And a large, hairy female humanoid, hunched over, naked and scarred. She has large claws and very dark coloring, and is sniffing the air, looking in Walta's direction.

Blink.

Blink blink.

Don't show weakness or surprise if you can help it. "...It really is. Nothing immediately world-shaking," (she'll keep the revelation about the curve to herself until she's confirmed it), "But I'll certainly be taking notes of some sites to dig up- Iron ore here and there, and a region I expect might have coal deposits. I'll study the view more later, perhaps."

(How is that armor fitted, it's more like a second skin, but he's moving like flesh and blood under that, none of the stiffness or jerky motion of steam or electric motors, none of the too-smooth pushes of hydraulics...)

"Oh, there's somewhere promising for coal? Good. If you're done looking outward for the moment, a couple introductions are in order. Barik, Kills-In-Shadow, come meet Waltana!"

The two of them - and damn, they're both big, Kohl is tall and bulky but they both outdo him comfortably - walk over.

"This is Waltana Hampson, from somewhere well beyond Kyros's domain, Bristol in the land of England. She knows a great deal about iron and even greater innovations, and I'm going to be funding her to work on creating as many useful new things and ideas as she can."

"Walta, this is Barik, Stone Shield of the Disfavored. He got caught in the initial blast of the Edict of Storms, and for unknown reasons this armor wrapped itself around him like a second skin. We don't know how to get it removed, much as he'd like it to be. He's been seconded to me since I delivered the Edict, like Verse, since the unusual armor makes him an awkward fit in the usual Disfavored phalanx. There might be better bodyguards in the world, but I haven't met them if so."

"And this is Kills-In-Shadow. She's a Beastwoman, Bolverk of the Shadowhunter tribe from Haven, and their last survivor. She's an extremely deadly hunter and very hard to kill, and fortunately she considers me a suitable Alpha because of the power I gained from claiming the Mountain Spire. And how I nearly stunned her with a helmeted headbutt when she first challenged me."

"...Hmm! Greetings. What have you tried in terms of removing it? And, uh, Kills-In-Shadow, do you suppose you could make use of weapons and armor?"

"We had the Disfavored smiths look at it and try to separate pieces, but it is hopelessly tangled; short of melting the bronze, which would go poorly for me, it does not seem separable."

"Beastwoman will not wear bronze or iron. Kills-In-Shadow is hunter, stalker; will not slow down and clank like pile of rocks. Soft-skin humans need metal to fight, yep-yep, but even little Beastmen have tough skin, sharp claws. Beastwoman does use some human weapons; hammers, axes, spears. Girl-human Walta's iron spear might be a good weapon for Beastwoman. But most are too small for paws, made for little humans."

"Girl-human Walta smells of thunder and smoke, suet and iron. Young, like chitterer-mystic Sirin, but think she has not been cub for many seasons. Kills-In-Shadow is intrigued."

"-I think if I were to make a tungsten carbide blade for a power saw, something I want anyway along with many other tools, but which will be - difficult - we may be able to very carefully cut through the joints. Possibly worth trying with a lesser blade, carbide is the very best I know of but - difficult."

To the... Beastwoman... She holds her spear high and lets the lightning crackle along it for a moment. "I understand wanting to be light on your feet. Engineering can do many things. This is mine, but I may make more like it, in time, or be persuaded to part with it somehow. As we all serve Fatebinder Kohl in one way or another, I hope we can help each other now and then. And yes, I lived in a world of iron, smoke, ice, oil, lightning. I want to build its wonders here."

"Well, I am still protected by the General's Aegis; many injuries could heal over. I would happily accept your assistance. I do worry that my state may be as Kyros intends, in some strange way, but Kohl has promised to request permission formally from Tunon. Originally because the Forge-Bound are his vassals, but it would cover your work as well."

Killsy give a panting chuckle at the lightning and nods, sitting back on her haunches to watch.

It was an Edict that did this to him, right... She wants to REPLICATE the effect, to shape and bend metal without heat, to imprison people non-lethally... But has no idea where to start.

And is at least socially aware enough not to say this out loud.

"I hear more and more about the forge-bound. I'm going to teach them proper glassmaking, I think."

"I'm sure they'll appreciate it. We could visit them now, if you like - the portal also works to move between the Spires, and there are some both on the Sunset Spire and just below it."

She peers at the strange device in the center for a bit (must be something magic, she's got nothing), and then-

"Very well, so long as I can return to survey the area further. I'm eager to get to work."

"I don't know what that does either, but it's important," he says, following her gaze, "It's probably how I attuned to the Spire. But let's see the Sunset Forge."

This time he gestures to step through together. "Choosing a location is a weird motion, no one's managed it without having visited it themselves previously. No mishaps either, though." And then:

There's the scent of molten iron and bronze, but no sign of smoke.

It's high up, and looking down there's a vast lake to the northwest, and on the opposite side a town below them, the twin waterfalls over the Oldwalls slightly audible even this high.

