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“It did seem like a fairly logical next step,” Arwin said sheepishly. “I couldn’t put my intent into it like a normal piece of metal, so I went to drastic measures.”

“Your idea of drastic measures is sticking things into your mouth? What are you, a toddler? At least you didn’t shove it up your arse,” Wallace grumbled. [Soul Flame] gauntlets erupted over his hands and he plucked the lava from Arwin, examining it closely for around a minute. A disbelieving huff slipped from the dwarf’s eyes and he handed it back to him.

“It worked, then?” Arwin asked.

“Somehow. I’m not even sure what to tell you. I’ve taught a few dwarven smiths in my time. Enough to say that never once have I had a dwarf stupid enough to try to eat lava. A few gave munching rocks a shot, but they wised up after they cracked a few teeth. Well, most of them.” Wallace hesitated for a moment, then shook his head. “We don’t talk about Rockchomper.”

“Hold on. Now you have to,” Lillia said, leaning forward slightly as a small grin pulled at her lips. “Was his name Rockchomper before he started eating rocks? Or did he earn it?”

“The former. It was an unfortunate coincidence,” Wallace said. He thrust a finger in Arwin’s direction. “Though I’m thinking this one may be deserving of a unique name of his own. If I catch him trying to eat my Mithril, I’m ending him then and there. I won’t need to see the results to know he’s a madman.”

“Noted,” Arwin said. “Just out of curiosity, what was the proper method? You mentioned kneading?”

“Like bread?” Lillia added in.

“Like bread,” Wallace confirmed with a weary sigh. “You were meant to realize that the lava is a multitude of desires and goals that could never all be satisfied. They’re memories of the materials that once were. By kneading it, you can slowly inject your magical energy and push out the excess thought until only you remain. That also infuses the lava with [Soul Flame], allowing you to raise its core temperature enough to melt almost anything. And, evidently, you can accomplish the same by chewing it as well.”

“I believe you’re informing me that I’ve just discovered a new technique,” Arwin said. “That has to count for something.”

“Don’t push your luck,” Wallace said dryly. He nodded to the lava in Arwin’s hands and set the ingot of steel he’d procured a short while ago on the anvil beside Lillia. “Move to the next step. Gather more lava. Prepare your forge and then melt this down. Find its song. And for the love of the Earth Father, don’t eat the damn thing.”

“No promises,” Arwin said with a wry smile. “I’m going to stick to chewing the lava if it works just as well as kneading. Leaves my hands open.”

“To do what?” Wallace asked, aghast. “Why do you need your hands free while you’re forging? The whole point is to put the damn things to work!”

“Not sure yet. I’ll let you know when I figure it out,” Arwin replied, unable to keep himself from chuckling at the indignation in the dwarf’s voice. He scooped up another handful of lava from the thin river and poured it into his mouth.

Wallace threw his hands up and stormed back over to the corner of the room, muttering to himself. He started humming to himself as he pulled a dagger from a dimensional space and started tapping it against the wall impatiently. Lillia snickered under her breath and nudged Arwin in the back with her knee.

“Antagonizing the dwarf? Really?”

“Hey, you’re laughing,” Arwin said through a mouthful of flame and lava. “And he’s a bit stuck up. The best part of anything is learning how to do it. Experimentation is how you grow. If I was still following exactly what the Mesh wanted me to do, every item I made would just do random shit. Besides, a little ribbing isn’t going to hurt anyone.”

Lillia rolled her eyes and squeezed his shoulders as she flashed him a small grin. “I got about half of that. Don’t speak with your mouth full, you oaf. Just get back to work and let me know if you need anything.”

He didn’t mind following her suggestion. It was rather difficult speaking with a mouthful of lava anyway. Spraying food when you were speaking was already gross enough — he didn’t need to start spitting literal fire on accident.

Jessen really should have warned me about this. He was the pioneer of chewing lava, after all. I suppose I should have expected that raging asshole to keep it all to himself.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Arwin finished chewing his lava a few minutes later, which was not a situation he ever really would have thought himself to voluntarily be in, then pulled everything from his mouth and gathered it in his hands.

Wallace didn’t actually knead anything when he made the lava ball. I wonder if that was to avoid giving me any hints, or if it was because he’s gotten good enough to connect to the lava without having to do extra steps.

I suppose it doesn’t matter right now. The next step is listening to the song of the materials, huh?

Arwin held the globby ball of hissing lava in one hand and grabbed the steel ingot, pushing it into the molten mass with a hiss. He listened intently, focusing his thoughts on the ingot as it entered the lava.

For a flicker of a second, he heard it. Arwin watched it move from the mine to the refinery and then from hand to hand. Images flickered through his mind with such speed that he could barely keep track of them.

He could feel its desires perfectly through the lava. The metal wanted to be a sword. It was completely and utterly fixed on it — but there was no song. At least, no song that Arwin could pick up on.

