Either way I should probably costume myself for the day. Fabricating a blue
armless tunic with an accentuated hanging front over baggy pants and a sash. Black, blue, white and silver are my chosen colors so the whole ensemble fits that theme. No hat now, or any time soon, probably. Elise keeps making jokes about needing a
crown and I don't want to put that image in anybodies head.
I'm a guardian, not a king.
That's Noah's thing, not mine.
Still, you know people are going to be thinking about it. These are people from eras when the strong ruled, where a man could become a king by the strength of his sword arm... And dammit, now I'm humming the Conan theme.
"It's fine, Sam. What're you planning to grow in those?"
"It's a vine! A really pretty one. We use it for food when the leaves are dried out so it'll make the room smell nice and you can pick off it for cooking, too. It even has little flowers, but they're just white, not anything colorful."
Given the amount of
Hope lingering about this place. how long before they start growing in blue...
"...No? I know what you mean but I can't ever see my own face. I'd have to pull my eyes -"
"Remind me to introduce you to a mirror someday when I find one. Anyways, the length of your nose gives more room for your ability to smell. I never really thought of that until now. No wonder the genkits are so enthusiastic about personal grooming."
Especially the canid-based ones? Damn, imagine how those descended from bloodhounds or Wolves might feel...
I shake my head a little and leave him to it, heading down the tower steps and smiling to myself.
This is the life.
And thus, following the laws of Narrative Causality,
something is going to come along and mess it up.

Because protagonists can
never have nice things last...
So, we've got to outsourcing. Scouts for the town have been spreading word of our existence here and traders have begun to trickle in. It's fascinating seeing the different kinds of people who show up. I've seen at least one orc, a couple elves, something that looks like a tree person which I'm tentatively calling a dryad, pink girls with curved horns and black scelera and notably, tovari with elementals. Their particular brand of magic is fascinatingly relevant to me because it relies less on precise knowledge of magic and more on building a partnership and bond with your elemental, which grants you abilities while the elemental in turn gets perspective on what mortal life is like for a time. Tactile sensations are a big thing for them, apparently.
Interesting to see some other races about. Looking like the usual Fantasy Kitchen Sink so far, but who knows what inventive races might show up in future?
"I'm no lord, Bradley. You know that. It's only been a week and a half since you first met me."
He gets a somber look on his face. "Ainsley, my dear boy, you live in a castle overlooking the town and are singlehandedly responsible for our current state of prosperity. If you don't think of yourself as a lord, that's fine, but word of advice from a friend." He gestures at me to come close so I move to sit down at the bar, tilting my head at him.
To badly misquote the common wisdom: If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and swims like a duck, then people will call it a duck. And no matter how he protests, people will call him a Lord. Even if it's out of genuine
respect.
"Haha! Hullo, blue man! Heard about you, we surely did. Come and drink with us, then!" I've never met dwarves before. This lot look to average around five feet tall and are built like gorillas. If they told me they could bend steel barehanded I would still ask them to test it, but if I didn't have any steel on hand, I'd be willing to take their word for it too. "How's life up in the fancy sapphire castle of yours, eh?"
"Did you really build it in a single day?" The one speaking to me has a black beard with bits of dull gray metal -
Substance is platinum.
-in his beard. Oh, interesting. A bit more opulent than gold but nobody would know the difference unless they knew their metals.
Ah, an interesting spin on the Dwarven folk. Hope they don't do the
usual Scottish accent rubbish.
"One hundred percent." I take a gold coin with the blue sigil out of subspace and deposit it on the table.
"Fuck off." He picks it up and bites it, then stops and looks at it in wonder. "It's pure. Completely pure. Insvald, check it too."
Given how
difficult it would be to get any decent purity with typical medieval mining techniques, I'm not surprised he's having what sounds like a near-religous experience...
Turns out dwarves really, really don't like flying. When we worked out on the maps where their main city was I offered to fly us there and they all thought it was a great idea right up until we actually got up into the air. Flying on construct wyverns didn't agree with them at all and we were in the air for all of five minutes before Valsrad threw up and the others tapped out. Poor guy felt right as rain as soon as we were on the ground and I'd given him a bit of water.