But what probably captures Walta's attention is the forge. The center of the Spire, where the strange sculpture sits on the other one, is a large pool of what looks like lava, with channels connecting it to several other pools, each of them with an anvil, a large basin of badly damaged armor and weapons, or both. One such basin is lowered, its base submerged in the lava, and half-molten bronze can be seen within. The largest anvil sits near the central basin, with a bald, buff, tattooed man working on it, dipping some iron plate into the pool and pulling it back to hammer it into his preferred shape.

"Oh. Oh. It's hot enough for smelting. Hot enough to power tools. Maybe hot enough for glass. This is beautiful!"

She dashes right up to one of the channels and starts trying to discern its exact temperature via the color of its glow.

This may be difficult as there is definitely magic at work. Not all parts of this lava are the same color, some places (by the ironworking) seem to be hotter than others (near the bronze). But the majority of it seems to be around 2000 F/1100 C, on the high end for a stable lava flow.

"Okay, not quite hot enough for glass, I think... But this is wonderful and magical! I want to set up here, Kohl, I'll do so much better with an easy source of heat, making charcoal was awful."

One of the smiths walks over, "You've been using charcoal? Sigil-fire works for many things even if you don't have this marvel - hard to keep it consistent unless you have a Forge-Bound knapper lay out the forge perfectly, but much easier to supply. We're still discovering what can be done with this, though; more magic in everything we make, every ritual and sigil stronger, and the heat can be exactly what's needed and stay there for days even unattended."

"What a wonder! Well, I wasn't in the Tiers until a couple of weeks ago and didn't know about sigil-fire until this morning! This little piece is entirely sigilless, no magic at all- Lightning trapped in acid and metal!" (Zzzzap. A slightly anemic zap. She's been demonstrating it a lot.) "Oh, I'll need to recharge soon! What kind of effects does MAGIC have on the creation of things?!"

"Fascinating! We haven't made anything that could generate lightning or anything like it at completion time, even with our best crafts and sigil-magic experts. But - how much time do you have? When the material's absorbing magic, though, it can learns to have magical properties much more easily; we already made a bronze staff, patterned off an old story, and after a few days of use it seems to make magic of all kinds easier to work. That ought to take a decade or more in the hands of an archmage. And this is only a span of operation; what we'll know in a year or decade - well, I'm very excited."

"I'm probably going to practically live here. I'm not Forge-Bound, but I am what we call the Spark- An inclination towards intuitive creation, of items beyond what ought to be possible! And my home had so many wonders to behold, I hope to bring many of them here!"

"Well, that station" he gestures off to the west "is free. Want to demonstrate?"

Yes, let's see this in action. Maybe stand by in case of explosions.

"Oh-ho-ho, yes. I'm going to lean into it, and allow the Spark to fill me. If you truly need me to calm down I shall, but let-us-see-what-we-have-to-work-with-today-"

She opens her pack and starts fetching things out - lots of different metal pieces in various shapes, mostly. "I've been itching for a defense, and the thing about lightning is that it's FAR MORE than just a bright flash. That flash is just the expression of a more fundamental energy, yes, a field that extends in all directions."

She dons heavy work gloves and brings out a hammer and tongs. Is there any unattended metal around? Well, there's her leftover iron rings, and her copper, those are both going to be laid out in order as she draws a Sigil of Lightning on the workstation in leftover charcoal. After making sure everyone's standing well back, she tries it out- And then tries to cast with it as gently and precisely as she can - and then grins.

"-We can use that field to sense, you see. Disturbances in reality become signs in the magnetic field. And if we can sense it, we can REACT! That is the shape of it, a passive field of lightning, which will feel incoming blows- But what's that worth on its own? Why, I'll need to make a SHIELD and manipulator arms to maneuver it into place- Each principle is simple enough on its own but together they are MORE-"

It's a slow start, but if not interrupted she moves faster, rants louder, and grows more and more animated and excited, eventually cackling and singing about the virtues of electricity and automata. She heats iron rings directly in the lava. She seizes bronze and alloys it with more copper and a bit of iron. She uses lightning to weld pieces together, ignoring the singe marks on her clothing. She carefully rotates parts above the intense heat while talking about crystal structure and new ways of alloying.

"The power of lightning is limitless! Stepper motors, for fast, precise motion, exactly as required! Resistoplates for electrical proprioception! Fed by a central unit, signal leads to action leads to signal, YES, someone get me sand-"

Should she be - burned, doing this? Should molten rock stick to her metal as she negligently dips it into the lava, then taps it with a small arc of lightning ("MAGNETISM!!"), and starts hammering the iron into a long rod or a small toothed gear? Where did all the copper wire come from, and why is it in those strange coils?

Around the cackling and singing he gets alarmed. Everyone not actively working with her moves over to the portal pad, though he's not insisting they leave. One of the smiths is in the middle of something delicate and is annoyed, but he gestures over to - that - and the smith takes about thirty seconds to make it hold in place a little better and goes.