Our Story

Talc gets a job!

(Talc's POV)

She's always running off. I thought as Melina took off and was soon lost in the tangle of streets.

She'd left me to wandered around Haven all by my lonesome.

Just as well. I had a few things to do of my own. I took out my scroll. The map appeared on it. I saw Melina icon moving farther away, but I wasn't interested in where she was going.

I needed a job. I needed to raise skills. Quickly. Step one of ruling the world in video games, like Fable, was getting a job to raise your skill level and earning some fast coin. Sure, I could just get items from my scroll in a jiffy so it wasn't like I needed a job for cash, but skill points was another story. I had to build them up somehow and figure out how to track them eventually. A job was the quickest way to do that if DragonAge was that kind of game.

I scanned the map. Blacksmithing earned the most in Fable. I knew at least the basics of smithing. Melina and I had been in a Blacksmithing club once before. I didn't last long thanks to Melina and her embarrassing run-away mouth. I could never show my face at the club again.

I groaned, remembering the events that were too embarrassing to relive, but things would be different this time. I spotted a forge icon not too far from where I stood.

When I arrived, I couldn't help but be underwhelmed.

I had imagined the smithy built into a cave or at least a solid structure. Instead, I saw a shack and barely that. I was surprised to see it equipped at all.

The furnace was much larger than I would've expected. It took up the whole back portion of the far wall, emitting a vicious heat.

The ceiling created a funnel to carry the smoke out. I saw a huge man toiling over an anvil. He was a solid wall of muscle. His hammer coming down mightily on the rod of iron he was flattening.

Elves and humans scurried all about. Some heaved smelting materials around. Others tended the furnace, making sure the flames didn't die. Another group tinkered away to put finishing touches on the completed items. Farming tools mostly. A shield and short sword here and there. One or two well-muscled elves hammered away at sparking metals on their own anvils.

"You're needing something, Devil?" The man called barely glancing up from his work.

I grinned at the nickname.

"Just missing home, I suppose." I said walking to the entrance of the smithy and nodding at his struggling furnace.

He turned and looked at the furnace as it belched out a cloud of smoke and sputtered flames.

"FOR THEDAS SAKE, KILIAN! You're letting the fire die!! AGAIN!!" He cursed at an elf leaning heavily on a coal shovel. "You've got to keep feeding it!" He snapped.

He threw a nearby towel at the elf's head. Kilian awoke from his daydreaming with a yelp and began to hurriedly shovel coal into the furnace's gaping, red mouth. I chuckled.

"Worthless." The man muttered angrily. He removed his gloves and glared at me. "We don't get many Qunari around these parts. Whatever you're looking for we probably won't have it." He fumed.

I shrugged, "if you can't help me, maybe I should help you instead."

He crossed his arms,"How so?"

"You're clearly in need of better assistants. I have a strong arm. You have a spare anvil in the corner. Let me work for you. I learn fast and I promise I take orders better than Kilian."

He humphed with a fierce nod, "I'd make a deal with you if I could, Devil, but the forge is not mine."

"Whose forge is it?"