First Bucks, Earning Your Keep

Rowan wanted to be a smith, becoming an apprentice smith would solve his lack of a weapon and earn money at the same time.

After a pitiful meal of rat meat to recuperate health, he set off for Jarid's Smithy, a smithy under the ownership of a wizened dwarf.

Upon entering the door to the smithy, he was greeted by a gentle voice, something unexpected in a forge, "Hello there. Are you here for the sake of acquiring some sort of weapon?"

"Not to be offensive, but you look awfully in the need for it," the person at the counter said.

Abashed, Rowan's cheeks flushed slightly, "No, I'm okay. It's not like I've got the spare funds for one anyways. I'm here to ask if you guys were recruiting any apprentices?"

"I've got a great work ethic, and I would like to think that I learn quickly at least."

"I'm sorry sir, it doesn't seem like we're hiring any hands around here. If you're looking for an apprenticeship, why not try out the seamstress over there?" the person manning the counter pointed out the window at a shop not too far down the street.

"You sure there's no positions here?" Rowan asked resignedly.

"I'm sorry we really aren't taking in any more apprentices as of right now," he apologized.

Then a gruff voice yelled out from the backrooms where the forges were located, "Leif, I swear on my hammer! Where are the next batch of the damn ores?"

"Umm... sorry Mr. Jarid! The mine said that they got delayed due to a bandit attack on the supply train. They won't be here for a while."

"Ah damn it! What am I supposed to do with all the orders now? Ah, screw it. Leif! Just inform the customers that their orders are going to have to be delayed. Damn it, we're not going to have enough workers when the ores come in," Jarid complained.

Hearing this, Rowan hesitantly asked, "Excuse me sir, but if it isn't too much, I could work here if you need an extra hand?"

Jarid turned at this, "And who's this?" he asked Leif.

"Nothing much, boss, he came here looking for work as an apprentice but I told him we didn't have any positions open," Leif replied.

"Ehhh... screw it. We're going to need some extra labor soon, let 'em in," he instructed Leif, after that he turned towards Rowan, "You know how to swing a hammer?"

"I don't know how to forge but I can hit things really well," Rowan affirmed.

"Of course you can, that's all you youngsters can do nowadays. Well, you'll get a wage of about a silver a month, if you can make things and sell 'em also you'll get a cut out of the profits you make, k?"

"I'll be fine with that, but I do have to tell you that I bear no knowledge nor experience in terms of forging sir," Rowan warned Jarid.

"It's fine. We've got about a week before the ore shipment comes in right?" Jarid asked Leif, Leif nodded his head in response, "We'll be able to get you crafting basic stuff, so long as you actually put in the effort laddie."

"Now come on in here, we've got some beginner stuff you can do."

A prompt then came up before Rowan, "Master Jarid has invited you to join his forge as one of his apprentices, would you like to accept?"

A simple yes/no prompt hovered below the system statement, Rowan not hesitating to confirm his recruitment.

"So boy, take this," Jarid gave Rowan a hammer, and some ore, pushing him towards the furnace, "Now what do you see here?" he asked.

Confused, Rowan answered, "I see a hammer, a forge, some ore, an anvil as well, it's a typical forge if you ask me."

"From the instant, you started listing the physical aspects of what you saw, you had already made your first mistake boy."

"But what's the issue Mr. Gravelbrand? I don't really understand," Rowan asked.

"As a potential forger, you can't just simply view these matters by their physical aspects. Rather, you have to consider their potential. As a creator, you can't simply take things at face value, but look at the things you can make with them," Jarid dutifully instructed Rowan.

"I still quite understand Master."

"Okay, take it like this. The materials are laid out before you now. You see the basic materials and I also see this. But the potential is there. Potential that can be used to create a pick for the tired miner to harvest yet more ore, or it can be used to craft weapons to be used to defend."

"The job of us forgers are integral and by seeing with such a lens, it shall prove to be a tad bit easier," Jarid lectured on.

Yet another system prompt appeared, "Master Jarid has imparted his teachings upon you, your understanding/skill of forging has risen by a small margin. 1/10."

Seeing this and the visible progress shown by Jarid's teachings in such a short time, Rowan was obviously quite excited and continued to dutifully listen to the teachings.

"Now as for basic forging techniques, you're going to first start off with this scrap ore, and try to fashion some ingots out of them. You'll keep doing this until you can guarantee success with it, we don't want you wasting any ore worth a damn, especially with the shortage going on recently."

"Okay, this seems simple enough," Rowan commented.

"Oh ho ho, kid, everything is this job appears simpler than it really is. Try it out yourself and then we'll see."

Jarid directed Roan towards the forge, "So first you're going to take the scrap ore provided and feed it into the loading tray here. After that, when the ore is fully melted down, you're going to pour it down into these molds here."

"While pouring it into the molds, you must keep a steady hand, otherwise the ingots would come out with cracks and all other sorts of flaws."

"I'll demonstrate it for you once, watch my movements, after this, we'll see how much you observed," ended Jarid.

Jarid proceeded to smoothly slide the scraps into the tray, ensuring that they would be thoroughly melted within the sweltering heat of the furnace. After about 7 or so minutes, with wary supervision over the metal, it had smelted down without much difficulty."

"Now that the metal's done getting melted down now, we can pour it into the molds," he said as he lifted and tilted the kiln, smoothly pouring the metal into the molds.

"And that kid is how ya do it. We'll just let that sit there for a bit now, wait for it to cool off before it can be repurposed for further processing now, okay?"

A boisterous ding rang and Rowan's smithing knowledge increased by yet another notch.

"Now kid, why don't you take a stab at it and see if it's really as easy as it appears now, eh? challenged Jarid. "