Note: Where have all my reader's gone? Oh yeah, I never had any. Oh well. I hope you phantom readers enjoy. I'm not looking for any reviews anymore, I just like writing. Now to the story!
The Iron Hand and Negotiations
Hallia let Ayane drop to the ground as they both landed and seperated. Their first task was to find this 'Iron Hand with a Delicate Touch'. Hallia immediately went off towards the blacksmith's shop, which wasn't hard considering it could be heard from a good deal of distance. Metallurgy is a very loud practice.
Ayane, on the other hand, left the work to Hallia and exitedly cannonballed into the fountain in the town center. Her ears were down and her lips were parted as she chased an imaginary prey through the shallow waters. The water coming from a pipe in the middle sprayed into the air and into the stillwater in which Ayane played.
Hallia found only large, sweaty men working over several very hot furnaces, many using large hammers to bend heated metals. Her ears rang with the loud noises of this hectic shop. Dispite her hair over her eyes, true to her style, she clearly observed that there was no man here with potential of a 'delicate touch'.
With a sigh she took a step back and turned to go. Disappointed as she was, she would not stop looking until the objective was found. Her own powers to destroy were simply not enough anymore, not against these days new heroes, skills shined to perfection just for the old plagues of destruction that once ruled that world.
The girl she bumped into fell back, but dug her boot's heel into the dirt and kept the ground she could. Hallia felt no impact on the other hand, her own body protected against little nuicances like this. This girl quickly bowed and muttered her apologies before rushing into the shop, tattered loose clothes blowing in the wind as she ran.
Hallia froze as she watched the girl run. Gloved hands. Dirty clothes. Welcome glances from the many men working in the smithy's shop. This must be it, she thought, my goal. Hallia knew this was the Iron Hand. It had to be.
"Hey Darigan! Sorry I'm late!" Came a laughing voice that indicated that she was younger than she looked. Too young. Damn, this couldn't be it.
A tall boy, about sixteen years of age drew his upper body out of a furnace. Hallia had not seen him before, and was surprised by his appearance. His white hair was dark with soot. She almost laughed that he was unhurt, after having literally hand-crafting a sword in the midst of that tremendous heat. Bronze-colored skin, like a tan, was gleaming as he disapprovingly watched his little sister run to him. He grabbed her by the waist as she reached him, having tossed the red-hot metal into a barrel of water.
Lifting her into the air and placing her halfway up a ladder, he got to telling her off, "Ya'know Kat, you can't be late all the time if you really want to get a job. Punctuality is very important in this business. Arnold had to pour the iron into the tin. You know that was your job today. You put him three hours behind his own schedule, and you almost ruined the entire batch, wasting a good deal of resources."
She simply smiled and clapped her hands, not a care for his words, "You're fooling yourself if you think I'm dumb enough to listen to that! Haha, Arnold wasn't even in town today! You sent him for copper wires Tuesday."
He just growled and turned his head, "Okay, fine, I made it up. But you were almost too late to mix it! Really you should get your timing right."
"Almost is almost. I wasn't late. But I will be if you keep lecturing me." Kat jumped off the ladder and walked arround him and through the others to a large iron pot sitting next to another pot which was hooked up to a wheel and pulley system that was simple, but obviously able to pour the bigger pot into the smaller one with precision. One chain ran through it to time all the pulleys in synchronized order.
Hallia crossed her arms, her upper lip twitching slightly. Thinking to herself, 'Okay, it'll be hard to get him to leave his job and sister, especially if I need him to willingly come along...'
The girl pulled a lever beside the larger pot, then quickly rushed to the small one as it started to raise into the air. Hallia could see waves of heat above it, guessing that it was a vat of molten iron. Apperently the pot could take the heat of the liquid metal without melting, obviously a kind of special tempering.
Calmly, Hallia took a seat on a wooden chest, likely a toolbox. Eyes locking on the boy, she began to take mental notes and figure out how she could get him to cooperate.
Kat watched the metals mix as a younger apprentice stoked the fire beneath the massive cauldron. Her cerulean eyes seemed full of excitement and let her young beauty shine dispite her choice clothing. Her brother was at work fastening the large sword onto it's handle, sliding the metal bar at it's base into the handle's ready socket.
Eyes like hot coals were focused on the task at hand. Red they seemed by the surrounding light of the smithy's many fires, but they were the simple brown of earth. Hallia tended to take notice of these details. When she had a target, it always worked out for the best that way.
With the skill of a swordsman he grabbed an appropriately sized sheath from a stack near the small building at the center of the work and slid the fresh blade in, somehow cooled since it's conception. His eyes immediately flashed over to the mysterious girl wearing dark garbs, sitting on the whole shop's food reserves.
"Hey," He spoke loudly to her as he approached, edging no response, "Your sitting on our lunches lady. Mind getting off and telling me your business with my shop?"
