Father, Mother

A number of questions posed in my last missive, namely the nature of insanity, have been answered. But in doing so, more questions have arisen. My fear that Papa Sparn’s present, is what my future holds, has become reality.
Sparna stands at the town’s gate watching the caravan disappear over the horizon. Thinking to himself, “Two weeks til they return, the peace and quiet will be welcome.”

Retiring to the blacksmith’s forge, Sparna begins to work on dividing up the dragon hide into workable pieces. Time flies as he loses himself in his task. Eight hours later, he stretches and looks around. The activity in the workshops around him have slowed as the last of the sunlight fades. Nodding to the other craftsmen and women as they leave their shops, he starts to organize his area in preparation for tomorrows tasks. The dragon hide is tough and hard to work with, but the potential is there for a suit of armor he’d be proud to show his mother.

As he finishes his preparations for tomorrows work, he realizes that while working on armor is still satisfying, it’s not as fulfilling as it once was. His eyes focus on his urgosh in the corner and once again his thoughts return his grandfather obsessing about imperfections only he could see in his work, “Is this my future?”

Maybe if I combine soot with highly flammable alcohol and some refined oil……….

not quite right, maybe if I replace the oil with Kerosene……….
hmmm what about amber…….

no, no, no that won’t work unless I add some quartz……..

And if I heat it up to bright yellow before adding the gold dust…..
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Day 2:
Early morning finds Sparna slumped over the anvil, having fallen asleep in as he polished the axe blade of the urgosh.

Putting the weapon back in the corner, he returns to his work on dragon hide armor.

Sparna spends the day working on cutting, shaping and preparing the dragon hide. The villagers stop by from time to time to see how things are going, never one to waste an opportunity to learn Sparna regularly pauses in his work to ask questions about the high ice.

Picking up his urgosh as he readies to leave, he notices what looks to be a blemish on the spear end of the urgosh.

Having a little time ………. grabbing a rag, some rendered dragon fat, soot
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That’s not quite right, the coals should be more blue than yellow Add some cobalt
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Now that’s too blue, some copper maybe
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Better, better
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now if I hammer it just this fast………
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Once again, morning finds Sparna slumped over the anvil. Polishing cloth in one hand, urgosh in the other.
“Maybe it’s time to see if Ivan can enchant this, like he has for others in the caravan”

Finding out that Ivan is out with a village hunting party, Sparna falls into pattern of working on the dragon hide during the day, and at night talking with the villagers about their history, their gods, and legends of the high ice.

After a couple of days Ivan returns.

“Hey, I’m ready for you to enchant the urgosh”, Sparna tells Ivan at breakfast the next morning.

“Sure, lets go to the forge and get started. I’ll work on enchanting it, while you work on the armor”, replies Ivan.

At the forge, Ivan goes silent as he prepares himself for the task at hand. Staring at the urgosh, Ivan’s eyes widen in confusion

I: “Ummm, this is already enchanted. When’d that happen?”

S: “It’s not enchanted, you think I’d let just anyone work on this?”

I: “It’s has a minor enchantment on it, making it a little harder and sharper. Both ends even”

S: “I tell you it is not possible, the only person who has ever worked on it is me”

I: ” So logically then, you enchanted it”

Remembering the late nights from earlier this week, Sparna’s eyes open wide……..

I have gone beyond Papa Sparn’s madness and somehow emerged a Magesmith. My companions are still mostly insane, but I no longer worry about that for myself.

(written in Dwarvish runes)

Mother and Father,

By Torag’s Will this missive will reach you at the time of his choosing.

When we parted, the plan was for me to gain experience and knowledge of the world by serving as a caravan guard for Dwarf Friend Sandru. I was content with this role. Last long it did not. Early on in our travels, Sandru suggested that I accompany some of the other caravan members when they left the caravan to explore. I politely questioned the wisdom of the act as I was his caravan guard, and not a watcher of children. He chuckled, taking no offense, pointing out that a caravan is made up of more than wagons and cargo. That all who travel with the caravan are also part of it, and as such they needed to be guarded also. Bowing to his wisdom and experience, I accompanied the (the word children is scratched out) others when they left the caravan.

I will leave the telling of the antics and escapades of my ‘companions’ to a later time, for I must pose a question that has been bothering me since I joined this caravan. Can you catch insanity from those you travel with? For, while I have become close companions with my fellow travelers, their actions and motivations still escape me. Most show no discipline to their thoughts and actions, but instead of this being followed by ruin, it is more times than not followed by success. It doesn’t make sense. But I’ve come to accept this. For the longest time, I unjustly thought they were all suffering from some sort of insanity. Now, it is just one companion that I think this. Qatana, a follower of Groetus. She claims that the mouse skulls she wears as prayer beads talk to her and give her advice on how to act and respond to all situations. No one else hears these voices. But her insistence of the existence of these voices have raised doubts to my own sanity.

I had always planned on following in your footsteps Mother, in being a armor smith. But that was not to be as I discovered early on in our travels that finding good dwarven weapons is not easy. So in my foolishness, and against your advice, I started forging an urgosh of my own. I’ve been working on it for months now and am finally reaching completion. I say finally, as up til now, as have always found just another thing I could do to improve it.

Looking back, I see Papa Sparn doing the same over the weapons he was crafting. Always attempting perfection, never being satisfied with his work. I know that Papa Sparn claimed the weapons would talk to him, but that he never quite understand what they were saying to him. I know this is why you advised me to stick with armor, so I wouldn’t fall into the same trap as Papa Sparn.

I should have heeded your advice. As I complete my urgosh, and I see now that it will be my Master’s piece, I am starting to hear something in the ring of the metal, see blurry images when I heat the metal, smell possibilities when tempering the metal. I fear in traveling with these companions, nay my friends, I have contracted some of their insanity and I am becoming like Papa Sparn.