The sun sank slowly to meet the ground, covering the town in darkness. For just a moment, right after the sun had dropped all the way below the horizon, the sky was a deep, dark blue; only the faint light of the stars helped the ponies looking up from below keep from losing themselves in it.
Before the sky could be lit up again the lights in the town library had already been turned on. The colt who had turned them on, his dark blue coat the same color as the unlit night sky outside, trotted back to the desk he had been studying at. He stretched his neck, flopping his star-white mane here and there, and flexed his wings; he was painfully aware of how much time he had spent in the library, but he also knew it was important.
The moon rose in the sky, replacing the sky's dark blue with shifting shades of luxurious purple. The colt, Starforge, continued his studies oblivious to the majesty outside. He flipped rapidly past pages that held useless information: historical background, biographies, and so many pages detailing the old culture! He did make a note to come back to the book for the spells described within, but he had done all of his background research already; now all that immediately concerned him was the hammer.
He turned more pages. The book was the key, he knew that. Farrierview's library held many books about local history, but The Cyclopes of the Forge was old, only postdating the cataclysm by a little over a hundred years. Two other books, a few hundred years more recent, referenced it as containing the words of the last surviving cyclops. Those words were said to describe what he must do to get the hammer.
His eyes stopped on the page. "Beglan's final words." That was the section he needed. He devoured the text that followed, which contained an interpretation of an interpretation of words spoken long ago: what the Bellowskeeper said before he began his now thousand-year slumber deep in the Forge city.
The text was vague, and certainly not an exact transcript of Beglan's words. Still, the message came through clearly enough: Beglan had promised his magical hammer, an artifact built on the Forge itself, to anypony who ventured to the Forge city and proved their worth. The test was to forge a crown fit for the head of Beglan himself, out of the magical metal Irt, and shape the magic innate to the Irt into a powerful spell.
Irt... Starforge knew that term. Ponies in his time called it "Bliss", but it remained by far the rarest and most powerful of the magically charged metals. He had very little experience working with Bliss, but it was definitely more difficult to work than the Glee, and far more difficult than the Felicity he was accustomed to using.
He was snapped out of his thoughts by the sound of the door opening. When he turned around he saw the librarian, an older unicorn with a coat the color of unbleached paper, entering the library. The librarian smiled when he saw Starforge, and shut the door behind himself.
"Well good evening Starforge," he said. "You're still here? I thought you went home hours ago." He began making his rounds of the library, picking up stray books and placing them back onto the shelves where they belonged.
"No," Starforge replied. He motioned back towards the book with his head. "I've been doing my research." He turned back to the book and looked at it with an admiring smile. "This is quite the text you have here Lector."
The librarian walked over to the nook Starforge had set himself up in, and saw the book on the table. "Oh yes," he agreed. "A big beauty, that one." He beamed with pride. "It was the best day of my young life back when I convinced the Canterlot University library to give that one up." He relived the memory and chuckled. "Can you believe they had it boxed up in the back, and didn't even have it in the catalog?"
"Their loss," Starforge said simply. He was not surprised they had tucked it away: the book described things that happened a thousand years ago, and books stopped referring to the Forge city about five hundred years ago. If nopony knew there was a city with a powerful magical forge, nopony knew to ask for books about it.
Starforge stepped away from the table. He bowed his head down to the floor, scooping his saddlebags over it and onto his back. It was time.
"You're going?" Lector asked him. Starforge looked back at him and nodded. Lector turned his head back towards the book and saw that Starforge still had a couple of chapters left to read. "Would you like to take the book back to Ponyville?" he asked. "You can always bring it back later."
Starforge shook his head. "I'm not going back to Ponyville," he said. "Not yet." He stepped to the door and opened it. Standing in the doorway, he turned back towards Lector. "Sorry for reading and running," he said. Under normal circumstances Starforge would have re-shelved the book himself, but if he didn't finish his trip by the morning he'd probably get chased out of the jungle with no hammer.
