Chapter Seven: In the Palm of Your Hand
Bobby was completely disoriented by the trip through the portal. Though more ordinary, it was very different than the flume; he just stepped through and was gone. God knows where he could've been. Bobby looked around, though, and found he was in Lumbridge once more. Animous turned toward him.
"Bobby, I am a man of action. It's my belief that talking is usually a waste of time, so I will only say this once.
I am here to teach you how to create and use a sword. I will not teach you any garbage about 'The Way of the Sword' because the sword is not a way of life. It is far simpler than that. One who knows how to use a sword well will know that the sword is nothing more and nothing less than Fate. The sword is life and death in the palm of your hand. The true Swords, swords with power, swords beyond our ability to create, swords that from realms unknown, swords such as mine, are not mere steel; they are thinking, living creatures. And if you have a strong connection with such a sword, if it chooses you, you can harness its true abilities.
But before you can use a real Sword, you must be able to use the crude, mortal replications of them. And even still, the best results will come if you yourself make the sword. To that end, I shall take you into various mines and teach you to extract your materials, refine them, forge your weaponry, and use it. Follow me."
Animous led Bobby south, down the one road in the swamp village. The road led them into the swamp proper. As Bobby looked toward the west, he shuddered at the thought of what might be lurking inside. Across the river to the east, Bobby vaguely thought he saw a desert. The road took them far south. They saw little along the way save for some fishermen. Eventually, they reached a small, hallowed out area with a number of oddly colored rocks jutting out of the ground.
Animous showed Bobby how to identify mineable rocks by the color of the rocks or else by colored veins crawling all over the rocks. He then produced a simple, bronze pick. He demonstrated to Bobby how precisely to strike the rock with the pick to break it open. Then, by striking the core of the rocks, you can extract the precious metals from inside. Animous struck the rock with such force that it broke open instantly and the ore could be extracted. Bobby then approached the rock confidently.
He took a swing at the rock... and it barely made a scratch. Animous looked at him smugly. Bobby then realized that Animous was either much, much stronger than he was, or else a miner so experienced that he could notice and exploit the flaws in the simple rock almost instantly. Or both. It took Bobby three hours to extract the ore, which Animous told him was merely copper. He then took Bobby to a different rock with dull, grey veins. Two hours later, Bobby held tin ore. Animous spoke again.
"It took you longer than I'd hoped, but there you have it. Now, that there is enough ore to make one bronze bar. You will need about fifteen bars to make the armor you need, so you will need 14 more ores of each. Wake me when you are done."
He leaned against a rock and fell asleep. He seemed to know that this task would take forever for the inexperience miner, and it pissed Bobby off. He worked at the rocks in a frenzy, determined to be done before Animous woke up. But despite the fact that he worked himself down to ten minutes a rock, he still needed three more of each when Animous woke. As the master continued to watch, the apprentice worked until he finally rent the last rock with a single blow, just as Animous had done.
Satisfied, Animous took him out of the swamp and up north to the village once more and over to a furnace. Wordlessly, he demonstrated to Bobby how to spot the flaws in the metal, and also how to solidify the ores into the bronze alloy. Using the mould in the furnace, Bobby was soon able to create 15 bronze bars. Animous then led him to an anvil in his home city of Varrock. It was a rather long run, but Bobby was determined to be the equal to Animous in terms of endurance. He failed, but at least it was only a few minutes before Bobby caught up with Animous at the city.
Animous went to the walls of the smithy and removed a simple sword. He showed this to Bobby, what would be the finishing product of his first creation. Bobby took the metal to the anvil and began forging the sword, with careful instruction from Animous. It took hours of work, but the metal eventually yielded and turned itself into the shape that Bobby desired. Bobby worked through the night, but when he was done, he was delighted to be holding a full set of bronze armor. It had taken a solid 20 hours of work, but the results were worth it. Animous told him, though, that there was one last step. Bobby sighed, but was too eager to see the properly finished product that he didn't mind the run back down to Lumbridge. They returned to the furnace where Animous intended to make his final demonstration: He took the armor that Bobby had made... and threw it into the furnace, destroying it completely.
There is, regrettably, no word in the English language that one can use to describe just how monumentally furious Bobby was.
Animous listened to his pupil's protestations silently then, when Bobby finally took a breath, spoke. "I had been told that you were able to use weapons and armor up to adamant. Therefore, there would be no sense in having you train with that worthless bronze garbage. But it was necessary for you to improve your skills in mining and forging, for you have had no experience on that score. Now stop whining; we have much work to do and little time in which to do it."
Bobby fell silent, knowing that the damage was done, and there was no point in arguing. The pair walked east and crossed the River Lum. They passed through a gate and found themselves in the desert. Animous took Bobby north in the blistering heat to a much larger mine than what Bobby had been in before. This mine was infested with scorpions, but Animous was evidently intimidating enough that they left the pair alone. Here, Bobby could see that there were many more varieties of ore to be mined.
