[ti]solo[/ti]Forged me not!

"One iron please!" Torino said to the shopkeeper. She was in a high-end clothing boutique down the swanky end of Cerulean Boulevard, where her pink and frilly style would have been quite fitting, were it not for the fact that most people wore black. Or cowboy boots.

"I am sorry madam," said the vested man, "but the only iron I have is for pressing slacks." He looked down at her slack-less legs. "A fashion piece that you clearly lack at present."

Torino pressed on. "That is okay! Any iron is good. I am making armor!"

The vested man raised an eyebrow. "Did you perhaps mean armoire?" he asked, indicating an extravagant wardrobe off to the side of the room.

Torino hurried over to the wardrobe and opened it. The inside bristled with black gothic gowns, with a shelf of bonnets above them. She pushed the gowns aside, searching the space for her prize. "There is no iron in here," Torino finally said.

"That is correct, madam."

Torino's sunny expression clouded over. She would not be stopped at the first sign of difficulty.

"I need iron," she stated firmly. "I am making iron clothing and you have an iron. I would like to purchase it!"

The vested man fixed Torino with a look usually reserved for small, yapping dogs. "Regrettably, all items in this store are far beyond the price range of a—" his eyes glanced swiftly at her worn hands, snow-shoes, and the strands of steppe grass stuck in her hair "—a wealthy Stantler herder such as yourself."

He eyed the iron ring on her finger. "Perhaps you could ask your paramour for a supply of ingots."

"I have had enough!" Torino said. "I can tell from your tone that you are being rude!"

The vested man raised an eyebrow and quirked a victorious smile, as if he had won some British game of social politics by forcing Torino to call out his rudeness. "Why madam, I would never dare. I certainly apologize for any perceived slight. Why, and just this moment I have recalled a rather large source of low-cost iron that I am certain would appeal to madam's featherweight wallet!"

Torino's eyes narrowed. Something was going on here, but she wasn't going to turn down a ready source of iron. Not after coming all this way and battling through this man's strange words and even stranger armor wardrobe. "Where is the iron?"

"Oh not here, madam." The vested man smiled. "Have you ever heard of the junkyard?"

Thirty minutes later, and with the addition of Marocchino, Bella, and Bello, Torino's construction crew was in full swing. Torino slapped the back of a rusted car wreck. "This one next!" she called to Doduo, who padded over.

Passero pecked at it, testing to find weak spots. Once he had found his mark, he went to work with slashing talon and drilling peck, dismantling the car into as many flat pieces and L-shaped chunks as possible. Seeing him deconstruct the car was like watching reverse-origami. In minutes it was nothing less than a pile of blocks and bends.

Next was Donphan. She had mastered her two-legged balance by now, and her broad build was perfect for carrying the pieces of car to their new home: L'armeria di Torino. It was a building, by most definitions, with a solid metal walls propping up a solid metal ceiling.

Ciambella put down her armful of pieces in logical piles, slowly constructing interior walls and reinforcing the more-rusted sections where she could.

Then came the dogs. Marocchino, Bella, and Bello were in charge of structural integrity. Marocchino barked orders and the two Growlithe scampered through the house spot-welding new sections of wall together with their most concentrated flames. It was a glorious sight to see, and altogether completely unnecessary if Torino's only goal was to make the Beginner Breastplate.

But that wasn't her only goal now.

The altercation with the rude shopkeeper had taught her that running all over town just for basic materials was too much of a hassle. Clearly, if she was going to master this crafting system she needed a home base. She needed somewhere which had a steady supply of basic materials so that she never had to go and argue with anyone over finding iron ever again.

Setting up an armory in a junkyard was a stroke of genius. It was like a baker setting up her bakery in a wheat field!

Torino looked at the halves. "This is okay!" she said, still excited by the discovery. "We will bring it to the l'armeria and fix it there." She nodded decisively, and they got to work.

Ciambella got to work.

The rest of them were far, far too weak to drag the massive oven through the junkyard. Instead, they alternated walking beside Ciambella and giving moral support, and looking through the rest of the junkyard for an anvil.

Ciambella dragged one half without issue, shoving it from one end of the junkyard to the other and carving a huge muddy trench in the process. The second half got stuck. "You can do it!" said Torino. "I will help!" Torino pushed the massive brick construction. It shifted an inch deeper into the mud.

"I'll do it later," Ciambella said, leaning back against an old fridge. "Once the rain stops."

"Okay! You are so strong and wonderful. Go and rest." Torino planted a little kiss on Ciambella's snout.

The dogs started barking. They had found something! Torino followed the sound and found them barking at a pile of...cubes?

Hundreds of fist-sized, bright-green cubes were stacked together in loose piles. Torino placed one in her UI. It was labelled as 'Universal Building Cube - Violent Green'. The color was no problem for Torino. She liked green!

"These are perfect! Let's take them back right away." She grabbed a handful of the cubes and rushed back to the shed.

The cubes stuck together as she stacked them, vertices sliding to perfectly align like they were a form of advanced LEGO. She played with the shape until it was a perfect anvil. "There! Finished!" She tapped on the anvil and a popup appeared.

LOCK SHAPE? YES/NO

She clicked on Yes and a bright sheen passed over the anvil as the pieces fused together. All traces of joins and seams disappeared as the cubes became a single, cohesive block.

Torino clapped her hands. "Yes! We are almost done!" She had iron, an anvil, and half a forge! What more could she need to get started? Out of pure optimism, she opened her UI and clicked on the Beginner's Breastplate.

Instead of a list of missing requirements, a digital sound played from the broken oven. Currently the brick construction lay on its side, with the open oven facing directly up. Now, five digital lines extended upwards from the mouth of the oven and faded to nothing just before they hit the ceiling.

Neon words hung in the air in front of her.

FORGE READY!
HIT ANY NOTE TO BEGIN!