Okay, so the crack of dawn was, admittedly, a sort of questionable time to go wandering around in a dark room full of large, heavy, and occasionally sharp things. Unfortunately for Hiccup, he had to get in here before the Inquisition Blacksmiths got up because those guys--those guys--he shook his head and jumped up to drape his whole weight against the top handle of the bellows.
"No children allowed," Hiccup mocked in a snide, nasally voice that, in all fairness, was a reasonable approximation of the most vocally anti-Hiccup smith. Beneath his whole weight the large bellows sank and there was a deep, rumbling sort of exhale as air was piped up through the cooled ash and coke.
"Too dangerous! Too much fire! Too many tools!" Hiccup continued to complain (quietly) as he released the bellows and then repeated the motion. By the third compression, the pilot flame he'd set finally caught the rest of the fuel. On the fourth compression, a low, orange fire glimmered in the pre-dawn darkness of the Undercroft.
"Lowlanders," Hiccup muttered as he moved around to stir the fuel and shovel coals onto the edge of the fire. Soon enough the fire was live and golden and the bricks in the center of the firepit were rapidly regaining their glow. The air was warming up (thank Korth) and, after a considerable amount of effort and a few close calls regarding his feet, Hiccup managed to get a large crucible over the hearth coals.
If there was one thing he was used to, it was how long forges took to warm up in the highlands. It would be about two hours before the coke was hot enough to temper steel and, in the meanwhile, he could melt, form, and fashion the base pieces he would need.
There were some scrap weapons, pieces of junk that had been slated for either last minute, desperate welding (or more likely being recycled into ingots) just sitting against the walls. He snatched up a few of them and, with his trusty Avvar hammer, managed to heat and shatter them into pieces that he could reform. All in all, that part took a bit longer than Hiccup estimated. It took Hiccup somewhere on the order of four hours to break apart all the scrap he needed and, by the time he had finished loading it into the crucible and heating up an appropriate mold, the sun was already well into the sky.
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"No children allowed," Hiccup mocked in a snide, nasally voice that, in all fairness, was a reasonable approximation of the most vocally anti-Hiccup smith. Beneath his whole weight the large bellows sank and there was a deep, rumbling sort of exhale as air was piped up through the cooled ash and coke.
"Too dangerous! Too much fire! Too many tools!" Hiccup continued to complain (quietly) as he released the bellows and then repeated the motion. By the third compression, the pilot flame he'd set finally caught the rest of the fuel. On the fourth compression, a low, orange fire glimmered in the pre-dawn darkness of the Undercroft.
"Lowlanders," Hiccup muttered as he moved around to stir the fuel and shovel coals onto the edge of the fire. Soon enough the fire was live and golden and the bricks in the center of the firepit were rapidly regaining their glow. The air was warming up (thank Korth) and, after a considerable amount of effort and a few close calls regarding his feet, Hiccup managed to get a large crucible over the hearth coals.
If there was one thing he was used to, it was how long forges took to warm up in the highlands. It would be about two hours before the coke was hot enough to temper steel and, in the meanwhile, he could melt, form, and fashion the base pieces he would need.
There were some scrap weapons, pieces of junk that had been slated for either last minute, desperate welding (or more likely being recycled into ingots) just sitting against the walls. He snatched up a few of them and, with his trusty Avvar hammer, managed to heat and shatter them into pieces that he could reform. All in all, that part took a bit longer than Hiccup estimated. It took Hiccup somewhere on the order of four hours to break apart all the scrap he needed and, by the time he had finished loading it into the crucible and heating up an appropriate mold, the sun was already well into the sky.