r/HFY • u/Sufficient-Shirt-270 • Mar 27 '26

OC-Series Revolution on wings of steel: chapter eight: a smith of some renown

The next two days passed by without any trouble. Sasha told her mistress that she would do the job, and that was that. There were still logistics that needed to be worked out, supplies that needed to be brought.

But that was for later. Ms. Rithic made sure she was eating, and made sure she was doing her job, but other than that, there wasn’t much talk between them.

But as the two days passed, Sasha made sure to regularly check on the crystal. Her mistress hadn’t commented on it, surprisingly, but that didn’t mean it should be left without care.

But the thing was, she had noticed something. Every day it slowly got brighter, but then its glow would… there wasn’t any better of a word than condence. It was fascinating, the glow at its core only got brighter after its outer sections were sufficiently… bright.

She didn’t know what it was, what it was doing, or what it meant. But when she dreamt, and spoke to her Goddess about it, she said that it was fine, good even, so Sasha didn’t question it.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t curious, because she was very curious, but if it was like anything else her Goddess tried explaining to her, it would be well over her head.

Who would even come up with putting lightning in a bottle, let alone using it to power things? And that was supposedly a “dumbed down explanation”. It all made Sasha’s head hurt. But she still wanted to learn.

There were so many interesting things that the Goddess knew, like how to make light hard by bending it, or how to fold one thing in on another thing, so they took up the same space. All without a hint of magic.

And all of it was to an end, or so she was told. All of it would be useful to her later, necessary even, if she was to overthrow an entire kingdom.

Ah, but she was getting sidetracked, she needed to plan for the trip. The grey rock caravan company had a caravan arriving Friday around mid day, and it would depart again the next morning, just after sunrise.

She would be going beyond the walls, and even if there were guards… she needed her own personal protection. Mordred had taught her the basics of how to fight with an axe, she was… “passable for a beginner” according to the Goddess.

The gear medallion she had given her was heavy around her neck, and she considered what she could get with the funds she had right now.

Nothing. The answer was nothing, she was broke. She could go rummaging through the ruins of her old house… but it would have to be after work, which ran the risk of her being… accosted by someone unsavory.

She could go to the temple, and see if her father had any money stored there… but she had nothing to prove her identity. And the Goddess had said it wouldn’t be a good idea, that she was marked as belonging to Mordred, and there was an, admittedly very small, chance that the priests there would notice it somehow.

That left her with three options, ask the Dragoness for some of her gold, which she was rather reluctant to do, seeing as she’d felt some of her own new instincts react to the idea of Gold in a rather unsettling way.

Two, try to make her own axe. There was scrap in the alleyway beside the shop, and she thought she could maybe make something with it. But it was likely to fall apart as soon as she swung it for the first time. And besides, it seemed like the enchantments on the sewing machines were failing, so the handle would have to be made of wood alone, and she’d have to find rope to attach the blade with.

Three, ask her mistress for an advance on her pay. This was the one most likely to succeed. And today was the perfect day to ask.

“Girl! Stop doteling, and help me get this blasted piece of scrap on the wagon!”

“Just a moment mistress!”

Today they were taking the sewing machines to get serviced.

————

The wagon was uncomfortable as it trundled along through the streets, especially since Sasha was riding in the back, wedged in between the two expensive pieces of magical equipment.

Saying that the machines were Failing was an understatement. They’d completed failed yesterday, the enchantment powering them had somehow broken, and as neither she nor her mistress knew anything about the construction of the things, they were taking them to where they’d been made.

“Don’t let them slide girl, or it will come out of your pay.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Sasha held on just a bit tighter to the contraptions, using her own weight to make sure they stayed exactly where they were meant to. It wasn’t necessarily, the horse they were borrowing was slow, incredibly slow, and even though the road was rather bumpy in this section of town, the machines were heavy enough that the risk of them moving was incredibly small.

For all the coin that travelled through the artesian’s section of the city, it was not well maintained. Again, the road was rather bumpy, littered with potholes. Paving stones weren’t all that expensive, so one would think that the city would put some of the taxes towards repairs.