"Oh think nothing of it," Lector said with a warm smile. "I think I'll leave the book out on the table." He looked at the book with fond remembrances in his eye. "I like the thought that somepony else might come along and read it."
"Well, good night Lector," Starforge said. He stepped onto the street and closed the door behind himself. Struck, as he always was, by the gorgeous night sky he stood and stared at it. It was his right to be awestruck, and he let himself enjoy the feeling for just a moment before he flew off into the night.
Starforge plunged below the canopy of the jungle again. He had worked out a system by now: he would break into a dive, quickly pull his lantern from his pack, turn it on, and tuck it against his chest so it didn't get snagged by a stray branch. Then he was free to find a safe – and well-lit – landing on the jungle floor.
He executed the entry and landing perfectly—he was glad, because he had already botched it enough for one night. Holding his lantern high, he looked into the dark forest; though he had brought a high-powered magical gem lantern, he could still only see maybe sixty feet around himself. He directed his attention away from the tall trees—they were invaders, having taken over the land when its caretakers had perished. His focus was on the ground instead, where the remnants of the old builders might still be found.
Intent as he was on observing what was in the dirt, Starforge's ears still perked up when he heard a rustling sound up in one of the trees. It could have been just his paranoia, but it could also have been a pangutan... The pangutans were long-haired apes; they walked on two legs, stood almost half again as tall as a pony, and had one eye just like the cyclopes. They also had a great distrust of ponies ever since the founding of Farrierview, when the ponies began logging the jungle for the wood they needed to build the town.
Starforge's attention snapped back to the ground. At the edge of his light he had spotted what looked like a stream bed. He placed his lantern into his mouth and trotted towards it.
As the light covered the trench, more details emerged. It was far straighter than an ordinary stream bed, he could see that easily. Though erosion had taken a heavy toll he could see bits of what looked like concrete. The "stream bed" was actually one of the city's old canals, now long-dry, leading from the cyclopes' ancestral mines to the city. Its old concrete lining was broken up, and the water had all evaporated; without any ore to transport on it, the only important thing about the old canal was that it would give Starforge a path into the Forge city to follow.
A tree rustled again. Starforge's view shot up into the trees but he could see nothing; he was certain he was being followed though. Grabbing the lantern with his hoof, he looked up at the trees nervously. Starforge wanted to avoid having to deal with any of the apes, but it sounded like he had already attracted their attention. He looked back to the canal: he could follow it into the city, where he would be able to avoid them by sticking to the sky or sneaking through the streets.
His wings came to life in an instant, carrying him into the air. Starforge heard a loud movement in the trees, likely a pangutan hopping from one tree to another. Not sparing any energy for later, he sped to the canal and began to follow it deeper into the jungle. The sound of leaps from tree to tree quickly grew quiet behind him, but Starforge only let himself slow down a little for safety's sake. There were more pangutans out there, he was sure of it; his lantern would be a beacon for them, but he needed it until he reached the Forge city.
The canal sped by under Starforge as he flew. It was largely empty, but he still needed to slightly adjust his altitude to avoid low branches growing over it. Even the occasional tree trying to take root in the canal popped up at the very far edge of his vision and had to be deftly swerved around.
Starforge's urgent flight carried on for several minutes. By his reckoning he had flown more than five miles; as the urgency of the chase had passed he had gradually allowed his pace to slow. That reckoning did him little good, however, as he had no way of knowing how long he would have to follow the canal: the canals in the area ranged from eight to twenty miles long, but he had started somewhere in the middle of his chosen path.
Without warning another obstacle shot up in front of him, a massive one. Rather than a scraggly tree trying to survive in the canal bed, Starforge found himself faced with a tall, wide building. Rather than stop, Starforge adjusted his flight path and flew straight up. He followed the wall of the building up, letting gravity help him slow down as he ascended thirty feet.
