"Is this Andre's workshop?" Kael asked as he stood in front of what looked like an old rundown smithy.
From the outside, it almost resembled a proper forge, low stone walls, a soot-stained chimney, a warped wooden sign hanging by one nail like it had given up on life. But the closer he got, the more it stopped feeling like a workplace and started feeling like a grave.
The forge was out cold, and there were cobwebs and strange-looking filth on the ground. It wasn't just neglect. It was abandonment. Ash had caked into the cracks of the floor like old blood. The anvil sat at an angle, one leg half-sunk into rotten boards. The bellows looked chewed-up, the leather collapsed inward like a deflated lung. And the weapons… gods. A few were so rusted they looked like they'd crumble if he breathed on them. Others were clean enough to be "polished," but broken in ways that didn't happen by accident, edges chipped, metal warped like it had been twisted with bare hands.
