Tales of Erion: Crucible pt. 2

Mik put his arms down and began to catch his breath. Even though it didn't look like he was doing much, the act of infusing so many weapons in so short a time was beginning to take its toll. He felt hollowed out. Living being were not meant to pass so much mana through their bodies so steadily. Or if they were, Mik surmised, then he sure hadn't heard the way to make it not exhausting.
He stood up, stretching his legs for a short while. With four more blades already done tonight, he had been making good progress on his current order of one hundred. But it still felt low. Perhaps the hollow feeling he had been having wasn't because of the mana, but the nature of the work.
It didn't matter. His intricately-infused blades were such hard sells, that doing this fast work was a far steadier income. Still, he relished the moments when he could work on infusing a blade the right way.
When this batch was over, he told himself. With those thoughts in his mind, he sat back down on his stool, held his hands over the blade, and continued his work.
In his mind, he could see the individual strands of mana criss-crossing the blade's surface. Carefully running his fingers over the surface of the blade, he began letting mana flow through his body, up his arms, into the individual fingertips touching the metal. As if he were spinning a web, Mik continued laying the fine strands of etherial energy onto the surface of the sword, crossing them, strengthening the blade, keeping it much sharper than it would be without the energy.
With a slight movement, he twisted the strands, and gently laid the energy into the blade itself. The mana fused to the surface of the metal with a very soft glow, before fading, bonding with the blade. He moved his hands further down the blade, letting the energy float out of his fingers into the surface of the sword. Slowly and methodically, he continued this motion, making only the simplest of strengthening patterns before letting the energy bond permanently with the sword.
Just as light from his dimming candle faded out completely, he passed his hand slowly over the entire blade, feeling the mana lines one last time before bonding them permanently to the metal. A faint glow filled the room, as the soft white light of the fading mana quickly vanished, becoming one with the elements in the blade. At last, yet another sword was finished.
He picked the weapon up off of the horizontal stand, and tried waving it through the air a couple of times. It felt heavy, almost too heavy considering the cheap iron used to make it. But, he mused, it was better than nothing.
Then again, going into battle with a roll of parchment would be just as effective, especially with enemies like the Ketaran battlemages.
Without any more ceremony, he dropped the blade onto one of the two piles of swords that had accumulated on the floor of his small loft. He felt almost ashamed to be working like this. There was no heart in his movements. Each pass of his hands, each careful placement of mana felt scripted. He was only going through the motions.
He needed to work on something different.
"Hey, Mik," a voice called up. "The next batch is ready for you. Do you want me to start hauling them up there for you?"
"No," he shouted back at Jec, "I think I'm done for the night. I need to take a break... I'm burning out from infusing so much so quickly."
"Got it," he said. The ladder to his loft creaked as the larger man poked his head up through the floor. "I'm thinking about heading to bed. Going to get a start on a few custom orders I have tomorrow. There's still a little food in the house if you want it."
"Thanks. I'll poke my head in if I get hungry."
His friend shrugged. "Suit yourself. Just don't make too much noise."
"I won't."
Jec smiled and made his way back down the ladder and towards the small house he owned.
Collapsing into the pile of hay that made up his bed, Mik stared through the skylight. He felt odd. It was as if he was far too content than he should have been. His mind began to swirl. He hated the way he made money, by pawning off his skills to the army. He lived in a pile of hay in his only friend's barn. People laughed at, jeered at, and mocked him. And yet, he seemed perfectly content with where he was.
He rolled over onto his side, closing his eyes. Contentment or not, it was what he had.