The heat of the forges, the rhythmic pounding of hammers on metal and the whirring of machines stirred a sense of comfort within Technus' body, the sensation of returning home rising into his chest. He had felt that way upon arriving within Brother Ruberix's chapel, and the feeling returned as he descended the flight of stairs from the Temple District down to here.

But the sensation was as fleeting as the wind, for it settled in that was no longer within the glorious, sanctified halls of a Turning Cog temple, but still within the city of Thalmont. And the machines here paled in comparison to those of the manufactorums he had spent countless hours within as an acolyte.

The forges at home were as large as houses; here, they were no bigger than ovens. Instead of mighty hydraulic presses slamming down to shape steel in a single unerring strike, the hammers here were grasped in the hands of smiths and carpenters, slowly beating nails into place or crudely hewing red-hot iron into a desired form. And the whirring he heard was little more than the turning of spinning wheels and the clunking of looms, worked at by women making clothes to shield their fragile organic bodies from the elements.

Technus was in the Craftsman's District of Thalmont, one of the lower districts of the city, accessed by a flight of wide stone stairs that led down from the Temple District to where the scent of incense and the chanting of choir boys were replaced as the heat of open flames and the sound of churning coals washed across his face.

The sight and sensations were glorious to behold, the blood and oil in Technus's body both bubbling with pride.

This was just as sacred to him as the chapel he had been to above; after all, tinkering and invention were sacred skills to the Order of the Turning Cog, for Erathis' domain was not just civilization, but also invention. Society could only progress with the continued development of machinery, after all, and the Turning Cog was the epitome of that belief; the logical conclusion, the doctrine fulfilled.

Sadly, until further notice, he could not meet with Brother Ruberix and discussion the quest for the meteor. The timer he had set was still ticking away in the corner of his vision, seeming to creep all the more slowly with each send that passed in a way that made his temper flare and his patience fray.

Sadly, there was nothing he could do but wait. Brother Ruberix outranked him, and unlike weak organics, Tech-Clerics did not disobey.

If one part of the machine refused to work, the entire mechanism would falter. Their mission would be compromised, its success put at risk. And it would be him held responsible.

Disobedience of the laws and doctrines was heresy. And heresy was something he would not entertain.

And so he had come to the Craftsman's District of Thalmont, where all the smiths, tailors, wheelwrights, carpenters and others who worked the hard crafts had their businesses. And to 'Fire in the Wholesale'.

As he pushed through the wooden door beneath the hanging sign, crafted from painted iron in the shape of two crossed pistols each firing a bullet, the sounds of the district faded behind him and were replaced by silence. As the latch clicked shut behind him, he scanned the room, somewhat disappointed to see nothing but a small chamber with racks of guns laid out on each of the walls, and the wooden shop counter opposite him as he entered. He also quickly realized that he was the only customer here when he heard no footprints on the floorboards, nor saw any figures obscuring his sight of the pistols, muskets, blunderbusses and other basic firearms.

That was, except for the shop's proprietor.

Sitting behind the counter, filing its clawed fingers was a tabaxi – one of the cat people – with a thick coat of grey fur, large deep purple eyes, and a tail that coiled and twisted in the air as its owner gently purred. It seemed to be getting pleasure from doing its nails - so much so that it was only when Technus strode towards him, steps clunking on the ground, its feline gaze shot up and it hurriedly put its file away, sitting more alert as it noticed a customer.

"Greetings, honoured friend..." he said in a voice as soft and chilling as a winter breeze. "Smoke-on-the-Water, at your service..." he then added, his feline lips and twitching whiskers rising to reveal a grin of pointed teeth.

"Cease," Technus replied, his voice a harsh crackle of static. "I am here to acquire firearm components, not to exchange pleasantries."

Immediately, as was the nature of organics, fear turned the Tabaxi from bold to obsequious. Bowing low, his smile became one of apology as he told Technus, "Of course, good sir. What can this humble servant do for you? As always, Tabaxi has wares, if you have coin..."

He closed one eye then as he kept his vivid gaze on Technus, but the gesture meant nothing to the cleric of Erathis. If it had any meaning, he either never knew it... or had forgotten it long ago.

But there was no time to ruminate on that – he had a holy mission to do.

After visiting the Chapel of the Turning Cog, a spark of inspiration had hit Technus – one for a weapon that he hoped would both honour his deity and demonstrate his skill to Brother Ruberix when they finally made proper contact.

Much to his disappointment, after having patrolled much of the district, this was the only gunsmith he could find. It seemed Thalmont had yet to advance beyond the age of swords, spears and lances in any proper capacity – another thing that would end upon the coming of the Age of Iron.

In the meantime, Technus listed what he needed – a musket barrel, a trigger, a firing pin and so forth. And when Smoke-on-the-Water lay the parts out on the counter, the Tech-Cleric reached out a hand to take them...

