Back when Vesta had turned sixteen, the age when most people were considered adults, she'd received several gifts. One of them was her favorite smithing hammer from Gramps, a fine piece of master-crafted work made from Mythril. While light as a feather, Gramps had stated that it was from the kingdom of the elves, and the runes, glyphs, and sigils inscribed upon it were enchantments that would protect the hammer from being damaged no matter how hard one swung it. She'd scoffed, up until Vulcan had taken it and swung it hard enough to crack an old iron anvil in half, without so much as chipping the hammer.

Vulcan himself, however, had provided a gift of his own, a portable forge that the young quarter-elf could make use of to practice her smithing even when she went with Gramps on his regular trips to negotiate new contracts. Powered by Exponentia, it could generate enough heat to melt even Mythril easily and had a slot where various molds could be slotted in for the molten metal to flow into. It also had a small anvil for hammering and a small grindstone. All in all, it was an excellent setup for an aspiring smith on the road.

If she had enough ingots available, she could forge anything she had a mold for, which was useful things like nails, horseshoes, kitchen knives, and ax-heads. It was an infinitely useful thing to have for traveling since if one of the horses lost a shoe, she could have a new shoe and nails done within a fairly short time, and Hedea could have the horse reshoed within a short span afterward.

The name, however, had come from a jest that Vulcan had made when presenting it to her, saying that the little Forge Fairy should have her own little Fairy Forge. Everyone just started calling it the Fairy Forge after that.

The entire thing would fit into a large trunk, albeit one so heavy that only Hedea could lift it. Vesta had, a few times, considered having the entire thing set up in a cart of its own, but had decided against it. In its current state, it looked like a forge. Attached to a wagon, it would look more like a tinkerer's setup than anything that a real smith would use.

While the job ahead wouldn't need too much in the way of smithing, some fastenings would need to be made so that the armor could be used. Most of the job would instead be cutting, for which she used a pair of Mythril shears. No gift, those, but a tool she'd forged with her own two hands. Using the old armor as a guide, she was able to make a good estimate of the size needed for the sections of wyvern-hide needed and worked from there. Fastenings, connectors, straps, she soon became so focused on what she was doing that she didn't realize it had gotten dark until Hedea had nudged her and handed her a bowl of hot stew.

As was typical of Hedea's cooking, it smelled heavenly and tasted even better, so Vesta wrapped up what she was doing almost immediately and began eating.

As she ate, she noted that Gramps and Rayan were speaking to each other in Elvish, the two discussing something in some depth, their empty bowls sitting nearby. It seemed like whatever it was they were talking about, neither seemed to be too happy about it.

After she finished eating, she walked over to the two, still deep in conversation, and stated, "I've got most of the prep work done. In the morning, I'll start assembly. If I get up at sunrise and work through the morning, it should be ready by noon."

Rayan nodded, and said gratefully, "I'm thankful you're putting in this work for me. Mercury and I have been talking, and we've decided I'll escort you to the Kingdom Under The Mountain and back. The Thane of Thanes had put out a request to clear ghouls from the royal catacombs, so once I arrive I can get that taken care of that right away. Barring any unexpected developments, I should be done well before your business is done."

A small smile on his face, Gramps added, "And since we're escorting an adventurer answering the Thane of Thane's request, they can't turn us away at the front door. We'll at least be able to get in and make a pitch."

Vesta, a little confused, asked, "But why are the dwarves hiring an adventurer? I'd think that they'd be more than capable of doing the job themselves."

Hedea, sitting down nearby with a full bowl of stew in her hands, noted, "Dwarves live under mountain. Dwarves no leave mountain. No fight wars. No hunt monsters. No fight, no learn how fight good. No ex-peer-ee-uns. Mine, craft, forge, build. That is dwarves. Builders, not warriors." With a small smile, she looked at Vesta and added, "You, dwarves, share."

Nodding, Rayan admitted, "That's more or less accurate. The dwarves don't have much of an army. It is largely just for ceremonial purposes, and while they can do a fantastic parade march, they're poor fighters. Having the best weapons and armor on the continent is useless if you don't train regularly with them and have no actual combat experience. Their guardsmen are better, but their training is geared towards arrest and detainment, not fighting to kill or die. It's been peaceful in the Kingdom Under The Mountain for thousands of years, barring a single notable incident."

"The Cult of Exaltation invading and enslaving the population for several years," Vesta noted, remembering her history lessons.

