Synopsis

The chapter introduces a human who arrives at the legendary Ulfuirs Furnace, seeking to resolve a millennia-long stalemate between three legendary blacksmiths from different races: a dwarf, an elf, and an orc. They have been competing to determine who is the best by judging each other's work, but with biased results due to their rivalry. The human offers to serve as an unbiased judge, giving them high-quality materials and challenging them to craft equipment for him to assess fairly. It is also revealed their competition is governed by a curse-like covenant keeping them alive and bound to fight until one is declared the best.