Displaced

Chapter 75

Samanta Zemzaris crept through the dark night towards her target, her eyes and ears straining to pick out any signs of life from the blacksmith's shop. As she expected given the late-night hour, no lights could be seen anywhere in the forge or what looked to be the blacksmith's home connected to the side of the forge. With luck, she'd sneak in, find what she needed, and get back out without anybody being the wiser.

Fortunately, the forge itself had its own entrance, separate from the entrance to the rest of the house. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, said entrance was securely locked from the inside. Carefully walking around the building as quietly as she could, Sam spotted several long and thin windows placed high up near the top of the wall, likely for ventilation. The openings were too short for an adult to squeeze through, while a series of metal bars inside the windows would dissuade anybody else from trying. Well, almost anybody; Samanta was far too desperate to give up so easily.

With the sprightly athleticism of youth, she awkwardly climbed up the wall towards the vent windows, using the cracks in between the stones as handholds and footholds for her small digits. Like many of the buildings in Wroetin, the blacksmith shop was built from stones and some sort of mortar that she knew little about. The smooth, continuous stone found in church buildings was actually quite rare, or so she'd been told. Stone Observers capable of creating structures out of a single piece of rock cost a great amount of money, to the point where only the Church and the wealthiest Otharian families could afford to hire one to build their houses. The rest had to use stones and mortar, or, if they were on the poorer side, just plain old lumber.

Soon she was high enough to wrap her hands around the bars. Lifting her feet up against the wall and pushing off of it with them for leverage, she pulled on the bar. It didn't budge. Neither did the second one, or the third. Finally, on the fourth bar she tried, she felt it wiggle ever so slightly. Was this her lucky break?

Giving the bar a series of hearty tugs, she felt the bar's wiggle increase until all resistance gave way suddenly and without warning. With a startled yelp, Samanta tumbled off the wall, the dislodged metal rod still clutched firmly in her hands. Her body smacked awkwardly against the hard ground, her rear end and lower back striking the surface first and sending a shock wave of impact shooting up her spine. Between this and the fall from the fortress wall, she'd be seriously sore the next day, that was for sure.

For several moments she didn't move, simply laying there and trying to regain the wind that had been knocked out of her while listening for any signs of life in the nearby area. After hearing nothing out of the ordinary, she smiled through the pain, knowing now that it hadn't been for nothing. Looking up at the window, she could make out in the darkness a gap between the bars that was just wide enough for her child's body to squeeze through.

After slowly clambering back up, Samanta paused for a moment and peered into the murky darkness, looking for anything amiss. The light from the three moons filtered in through the different barred openings at various angles, rendering the interior of the shop a confusing mess of strange shapes and overlapping shadows. Still, she didn't see anything alarm-worthy, and so, with a soft grunt of effort, she pulled herself up into the gap. The fit was tight, but with some struggling, she was able to make it through and drop down to the shop's floor without too much trouble.

Holding out her hand and creating a tiny flame for a bit of extra light, Sam began to search the room for anything that could contribute towards her goal of finally ridding herself of this accursed collar. Sadly, her complete lack of knowledge about smithing immediately proved problematic. In the dim illumination, she found herself staring around at the collection of tools and trying to discern their purposes to little success.

Several metal blocks with holes of different shapes and sizes sat by the wall near her feet. What use they had she had no idea, but they surely wouldn't be useful for her task. A variety of tongs and graspers in different shapes and sizes hung on a nearby wall—also not anything she could use.