The caravan pushed through noon without taking a break. The dwarves were looking forward to a proper meal in place of travel rations. Even with the wolf meat four days ago, the majority of their food was rather bland, as the siblings reminded me often with their complaints.

As the walls showed up in the distance, I decided to take another flight and see if there was anything interesting in the city. As I had already seen a few days prior, there were three rings of stone walls. The furthest out were keeping the fields safe. I was no expert on plants but the large sticks holding plants at two to three metres tall did not seem like tea to me. Closer to the next circle of walls a bunch of fields lay barren and directly next to it, a few warehouses stood.

The second ring was filled with buildings four to five storeys tall. They were dwarven storeys so it all looked rather normal-sized to me with my 70-some centimetres. It was pretty similar to Borsdown in fact, just upscaled several times. The city proper was at least five kilometres in diameter. There were industrial districts holding warehouses, factories and workshops, living districts interspersed with playgrounds, happy children frolicking on monkey bars, swings, see-saws and other outdoor toys. Near the inner wall sat some gaudy buildings, decorated richly in plants and metals. They looked very tasteful with roof gardens and large windowpanes.

The inner ring held a circular expanse of what I could best describe as wilderness. Sort of. The number of animals was disproportionately low, especially for anything larger than a mouse. It was still a lush forest, green even in the colder weather. I kept a bit of distance since that should be the Guardian’s home but I did spot the node with my magical senses deep in the trees. The Guardian was hiding well or just not there at the moment. A small group of dwarves tended to some devices close to the wall but still inside the inner ring. I noticed a few vis crystals growing on what looked like brass from this height. It may have been gold, but the shine was a little too red for what I knew.

Maybe I could meet the Guardian as well. That would be nice. We could exchange ideas on magic and evolution and being a sapient animal. Though I had not found anything about the specific Guardians in the books I read. Whatever they were, I hoped we could get along.

Circling once more I found a distinct lack of religious structures. I still remembered most of earth’s cities or at least those I had seen pictures of had some kind of church, mosque or something to meet with the community and pray to some higher power. I wondered what the dwarves believed in. They revered the Guardians somewhat but that was clearly less religious and more of a tribute to their power and influence on dwarven society and technology.

I returned to Servin’s wagon and reconnected to his mind.

“Welcome back, Fio. See anything interesting?”

“Yes, I did. The Guardian’s place looks really green for this time of year. Is there a herba node?”

The dwarf smirked.

“You know your magic. Yes, it’s a herba and arbor node. One of the few nodes that size without a primal aspect. As far as I know at least. It’s the reason the Convis clan settled here. They’re the farmers.”

I tilted my head.

“I thought the Karks had their head-seat here…”

“Yes, indeed. The Karks, however, are widespread and don’t have one city they primarily occupy. Their brewing is the most important part of dwarven culture. The Convis are mostly in Serrington. There’s some farming in other cities but they mostly rely on merchants shipping food or guards hunting wildlife. The kind of walls you see here are just not sustainable with the border to the orks taking up so much stone. Serrington only works because the Convis and Karks have a strong bond. Most of the hops, wheat and fruit used for ale are produced in this city, after all.”

He kept going on about the implications and interactions of the clans but I tuned him out in favour of enjoying the late-autumn sun. The rays warmed up my feathers nicely even with the cold air.

Soon, we reached the gatehouse. And of course, there was a commotion. Apparently, sapient beasts were rare, even in the bigger cities. Though we got settled very quickly once I showed my proof of citizenship. It was a sort of coin with the emblem of Borsdown carefully engraved on both sides. The item was somehow bound to me by mana. I had to donate a drop of blood which was forged into the brass and then an artefact I could not begin to explain closed it off without stopping someone from looking inside. Magically that is. I really wanted to figure out what had happened to the material but for now, I had an ID. The guards pulled out an artefact and held the coin to it with me having to touch a brass handle during the process and soon let me in. They did not even ask to [Identify] me. There really was a lot of trust behind this system.

Servin led the caravan to a part of town filled with warehouses and had the wagons dropped off. There was another dwarf of his clan which he talked to for a while but luckily we did not have to stick around. The siblings took me along to our inn, which was more of a merchants’ home. It belonged to their clan and was paid for in their regular contributions. So I was basically freeloading. It should have made me wary of the dwarves’ intentions but I knew they were good people. They expected some profit from me in the future, sure, but… I was confident just being nice to them would be enough.

