Forged Legacy

Chapter 131 - Can You Help Me in the Garage?

“I’ll swing by tomorrow afternoon and give you the crash course of what your family’s been learning the past few months,” Cash said, waving goodbye as he walked down the driveway.

“That would be great. Thanks again for all your help. I know you’re going out of your way,” Harvey said.

“Don’t mention it! I wouldn’t be here without you!”

Harvey turned and walked toward the front door to his parents' home, suddenly feeling like he was back in high school being dropped off by a friend after volleyball practice. He’d been away from home for 7 years. The house was different. The world was different. He was different, but some things would always stay the same.

“Take your shoes off!” his mom called from the kitchen when he opened the door.

Harvey just chuckled, stripping off pieces of his armor one by one until it all disappeared into his spatial ring. He’d stopped by one of John’s mirrors after teleporting back to the church and bought a few pairs of jeans and t-shirts. His old robes and canvas clothing that he’d worn most of the undead trial were torn to shreds, and he wasn’t going to be doing any blacksmithing in basketball shorts and a leather apron.

“Hey, Mom! What ya making?” Harvey asked, wrapping his mother in a tight hug. A tantalizing smell radiated from the kitchen, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was.

“Oof, you stink,” she winced. “I’m making your favorite!”

“Baked ziti?” Harvey trilled, the thought of perfect pasta erasing all thoughts of his new project.

“Yeah! I wanted to celebrate my oldest boy coming home,” she beamed.

[If this ziti is as good as all the memories I’m seeing, my stance on trying to take control of your body might have to change.]

Honestly, I wouldn’t blame you.

“Hooray!” Harvey bubbled. “Thanks, mom! What time are we eating so I can make sure I’m not in the middle of a melt?”

“A what? It will be ready in 30 minutes.”

Harvey looked out the window facing the backyard and paused when he saw a gaggle of kids playing soccer. “For lunch?”

“Oh, right, you just got here today,” she mused. “The sun never sets in heaven. It’s this light out all the time.”

“You’re kidding?” Harvey laughed. He hadn’t paid much attention to it with all the day’s excitement, but the sky hadn’t changed at all since he arrived. “Well then, I’ll go shower real quick and be right down.”

Harvey ran upstairs and saw Tyler sitting at a desk inside a small bedroom. Harvey knew he smelled, but there was something else he needed to know before he could wind down.

“What did you guys tell mom?” Harvey whispered.

“Nothing. Just that we watched the fighting from your bunker and have some things to think about,” Tyler replied.

“Close enough, I guess,” Harvey chuckled. “Are you ok?”

Tyler hesitated, melting into his chair with his arms folded and right fist supporting his face. “Honestly? I’m scared. Doesn’t feel right to say that to you, though, after everything you went through.”

“I didn’t do any of it alone,” Harvey assured. “I had Julian. We were both lost and confused, but at least the monsters we were fighting were all around our level. You have me! And Cash, but I’d like to believe you trust your brother more than a random angel.”

Tyler chuckled, leaning forward and staring at the floor.

“I’m not going to force you to do anything, but I will promise that if you decide to fight, my number one goal is to keep you safe.”

“Thanks, Harvey.”

“Dinner’s in 30, Mom said to go set the table,” Harvey said, slapping the doorframe as he ran to find a bathroom.

After a quick shower, a new pair of clothes, and a relaxing dinner with his family, Harvey felt like a new man. It was nice just chatting about nothing. Stories of vacations they took together or funny memories from back home. Max even shared that he’d made a new friend at church, his speech significantly clearer than it had been the last time Harvey saw him. It could just be that he was getting older, but he wondered if there was more at play now that they were surrounded by ambient essence.

“I’m going to be out in the garage!” Harvey announced. “Be careful if you come out, the forge is going to be burning at a few thousand degrees!”

“Excuse me!” His mother blanched.

“Don’t worry, honey. I’ll go out with him and make sure Max doesn’t get into anything,” Steve assured.

Harvey let the door slam shut behind them. Despite nobody having any cars or plastic crates full of holiday decorations and childhood memories, every house in heaven came equipped with a large garage. He assumed it was meant to be a workspace for the various professions the faithful would get once they graduated from angel school. The Profession they all shared in G-Grade was truly meant to be an introduction to the System, and most would need to do more than learn about the System and the Gospel to keep progressing in the F Grade.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

In minutes, the empty concrete was covered in all the tools he’d stowed away in his ring back at the Hell Hotel. A forge, an anvil, and a pair of workbenches were soon covered with hammers, tongs, files, and punches, all in pristine condition. It would be nice to work with well-maintained tools for once. Now, instead of only having one cracked crucible, he had 10 of various sizes.

“That ring is pretty amazing,” his dad marvelled.

“I don’t have any extra rings, but I have extra slipsacks if you want one. They’re super convenient,” Harvey offered.

“That would be great!”

Harvey retrieved the blueprints for his gun and unfurled them over a workbench. He’d only scanned them before leaving the gunsmith, making sure he’d have everything he needed to get started. Now, he took the time to read them in earnest.

Learning had always come easily for him. In school, he rarely had to read something more than once to gain a basic understanding. Now, he could feel the Cognition Matrix analyzing the information alongside him. Julian’s mind acted as the supporting hand as he navigated dealing with the angels and reuniting with his family, but now Aurelia’s complex machine learning was taking center stage. It was as if the crystal embedded in his brain absorbed the text, imprinting it so deeply that he could read it as clearly as if he were staring at the blueprint.

