Orochi's Palace

Steven nods. He's a bit bothered by that. Negative energy might be useful for helping shadows that don't truly have living bodies, but most of his people do. Now, technically they just need a rhyming couplet and he has all the power he could possibly need, but he does't like that one of his primary functions is going to be harder simply because of his nature. Oh, well. He supposes it's not so different from pursuing a career in literature after growing up on a farm several miles away from the nearest public library.

The fox stands beside the human smith, careful to stay out of range of any flying sparks while Mitch shapes the sledge properly. The shape is easy; sledges are just blocks on handles. They need some specific balancing and such, but in the end that's what they are. Steven starts small, using the shadow-shaping power as Mitch suggested. A mason's hammer should be able to take punishment, after all. Self-repair should keep it from chipping even after years of work. It'll only be a small version of it, as he's not going overboard his first time, but as he said: it's a hammer. It shouldn't really be taking much punishment on a day to day basis that a hammer isn't designed to handle.