Forge

Investigation
"Feck off!" he swore, sticking up a middle finger at Norman.

"Listen" Norman answered back. "Let's be calm here. I didn't come all the way out to this Junkyard for nothing. Just let me ask a few questions"

"Feck. Off"

"Listen, Jack. I'm going to find the killer, and if you're anyway involved I swear I'll take you to the jailhouse before you could beg otherwise"

Mad Jack leaned in close to his face:

"Feck off, meatbag" and he shoved Norman, and turned back around to his work. He climbed back up the monster of a machine and proceeded to work with the scrap.

Norman turned his back on Mad Jack, thoughts whirling. There was no way he was going to give up this easy. He shivered at the cold and pulled is coat in close to him to shield himself from the rain. He walked back along the mud track of the scrapyard, destroying his shoes.

He walked along to the Forge, a huge, grey beast of a building, monotonous and dull in the cold August rain. He approached the entrance, placing one palm against the huge grey slab of a door. It swung a few inches, before catching on the chain that barred it.

Norman took out his Runeblaster and slotted in a Fire Ruin. He slipped it between the links of the chain and pulled the trigger. There was a flash of red and a loud boom as the chain snapped, and Norman slipped inside before Mad Jack could see him.

The forge was complete darkness, so Norman put on the ARI glasses, and the magic inside them set to work. The ARI set work analyising everything, giving Norman every fact or figure in it's database relevant to this room.

"ARI, disable database". The figures vanished, and Norman could look around properly.

The room was huge. The whole right side was devoted to forgery: it was full of casts, lava forges, molten ore, water basins,shelves of tools and worktops. Two-thirds of the left side of the room was devoted for storage. Weaponry was stacked to the Cathedral-height ceiling.

"Big operation" Norman muttered.

The far end of the room was shrouded in darkness, so dark that the ARI glasses couldn't see it on the light scan setting. Norman focused on the darkness and the ARI glasses went into heavy scan, and thirty seconds later, the darkness had disappeared, revealing eight conveyor belts and an-

"Acid bath" Norman muttered. "Why would he need an acid bath? Unless he's making acid rifles for the rebels..."

Norman walked to the forgery section of the room and set the ARI to heavy scan. It picked up Mad Jack's fingerprints on the tools.

"Not the killer's" Norman muttered. "ARI, scan for the blade used to kill John Allard"

Figures and words flew across the screen as the ARI added up all the variables, the length, width, shape, make, age, and notch of the blade, and it scanned every moulding cast in the forge.

"Nada" Norman muttered. "ARI, scan for fingerprints"

Words spiraled round Norman's vision, searching for all of the tell-tail notches of fingerprints. Purple ridges and groves glowed violently, highlighting the fingerprints.

"Hundreds of prints" Norman noted. "All of the Mad Jack's. The killer's touched nothing here" he turned to the rest of the room. "ARI, scan for prints"

Similar words spiraled round Norman's vision once again and once again, purple fingerprints glowed brightly. But this time, an a tiny splotch of bright black caught Norman's attention. The fingerprints of another, one saved in the ARI's database. The killer's.

"Bingo" Norman muttered. "Our killer was here. But why just one fingerprint...unless...ARI, full print analysis"

The fingerprint suddenly enlarged as the ARI spiraled round, sucking all the data from the Varrock City Archives and the ALEEPA Criminal Archives and using it to give Norman all the relevant information.

"A glove" Norman saw. "A glove with a hole in the fingertip. The killer must have pressed his hand against the wall. With a hole in his glove at the fingertip, he'd only leave prints with the tip of his finger, so many of the ordinary places fingerprints will be blank.....What times would you use only the tips of your fingertips?" he clicked his fingers in delight. "When lifting up a lid. The acid bath"

Norman jogged quickly to the acid bath, skidded down to the acid bath and lifted up the lid to reveal the acid pit inside. He looked at the underside of the lid, and found a solitary fingerprint.

"But why would the killer look in the acid ba-shit!" Norman nearly leaped out of his skin.

Inside the acid was a human skull.

Norman heard the familiar click of a crossbow just behind him.

