The Forge-Fletcher

Category: hard

Prerequisites: complete hymns_of_the_forge

The Marginal Notes

In the old smith's hymnal you find pages in a second hand — his teacher's. She signed herself 'the Forge-Fletcher' and claimed a lost art: fletching so true to the forge that the anvil itself learns from it. The choir thinks it's legend. The notes say otherwise. They start, as everything here starts, with ore.

Objectives:

MINE: Mithril Ore ×130

Rewards:

✨ 9,000 Mining XP
6,000 gp

Bars Struck to Rhythm

First exercise in the notes: smelt to the fletcher's count, fifteen beats to the bar — 'the arrow's number, taught to the metal early.' Smelt mithril her way.

Objectives:

SMELT: Mithril Bar ×110

Rewards:

✨ 8,000 Smithing XP
6,000 gp

Shaft-Wood by the Stand

Second exercise: the shaft must know the forge before it meets the head. Maple, she writes, 'cut in the morning, planed by the fire that will temper its tip.' Fell the stand.

Objectives:

CHOP: Maple Logs ×180

Rewards:

✨ 65,000 Woodcutting XP
6,500 gp

The Six-Hundred Count

Third exercise, underlined three times: six hundred mithril arrows, no pause, no flaw, the forge burning beside the bench the whole while. 'When your hands stop counting, the art begins.' Begin.

Objectives:

CRAFT: Mithril Arrow ×600

Rewards:

✨ 10,000 Fletching XP
6,500 gp

The Meaner Metal

The notes turn to adamantite next — 'a metal that argues.' Every step of her art repeats one tier harder. Mine the deep seam.

Objectives:

MINE: Adamantite Ore ×110

Rewards:

✨ 9,500 Mining XP
7,000 gp

Arguing With Adamantite

Smelt the adamantite to the fifteen-beat count. It fights the rhythm — that's the lesson. Win the argument, bar by bar.

Objectives:

SMELT: Adamantite Bar ×90

Rewards:

✨ 8,500 Smithing XP
7,000 gp

Heads That Remember the Anvil

Now the two arts meet: adamantite heads on forge-planed shafts, each one — she insists — still warm from the anvil when it's fletched. Craft the batch.

Objectives:

CRAFT: Adamant Arrow ×450

Rewards:

✨ 11,000 Fletching XP
7,500 gp

The Jealous Buyers

Six hundred true arrows don't stay secret. A 'trade delegation' arrives asking pointed questions about the bench — the same men, Tobin notes, who guarded the Hand's toll-camps. Send them home lighter than they came.

Objectives:

KILL: kill bandit_1 ×65

Rewards:

Bones ×70
7,500 gp

A Winter of Coal

The final exercises demand the forge never cool — not between heats, not overnight, not once. That is a brutal quantity of coal. Dig it.

Objectives:

MINE: Coal Ore ×250

Rewards:

✨ 10,000 Mining XP
8,000 gp

Steel by the Hundredweight

Back to steel — 'the honest metal' — but at volume: the notes want it by the hundredweight, struck perfect while your mind is elsewhere. That's the point, she writes. Smelt it.

Objectives:

SMELT: Steel Bar ×150

Rewards:

✨ 8,000 Smithing XP
8,000 gp

The Nine-Hundred Count

The six-hundred count was practice. The true count is nine hundred, in steel, without the forge's help — 'the art must live in the hands before the forge will bless it.' Fletch.

Objectives:

CRAFT: Steel Arrow ×900

Rewards:

✨ 12,000 Fletching XP
8,500 gp

The Quench-Rite

Before the final lesson, the Forge-Fletcher's own instruction: quench the work in consecrated ground. Bury great bones in a ring around the forge — her rite, in your hands.

Objectives:

BURY: bones_big ×80

Rewards:

✨ 9,000 Prayer XP
8,500 gp

Mithril, Perfected

Repeat the mithril smelting — but now you hear what the fifteen-beat count was teaching all along: the bar rings the arrow's note as it cools. Smelt until every bar sings it.

Objectives:

SMELT: Mithril Bar ×130

Rewards:

✨ 9,500 Smithing XP
9,000 gp

The Seven-Hundred Count

Mithril again, at the bench, forge roaring — and this time the arrows come off your hands already knowing where they'll fly. Seven hundred, to her count.

Objectives:

CRAFT: Mithril Arrow ×700

Rewards:

✨ 13,000 Fletching XP
9,000 gp

The Last Seam

The final lesson is written for runite — of course it is. 'If the metal that holds a note forever will hold YOUR note, the art is yours.' The seam waits at the bottom of the ridge. Mine it.

Objectives:

MINE: Runite Ore ×60

Rewards:

✨ 11,000 Mining XP
9,500 gp

Runite, Rung True

Smelt the runite to the fletcher's count. The forge-choir gathers without being asked; when the fifth bar rings the arrow's note pure, the old smiths are openly weeping. Finish the run.

Objectives:

SMELT: Runite Bar ×50

Rewards:

✨ 12,000 Smithing XP
9,500 gp

Proof Against the Dark

One last practical: the watchtowers report shapes testing the boundary by night. Prove the art where it matters — adamantite arrows, fletched forge-hot, straight to the tower racks.

Objectives:

CRAFT: Adamant Arrow ×550

Rewards:

✨ 14,000 Fletching XP
10,000 gp