The bell rang, welcoming in yet another customer. Despite the loud clanging of hammers against anvils that surrounded him, Florian heard it well enough. His boss certainly had as well, but Florian had long given up on getting the old man to give up even a second at the anvil.

Interrupted for the third time in the past hour alone, Florian hid his displeasure and shuffled over to the smithy’s counter. Weapons of all shapes lined the wall behind him, crafted from whatever metal the scavengers had managed to find. It wasn’t much, but it was the best the defenders of Dover Castle could manage.

It was one of those defenders, a warrior by the name of Andrew Davies, that inspected their wares now. “Got anything worth half a damn, peg-leg?” the man sneered, holding the only steel weapon they had on display. The sword was crude by every stretch of the imagination, but considering that it had been made from the remains of a fridge of all things, it was hardly as bad as it could have been.

“You know very well that we’re the only ones that can make weapons here, Andrew. Do you want the sword?” Florian asked, though he knew that Andrew wouldn’t. The man was one of the more successful warriors, and as such he had plenty of weapons, including one of the few pistols in the castle.

“This thing? It’d break if I blew on it.” Andrew replaced the weapon. “How do you still have a job here, peg-leg? You can’t contribute in any meaningful way. You’re only alive because of me, you know that, right?”

“Yes, I am very grateful to you and the rest of the warriors for keeping all of us safe,” Florian replied with a measured tone.

“Good. Remember that after tomorrow’s excursion. I’ll be expecting free repairs from you, peg-leg.” Threat delivered, Andrew turned right around and left the way he came, not bothering to stay to hear Florian’s response.

Shaking his head, Florian knew that tomorrow would be busier than it had any right to be. And while he’d have loved to curse the selfish warrior, it was true that it was because of Andrew that Florian still had a place in Dover. Florian returned to the forge, hastening his work on the weapon before him. It had been a baseball bat, once upon a time. Florian had transformed it into a mace, complete with reinforced spikes jutting out from the weapon’s head at regular intervals.

Consumed by the work in front of him, Florian didn’t realize it when George, his boss, snuck up behind him. “That’s a good piece of work, Florian,” he praised in his usual fashion. “Maybe you’ve got what it takes to be a blacksmith after all.”

Florian laughed and accepted the compliment, though he knew it was an empty one. There were five of them in the smithy, and only Florian had no prior experience with metalworking prior to Worldbreak. “Thank you, George. I’ll just finish up here in a couple hours and close up for the night, don’t you worry.”

The old man just smiled and nodded, giving Florian a friendly clap on the back. Soon, it was just Florian left in the forge. The other smiths had all gone home for the day, having completed their quotas early in the morning. Around their workstations, piles of blades and shields amassed, each crafted with more expertise than the last. Florian had a few weapons completed around his own table, but he had fallen far short of the quota. Again.

He sighed. It’d be more than a few hours before he could turn in for the night. Quieting his grumbling stomach, Florian returned to Frankenstein’s Mace. Slowly but surely, he put the weapon through its paces. The balance was very obviously toward the head of the thing, and it would take a particularly strong person to lift the mace, much less use it against the Hellwolves. Still, as Florian took the mace past the roaring furnace and through the building to the small courtyard, he hoped it would prove more useful than a sword.

The testing dummy stood alone in a tiny field of dirt, though calling it a dummy was a stretch. It was really more of a block of wood standing on a stone foundation and supported by an iron rod. The log’s surface was marred by cuts, but it was sturdy enough. Florian swung the mace with all he was worth, slamming the weapon into the log. Splinters of wood flew off the dummy, the iron spikes sinking deep into the wood. Florian felt something in the weapon give, and when he pulled the mace back out of the dummy’s side, it was missing a spike.

Florian cursed. It had taken him an hour to affix a single spike to the mace. He’d also need to go and reinforce everything again. Still, despite the certain forfeiture of sleep that night, he was proud of the abomination. The Hellwolves were resilient to damage, and though guns worked well enough, few of them remained after Worldbreak. This mace would do enough to make a bloody mess of any Hellwolf, Florian hoped.

He returned to the forge, returning to the dull and repetitive work that had earned him a place in Dover. It was nearly midnight when he heard a roar of flames louder than anything he had ever heard before. Florian all but ran outside, his body forgetting that he hadn’t the use of a second leg. When he burst through the smithy’s front door, he saw fire engulf the sky, a mushroom cloud – glowing orange from the fire – rising in the sky.

Knowing enough that he needed to get back inside, Florian hobbled back into the smithy, his one good leg carrying him as fast as it could. Florian hid beneath his workstation, clutching his leg to his body, praying even as the ground rumbled. The old church bell rang, clamoring long into the night.