Finding the runes

Having felt a weak pang of shame at how quickly his gaze fell upon how Gia’s shapely ass was filling out her tight pants, Aram had to hold back from groaning at how it swayed softly in front of him as she led him deeper into her master’s shop.

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, a voice was calling out to him that this might all be some sort of fiendish trap, and that Gia had people waiting to ambush him as soon as they stepped into Armando’s workshop. But no net was thrown over him and no club hit the back of his head as they entered the workshop, which was substantially bigger than that of his own master, and Aram soon began to calm down again as his fears had been proven to be every bit as unfounded as he hoped they would be.

The smithy reeked of the familiar smells of hot steel, steaming water and burnt coal, and Aram could quickly spot the spot where Gia had been working before his clumsiness had drawn her out into the store. Aram took the number of uncompleted weapons, piece of armour and various trinkets that were lined up here and there in the smithy to be a testament either to sheer number of apprentices that Armando had, or to his laziness and incompetence. It was strange, Aram thought, that he could feel such contempt for a man that he’d never met, but then both Brom and Gia had, and neither one seemed particularly keen on him.

“Here,” Gia began, standing by a workbench and causing Aram to have to hold back another lustful groan as she bent forwards to reach for something that was stored underneath it, her heart-shaped posterior wiggling about as she worked arms in further across the wide shelf that was mounted underneath the workbench, before she finally retrieved a long, thin wooden case from it.

“He keeps some of them in these,” Gia explained, looking slightly nervous as she glanced over at Aram whilst placing the case on the workbench, sucking her bottom lip into her mouth for a moment as she watched him draw nearer to where she was standing.

“Right,” Aram nodded, still keeping his voice unusually low for some reason as he surveyed the case. It was a lot less ostentatious than he’d expected it to be, though the young smith had to had admit that Armando was unlikely to have kept his loot in a golden, ornately decorated case and then place it right in the middle of his workshop.

“I’m guessing it’s locked,” Aram continued on as he came closer still to the workbench, only to have Gia take a short step to his left, one that wasn’t wide enough to keep them from brushing against each other as he stopped in front of it.

“Yeah,” Gia breathed out, brushing against Aram’s larger frame as she slid away to stand next to him.

“Anything that you want to take with you?” Gazing down at Gia whilst collecting the case and tucking it in between his right arm and his ribs, Aram found himself meeting her gaze as neither of them spoke for a few seconds, during which he struggled with the sudden desire to kiss her.

“A few things,” Gia replied, throwing a quick glance at how Aram was now holding onto the case, “Can you wait here while I pick them up?”

Nodding his head, Aram stood still and watched as Gia quickly scampered over to another workbench, collecting a few items which she stuffed into a small, simple canvas bag.

“Armando doesn’t allow us to own any of our own tools,” Gia explained, sounding a
little agitated, while stuffing a small book into the bag, “He says the customers deserve nothing less but things made with only the best tools.”

Aram nodded his head again, still silently admiring Gia’s striking beauty. It was customary for a master to allow his or her apprentices to compile their own collection of tools during the course of their apprenticeship, with most of them being crafted by the apprentice himself. For all his faults, that was one thing that Brom had allowed Aram to do, even helping him out on a few occasions, when he wasn’t either too drunk or too hung-over.

“Just so you know,” Aram began, as Gia came walking towards him, “I’m with someone.”

“I mean,” he quickly continued, after the confused look that Gia sent him, “there’s someone else with me, uh, robbing the store.”

“I don’t really think that it’s really robbery if you’re only stealing back what’s already been stolen,” Gia observed, baring her teeth in a mischievous smile.

“Probably not,” After chuckling at her dry joke, Aram followed Gia back out into the storefront.

Leona was already there, waiting for him, and her hand was on her sword the moment she saw Gia, causing Aram to let out a rushed “Wait!” that was perhaps a little too loud under the circumstances as he stepped forwards to place himself between the two women.

“Who’s this?” Leona hissed out, though she longer appeared set to cut Gia’s head off.

“One of Armando’s apprentices, she helped me find this,” Holding up the case, Aram watched as Leona placed the bundle that she’d been carried on top of the counter and sauntered up to him, “I figured you could open it.”

“Hopefully,” Leona muttered, offering Gia a curt nod as she accepted the case from Aram and walked over to the counter, with Aram and the young blonde offering each other a quick, nervous glance as the redheaded warrior-woman worked quickly and efficiently to undo the lock on the case.

“What do you think?” Talking to Aram after unlocking the case in the same manner in which she’d unlocked the front door of Armando’s store, Leona held up one of the rune stamps.

“Looks odd,” Aram replied as he accepted the rune stamp, getting a first look at one for the first time ever and holding the long piece of metal with one hand on its handle and the under wrapped round the thinning metal rod just below the rune itself. Having been brought up in a village, Aram had plenty of experience with livestock being branded, and that was what the rune stamp reminded him of. To him, it seemed a little strange that the masterly dwarven smiths would use such a crude method to make their finest weapons and armours.

“Do you know why Armando kept these upstairs?” Leona asked Gia, unwrapping the bundle to show off four more rune stamps, though these were much thinner and more delicate-looking than the ones that she and Aram had found inside the smithy.

“No,” Gia shook her head, as she too stood by the counter, examining the rune stamps.