Piling charcoal high inside the forge, Harvey got to work. Revolvers were surprisingly simple, with the main components being the frame, barrel, cylinder, trigger, and hammer. Normally, these parts would need to be machined or die cast to achieve absolute precision, but the System made things a little easier for him. He could achieve the same strength by casting each piece slightly oversized, then hammering it around the mold until the metal compressed into its final shape. As long as his cast pieces were slightly thicker than the final product, he could fabricate an exceptionally durable weapon without all the high-precision power tools most modern gunsmiths used.

[All your blacksmithing feels a little less impressive now that I know you cheat.]

“Do you need any help?” Steve asked.

“If you want to!”

“You spent a lot of time helping me in the garage growing up. About time I return the favor,” his dad laughed.

“Alright, if you don’t mind pumping the bellows for a bit, we’ll get this baby nice and hot.”

The chunk of aethersteel he bought had already been purified, so all he had to do was drop it in the crucible and prepare the various molds. Artificer’s Toolbox scaled with Wisdom and Willpower, both of which had seen massive improvements since his last major crafting run. Not only that, but the Cognition Matrix gave him what was essentially two trains of thought, allowing him to manipulate the essence forming his molds easier than ever. Formless power solidified into molds harder than steel, sending his father’s jaw down to the floor.

“You make it look so effortless!”

“This is the easy part,” Harvey laughed. “Although skills make everything a lot easier than traditional blacksmithing. I don’t know if I would’ve gotten much farther than warped nails without the System’s help.”

Even with the brand-new forge not leaking heat like his old, cracked clay one, the garage rapidly became sweltering. Aethersteel needed insanely high temperatures to melt, almost to the point that a charcoal forge couldn’t get hot enough. That was great when it came to enduring thousands of rounds, but it meant Harvey constantly needed to add more fuel to keep the fire raging. Artificer’s Eyes showed the temperature inside was dancing along the metal’s melting point, threatening the consistency when he finally went to pour.

An idea sparked inside his mind, and Harvey surrounded the forge with his aura infused with the Imprint of the Tempered Heart. The effect was minor, but it did succeed in trapping some of the heat inside. When he imagined the forge as the heart trapping raging forgefire within, the effect got even better.

“Phew! I thought Arizona summers were bad!” his dad sighed, trying unsuccessfully to dry his forehead with his sleeve.

Stifling air blasted out of the forge like dragon’s breath when Harvey opened the door. Steady hands clasped his tongs tightly around the crucible, and he effortlessly lifted it towards the molds arrayed on the floor.

“Do you need help?”

“Nope, just close the forge and back up. I don’t want any drops to splash on you,” Harvey said calmly, his eyes watching the spout like a hawk as he filled each mold. The metal was beautiful, with the golden streaks swirling like mystical threads floating atop a sea of pale silver. One by one, the pieces were cast.

“So what now?”

“We wait for them to cool enough that they retain their shape, break them out, slide new molds inside the hollow channels we left in the chamber and the barrel, and do a few rounds of heating and hammering,” Harvey explained. He’d formed the molds so the rifling of the barrel, five chambers in the cylinder, and teeth to let the hammer spin to the next round were already in place. Being exposed to molten metal weakened the molds, but creating new ones inside the half-formed pieces would be easy enough with his increased mental control.

Cracking open the molds released a smell like wine and cinnamon, reminding him of the smoke Cash’s ritualistic skills released into the air. It was a lot better than his sweaty old smithy, and he appreciated having the chance to really catch up with his dad. In between rounds of incessant clanging, he gave him the real story of how he got here. Not the sanitized version he’d told his family.

About how the video of Cleo pushed him over the edge. About how scared he had been. Of everything, at first. A single point in Willpower would do that to anyone. But later, how terrified he’d been of Gary, of failing to protect his friends, and never seeing his family again. He told him things he’d never had the courage to say out loud until now, but was surprised to find that he didn’t fall apart. Harvey expected a raging river of tears when he finally let the dam break, but more than anything, he felt peace.

“I wish I could’ve been there for you,” Steve sighed.

“You were,” Harvey smiled. “From the second I woke up in my new body, I wanted nothing more than to get back to you guys. You kept me going even when I couldn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel.”

Hours went by, and the pieces took shape. The combination of Artificer’s Eyes, Artificer’s Toolbox, and Perfect Finish helped him remove every imperfection.

“Harvey!” his mother hissed. “I waited as long as I could, but it’s time for you and your father to go to sleep. I know it doesn’t look like it, but it’s late, and we have church in the morning!”

“Alright, just give me a minute. I need to quench everything before one last round of tempering.”

“I don’t know what that means, but it better not involve any more hammering! You’ve woken up your brother twice already!”

“It doesn’t, " Harvey laughed, grabbing the barrel with his tongs before dumping it in a barrel of oil beside the anvil.

“I had fun working with you,” his dad said once his mom closed the door. “What are your plans tomorrow?”

“Assemble the pieces, add some inscriptions, and test this bad boy out. After that, I’ll probably get to work on some silver armor.”

He saw his dad hesitate as he reached for the door handle. Indecision clouded his eyes until he took a deep breath and met Harvey’s gaze.

“Do you think you could forge some for me, too?”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” Steve smiled. “No matter how terrified I might be, I’m not going to let you face this trial alone.”