Thoughts of my little critter companion were running through my mind with concern, he had been gone a few hours now. I couldn't just sit here and do nothing so I focused on my senses and magic sight trying to pick up his signature aura that I was so familiar with. That amber sunny glow that I could pick out of a crowd of magical auras, it was the one I was most familiar with after all.
I was scanning the cave and noticed the surrounding magic in here, every rock, drip of water had a slight glow of white, a neutral aura of nature magic, abundant magic had a different glimmer of varying colours depending on the type of materials, wood usually had shades of brown, grasses and plants had shades of green and rocks had either grey or black but crystals we're different it depended on where they were formed if it was a cool place it was a blue or bright white or hot we're orange and reds, there were some peculiar one's like the prismatic crystals I had found or certain types of crystals, for example, amethyst had a white and purple shine to its aura. The shades depended on the ambience of the magic in that area if it was scarce it was like these rocks just a light white glimmer but if it was plentiful they were darker or brighter.
As I was trying to get a direction of his aura I noticed a small crack in the floor just big enough for him to squeeze through, so I got nearer to get a better chance of examining to discern if that's where he had vanished to. As I neared and focused on the opening I spotted four auras that shined brighter than any other around, thankfully one was Ratatoskr that sunny amber was as bright as the other 3 which was quite surprising to me. Ratatoskr possesses a vast amount of magic for a creature of this dimension, creatures of Pangaea had an abundance of magic to absorb and refine, Ratatoskr had soaked up some at the monolith at Ruðstane and even evolved slightly, so something with a magical aura as bright as his was rare.
The 3 auras each had a different colour and feel about them, one was a long twisted strip of dark brown that felt welcoming and pure, the little squirrel's aura was circling around it. The second was a lump of black that felt warm from where I was at about a mile away from it, the last one was a radiant small piece of a grainy, black or brown it felt simple and old it was in between the others.
I shouted to Ratatoskr "Ratatoskr what have you found? Come back so I can open it up to see!" He must have heard me cause his aura was promptly approaching me at the quickest speed I have seen him use, the little furry guy shot out of the hole and scurried around me on to my shoulder.
"Phew thought I had lost you there for a minute" I murmured softly looking at him, he had this excitable aura exuding from him while he hopped around pointing at the little hole.
"Okay okay, I'll get to it just calm down" I let out with a chuckle. As I focused on the hole I reached out with my control over nature and forced it open into a tunnelling pathway and stepped in and continued onwards while channelling a route to whatever the closest aura was.
The closest aura was the twisted strip of dark brown, the closer I got the more comfortable I felt, it was like it was beckoning me towards my family. The nearer I got the more it felt like it was mine all along like something I had lost and was just reunited with.
When I forced the pathway towards it a cavern opened up and I stopped and stared at what I saw. The twisted strip of brown aura was considerably larger than I expected, it was a fallen trunk of an ancient tree about 50 feet long and as wide as a small cottage. A deep brown with lighter grains on its bark, the beautiful scene left me speechless.
Ratatoskr shot off me and began climbing all over the fallen. It looked a monkey puzzle tree so I was expecting one of the other auras to be Jet stones Whitby jet was made of this wood and I'm not that far from Whitby so it's a possibility. I began approaching it wondering what it was doing here in this cave, and why I was so attracted to it.
As I touched upon the bark it flaked away in its old age, I felt the magic inside the tree, it was so pure and simple, true natural energy. I had an idea of what to do with this piece of wood, I was going to make an axe handle out of it and use the rest as runes or paper. Regardless first I wanted to check out the others before I began chopping away at it.
As I approached the next aura closest to me I was met with a wall, the aura wasn't quite a lump as I suspected but rather a gathering of small strips and blobs of warm blackness. I guessed it was an ore of some kind, so I manipulated the stone wall to gather it into a bunch and pulled it towards me with some difficulty, what eventually came out of the rock face was a lump of ore about the size of a basketball. I wasn't quite sure what metal ore it was, a blackish-red with strips of orange minerals with a small remainder of stone in between. I would have to smelt the ore to extract a base metal to begin working with it, I went to pick up the ore deposit and it weighed more than I expected around half a ton.
To smelt the ore I would need to make a furnace and some charcoal. The furnace could use a water wheel to create a pulley system to provide constant airflow, adding heat to the flames. Charcoal was an easy process to produce, just create a stack of wood covered in a mud mound and ignite it after the fire gets going, cover all air holes and leave it to burn down.
