The Key Master

The trio walked through the door onto a cobble and dirt road. The buildings around them were much shorter than the towers they’d seen in Pride. Plumes of black and grey smoke billowed from chimneys in all directions and John couldn’t help but cough as the smog hit him.

It smelt like coal and metal all around him and the sound of hammers pounding against anvils filled their ears.

Directly in front of them was a modest-sized building. Despite there being armour stands, shelves, and weapon racks, the exterior was devoid of wares. Where the buildings on either side had brilliant examples of the work they produced, this one had nothing.

“Is this the right place?” John asked, slightly confused.

Robin nodded. “It’s kinda hard to make a mistake when you have a key that takes you directly to the place you want to go. Let's just go inside and see what’s up.”

The three walked up to the bronze-coloured metal door and pushed it open. The interior was much larger than the outside. The ceilings were over ten metres high, and the room they stood in was much larger than the footprint of the exterior would suggest, without taking into consideration the rooms which splintered off.

The room they stood in looked to be a display room, though similarly to the outside, the room was mostly devoid of any products or items. There were a few odd items on shelves, pieces of jewellery, armour pieces, and new finely crafted tools.

Despite the emptiness, it was very clear it hadn’t been ransacked, evident by the few items that were there being nicely displayed or packaged. Also, next to one of the large ornate archways leading out of the showroom were three large wooden crates stacked neatly.

The striking and ringing of a hammer could be heard echoing through the shop. They followed the sound, but before they found the source, the entire place became silent. As they walked their footsteps echoed and they entered a large room with a forge that took up the majority of it. They stopped in their tracks as they saw a curvaceous grey-skinned dwarf woman.

John immediately looked the other way as the dwarven woman was completely nude, standing over a book and using an odd pair of glasses with a handle to read something.

“What do you want? If it’s not apparent by the lack of anything in the showroom or outside, our forge is about to run cold. I’m sorry to inform you but this place will be closing down for a little while until the new smiths move in,” the woman said, not looking up from her book.

Though John had turned his head away, Ellie was happy to drink in the dwarf's appearance. Her arms had obvious muscle to them, but not overly so like you’d usually imagine from a blacksmith. Her body was definitely not what you’d expect of a smith, a pair of large grey boobs each with a dark grey nipple, hardened and standing to attention.

Ellie wouldn’t go as far as to call the dwarf fat, but her soft stomach was enough for Ellie to call plush or podgy, though it was extremely attractive on the dwarfette. The dwarf was facing the trio, but from the angle, Ellie could see the dwarf's large and curvy butt.

When no answer came, the dwarf looked up to find two men looking off into the shop pointedly away from her while a human girl openly ogled her. The dwarf stared in confusion for a moment before her eyes darted down at her body.

“Shit, shit, shit. Sorry, I’ll, let me just...” she said in a half-panic looking around the shop floor before seemingly finding what she was looking for. The sound of fabric hit John’s ears and soon after the dwarf spoke once again, “Okay, sorry about that. It’s safe to look, boys. Quite gentlemanly of you to allow me modesty.”

John turned back to see the dwarf standing much closer, her curvy and busty body now partially hidden behind a brilliant white dress with bronze fixtures and a rather ornate abdomen piece. The dress suited the woman, though her large bust seemed to be attempting to escape from both her cleavage and out of the side of her dress.

With her modesty restored, John took in the dwarf. Her plush grey lips were curled into a smile, seemingly amused at the predicament, despite her sudden alarm and tone, only moments before. Her chest was definitely a magnet for John’s attention but her eyes seemed to have a stronger pull, forcing John to look into them. They were a brilliant amber reminding John of metal that had just been pulled from the forge.

Her hair transitioned from black to red at the ends. John had originally thought the colour was just the glow of the forge, but as she moved and her front braid was shaded by her body, the red glow persisted.

She folded her arms under her chest, hefting her breasts slightly. John wasn’t sure if she intended to draw his attention or not but she seemed to be sizing him up just as intently before clearing her throat. “Well, I’m sure you all enjoyed the show, but I’ll repeat myself, this place is closing down for a spell. If you’re here for a pick-up, the items are either in the front waiting or I’ve yet to finish them. Our departure was sudden news to us but I’ll not leave without completing outstanding orders.”

“Oh, that’s a shame,” John sighed. “We were told to come here and ask for Olivine in order to make a copy of a magic key.”

The dwarf closed her eyes and her chest heaved as she let out a heavy sigh. “Well, you found her. Listen, I value customers who recommend me to others. A key copy is rather simple depending on its properties, hand it over and I’ll give it a once over, see what I can do. Would you mind if I asked who it was that recommended you?”

Ellie quickly pulled out the key and held it towards Olivine. “Lady Orana recommended us; she said to tell you that if you could do this, then your debt is settled.”

The dwarf clutched the key, and paused while pulling away. “Lady Orana, you say? Recommended me?” She let out another sigh, though much lighter than her first. “I don’t have much choice in the matter, do I then? Not only has Lady Orana deemed me worthy of recommendation but she’ll drop what we owe.”

The dwarf took the key back to the table she was at when the trio had arrived. She picked up her lorgnette once more and looked at the key for a moment, turning it over and looking at it from all angles.

“Design is simple… As I suspected, it has an extra-dimensional space connected with it, I shouldn’t really be doing this…” she said before trailing off in a mumble, “however, I might be able to do something where I’m not actually creating a brand new key, so to speak… If I create a nexus within the new key, it should function exactly as the other does without having to create a series of enchantments.”