A slight smirk was all Hallia gave him, before heaving a sigh and remaining silent. Her fingers intertwined over her lap and her hair concealed her features.
"My brother asked you a question, lady!" Came his sister's harping voice, but Hallia paid it no mind.
She did, on the other hand, finally speak. Smirk fading, she spoke clearly but with an amused undertone, "I came here to ask your help. My dear friend is in trouble and I'm looking for people who can help me."
Putting on her best 'damsel in distress' imitation, she continued, "I need your help! He's really in trouble, and nobody else can help."
"Okay, calm down now. We should get to someplace quieter and talk about this." His face became much calmer as he got closer to her, trying to calm her as well, "Five hours from now I'm off work. Can you meet me in the middle of town then? I mean, can it wait that long?"
Her act dropped and her smirk grew, "Thank you so much. I'll see you then, I guess." Walking away almost with a skip in her step, but her looks leaving a few of the workers distracted.
Darigan gave a shout, "Hey guys, get your mind out of the gutter and back to work, we got alot to do, the big order is due tomorrow!"
"Okay, let me get this straight." Darigan and his sister were sitting on the other side of a campfire from Hallia and Ayane. They had come from the town center after some introductions at dusk. Ayane was very glad to meet new friends, while Hallia wanted to get down to business.
"Your friend, this Vishuss, is in hell and you need me and this... girl to save him," Darigan smirked as he said the name with emphasis, but Ayane happily corrected him, "-Vicious-"
Laughing at her upbeat attitude, and ignoring her obvious lack of concern for his sarcasm, "How exactly can me, her, and some blade get into hell and safely save a damned soul? Assuming I do agree to go and waste a great deal of valuable time on some adventure."
Hallia shrugged and turned her head away from the fire, away from the others, and said quietly, "I'm not sure, but someone told me you guys could and I just have to trust him."
"Okay, then who is this guy? He says he knows we can do it. I mean, we must know him somehow." Darigan looked half-interested by this point, his sister, on the other hand, was listening very intently.
"My brother can help you save your friend, with the help of the other two, but if he did he'd be leaving the shop untended and with a massive loss of manpower," she said concerned, her eyes on the strange catgirl who was grooming herself, "And on top of that, you'd be putting him in alot of danger, going to a place like that to start trouble."
Half-smirking, she whispered just loud enough to hear, "I need to sleep for a bit, we can talk more in the morning. My friend and I will be here tonight and tomorrow. I hope you can help me. See you then."
The Iron Hand and Negotiations
Hallia let Ayane drop to the ground as they both landed and seperated. Their first task was to find this 'Iron Hand with a Delicate Touch'. Hallia immediately went off towards the blacksmith's shop, which wasn't hard considering it could be heard from a good deal of distance. Metallurgy is a very loud practice.
Ayane, on the other hand, left the work to Hallia and exitedly cannonballed into the fountain in the town center. Her ears were down and her lips were parted as she chased an imaginary prey through the shallow waters. The water coming from a pipe in the middle sprayed into the air and into the stillwater in which Ayane played.
Hallia found only large, sweaty men working over several very hot furnaces, many using large hammers to bend heated metals. Her ears rang with the loud noises of this hectic shop. Dispite her hair over her eyes, true to her style, she clearly observed that there was no man here with potential of a 'delicate touch'.
With a sigh she took a step back and turned to go. Disappointed as she was, she would not stop looking until the objective was found. Her own powers to destroy were simply not enough anymore, not against these days new heroes, skills shined to perfection just for the old plagues of destruction that once ruled that world.
The girl she bumped into fell back, but dug her boot's heel into the dirt and kept the ground she could. Hallia felt no impact on the other hand, her own body protected against little nuicances like this. This girl quickly bowed and muttered her apologies before rushing into the shop, tattered loose clothes blowing in the wind as she ran.
Hallia froze as she watched the girl run. Gloved hands. Dirty clothes. Welcome glances from the many men working in the smithy's shop. This must be it, she thought, my goal. Hallia knew this was the Iron Hand. It had to be.
"Hey Darigan! Sorry I'm late!" Came a laughing voice that indicated that she was younger than she looked. Too young. Damn, this couldn't be it.
A tall boy, about sixteen years of age drew his upper body out of a furnace. Hallia had not seen him before, and was surprised by his appearance. His white hair was dark with soot. She almost laughed that he was unhurt, after having literally hand-crafting a sword in the midst of that tremendous heat. Bronze-colored skin, like a tan, was gleaming as he disapprovingly watched his little sister run to him. He grabbed her by the waist as she reached him, having tossed the red-hot metal into a barrel of water.