For some reason, I was sharing a room with the two girls. It had two beds, which I was fine with, but someone had also fastened a wooden bar to the wall for me to rest on. It was very obviously made just earlier today since I still saw a bit of sawdust where they had drilled into the wooden wall panel.

At least I had a roof to seek shelter in case it rained.

Servin followed soon after and we met up in the common room, the siblings busy with some kind of homework. The dwarf sat down at a table and I took the chair on the other side. There was no tea but the dwarf had no drink either so I would not complain.

“Now, here we are. Thanks for the help, Fio, you did a great job. I’m not gonna ask again but it sure would be great to have you as a more long term addition to our caravan.”

He smiled and pulled out a jingling bag.

“Here’s your payment. I added another one and a half gold for the wolves. It includes your share from the sale of the raw materials.”

I put it into my storage without checking. Or rather, I could check it in there much more comfortably. The bag dropped on the table a moment later without the coins inside.

The dwarf stared.

“That’s… and interesting ability. I take it that’s a Skill?”

I put on my best poker face.

He met my eyes.

We stared at each other for a few seconds. Then a minute.

Finally, he acknowledged I would not tell him anything and skipped to the next topic.

“Alright, about those crystals. I talked to some of the others and we can agree to a deal. Though it’s most likely going to be better than my initial suggestion. Thaumium is powerful stuff. Artificers and weaponsmiths would love to get their hands on a more regular supply, not to talk about the Gurrins. What did your friends say? How much can they make and how many crystals do they want?”

There it was, the important deal. I had talked to Vivi and Safrah and even Riggard. They were confident in making some more thaumium but with the Thaumonomicon I had given to Vivi, the interest to sell was not as high as the merchant probably hoped. The ocelot had been excited to dive deeper into thaumaturgy with the blessing of the guard. Captain Dor apparently did not mind the Guardian of their new city practising a little more of the dangerous magic. They would keep enough distance from her with their buildings to stay safe from most potential damage.

That said, I was sure there was profit to be had. Vivi needed more than just some thaumium to do magic. They could be more than sustainable, which I had convinced her of rather quickly with Safrah’s help.

“They can make a decent amount. As long as there are enough crystals. Two large-sized of every aspect per ingot and you’ll pay twenty gold for it. That’s still limited though. No more than 25 ingots per half-year. The flux has to have time to diffuse into the Empty.”

I saw a tiny glint in the merchant’s eyes.

“Hmm. That means a total of 300 large vis crystals every six months. That’s quite difficult to procure. Thirty per aspect sounds much more reasonable. If they were not required to be even between the aspects we could provide some more. Hmm… How about we pay ten gold for the bar and try to provide as close to the fifty as possible?”

He slowly stroked his beard.

So that was the game he wanted to play?

“I see. It’s not necessary to make a deal you can’t hope to uphold so how about something more dynamic? If you provide all 300 crystals, ten gold per bar is fine. For every set you miss, you’ll pay one more gold per bar up to a limit of 20. And if it’s less than fifteen sets, you don’t get any thaumium the next cycle.”

The dwarf’s grin took a decidedly greedy turn as he churned the numbers in his head.

“Is that a challenge? I like it. Let’s do it!”

I felt a bit uncomfortable as I shook his hand with my wing. The excitement and greed in his eyes were palpable. A few other dwarves were in the common room with us, some of them drinking. Soon, two mugs smacked onto the table in front of us.

“A challenge! Wonderful! Let’s drink on it!”, some random dwarf shouted and fell into roaring laughter right after.

“Yes! Drink! A challenge!”

The room got very rowdy in moments and soon everyone was chugging ale and laughing. They were slapping Servin’s back and some of them even walked up to me, all friendly.

“I heard you got citizenship but this confirms it. Yer a dwarf at heart, birdy! Here, drink!”

After a bit of hesitation, I allowed myself to get caught in the excitement and even took a few sips of ale. The dwarves were nice enough to bring me some tea when I told them I could not hold much alcohol. All in all, it was a rather nice afternoon. Or so I thought when I went to rest and found it was deep into the night. This had been a nice day. I was looking forward to exploring the city tomorrow.