For now, I've decided not to equip my echo-eyes while I craft. Though perhaps they might be useful at a later stage, I worry that the blurriness the roaring of the furnace creates will interfere with my precision if I put them on now. Instead, I forge as I'm used to, peering through the black smoke as I hammer small basins into the ingots.

I melt the true titanium, pour it into the basins. I heat everything again, tap, and they combine. Now I hammer along the length of the ingots, working them flat. Bright sparks fly from the black smoke, and I breathe in leather-tasting air with each stroke. My arms and lungs burn, but I do not stop. Each metallic clang shivers through my body, vibrates my very bones.

Once both ingots are strips, I overlay their ends and begin to hammer them together. At first the titanium resists, but as I slow the pace of my blows, making sure that force is applied evenly, the two ends come together. Then, it's just a matter of evening out the thickness at the center and working the metal into a rectangle.

It is a long process—though I cannot tell how long. Members of the Runic League, blindfolded, come and go with ale and food. These begin to pile up, since I only rarely pause to eat, drink, and sleep. Everything other than metal is on the periphery. Guild, darkness, life—they are dull next to titanium's brightness.

Once the metal edges are as straight as I can make them, I try equipping my helm and echo-eyes to try and spy any imperfections. The sheet of titanium is blue for the most part, but odd greenish patches suggest the surface isn't totally flat yet. I heat the titanium once more and take to it with a smaller hammer. The smoke is invisible now, and despite the vague blurriness caused by the heat's roaring, and I'm able to strike more accurately.

So perhaps this was indeed Runethane Yurok's secret—forge with hearing while all vision is obscured. I'm surprised by how much easier the forging is, now that I can see properly. Probably I could increase the amount of smoke now, reduce the degree of contamination by air even further, yet I can't afford to use too much of the coals. I still have no idea what they are.

After some indeterminate length of time, the rectangle is complete. Now, I must fold it into a tube. This kind of task is difficult even with mundane steel, let alone true titanium. It will resist me at every fold. Our battle will be a long one.

I start by tilting the rectangle up at a slight angle. Very carefully, I hammer a small portion of the lower side so it becomes flat, parallel with the anvil. The corner creased, I now must extend the fold across the entire length of the sheet.

Inch by inch, I hammer precisely. It is painstaking work. The titanium does not want to bend as I wish it too. Odd ripples appear, seeming to reflect my masked face, distorted comically. I suppress my irritation, go slower. But my most careful strokes still go awry, and I must fix the mistakes with many more. Halfway down, I realize that the crease I've made is too big. Cursing my lack of skill, I flatten everything back out.

I try again with a different technique. Using the anvil's horn, I make the end of the sheet circular. This is no easy process, and I embarrass myself several times by making wonky ovals. Eventually I do get it circular, but now there's the problem of bending the rest of it evenly.

After what is probably more than a long-hour of trying, failing, trying, and failing yet again, I fling my hammer to the stones and yell out. This is useless. I need to try something cleverer. Doing things the pure way, with just hammer and anvil, is all well and good for most crafts. But with true titanium, I need to be more intelligent.

The solution is simple enough, of course. Bend the sheet around a tube of metal that's just a touch smaller than the diameter I aim for.

I hunt around the shelves until I find a sturdy tungsten rod. It's a little too thick, but this is no issue. I just have to beat the sheet out a little thinner. When I'm done, though, I judge it to be too thin. It'll be too fragile.

I grab another ingot, beat it flat. I get one more, mine out the true metal. I meld it to the mundane, flatten the ingot out further. Once it's a sheet, I lay it over the first and heat them together, beat them together. Uneven lines and ripples appear. I correct them.

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I step back, exhausted. How hard can one handle be? I feel strangely drained. My usual patience has diminished. Frustration roils within me. Why?

There's worry in the back of my mind, I decide. The suspicious drought of jobs—and these dark runes. Shadows of enemies are swirling just out of sight. Although my time down here has been peaceful so far, I sense that trouble is about to rear its head, be it in the form of the darkness, or else in the form of my more usual foe—other dwarves.

