I've got 14 Iron Ores and I'm sitting here at a forge trying to figure out how to make them into ingots, any clue?

You need to smelt them first.

You need to find a smelter. Not a forge.

Ah, thanks!

Somewhat related, is it possible to turn ingots back into pieces? I have conundrum (?) and iron ingots that if reduced to pieces would make steel ingots that i'd have use for.

I don't think so, but you can get a spell that turns them into a better metal.