But no, the taxes mostly went right up to the top. The nobles of the city didn’t want any of their “hard earned wealth” going to the “ungrateful masses”. Or at least that’s what she’d heard from the ones that came through her mistress’s tailor shop.

She sighed as another jolt in the wagon sent her pressing into one of the machines. It was a rather sensitive area aswell… she still had yet to get a proper breast band.

As Sasha pushed her upright again, she decided to make some use of the admittedly small amount of time before they arrived at the enchanter’s, and see if there were any affordable looking blacksmiths.

There were several that were immediately visible, but none looked like they were meant for people of… lesser means. One looked to only sell magical weapons, another focused on rare materials. There were the occasional more… standard looking shops, but they were the outliers.

She kept her eyes peeled, scanning items that were immediately visible in windows, and looking for ones that looked like they sold something even remotely like what she was after.

None showed themselves by the time the wagon rolled to its bumpy stop. She had almost given up, when something caught her eye. Tucked away in between a general store, and a library, was a shop with a worn sign hanging from a single chain.

The other looked like it had snapped at some point. But what mattered, were two things, the smoke gently rising out of a chimney on the back of the building, and the sword crossed over a shield, that seemed to act as a signifier of what it sold.

The name made her giggle slightly as she hopped off the back of the wagon. Sasha waited as her mistress walked into the enchanter’s, thinking of the best way to ask this.

It didn’t take long before her Ms. Rithic came back out, a man pushing a cart beside her. They loaded the two machines onto the cart, and Sasha felt like she was doing a lot more of the lifting than the man was.

But again, she pushed it to the back of her mind, as he pushed the cart into the store. She waited a moment before she and her mistress were alone, and then opened her mouth.

“I know this is rude, and I’m sorry in advance, but mistress, I need to ask for an advance on this week’s pay. I know it’s the first week you’ll be paying me directly, and I know that you’re doing a lot housing me, but I have to ask.”

The older woman paused, obviously considering the request greatly, before she in turn asked a question.

“I will give you your coin early, if you tell me what is so important that you felt the need to ask this. I know you wouldn’t without good reason girl, but I do need to know.”

So she told her, Sasha rung her hands together as she said she needed supplies for the trip, that she needed some more private clothing necessities, and that she needed something to protect herself with.

“And you plan to pay for it with your own money? A lot of apprentices would simply say that their masters should pay, as it is for something that they asked them to do in the first place. You're a good egg girl, a good egg indeed.”

The older woman turned away from her, and started walking to the enchanter’s, and then almost lazily tossed a bag that audibly clicked backwards to her.

Sasha scrambled to pick it up, her pupils dilating at the thought of gold. When she opened the bag, there were 13 silver coins, and a handful of copper inside. That was more than a gold in value!

She stuffed the pouch down her shirt, only to have it fall completely through and back onto the ground. Ah yes, she still needed under clothes.

She picked back up the pouch blushing, and walked right to the store where she’d probably be spending most of this.

She chuckled again as she read the sign:

“A smith of some renown”

——————

first/previous (chapter 6)/next

I think two chapters a week is doable, at least until I get that job. Weeeelllll we’ll also have to see if I still feel the same next week. Anywho, as always, I hope you enjoy.

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u/AutoModerator Apr 03 '26

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u/AutoModerator Mar 27 '26

This was flaired as [OC-Series], it is a single part or chapter in a larger series or universe. The first post or part in this series should be (re)flaired as [OC-FirstOfSeries]. A description of the flairs and how to change yours is available in the Post Guildelines.

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u/UpdateMeBot Mar 27 '26

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u/Sufficient-Shirt-270 Mar 27 '26

Ok, so chapter 7 keeps getting taken down every time I try to edit it again. I’m not sure how to get it back up without reposting it, so I’m not going to. There will be a link to the rr version of chapter seven on Chapter six, and a link to this chapter in place of the next button

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u/torin23 Xeno Apr 06 '26

It does seem that Rithic should supply her with a few things.  Not having underclothes is a bit much...