The Tales of the Dragon Warrior

Forty Bean Buns, The Ridiculous Six and Cave Chats

On the outskirts of the Mongolian mountains, a good distance away from Chorh-gom prison, there was a dilapidated metal foundry that few people knew existed. No one, not even the guards at Chorh-gom, who were the only people who lived or worked in the area, knew what it was for or who it belonged to. The guards weren't exactly in the habit of taking afternoon walks in the freezing cold to go be nosy and ask questions to the possibly unfriendly people who worked there, after all. They had better things to do, especially now that the prison was being renovated into a municipal prison for all kinds of criminals, and the people sent there to do it needed help with the construction. All the guards knew about their mysterious neighbors were these two things; that the foundry had been there long before Chorh-gom was built and that there was always, always, pitch black smoke billowing out of the funnels on top of the facility, signifying the intense work of the people who laid within.

Currently, inside said facility, it was chaos. Hot, dark chaos. Scrap metal of all kinds was in the process of being melted down in large iron vats; broken weapons, dented armor and even household cookware like pots and pans, all of it was sent to the melting pots. Men clad in roughspun black uniforms and matching leather armor hoisted the vats to wherever they were needed on pulleys, dumped metal into said vats, and then once the metal was heated over fire, poured it into large stone molds. It was dark inside the foundry, with the only light within coming from the melting fires. All the hot materials kept the men working warm and safe from the freezing cold outside, but they sweated like dogs as they worked. Small sparks from the fires floated throughout the air, drifting along like the cold snow falling outside. It was a dreadful, frightening place.

On one of the topmost levels of the foundry, stood a very intimidating older man in his mid to late forties. He was tall, over six feet, with short, spiky black hair and piercing red eyes. Or rather, eye, since his right eye was covered with a black leather eyepatch. He had a scraggly beard and a permanent scowl seemed to be etched onto his face like a stone carving. Unlike the other men working in the foundry, he didn't wear flimsy leather armor. Instead, he wore strong, sturdy metal armor. It was a luxury for a man like him, since the man he worked for needed all the metal he could get for his... project. But he was allowed it, because he was the second-in-command, the commander of his Lord's army. He was the most loyal of them all, and for that he was rewarded, even if it was in a debatably minor way.

The man watched his men work from above, back straight with his hands behind his back, assessing their progress. He remained there, until he realized something was wrong. When he did, he growled in annoyance and made a stunning leap eight feet in the air to the top floor of the foundry. When he landed, he positioned himself in a kneeling position and kept his eyes glued to the floor. He wasn't to look up until his master told him to. That was the etiquette he had learned when things were better, and his master insisted such manners be upheld even after things had changed.

"It's almost done, my lord. But we've run out of metal.", the man reported in a stern, unwavering voice. A man walked out of the shadows. Had he looked up, the other man wouldn't have been able to make out his features. All anyone would have been able to see were two hellish, angry red eyes bearing down on them, and all they would have been able to hear was the clacking of metal blades against the old wooden floor.

"Then why are you still here?! Search the farthest villages! Find more metal!", the posh and refined but frazzled voice of a man demanded. The other man nodded solemnly before jumping down to the last floor of the foundry, likely to gather men to begin the search he had been ordered to do. Once he was gone, the man that had given him the order turned around and retreated back into the shadows. He walked until he reached the sliding doors of his personal chambers, opened them, and then walked inside before closing the doors behind him.