"Exactly," Rayan confirmed, his voice very grim. As Gramps had noted, this elf was likely a veteran of the Scorn Wars, so he was also there to witness the horrors that had awaited the soldiers who had returned home from those wars, both human and elf, as well as taking part in the Year of Blood and Tears, where human and elf joined together to purge the Cult of Exaltation from Exaul.

After a moment, his tone turned more casual, and he continued in an almost flippant tone, "Even after their people were invaded, conquered, and enslaved, the Thanes and even the Thane of Thanes decided nothing should be done to improve their army. The only real change was that after Prince Belua, may his name forever be cursed, used dark magic to cause the Thane of Thanes and all of his line to be without hands, they declared magic to be forever taboo. Of course, the dwarves weren't all that fond of magic anyway and there were never any dwarves who practiced it so far as I know that changed effectively nothing about their culture."

"Anyhow," Gramps said, changing the subject, "We'll have some additional company on the ride to and from the Kingdom Under The Mountain and a means by which to gain entrance, both things to be grateful for. A little extra security is certainly a boon in these dangerous times."

Vesta woke up near midnight, although she wasn't certain why until she saw Hestea standing up, walking over to Rayan. They were changing watch, she realized, and prepared to go back to sleep when Rayan said something. It didn't sound anything remotely like the Elvish he'd shouted on the road, and whatever he'd said, it caught Hedea by surprise. After a moment, the half-orc responded, asking something in the same language. Rayan nodded in response, and began speaking again,. Soon, the two engaged in some back and forth in the same tongue.

It took Vesta a moment to figure out what was going on, but finally, she realized that the two of them were speaking Orkish.

The pair did seem to have a lot to talk about, with the one occasionally laughing at something the other said. After a few minutes, Hedea sat down, and they began speaking in earnest. While Vesta couldn't really catch what they were saying, she knew flirting when she saw it. Well, they were both very attractive people in excellent shape, so it wasn't that weird, an elf and a half-orc flirting with each other... was it?

However, what was odd was how they were speaking Orkish. It seemed that they were saying two or three, sometimes four words in a sentence, something that seemed familiar. It took Vesta a moment to realize why: It was the same way that Hedea spoke Common. But why? It seemed clear that Rayan was fluent in the language, and given that Hedea seemed to have been raised among orcs, it wasn't as if she'd have any problem speaking her own native tongue.

But... then again, Hedea always spoke that way, but no one really had any problems understanding her. Where others might say "The sun is rising," Hedea just said "Dawn," which would mean the same thing. Maybe in Orkish, it was just common sense among orcs to use the fewest words possible to convey an idea. Orcs, from what Vesta knew, had primarily hunters before being forced into the badlands. If someone was hunting prey on the run, there wasn't time for long conversations so one had to stick to short sentences to save time and breath.

Despite speaking in what seemed like broken, disjointed Common, Hedea was always clear and rarely misunderstood. More importantly, despite her seemingly limited command of Common, she could always understand what others were saying, even when Gramps was breaking out the twenty Orich words.

All this time, Vesta just assumed that Hedea wasn't smart enough to get a good handle on the Common tongue, but... maybe she just spoke Common the same way the Orkish tongue was spoken.

...Perhaps Hedea also spoke that way for another reason. She was strikingly beautiful, but she was also fit, tall, and her orc heritage made her incredibly strong. All of that combined with high intelligence would make her seem dangerous to many humans in Exaul who view orcs and half-orcs as inferior. But if she had beauty and brawn but seemed thick as a brick, she'd hardly be considered a threat to anyone. Anyone who heard her speaking would assume she was just a big idiot, albeit a beautiful one with a kind heart.

Vesta then had a moment of painful realization. 'I am a terrible friend,' Vesta thought to herself.

More than that, however, it also occurred to her how little she knew about some things that she really ought to know. She was a quarter-elf but didn't know a word of Elvish, or anything about the elves beyond what Gramps had mentioned when he was speaking about history. She was best friends with a half-orc but didn't know a single word of Orkish or anything about her past beyond what little she'd let slip in conversation, and next to nothing about orcs beyond what she'd heard Hedea and Gramps say. She really didn't even know all that much about Gramps, come to that.

Vesta knew the exact temperature at which multiple metals would become molten, how to form dozens of alloys and how best to shape them, and hundreds of other things regarding smithing and the forge, but she didn't really know all that much about the people in her life that she loved dearly.

Vesta turned over and went to sleep, resolved to start changing that in the morning...