Something like that. It's a common position to hold where I come from. [Basically everyone who doesn't have a very specific position, like Rutile or Red Beryl, takes up sentry duty at least some of the time among the gems. It's necessary when attacks on their home are so common.]

I don't know how much Obsidian might have improved over the years, but they were always a skilled blacksmith. Their work would be impossible for a living thing to match.

[It's not a tone of dismissiveness, or even looking down on the living, just a mere statement of fact. With only maybe a hundred years to hone their craft, no living thing could match someone who has had many hundreds, or even over a thousand.]