Chapter Thirty-Two - A Rocky Start

“And to think, that the people not directly under your oh-so-holy leadership are still prospering and seeking knowledge!”

***

The young cultivator returned a few minutes after leaving us accompanied by two people. One a middle-aged woman, with a pair of spectacles perched on the end of a sharp nose and an outfit of pants and tunic that showed she was willing to be out here in the wilderness.

The other was a far shorter, barrel-chested dwarf, with a beard tucked into his tool-laden belt and eyes nearly hidden by bushy brows. “Mah! Look what we’ve got here. Couple of trespassers, mah?”

“Hardly trespassers,” I said. “I don’t think the locals mind that we’re here.”

“I’d ask you how you’d know, but I suspect that you’d spin me a tall tale,” the dwarf said.

I grinned. “I wouldn’t. I know how short a dwarf’s patience can be.”

“That’s true. Our tolerance for goatshit is low, and you’d be the height of foolishness to insult me that way.”

“It would only be a small insult to someone like you.”

The dwarf and I stared at each other.

“Hehehe,” he began.

“Oh hohoho!” I replied.

The limpet shivered. “I feel like someone just stepped on my grave,” she said.

Alex patted her head. “It’s okay. Bone Papa just met some very strange people that he likes, is all.”

I decided to ignore the pair of them as I extended a hand to the dwarf. “A pleasure to meet you, my little friend. I’m Harold of Clan Potterer.”

The dwarf nodded firmly and grasped my hand in his. “Wrench, of Clan Slate. What are you lot doing in this godforsaken pisshole of a city?”

Before I could reply, the woman cleared her throat. “Forgive me, sirs, but do you know each other? I didn’t think many humans knew how to greet a dwarf.”

“Mah, this one’s as human as I am,” the dwarf said. “All the right bits, but not the right soul.”

I turned to the lady and nodded my greetings. “It’s not my first time meeting a dwarf,” I said. “I always did enjoy their culture. Their sense of humour most of all. We are merely exploring these ruins before making our way north. We were planning on spending the night here before moving on.”

“I see,” she said. Her shoulders slumped. “Ah well, in that case, you’re welcome to share our camp.”

“Mistress Ruolan!” the young cultivator said.

“This is Apprentice Yi,” she said as if he hadn’t interrupted her. “From the Flame’s Heart sect. I’m Ruolan Chan, of the Abyssal Depths sect.”

“A pleasure,” I said. “I’m Harold, this is Alex, my butler, and the limpet.”

“The limpet?” Ruolan asked.

“I’m like his apprentice,” the limpet said with obvious pride.

The woman shrugged. “Well, alright. Come on, we have a fire, and enough supplies for everyone, at least for lunch. Maybe I’ll convince you to move on and out of the city before night falls.”

A glance at the sky revealed that it was only mid-day. “Very well, lead the way.”

We followed our new companions, Ruolan and Wrench taking the lead while Apprentice Yi stayed back a little and eyed us when he thought I wasn’t paying attention.

The camp, as it turned out, was set in the backyard of what must have once been a mansion with its own walls surrounding a nice compound. There were three tents set up in a rough triangle, and a lean-to against one of the remaining walls of the home.

A small smokeless fire burned in the middle of the camp being tended by a bare-faced dwarf.

“Hammer, we’ve got company,” Wrench said. “Where’s Tweezers? We ought to warn him before he does something stupid.”

The female dwarf looked up, a complete lack of concern on her features as she took us in at a glance. “He’s off polishing his tools by the well,” she said.

“Mah! Keeping your things clean is fine, but there’s a damned limit,” Wrench said. “Take a seat tall folk. Hammer’s an awful cook, but the rest of us are worse.”

Hammer snorted. “You can’t even boil water right, you air-brained fool,” she said. “Welcome folk. I’m Hammer of Clan Granite.”

We went through another round on introductions before sitting down on a couple of benches laid out around the fire pit. “Do dwarves still eat rocks?” I asked.

“We don’t eat rocks,” Hammer said. “They’re carefully processed ores. Besides, we can eat what you humans eat too.”

Alex cleared his throat. “May I take over the cooking, then miss dwarf? I am Papa’s butler, so cooking should be my duty.”

Hammer stepped back from the fire she was tending. “Haven’t even added the gravel to the water yet,” she said. Apprentice Yi shuddered.

Alex smiled and stepped up after setting his backs down. He started moving in a flurry, setting aside the pot of boiling water, tossing more logs onto the fire, moving the spits to accommodate more pots and placing a pan atop the flames which is quickly covered in a mix of butter and oil from his bag.

“So,” I asked Ruolan and Wrench who both settled in across from me. “What are two cultivators and three clan dwarfs doing in the ruins of an ancient city?”

“Meh, nothing that would interest you,” Wrench said.

“I truly doubt that,” I said. “Silvershire may be long dead, but it was once one of the world's greatest sources of new and innovative magics. Even after thousands of years, there must be something left to discover here.”

“Meh, you’re calling it Silvershire? That’s an old name for this place. Maybe I’ll tell you why we’re here if you do the same first,” Wrench said.

I tapped my chin. “Alright,” I said. “I had friends who once lived here. They borrowed something of mine once, and I’m curious as to what happened to that thing. So I’m here to look into it. I didn’t expect this place to be so.. Dilapidated though.”

