#(Also it is almost 90F in my bedroom so I think I hit a zone and went for it)

[livestosteal]

@etruatcaelum liked for a starter!

There were surprisingly few things for a man not interested in constant combat to do around Evernight. Well, for a given value of 'few' he supposed. For Arthur's personal tastes, it was occasionally more of a pain to do much more than his most lazy pursuits. Reading and coding were always excellent timekillers of course, but...well.

Today at least, it was the forge that beckoned him.

For a man as - admittedly - slender and cerebral as Arthur was, it was perhaps some surprise that he didn't just code or build some device to do such things for him when the itch got under his skin to make something, but of course, therein lay the catch: one could import or build whatever was desired, of course, but somewhere down the line it had to be made. And who knew better than he the things he needed, in the exact specifications?

Besides, when one got right down to it, there was something to be said for there being some satisfaction in the act of swinging a hammer at glowing red metal until it took the form that was desired. If absolutely nothing else? It was cathartic as hell.

Sweat soaked the scientist's loose shirt even as a soft tone interrupted the steady rhythm of his hammer to the bright orange slab of metal, and he half-turned to his worktable. His scroll buzzed again, and with a groan Arthur wiped the sweat from his eyes and paced over irritably.

Anyone at Evernight was likely well aware of his location and would have just poked their head in if they needed him - though, perhaps Salem might use some other method. No, the only person he could think of who might need him and would be using his scroll, was Cinder. Or, he supposed, one of the whelps that followed her about.

He opened it just before a fourth buzz might have sounded...and blinked. More out of sheer surprise than expecting it to work, he flicked the device shut, waited a moment...then opened it again. Indeed, the same banner notification from on of his surveillance programs flashed across the screen.

A low laugh started to slip out of his raw, parched throat, even as he cursed softly.

Whatever Cinder had done in Vale...he was not getting blamed for them having no signal now. His little virus was a masterpiece of course, truly a marvel of his own creation, but it didn't even have the means to bring down communications like that, let alone- stars above, had she somehow gotten one of the towers destroyed? The notification certainly seemed to think so, and he'd coded that program himself. The program could be faulty, he supposed, but-

How, by the moon and stars, was he supposed to do half his work without access to anything or anyone beyond their little localized pocket? Ugh...a problem for later. The notification had apparently been going off longer than he thought, too, because the timestamp was almost half an hour ago.

He barely registered the sound of the forge/workshop's door being opened, but he snapped his scroll shut and set it aside before moving back to his current project. It was only when he glanced up that he hummed, moving to put the cooling metal back in the sweltering heat of his forge.

"And what can I do for you? I doubt you came all the way here to see me smithing." Though, he supposed, weirder things had happened. Not even around Evernight, he'd...seen a lot of weird things in life.