It took Rylen fifteen minutes to scrub the worst of the soot off his face.
When he finally emerged from the washroom attached to the main forge, he looked less like a chimney sweep and more like a raccoon that had been dragged through a coal mine. The skin around his eyes—where his goggles had been—was comically white, while the rest of his face was stained a stubborn, smoky gray.
He was still smelling faintly of burnt hair and ozone as he jogged over to where Kael was waiting by the cooling troughs.
"Fresh as a daisy!" Rylen announced, flashing a grin that was startlingly white in the gloom. "So, what's this about a tournament? You looked like someone kicked your puppy when you mentioned it inside."
Kael sighed, pushing off the wall he had been leaning against. "Someone didn't kick my puppy. A glitchy ancient ghost threatened to invert my nervous system."
"Classic," Rylen nodded sagely, as if this were a common occurrence.
