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The Incredible Hammer

by CaptainPenguin

"Step right up, step right up, folks, and see the amazing, wondrous, stupendous, mind-boggling, impossimundiferous, splenditarious Incredible Hammer! It smashes, it crashes, it bangs, and it forges without the help of man!"
- Overwhelming Virtue, proprietor of the Incredible Hammer

"I dun' like it - dat' der' movin' hammer don' got no smiths teh' work it, but it make a sword just fast any of us..."
- Local blacksmith Tzhin Heti Mo, lamenting the arrival of the Incredible Hammer

The Incredible Hammer is a recent addition to Streaming Street, and one that has made many local blacksmiths worry. Brought in during a night of enormous black fogs, the Incredible Hammer opened its doors on the first day of Ascending Fire, and has been clanking out seemingly endless piles of metal things ever since. Set within the premises of an abandoned warehouse, the Incredible Hammer is a huge clockwork configuration, similar to the orerries and astrology-engines of the VarangCityStates. Yet the Hammer, unlike those arcane masses, is a titan with a purpose. The whole thing -- pistons, clanking conveyor belt, chains, hooks, whirling gears, a huge engine which blasts out steam (called the "wind ball"), and the thing's namesake, a large hammer on a clockwork human arm -- works day and night at blinding speed cranking out piles and piles and piles of swords, axes, armors, metal cups and plates, burnished mirrors, helms, and all other manner of forged what-not.

The produced goods are taken to the front of the building and sorted in stacks by workers. These stacks are sold off to individuals at rock-bottom prices. Throughout the day, shoppers looking for cheap blacksmithed goods roam the metal market of the Incredible Hammer. That which is not sold by the end of a business week is piled back into the machine for recycling.

The proprietor of the Incredible Hammer, one Overwhelming Virtue, claims to have built the machine himself, by means of his own ingenuity, and claims that someday, all of Creation will have all its needs produced by Incredible Hammers just like this one. Most don't believe him, but they do believe in his insanely low prices -- the Incredible Hammer produces goods far faster and far cheaper than any other blacksmith, though high-quality, these goods are not. The Hammer is clumsy at best, and most of the goods it makes are at least somewhat dented -- save swords, which it seems to have a knack for, if one could attribute such to a machine.

Local blacksmiths of Streaming Street are worried by the Incredible Hammer. Not only is it a huge attraction for anyone coming through the way, but the goods it sells, though low quality, are extremely cheap -- much cheaper than anything that regular humans can produce. In fact, recently, a group of merchants have met to see if they can arrange for Overwhelming Virtue and his Incredible Hammer to be destroyed on the grounds that they are obstructing trade.

Rumours

• The Incredible Hammer is actually run by demons summoned straight from Malfeas, which is why it does the work so fast and so cheaply. They hate being trapped to work there, so they curse everything they make in order to cause the owner bad luck.
• Overwhelming Virtue is actually an Anathema who uses his evil hell-magic to power the Hammer.
• The Incredible Hammer was stolen by Overwhelming Virtue from a savant of Yane, and that is why he purchases so many guards to surround the machine at night.

Secret

The Incredible Hammer was, in fact, made by Overwhelming Virtue; there is no truth to rumours which say otherwise. But there is a dark heart to the clanking clockwork pile -- its steam engine is a decoy, and the whole thing is actually powered by the screams of murdered children, strained through their bones. Every week, Overwhelming Virtue must abduct and kill 7-10 children and pile their bodies into the huge muffled power-tank at the back of the Hammer; this doesn't bother him at all, because he enjoys the task, and is what some would call an insane genius.

Comments

Why do you have a link to the Varang city states on here? - Paladinltd

Heh! I really like this. Well done. Ever watch any "Venture Brothers"? Reminds me of this one episode .... Edit: also, you need a backlink to an already-written entry.
~ Shataina

You know... the fact that it's fuelled by dead children is an interesting metaphor for child labour in industrialised countries... -muses Okensha