The wind carried more heat than sound that morning, but the forge still whispered.
Not with voices—just faint groans, distant shifts in the rock, the subtle pressure of something moving far beneath the crater floor. It was the kind of vibration you only noticed after everything else went still. And Riku had been still a lot lately.
He was starting to feel the difference between quiet and silence.
The forge itself was nearly complete now. The Draganoids had reinforced the western wall with metal bracers pulled from the old tower frame, and Kael's stone-channel design had started venting steam properly along both flanks. It wouldn't handle smelting in volume yet, but it was usable.
Riku crouched by the inner corner of the hall, squinting at the base of a warped pillar where the stone had darkened. When he rapped it with the hilt of a blade, it gave back a hollow sound.
That was the third time he'd checked it.
He wasn't imagining it.
He called for Kael.
By now, Kael had stopped questioning his instincts. He arrived quickly with a pry tool, sweat soaking through his tunic, soot streaking one cheek.
Riku pointed at the floor beneath the damaged pillar. "That's not bedrock. It's chambered."
Kael knelt beside him, pressed a palm against the base, and nodded. "There's airflow. Slow. We dig?"
Riku didn't answer. He just stood up, stepped back, and waved Sira over from her post near the tower slope.
"Guard the entrance. I want no one in here until we know what's under it."
The digging took hours.
Mostly quiet work, prying through volcanic composite and dragging loose debris out with makeshift buckets. Tharn passed by once, took one look at the hole, grunted, and didn't ask.
By the time Kael called for him again, dusk had already begun curling shadows against the crater wall.
"Come see."
The opening was small—just wide enough to crawl through. Riku eased his way down on hands and knees, the space narrowing slightly before widening into a hollow. It wasn't natural.
The walls were cut cleanly. Obsidian bricks, fused and seamless. Cold. No dust, no debris.
Kael stood near the back, holding a torch.
On the far wall sat a stone platform. Low. Square.
Atop it, a tile.
Flat. Black-silver. Smooth like tempered glass. Unmarked.
Riku approached slowly. No hum. No pulse. No glow.
And then—
The moment his foot crossed the edge of the platform's step, he felt it.
A single thrum in the air. Barely more than a shift in temperature. A heat behind the eyes.
Not a message.
Not a fold.
But something.
Kael spoke, but it came through muffled. Distant.
Riku stepped forward and crouched beside the tile. His reflection in its surface was distorted, almost as if the stone didn't want to fully show him.
Then it pulsed.
Just once.
A ripple across the surface like heat shimmer off desert stone.
No alert.
No prompt.
And then nothing.
Kael tilted his head. "You felt that too?"
"Yes."
"What is it?"
"I don't know," Riku said.
He didn't touch it.
Instead, he wrapped it carefully in one of the firecloth wrappings they used for forge insulation, sealed it with two vine-braided ties, and slid it into the inner satchel beneath his cloak.
Then he climbed out of the chamber, eyes narrowed.
The tile didn't speak.
But it watched.
Later that night, Riku brought it into the map vault—what they'd begun calling the small chamber off the keep where Kael had laid out their crude world markings. It had been a storeroom once. Now it held three torches, one locked chest, and a growing pile of scrap documents salvaged from forgotten corners.
He placed the wrapped tile into the chest and sealed it.
Then he locked the chest, slid it behind a false panel Kael had rigged, and said nothing to the others.
If it was important, it would return.
If it was dangerous, he wanted it to do so on his terms.
Only after that did he check the tools again.
Just in case.
And that's when he noticed the forge blade—the one Kael had reforged and left to cool—was different.
The edge gleamed brighter. The weight, when he lifted it, was lighter by half. The grip now had cross-weaving for balance.
[Tool Folded – Forge Blade | Original Quality: Basic Iron | Multiplier: x3.2 | Final: Refined Alloy Blade]
He said nothing.
Just updated the log.
#5 – Forge Blade | Quality Fold x3.2 | Final Grade: Refined Alloy (Lightweight, Balanced)