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Erin stared blankly at Leara for a moment. Once again, he was faced with someone that believed that magic was a conception made through hand waving and incantations. He didn't think that he'd ever get used to the naivete of a common mortal mind. Of a common mind, he decided, after he considered that there were immortals that had the same thoughts. "You have a great gift, but you limit yourself with a common misconception. However, you have at least learned to go beyond the means with which you were taught. Bah," he made a face and turned away. "But you have given me enough that I have somewhere to start. The crystals are a solidified form of potential energy derived from a being's spark of life and then imprinted with a version of their psyche. It's a matter or replicating the process through an alchemical process that is going to be a problem. I don't know of any formulae that would slow energy into a crystal form without dissipating the energy itself. Hmm, perhaps if I.." he trailed off into mumbling about various different chemical compositions as he set off once again, postulating about the possible outcome of the various mixtures. He paused a moment in his stride and speech, turning about to look at Leara. "You're still welcome to join me," he called to her as he stopped in front of a wall made of solid concrete. It was only now that Leara would realize that the door that she had come in through was vanished into a solid wall.

"Your misconception has nothing to do with what we're doing here," he said calmly while he reached out and turned a panel that had blended almost seamlessly with the wall. "Your misconception has to do with 'magic' in general." A small door opened up near the floor, and he sighed as he moved through it. "Spells and incantations and being reliant on a certain amount of energy. It's all in your- oh that's new!" he exclaimed on the other side of the wall, he apparently had found something amiss in this new room, which had a view of the outside world, or at least something that might be considered a view. It wouldn't have been visible from the outside, but light filtered in easily enough where it was now. The walls here weren't manufactured, but made out of stone of a mountain. It only appeared to have been dug out, nothing more. Inside it was a room that looked like it could be a blacksmith's dream. Or nightmare. There were tools that could be found in any blacksmith's shop, but they were all different somehow, like they were designed for the same purpose, but they were used differently. "That hole isn't supposed to be there."

Erin followed in front of Leara, inspecting the hole. It was a good deal above his head, but he could see it plain enough. "More likely it was just a badger dug in," he stated, fingering some claw marks on the side of the hole, stretching so he could reach it.

He didn't need to look around to tell that Leara had picked up one of the tools on the bench. He didn't have any particular problems with it, seeing as the tools weren't for him to use. Many of them were made from a variety of different metals in order to test their strength and durability. More often than he cared to admit, they also turned out to be explosive. "Now, we make materials to use." He had a few tons of the metal already made up, behind a copper mesh, but it was in a base form. The bar. "Mashing and plating, menial work, but I did have a servant to do it once upon a time. Good to get the hands dirty though." He stepped past Leara to the wall, touching a lantern beside him. It instantly lit up, similar to jarred lightening, illuminating the wall, showing the massive amount of metal. And none of it was recognizable as a common metal. "Shall we get started?" he asked.

"I used to," he replied, honestly. "But things happen." He neglected to mention what sort of things happened. And that she might still finds bits of minion lying around somewhere. "It won't take too long," he hoped. "Mostly it's going to be pouring it into molds." He talked as he moved towards his furnace with his bar, picking up a vial from an array as he went. The process was simple, he thought to himself. He had done it before, after all. Heat metal until it melts, pour it into a proper mold, and then removed the metal from the mold. Hardest part is melting the metal. He threw the chemical into the furnace, and it instantly ignited the coals within.

The fire in the furnace burned hot and bright, far hotter and brighter than it should have. The stones around it nearly instantly turned to a molten rock. Even farther away, the stones were popping and cracking as they went from cold to instantly red hot. Erin had turned away from the flames as they had grown and had moved back quite a ways. Now he was dealing with an apparatus that he placed over his body. The casual observer would say that it looked like it was an amalgam of metal and stone at once, though it moved smoothly, as though it were neither. It was shaped like the human body was, and it quickly was apparent its purpose. It was to protect the inhabitant of the suit from the fires.
Erin removed an ingot of the metal, placing it in a pot made of the same material as the suit was made, placing it in the fire. Despite the obvious temperatures, the metal took a good deal of time getting to a point that it would melt. And as soon as the metal settled into the mold, it darkened and hardened, as though the metal itself had no wish to be hot, so it chose not to. The task was long and repetitive, but Erin seemed to show no end to his patience.
Erin, meanwhile, thought that he could not have made a metal more resistant to heat! There was absolutely no need for anything this resistant. There wasn't anything else besides him besides maybe the sun that could produce the kind of heat that he had to produce right here just to melt it long enough to get it into shape. And for what? Golems that he just wanted to make to prove that he could, and to study to ensure that they were better than the former type.
He grit his teeth, setting his mind to the task, his face concealed behind the mask's visor. He had set himself the task, he would have to live with his decision, though he regretted it now.