"Uh, sir..." the cat-creature suddenly said. "That'll be three hundred and fifty gold coins... if it please you, I mean." There was a small break in his voice as he spoke, revealing his fear.

Technus lifted his gaze to look the organic straight in the eye, paused for a moment... and then a compartment in his side popped open. To the untrained eye, it was like it did this of its own accord, but Technus had made it do so though his willpower alone.

Through countless hours of prayer and mental discipline, he had learned how to control all the mechanical parts of his body as easily as an organic might lift a finger or blink. Opening the compartments that held his items, including the one in his right shoulder that housed his pistol, might once have been a struggle, but now he could do it with no more than a thought.

It had been this way for many years, though exactly how many, Technus could no longer recall. A life among machines mean that time often escaped him, for the machine was eternal.

Nonetheless, he pulled the coin he had from the compartment, quickly counted it with a flick of his robotic eye, then laid out the exact amount of coin needed before Smoke-on-the-Water.

Technus had made gold here and there from alms gathered in the name of his faith, and as pay from menial tasks he had done on the way here. While he was not outwardly seeking profit, when wasted expenses such as food no longer needed to be paid for, you soon found yourself with more money than you knew what to do with. And in this moment, he was glad he had saved up.

The deal was then made, and as Technus put the gun pieces in his storage compartments and Smoke counted out the coin, there was no more that need be done. Technus left the building, never looking back, his thoughts already set on the best way to create the weapon he had in mind...

~~~

Standing beneath the canopied roof of a local blacksmith, the Smelting Fireball, Logan had been speaking to the establishment's owner for a good fifteen minutes now. The smith was a stumpy human who might have been mistaken for a dwarf due to standing five feet tall and near five feet wide at the shoulder with a big red beard on his face... and when it came to haggling, he was just as stubborn as one.

"Seventy-five gold?" Logan asked, exhausted and his tone rather incredulous. "Are we agreed on that then?"

The smith looked up from polishing the visored helmet; that being the item that he and the paladin were trying to fix a prince on. "That'll do..." the man said before checking the helm closely and placing it in Logan's hand, his huge ham-hands caressing the steel as though it was his baby. "You won't regret this purchase, sir! I promise you!"

Logan gave the man a nod, then inspected his new piece of armour as he held it in his hand; it was a visored great helm of dark steel, darker than his chainmail, greaves and gauntlet, with an angled top to allow blows to the top of the head to slide off rather than catch and break his neck.

Truth be told, Logan preferred to fight without a helmet – while they were undeniably useful, they also obscured your vision and hearing, and he felt that being able to see or hear an attack coming was more useful in most circumstances. Especially when fighting monsters prowling caverns or lurking in the Underdark.

Still, Romain had insisted he need one for the tourney, and Logan admitted to being swayed. But when he'd asked if about getting a crest or some kind of decoration for the helm earlier, the smith had grown angry. "I make helms that look like helms, not winged pigs or giant spiders!" he snapped, mocking the strange helmet designs they had both seen around the city.

It seemed beggars couldn't be choosers, though. And so Logan forked over the coin for the helmet – the last of it that he had.

'Beggar...' he thought grimly to himself as he walked away. And he wasn't talking about the smith.

Milton's insult of calling him 'a beggar with a blade' on the road here had wounded his very soul and now, as he walked through the Craftsman's district with a plain, mismatched helm, it seemed to ring all the more truly.

Was this truly how he was going to represent House Galehaut? Not having the means to have a magnificent suit of armour befitting of his family line crafted for the tourney?

His uncle's armour had been magnificent – solid steel plate over gold-enamelled chainmail, the pauldrons crafted into the shape of griffins in flight and his great helm decorated with wings at the temples. He wore it in tourney and battle, and Logan was set on finding the means to create one just as grand.

He would not shame his family any further... he would not be mocked as unworthy.

As these fears clung to the front of his mind, Logan tried to shake them off as he weaved through the crowds of knights and common folk, heading for the district entrance where he had agreed to meet Romain and Finnan. All kinds of trades were being done all around him in this district, the crowds around the shops as thick as flies, and goods of all kinds, from carpentry to weaponry, were being sold in droves.

Of the greatest note to him were tourney lances being carried off by squires; twelve-foot long polearms of ash with blunted tips. Shorter than war lances like his own, but nowhere near as deadly.

However, as he neared the portcullis gate that marked the main entrance to the Craftman's District, something else caught his eye.