The lurking dangers make the creation of this weapon all the more important. I take a long swig of ale and dive back into my crafting. I lay the rod down, fix it in place with a vise. I lay the titanium over it, restart the hammering. Sparks fly from the smoke, though in my new eyes they do not appear as bright spots of light, but indistinct shimmers, obscuring the echoes of the cleaner sound of my hammer ringing the metal.

After a while, the titanium finally begins to come into shape. I turn the sheet over and hammer the left and right sides around the rod with horizontal taps. The edges touch. Now I weld, more carefully than ever, a touch a minute, keeping the line as even as possible. When I finish, there are only slight patches of green, and with subtle strokes from my smallest hammer, I turn all to blue.

Then comes the cap, then the grip. The latter is tricky to shape well, for no matter how much I hammer, it never seems to fit my fingers exactly. I realize that I must choose between filing it down, leaving it as imperfect, or wrapping it in some kind of expensive leather.

Leaving it imperfect is the safest option. To injure true metal would be true folly, as would covering it up with another substance. When I make my new gauntlets, I can always forge them to fit the grip. Yes—that's an elegant solution.

Now for the deadly end. Each flange will be a right-angle triangle in section, and I hammer out three ingots into three perfect squares—after imbuing each with eight grams of true metal, naturally.

I cut each square into four triangles at yellow heat very cautiously, whispering to the true metal as I do so. Nothing is going to be separated and thrown away. Each shape will become part of a better whole. I am not doing what some rough, uncouth, lower degrees do, wasting metal—melting down failed crafts, their runes half grafted, and selling them to scrappers.

I won't waste a single mote.

Once the twelve flanges are complete, I reheat the end of the haft and tap twelve thin, flat planes into it. To these, I weld the flanges. It's some of the hardest, most painstaking welding I've ever done. I cannot use a regular welding rod for the work, so must grind one down into a sharp point to get between the edges. Several times I come to the brink of disaster, nearly ruining the craft with an errant slip. Each time, however, I am able to pull back at the last moment. Once I finish, I cap the end, and it is time to quench.

The metal undergoes a plunge. Then comes a gout of bloody steam, and afterwards, a breath-stopping confirmation. I press, squeeze, bend. Nothing cracks. Nothing cracks! The true titanium has held firm. I have mastered it. I don't think I'll ever work it with ease, and certainly if I increase the concentration of true metal, I will have another seemingly insurmountable increase in challenge to contend with, but for now, I am confident in my metalworking.

Anyone who looks upon it would judge me worthy of my title of second degree, and of guildmaster also.

But now it is time for the runes, and my joyous satisfaction vanishes as I read over the poem I drafted earlier. It is weak. There is little emotion. What art is there in writing of a battle whose outcome is already decided? Where is the passion, the power? There is none. And all this is made worse by the weak flow and suspect rhymes. My script of light needs shadows to function best. It's not like the three scripts used by the deep dwarves. I am not the First Runeforger—I use his powers in a different way.

A weaker way or stronger way, I do not know yet, but I cannot help but suspect it's the former.

I rewrite the poem as best I can. Once I'm done, I read over it several times, change a couple runes. It seems fine. Just fine. Functional, not exceptional. A work of art, yet not a masterwork.

Do I dive into the magma? Do I dare to improve it, to twist the runes amid the boiling worlds' blood? What shadows will appear? And how hot might I burn, trying to change such a long and complex piece of work?

I begin to shape the runes. I decide to make no more new ones this hour—I can't bring myself to risk making some new kind of darkness. I don't want to draw any more attention to the shadows cast by my runes of light. I do not want to bring trouble down on me any faster than it's already charging.

Twist and cut, twist and cut. My fingers are trembling by the time every rune is laid out on the anvil, and I still have to graft—and with deadly, maiming almergris!

But in my vision of echos, it has no power. Its flashes scorch my fingertips, but each flare of heat barely makes a sound. The lack of a struggle is almost disappointing. My eyes are in absolutely no danger, and I'm not as clumsy as I used to be. The few slight burns that I give myself quickly heal by the ruby's power, and before I know it, every rune has been grafted.

I remove my helm to look upon my new weapon.

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