“No matter,” Leona decided, quickly collecting the rune stamps and gathering them back up into the bundle, pulling the piece of blue cloth tight around them before securing the whole package with a small strap of leather, “we’ve got what we came here for.”

“I take it you’re coming with us,” Leona said to Gia, who nodded at her, prompting the older woman to purr out a “Good,” that Aram didn’t quite know what to make of.
Before he’d had a chance to ponder it any further, Aram was made to follow Leona back out onto the street, and the trio were soon making their way back towards Brom’s smithy.

“You found them?” Brom asked, as the three of them came walking into his store, “And who’s she?”

“We did, and Aram found her,” Leona replied, placing the bundle on the table in front of Brom, who had apparently washed off and sobered up, making himself far more presentable than Aram was used to.

Moments later, and the grizzled old dwarf was sporting a triumphant smile as he had freed his rune stamps from the piece of cloth and was holding one of them up in front of him, examining it closely while looking far happier than Aram had ever seen him do during the months that he had known him.

“Aram,” Brom spoke, after first opening the case that Aram had placed in front of him, still clutching the same thin rune stamp as before while looking down at the rest of them.

“Yes?”

“Get a fire started, and get this nice and warm,” Brom began, handing Aram the thin rune stamp, “But don’t let it get red-hot or anything.”

“Right,” Aram nodded, actually feeling a little moved by how Brom had entrusted him with one of his rune stamps.

“Now wait he…” Brom stopped abruptly in mid-sentence as his gaze happened to fall upon Leona, who had walked up to where she’d left her armour and had pulled the tunic that Aram had lent her up over her head, freeing her huge breasts from their confinement.

After throwing a long hard look at the topless warrioress, Brom shuffled out of the smithy, and headed up the flight of stairs leading up to the second floor.

As casually as she’d removed the tunic, Leona stripped out of the rest of her outfit, seeming completely comfortable with how Aram and Gia were both looking at her as she did so. In fact, once she was naked, she straightened up her back and pushed out her ample chest, smiling first at Aram, then at Gia, her smile growing wilder from how they both sighed at the sight of her naked form.

“Gia,” Aram got the blonde’s attention, “could you help me with the fire?”

“Uh-huh,” Gia replied, her cheeks a lot more reddened than before.

While the two of them worked quickly to get a fire going in the forge, Leona first took her time in folding Aram’s clothes in a neat pile, then proceeded to check her armour, showing no signs of being in a rush to put it back on.

By the time that Brom came back down the stairs, carrying a small glass jar containing what looked like purple paint or dye, flames were roaring in the forge, and Leona remained completely naked.

“Hand me the rune and take a seat,” Brom ordered Aram, walking across his smithy while staring wantonly at Leona, who didn’t seem to mind.

“Now,” Brom began, seating himself opposite Aram, both of them sitting propped up on a backless chair next to the dark, sturdy table that stood at the centre of the dwarf’s smithy, “you’re right-handed, aren’t you?”

Aram nodded over the hissing sound that was caused by Brom dipping the hot rune into the opened jar, immersing it in the thin paint.

“Right, then hold out your right arm.” Obeying Brom’s order, Aram placed his right arm on the table, with his knuckles facing downwards.

“Among us dwarfs, when a apprentice finishes his education, it’s customary for his master to offer him one last gift…”

“You,” Brom nodded at Gia, “come here and hold Aram’s arm for me.”

“These four runes,” Brom nodded first at the rune stamp in his hand, then at the other three that had been bundled up inside the stretch of cloth, “they ain’t meant for weapons or for armour, they’re meant for smiths.”

“They are?” Aram asked, surprised at himself for not being more concerned as Gia came up next to him and took a tentative hold of his right arm, their gazes meeting again for a brief moment.

“Yes,” Brom nodded, checking that the rune was amply coated with paint, “they’re the runes of our great gods, and carrying their mark means being granted a little of their power.”

“Right,” Aram too nodded, slightly confused as to why he was suddenly listening to a theology lecture, and dearly hoping that he hadn't kept the rune stamp immersed in the flames for too long.

“On the table you have those of Grichnak, the god of might and strength, Alrech, the god of wisdom, and Dornach, the god of judgement,” Brom quickly shared with Aram, before grinning at Aram as he held up the long, thin piece of iron that was already in his hands, “This however, is the rune of Hallr, god of fortitude.”

Aram nodded, throwing a peek at the purple rune that was tattooed onto his master’s right wrist, with thin tongues of purple expanding out from it to hug the whole of his wrist, noting the similarity between it and the one that he was now holding up in front of him.

“Seriously, how did you think that an old dwarf like me can keep up with all the pretty young girls in the Kettle?” Brom grinned at Aram.

“Now, girl, make sure to hold his arm,” Brom ordered Gia, “as this might sting just a wee bit.”

“Aram?” Gia again looked straight into Aram’s eyes, tightening up her hold of his arm after he’d nodded at her, letting him feel how strong she really was.

Aram grunted when the rune made contact with his skin, experiencing a brief moment of searing pain that suddenly dissolved itself, the young smith grunting again as Brom pulled the rune back to allow him to see how the Mark of Hallr was now tattooed onto his wrist as well, with streaks of purple colour expanding outwards from it before his very eyes.

A third grunt left Aram’s throat when he suddenly felt an almost insanely powerful stirring in his balls, and as he looked up, his gaze went from Leona’s naked form over to Gia’s beautiful face as the young blonde stood beside him, her eyes filled with apprehension and worry.