A towering metal statue stood beside the gateway, depicting a colossal figure who stood with one foot up on an anvil, bearded chin held high as he gazed into the middle distance. A rectangular shield, large and solid as a door and rimmed around the edge with black iron, was planted upright at his feet in the base of the statue, its face depicting a black bull's head on a golden field. The sigil was striking, as were the names given to the figure, inscribed on a nearby bronze plaque.

'Sir Gregor de Taureau. Sir Gregor the Bull. Sir Gregor Anvil-Breaker.'

Logan remembered the statue at the entrance to the city – of Sir Artas the Swift – and when they had gone to the Temple District, he had seen another statue like this; of Sir Loras de Tyrell, known as Loras the Lichslayer. Recalling the tapestry in Chateau Toussaint's great hall, and the heroes that Romain had educated him about in the library, he knew that they were among the original Knights of the Platinum Dragon.

The ones he remembered aside from those he'd already seen were Sir Dinadon the Dancer, also called the Jester Knight or the Knight in Motley; Sir Ryam de L'Arbor, Ryam the Red; and Dame Aveline du Valen, the Maiden of the Blade.

And of course there were King Garahel the Righteous, uniter of Milisevre, and his blood-brother, Sir Calenhad.

All of them together made eight, as Romain had mentioned before.

'Maybe the city has eight districts...' he thought to himself.

Truth be told, he liked that; both the statues being around, and each knight getting a district of the city named after them. They helped build this very kingdom, this very city, after all, and having a permanent reminder of them for the people of Thalmont to look upon and remember who to give thanks to.

'People too often forget their history.' Logan mused grimly. 'Where they came from, and what it means to be who they are...'

Images of his father's face flashed before him then, but all Logan felt was revulsion. Twisting away and closing his golden eyes, he had to clench his teeth together; his only present means of venting his rage. But thankfully, the anger passed as quickly as it had come, and he cleansed his pallet by opening his eyes once again to look upon the statue of this district's patron knight.

Sir Gregor was a titan of a man, assuming the statue was to scale. He stood well over eight feet tall, almost of a height with Fulber du Barbaron. But that was all the ancient hero had in common with that shambling, lumpish brute; Gregor was straight-backed, broad-shouldered, with a thick bush of a beard hugging his jutting jaw and a shelf of a brow over his fearsome, fiery eyes. His musculature was also the epitome of peak physical condition if Logan had ever seen it; the man's colossal arms and large, leathery hands made Gregor look as though he could collapse castle walls with a single punch or rip the legs off a giant with a flick of his wrist.

To Logan's surprise, however, the legendary folk hero wasn't immortalized wearing a magnificent suit of plate armour, as knights typically wore, but instead was depicted in a simple blacksmith's apron, which was spattered with bird poop in places just as a real smith's garb might be spattered with soot.

'Makes sense...' Logan remarked in his head, remembering the legend. And by that he meant the apron, not the bird shit.

In life, Gregor had originally been no more than a hard-working village blacksmith, pounding horseshoes and nails for his daily bread. However, when his village was attacked by bandits and his wife was carried away in the raid, Gregor went to rescue, wielding his forging hammer as a weapon and carrying a door torn from its hinges as his shield.

Sadly, he failed in that – the woman he loved was dead when he found her. But Gregor avenged her, slaying every bandit in the clan who took her away from him, and then came to wander the lands of Milisevre, a defender of the common people who hoped to spare others the pain he himself had faced. In that time, he became known as Gregor the Bull for his strength and tenacity.

And so, when he crossed paths with Garahel the Righteous, the future King of Milisevre knighted Gregor on the spot and brought him into the fold as one of his companions. Gregor the Bull, a blacksmith, became Sir Gregor du Taureau, Knight of the Platinum Dragon.

Some items of his later glory were depicted on his person in the statue, Logan noticed. His famous bull-horn helm, for one, was tucked under his left arm, its surface as shiny as jet as it gleamed in the sunlight. There was also his sigil, which he most likely did not have before his dubbing. But greatest of all was the item gripped in his right hand; raised as if about to strike either a red-hot blade at the forge or crush the skull of an enemy in battle, was an almighty and magnificent warhammer.

Logan was about to inspect the weapon's details... but then something even more amazing drew his attention and admiration.

Resting at the foot of the statue, planted firmly into the cobblestones, was the exact same hammer that Gregor was depicted wielding... only this one was real. Its haft was over six feet long, thick as a small tree, its ashwood surface clasped with rings of solid iron. The pommel of the hammer, rising up into the air, was the size of a clenched fist and carved from jet-black steel in the shape of a bull's head, its horns gleaming in the sun.

That alone would have made a deadly bludgeoning instrument, like the spiked ball of a mace, but it paled in comparison to the real deal.

