Etzos 718th Arc Cylus 29th
Political turmoil, thieves and strife, nothing new to Etzos, or anywhere really, Jeryn was content to be away from all of it so long as it didn’t affect him. Things were occasionally interesting from his self imposed outsider perspective, from the thefts to the parades to the musicians. However the most recent thievery had inadvertently created work for him. Arms and armor had been stolen, and with the military experiencing a deficit of gear it fell upon Etzos’s smiths to replace the gear. On government coin to boot.
His employer and he himself generally veered away from the arms business, primarily making day to day metal goods, however one does not simply turn down a request from the military. Pulling his mind back to his work from his ruminations as to why he was doing said work he looked at the long flat plate of metal before him that he was to shape into a breastplate. In theory it was a simple task. Get it hit and beat it into shape. That was because, it was in fact, a simple task. This fact didn’t however make him feel any better about doing it.
Placing the metal sheet above the coals of the forge he watched the metal go from dull grey to brown to blue to finally a cherry red before taking it back to the anvil to beat on it more. The more he beat on the cener the more the edges curled up and began to round out. The rule of thumb was to beat the metal into submission and force it into the shape he wanted, the order was simple and bulk, so the breastplates being made were by no means masterwork and weren’t expected to be the prettiest things in the world as long as they functioned to finesse was not the modus operandi of the day. Thus the mundane work continued. Between the apprentice on the bellows and himself beating on the would be breastplate the smithy sounded of work more so than it had in a while as the smiths labored hard to fit the order as quickly as possible. His job was consistent in that it was his duty to create the shape needed, another smith worked on the quenching and tempering and a last on fitting the breastplate with leather straps, so long as they all worked at a relatively even pace they were able to churn out a plate every 3 bells or so.
Thus the morning began, heating and hammering, heating and hammering, heating and cursing the fates and heating and hammering. He didn’t mind the work, there was always a certain pleasure in doing his craft, watching as his arm fell with the hammer and the metal took from as a result, the shape of a man’s torso etched in steel. Looking to his work he marveled at the simplicity of the design. Breastplates and cuirass’s were two of the more common metal forms of relatively cheap armor, but they were worth the upgrade from leather for a myriad of reasons, the curved shape that neither flexes or bends repels both arrows and blades, not simply by absorbing or stopping them, but by deflecting them, the curvature adding a layer of armor beyond just the hardness of steel. He didn’t know what man had made the realization that something so simple as a curve could change so much about the effectiveness of armor but he had definitely been a wise smith. Smiling ruefully at the thought the smith went back to hammering with a smile on his face, the thought of someday himself making groundbreaking discovery spurring his efforts on.
Political turmoil, thieves and strife, nothing new to Etzos, or anywhere really, Jeryn was content to be away from all of it so long as it didn’t affect him. Things were occasionally interesting from his self imposed outsider perspective, from the thefts to the parades to the musicians. However the most recent thievery had inadvertently created work for him. Arms and armor had been stolen, and with the military experiencing a deficit of gear it fell upon Etzos’s smiths to replace the gear. On government coin to boot.
His employer and he himself generally veered away from the arms business, primarily making day to day metal goods, however one does not simply turn down a request from the military. Pulling his mind back to his work from his ruminations as to why he was doing said work he looked at the long flat plate of metal before him that he was to shape into a breastplate. In theory it was a simple task. Get it hit and beat it into shape. That was because, it was in fact, a simple task. This fact didn’t however make him feel any better about doing it.
Placing the metal sheet above the coals of the forge he watched the metal go from dull grey to brown to blue to finally a cherry red before taking it back to the anvil to beat on it more. The more he beat on the cener the more the edges curled up and began to round out. The rule of thumb was to beat the metal into submission and force it into the shape he wanted, the order was simple and bulk, so the breastplates being made were by no means masterwork and weren’t expected to be the prettiest things in the world as long as they functioned to finesse was not the modus operandi of the day. Thus the mundane work continued. Between the apprentice on the bellows and himself beating on the would be breastplate the smithy sounded of work more so than it had in a while as the smiths labored hard to fit the order as quickly as possible. His job was consistent in that it was his duty to create the shape needed, another smith worked on the quenching and tempering and a last on fitting the breastplate with leather straps, so long as they all worked at a relatively even pace they were able to churn out a plate every 3 bells or so.
Thus the morning began, heating and hammering, heating and hammering, heating and cursing the fates and heating and hammering. He didn’t mind the work, there was always a certain pleasure in doing his craft, watching as his arm fell with the hammer and the metal took from as a result, the shape of a man’s torso etched in steel. Looking to his work he marveled at the simplicity of the design. Breastplates and cuirass’s were two of the more common metal forms of relatively cheap armor, but they were worth the upgrade from leather for a myriad of reasons, the curved shape that neither flexes or bends repels both arrows and blades, not simply by absorbing or stopping them, but by deflecting them, the curvature adding a layer of armor beyond just the hardness of steel. He didn’t know what man had made the realization that something so simple as a curve could change so much about the effectiveness of armor but he had definitely been a wise smith. Smiling ruefully at the thought the smith went back to hammering with a smile on his face, the thought of someday himself making groundbreaking discovery spurring his efforts on.