The dwarf took in a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah, I should be able to do this. Doing it this way I can’t guarantee it will act as a unique key; it’s possible that the original key will act as an anchor, so you might have to test it out a little. I can guarantee that you’ll be able to use the key to enter your demi-plane.”

With a fire lit within her, Olivine strode towards the dim forge. She took a firm hold of the giant bellows, pulling and pushing them causing the forge to roar to life. A great flame erupted and vanished leaving only white-hot embers in the base of the forge and sparks flying into the air.

She looked over her shoulder. “If ya planning on stickin’ around while I work, ya better make yourself comfortable. Oh, actually, ya can help speed the process up, if any of you are confident in your ability to measure out, crush, grind and mix compounds, then take a look on the bookshelf for a book titled ‘temporal nexus’. If you turn to page… uh, 394, it will tell you the exact weights and how it needs mixing. I want to be clear that you need to be very sure of your abilities.”

Before the dwarf had even finished her sentence, Ellie had already strode over to the bookcase and pulled the book down and onto the table. Soon Ellie was flicking through the pages. John found it cute how her mouth would move as she read the book. She smiled and looked up. “Piece of cake, I’ll get right on it.”

John and Robin were both surprised and enraptured by Ellie’s determination. She found all the ingredients and minerals she needed and began pounding and grinding everything in a particular order.

It was only when John heard the bell-like ring of metal that he turned his attention back to Olivine. His face began to heat up as his eyes fell upon the once again nude smith; he should have probably looked away but watching the dwarf work had him entranced.

The glow of the metal illuminated the dwarf's figure. Neither the heat nor the sparks seemed to bother the dwarf even a little. Her chest swayed and rippled as she brought down powerful blow after powerful blow, shaping the metal with ease.

After forging, Olivine made quick work of grinding, filing, engraving, buffing, and polishing the key until it was complete. After a moment of appreciating her own handiwork, she walked over to Ellie, who had finished mixing everything, and placed the black, silver, and blue sand into a large stone bowl.

The dwarf took both keys and placed them into the bowl ensuring they were covered by the sand before moving back to the forge and placing them in the centre, then she brought the roaring fire back. After a few moments, the mixture began to glow and the dwarf removed the hot bowl with her bare hands and placed it onto her anvil.

She held her hands over the bowl and began using a finger to scribe runes through the air, then with her other hand, she fed magic into it. After a flash, all that was left inside the bowl were two keys. It was easy enough to see the difference between the two keys; where the original kept its bronze-coloured accents, the new key had them replaced with a shiny patina. Additionally, the centre of the key’s bow was filled in, leaving space for a silver rune at the centre.

“If given time, I may have taken some artistic liberties and made the keys entirely different in shape and design; however, I am quite pleased with the outcome. It’s almost identical in appearance and craftsmanship, with a necessary difference and the pleasing patina I etched onto it. With this done, we’re square with Lady Orana, yes? I don’t have to worry about leaving and still being indebted?” the dwarf asked, holding both keys in her hand in Ellie’s direction.

“That’s what she said,” Ellie said, taking the key, and side-eyeing John as he snickered.

“Right, well, thanks for the business. I would ask that you come again but we won’t be here, so instead, I will say it was a pleasure and kindly ask you to leave. I have some last orders to complete and then I’m locking this place up for the last time,” Olivine stated. She gestured towards the door and took a few steps, before noticing Ellie and John’s eye lines. A small blush came onto her face and she scrambled yet again to find her clothing, after which she escorted the trio to the door, saying goodbye and gently closing it behind them.

“I… so where to next?” John asked.

Robin pondered for a moment. “Well, we got everything we came for. I should probably talk you through how you navigate around the place, so you don’t get lost and so that if you ever decided to come alone, you wouldn’t be stuck here forever. Other than that, it’s time to just relax and enjoy ourselves, so we’ll head back up to Pride.”

Robin guided the couple through the streets, pointing out certain indicators and markings. The most important seemed to be the metal inlays on the road that John had mistaken for tram lines; they had arrows etched into them and were colour coded for certain things. The most important markings, the gold ones, would take you to one of the viewing platforms between sins. The second most important ones were silver, which directed you to the closest information booth.

He went on to explain that to make things slightly easier to find, each sin was broken up into several districts, and in turn, those districts are broken up into even smaller areas called sections. Each location has its own name but can be identified by a special location code which includes the district, section, the closest viewing platform, the street, and then finally the building. It seemed to partially go over John’s head as Robin explained it, but he felt he’d gotten the very basics and wouldn’t be in danger of being lost any longer.

He also explained that their wristbands would flash, beep, and pull them away from any area they weren’t allowed to go into.

“Okay, the last thing I should tell you about the wristbands: you can press the button on the side four times in quick succession for it to direct you to the closest information booth, or you can press SOS on it to get the attention of a bouncer for emergencies, though if you’re ever in a true emergency, use magic. There are several wristbands for the inferno and the ones you two have are the most strict when it comes to magic use, so if you use a spell in an area where it’s prohibited, you’ll have at least three bouncers zeroing in on your location in no time at all,” Robin informed the two.

Finally, the trio found themselves back on pride on the rim of the balcony where they could look down through the sins.

“Alright, we’re back here. What kind of bar or pub or venue would you like to go to?” Robin asked.

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