At the other end of the haft was a masterfully crafted block of what appeared to be solid platinum, inscribed with masterfully-stamped runes and engraved with glittering gemstones of a thousand different colours that audibly hummed with magical power. Even just standing near it, Logan could feel the raw, almost divine power that seemed to pulse from the weapon's business end and sweep across the ground like waves breaking on the shoreline. The head itself was the size of a blacksmith's anvil, and from the look of it, it seemed to be fused into the very stone of the path, the blackened and warped remains of the cobbles clinging to the edges of the metalwork and fixing it in place.

Logan gazed at it in sheer awe, its construction a marvel to him in every way...

"Would you like to try your luck, sir?"

The paladin heard a voice to his left, and turned to see a small, stick-thin halfling standing at his feet, a grin on his saturnine face as he looked up at Logan with his arms folded and his bowl of near-black hair shining in the sun.

"Well?" the halfling asked, speaking with a Milisevran accent.

"Have a try at what?" Logan asked, feeling confused.

The halfling's teeth gleamed as his grin widened. "At lifting the hammer!" he declared. "What, have you been living under a rock?"

Logan felt a small spark of irritation in the back of his mind as he heard the halfling ask that, wondering if he was being mocked.

"No..." he replied, managing to stay calm. "This is actually my first day in the city, if you must know."

The made the halfling's grin vanish. "Oh, apologies sir! It's just that most who come over to the Hammer of Taureau are young local knights who've heard the legend and want to try lifting it." He then chuckled nervously as he said, "Also, it occurs to me you don't share my accent..."

Logan nodded to him. "It's quite alright," he said. "But before I go on, who might you be, master halfling?"

The little guy grinned and held up his hand to shake. "Antoine Fournier," he introduced himself as. "And you are?"

"Sir Logan Galehaut," was the reply he gave, though his attention was more focused on the hammer. Kneeling down to take a closer look, he asked in awe "Is this the real hammer of Sir Gregor?" The details were a perfect match, for sure, going by the statue.

"Indeed it is!" Antoine said proudly. "Forged by his own hand in the days of yore! Unequalled as a weapon or as a tool!"

Confusion filled Logan as he saw it resting here. "Why is it still here?" he asked Antoine. "Surely it should belong with his family?"

Antoine's eyes gleamed mischievously. "No-one can move it, sir knight..." he said ominously. "The hammer has rested here for years, and it's my job to keep an eye to see if anyone managed to lift it. King Charles' orders himself!" The halfling lifted his chin proudly as he said that.

Intrigue wrapped its dark tendrils around Logan and enraptured him. "How... how did that happen? Have Sir Gregor's descendants not come to claim it?"

"There are none left..." Antoine informed him, his tone falling and becoming more grim. "Are you familiar with Gorthalon's Slaughter, sir knight?"

Logan felt awkward, nodding after a brief pause... whereupon Monsieur Fournier launched into a story.

"Well, Percival de Taureau, Gregor's last living descendant, was in the city when the red dragon descended upon it. He attempted to fight the beast, here in the very district that his forebear founded, but was rent in half with a swing of the beast's claws. As he lay dying, witnesses claim he crawled towards Gregor's statue with the hammer, and propped himself up on the hilt, turning so he could face the dragon in his last moments... before the beast engulfed him in flame."

In that instant, the smell of smoke suddenly flared in Logan's nostrils, Twisting about, he saw a forge nearby where a smith just like Gregor was pounding hot iron, but whether that was where the stench came from, he didn't know. It was like the past came to life for a moment, lingering in the air.

The paladin's golden eyes flicked down to the ground upon which he stood, stepping about uncomfortably as he felt a shudder go up his legs.

The last of a noble bloodline died on this very spot...

"Since then..." Antoine went on, "... the Hammer of Taureau has remained here, fused to the earth beneath its creator's gaze," he said a voice thick with reverence. "It is said that only one who has earned the blessings and approval of one of the gods of good can lift the hammer and wield it in Gregor's name."

Hearing that made something burn inside Logan, though he didn't know what to call it; a will, a desire, a longing... or a mixture of the three.

"So, it's not a test of strength..." he said aloud as this fire caught alight within him. "It's a test of worth."

"Exactly!" Antoine replied. He then gave Logan a coy smile and said "So, Sir Logan... do you think you could be worthy?"

The chilling question slid into Logan's heart like an icicle slowly being pushed through his chest, his heartbeat quickening in response.

He had his own ancestral weapon already... but to wield the weapon of an ancient champion of the Platinum Dragon was something he could only have dreamed of until now.

The only question - was he a good enough knight to be worthy of this gift?

He didn't know for sure, a floodgate opening inside his head that unleashed all his insecurities. Then, he heard familiar voices behind him, and turned around with a sinking feeling in his chest to see Romain and Finnan making their way over, grinning from ear to ear as they saw him next to the hammer.

"Going to give it a try, Sir Galehaut?" Romain asked with a playful wink.

"Go on, Logan!" Finnan chanted. "I believe in you!"