Kuro

“Ugg…” The young woman groaned as she used her powers once more to tedious effect, touching a stone roughly one quarter her size and almost her own weight and ‘throwing’ it forward fifty meters with her power before teleporting over to its new position and carrying out the process once again. This was the thirtieth time in a row, and even though she’d been making minimal personal moves, the process of moving the boulders was starting to take its toll on her stamina. And that wasn’t even including the extra work involved in teleporting out chunks of rock in shaped ‘cuts’ for further use.

“Come on skinny, don’t be afraid to put some sweat in that dress of yours.” The dwarven blacksmith called out, even as Kuro panted for a moment, catching her breath from the toll of her energy intensive work. “We’ve still got more to do. The mistress was pretty clear on it too. Get your skinny ass over here and let’s start on some of the real work.”

“Yeah… well… fuck you too…” Kuro panted, even as she threw herself into position beside the powerfully built, yet beautiful woman. It hadn’t even been a full day since the dwarf had been bought and here despite her own tenuous seniority, the teleporting clone found herself under the strict command of the forge dwarf’s employ.

Not that she had any choice in the matter, their mutual owner had been pretty clear on what she wanted. And that included Fryda making a work horse out of her skinny ass, calling it training. Kuro was nothing if not irate at the current state of things, though still it let her keep her mind off of yesterday’s debacle, and the fact that she’d been called upon to kill someone, the work being all that kept that haunting death-rattle from burning though her, replayed again, and again, and again.

“Come on kid.” The dwarf woman’s strong firm hand engulfed her own for a moment before giving her a small smile. “You’re going to be fine.”

The cloned girl stopped for a moment, biting her lip before looking up at her elder. “I’m kinda transparent aren’t I…”

“Just a bit. I’ve seen more than a few young warriors after their first kill, unsure and unfocused. The jarl's cousin wasn't exactly careful about cloistering me away from his men, to be honest. Besides, the mistress told me to keep an eye out on you.” The dwarf admitted with a small smile. “Now lets get to testing that stuff the mistress wanted to know about eh?”

“I suppose. Though I guess thinking about it, my makers probably got good work out of all my sisters if this is a thing that works..." Kuro admitted sullenly, once more aware of her own status as a 'defective product' which had landed her in the hands of Ruby Redd at an intensely generously discounted price. Then sighed lightly as she lifted her head. "But I supposed if it makes any difference then maybe I can spend more time doing this kind of thing rather than murdering things with my powers."

"Aye lass, think about the positives. Its what has to be in order to live a slaves life without woe. And having come from exactly the worst sort of masters, I can tell ya that this girl that's made us hers is a pushover and a light hand. Just find ways to make yourself useful that you want to, and the rest should flow from there." Fryda smiled encouragingly, slapping hard against the thinner back of her taller junior. "Now lets see, the mistress gave a little list of things she wanted ta know if you could make happen... lets get though em."

Kuro nodded as they began.

In truth the tasks were simple, applications of things which she'd done already with her powers, only now applied to the idea of construction and creation rather than the death she'd caused just yesterday, or for personal movement skills. The first task had been simply cutting and shaping stones into correct forms via the precise movement of small amounts of material at a time. Essentially chiselling the rock without a single tool beyond a bit of paper and some light stenciling to mark out the shapes and depths of rock to be removed.

This proved a success, even with her messed up spacial senses, Kuro found this task not only relatively simple, but infact that she had a small flair for the artistic, rendering in even small details of alternative textured upon the rocks as she attempted to carve and cut them, eventually settling in to creating a type of flattened tile composed of cut rocks.

The next test was even better, fusing together multiple broken up stones into bigger pieces with more surface area to work on not only proved relatively simple, Kuro stumbling only in that her unpracticed eye struggled to get the everything as perfectly even as she would have liked, but that in doing this she could shore up weaknesses in the rock itself, and even take the clay which was being brought and mold it to the task more efficiently.

It was nothing short of fascinating as the dwarven blacksmith began to lay out her own process, attempting to teach the younger clone the ins and outs of stone as only a dwarf could tell, all the while trying out these new found masonry tactics to enhance, quicken, and reinforce this project which they'd been given.

The final task had been a bit more ambiguous as the teleporter tried to take multiple stones and combine them, teleporting stone into stone, into stone to create heavier and more substantive pieces, even going so far as to alloy clay together as well. The results we strange, yet materially interesting... or at least were bloody fascinating to the dwarf who watched it happen. It seemed that the combination of stone into itself acted almost as if someone had taken them and applied enormous amounts of pressure, squeezing the rock together into something more and more solid in the process. This would go on for several iterations until the rock started to feel too 'solid' to compress more material into, her teleportations having created an intensely dense and heavy material from the act, and her spacial sense registering it blankly even as she tried to teleport more into the stone.

Fryda, intensely fascinated as she was, decided to grab some of the scrap metal from broken armours and weapons found in the guild pile, asking Kuro to continue on with what she'd been doing, shaping then stacking together the scrap metal.

What resulted from that was a sharpened lump of metal, crudely shaped into the form of a sword, and far heavier and tougher than any iron blade like itself had any right to be. Work would be needed of course, Fryda insisted, to integrate this into actual blacksmithing techniques, in order to incorporate the enhancements of weight and toughness into other potential concerns of creating a structure, things like flexibility, and other concerns beyond the direct shape and hardness of the material, and how to moderate the construction utilizing this new and impressive toolset uncovered.

"Eh, I guess..." Kuro answered as the last her grueling tasks were done, mind aching more than the stamina drain before had made her believe possible. "I mean if we really wanted to I suppose we could even add the twins into this. I mean one of the things Electromasters are really good for is chemistry alteration, even a little bit of current applied in the right ways can really make a big difference." The girl spoke thoughtfully, settling down for a moment to rest. "I mean I'm not extremely versed in chemical sciences... but they can probably do some interesting stuff with making lode stone, and high end magnets."

Fryda's eyebrow quirked. "Hmm... if any of that plays well with dwarf skill and magic... we might have something here worth actually pursuing."

The younger girl nodded.

"Either way though... that's enough with the fancy experimenting. We've got work to do. Now grab me some stone and lets start, we're going to make with a lattice pattern here, here, and here, then expand it out, a few layers of commpacted clay, properly heated should actually work wonders here. By the time we're done, this won't just be some dinky little makeshift forge... We've got the makings of something special." Fryda grinned.

"Yeah... god dammit I just want it to be done." Kuro complained in reply.

"That's the price of talent girl... eventually you've got ta use it."