Like Noel, Val had been an orphan whom Khonnir took in, long ago in distant Starfall. He had then moved far away - for reasons he refused to divulge, and forbade Val from doing so too, even to Noel - and settled down in Torch to start a new life with his adopted daughter. When Noel's parents met their tragic end at the hands of the Technic League, Khonnir was kind enough to take her in as well, providing a home and a father figure for the orphaned girl.<br/><br/>Now several years later both Noel and Val had grown into fine young women. With her tomboyish personality, fine Kellid features, golden hair and piercing blue eyes, the running joke was that Val was secretly a barbarian princess. Though today, her highness had to make do with second place, hot on Noel's heels but still a step behind reaching the circle of portable workshops surrounding the violet flame at the peak of Black Hill. Khonnir followed behind at a leisurely pace, content to let younger backs do the heavy lifting.<br/><br/>The torch radiated a strongly directional heat straight up into the sky; a chunk of wood thrown a dozen feet over the bonfire-sized flame would instantly burst into flame, yet the thinnest cloth a mere foot from its edge wouldn't even smolder. The smiths used various contraptions to hold ore and metal above the flame without hurting themselves, and Khonnir had the most advanced of these technologies, using heatproofed clockwork arms able to withstand the heat for limited times to manipulate the objects of his works and experiments directly over the torch without having to pull them back first.<br/><br/>Val set down her pack and nudged Noel in the ribs with her elbow, "I'll win next time... hey, who's that? I haven't seen him before." Said person was a young man about their age, who seemed to be... paying his respects or praying or something of the sort, of all things, in the direction of the violet flame.<br/><br/>A grinding screech interrupted them as Khonnir started up the machinery of his forge, only for one of the clockwork arms to seize up after extending with its tip within the effective radius of the torch. Despite the heatproofing treatment it was not meant to withstand constant exposure and the tip of the arm began glowing dull red-hot. Khonnir called for Noel, "Noel! I need you to fix the arm before it melts completely. Something must be caught in the joints or gears. Mind the torch and don't burn yourself!" To pull it off she would have to work dangerously close to the torch's heat...<br/><br/>(OOC: Disable device to fix the arm)<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Val</div><div class="spoiler_body">(https://i.imgur.com/y8Gqzjq.png)</div></div><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Khonnir</div><div class="spoiler_body">(https://i.imgur.com/QfhLnoB.png)</div></div><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">???</div><div class="spoiler_body">(https://i.imgur.com/3ajn2ir.png)</div></div>