“Right. Okay, so -"

The place for his forge is fortunately located near material processing! There is a workshop that has tidy little sections for sorting and then disassembling different materials, mostly into set patterns. There's a great grinder that is currently silent and unmoving, but is apparently meant to reduce things to dust for purification purposes. After that are several enchanted sawblades that, when directed, efficiently cut out variable sizes of brick or plank in either stone or wood. Then there is a furnace and smelter setup that looks like a very promising basis for a forge, currently mostly devoted to glasswork and the creation of delicate little glass vials. Still, it's ultimately built for the purification and casting of ore, and there are several enchanted bellows to provide the air circulation for both the furnace and the glassblowing, which is the real foundation for any good forging. Proper formation of materials is key, even if this place is missing such straightforward and basic things like an anvil or any kind of place to quench steel.

Apparently there's also another section of the castle for more chemical processing, including but not limited to: tanning of hide into leather, formation of wood pulp into paper, purification of various chemical components, herb drying, and textile weaving, but. He probably has seen enough to get a really good idea of what this castle can do, which is: follow a set of clear instructions to make or do something, over and over and over again. A lot of what's already there is pretty easy to repurpose for his needs, too, being built with being ordered around in mind. Actually, it might be more accurate to say that this place is screaming for some proper direction from someone experienced at forging.

His new lady is happy to shuffle all of this around as he'd like.

...alright. Well. He believes it would be most efficient for him to have his own furnace rather than sharing it with other things but it's not 100% necessary. Otherwise, he has some opinions about furnace design and he can inform her of those, as always phrasing it all in terms of what might serve his lady's needs the most rather than in terms of what he wants or what he would prefer.

He is a blade, and blades do not want things.

His lady was expecting him to have his own furnace instead of sharing the glass furnace, actually. It's easier for her that way, too. She does still need to use it for glasswork, after all. So: yep, he's getting his own furnace, and he can set it up how he likes.

In fact, she's a little bemused at his careful phrasing and avoidance of appearing to have an opinion. She's pretty happy to just let him use his best judgement and leave him to it, he doesn't need to run everything by her. He has the proverbial keys to the castle, after all.

Okay, but like. He doesn't know what the best forge for her needs would be. Would she be best served by the most efficient possible forge there is no such thing but there are things that are better or worse and he can try to do those.

Uh.

(She is mostly getting him a forge because he seems like he wants something to do.)

She is painfully aware that he will not like this answer in the slightest.

"I... am going to want to experiment with different weapon types and learn how to use them, so. Probably aim for breadth for now, and we can specialize further as required? That doesn't cut off possible ways you can set up the forge later, right?"

"Right. Especially with how malleable this castle is."

Nod! "Similarly, feel free to experiment, and if something isn't working for you, you can change it."

"Understood. Is there aught else the lady requires of me?"

"Ring size, any aesthetic preferences you have about it, and - oh, uh. Do you have opinions on your room and where it should be?"

"...'my room'?"

".... I was going to make you a room besides your forge. With things in it you might like. Shelves. A desk. Possibly a bed if you like lying down?" She doesn't think either of them really sleep.

"If... the lady has other requirements of me that would need a different room...?"

"A... comfortable place for you to exist and keep your things? ... I will probably make you clothes, and other magic jewelry, eventually, you could keep both of those in your room."

"—the lady might be working under misapprehensions about how phantoms work, and I apologise for not clarifying earlier. I do not feel physical discomfort nor do I need to rest, and my clothes are sufficiently a part of my person that they do not get lastingly sullied, so other clothes are unnecessary. If there are other belongings the lady believes would make me better for her purposes then I could organise them appropriately once I know what they are, but unless they are adversely affected by being in the presence of the heat or magic there is no necessity for another room to contain them."

She's pretty sure that even when she was at her most brainwashed and crazy, she was not this bad. She had a room! Several, if you count the alchemy lab and garden as hers, which she did. (Several more, if you counted the prison cells and the associated blood draw room, which she does not.)

"Well, no, it's not exactly necessary, but..." She has no idea how to possibly pitch 'a nice place for you to exist that is yours,' to his extremely utilitarian and mission oriented psychology. "..... I like making rooms? And organizing things by them. And - er, I have a paper press, if there are notes you want to take or information you'd like to note down, having a place to put what you've written away from heat is, uh, smart?"

"I... believe that could become useful someday..." he says, dubiously, because he doesn't actually know how to explain that this is unnecessary...

Yeah, she can tell he's got no idea what a personal room is for, and is confused by the prospect.

"... Great! I'll. Go make it. And then your ring." She will just scurry off, then...?

Yeah. Okay. Sure. He feels like he failed to fulfill his purpose here except he has no idea what purpose she wanted him to fulfill so he doesn't know how he could've succeeded but that's no excuse, really. He'll try to figure it out for next time. 

But for now he has a forge to build.

To say that the castle is helpful in this task is like saying that water is wet. He has a sense for what materials the castle has available, and where they could go, and how they can be arranged as is. The stone does not quite move like liquid under his will, but it sure is shuffling and floating around exactly how he'd like it to, and will, with a bit of focus, reshape itself, too. This forge will be worthy of his skill in record time, and be exactly to his specifications.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh, that's. That's.

...very efficient and useful.

In an hour, the forge is better than any he's had before. The one Leandra had might have rivaled it, with its magical enhancements, but... he saw and worked with those, too. This castle can recreate them. It is as bendable and amenable as steel beneath his hammer, and better at picking up and holding magic. His forge will brighten and dim on his command, and will keep to an even temperature throughout (unless he asks it not to, which he can), and beneath its heat, the stirring of the magic of life and death will still, giving him more space to get it perfect. It will accept his heart like its own. It will listen to his every whim without it.

His lady is still away, by the time it's functional. There's still more space to improve, but it's the careful attunement of a delicate instrument, not the shaping of one. He'd need to start testing it out to get a feel for how to calibrate it further.

He'd need to start testing it out, but he doesn't have anything to test with.

It was true that with his heart in the forge, he'd be able to actually modify the enchantments in existing equipment, but... it's still better to do it from scratch, with a goal in mind from the start.

But he hasn't been ordered to make anything. So he doesn't have anything to test with.

...his lady did say that she wanted to try many new kinds of weapons...

...maybe it would be... expedient... if he got a headstart? And if she disagrees with his decision he can discard his work and there will be (nearly) no loss.

She seemed to like that sword.

Nothing interrupts him as he begins his work, and a sword begins to take shape under his watchful eye...