Maybe song is a fancy way for the dwarves to say they can speak to materials in the same way that my class lets me. It’s pretty easy to tell what —

Arwin’s thoughts faltered. The stream of desires from the ingot was faltering as the lava encasing it started to melt the metal. It wasn’t just taking the metal, though. The magical power Arwin had infused his lava with was eating into the desires of the ingot and taking them as well.

By the time he realized what was happening, it was already over. The stream of desire from the ingot evaporated like a droplet of water under the desert sun, and then there was nothing.

Wallace strode back across the smithy and slapped another ingot down on the anvil with a loud clang. Arwin glanced up at him. He hadn’t thought his failure had been that evident on his face.

“How’d you know?” Arwin asked.

“You didn’t listen to the damn song,” Wallace replied. “Sounded like a screeching old bat, you did. That was horrendous. Do you have any talent at all when it comes to anything other than sticking things in your mouth?”

“I was trying to listen,” Arwin said defensively. “It was speaking to me. Just… not singing.”

“Speaking? Don’t be daft,” Wallace said. “You were daydreaming. Materials do not speak. They sing. Do it again.”

Arwin picked up the new bar of metal. He studied it for a second, then pressed his lips thin in determination and pushed it into his ball of lava.

***

Three hours. Twenty-five bars of metal. Countless new balls of chewed lava. Arwin’s jaw ached and his backside was sore. He hadn’t budged from his spot once. The only thing that had spared his back and shoulders from pain was Lillia, for which he was eternally grateful.

He was not, however, anywhere near as pleased with the damnable bars of metal that Wallace had been wordlessly handing him over the past few hours. Arwin had dealt with enormous monsters. He’d battled hordes of enemies and emerged victorious as the Hero.

Now he was losing a fight to an assortment of inanimate objects. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t hear a single note of the song that Wallace was talking about. The metals told them their desires, he melted them, and then there was nothing.

Arwin tried controlling the temperature of the lava to prevent the metal from breaking down as quickly. He tried heating it faster. He tried chewing the metal when he didn’t think Wallace was looking.

Nothing worked. The very instant he stuck the ingots into his ball of lava, they were as good as dead. Either not a single one of them knew how to sing or he was completely tone deaf. Hours of frustration made his stomach clench and teeth grind.

What the hell do I have to do? This is infuriating.

A clang split the air as Wallace slammed an ingot down on the anvil and strode back to whatever it was he was doing. Arwin grabbed the ingot and glared at it, as if hoping to cow it into submission.

Sing, you little piece of shit. Rap. Opera. I don’t care. Do something. I’m starting to wonder if Wallace is just screwing with me.

“What did the ingot do to you?” Lillia asked, resting her chin on the top of Arwin’s head. “That’s a lot of annoyance for a brick of metal.”

Arwin blew out a sigh. “Yeah. I can’t hear the stupid thing sing. It just speaks. No matter what I try, I just can’t hear it.”

“Do you think talking it out would help?”

“I think that’s what we’re doing.”

“Oh, it is. I just wanted to make sure,” Lillia said, and Arwin could hear the hint of amusement in her voice. “So, what are you doing wrong?”

“If I knew that, I’d fix it. Your food doesn’t sing to you, does it?”

“No and thank the gods for that. Food that spoke to me would be bad enough. Having it sing to me while I chopped it up would make me comically evil. It’s just food. Sorry.”

“Figured.” Arwin studied the ingot in his hand. There was no point just sticking it into the lava. He hadn’t heard so much as a peep from anything yet, and he didn’t want to just go around wasting metal. “I wonder if my class is somehow keeping me from hearing the song because I can hear metal speak.”

“Have you tried tuning it out?”

“Yeah. Didn’t work.”

Lillia let out a thoughtful hum. She leaned more of her weight onto Arwin’s back and wrapped her arms around his neck, drumming her fingers gently on his shoulders in thought. Arwin moved the ball of lava a little farther away to make sure it didn’t get too close or burn her. The heat was almost entirely gathered in its core, but he didn’t want to take any risks.

“Wallace was talking about harmonizing things,” Lillia mused. “Maybe you need to use the lava to listen? It’s a part of you or something, right?”

“That was one of my more recent attempts. It didn’t work, unfortunately. It’s an extension of me, but more like a hand than an ear,” Arwin said. Some of the frustration built up in him drained away. It was hard to remain annoyed with Lillia’s presence against him. The gentle drumbeat of her fingers against him was oddly comforting.

Arwin paused.

“What is it?” Lillia asked, freezing. “You just stiffened.”

“Wallace never said it was a vocal song,” Arwin muttered, looking back to the ingot. Wallace’s humming in the background grew louder, joined by the rhythmic taps of his dagger against the obsidian wall. “I’m listening for the wrong song.”

“What do you mean?” Lillia asked. “I thought you said you couldn’t hear anything.”

“I can’t,” Arwin said, lifting the bar of metal and running his thumb over its surface as his eyes lit with realization. “Because it’s not a song that you sing. It’s one you feel. Thanks, Lillia. I think I know what I need to do.”