I decided to wait till I got outside, didn't want to smoke myself out in a cave. So I collected to ore into my backpack, it's a good thing I'm strong or id have had to break it into pieces and make trips back and forth. Next was to search for the furthest aura though, so I left my pack against the tree trunk and began searching for the best point to start my descent towards the Jet stones. Jet isn't a mineral but a mineraloid made from trees under extreme pressure, it actually produces static electricity when rubbed together I always found that fascinating. Some believe that it's a stone of protection against negative energy and has healing properties and is an important stone for a medicine bag.
As I ventured around the opening of the cave and the tree I found another crack in the floor it was as long as I am tall (6" 5') and about as wide as my thigh, where the aura was most notable. I began manipulating the ground at a slow rate, it was still about a mile under me but Jet was brittle so I was careful not to destroy it as I got closer.
After about an hour of constant descent, I reached the area of the aura and carefully manipulated the earth around it to open a small hole, what I saw was, in fact, a clump of an unworked jet. It was about half a meter in length and width plus a few inches thick. To collect it I broke it in half and stored it in my belt pouch, and began my ascent back to the chamber where I left my gear.
I was thinking of what to do with the Jet stone, it was easy to carve and even burn but I had no idea what I would do with it. Maybe make some jewellery for Astrid when I go back home? Or just a rune stone? But first I want to make the forge and begin processing the ore into raw metal and start working on an axe head and the handle from the tree trunk of the monkey puzzle. I already have the hand axe that ubbe got me on Yuletide all those years ago, and it was still in good condition, but I want a longer handle for a new one something like a fireman's axe but more suited to battle.
I had a design in my mind of both the head and handle, the head would be a simple bearded shape with a curved bit. the heel of the bit would droop down and curve outwards, the toe would be a simple point and engraved with a sigil into the cheek.
The handle would be about 3 feet in length and slightly curved towards the throat of the handle and knob would be shaped like a wolf head.
It was rather ambitious of me to want to achieve this, I hadn't really worked with metal before, carving wood can't be very difficult to get a basic shape and I had 50 feet of the tree to work with. But to make an airtight air blown forge it would be difficult, I had memories of videos I watched in my past life of them made from clay and bricks but I thought of just moulding one from stone with my power to manipulate earth it would be a lot easier. The airflow would be simple enough to make just a propeller fan that used cogs and a stream of steady water for power. Basically 2 fans, one in water connected to a coupled cog and another fan that was covered and forced air into the forge. The problem was a location to do it. There were a few streams in the dales so I wouldn't have to travel far with my materials.
With a plan set, I got to work first I had to cut down the tree into easily carried pieces about 10 feet in length and take them to the surface, it took a long time chopping with a hand axe a saw would have been better but I don't have one with me. After that was done I made a tunnel to the surface and transformed into my local state to throw them up, it didn't end well the first attempt, the log flew up just to come back down on top of me luckily I got out of the way.
After some effort, I was back on the surface with 5 giant logs of the tree and my backpack full of ore and other ores id obtained over the years, it was beginning to get strained with the weight but it would hold up until I reached a decent enough location.
After searching around for a while I came upon a grass banking with a stream running through it, I left the first log here as a marker and gathered the rest in a few trips back to the hole I made, on the last piece I covered the opening by manipulating stone.
After I had all the logs and ore gathered near the stream I began to build a forge by manipulating earth it was circular and had a tall chimney out the back and a lower one for the ores and charcoal to go into, I created a pipe to connect to the bottom and an encasing for the fan to supply air.
Next was to make the fans and cogs for the airflow system, for this I used the bark from a log as propellers and a thick straight branch from nearby splitting it around the overlapping bark as a cross. Next was the cogs, I made 2 with 10 teeth that fit at a right angle and connected them to the fan and another long branch that reached the stream. The fan that would go into the stream needed to be a lot bigger to reach the water, I made a few supports out of anything I could get nearby and the water wheel from one of the logs. It was basically a pronged wheel that would turn with the flow of the stream, it couldn't be too heavy or the water would just go around it, it had to be moveable so after some tweaking, I had a fan system powered by the stream that supplied air to the flames of the forge.
While I was building that I had already set up a charcoal mound and set it ablaze. With the fan turning at a steady pace everything was set to begin processing the ores id gathered I was going to start with some iron first to familiarise myself with the process. So I set a fire and that's when it occurred to me when it went out, I needed it going strongly before the airflow extinguished the flame, so I made a slit in the pipe and shaped some more bark to use as a valve the excess air just came out of the top of the encasing so the fan was safe at least.
After getting a fire going in the forge and topping it up with charcoal I unsealed the valve and the flames rose spectacularly. After burning away at some of the charcoal, I added layers of iron powdered ore I had crushed with some stones over a strip of bark and charcoal, and just let it burn down for hours. This left me with a lump of raw metal stuck in the forge, I had to manipulate the stone to get it out after I had sealed the airflow and let it cool down.