"So" Mad Jack said. "We've a rat, lookin' where he ain't be"

Norman swore. "Stand up" Jack said.

Norman stood, and Mad Jack, one hand held the crossbow to Norman's head, the other one searching Norman for weapons. He found his RuneBlaster, and tossed it aside.

"Now" said Mad Jack. "We gotta get you outta the way"

Mad Jack gestured with his crossbow for Norman to walk forward. Slowly, step by step, Norman walked, mind a-whirling. The ARI, as if reading his thoughts, sent a distress signal to ALEEPA and began to focus on ways for Norman to escape Jack.

Icons appeared beside items, with what the ARI thought Norman's percentage chance to escape with them. A table on wheels was ladened with forgery tools, each tool with it's own percentage, and the highest was 12%. Norman didn't fancy those odds. As he walked, a sledge hammer was given 32% and the worktop given 44%, and the drill upon the worktop was given 62%. Norman walked on.

The mechanical hook was given 81%, and Norman knew it wouldn't get much better than that. He walked, slowly and solemnly along, giving Jack no hint of his plan. Suddenly, he grabbed the hook and swung it violently into Mad Jack's face. The black brute swung into the floor as blood splurted from his face.

Norman kicked the crossbow from Jack and ran to his RuneBlaster but, before he'd ran ten steps Mad Jack had grabbed hold of his foot and sent him plummeting to the worktop with a bloody smack, loosing his glasses. Mad Jack tried to drag him by the foot, but Norman kicked blindly, blood in his eyes. Suddenly he was free, and he scrambled o his feet, slowly and stumbling. He wiped the blood from his eyes and saw his RuneBlaster.

He sprinted over to his fallen weapon but Mad Jack crashed into him like a wrecking ball and sent him clattering to the water basin. Jack gripped the back of his hair and shoved his head underwater.

As soon as Norman's head went underneath the ice-cold water he knew Mad Jack was stronger. He knew that anyway, from the brutes openly displayed muscles, but he knew he was not going to be able to fight his head above water.

Wasting no time, he swan dove into the water basin and Mad Jack let go instantly. Norman squirmed like a worm in the water until he had his two boots firmly on the floor of the basin. Than, he rocketed up violently, hand swinging up in a magnificent uppercut into Mad Jack's jaw.

Norman swung his feet to the lip of the basin, kicked off and drove full force into Jack, sending them both to the ground. The two men rolled to their feet, and Mad Jack laughed, reveling in the violence. He held his hands out wide, displaying his gigantic muscles. It was enough to force Norman into retreat.

He turned and ran, stumbling, and within seconds he heard the rhythmic beats of Mad Jack's footsteps as he gave chase. Norman grasped the wheeled table, and, swinging his whole weight, he shoved it with all his might at Mad Jack. It was heavy, stocky, but once it got moving it was moving, and then it was flying towards Jack with meteoric speed.

It bounced off him like a fly off a plane of glass.

Jack kicked the table, crashing it into Norman and taking him off his feet. Norman scrambled to his feet and ran, picking up the sledgehammer and swinging it violently into Jack's face. The black brute danced back, and Norman swung again, this time missing entirely.

She sledgehammer was heavy, to heavy to hold for long, and Norman swung with all his strength. Mad Jack stopped the swing at the hammer shaft, and crunched his fist into Norman's face. He crashed into the floor with a gasp of pain.

Mad Jack just stood there, looking like he was having the time of his like. Norman rose to one knee, readying the sledgehammer for another blow, and Mad jack laughed. He held his arms wide:

"Hey! Come on now, take your best shot!"

And when he heard that, Norman knew he was going to die, that he had no hope against Mad Jack.

Still....

Norman threw the hammer violently, a specific destination in mind. Mad Jack's eyes and mouth flew open as the full weight of the sledgehammer stuck him between the legs. Norman sneered at Jack's exquisite pain, and then he turned and ran to his only hope.

His RuneBlaster.

But just as he bent within inches of his fallen weapon, he was stuck so violently in the back that he clattered against the worktop with a smack. He gasped in pain as he saw what hit him.

The Sledgehammer.

