Henrik's forge smelled like honest work and aggressively low expectations.
Marcus found it oddly comforting after a morning of accidentally terrorizing educational professionals.
He stepped inside, clutching his piece of iron ore like a talisman, and immediately felt at home. The air was thick with coal smoke and the rhythmic percussion of hammer meeting anvil—a rhythm that had probably remained unchanged since someone first figured out that hitting hot metal made it do interesting things.
To Marcus, it was beautiful. Like walking into a laboratory where every experiment involved fire, screaming metal, and the very real possibility of losing eyebrows.
"You lost, boy?"
Henrik didn't bother looking up from the sword blade he was hammering, his shoulders moving with mechanical precision.
The blacksmith was built like a mountain that had decided to take up metalworking—all granite muscle wrapped in leather and conviction.
"Not lost," Marcus said, studying Henrik's technique with analytical eyes. "I'm here to learn."
Henrik snorted without missing a beat in his hammering rhythm.
"Learn what? This is man's work, boy. You've got hands softer than fresh butter. Come back when you can lift a proper hammer without snapping like a twig."
Marcus tilted his head, watching Henrik's grip.
"You're losing approximately thirty percent efficiency with that swing angle."
The hammering stopped.
Dead silence.
Slowly, Henrik turned, and Marcus got his first good look at a face that had been carved from granite by someone with strong opinions about intimidation.
"What did you just say?"
"Your grip's suboptimal. The torque vector from that angle is creating stress fractures along the grain structure. Also, you're working too hot—see those orange sparks? That means you're literally burning carbon out of the steel, which weakens the molecular bonds. You want cherry red, not orange."
Marcus gestured at the blade with academic enthusiasm.
"Basic thermodynamics."
Henrik set down his hammer with the deliberate care of someone choosing between education and homicide.
"I've been working iron since before your parents were born, boy. Don't need lectures about… carbon whatsits from some noble brat who's never held anything heavier than a quill pen."
Marcus wandered over to the quench barrel, dipped a finger in the water, and frowned.
"Temperature's wrong. This is too warm for proper differential cooling. If you want adequate hardening, you need rapid thermal transition, otherwise you'll get uneven crystal formation and—"
"Enough."
Henrik's voice carried the rumble of distant thunder. Storm clouds gathering on the horizon.
"Either work the bellows or get out of my forge."
Marcus shrugged and moved to the bellows, settling into a steady rhythm.
The forge fire surged higher—cleaner, hotter, more controlled than before.
Henrik paused mid-swing, frowning.
"Huh. Usually takes me the better part of an hour to get flames burning like that."
Marcus felt it too—a strange warmth in his fingertips, a humming in his bones like he was standing too close to a power line. The flames weren't just responding to the bellows; they seemed almost eager, like they recognized something in him and approved.
Fascinating. And probably dangerous, but mostly fascinating.
"That blade's going to develop a stress fracture," Marcus said suddenly, because his mouth had never learned when to stop providing helpful observations.
Henrik froze mid-swing.
"What?"
"Third of the way down from the crossguard. You've got stress concentration building right along that line."
Marcus pointed with the confidence of someone who'd spent years calculating failure points in materials that shouldn't exist.
"The grain structure's compromised."
Henrik turned the blade in the firelight, running his thumb along the steel with practiced touch. Someone who'd been having conversations with metal for decades.
His frown deepened like someone solving an unwelcome puzzle.
"Well, I'll be damned. There is a weak spot."
He shot Marcus a look that mixed suspicion with grudging respect.
"How in the forge gods' name did you spot that?"
Marcus hesitated.
Admitting "I can mentally calculate stress distribution in real time using advanced materials science" seemed like it might raise uncomfortable questions about his educational background.
"Lucky guess?" he offered weakly.
Before Henrik could respond, the sword in his hands gave a soft pulse of cold light—subtle, barely visible, but unmistakably synchronized with Marcus's heartbeat.
Both of them stared at the glowing blade like it had just started reciting poetry.
"Well," Marcus said, drawing on his professorial training for handling unexpected experimental results, "that's definitely new."
The light faded, leaving only the forge fire's crackle and the distant sound of the village bell marking the evening hour.
The silence stretched between them like a bridge neither was quite ready to cross.
Henrik set the blade on the anvil with careful movements. Someone handling a snake that might or might not be venomous.
"Boy," he said slowly, his voice carrying the weight of someone who'd just watched his worldview perform impossible gymnastics, "whatever you just brought into my forge—it's not natural."
Marcus rubbed his tingling fingers together, mind already racing through possible explanations.
Magical resonance? Quantum field interaction? Some kind of sympathetic response between his consciousness and the local supernatural environment?
"No," he agreed thoughtfully, "it definitely isn't."
The forge fire popped once, then settled into expectant quiet. Like it was waiting for something interesting to happen.
Marcus looked at Henrik, then at the softly glowing blade, then back at Henrik.
In his previous life, this would have been the moment he started taking detailed notes and designing controlled experiments. Here, it felt like the moment everything he thought he understood about his situation was about to become exponentially more complicated.
"Henrik," he said carefully, "how much do you know about magic?"
Henrik's laugh was short and bitter.
"Enough to know it's not supposed to happen in my workshop without proper guild oversight. And enough to know that when it does happen anyway, it usually means someone's about to have a very bad day."
As if summoned by his words, the sound of approaching footsteps echoed from the village square—multiple sets, moving with purposeful coordination.
Marcus felt his stomach drop as he recognized the authoritative rhythm.
That was the sound of people in uniforms coming to ask pointed questions about unauthorized magical phenomena.
"Henrik," he said quietly, "I think our very bad day just arrived."
The workshop door exploded inward in a shower of splinters and smoke.
Three figures in blue robes stepped through the wreckage like they owned not just the forge, but the entire concept of doorways.
Marcus looked at the still-glowing sword, then at Henrik's pale face, then at the three mages who were staring at him like he'd just set fire to their favorite library while juggling their pet cats.
"Would you believe I sneezed?" he tried.
Based on the way the lead mage's eyebrow twitched—a barely perceptible movement that somehow radiated menace—Marcus suspected this was going to require a more sophisticated explanation.
The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.
And Marcus realized his crash course in medieval metallurgy had just taken a very dangerous turn.