fandomhigh | Blacksmith Basics; Thursday, Second Period [06/23].

Was there a very large spiked metal ball on one of the worktables that day that, upon closer inspection, may have looked suspiciously like a pufferfish?

Yes. Yes there was.

Don't worry about it.

"Morning, everyone," Amaya greeted the class this week with a nod and a poor attempt to stifle a yawn, but she shook her head a little and forged (HA!) forward all the same. "And welcome to your last Blacksmith Basics class. Unless, of course, you're interested in pursuing the art further, in which case, well, you know where to find me. It's hard to believe we're already at this point; we've barely even scratched the surface, really, of everything there is to know about blacksmithing, but the class is called Basics for a reason. You should, at the very least, have picked up enough to finish up your knives and daggers today, and that's where our focus will be. If you feel you've got it, go right on ahead, or if you need some help on those last touches, I'm here to offer it, and hopefully you'll be stepping out of this class with more than just some shiny new knowledge, but a shiny new knife as well.

"With where we left off last week, you should be ready to cut your wood block to form for your handle, so that's where we'll be starting today. You'll want to be careful, of course, and take your time with the cutting so you've got a nice shape ready to go for when we spruce it up a little with some rasping and smoothing, sanding and staining. And once that's finished..." She may have paused a moment to squash down another yawn, and...half succeeded, shaking her head. "Sorry. Late night. Anyway, rasping, smoothing, sanding, staining, and finally, sharpening the blades, and, if you feel so inclined, giving them a good test run with the dummies and targets.

"For some of you, these finishing touches may take a while, for some of you, not so much. So if you do finish a bit early, feel free to use the rest of the time to get back to the anvils again and just sort of work some metal around and experiment before we put a seal on this session and ship it off. Let me know if you have questions and....let's get started."

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It's the final class!

Stark

Graham Cracker

Billy Coen

Irene Adler

Steph Gingrich

Since Amaya wants to give everyone as much time as possible to finish up their daggers and knives for the session....and the fact that she doesn't want to keep being interrupted by the urge to yawn...she's keeping it very brief and simple and to the point (HA!) today with the last of the woodworking, especially for her, and also a quick overview on effective sharpening methods.

Finish carving out your handles, polishing them up, sharpening your blades, and then seeing how your daggers turned out! Feel free to ask for help if you feel you needed it, or charge forward with your own confidence! There are practice dummies and targets in one corner of the room if you wanted to test how well you did, or you can spend the rest of the class at the anvil because, really, after the pride of a completed project, all the hammering is really the best part of the class.

Stark had very much enjoyed this class. It was very satisfying, all of it. And now he had a knife that he'd made himself. Or he would once he'd finished smoothing and polishing the wood.

Irene was quite pleased with how her knife had turned out. The handle was elegant, the blade was nicely sharp and she was pretty proud of the weight of it after all that quenching, and...well, honestly, it just felt quite good to make something. Irene hadn't made anything -- aside from heaps of trouble -- in who knows how long.

It was nice. Satisfying. And while she'd had ulterior motives for signing up for this, of course, she was also glad she had for reasons that had nothing to do with her attraction to her blacksmithing teacher, and everything to do with how good a teacher she actually was. (Which, in turn, kind of fed the other thing, but nevermind that.)

But really, given the practice dummies, Irene could hardly resist arming herself with her new knife and taking a few stabs with it. Literally. And while each of her attempts wound up with a fatality -- the poor dummy was stabbed through the heart and slashed across the throat more than once -- there was a level of control and showmanship to it that might well have belied that for all her deflection and distraction and fancy-little red-soled shoes, Irene Adler could fight dirty and knew what she was doing when it came down to it.

Yeah, Steph wasn't really much of a weapons girl -- not in real life, anyway -- so the practice dummies were safe from her.

One of her favorite NPCs that she'd ever created for a campaign had a dagger with a particularly unique hilt, so she ended up spending a good chunk of the class period carving the wood for the handle into as close an approximation of that style as she could. Which, yes, involved texting Ryan a few times to ask him about carving techniques and only responding with the evil smiley face emoji whenever he asked why she needed to know.

Billy's knife was simple but had turned out fairly nice. He was a simple guy and valued practicality over flashy and showy any day. But it was nice and the slight curve of the blade was great for both slashing and stabbing, as evident by the poor dummies standing off to the side.

She's not yawning! You're yawning!

Look, a giant pufferfish flail head is not an afternoon level project, okay, no matter how much Amaya may have tried to make it one yesterday after the shenanigans.

My one regret is that shenanigan project inspirations didn't become a thing until last week.

Blacksmith Basics; Thursday, Second Period [06/23].

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