Chapter Three Hundred and Seventy - Boltbound

“And then,” I said, having to speak up a little over Tharval’s hooting laughter. The dwarf was a great listener. Well, no, he kept interrupting and liked to add his own tall tales to the mix, but he was a great audience, which counted for a lot when telling a story. “Then we went to meet these grenoil mafia people, and they were quite mean. We ended up scuffling with them in the streets, but Cholondee landed right next to us.”

“And that’s how the dragon ended up ruling the city’s underground?” Willowbud asked. He wasn’t as boisterous or loud, but he was still attentive, and I think a little bit drunk, judging by the rosiness of his cheeks.

I nodded. “Yeah! I don’t know what’s happened since, but I haven’t heard of Port Royal burning down or anything, so it can’t be that bad.”

“That’s a good sign,” Tharval said with a nod. He was tipsy too, with ruddy cheeks and a bright red nose, but he wasn’t slurring his words any, even though the floor next to his seat was a sea of empty tankards. He must have drunk his weight in beer already.

Willowbud grinned. “You girls, and sir, seem to have been on your share of adventures.”

“We’ve only been adventuring for a couple of months,” Awen said. “I don’t know if we’ve had time to really, ah, get into the spirit of it the way uncle has.”

“Bah, it’s not the time spent adventuring that matters, it’s the experience of it!” Tharval said. “You judge the quality of an adventure by people saved, discoveries made, and number of angry noblefolk.”

I giggled at that. “Is that how you calculate things here?”

“I doubt they can codify it accurately,” Amaryllis said.

“What?” Tharval said. “No! Of course we can. ‘People saved’ is easy to verify most of the time, ‘discoveries’ are obvious, and we keep a record of who’s gotten the most angry letters written about them.”

“And news articles, of course,” Willowbud said.

Amaryllis shook her head. “Won’t that undermine the Exploration Guild in the Snowlands?”

“Bah! The real people of the Snowlands know that it’s all a big game for us. The nobles will spit and bluster and complain, and for every big complaint they make, another toast is raised in every pub across the nation.”

“What Tharval means to say,” Willowbud said. “Is that the Exploration Guild, at least in the Snowlands, has proven to be... politically divisive at times. But we have the will and have had the momentum to push for sweeping changes which were very unpopular with those who were established, and immensely popular with everyone else.”

“What kinds of changes?” Caprica asked.

Willowbud smiled. “Well, I could talk about it for hours, but we got several large infrastructure projects pushed through, then we trained explorers, opened several schools, successfully championed new reforms for education, and bankrolled several inventors and clever businessmen who were starting beneficial ventures.”

“We dragged this entire country into the future, kicking and screaming all the way,” Tharval said. “And some stuck-up old farts complained the entire time, even as they reaped the benefits.”

“That sounds annoying,” I said.

Willowbud shrugged his shoulders. “It meant several huge changes to the status quo, and not every noble house and clan survived the changes. Their reasons to complain made sense, on a small scale. They were losing prestige, livelihoods, traditions, and power. In the end, I think it was all for the best. The Snowlands were a... harsh place, once. We needed those traditions to survive. Now we’re thriving. Ah, but now it’s us who are the old ones stuck in the past, aren’t we, Tharval?”

“Speak for yourself, elf!” Tharval grumped. “I’ve got a century left of drinking and whipping these young brats into shape, mark my words in stone.”

“Ah, speaking of whipping whippersnappers,” I said while holding back a giggle. “Do you think you could help us?”

“With your baron problem?” Tharval asked. He tugged at his beard with all of its tresses and beads.

I wasn’t going to say anything, but I was a little envious of his beard. It looked really fun to stroke and pull at it, and if I were ever to grow a beard (which would be a little weird) I’d want it to be as fantastic as Tharval’s.

“Awa, we could use the help,” Awen admitted. “We don’t know anyone from Storm Tower and the baron has a huge lead on us. We don’t know what he’s up to but... but it’s no good, I’m sure. Rainnewt worked hard to make a lot of trouble for a lot of people, and I just know that he’ll be doing the same kind of thing here, and the baron works for him.”

“Actually, we noticed a wanted poster with Rainnewt’s face on it,” Amaryllis said. “We might want to investigate that too. We know there’s a link between the baron and Rainnewt, so if Rainnewt was doing something troublesome here, then that might give us more clues to work with.”

I nodded along.

Tharval smacked his knees, then the dwarf jumped to his feet. “Alright! I’m tired of sitting back and drinking and collecting dust. Come on, Buddy, we’re going to my shop.”

“I doubt we’ll find answers there,” Willowbud said as he stood.

“No, but we’ll find eager young fools of the best sort who’ll jump to find the answers for us,” Tharval said with a grin. “Besides, Abraham’s niece seems to have inherited all of the mechanical wit that he lacks. She’ll like the place.”

“What kind of shop is it?” Awen asked.

Tharval’s grin was almost predatory. “The best kind! Where inventions that ought never see the light of day are hammered into being from the crooked minds of... ah...” he paused, arms half raised as he searched for what to say next.

