Editing Egil of Dale (section)

==Background==
Egil was an apprentice blacksmith when he followed Bard from the ruins of Old Laketown to Dale. His master he hasn't seen since Laketown was destroyed, but he talked his way into the trust of the Dwarves of the Mountain...as much as such trust can be had from one not of their kind...and he continued his apprenticeship under the critical eye and caustic tongue of a one-handed Dwarf named Orin. Orin tried his best to make the boy quit, but what Egil lacked in aptitude he made up for with determination, grimly doing whatever awful tasks his new master assigned with never a complaint.

At night Egil remained at the forge, working and reworking steel, until he had made himself a sword, bigger than those typical of Dale and Laketown, that satisfied him. Soon after that he finished his apprenticeship, and everybody expected him to set up shop in Dale, but he surprised them by selling most of his belongings the next day and leaving town with a trader heading West. All his time in Erebor, listening to the stories and songs of the Dwarves, had awakened in him a desire to see other lands, and as soon as he was free that's exactly what he did.

He recently found himself in the Vales, and he hears there is going to be a festival in one of the little settlements they call "towns" on this side of the wood. Maybe there will be a chance to put his smith-craft to work.