When he reached the top of the building Starforge floated gently towards the middle. By its placement he guessed it to be an old smelting facility, where ore would have been refined into workable metal. The book said there would be a straight line through any building's city-side door, the flagpole in the yard out front if there was one, and the Forge house; cyclopes were very meticulous creatures, never designing without meaning, and the city existed to service the Forge.
He set himself down onto the roof gently. With a curious eye he looked up to the jungle canopy over the city, which was more sparse than he had expected it to be. With the major gaps in the coverage of tree leaves, he reasoned that the moon would provide enough light for him to see by. Starforge turned his lantern off and placed it back into his pack. He wouldn't need it to see, and its light would just attract more pangutans.
He walked on the roof, away from the canal and towards the center of town. Going that direction the building was maybe a hundred feet long, but it was wider, perhaps almost two hundred feet. Numerous ventilation apparatuses stuck out on the roof, and massive sections were cut out to make skylights. Starforge gingerly stepped around the obstacles and pitfalls.
When he reached the edge of the building he quickly noticed the flagpole, as well as the flag being displayed on it. Woven from jungle vines, and maybe a dozen feet on a side, the flag was very securely tied to the pole. Starforge angled his head slightly to the right as he looked at the strange sight. It was obviously not a cyclopean flag, but he had never heard of the pangutans displaying flags before.
He unfolded his wings and gently flew over to the flag, casting a curious eye on it. It was covered with several different pigments, like a real flag; the pangutans obviously knew what was expected to fly on a flagpole. That would be curious enough, but as he got close to it he was also able to see the design in the center: a crude representation of the city layout. He angled his head again, to the left this time; he had not expected the pangutans to care much about the buildings they squatted in, let alone represent them on a banner.
Starforge turned back from the flagpole to look for the main door to the building. He spotted it easily, because it was the only door on a wall covered in large windows. Unsure of what to make of the flag, he looked back over his shoulder once before flying back to the roof. Starforge landed directly above the door and turned back towards the flagpole. He looked back up the canopy, trying to get a sense for what it would look like from above. It had been very difficult to find the city, and if he had to leave in a hurry he wanted to be able to find his way back more easily.
Assured that he could pick out the break in the canopy from the air, he lifted off from the building. He gained altitude until he was about twenty feet below the branches. Once he was at altitude Starforge turned his attention back to the ground, while flying slowly towards the Forge house. He spotted several small groups of pangutans walking around below him, in streets lightly illuminated with torches. Though they preferred the day, pangutans were more comfortable moving around at night than ponies were; Starforge had expected pangutans to be milling around. If so many were on the streets, though, that meant that there were many more living in the old city than he had anticipated.
He looked down at the city warily. Suddenly he was very glad that his dark coat would be particularly hard for the apes to see against the poorly lit canopy and sky. The founding of Farrierview had been difficult, and Starforge had learned a lot about the town's history; even with the royal guard doing their best to protect the town, peace only came when the initial rush of building was done and the ponies stopped clearing large sections of jungle for wood. The ponies were able to safely cut down trees in small amounts now, but they still remembered the pangutans' skills with the bow and arrow.
In the distance the distinctive outline of the Forge house came into view. Safe from the apes below Starforge allowed his mind to wander, imagining the city in all of its splendor: thousands of ponies and cyclopes living and working together, creating the most powerful artifacts of their time. The cataclysm at the Forge had been a major loss for artifice, as most of the preeminent scholars and craftsponies back then lived in the city.
Lost in his reverie, Starforge didn't hear the tree leaves rustle above him. A second later though, he couldn't help but feel the impact. A pangutan who had been climbing a tree had leapt at the intruding pony and had struck his left flank, spinning the pony in the air until he was falling onto his right side with an angry ape on top of him. The pangutan reached his arms around Starforge in a bear hug, pinning both of his wings against his back.