“Wide-eyed drunks?” Willowbud volunteered.

“That’s exactly it,” Tharval agreed. “Are you coming or are you going to sit here and wallow some more?”

“I do like a good wallow session,” Willowbud admitted. “It’s a good way to introspect.”

Tharval sniffed. “Only an elf would volunteer to waste time like that. I swear, if you lot had the drive of a proper dwarf the world would be a different place. Bah! Probably for the best that you’re all lazy tree-loving snobs.”

The insults came on thick, but all they did was make Willowbud grin. “And you lot hardly do anything but work. I think I could make any dwarf happy by letting them bang a hammer on a rock and giving them a barrel of beer a day.”

“Damned right!”

My friends and I followed the strange pair as they left the lounge and headed to the elevator. “Ah, will we all fit?” Caprica asked.

“Well, I’m not the one taking up too much room if we can’t,” Tharval said with a chuckle. “Come on, just squeeze in tight. Can hardly call yourselves proper adventurers if you haven’t had your friend’s knee in your nose at least once.”

I was pretty sure we were breaking some safety codes as we squeezed in. Then Tharval ripped a panel off the side of the control level and flicked a little switch. “What’s that do?” Calamity asked.

“Makes us move faster, and gets us to the floors under the guild,” Tharval said. “They’re off-limits, of course.” Then he yanked the elevator lever down, as if that wasn’t a concern, which I supposed it wasn’t for him.

The elevator lurched, then started downwards. I was expecting it to basically drop super fast, but it was... about as fast as a normal elevator, maybe? We zipped past a few floors, then past the lobby area where that nice reception-elf looked up at our passing.

I blinked as we crossed through a long, dark space, and then, finally, entered a bigger room. This must have been closer to the middle of the complex that housed the towers because the room was huge.

If it wasn’t for all the gantries and huge machines all over, it might have been able to fit the entirety of the Beaver Cleaver. As it was, there were several airships parked around... sorta. They were much smaller than any ship I’d seen, even smaller than the Redeemed. Little more than planks and metal beams with engines and props and sometimes balloons hovering above.

A constant whirring sound filled the space, sometimes accompanied by a loud clang as metal met metal.

Big fans were pumping in fresher air, which I imagine was necessary since there were a number of things on fire and the air was currently filled with the scent of oil, smoke, scorched metal, and industrial chemicals.

Heads turned toward us as the elevator slowed its descent and finally stopped. There were about half a dozen people in the workshop. Half were dwarves, but there was an elf and two... half-elves? They looked a bit tall for dwarves and too beardy to be elves.

“I’m back!” Tharval said as he opened the elevator’s door and hoped out. “How’s the work going?”

“Sir!” one of the half-elves said as he jogged over. “Pleased to see you again, mister Boltbinder. Things have been going well. Did you want a report?”

“Later,” Tharval said. “Unless there’s anything liable to explode while we’re here?”

“Ah, I don’t think so,” he said.

“We’ve got company. This here’s Awen Bristlecone, my best mate’s niece, and these are her companions. They’re explorers from here and there.”

“Hello!” I said with a friendly wave.

My friends joined in with a chorus of polite greetings that the collection of... what were they, exactly? Inventors? Workers? They seemed to be tinkering with a bunch of different things, and while I wasn’t a mechanically-inclined person like Awen, even I could tell that most of the dozens of projects sitting around were unfinished.

“These lads and lasses,” Tharval said as he gestured to the tinkerers. “Are some of the brightest minds in this world-forsaken tower. I don’t get out as much as I used to, but I have folk in all the schools that keep an eye and ear open for people with actual talent. Then I invite them over to my workshop.”

“What do they work on?” Awen asked. “It looks like there’s a lot of, um, things going on all at once.”

“Hmm? Oh, they’ll work on whatever needs improving, tinkering, or reinventing. Once in a blue moon one of ‘em will come up with an actual good idea,” Tharval said, chest puffing out in pride.

“It’s a better deal than it sounds like,” the young man who’d greeted us said. “We get room and board and can spend all day focusing on our pet projects. That’s not something that we’d get to do if we needed jobs to keep fed. We get to practice all day, level our skills, and learn from each other. Occasionally, we even get to learn something from Mister Boltbinder.”

Tharval nodded. “The kind of thing I wish I had when I was their age.”

“That’s impressive!” I said. “What kinds of things are you working on now?”

That was both the wrong and right thing to ask. Right because it started about five conversations at once, with lots of jargon and gesturing, and wrong because it started five conversations at once and I could barely follow one of them.

“Quiet down!” Tharval grumbled. “These folk are looking for someone in the tower, and I figured you lot might know where to start.”

"Uh..." the same guy started. "Sir, we uh..." he trailed off, exchanging glances with his fellows.

They gave uncomfortable shrugs.

He turned back to us. "We may not be of much help. Can't rightly say we... pay much attention to the goings-on in the tower." He gestured expansively around himself. "We, well, we don't get out much."

It seemed as if Tharval’s plan had run into something of a snag already.

***