(Part 1 of 5) [Can't seem to get the entire story posted in one comment.]
Lan sighed wearily as he thumbed the bills out carefully, he had never been one for counting, and this fiat currency required a lot of it. It had been fifteen years now since its introduction, which, he had to admit, was more than enough time for him to have gotten proper used to it.
He slid the bundle of bills into the drawer beneath the desk and nodded gruffly. "Payment's all accounted for, sir. Wait one moment, I'll have your order brought out."
He pushed open the employees-only door behind him, cupped his hands to his mouth, and shouted to be heard over the din of hammers on anvils, of bubbling, molten metal, of finished product being roughly dumped into wooden boxes (with serious-looking apprentices carefully checking off items on their clipboards).
"One 100 piece set to bay five, for the revered gentleman!"
"Aye!" a thickset lad called back, "100 good-lucks for the well-to-do at five!"
Lan rolled his eyes. He didn't understand his apprentices---all young and 'educated' (as they called it now)---desire to make up names for their small array of products and their perhaps smaller array of customers. But, he supposed he couldn't begrudge them anything that made their work more palatable.
He let the door swing shut behind him, paused a moment for the ringing in his ears to settle, and told the well-to-do before him that he could wait with his cart, and the delivery would be brought out to him.
After the tinkling bell announced the customer's departure, Lan leaned heavily over his desk and rubbed his head with his large, rough-callused hands. This wasn't how he'd imagined he'd end up as a boy. He hadn't hated blacksmithing---in fact, he'd been told on multiple occasions that he had quite a knack for it---but it had never been intended as anything more than a stepping stone in his journey.
He was doing it again. Lorra had told him a thousand times that ruminating was only making things worse for him, and that this was a better world for their son to grow up in. But, godsdammit, he couldn't help it. And was it really a better world for their son? A world where a boy can't dream of adventure? What sort of boy dreams of this?
On the walls, the product displays mocked him. Hung here and there, tastefully arranged (his wife's handiwork), not only burnished steel, but glittering adamantine and twinkling mithril. There was no pig iron, no copper, no bronze here---none of the metals he had trained with in his youth. There was only the stuff of dreams, forged in magical flames via processes that few understood.
And he hated all of it. There was no spark in any of it, in the adamantine horseshoes or the mithril plows. It was all so boring, and it represented nothing to him but broken promises and a wasted life.
He had apprenticed to Halrth, the local smith, at the age of eight. It wasn't his first choice of vocation, but the closest thing there had been to an adventurer's apprenticeship was following one's father out on quests, and unfortunately neither Lan's father nor his father's father had been an adventurer. But it had been a well considered choice, especially for a young child: blacksmiths were strong, so were adventurers; blacksmiths worked with swords and shields, so did adventurers.
And Halrth had been the blacksmith of choice for Terrel, the provincial lord and legendary adventurer. Terrel had been tall and wiry. An adventurer first and a lord second, his gold rings were always smudged with dirt, and he never did seem to be able to get the rust-colored stains completely out of his doublets.
If there was trouble at the border, Terrel was there first---twin blades in hand and a crop of rough adventurers at his heels. The people had trusted Terrel, and Terrel had done good by his people. Lan adored Terrel, and Terrel had humored him.
Lan wanted to be like Terrel, which his mother had told him meant he needed to learn how to read, and only nobles were 'lettered' (that was the term for it in those days) so he should give up on that orcheaded idea and focus on making enough copper for them to eat meat once in a while. But Lan had, he had thought, seen clearer than his mother: Yes, Terrel could read, but most adventurers couldn't. He could be just like Terrel (the cool parts of him anyhow) without worrying about that at all.
He remembered the last time he had seen Terrel. It had been very exciting. Lan had been at the forge, hammering out his dozenth horseshoe of the day. Halrth had promised him that once he'd forged ten thousand horseshoes, then they would work on the swords and axes that kept the city safe and made up the bulk of their sales.
His hero---the province's hero---had come in unexpectedly. He had looked excited. A dustcloak slung over his shoulders, a bulky pack (which Lan knew to be full of books) puffing it up like the hunch of a hag's back, and his two trusty swords sheathed at his hip. He had spoken hurriedly to master Halrth, sparing Lan a small wave.
He was sorry, but he was in a rush. He needed two new wheels for his cart, a dozen horseshoes---just in case, it was a long journey---and the dents knocked out of his breastplate (last week's goblin extermination had been particularly hard). He needed this all as soon as possible, because this mission was, perhaps, the most important he'd ever had and would ever have. He was off to parts unknown, to where it was rumored the silver dragon Hsar'gl resided, to recover a cache of magic items the dragon had stolen from a heavily-armored caravan (after eating all but one, it seemed, of the caravan's guards). The king had offered him an audience---one hour---and to listen sincerely to his ideas, about governance and the economy and... some other stuff (Lan hadn't really understood most of the words being thrown about at this point, though neither did most people), if only he would recover these magical items.
Lan had piped up at that point. Was Terrel going to fight a dragon? That was so cool.
Terrel had laughed. No, that was impossible. Dragons were forces of nature. He was going to find its lair, sneak in when the dragon was out, and recover the cache from its hoard.
That had honestly sounded almost as cool to Lan. He remembered that he had opened his mouth to say more, when master Halrth cuffed him across the head, snarling that it was time to get back to work.
Terrel had departed shortly after, and that was the last time Lan saw him. It was some small comfort, and counted a measure of pride, that there was a very good chance the horseshoes Terrel used on his final adventure had been made by Lan's hand.
He just wished that he had had the chance to make a sword, even if he never got the chance to swing one at a goblin neck, but things had changed so quickly and so completely that there was no longer enough demand for weapons for a blacksmith in a backwater province to make a living doing it. And, like his mother had always said, making a living was the most important part.
There was a tinkling at the door, and he straightened his back, set his hands firmly on the desk---as if that could keep him from slipping away---and forced a smile. "Welcome to Lan's Pots, Pans, and Assorted Other Items, what can I do for you today?"