The ape shrieked into Starforge's ear at the loudest volume he could manage with his substantial vocal chords. Starforge winced, then looked down to the rapidly approaching ground; he saw not only a hard landing, but many pangutans looking upward. Some darted into buildings, but more ran out into the street.
Starforge grimaced as he wriggled, determinedly trying to force the pangutan off of him. The ape was gripping him firmly with both hands; he couldn't throw him off. With his teeth clenched, he looked back to the ground. He had started with only two seconds before the impact, and he had wasted one second already. His lantern: it was in his right saddlebag. If he was able to get out of this and find his way into the Forge house, he'd need light once he was inside.
He angled his head to the right and then slammed it back into the pangutan's face. The ape instinctively lifted his closer right hand to force Starforge's head forward, giving Starforge the opening he needed. He opened his wings; while his left wing merely pushed the ape back a few inches but couldn't get past him, his right wing was free. Seeing what was happening the pangutan scrambled around Starforge's torso, trying to get a hand on the wing. With no time to determine how much thrust he needed, Starforge flapped his right wing as hard as he could, rotating himself. He spun in the air until his left side faced the ground and his right side faced the jungle canopy.
The pangutan reached Starforge's back and got a hand onto his right wing just before the two of them struck the ground at more than forty miles per hour. Starforge's left flank crashed into the ground, and his partially extended wing bent under the pressure. He involuntarily cried out from the pain, screaming into the night as he curled into a ball on the ground and kicked his legs at the air.
His scream was matched in volume by the pangutan lying behind him, balled up as well and clutching his left ankle; it had been smashed against the ground from the fall, then crushed under Starforge as well. His hand also came up to feel the left side of his left rib cage, which had struck the ground hard.
The two gradually ceased their cries and everything was still for several seconds. Starforge gritted his teeth and opened his eyes. Through tears of pain he could see that many of the apes had surrounded them, at a distance of five feet. His brain was too frazzled from all of the pain impulses still slamming into it to try to count how many pangutans that meant were around him, but he knew it was a lot.
He closed his eyes again and arched his head back. His breathing was heavy and ragged, and he fought back against sobs that wouldn't stop coming. His left wing throbbed and burned, and was still trapped under him. He tried forcing himself to breathe slowly, but that didn't work: he still hurt, and his breath was still uneven and punctuated with sobs.
Starforge heard a pangutan in the distance shout. He opened his eyes and turned his head, seeing several of the pangutans in the circle making way for someone. He closed his eyes again. Whoever they were making way for, he wasn't in the mood to find out. He clenched his jaw shut hard, and concentrated on his breathing. In. Hold. Hold. Hold. Out. Hold. Hold.
Ready. His eyes shot open and, slowly, he got his hooves under himself and stood up. His entire left side still hurt very badly, and he felt shaky, but fear was a very powerful painkiller. Counting twenty healthy pangutans all around him now, and more on the way, he was plenty afraid.
He took a step forward then opened his wings. Sharp pain shot through his left wing but he ignored it; he only needed a short flight, nothing more. He tried to flap his wings down but instead cried out. His breath became heavy again, and his left wing felt like somepony had tried to rip it off.
One of the pangutans said something to the others in their language, then turned to Starforge. They all nodded and looked towards Starforge as well. The one who had spoken said something to him, but Starforge couldn't understand the pangutan language. Instead he looked around at the apes facing him, then picked out the smallest one of the group.
Without warning Starforge charged forward at his chosen target. The poor ape must have been preparing to restrain him, not resist a charge; his body straightened up in surprise when the pony moved, rather than a more effective brace. Hit while his muscles were still involuntarily tensed, the pangutan went to the ground without any meaningful ability to resist. Unwilling to even slow down, Starforge trampled him under his hooves and continued running down the street.
Behind him Starforge could hear a pangutan shouting, probably barking out orders at the others. Running down the street, passing by buildings with confused pangutans standing in the doorways or looking out windows, he searched the skyline desperately for the Forge house. For the first time he cursed the cyclopes for their design sensibilities, demanding to know why they felt the need to surround the Forge house with taller buildings rather than let it tower over the city like a species of egomaniacs would.