Lifting her into the air and placing her halfway up a ladder, he got to telling her off, "Ya'know Kat, you can't be late all the time if you really want to get a job. Punctuality is very important in this business. Arnold had to pour the iron into the tin. You know that was your job today. You put him three hours behind his own schedule, and you almost ruined the entire batch, wasting a good deal of resources."
She simply smiled and clapped her hands, not a care for his words, "You're fooling yourself if you think I'm dumb enough to listen to that! Haha, Arnold wasn't even in town today! You sent him for copper wires Tuesday."
He just growled and turned his head, "Okay, fine, I made it up. But you were almost too late to mix it! Really you should get your timing right."
"Almost is almost. I wasn't late. But I will be if you keep lecturing me." Kat jumped off the ladder and walked arround him and through the others to a large iron pot sitting next to another pot which was hooked up to a wheel and pulley system that was simple, but obviously able to pour the bigger pot into the smaller one with precision. One chain ran through it to time all the pulleys in synchronized order.
Hallia crossed her arms, her upper lip twitching slightly. Thinking to herself, 'Okay, it'll be hard to get him to leave his job and sister, especially if I need him to willingly come along...'
The girl pulled a lever beside the larger pot, then quickly rushed to the small one as it started to raise into the air. Hallia could see waves of heat above it, guessing that it was a vat of molten iron. Apperently the pot could take the heat of the liquid metal without melting, obviously a kind of special tempering.
Calmly, Hallia took a seat on a wooden chest, likely a toolbox. Eyes locking on the boy, she began to take mental notes and figure out how she could get him to cooperate.
Kat watched the metals mix as a younger apprentice stoked the fire beneath the massive cauldron. Her cerulean eyes seemed full of excitement and let her young beauty shine dispite her choice clothing. Her brother was at work fastening the large sword onto it's handle, sliding the metal bar at it's base into the handle's ready socket.
Eyes like hot coals were focused on the task at hand. Red they seemed by the surrounding light of the smithy's many fires, but they were the simple brown of earth. Hallia tended to take notice of these details. When she had a target, it always worked out for the best that way.
With the skill of a swordsman he grabbed an appropriately sized sheath from a stack near the small building at the center of the work and slid the fresh blade in, somehow cooled since it's conception. His eyes immediately flashed over to the mysterious girl wearing dark garbs, sitting on the whole shop's food reserves.
"Hey," He spoke loudly to her as he approached, edging no response, "Your sitting on our lunches lady. Mind getting off and telling me your business with my shop?"
A slight smirk was all Hallia gave him, before heaving a sigh and remaining silent. Her fingers intertwined over her lap and her hair concealed her features.
"My brother asked you a question, lady!" Came his sister's harping voice, but Hallia paid it no mind.
She did, on the other hand, finally speak. Smirk fading, she spoke clearly but with an amused undertone, "I came here to ask your help. My dear friend is in trouble and I'm looking for people who can help me."
Putting on her best 'damsel in distress' imitation, she continued, "I need your help! He's really in trouble, and nobody else can help."
"Okay, calm down now. We should get to someplace quieter and talk about this." His face became much calmer as he got closer to her, trying to calm her as well, "Five hours from now I'm off work. Can you meet me in the middle of town then? I mean, can it wait that long?"
Her act dropped and her smirk grew, "Thank you so much. I'll see you then, I guess." Walking away almost with a skip in her step, but her looks leaving a few of the workers distracted.
Darigan gave a shout, "Hey guys, get your mind out of the gutter and back to work, we got alot to do, the big order is due tomorrow!"
"Okay, let me get this straight." Darigan and his sister were sitting on the other side of a campfire from Hallia and Ayane. They had come from the town center after some introductions at dusk. Ayane was very glad to meet new friends, while Hallia wanted to get down to business.
"Your friend, this Vishuss, is in hell and you need me and this... girl to save him," Darigan smirked as he said the name with emphasis, but Ayane happily corrected him, "-Vicious-"
Laughing at her upbeat attitude, and ignoring her obvious lack of concern for his sarcasm, "How exactly can me, her, and some blade get into hell and safely save a damned soul? Assuming I do agree to go and waste a great deal of valuable time on some adventure."
Hallia shrugged and turned her head away from the fire, away from the others, and said quietly, "I'm not sure, but someone told me you guys could and I just have to trust him."
"Okay, then who is this guy? He says he knows we can do it. I mean, we must know him somehow." Darigan looked half-interested by this point, his sister, on the other hand, was listening very intently.
"My brother can help you save your friend, with the help of the other two, but if he did he'd be leaving the shop untended and with a massive loss of manpower," she said concerned, her eyes on the strange catgirl who was grooming herself, "And on top of that, you'd be putting him in alot of danger, going to a place like that to start trouble."
Half-smirking, she whispered just loud enough to hear, "I need to sleep for a bit, we can talk more in the morning. My friend and I will be here tonight and tomorrow. I hope you can help me. See you then."