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“I don’t think I’d be able to forge a very good sword, anyway,” said Hector. “It’s really difficult. I mean, people used to do that as their entire profession.”

“Yeah. Swordsmiths were pretty rare, though. You’d have to be friggin’ legendary to make a living off of swords alone.”

“Yeah...”

“It would be amazing, though.”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe I could make something else to go with your helm. Like a shield. Oh, or some gauntlets.”

Hector raised his brow at him. “You can make gauntlets? That sounds so difficult. I mean... the links around the fingers would be brutal...”

“I bet I could do it,” said Lance. “Maybe.”

“W-well, that sounds awesome. I’ll, uh... I’ll help you if I can.”

“Cool.” And Lance went off to work, leaving Hector slightly dumbfounded at what just happened.

He had to get permission from Ms. Trent to use a table saw, and she had to supervise while he worked. There was only one saw with a carbide-tipped blade, but it didn’t get used much since most of the students worked with wood.

And as he eyed the blade, he realized he could save himself more time if he forewent the eyehole as its own cut and just merged it with the cut for the jaw pieces. He quickly remarked the metal and set about cutting. The carbide made short work of it, and soon enough, instead of three sheets of metal, he had six separate pieces.

A brief trip to the miller gave him the holes needed for the jaw. Next he had to mold the three head pieces into similar enough shapes that they could be securely welded together; and then do the same for the jaw pieces. He started hammering.