A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing

Eira floated patiently in front of Erik. An array of variously colored ingots floated in front of her. She still had a few favorites among the colors provided here, which she was not shy about showing by subtly pushing them forward using her tail, but unfortunately for her, Erik just chuckled and ignored her preferences.

The choice of material was far too important to be determined based on color.

Noticing that, Eira sighed, but decided to devote her attention to thinking more about her design plans instead.

Meanwhile, Erik carefully inspected every ingot. He touched them, weighed them, tested how thundersnow flowed through them, and simply tried to identify the different metals while attempting to recall everything he knew about them.

Every ingot he passed, he put in one of three categories: probably, maybe, and 'I'd rather call this whole thing off.'

He also considered a few options for creating an alloy to combine several affinities and characteristics, although that would also somewhat increase the time he would need.

Unfortunately, there was no metal that aligned perfectly with his thundersnow affinity, which wasn't much of a surprise, perhaps. After all, while not necessarily one of the most powerful among fourth rank affinities, it was certainly one of the rarest.

Eventually, however, he ran across an ingot that particularly interested him.

"Uuuh," he mumbled, a little dumbfounded when he inspected this particular metal. Eventually, he decided this warranted waking Elora up.

"Elora," he spoke softly through their bond, so as not to make it too rude of an awakening. "Can you take a look at this?" Find your next adventure on m_v l|e'm-p| y r

Erik immediately felt her metaphysical essence in his soul stir, while grumpy emotions began to transmit through their link.

"Uuuugh," came a groaning response. "This better be good…"

She may have been constantly checking her surroundings through omnisense, even while hibernating, but only to monitor changes in the sigils surrounding this place. She wasn't actually paying attention to what Erik was doing.

Her attitude and exhaustion quickly disappeared when she noticed what was in Erik's hands, however. "That is… Where did you find that?" she mumbled with extreme curiosity.

Erik quickly shared his most recent memories with her, causing the fairy to get excited. "Well, what are you waiting for?! Ask the construct about this!"

Erik rolled his eyes at that, "I was going to, but I wanted your input first. Is this actually the same metal those medallions are made from? The stuff that has the inherent characteristic of storing aetherium?"

"Yes, yes, it is!" she answered impatiently, ever hungry for more knowledge. "Now ask her already!"

If the fairy wasn't trying to conserve energy by remaining in Erik's soul, she would have already jumped out and asked the question herself.

Erik chuckled at her impatience and directed his attention to Eira. "Eira," he began, causing the floating girl to blink as her thoughts regarding the design were interrupted. "How much of this metal do you have?"

Eira looked at the ingot in Erik's hands for a moment and than shrugged, "There's a whole bunch of them. That one is in a different category, though."

"Category?" Erik wondered with a curiously raised eyebrow.

Eira nodded in response, seemingly a little confused about Erik's interest in this. "Yeah, the spatial storage is divided in category's, but while most of the metals are put in the appropriate category and divided into ranks, this one is the only material in the alloy category, and does not have a listed rank."

"No rank, huh… and it's an alloy?" Erik mumbled to himself and to Elora, who also sank into thought.

After a few moments, Elora voiced her thoughts. "So now we know that its not a naturally occurring metal, and since, to my knowledge, it's not known in the universe as a whole, it might have been created by either the minotaur or the giant."

"Right… but does that help us in any way?" Erik wondered.

"Not directly, perhaps," Elora shrugged mentally. "But more information is always good. Are you going to try and use it for the medium? It might provide some interesting effects."

"I was thinking about it…" Erik nodded thoughtfully. "Although the fact it's not been given a rank worries me a little. I do need to actually be able to melt it, after all."

"Alright, well…" Elora suddenly yawned. "Let me know how it works out, I'm going back to hibernate."

And just like that, she was gone again. Normally, her interest would perhaps be a little higher, but she was just too tired right now. Not to mention that she had to keep this up for at least another week.

Erik slightly scratched the stubble on his chin while looking thoughtfully at the ingot in his hand, until, finally, he decided to simply test it.

Grasping the ingot, he walked passed Eira, who had once again sunk into thought about her ideas for the design, and walked up to the actual forge.

Since he had already tested this forge when Eira first showed this place to him, he was quick to turn it on, and soon, a sweltering fire was blazing at its core.

With this being just a third-rank forge, however, the question was if this would actually be able to heat the ingot enough for it to be reshaped into different forms. After all, it was unclear what rank this alloy actually possessed.

Quickly placing the ingot inside, Erik watched with interest to see if the metal would give any indication of being heated to a point where he might be able to work with it.

Unfortunately, even after thirty minutes of waiting and even providing more power to the forge in order to get the metal to heat up, it was still not getting anywhere.

Finally, while staring regretfully at the unchanged ingot in the middle of the forge, Erik sighed. "Well, I guess that's not happening."

But than he frowned and thought, 'Although… there is one more thing I could try.'

He turned the forge off and turned around, leaving the ingot in there, only to see Eira staring at him curiously. 'How long has she been doing that?' he wondered.

When she notice him looking at her, she smiled brightly. "I like how your face gets all serious when you work!"

"Thank you, Eira," Erik chuckled. "Can you tell me where Astrid is, and what she's doing?"

"Sure!" she nodded happily. "She's in the training room, exercising."

"Thank you," Erik nodded, then grinned. "Let's go get me a better fire."