Mashyuu rounded the corner of a small building and his blue eyes lit up with delight when he saw a local blacksmith's shop. A sign that looked like a large anvil with a black hammer over the door. There was no name on the building but it looked like it was the only shop in town that sold weapons or armor. Mashyuu glanced at the backpack he had been carrying on his shoulder the past few days and figured it couldn't hurt to see if he could learn from the man and ask some questions. Hell maybe the Smith would pay him for his services. Mashyuu forced the friendliest smile he could on his face without looking like he was going to die from faking the smile and strolled up to the front door of the small stone shop and pushed it open...
The door clipped a bell that hung in the corner of the frame and caused the bell to ring, alerting the man in the back of the building that someone had come inside. "Yeah! Yeah! One Minute!" The owner of the building shouted from behind a barely open wooden door. Mashyuu looked around the shop and smiled wide at the wares he saw. Armors of all makes and models, a set of nice looking spears that had some sort of Ivory shaft with carved runes and a myriad of swords that were made of some sort of pure white steel. The man from behind the door stepped out and to Mashyuu's surprise he was a half giant half Skypiean, too short to be a full giant and his wings were clearly too small to carry him in flight. "Yeah, what can I do for ye?" The massive half breed rested his forearm on a counter and black soot from the forge shot up in the wake of the impact, causing a cloud of dirt to rise into the air.
Mashyuu chuckled under his breath and nodded his head up and down as if he were telling someone "yes". "Actually I was wondering if I could help you. I'm a blacksmith from Jaya... the island below Skypiea and was looking to practice. I brought my own materials, if you have a second anvil." Mashyuu slung his backpack off his shoulders and opened it to show the man a few ingots of Skypiean steel. The half giant glanced down with raised eyebrows at the bag and its contents. A low, but long and loud whistle slipped past the giant's lips and he nodded for Mashyuu to come closer. "You know what that is boy? It's dangerous to be carrying those ingots around. The ore comes from that jungle that has the cannibals in it... Adam woke up from there." Mashyuu nodded his head and smiled. "I know, It's why I don't have two sacks of these things. I only take a few at a time. but I'm trying to make some stuff to help my friends. One of them thinks blocking sword strikes with his forearms is a good idea so I want to make some sturdy arm bracers for him. You let me use your forge and you can have the rest of the ingots that I don't use." Mashyuu offered to try and sway the half giant. The giant thought for a moment and pointed a large, stubby thumb at one of the swords locked in a glass case on the wall. "Those white bladed swords there, those are pure Skypiean steel. When smelted the correct way, the ingots will be pure white. Yours is a pearl color, its not pure but its very close. You keep those as a symbol of how close you are. But I respect what you're trying to do. Come on back and work with me for a bit." Mashyuu slung his bag back over his shoulder and pulled his den den out to report to the others. "Make the meet up in two hours guys I have something I need to take care of in town. If you need supplies it might be a good idea to get em." Mashyuu commanded.
Quickly he made his way to the back of the building and looked at the giants set up. It was nice, tools lined one wall, three anvils rested in three different corners with the smelter in the center of the room. One wall was lined with rows of different ores to make all sorts of metals and had wooden poles on a different shelf for different sized spears. (The most common weapon on Skypiea) Mashyuu entered the room and pulled out two ingots and used his devil fruit power to float them into the forge. With a twist of his right hand he pulled a hammer from the wall and floated it over to the smallest anvil. Lazily it rolled around until the ingots were glowing red. Quickly Mashyuu pulled the ingots while the giant watched Mashyuu work without using his hands. He rested one ingot at the end of the anvil and the other closer to him on the anvil as he stepped closer and grabbed the hammer. With his mind he held the red hot ingot in place and his arm raised, smashing down on the ingot hard. With one blow a half of the ingot became mostly flat, a second blow caused the half that held its normal shape flattened as well. Again he struck, flattening the metal on both sides with each strike of the hammer until he had a five foot long, two inch thick, four foot wide piece of Skypiean steel. He tempered the steel by floating it into a pale of cold water and listened is it popped and hissed. Once it was cool he placed it back into the forge and went to work on the second piece of steel. He repeated the process and pulled the first piece of steel out and put the steel on the rounded piece of the anvil, holding it in place with his devil fruit powers and started to hammer it into place until he had a bracer with a split down the middle to allow the user to flex without breaking the steel. He once again tempered the steel and pulled the second piece of four foot long steel from the forge, repeating the process until he had two bracers.
The giant stood by and watched silently for a bit. Once Mashyuu had finished the basic design he leaned his head down next to the Skypiean pirates and spoke softly. "Your form is not bad, but your hammer strikes are too hard. Take your time and watch when you hit, the impurities will get knocked out and look better. Right now you're rushing things. But those will be serviceable bracers for a long arm." The giant stood up straight and leaned against a bare wall. "So, why are you in Skypiea if you're from the blue world. Obviously you were born here though..." Mashyuu picked up a cool bracer and used a small hammer and chisel to put a pair of angel wings on the outside of the bracers, running down each half of the bracer, a two foot wing on each half, what he decided would be his blacksmithing symbol. "Ya know... you've been really nice to me so I'm gonna be honest with you. I'm actually on Skypiea to try and take down Quinn. But I'm not strong enough. So I figured I'd try to stop Marines that are here from the blue world and then go back till I was read for-" Mashyuu stopped talking when the bell to the shop rang.
Together the giant and Mashyuu stepped out of the back room, Mashyuu placing his bracers back in his bag and slinging it over his shoulder. A young man sat on the ground, back pressed to the door. His shock white hair hung over his face, almost hiding the fearful expression on his face. His cloths were dingy and common garb robes in Skypiea. One wing on his back was missing and looked like it was bandaged up. He looked like he wouldn't be able to walk much longer, or had just escaped some terrible beating. The Giant picked up a large warhammer from behind his counter and Mashyuu took a step to the left and jumped over the counter. "You okay man?" Mashyuu asked and the man looked up with fear on his pale skinned face. "You're.... You're him!" He shouted and jumped up at Mashyuu. His old and tiny hands gripped Mashyuu with a force he didn't know an old man could have and pulled the Pirate closer. "The Marines are after you! You can stop them right?"
Harley walked with Gideon, a light sway in her step like a branch being blown in the wind. "I wasn't saying we should get you something to shrink you down because you should be ashamed of your height. I was saying it so you could walk around without scaring the idiots out there who don't know how to treat people that are different with respect. But I'm glad you're not ashamed." Her hands folded behind her back while the two came up to a food market area. "I'm not all that excited about fighting so I'll just stick with you. We can pretend that we are looking for marines." Harley smirked up at Gideon and let him shop.
Soon enough though a denden rang in Harley's pocket and she picked it up. She saw the wings of Mashyuu on the den den's back and rolled her eyes. "Yeah we know, take some extra time to-" "Meet back at the meeting spot now. I found someone who knows where they are hiding." Mashyuu ordered the crew, cutting off Harley. She sighed and tapped Gideon on the leg. "Well that didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would. Come on." Harley complained, really just wanting to get off Skypiea at this point and headed back to meet up with Mashyuu.
- OOC:
- One more post for the info gathering so if there is anything you want to do, do it now and end meeting back with Mashyuu and I'll set up the next scene on my upcoming post.