So, what's the bet they have some kind of mystical bond to the earth?
When I created a
construct ship I came up with from somewhere they handled it much better. Credit to them, they were willing to give it a try after Insvald said he was fair game and they collectively decided they weren't going to be outshone by him. Or wanted to walk back, for that matter. But it turns out that being in an enclosed space just makes it into a room with magic windows to them so the rest of the trip was happily vomit-free.
Better than the typical kind of flying ship. You know, the sailing ship suspended from lift balloons. Or in the case of the Kharadron Overlords of Warhammer: Age of Sigmar, magitech orbs powered by enchanted gold...
Landing in front of the bridge wasn't an issue, since they made a large terrace on the other side of their large face because they just really dig stonework, I guess. Aaah, alas for Saan not being here. She'd have liked that one. Getting into the city wasn't either with the lads talking me up. Like true capitalists money is the boss in this town and since I have plenty of that I'm currently sitting in an inn waiting for the local miners guild representative.
As long as you don't crash the local economy when you start spending...
"Hmmmm. Well, don' see that everyday." He's taking his time with tankard number two, sipping at it while he thinks. "Awright. Yer golds apparently good and Insvald says yeh got platinum, so let's see then."
I subspace an ingot of platinum onto the table, making him sit up a little and shuffle in surprise as he takes that in. "I can break it up into smaller denominations if you need me to."
Probably more platinum than the average Dwarf would see in ten
years?
"Lad, for an ingot like that, yeh could buy half the fucking city. Put that away before someone notices it." I put it away before somebody notices it. "Terms?"
Yeah, evidently the regular folks
don't see much of the stuff they're mining, then. I'm guessing an ingot bigger than your fist would raise some larcenous thoughts...
I think I'm blowing his mind a little. He's not answering right away, sipping his drink and not saying anything. It takes almost a full minute before he speaks. "If yeh pay that much in pure platinum yeh'll fuck up our economy. Can yeh do a spread?"
"Yes. Gold, platinum, silver, whatever."
"Whatever? What about mithril? Orichalcum? Jovium? Adamantite?"
Good to see he's sensible enough to realise the economic effects. And I see some
classic fantasy metals...
"Let's just say that when yeh get down deep enough, yeh run into all manner of critters and not all of 'em are inclined to go running off when they see you."
Oh boy, here we go.
Well, if you're going to play the hero, you've got to expect people giving you quests.

Now, to see whether it's Kobolds or Goblins... Or maybe Dark Elves...
Elise's favorite spot was the large hall of the castle. Essentially a huge library space, without the books to line the shelves yet the acoustics in that room made sound ring and echo in a wonderful way and she liked to listen to music while working so it ended up being her new favorite spot to hang out any time she had forms to fill or time to kill in general.
Which is how she found herself there when the yellow man showed up.
Oh, hell, here comes that 'something to mess it up' that I mentioned earlier...
"Wouldn't you like to know?" He almost purred it at her, looking at Elise with eyes half closed, the picture of relaxation. "Oh, don't you fret your little ears. He's not dead. Yet. Probably. Give him..." He looked thoughtful. "An hour? Maybe two? Before the internal bleeding gets him. But enough about him! Let's talk about you."
And he sounds a right git. Still, I have to wonder how much of that is playing up to create the
fear to strengthen his constructs.
"Oh, is that what he's been doing?" He took a moment to look her over, then stole her clothes. That storage thing Ainsley does. He shrugged a little. "Not bad looking I suppose, if you can get past the fur. Bit of an oddity, but who am I to judge, really? Being here at all rather changes our perspective on things, I find."
"You fucking asshole, give me my clothes back! I'm not a fucking display object!"
"Fascinating, a human would be nervous or feeling vulnerable but you're just angry about it." A wave of his hand and she was dressed again, glaring at him. "Answer the fucking question Elise, or I'm going to stop fucking with you and start hurting you. I assure you I can do that for quite awhile before I begin actually damaging you."
And I like that that lack of nudity taboo was established earlier. Bet there were a few instances of
full-frontal assaults back in the day...
