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Lillia and Arwin split ways as well. Arwin set off to the forge while she temporarily closed the inn and headed for the market square to locate Ridley and figure out if he was still in search of work.

And, for the next few days, the Menagerie slipped back into a routine. They all had more than enough work to keep them occupied. Arwin had a number of old orders to finish making for people on the waitlist. It wasn’t the most inspiring work, but it paid incredibly well — and money never hurt anyone.

Lillia got the construction with Ridley started up. She kept the inn open in the meantime, as he was only working on the second floor. A few familiar faces started showing up in the tavern throughout the day. Word of the Menagerie and their street continued to spread through Milten.

Reya and Madiv alternated taking up post outside his smithy and telling everyone that swung by that he’d be accepting orders at some point in the near future, though they made no promises as to when or who. That proved to be enough to placate the crowds. Arwin doubted he could keep that strategy up forever without losing interest. But, even if he did, that would be fine. It wasn’t the interest of the masses he truly needed anymore.

Arwin needed to push himself to grow. And if he wanted to do that, he needed to be making magical items, not normal ones. He needed quality clients. Ones that had the money to pay for something truly worthwhile — and also ones that he wouldn’t regret arming.

Unfortunately, he had precious little time to spend doing anything other than working. When Arwin wasn’t dealing with the backlog of orders, he was practicing Dwarven Smithing. He wanted to get a much better handle of what he was doing before he started adding Cursed items into the mix.

Wallace occasionally swung by from his smithy to check on him, but the dwarf largely left Arwin to his own devices. Much of the awkward air had dissipated over the last few days. Lillia clearly hadn’t completely forgiven the dwarf, but she hadn’t banned him from the tavern either. Wallace respected that enough to avoid sticking around all day — and he probably had better things to do — but he still swung by almost every night to get himself a bottle of ale. That suited all of them just fine. His advice was more than welcome, and if Arwin had been planning to continue down the path of a pure Dwarven Smith, he strongly suspected that he would have had few reservations in becoming the dwarf’s official apprentice.

The days were hectic, but they were peaceful. Not much of any real excitement happened and that suited the Menagerie just fine. But the light of peace did not come without a shadow. Rodrick continued to keep tabs on the Ardent Guild, and Arwin wasn’t so sure he liked the reports they were getting.

The Guild was still in search of something. Rodrick had yet to figure out exactly what it was. He didn’t know if the guild leader had somehow figured out that their sources were compromised or if they were just being extra-secretive, but whatever they were looking for was somewhere in Milten. Arwin and Rodrick both had a sneaking suspicion whatever they were looking for probably had something to do with Jessen.

It was the best guess either of them could come up with. The Ardent Guild had shown up shortly after Jessen had and immediately gone after the dungeon to which he’d had a key. It wasn’t a huge stretch of imagination to assume that Jessen might have been wrapped up in something a little more significant than they’d thought.

If that was the case, there was only a single thing that Arwin could think of that might have drawn the Ardent Guild’s attention. The Dungeon Heart he’d used to accidentally bring his forge to life. That particular heart probably wasn’t getting found anytime soon. It was still buried within the walls of the Infernal Armory and Arwin had no plans of taking it out. He wasn’t sure why the Ardent Guild would have wanted it in the first place. It was obviously a fairly powerful magical item, but it didn’t seem like it was worth the amount of hassle that they were putting into locating it.

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Arwin left that to Rodrick for the time being. He had more than enough on his plate with working on Dwarven Smithing. If the Ardent Guild started getting closer, he trusted the ex-paladin to give them all enough warning to prepare to deal with it. There were better things to do with his time than worry until then. And, at the moment, Arwin was rather caught up with the newest project he’d been working on for the past two days.

Arwin lifted the blade of a knife he’d been working on and held it up, examining it with a critical eye. It was well formed. Light from the pulsing veins running through the smithy danced in its reflection. By all means, it was a well-made blade.

“This isn’t it,” Arwin said, letting out a sigh and tossing the piece of metal to the ground. The motion made the tendrils connected to his arms sway, but there was enough slack in them to make sure they didn’t go taut.