He took a turn down a street and found himself face to face with another pangutan, who looked ready for him. Starforge stopped suddenly, coming to rest about six feet away from the ape. Now he wanted to curse his own noisy hooves. Looking around at the narrow street, he decided his plan of attack.
He faked a charge to the right, as if he were going to attack the pangutan directly, then pivoted and bolted to the left. Starforge was too slow for the ape, though, and the pangutan managed to get his hands around him. He tried to lift Starforge off of his hooves but the pony was too heavy to be lifted with such a poor grip; all he managed to do was swing Starforge around briefly.
What he was able to see during the brief lift was enough to unsettle Starforge, though. He saw three pangutans running from around the corner, one of which was wearing a primitive chest plate and holding a bow. The ape nocked an arrow on his bow, and Starforge panicked.
As soon as his hooves touched the dirt he thrust up and to the side with his legs, slamming the pangutan holding him into the building he had emerged from. His grip loosened but he didn't let go, so Starforge quickly turned his head and placed his jaw on the ape's side; he bit down, hard. The ape howled and his hands went for his side and Starforge's face, but Starforge was already running down the street.
An object flew past Starforge from behind him, on his right side: an arrow! It was flying slightly low and to the right, but if he had been any slower getting out of the ape's hold it would have been a direct hit. The arrow struck a building's side wall; Starforge continued his sprint forward and hoped that the building's placement meant he was on one of the diagonal streets near the city center.
He made a left turn onto a minor street and saw that halfway down the alley was a smaller pangutan—likely a younger adolescent. Starforge didn't slow down, preferring to barrel straight through anything in his path. The ape readied himself to grab him, but then he saw that the pony wasn't stopping. He stood there for a second, unsure of himself, as Starforge charged towards him with his head lowered. At the last moment, though, he lost his nerve and jumped to the side—out of Starforge's way. He let the pony pass, but did something even more dangerous than a poor attempt at grappling: he called into the night for his fellows.
Starforge emerged from the alley and stopped to have a look at the buildings on the street. He had memorized the maps, and so many of the buildings. Only one clue to his location, that's all he needed! Desperate, he scanned the skyline. One tower stuck out, built with enormous windows. It had to be the university library, and he knew the library's tower had a clear view of the Forge house.
Having decided his direction Starforge started running again. As he crossed the street and ran towards the tower he was able to make out the edifice of the university, which assured him he was in fact near the Forge house.
Despite his good fortune, however, the hairs were standing up on the back of his neck. He didn't hear the sound of pursuers anymore, but the pangutans had been so close to him just before he reached the alley. There was no way he could have evaded them, not after the young one had shouted. If they had guessed his destination they could be moving to surround him. He continued running, ignoring the ache in his chest and the dull throb of his wing.
He ran for the last stretch. Tired and anxious as he was, he was still paying enough attention to his surroundings to see that the buildings in this area seemed uninhabited. There were no lights on inside, no pangutans looking at him from the windows, and even the dirt did not seem as hard-packed by footsteps as the rest of the city.
Finally, the Forge house came into sight. Built out of large blocks of black stone, with strips of smaller white stone blocks on the edges, it was an imposing structure even if it was only fifteen feet tall. Starforge's pace slowed as he tried to take in the majesty of the building, and as he noticed that no pangutans were waiting to leap on him from nearby roofs.
By the time he reached the Forge house's threshold his pace had slowed to a walk. He stopped just outside and looked up at the massive twelve-foot-tall arch. Bowing his head in reverence, he imagined all of the great researchers and artificers – to say nothing of the Forge Masters themselves – who had walked through the arches on the Forge house's outer walls.
He opened his eyes. He was ready to prove himself. He wanted it more than anything, and he had come so far in his studies. With a triumphant stride, he walked through the arch and into the grand hall of the Forge house's ground floor. He had done it.