"I'm Nemesis. I have a name, but I don't really tell it to people I expect to actually live. Or don't trust to keep it to themselves. Since you'll be surviving this encounter and you're not fucking me I think I'll refrain from letting you know."
"Attacking us was stupid. If he dies or I die then nothing is going to stop us from hunting you, goldilocks. Genkits fight to the last man, woman and child. You ever seen a kid pick up a rifle and shoot somebody? I fucking have. That's the people you're fucking with here, so consider yourself very carefully."
Yeah, I really get the feeling he's trying to play the villain as part of his combat strategy... Either that or he's just an
edgy git.
He said more, but she was having trouble focusing by then and the screaming drowned it out anyways.
Ouch. That's going to have
consequences... For
everyone. I really hope she's not going to get
fridged.
"Fascinatin'. I ne'er thought I'd see the mine this way. Sure is a step faster'n going down the scenic route, eh?"
Helgar is standing on a construct platform next to me as we lower down the primary mining shaft about a mile south of the city under the mountain. The route down here was easy enough, nice wide stairs with an easy slope that just sort of seemed to go on forever with a rail going up one side. A construct cart brought us down to the bottom where the actual mineshaft begins.
Fascinating. Boring a main shaft, then extending galleries out to veins of useful ores and gems? I'm betting there's some earth-based magic involved in searching, then.
I frown a little. "When I visited the Tovalon region, I was told that they appeared there only two winters ago. A couple years."
"Oh sure, whoever yeh asked probably did. But three years ago that land was nice 'n empty and we've been gettin' random Tovari popping up out there for decades. Sometimes a whole place pops in the way people do but it comes slow-like, there's signs of somethin' about t'pass through the veil if yeh know what t'look for, to scry for. And scryin's a real big problem."
Ah, so not
every race is non-local, eh? This world gets curiouser and curiouser (and he's even going down the
rabbit Dwarven hole!)
"Heh, bit fresh aren't yeh? Aye, scryin', detection spells. Findin' things or people. Get good enough with 'em and yeh can do all kinds o' stuff. Aimed curses and the like. And that's why mithral and orichalcum are so feckin' important. Yeh can't scry through it. It's why we're here, here specifically instead of some other part o' the range. All the ore in the rock around us makes it bloody impossible to scry in here. No teleportin' into our city, thank yeh very much."
Ring, scan the city.
Unable to scan past the top of the mineshaft. Something is jamming the scan.
Better he learn this in a friendly place, than in the middle of nowhere. Or worse, in a fight.
"Probably a lot. Shit's all over the place in this region, we just liked the concentrations here. An' a couple leylines intersect here, it's a free power point if yeh wanna do a lot of arcane metalsmithing. No need t'use yerself up if you can just shape the magic flowing around yeh instead." He hops off the platform as we reach the bottom. There's a work team going up and down one of three shafts spreading out from here but it's not the one Helgar is pointing to. "Down there."
That's a useful bit of info on their magical system, or at least the crafting side of things. Making the more exotic materials uses the smith's own life-force as fuel for the magic used, huh?
Rising off the ground I hover and glide down, letting the ring navigate for me. This far down it's actually pretty warm and the environmental shield is about the only thing keeping me from sweating. Ring, how fresh is the air here?
Which is something most people would
not expect. The whole 'the earth is cold and dark' thing is actually
wrong. Places like Moria would honestly be kind of pleasantly warm, if not
balmy.
You're a lousy conversation partner, ring.
This is likely due to the fact I am a ring, not a person.
TTS Rogal Dorn: "This is a thing that is true, yes." Okay, your ring now sounds like Him, and no-one's going to convince me otherwise.
This is sort of a tunnel too, but I can't see the end of it. There's light but it's coming from bioluminescent moss or lichen -
Plant matter is a form of fungus.
- or fungus, apparently, which glows a pale red. The dim light is just enough to trace out parts of the cave and what's on the other side of it from the space I'm standing. Which appears to be a large building, shaped out of the rock around it but this architectural style is far different to the dwarves. It's almost bony, the corners sharpened.
Maybe they'll be nice?
Well, time to see
what the neighbours are. Evidently somethign with very good low-light vision...