Animous set Bobby to work mining iron first. He then gave different instructions on how many of each different ore to mine, much to Bobby's consternation; the number was never less than 15, and the ores became steadily harder and harder to mine. Periodically, Animous would stop him and hand him a stronger pickaxe which made the task easier. First, Bobby mined about 65 iron ores, a number that hardly seemed fair to Bobby. Then, he mined 20 apiece gold and silver. But Animous merely pocketed this ore, much to Bobby's displeasure. Then Bobby was set an impossible task: 270 coal ores. Animous explained that coal is necessary for higher-quality metals, as Bobby will soon understand. After that ordeal, Bobby found the simple 15 of each, mithril, adamantite, and runite a breeze.
They traveled into a desert town that Animous called al-Kharid. Near the south of town was a furnace, and Bobby set to work on the iron ore. The ore seemed easier to refine into bars that the copper and tin, but Bobby then realized that less than half of the ore actually refined into usable bars. The rest were too "impure", as Animous put it. In the end, out of 50 ore, he refined a mere 20. Animous took 5, and gave the rest to Bobby. Then, Animous taught Bobby the technique of combining ores with steel to create stronger alloys, such as steel. This alloy worked 100% of the time, so he would not lose any ores. The remaining 15 iron ores were successfully converted into 15 steel bars. The same could be said for the mithril, adamantite, and, to Animous' astonishment, the runite.
Rather than run back to Varrock, Animous handed Bobby a teleport tablet and took one for himself, muttering as he did so about how he just couldn't bear to run, that it just made no sense. The pair of them broke their tablets and appeared in Varrock. The work was unbearably grim. Bobby worked for 36 hours straight to make the iron, steel, and mithril armor sets, only to watch Animous destroy them as he had done the bronze. The adamant bars took another 12 hours, and after a short break (caused by Bobby collapsing from exhaustion), he set to work on the rune bars. But Bobby soon found that the rune bars simply would not yield. It took him hours before he could make even a dent in the first bar. It took him three whole days, with occasional breaks, Animous recognizing that Bobby was not as strong as he (which did not help Bobby's already low morale on Gielinor), to create the full set of armor.
Animous took Bobby to the duel arena, where he himself had learned to fight. He explained to Bobby that anyone who was taught to fight had a bad teacher. Everyone's fighting style was different, and it is typically better to have less of a teacher and more of a highly experienced sparring partner with whom you could practice and refine your own style. The mentor would step in whenever certain mistakes in technique were made, but for the most part, the student learned on his own. Animous told Bobby, therefore, that he would spar with him for as long as it took for Bobby to win a bout with his adamant armor and then another with his rune armor. Then and only then would Bobby be a fit fighter, able to aid The Avengers on their quests.
Bobby had never fought with metal armor, and the drop in his speed and agility was an almost insurmountable barrier for him. But the green adamant armor was not unmanageable for Bobby, and soon he was up to his normal level of speed. But defeating this master swordsman was another matter. It wasn't until Bobby used his sword to throw dirt and dust into his teacher's eyes that Bobby was able to win. Bobby apologized for his dirty move, but Animous waved him off.
"There are no 'rules' to battle if they are not agreed upon before the start of the bout. And there is nothing 'dirty' about using your surroundings to aid your cause. It was a good move. In fact, it was the move I was waiting for you to make. Use your surroundings to your advantage; the first lesson of battle."
But then Bobby donned the rune armor for their second bout, and he could hardly move. It took him a great deal of effort to take a step or even raise his sword arm. After a lot of hard training and short, painful bouts in the duel arena, Bobby was once again back to his normal speed and agility. He looked over his body and was stunned at the muscles that had developed.
But fighting Animous would be a difficult prospect. Although he tried it, the trick with the dirt would not work twice. He fought and fought and fought and lost and lost and lost. Finally, in desperation, he changed his style of fighting. He stopped with the more graceful slashes and cuts and focused on overpowering stabs and thrusts, eventually resorting to hitting Animous on the top of the head with the pommel of his sword. The change in style disrupted Animous' concentration, and Bobby soon found an opening and took it, winning a bout.
Animous smiled. "That is the second lesson: Whoever said to try and try again if at first you don't succeed was a moron. Be adaptive. Adjust to the battle around you. Don't be rigid in your combat. You have done well, and now, I have a gift for you." He reached into his pack and pulled out blood-red armor similar to the kind he wore, although considerably less heavy; a chain-mail body rather than a plate body; a medium helm rather than a full helm. He also extracted a long halberd that he said would fit Bobby's style perfectly. Bobby thanked Animous and donned the armor and Animous said, "Get used to it quickly. We have work to do..."
