Cynthia, meet Ilis. Ilis, meet my girlfriend

John and Cynthia walked hand in hand to Old Fred’s workshop, finding the dwarf sitting outside, smoking his pipe and talking to… a familiar, thick little dwarf. Ilis waved at them as they approached. Jack sprinted from between John’s legs towards her, Toph riding atop his back and voicing her distress as her ride suddenly became bouncy. Once he’d reached Ilis’ side, Jack rubbed up against the dwarf, purring loudly. Ilis giggled at the sight of both pets, giving the lopsided pangolin a pat as she tried to clamber down to the ground.

“You have two?” she asked before anyone could speak.

John nodded as Cynthia gave him a questioning look. He gestured at Ilis, speaking up, “Cynthia, meet Ilis. Ilis, meet Cynthia, my girlfriend.” Old Fred got up at that point, and so did Ilis. The buxom dwarfette extended her hand to Cynthia. The taller girl shook it happily.

“Pleasure to meet you,” Ilis said happily, looking the huntress over while Cynthia did the same.

“Likewise. What brings you here?” Cynthia asked curiously, wiggling her chest a little as she felt somewhat outperformed by Ilis’ stacked chest.

“You can tell her, lassie. Cyn here would never rat me out,” Old Fred reassured Ilis who was about to give a quick excuse.

“Well, if you say so, Uncle Fred. My lord Hemet has asked me to work with your boyfriend; my lord seems to owe him something, or like him. We have not heard from him since he went into his game.”

“Hemet gave you a personal engineer?” Cynthia asked John who gave a small nod. “How long have you been in the Abyss again?” she giggled as she patted his shoulder.

“Less than a week.” John answered with a grin.

“You are either the luckiest or the strangest person I have ever met then.” Cynthia kept giggling.

Ilis interrupted them by waving her hands. “Anyway, John, I have a few designs I need to go over with you. Do you think you have some time?” Her eyes shined with determination, producing a few scrolls from her bracelet, the schematics almost as big as her torso.

“Is that why you called me?” John turned to Old Fred who nodded, gesturing at his smithy.

“I cleaned up the drawing room for you two.”

John smiled thankfully as he pulled the other loot out of his bag. “Do you think you can appraise these while we work then? And Cynthia, could you maybe take care of Toph and Jack for me? I don’t know how long it will be, and I don’t want them to get bored.”

Old Fred took the items, piling them onto the buckler as he nodded. “Aye, no problem, laddy. Will do. You really do bring me some interesting stuff.” He pulled out his magnifying glass as he took another drag of his pipe, having placed the buckler onto the bench next to him.

Cynthia nodded as she crouched in front of Jack and Toph. “How about I show you two some secrets around the camp, hm?” she asked the kitten and baby pangolin. Both of them looking up at her with beady eyes, making soft sounds in agreement. Cyn then hugged John, happily saying: “Have fun!” The girl hugging him then whispered into his ear. “If you can get a way for her to, you know, hop into bed with me or us, I’ll make it worth your while” before pulling away and walking towards the forest side of the camp, Jack and Toph following her happily.

John, blushing heavily, coughed softly. “Okay, let's go look at those schematics of yours.”

Ilis grinned as she pulled him along, closing the door of the smithy behind them. The last thing John saw from the outside was Old Fred pulling a bottle of scotch out of his beard as he set to inspecting the items.

Ilis led him to the drawing room, which was on the top floor of the smithy, the stairs hidden behind a few bits and pieces in the workshop. Ilis looked over her shoulder as she climbed the stairs. Her thick thighs shaking slightly with every step she took. John looked at her ass, watching it move in front of him, and he, of course, had a hard time showing no reaction to it. He cleared his throat as she stopped for a moment, making him walk face first into her ass.

“Did you hear something?” Ilis asked with a wink, then walked on, leaving John with the odd sensation of having a big, bootyfull ass on his face.

John shook his head. “Nope, not a thing,” he said softly, then followed her up to what was basically an attic with a drawing table near the window, covered in soot like most of the clearing, a big oaken table in the middle of the room with a few rolls of paper lying about on it and a cork board on a wall. A few pins in place ready to be put to use.

“Uncle Fred draws out his special items here. He loves forging, almost as much as he loves drinking,” she grinned as she said that. She tossed the scrolls on the table.

Ilis had clearly done a lot of work on the designs since yesterday. She spread out the four scrolls. The first was a hatchet; it was stylish in design. She explained: “First I thought you might need a tool to help you survive as well as help you kill off any stragglers after you soften them up with your bow. The hatchet would be sharpened but also a tad on the heavy side, making it ideal to cut off branches, to hack the meat off of your prey and finally to crack a skull with the back if you ever need to do such.”
She pointed at the specifics, explaining the kind of metal she would use and how much it would weigh.

“Then, however, I thought about something a bit different. I realized that, one, if you wanted to cut down a tree or a few branches, you would probably just bring an axe, no need to blunt your weapon on plants. A dagger would fit better. It is easy to carry around, and if we can find a way to give it that extra edge… Hmmm. I might just be able to, well, hmmm.” She didn’t finish her sentence as she showed him a sleek design, the handle and the dagger itself slightly curved, and on the schematic she showed him that she wanted the edge of the blade to be forged from a different metal, but she could not figure out which one.

She then pulled out two other knife designs. The first was a kukri, the knife useful for making your way through thick foliage, cutting down smaller plants and slitting throats while the other was… Almost a sword. An eleven inch knife with a thick base, and John not be able to wield it proficiently with just one hand.

“Why did you design that last one?” he asked with a small sigh, not seeing it as very practical.

“Well, you see. I was working on the knives and thought you might grow stronger later on, then such a knife would be easy for you to wield. But I take it that we will not take that one. It was an outlier anyway.”

John nodded as he pointed at the hatchet. “I will not take that one either. I think your reasoning for why it would be useful is correct, but I can toss an axe in my inventory and be able to do the same, while still having something a little less heavy in my hands as a weapon.”

Ilis nodded as she showed him the kukri and the ‘average’ dagger again. “Do you have a preference? Kukri are used mainly in India as far as I know, and while we can give a few more customizations to both of them, you can enhance a normal dagger more, plus it’s easier to forge into the desired shape.”

John looked over the designs, liking both of them a lot. “Is there any way we can make one of both?” he asked hopefully. Only to have Ilis shake her head. “Not really, I have time to finalize one design, then we can always ask Uncle Fred to help with forging an extra one. He already offered to help create it, though it might also be a good thing for you to create a part of it yourself.”

John nodded in understanding. Thinking for a moment longer.