Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

The rest of the distribution went without major hiccups. At least Seth felt no need to step in and his mood improved once the ordeal ended and he left with Wraithguard and the spear.

Not only Seth returned quite happily to their mansion. Ellie was also glad to have gotten what she wanted and was humming an upbeat tune beside him.

Other friends, like Polter and Marcel's group also accompanied them part of the way, smiling about their haul.

Polter actually invited them to celebrate with his people. He had actually managed to get his hands on a legendary halberd and shield that fit his taste. The blacksmith had a hard time waiting to interrogate the spear, but how could he say no to a dwarven drinking spree?

It became afternoon before Seth finally found the time to sit down with the Spear of Bitter Mercy in his room. He had sobered up with a little help of a potion to have a clear head. The bard had freed some private time explicitly to listen to Ceres's stories of Forgebrand.

Overall, the story stayed the same as the summary the elemental had given Seth before. It was living a happy elemental life. Being a force of nature, doing whatever it wanted, destroying some villages in its wake. The usual.

Then one day a dwarf appeared with this weird spear and killed it. Well not really. He heavily wounded Ceres before ripping its soul from its corporeal body.

This was the first point Seth took note of and had the elemental clarify. It was not close to death when Forgebrand harvested its soul. At the moment, Seth could only do something like that if the target was either about to die, or had a very weak connection between body and soul. Like low-ranking undead.

It continued its story and told him about how the dwarf sealed it in the spear as a punishment. Forgebrand himself had seemed surprised when Ceres was actually able to be summoned.

This was a similarity between the dwarf and Seth who had a similar experience with Al'Zalsar. The difference was that the sorceress was able to stay for longer but also had a higher cooldown.

Because of this option, Forgebrand kept the spear for a long time. Just as he and the sorceress had assumed, the dwarf had also started his journey of researching golems.

Though the spear didn't know what facilitated the change, it described the dwarf as very solemn and moody one day after which he dived into his work. This was the most interesting part to Seth, as it held the biggest clue.

Forgebrand started with formation, just like the first blueprints that were unlocked with <Golem Artisan>. However, he kept working and trying to improve on the design and make it more efficient without losing its versatility.

Seth himself had been able to make big leaps in this department thanks to Al'Zalsa and partly thanks to Oz and his differing class.

Unlike Seth, who had chosen the route of an infernal Skald to further his products, Forgebrand became a genuine warrior besides his job as a Spirit Blacksmith,

As expected from someone that came from a different direction, he also came to a different conclusion. While Seth rather put in the time and effort into handcrafting the golems, Forgebrand created the Golem Forge.

Where Seth sang or crafted a body into existence, the Golem Forge could almost be comparable to a magic 3D printer. At least it sounded like it when he listened to the spears description.

Whereas before, the souls would form their bodies depending on their own power and from surrounding materials, the Golem Forge made the body's formation independent from the soul's own power supplies.

The golem forge would create the body, the soul only had to operate it. It was similar to Seth creating a golem with a soul as a control unit, while power for the movement came from additional energy sources.

His giant the "Big farmer" was like that because he lacked a sufficient soul. Forgebrand's method made it a necessity to either use strong souls or self-replenishing energy storages.

Seeing the way he created the Spear of Bitter Mercy, it was not unthinkable that the dwarf had a great deal of experience with this kind of enchantment. Quickly replenishing energy sources were probably no problem for him.

However, the materials and time he spend on creating it ate away at his funds and as the spear mentioned before, it was sold for more funds and couldn't help him past his point.

Seth was not disappointed, what Ceres had provided sufficed for a decision. It gave him some info on two of his skills. The first was <Soul Capture> which could improve to the point that he could steal the soul of a seriously injured.

Together with Wrathguard which was obviously created to deal with vengeful souls and the undead, it painted the picture of a quite gruesome potential in this skill.

Despite that, the second information was a lot more valuable to Seth. He had no interest to become a soul-stealing maniac. What tickled his fancy was the Golem Forge. Ceres had described it as a kind of mold that would press together and create a golem.

The blacksmith had nothing else to do but choose the blueprint and provide the materials.

He felt the decision was quite easy when he used six of his seven skill points to upgrade the <Spirit Smithy>.

<Ding! Skill: Spirit Smithy lv. 5 has become Spirit Smithy lv. 6!>

Excitedly Seth looked for the skills perk list, but he was disappointed. It would have been too easy if he was directly given the Golem Forge. Still, he was not unhappy with the result.

Level six improved the crafting speed of all crafting stations by 100%.

This wasn't the end, anyway. He would gain a skill point with every level, and he wanted to level up after returning home in preparation for his divine quest. He was currently lv.63, which meant he could level the <Spirit Smithy> again once he reached lv.69 (nice).

The blacksmith was sure he could grind it out within a few weeks in the dungeons. Especially with his golem troop. The advantage of his golem knights was not only that they were able to level, but they did not count as party members, so Seth could have a full party, but the share he would get with the golems would be a lot greater than when he went with human companions.

A dungeon run with the silent golems would be dull and boring, but it wasn't like he did it for fun. There were also Tatzel, Oz, Puffles, and now Ceres to talk to. He would have liked to include Python, but she was rather stoic and it was inconvenient to bring her out in most dungeons.

He had been quite preoccupied with his craft and his level up to now, since there were not many fights anymore he had to fight personally.

It was also good preparation for his raid on the scorpion.

Even if the beast was really immune to weapons the blacksmith had a few other options to use and all of them would benefit from a higher level.

Thinking of the scorpion he remembered what Apollo and Hades had told him. His sponsors had helped in arranging this quest for him.

Thinking this far Seth decide to do one more thing before he finally returned to Delta. Visit all of their temples again.

To give his thanks on one hand, but also to see if they had any tips for the upcoming quest. After all, none of his sponsors were stupid.

If this was the task they came up with, there had to be a trick for it. Asking was always better than fumbling around in the dark.