The hall was dark: when the cataclysm struck it not only claimed all but one of the city's residents, it also acted as a very high-level disruption spell. The powerful artifacts had reconstituted their magics after a few years, but simpler devices like magical lights were completely disrupted and their magic returned to its pre-crafting state; they wouldn't shine again unless a craftspony worked the magic into the right form again. He reached into his saddlebag for his lantern, which would be more than enough light for his needs, and turned it on.
He stepped through the hall, holding his lantern in his mouth. The walls inside were made up of polished beige granite, and the floors a darker tan polished granite. Columns, the same stone as the walls, supported the roof and carved the massive lobby into distinct sections.
In one section he saw the old freight elevator, but he knew it wouldn't work; due to tradition it was operated by hand crank, and there were no cyclopes below to operate it. Ahead, in the center of the grand hall, was what Starforge sought: the massive spiral staircase that led to the lower floors.
He carefully walked down the stairs. After twenty steps he reached the first landing, which was three quarters of a circle made of flat, gray stone. The first floor was the administrative level, and the second floor would be where the Forge workers' apartments were. The third floor, however, was where the Forge was. The third floor was where Starforge needed to go.
He walked down to the second landing. As above there were four hallways at even intervals around the landing. With a curious eye, he briefly looked down each hallway. He wondered if this floor was where Beglan was sleeping. Every Forge worker had their own apartment here, but it was also normal for them to keep a residence elsewhere; they would use their apartment to wash up and to rest while working on long projects, but live further out in the city.
Where Beglan was sleeping was unimportant, though. Starforge continued down the staircase. Another twenty steps down it ended in another landing, but it was different. The spiral staircase ended on the third level, and the only hallway was the one at the foot of the stairwell. Instead of the other three hallways the walls were decorated with portraits of some of the most famous Forge Masters. Starforge recognized a few of them: Gilding, gentlecolt of the Forge; Magnitun, exemplar of the hill cyclopes; and the last Forge Master: Sure Strike, in his days called the greatest artificer ever to live.
Starforge turned back from the wall and walked into the hallway. It contained a straight staircase, and Starforge could make out light at the bottom. He hurried down the thirty steps. When he reached the bottom his jaw dropped; his lantern hit the floor with a light clink. The Forge room was immense, with a ceiling at least thirty feet high. The ceiling was still lit, though Starforge couldn't tell if the lights were so powerful that they reconstituted themselves or if they had been re-worked after the cataclysm. To his left was the freight elevator, and its hand cranks. Straight ahead, however, was the Forge.
It stood on the third level of a small pyramid, with steps about eight inches high and with five feet between steps. The final level, where the Forge was kept, seemed rather small compared to the room around it—only about twenty feet by forty feet. Ponies and cyclopes would have come in to watch the masters work, and the hall was built to instill the proper sense of awe.
He stepped into the room. His hooves clacked on the dark red granite floor as he made his way towards the Forge. Destiny. That was what he felt as he climbed the first two levels and stood before the third. Directly in front of him, in the center of the platform, was the anvil. It was very large and still pristine, even after being used for generations. To his right was the furnace, and its assortment of tools. To the left was the enchanting table. The enchanting table would be where the Forge Master did the important work; they would work the anvil sometimes as well, but they were always selected for their abilities on the enchanting table.
He stepped up onto the last level, then stepped forward to the anvil. Curious about its magical properties, he touched it with a hoof—he jolted and immediately withdrew it. The anvil was very, very heavily enchanted. Despite its large size he wasn't sure if even Bliss could contain so much magic in such a small package; he remembered reading about a fourth metal type, called "Nirvana" by modern ponies, but it was always mentioned as being merely a hypothesis—what the metal would be like if the Felicity-Glee-Bliss cycle continued to a fourth tier.
