The rhythmic banging of the steel tools at the wizard's behest lulled him. It was tedious work, crafting fine metal.
He couldn't lose focus, not even for a second, or the whole project would turn out less than perfect. And that meant dead in his world. A second now, forever later.
His wand hand was weaving circular patterns in the air.
His workshop was full of relics from a time long gone-by. Relics from the Grand Forge of Atlantia herself! The capital of Atlantis–Atlantia–had been a remarkable place. Very few relics remained from those epochs of splendour.
The wizard waved and weaved and heaved and puffed and huffed and strained and yelled... and kept on, going on.
He kept channeling his magic, his mana, through his wand and into the workshop around him. He powered the whole building and all the tools within. The smithy was running at maximum capacity. It was quite the test of will for the man, even for someone of his caliber.
In preparation for crafting his revolver, the man had travelled the world, and studied under dozens of masters, much and varied. After seemingly finding what he had been looking for, the gunsmith had disappeared off the face of the earth.
A private forest, charmed and enchanted, protected against intrusion and discovery served as his residence. His workshop was deep in the heart of his forest.
Some argued they were different, mana and magic, reflected the man to the hypnotic beating of metals, others the same. Perhaps it was just semantics; words from different root languages, used to describe a different flavor from the same dish. None the less, he channeled all his might into his project, his will, his life force, himself.
The hammers and anvil that had been banging away for near three days now were Atlantean—standard, run-of-the-mill household tools. None of the fancy specialized stuff that industry used.
The steel was from a meteorite crash-site, harvested from Venus. The Atlanteans had mined there in the past, and one could find some of this stuff, provided one knew where to look. Black silverware, for example, was very pure.
Tradition was an interesting thing, the gunsmith wondered as his muscle memory operated in auto-pilot.
He folded the steel over and over. Blazing hot, he would dip it into a potion again and again to quench.
Every now and then, he would add a new ingredient into the magical alloy.
He beat it, and beat it, and beat it more.
He eventually passed out from exhaustion, as the ritual demanded.
Perfect, reflected the gunsmith's consciousness as it hovered over the comatose body of the gunsmith. He plunged himself into the metal for the final quenching.
Waking, the gunsmith saw the revolver, ready for use, in the middle of his chalk circle.
~author's note: i saw a couple typos that i needed to correct, hence the reposting...