The Rise Of The Saviour - 76 Forging the soul ring

After receiving that nod from his master, the goldsmith adjusted the leather mittens in his hand. On his face, he had that look of all hail glory as this day was going down in the pages of history and he was the one who was going to forge it down. He raised his palm and gave a nod to his man who stood next to the tuyeres and he started fanning it faster in an attempt to increase the oxygen level in the heating chamber.

The moment the fanning increased, the hungry flames melted away the entirety of the ingot, and a silken black and orange textured metal started dripping slowly into the granite container placed near the tapping-point. The moment the hot liquid touched the granite, it cooled down and thus disappeared the orange hue, leaving nothing but a jet black composite.

Seeing that lustrous black metal shining in all its glory, as it trickled through that narrow opening of the tapping point into the granite container, a victorious smile started to grace the face of Nubeous. His chin rose up and his eyes gleamed for this was the moment that he had been craving for the entirety of his life.

The thought of amassing the power by uniting the two separated pieces of the guide channeled the inner devil inside him that had been lurking since ages, hungry for power, hungry for opening the gates of the portal so that he could dream again about global domination.

His upper lips arched up and for a moment he forgot the scalding that he had received because of Morpheous. His eyes trailed every drop of the metal as it tickled.

The goldsmith soon raised his palm up and his men stopped fanning. A huge basket of sand was then splashed on the furnace to cut off the fire. And once that was done, the goldsmith bent down and picked the granite container in his hand and quickly went to work on his bench. Time was the essence here. If he waited too long then the metal would cool off.

The dark smoke started to spread all around but instead of spreading a tone of melancholy, it spread a tone of ebullience that was evident from the eyes of Nubeous.

The goldsmith immediately picked up the small ladle that was on his bench and scooped the metal with it and poured it into the cast that he had hand-made. He waited for a few seconds for the metal to take form in the cast and then immediately quenched it by dipping into a bucket of water.

The water gurgled and a splash of steam started disappearing into the air. The whole experience was theatrical and Nubeous was loving every bit of it. The sound of the agitated water made his lips curve as he knew that he was just moments away from finding eternal glory. All that was pending was the unification.

With a pair of tongs, the goldsmith took out the cast and started tapping it on the table with his hammer. He tapped it gently so that the ring would come off.

‘Tap’

‘Tap’ and

‘Clank’

He had his one eye shut and with his other, he was minutely checking the magic metal that was in front of him. But then suddenly the smile started vanishing away from his face.

He rushed to the other side of the table and picked up a cloth rag and started scrubbing the metals ring vigorously with that cloth. Seeing that perplexed look on his face, the smile on the face of Nubeous disappeared as well and face donned an expression of anger immediately.

“What is happening?” he asked, his tone visibly impatient.

“Nothing my master, just cleaning off the dirt,” replied the goldsmith and then immediately cut open the lemons that he had on the table. He squeezed them on the granite container over the remaining molten metal that had already cooled down and immediately a layer of brown substance started to form on the metal.

“Good Lord!” exclaimed the goldsmith and he could feel the blood standing still inside of his veins. Seeing the metal oxidizing, along with the acid, was not ominous. Something had gone terribly wrong.

He immediately turned back and screamed,

“Anyone has a pathfinder?”

“Anyone?”

His voice sounded agitated and Nubeous didn’t like the tone of it. So he got up and asked,

“What the hell is going on?”

And the impatient voice of his master did it. It broke the last straw of confidence that he was trying to grab on to. Beads of sweat started to appear out of nowhere on his temple and he could feel his pits sweating out.

His entire body started to tremble and he turned to look towards his master. There were words that he was forming in his head, but his mouth was betraying him. He couldn’t utter them out.

Getting irritated with his silence, Nubeous went towards the bench himself and seeing his master walking towards him in all his ferocity, the goldsmith knelt on the floor.

“What is wrong?” commanded Nubeous and picked up the metal ring that his goldsmith had forged. Holding the ring in his hands he looked at it for a while.

“Forgive me, master! I do not know why it looks… ”

“What is wrong?” whispered Diogenes to the other councilmen and signaled his man to bring a pathfinder immediately and his man came back with one in a few seconds.

Holding the pathfinder in his hands, Diogenes went up the goldsmith and asked,

“What is wrong? Here is your pathfinder.”

Nobody was able to understand what was happening but nobody else dared to ask. A cloak of silence was spread all around.

The goldsmith got up and dismantled the pathfinder with one stroke of his hammer and took the magnet that was encased inside. Then remembering his forefathers he went close to granite slab containing the metal and dropped the magnet onto it. And lo and behold the magnet clung to the metal as it was a separated lover.

Seeing that an impatient Nubeous picked up the soul stone in one hand, which had been detached from its previous encasing, and in the other, he held the newly forged ring. Closing his eyes he tried to feel its power, but it was nothing like how he had felt in the croplands of Ambracia. It was as if all the power had evaporated. It felt as he was just possessing the soul stone alone, like the old days.

“What sorcery is this!” he yelled and threw the ring forged from the ingot into the furnace. His anger had catapulted to such an extent that he just couldn’t keep calm. Everything had been turned into vain. All this wait, all his attempts in search of that ingot, it was all in vain.

He went towards the granite container and looked at the metal which had oxidized inside, with a layer of rust on top of it.

“What is it?” yelled Nubeous looking at the goldsmith.

“It… It looks like iron my master!” and he hung his head in shame.

“Iron? Just Iron? My ingot can never be iron. I had felt it with my own hands. What have you done with it?” he thundered and paced ahead. Diogenes fled the scene in fear taking a couple of steps back. But the goldsmith couldn’t escape the anger of Nubeous. With his one hand, he strangled his neck and lifted him up in the air. He didn’t give him a second to explain. He didn’t give him a second to beg for pardon. He just silenced him to death in his hands and then flung his body away.

He turned to look at his men, who were now looking at him with nothing but fear. But his mind was racing now. Everything around him looked like a pocket of emptiness. Where did it all go wrong? When he was with the ingot, he felt invincible, he could feel its power running through his veins, through his very core. But right now he was feeling nothing.

It was beyond ordinary.

And Nubeous didn’t do ordinary.