“Your friends live here a thousand eight hundred years ago?” Ruolan asked. “I kind of doubt that.”

“Not everyone is as short lived as you humans,” Wrench said. He leaned forwards, elbows on his knees. “We’re here because another expedition discovered something. Something under this city.”

I nodded. That made sense. When Silvershire grew large enough, most of the big academies and research places needed more room. Growing up was one solution. Wizard’s do like their towers. But the other, simpler one, was to build down. The city was nearly as big underground as it was above.

“The undercity,” I said. Wrench’s eyes flashed. “Yes, I know of them. What are you looking for down there?”

“For now? A way around all the goblins,” Wrench said. “We didn’t think they’d take up as much of the space as they do. If we can get past that, then who knows? Ancient machines? Blueprints? Tools used by the ancestors! By my grandfather’s stones, I would give much to name my children after a new tool.”

“What’s all this?”

We turned to find a short--that is, short for them--dwarf standing by the entrance into the courtyard. He had a set of magnifying glasses on and his braided beard was scraggly and covered in twigs.

“Mah, Tweezers, you daft moron. Where have you been?”

The dwarf lifted a sachet that jangled. “Cleaning my tools,” he said.

“We have guests,” Wrench said. “A human, whatever that maid is, and this ancient here.”

Ruolan looked between Wrench and myself. “Are you sure he’s not a man?”

“Mah, of course he’s a man,” Wrench said. “Fool girl. Too damned young for your own good.”

“I’m thirty!” she lied.

Tweezers came over and plopped himself down on the bench next to Hammer. “Pleased to meetcha,” he said. “What’s the maid cooking?”

“I’m preparing two meals so that everyone will be happy,” Alex said.

“Nice,” Tweezers said. “So are you a boy or a girl?”

“I’m a maid,” Alex said.

“Right, right,” Tweezer replied with a nod. He turned to the limpet. “And you? You a boy or a girl?”

“She’s Father’s limpet,” Alex said.

Tweezer nodded again.

“What? No, I’m a girl,” the limpet said.

“You can probably be both,” Tweezers said. “Some things are like that. We have slugs back home that change between boy and girl all the time. Maybe you can be a girl and then a limpet?”

The limpet pouted.

“Wrench. When is your group heading into the undercity?” I asked.

“After lunch,” Wrench said. “Did you want to come with? We could use the help. But we get first dibs on any tools we find.”

“No,” Ruolan said with a shake of her head. She gestured between the dwarf and myself. “You can’t allow this man to come with us. We’re already suspicious enough as it is.”

“Mah, you think the goblins down there will ask for our papers?”

“No, I think that my sect will already question my choice to work with dwarfs and to hire someone from the Flame’s Heart to act as escort. Having even more strangers abroad will only make my reports worse.”

“I never did learn why you are here, Miss Chan,” I said.

She worked her jaw. “That’s cultivator business.”

“Mah, this one could bend you over his knee in less time it takes for Tweezer over there to ask a dumb question.”

Ruolan eyed me. “Which sect are you from? I don’t feel any chi coming from you, and your companions are just as weak. The girl is barely above civilian levels.”

“Chi? As I recall, that’s physical mana. No, you wouldn’t feel much of that from me. I daresay my control is a little better than that.”

Wrench patted Ruolan on the knee. “This one’s here to snoop around and see if there's any old techniques to sniff out. But this place isn’t under her sect’s control, so she’s being sneaky about it.”

“Wrench!”

I nodded. “I doubt she’ll discover much. Silvershire predates the arrival of cultivation as a method of progression.”

Wrench nodded. “Mah, told her as much. But humans have short memories. Us dwarfs, why, my great-great-grandpa was linked to the system, you know?”

“Lunch is ready,” Alex said as, with a flourish, he unveiled six plates. “For the humans, we have oil-fried chicken breast, stuffed with basil and diced tomatoes, with a fine layer of grated cheese. We have a side of flame grilled asparagus and a light salad with freshly gathered mushrooms and a pinch of lemon. I made a simple creamy dressing with some herbs and whipped milk.”

Alex handed a plate to the limpet, then one to Roulan and Yi. The latter stared at the expertly proportioned plates for a moment, looking rather dazed.

“Does... does the maid have a cooking dao?” the younger cultivator asked.

“And for our new dwarf friends,” Alex continued as he presented his other plates. “Warm shelled limestone covered in a drizzled sauce of oil and finely crushed gravel. I also made a nice side of thinly sliced potato with some obsidian cuttings for that extra bit of crunch to go with your fiber.”

Alex handed the dwarfs their meals.

“I’m sorry it’s not better, I’m working with limited ingredients.” Alex bowed to everyone. “I hope you enjoy.”

Yi was already nearing the end of his plate, scarfing the food down like a starving man while Ruolan picked at her meal with a confused expression.

“It’s real good, Alex,” the limpet said. “You’re the best cook.”

Alex’s ears drooped. “Ah, thank you, limpet.”

“So,” I asked the dwarfs who were chunching away at their lunch. “What have you found so far?”

Wrench swallowed. “Mah, this and that. Nothing worth going home with. Some old casings, a few pieces of rusty steel that could be anything. We did discover one destroyed automaton down there. Looks like the goblins took it down some twenty, thirty years ago. Not much left of it though.”

“Interesting. Very interesting.”

***