gate. They watched with crooked grins as the unconscious Oslo was grabbed by his arms, legs, and beard by at least thirty Yerfs all at once and dragged across the stone floor. Two of those tiny, fluffy creatures gave a cute goodbye wave to the pair, until a third Yerf grabbed them by the scruff of their necks to make them help carry the weight.
Faustus and Silarias both laughed out loud at the bizarre sight. Nyx, who caught one absolute last glimpse of the dragging Yerfs right before the heavy doors shut, shook her head laughing.
Silarias looked at the small, hardworking creatures and spoke with a genuine, warm tone in his voice: “different or not… I’m glad those furballs are alive. I really wish them nothing but the best.”
Nicola stepped up beside him, looked back one last time at the steaming workshop, and added: “Yeah… and they’re a whole lot smarter than you’d think.”
The heavy, iron-bound oak doors of the forge slammed shut behind the group with a deep, echoing CLANG. The suffocating heat, the dense azure steam, and the biting scent of molten iron abruptly gave way to the sharp, crisp mountain air.
Outside, the cold mountain air brushed their uncovered faces and stirred the hair damp against their foreheads. None of the Thokcha prototypes included a helmet. Miki’s small tiara caught a brief glint of light as she bent to adjust her grip on Renuardo.
The test gear varied from one wearer to the next. Heavier plates protected some shoulders and chests, while narrower, articulated pieces followed other bodies more closely. Visible seams, exposed fittings, and the marks of the trials made it clear that these were still working prototypes. Beat’s damaged shoulder plate and Apollo’s ruined forearm guards bore particularly clear evidence of the afternoon’s limits.
Faustus’s protection remained a light weave of dark fabric infused with Thokcha, moving softly around him instead of enclosing him in the same heavy plates as the others. The temporary coating of Void around his head had already dispersed, leaving his face bare.
As they moved, overlapping sections shifted at their joints, and faint traces of power flickered along the conductors they had spent the afternoon testing. They examined what had held, what had failed, and what Oslo might eventually make of it. Their permanent gear was still ahead of them.
For now, their rumbling stomachs took priority.
Davinci strolled casually ahead of them. He leaned comfortably on his engraved staff, the bottom of his wooden instrument producing a clear TAP on the stone path with every stride.
“So, my students…” Davinci began in a calm, measured voice. He didn’t even look back, but a subtle, mysterious smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “You know you’ve achieved great things today… so step inside.”
Nicola and Silarias exchanged raised eyebrows. Before either could ask where they were supposed to step inside, the mountain wall beside them began to tremble.
A low, deep resonance pulsed through the stone beneath their feet. Out from the dense shadows of the ravine wall rose a grotesque, gigantic Scarab. The mechanical creature was so colossal that its gleaming, gold-black shell swallowed the entire width of the path. Nicola looked from its shell to the group. Miki, Ren, Jane, Aurelius, Apollo, Beat, Faustus, Renuardo, Nyx, Silarias, Nicola, Lyn, Lila, Kaelid, Vulkan, Valeria, Bonk, Zax, Izamaru, and Balamore. Twenty people, with their armor and weapons, and two of them still needing to be carried or dragged. Surely they could not all fit inside that thing.
He opened his mouth to say so, but a raw, hydraulic shriek cut him off. Steam discharged from the Scarab as its two giant wing shells slowly folded upward.
The opening that appeared was no ordinary doorway. As soon as Miki and Ren leaned forward curiously, they stared inside with wide eyes. The interior pulled the light inward in a magical vacuum. It was no cramped box, but a colossal, covered hall fitted with soft, leather-upholstered benches, floating crystal lighting, and wooden tables. The inside seemed tens of meters wider than the Scarab’s exterior could ever allow.
From the depths of the beautifully illuminated interior, Davinci’s relaxed voice echoed out, having apparently already claimed the best, most luxurious spot and crossed one leg over his knee: “Come take a seat, everyone…”
The pupils gathered in a half-circle before the open, steaming wing of the Scarab. Zax still carried Bonk across his shoulders, while Miki and Ren lowered Renuardo’s arms and let him rest on the ground between them. They looked at the giant doorway, glanced at one another in hesitation, and wondered if they should truly just step right into the belly of this magical beast.