Manufactured for Sin 2 (Clean version)

Chapter 8: From Blood and Earth

Greg puffed on his pipe, stoking the fire more and checking each crucible for the right temperature.

"Hey there." Izleena said, trying not to sneak up on him. "What's the idea?"

"Making an ingot. Mortal steel isn't going to work, not even folded steel or high alloy. Gotta be far stronger to take a hit and survive. It's called many things, Protium by some. It's a crude form of the stuff we're made of. Our bones, our teeth, just a refined version of this metal. Gotta withstand the blow of a god swinging it at another god, and on the lucky chance it cuts, resist melting when it penetrates flesh in the thousands of degrees." He said, eyeing the pottery.

"How do you get it hot enough to pour?" she asked.

"Well, it doesn't have to be hot enough, just the base metals. Molten copper alloy. The copper chemically binds to the powders, dissolving rather then actually melting it. The powder itself would never liquefy. Think of it like salt dissolving in warm water, salt doesn't melt at room temperature, but water does, and now you have liquid salt in a water base. This molten copper just carries the metals. Once you pour it and mix it, it's a done deal. There's no re-melting it without a city-sized nuclear reactor. If this turns out bad, we gotta go back to hell and steal a halberd, and frankly we'll never smuggle a halberd into a temple, so the whole plan is dicked." He said, adding the final crucible of warm dust. A faint green glow wafted from the crucible, as he quickly grabbed the sides and moved to the casting mold. He poured it out as the bubbling orange liquid began to cool, carefully placing the hot brick back in the fire to solidify.

"Now what?" she asked.

"Now we hope it fused together correctly. Takes a bit of time to ensure it all became one piece, and the reaction is finished, but I need to keep it hot so I can work with it in its softened form." He puffed.

"How do we know it worked?" She whispered.

"Well you start beating on it, and anything that cooled down too much to fuse will chip off, and anything welded as one piece should just forge and move. There's always some edge pieces that will flake off during forging, hopefully just small crumbles and impurities. If it breaks, we have 2 pieces of potentially indestructible metal, and we have to quickly make 2 weapons on the fly, based on what size and shape is left."

"This isn't nearly as confident as I hoped for." Izleena admitted.

"Well, this is a shitty makeshift forging operation using a futuristic metal I haven't forged for centuries, using tools not designed for this, in a hurry, with barely enough material to make a sword assuming we lose almost none of it." Greg sighed. "And I'm painfully sober. The booze on this planet is weak."

"Yea, this is why I like fabric and plastic. The stakes are far less stressfully high." She huffed, feeling overwhelmed just by watching.

"Well, at least with both of me off autopilot, I can focus on this while Gizzy puts all the focus on her task.

"You still haven't quite explained that side of the plan, Greg."

"It's very complicated, and you'll just stress out."

Gizzy lightly bit down on the wooden mouth gag, trying to look like she was struggling without actually biting down and breaking it. A man in purple and gold circled her, admiring her physique as the priest nervously tapped his foot in the corner.

"You seem quite on the edge, Thaddeus." The man smirked to the priest.

"She has just shown such progress, I feel a sense of conflicting pride in my work. Such a fitting woman so perfect for a god, almost makes me sad to see her go." The priest bluffed with a smile.