Mad Jack walked (carefully, so as not to provoke his injury) to Norman, eyes aglow with vengeance. Norman tried to move, but his back tore with pain every time he moved, sending painful spasms all across his body. Mad Jack picked him off the ground by the shoulders and tossed him into the worktop. Norman felt his Nose break as he hit it.

He didn't get up.

Again, Jack reveled in the violence, the aggression, waiting for the perfect moment. The perfect moment to kill. He picked up the sledgehammer that had become the driving force of the fight. He treated it like a sacred artifact as he approached the motionless Norman.

He swung the sledgehammer back and forth, like a golfer practicing a shot. He swung the metal implement high over his shoulder, readying the killing blow, the blow that would well and truly send Norman out of all existence, the blow that-

Norman spun around and stabbed Jack in the chest.

For a moment, there was nothing, no movement whatsoever, but then-

The sledgehammer fell to the floor with a clatter.

Mad Jack staggered back as blood splurted, actually splurted, from the wound. He stared at it. Just stared and stared. The drill, the drill he'd used a thousand times everyday for a year, it was in him.

He pulled it out.

"Huh" he said. "I'm fine"

He swung a vicious punch at Norman, but the smaller man ducked under the punch and sprinted to his fallen RuneBlaster. Jack ran after him, the two men jumped for it-

Mad Jack clattered to the wall, and then he was staring down the barrel.

Norman was exhausted, but he held the barrel with some dignity.

"Listen Jack, I'm not playing your crap anymore. What d'you have to do with the Killer?"

"Nothing I'm tellin' you, pack'o white sh-"

Norman fired, scorching Mad Jack's arm with a fire rune.

"Once more, Jack, just give me a reason!"

"$h1t man, you crazy!?"

"Three seconds, Jack three-"

"Fine! Man, fine" Jack stood up. "Got a guy, said he needed a blade made, all special like. A blade, infused all magic-like, that-"

"I know what is does. Move on, description, motives, anything I can track...track...down...any....any..."

And Norman felt it. The pull, the loss of control, the total lack of being there, like being drunk but without the vengeful thrill. He felt it.

Ceptocain withdrawal.

Not...not now, Norman thought, and he felt everything he knew about keeping things together fall apart.

"Man" Jack said, voice a million miles away. "You don't look so good". Everything blurred, everything slipped, and then Norman was falling,

falling...

falling...

falling...

He tried to take the vial of Ceptocain up to his nose, but Jack kicked it away. He was saying things, standing over him, but he seemed so far away. Mad Jack raised a foot, and it took Norman a moment before he realised what was going to happen.

Jack stomped down upon his face and Norman fell completely into black.

Norman woke up. There was no groggy, slow awakening, he just woke up, like any other morning.

Which only made it worse when he found he was tied up. Norman's four limbs were tied apart, so that he was in a star position. The ropes were bound round his wrists and ankles, completely incapacitating him.

"Rise'n'shine, big boy" Mad Jack sang. "Guess where you are!"

Norman looked around. He was lying on the conveyor belt, tied, the conveyor belt that lead to

"The Furnace?" Norman asked. "Oh, God, no"

Mad Jack laughed as he pulled the lever. The conveyor belt got moving, closer and closer, to the gaping mouth of the flaming furnace. Mad Jack pulled up a chair and sat down. To watch.

Norman's mind whirled for the third time that day, struggling to find anything that might help him escape. He struggled against the bonds, but they were all fastened tight. All except one, his right leg, it was a little loose, but could he get himself free in time. Underneath him there was all kind of broken weapons and scrap-

Gods...Mad Jack was going to melt him down and forge him into a sword!

Could he use the scrap to escape? He looked wildly around, but the only thing remotely close was the wheeled table, filled with a variety of tools. But it was so close to the furnace, could he use them in time.

Tick tock, time running out.

And the conveyor belt stopped. Jack walked over to him, smiling, and before Norman could even beg the black brute had slotted his ARI glasses onto his face.

"Gotta have you looking cool when ya die!" he said, and he pulled the lever again and sat back down.

Tick tock Norman.

Tick tock.