Johan Hawk, Blacksmith, Werewolf in Hiding

The forge breathed in oxygen as I worked the bellows as fire burst against steel. I pulled the long, slender steel blade out of the heart of the forge. My hammer slammed repeatedly against the blade and the noise of metal ringing on metal as blade hit anvil and hammer hit blade filled the large shop. The air was icy cold as winter had set in several weeks ago with the first frost, still, I was naked from the waist up, the heat of the forge causing me to sweat profusely as I worked.

Steam rolled off me in large clouds, mixing with the smoke from the forge and steam as I dunked the newly forged blade in a bath of cold water with ice floating in it. The ice quickly melted as a rush of steam rose into the air and then immediately froze, falling to the ground as snow. Expert skill and a few moments of time allowed me to fit the silvered blade into a pommel and allowed it to cool. It soon joined the pile of others.

“Johan!” a cheery voice called out to me and I looked up to see a young woman in a red hooded robe with white, rabbit-fur trim making her as a junior initiate.

“Good morning Lilly,” I called back, stepping away from the forge for a moment and washing my hands in the icy waters of the bucket. My werewolf physiology protected me against the cold, but I shivered in order to keep up appearances.

Lilly smiled at me and hurried up the path, “I’ll meet you inside,” I suggested, taking the rack of newly worked swords with me, stealing another glance at Lilly. She was a pretty girl, a young woman, I corrected myself, noting that today was her eighteenth birthday. Today also marked the third anniversary of her frequent trips to my shop to pick up swords, armor, and other leatherworkings and metal workings that I made for the order of the Red Riding Hood.

Unbeknownst to Lilly, today also marked the first day of a plan I’d been perfecting since the first day I stepped foot in the city of Gateway. A plan that would, if a hundred years of my own research and secret conversations with my father, Fenrir, was correct, could bring a beautiful end to the order of the Red Riding Hood once and for all.