A small hole formed up in the cobbled floor before the knife could it hit. The metal didn’t make so much as a single clatter as it vanished into the darkness.

Red smoke twirled past Arwin as the invisible form of the Infernal Armory swept past him to stand beside the anvil.

“You are holding yourself back,” the voice said in a mixture of whisper and song. “We could make something far greater.”

“I am trying to make Lillia a gift. I am not making her a Cursed item. Not until I’ve figured out every bit of how they work on myself,” Arwin said with a firm shake of his head. “And my understanding of Dwarven Smithing is still preliminary. I’ve made it this far by stumbling blindly through the dark, but I can’t just skip all the practice I need to actually master the craft.”

He half expected the Armory to argue with him, but the red smoke just fluctuated as if in a shrug. It flowed past him to curl past his hand and alight on the wall to his side. “Very well. Practice, then. I hunger.”

“Lillia brought a bunch of food for you to eat already,” Arwin said with a sigh. “How much do you need? I’ve barely even done anything that special.”

“You have used my strength. Unlike you, it does not return naturally to me. I have limited reserves. Reserves that only replenish at your behest. If you would permit me to consume the other half of—”

“No,” Arwin snapped. “That is Lillia’s. If you need more food, then I’ll get you more food. How much energy do you have left? Can we get another few items made?”

A ripple blew through the center of the red smoke. The cloud curled apart as if split down the center, then re-connected itself as the sound of an annoyed sigh brushed past Arwin’s ears.

“I have sufficient energy.”

“You just said—”

“I hunger for more than energy. I hunger to create,” the Armory said, its words growing insistent. The smoke twisted up to the celling as the veins filling the building thrummed with energy. “You gifted me life. I hunger to use it. Why do you seek to do anything but the peak of what you are capable of?”

“I’m working on that!” Arwin snapped. He nodded to the spot where the knife had fallen. “It wasn’t right. I could feel it. That just wasn’t good enough. I can do better.”

“You can do better,” the Armory agreed. “But you will not let yourself. The existence of a Cursed item concerns you. You treat Cursed Dwarven Smithing as if it is a continuation of Dwarven Smithing.”

“Is it not?”

“I do not know. I am an extension of you, not a well of knowledge. But if it were an extension, then it would have simply been called Dwarven Smithing, would it not? A unique name implies that it is unique. It should be treated as such.”

Arwin pursed his lips. He’d been working on this same knife for quite some time. Nothing he’d made felt anywhere near as what he’d done together with Wallace. He’d assumed that had just been because he’d had Mithril to work with that had helped him along… but there was a good chance the Armory actually had a point. He’d been getting faster at making things with the techniques he’d learned from Wallace, but he hadn’t noticed any significant improvement in quality.

I’m not making as much progress as I want to… perhaps I’m really just beating my head against the wall trying to do something that I’m not specialized into. I’ve got the Titles to resist cursed items.

“Huh,” Arwin mused, turning the word over in his mouth as he thought. “That might make sense. I was pretty sure the paths would be really heavily related and progressing one would help the other… but that’s looking like it might not be the case. Then the reason I’m not getting any significant advancements or rewards from the Mesh might be because I’m not pursuing the path I chose.”

The smoke twisted past Arwin and bobbed. “Perhaps. I do not know. Even if you make a cursed item, we do not have to use it. It can be destroyed.”

“Are you sure?”

“No. But most things can be destroyed. Myself included, though I would not make the process simple. I doubt you will mistakenly invent something so powerful that it transcends even me. You do not have such a talent.”

Arwin chuckled. The Infernal Armory definitely had at least a bit of an ego. There was more than a little annoyance in its words, but their conversation rung true in Arwin’s head. He wasn’t sure if jumping right into making Cursed Items was the right choice, but he wasn’t getting enough advancement as things were right now.

It was time to change things up.

“Right,” Arwin said, rubbing his hands together and letting out a short breath as adrenaline started to build in his stomach. “Let’s see what we can do about making a Cursed item.”