The Blacksmith of Ordon
A story by Benjamin Duuude, 12-year-old son of Science Duuude
At night, Ordon Village is dark and silent. But not tonight. In the blacksmith shop, the apprentice was hard at work. The steady CLANG CLANG CLANG of his hammer pierced the eerie quiet. He needed to prove to his master that he deserved his own shop. For what seemed like days, he worked on a suit of magic armor. Finally, he was done. He was so exhausted, he collapsed in the corner and slept the rest of the night.
He woke up to the sound of an auction. “The final item! This fabulous magic armor I crafted last night!” the master boomed in his loud, gravelly voice.
“NO! I made that!” the apprentice shouted.
“Hah! you haven’t made so much as a fishing hook Steve,” said Tom the fisherman.
“That’s what HE tells you,” said Steve, gesturing at Fred, his lazy master.
“ENOUGH!” Boomed the master. He glared at Steve. “Get back inside and don’t show your face until lunch.” Steve shuffled gloomily into the shop. He was going to sit down on his chair, but there was already someone there-or rather something. It was a brown owl as big as him with long v-shaped eyebrows. It twisted its head upside down, and then back rightside up. It said:
“I told you he will never stop using you for money. You should have run away a long time ago. “
“W-who are you? What do you want?” stammered Steve.
“You don’t remember me? I was the one who whispered in your dreams. I was the voice in your head, telling you to go make your own fortune. I am Keapora Geabora!” he spread his wings, as if the name was supposed to be awe-inspiring.
“Who?”
“Are you so shocked you can only make fake owl-noises?”
“No…who is Keapora Geabora?”
“HONESTLY! What have they been teaching you? I was the god of knowledge, good decisions, and prophecy!”
“Was?”
“Well…the other gods didn’t like how much I helped you humans so they reduced me to this,” he gestured to his feathery body. “So will you listen now? Are you going to leave?”
Steve thought and thought. Then he decided, “Yes. Let me go get my things.” The owl hooted in delight.
When Steve came back down, the owl was gone. On the chair where he sat, there was a single brown feather. Steve put it in his backpack and set off. He avoided the farmers, weavers, shopowners, and fishermen. When Fred The Master came along, Steve ducked behind a barn-and bumped into Freds’ wife.
“Where do you think you’re go-” she started to say and stopped. She just stood there, not moving. Steved waved his hand in front of her face, and then realized he had taken the feather out of his backpack. It was glowing. He slowly backed away, then sprinted for the gate. Just then, he realized the problem. The guards. He reached the gate, held out the feather…and no one stopped him. He looked up to find he had somehow traveled 50 miles in just a few seconds. He was in Eluryh kingdom. He could see Eluryh castle in the distance! If he used the feather, he could get there in just a few seconds…if he could control it. He looked down and gasped. The feather was burnt and smoking. It crumbled to ashes before his eyes. A shout and a shove made him look up.
“HAH! You think you’re part of the great blacksmith clan of the south? TED! GET OVER HERE!”
Ted, a burly teenager, lumbered over. “You’re not registered kid,” he growled.
“Registered?” Steve asked.
Ted rolled his eyes.
“You have to beat a master in a competition. I’ll go against you. Follow me.”
He dragged Steve down the road to a building filled with people working on tools, weapons, and armor. Tom got up onto an anvil
“OI! LISTEN UP! This kid has a badge but he’s not registered! Contest starts NOW!”
There was a great clamor as things were moved and put away. Everybody went to the side as one person stepped forward.
“There will be five rounds. The judge of each round will choose the winner. Whoever has won the most rounds by the end of the competition wins! GO!”
A pile of metal and some tools were placed at Steves’ feet. One hour later, he had made a spring-loaded-war-hammer. Tom had made an arrow that split into many arrows with wires, like a swarm of grappling hooks. The first judge favored Tom.
The second match had the same results, and Steve knew that if Tom won another match it would be all over.
He closed his eyes…and tried to imagine what this judge would want to see…and then he started crafting.
The fifth round passed. Tom had 2 points and Steve had 3. He won. He became somewhat of a celebrity after that.
Then one day he saw a paper with his face on it…it said:
WANTED ALIVE
STEVE EST MORTUS
2000 DOLLARS FOR RETURN TO
ORDON VILLAGE
…To be continued…
Hey, Science Duuude here…
Earlier this week Ben had written a couple paragraphs for WotWU. I asked him to flesh his story out a little more, expecting to get a total of 2.5 paragraphs back. But a day later, he sent me this story of a blacksmith. I’m quite proud of Benjamin Duuude for this effort.
I’m not a video-game player, so I didn’t recognize it, but Ben says that his story has a bunch of references to a game he loves called Legend of Zelda (I hope I spelled that right).
This story is a thank you to the many good Mediumites who read and clapped for Ben’s previous story about an exploding squirrel:
Patrick M. Ohana, Anthi Psomiadou, Panos Grigorakakis, Daniel A. Teo, Synthia S., Lee Ameka, R. Rangan PhD, Juliano Righetto, Cooking at Home, Matt Ray, Anthony Lawrence, Sarah Cords, Adelia Ritchie, PhD, Andrea Juillerat-Olvera, Upasana Sharma, un p'tit je ne sais quoi, Bridget Webber, Donna L Roberts, PhD (Psych Pstuff), London Eyes, Shin Jie Yong, Michael Pon, Terry Mansfield, Paroma Sen, kurt gasbarra, Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她), David Rudder, Darrin Atkins, Aurora Eliam, CMP, Charlotte Zobeir Ali, Carlos Garbiras, William J Spirdione, R Tsambounieri Talarantas, Jim Mason, Jonah Lightwhale, The Secret Aspirant, Joseph Lieungh
Ben has ended this in a cliff-hanger which he plans to finish, but we would also love to see what others might do with it. Continued as a story, a poem, a song, a drawing, whatever you do… we welcome you to the kingdom of Eluryh!