The anvil certainly didn't look like it was made of Bliss; the anvil had the appearance of an object made of platinum, like all magical metals naturally did, but with a thin layer of cobalt blue giving it a dull sheen. When it did not have its color magically altered Felicity had no sheen, Glee a red sheen, and Bliss a green sheen. Whatever enchantments were woven into the anvil were complicated, and Starforge couldn't identify them.
He circled to the other side of the anvil, examining it while he walked. It was brilliantly crafted, and even under close examination still showed no signs of wear despite the heavy use it had seen. On the side opposite there hung numerous hammers, tongs, and other tools. Starforge could sense magic from some of them, but others were mundane—though very finely crafted.
What Starforge had journeyed to the Forge for would be unmistakeably magical. He looked around the room again, his eyes stopping on the crafting table. It was made of the same material as the anvil, and the blue tones of the flat surface seemed to dance in the browns and reds of the larger room.
He shifted his attention to behind the Forge and saw what he needed. A chunk of metal and a hammer rested on a small wooden table about ten feet behind the series of steps that led to the Forge. Starforge hurried over to it and touched the metal. It was very magical, but its magic was as unshaped as the metal's physical form. He looked it over, and his eyes confirmed what his craftspony's sense told him: with the underlying platinum appearance and thin green-colored film, it was definitely unworked Bliss.
The hammer sitting next to it was very large. While eight pounds of Bliss did not work out to a very large chunk, the hammer was obviously made to fit comfortably into the hand of a cyclops. Starforge could sense that it, like many of the objects in the room, was very magical. From a distance of two feet he could definitely sense that it contained improvements in both metal and magic shaping, but the specific spells were beyond his ability to identify at a range. He reached to the hammer and touched it with his hoof.
After touching the hammer he was better able to feel the magic contained, and understood its capabilities much better, but he did not know any of the spells within it. That was fine for him: he didn't need to know how the hammer worked to use it. He grabbed it in his hoof.
As soon as Starforge's hoof wrapped around the hammer it began to shrink. In less than half a second it had re-sized itself so a pony could comfortably use it. Starforge tilted his head to the left, curious. He released his grip on the hammer, but it retained its new, smaller size. Interesting. He lifted the hammer, and found that it had a weight appropriate to its small size. Very interesting.
He set the hammer down again. The furnace would need to be started and made hot enough to get the Bliss into a workable state. There would be a lot to do, but Beglan would have his crown—and Starforge would have his hammer. He prepared to work, wondering what kind of spell he would place onto the crown.
Starforge wiped the sweat from his forehead. Even with Beglan's hammer it had been very difficult to work the magic in the Bliss crown into as grand a form as he had wanted. With the magic of the hammer and the anvil helping him, working the metal into the complicated crown shape had been rather easy; it had taken only an hour.
Crafting the flight spell into the crown, however, had been an entirely different matter. The crafting magics of the hammer and the Forge were multiplicative, not additive; an amateur would gain next to nothing from them, while a master craftspony could use them to create impossible artifacts. Somewhere in between, Starforge had struggled trying to put a very powerful spell he had never crafted before into a complicated type of metal he was still unfamiliar with.
It had taken him three hours but he had managed it. Starforge set the finished crown down onto the wooden table and briefly admired his work. He had magically removed the green sheen from the Bliss, leaving it with the physical appearance of a beautiful but mundane platinum crown. Because he had no gems to place into the crown he had gone with lower ridges on the crown, but many of them. It was too large and heavy for a pony, but perfect for a six-foot-tall cyclops with the muscles to match his stature.
Finished with his test, Starforge placed Beglan's hammer into his own saddlebag then put his saddlebags back on. He walked back to the stairway and picked his lantern back up in his mouth, then climbed the staircase. Once he reached the landing he ascended to the second floor, but rather than continue out of the building he stopped and looked down one of the hallways. He set the lantern down and chuckled.
"Sleep well Beglan," he said, self-satisfaction seeping into his voice. "Sleep well."