With the newly shaped pick in hand Dennis moves over to the grinding stone. Tect stands on the opposite side of the grind stone, there is a wheel in front of him that attaches to the grindstone allowing him to spin it at high speed. Tect begins to crank the wheel. The weight of the stone makes this difficult until he gets it spinning fast enough, unfortunately as he is trying to build speed Dennis begins grinding. "Crank faster damnit." Dennis knows he should wait for the speed to build more, but he can't help torturing Tect every chance he gets. Tect is no weakling though, years of doing this for the old man have made him rather strong, Tect begins to crank as hard as he can. The grinding wheel is absolutely flying now if Dennis isn't careful he will likely grind away too much material and ruin the piece. Unfortunately Dennis is aware of the dangers of over grinding and manages to grind the piece quite well.
"Finally, the hard part is done. No thanks to you. I know you've been trying to mess this up for me, I may not be able to do anything to you now, but wait until the old man retires and I take over. You'll be shoveling shit in a farmer's field like the rest of your filthy kin." Dennis smirked at Tect, in his mind this was a really good insult. Tect had dealt with this for years and at first these kind of insults angered him, but as time went he learned to endure them. "It will be an honor to know that the shit I shovel will fill the master's plate, with food." Tect gave a slight bow as Dennis' face turned red. "Get your ass to work on the bellows, it's time to temper the pick!" Dennis was mad, he hated when Tect made smartassed remarks, but he always worded them in such a way that Dennis couldn't say anything back and it infuriated him. Tect once again began working the bellows at the high speed Dennis previously requested, Dennis buried the now fully formed pick into the coals to heat. The goal of tempering was too strengthen the metal without making it too brittle. The first step was to heat the metal to its forging temperature and then rapidly cool it, this makes the metal super hard but brittle. The second step is to gently heat the metal where the pick attatches to the handle so that is will lose some of the hardness but become less brittle. If done properly the metal will have some flexability when it hits stone so that it won't crack but enough hardness to penetrate the ore seams.
Dennis pulled the pick head from the coals, it glowed a bright cherry red, and he plunged it into the quenching barrel. For a moment flames shot out of the oil but quite quickly they subsided and Dennis removed the shining pick from the oil. He set it to the side and grabbed a thick bar of cast iron, he would use this to soften the core of the pick. Once the bar of cast iron had turned dull red he removed it from the fire and laid the pick head across it so that only the center of the pick was in contact with the bar of iron. As the heat from the bar transfered to the steel the color of the steel changes. When done properly the pick should be removed from the bar when the color shifted from yellow towards red, this would allow the heat to carry through the center of the metal but not affect the point of the pick. Dennis watched the metal slowly turn until it passed yellow and fully entered red, then he reached for the tongs, by the time he pulled it away the hole for the handle had begun to turn purple. Dennis set the head on the work bench to begin cooling and went to grab a handle, as he did that Tect watched the temper spread all the way to the tip of the pick turning it a muddled yellow. This meant that the tip was slightly softer now. For the stone in the mines this is not a problem, but if the miners hit a vein of iron with even a small amount of manatite inclusions then the pick would probably flatten quite quickly.
Dennis returned carrying an oak handle, these handles were crafted by the wood wright up the road and they were of excellent make, the only way Dennis could mess up at this point would be if he split the handle when he put in the wedge, but that wasn't likely to happen, the metal still held a fair amount of heat and the warmed wood would be far less likely to crack. The pair waited in silence for the pick head to cool down enough to mount the handle, it was incredibly awkward. The entire time Tect is laughing uncontrollably inside his mind, Dennis is a horrible person and he deserves to fail this test and the thought of the look on his face when he does is making Tect so happy.
The day is almost done when Dennis finally attaches the handle to the pick head. Dennis is elated, and calls for the old Smith. "Master I've completed my test" Shouts Dennis. The old man comes back to the rear forging area. "Aye, so you have." The old smith picks up the pick and runs his hand across the head studying the color of the temper and the grain of the metal. "This is it." Thinks Tect, as he tries his best not to show his joy. "Congratulations boy, I hearby declare you to be a journeyman smith. Run home and tell your old man he'll be happy as a cow in a corn field." Dennis runs from the shop excited to return home to his father. Tect's jaw drops, How could this be? Dennis made a barely passable pick and Tect knew that the old smith would have higher standards than this, what was happening here?
"Yer wondrin' why he passed, I can see it painted clear as day on yer face." The old man smirked at Tect. Tect couldn't hold back any longer, "How could he? The ingot was wrong, he over heated the metal, and he over tempered it. If he had done any one of those things right he would have produced a far better pick." The old man smiled and laughed, " Aye, true enough, he made too many mistakes, but I don't need him to be a world class blacksmith. I need him to make horseshoes, nails, and iron fence. Plus I need his rich daddy to keep paying me to train him." Tect was confused, "But sir, even if it's just the two of us the smithy makes plenty to cover upkeep and care for you and your daughter's family." The smith just smiled and patted Tect's head, "Aye boy, it does, but I need a fair number of funds to buy something I've had my eye on for a while, and that dope is going to help me pay for it. Don't you worry bout it none, take this basket and head home, I'll see you bright and early tomorrow morning." The old man handed Tect a wicker basket and nudged him out of the shop. Tect looked in the basket as he walked home. Inside was a loaf of bread, a wedge of cheese, and smoked meat, this was meant to thank Tect for dealing with Dennis. Tect wouldn't eat it though, too many of his clan members were starving in the slave pens and he would divide it amongst the frailest and youngest first.
One of the Elders approached Tect as he entered the slave pens. "Tect we have to talk, please come to my tent." The goblin in question is quite old, he has lived his entire life as a slave and years of hard labor have hunched his back. Tect walks with him towards the elder's tent, on the way one of the younger female goblin walked past and Tect handed her the basket. She didn't need an explanation all the goblins had benefitted from the old smiths kindness and she knew exactly what to do.
Tect continued on with the elder and soon came to a larger than average tent. They stepped into the tent and found 3 other elder goblins seated on the ground in a circle around an old oil lamp. Tect bowed to the elders respectfully. "Tect greets the elders in respect." he spoke in goblin but he speaks in a way that makes it clear he doesn't do it often enough to be comfortable. "We greet you in turn Chieftain." says a female elder. "Please sit." Tect sits, being called chieftain leaves a sour taste in his mouth. "What kind of chieftain leads their tribe in shackles." Tect thought. "Chieftain, we have called you here to discuss the tribes future." The elders sitting to the side of the female elder look towards the ground, they have extreme worry written all over their faces.