Smoke (Luthar)
Smoke (born Luthar) is a brilliant elven engineer and a pivotal, centuries-old figure in The Metalwood Saga. Having served as the chief research assistant to Orym (Aten) during the early days of the Cothellon, he eventually defects, relocating to the Under to supply the underkids with advanced weaponry.
Appearance and Personality
Unlike most elves who maintain a youthful appearance, Smoke shows significant signs of aging. He is described as an "older man" with a face that is "craggy with age" and "gray eyes, glinting like steel". He has a shock of "shaggy gray hair" that is often wild and unkempt.
He walks with a "definite hunch" that makes him appear quite short, especially when compared to the other residents of the Under. He typically wears a "dirty, floppy black jacket" made of cloth and baggy black pants. Overall, his appearance is consistently noted as "haggard" and "unpolished".
Personality-wise, Smoke is highly intelligent but somewhat eccentric and quiet. When he is first introduced to Rylan, he simply sits at the table and drops a heavy bag of weapons without standing or speaking. Later in his life, he reveals that he suffers from intense claustrophobia.
Biography
The Cothellon Years
For hundreds of years, Luthar worked as the chief research assistant to the Scientist General, Orym. He was instrumental in helping Orym understand and categorize the various types of darkprime magic. In the early days of their research, Luthar was the one who deduced that dark ash functioned as forcefinding magic, and guided Orym in successfully testing dark pine to use fallfoiler magic.
Luthar was also deeply involved in the logistics of the Ascension and the creation of the floating sky cities. He was the one who alerted Orym to a catastrophic mission timer bug, and later identified a critical flaw regarding the range of the gates needed to reach the ground from the cities' new altitude.
Defection to the Under
Eventually growing disillusioned with the brutal methods and goals of the Cothellon, Luthar defected and moved into the Under of New San Francisco. Adopting the undername "Smoke," he allied himself with Dill and Shock Crew.
Utilizing his vast engineering knowledge and stolen shards of dark oak, Smoke designed and manufactured mergeguns—deadly weapons capable of shooting through any solid object when wielded by a mergemelder. He supplied these rare weapons to Shot and the other underkids, leveling the playing field against the heavily armed Cothellon guards.
The Conjunction
During the apocalyptic Conjunction, Smoke emerged from the Under alongside the massive underkid army to fight the Cothellon forces in the Prime Forest. During the bloody battle, he utilized an unfamiliar, automatic machine weapon of his own design, firing hundreds of bullets rapidly into the enemy forces.
When Trey and Orym formulated a plan to sever the Fennas Elenathon device from the Earth's core, Smoke volunteered to accompany them, gating directly into the highly secure Gate Control room alongside Trey. Following the successful gating of the planet, Smoke personally congratulated the young Prime Mage Rylan, telling him that the world owed him a great debt for fighting for their survival.
The Atlantis Expedition and Death
Sometime after Earth's arrival in the Persephone solar system, Orym organized an ISA submarine expedition to investigate a mysterious darkprime signal emanating from beneath the Mediterranean Sea. Smoke (operating again under the name Luthar) approached Orym in the hangar and requested to join the crew, stating that the Valaraldan air didn't agree with him and he desired "one last adventure".
The crew successfully breached the sunken city of Atlantis, discovering it perfectly preserved by an ancient stasis field. However, the group was forced to navigate a labyrinth of deadly, magical traps guarding the city. While creeping through a tight, pitch-black tunnel, Luthar's claustrophobia set in. In the darkness, he accidentally stepped on a glowing blue rune inscribed on the floor.
Because Luthar was a mergemelder, his soul was Aligned with oak. The rune he stepped on was an oak rune, which instantly activated the cavern's lethal defenses, killing Luthar and leaving his corpse hanging in the dark.
Powers and Abilities
- Mergemelder (Oak): Smoke possesses the magical Talent of mergemelding, Aligned with the oak/yew woodpair.
- Master Engineer: Smoke's true power lies in his unmatched intellect and engineering skill. He is capable of reverse-engineering ancient Cothellon technology and inventing entirely new weapons, such as the mergeguns and advanced automatic firearms.
Key Relationships
- Orym: Smoke served as Orym's trusted assistant and friend for centuries. Despite Smoke's defection to the underkids, Orym still views him fondly, greeting him warmly as an "old bag" when they reunite. Orym is deeply devastated when Smoke is killed by the traps in Atlantis.
- Dill: Smoke acts as the primary weapons supplier for Dill's Shock Crew, taking up residence in their hidden camps and helping the young leader prepare for his uprising against the Planners.
- Shot: As Shock Crew's primary mergemelder, Shot is the most frequent user of Smoke's mergeguns, utilizing the old elf's inventions to become one of the deadliest fighters in the Under.