Meeting with Forgemaster

24 days to go. Everyone's got it complicated except me right now. Scott's situation has gone from bad to downright insane. I don't like being stuck in Philadelphia. Yeah, I'm stuck by my own choosing, but there's a good reason. If you're going to war, you need to go to war prepared to win. I guess I shouldn't feel guilty. I'm not going to be able to help a damn thing if I don't plan this out just right. Tomorrow's going to be a big day for reconnaissance. Technically it IS tomorrow, but that's the thing with blogging. It's weird writing about my life after the fact, challenging even. Technically it's 23 days to go, but it's going to be 24 days to go for purposes of this post.

Forgemaster is one of my oldest friends. He's an engineering genius who should have gone into school for engineering years ago, but only just started in college for it recently. He is listless, he moves from career to career aimlessly, but I think he's finally going to stick to Engineering. I codename him "Forgemaster" for one very obvious reason: he's got a working forge, and he putters around in it in his spare time.

I get along best with fellow weirdos, if you haven't figured it out by now.

Forgemaster knows everything there is to know about weapons. Guns, swords, if you name it, he knows about it. Long ago, the ancient sword smiths of Europe faded away, and the secret behind True Damascus Steel, the metal that all the great ancient swords of Europe were forged from, was lost forever. Forgemaster intends to discover how it was made, and restore it to it's former glory.

Forgemaster is what I would call a Fitful Dreamer. He has constant brushes with the supernatural, and his Awakened state. Then he'll take part for a little while, figure out that what's going on is just too much for him, and then he'll just down and go back to sleep. He knows the supernatural world is there, he just can't handle it. He has said to me point blank in the past: "This is your world. I'll stick to what I know." But sometimes, he'll awaken to it out of the blue and crazy things will happen.

------

I walk into his forging area at about 4 PM, and I proceed with caution. Molten iron, heavy tools, and a hot forge make me nervous. I'm still not used to this place. I've only been inside once or twice since he threw it together.

He sees me almost immediately, putting aside his tools for a moment and coming out from the anvil.

He shouts, "What's up my ****"

Yes. He called me a word reserved for African-American males to refer to each other, and we are both white guys. Something that should be noted about Forgemaster is that he's not ACTUALLY a racist. You see, he'll use every racial epithet in the book, while being friends with people of every color and creed. Really, he loves to catch people off-balance. I'm always afraid he's going to do this to someone he doesn't know some day, and get his ass kicked. Then again, lets keep in mind that this is a guy who works in a forge making weapons in his spare time. Dude has some MUSCLE to spare.

I give him my traditional countersign: An expression that says, "Are you serious?"

He shrugs, and says, "Eh, whatever man, it's all good."

I grin, and shrug, "So, Cold Iron Longsword. Is it doable?"

Forgemaster nods, "I'm really not ready to make swords, you know."

I say, "Look, I don't need a masterpiece. I'm not asking for real deal Damascus steel here. I need cold iron. What the hell IS cold iron, anyway?"

Forgemaster says, "Come on (AmalgamationSage), it's just iron."

I frown, "Mythological cold iron is just Iron?"

Forgemaster says, "Okay, let me explain. There's no trick here, Cold Iron is just iron that hasn't been tempered into steel. You're basically just asking for a sword forged from Iron with none of the neat tricks that smiths figured out over the years. I can do it, but it'll take a little while. I'm new at this."

I nod, "I've got time."

Forgemaster says, "(AmalgamationSage), are you in some kind of trouble?"

I say, without skipping a beat, "Oh, in November while I was closing a hole in dimensional space that odd entities were pouring through, I ran afoul of a creature that has no face that will not be named lest the knowledge of it send it hunting after you. It turns people into slaves, eats children, and represents absolutely everything I hate in this world all in one incredibly tall, lethal package. I want to hunt it down like I've hunted everything else down, kill it, and shove it's body ass-first onto a pike which I'll put next to my apartment window as a reminder to all similar entities not to fuck with me. The only problem is that there are rogue government agencies defending it, international alliances going after it, and the creature itself seems to break all the rules I've associated with supernatural entities trying to kill people so far. It's going to be a learning experience, really. In any case, I've got something around 24 days before it's on my doorstep because I wheeled-and-dealed with a blessed living embodiment of light and a broken angel, conned an emissary of hell, and got a void-creature with a soul some candy."

He stares at me for a minute. The great part about my life, is that if I'm NOT a complete whackjob insane schizophrenic psycho, is that I can tell people god's honest truth with no fear of being taken seriously. I can see the gears turning in his head. Does he want to question me? Does he want to know more? Does he want to find out if there's anything else he can do to help? Nope, as always he assumes that what he doesn't know won't get him involved in whatever crazy mess I'm in now.

He says, "Good luck with that. Don't die."

I say, "I'll do my best"

------

I'm going to ask him about Glock 22's tomorrow for Scott. I know plenty about the gun, but I want to know who uses them that might be at work in the New York area. Somebody is going after him, and If I can't leap in to bail him out, I might as well find him the information so he can bail himself out.

In the mean time, I'm rereading an old text on Necromancy. I've been getting a LOT of spirits who realized I could see them recently. Someone's sending them my way. They all say the same thing, "Please! Get us out of here. Please!"

I'm used to helping spirits pass on. It's part of the job. But this is getting worrying. Something else is about to go wrong, which I really don't need right now.