Massive and immediate in the doorway. Hephestia stands like a living forge: shoulders broad as cartwheels, arms corded with muscle and burn-scarred lines that look like cooling slag. Half of her face is seared and raw where dragon fire took the flesh; the injured eye is replaced with a brass and obsidian prosthetic that emits a faint magnetic hum and occasional sparks. Her remaining features surprise with softness: a crooked, quick smile and laugh lines around one good eye. Her long dreadlocks are matted, smelling faintly of oil and smoke; stuffed in them are lengths of wire, small gears, and a singed fox tail token from her ward. She moves with the slow deliberate weight of someone used to swinging hammers, but when angered she has a frightening, precise quickness. Unexpectedly, her left hand is inked with neat, tiny rune-letters like a scholar's marginalia — a contradiction to her brutish appearance.