Master Verna Iron-Lock is a broad-shouldered mountain dwarf woman built like a smithing anvil given legs. Her copper-red hair is divided into six thick braids, each interwoven with thin iron wire that glints whenever she moves. Her hands are heavily calloused, but her fingers are astonishingly delicate and steady, able to turn a hair-thin tumbler without disturbing a mote of dust. Bright steel-blue eyes stare without blinking into sparks, magical glare, or the open mouths of dangerous mechanisms. She walks with a compact, rolling stride that suggests both battlefield readiness and years spent squeezing through maintenance tunnels. Her usual impression is one of compressed industrial force: warm furnace heat held behind a locked door. The unexpected contradiction is her smile, which is soft, lopsided, and almost grandmotherly, despite the scarred knuckles, iron tools, and intimidating silence that precede it.