The Way of the Blue [Lantern OC]

Basalt acquired. Elise did a little tribal whooping dance at the craters rim while I collected lava samples next to her. The only reason we could get so close was the environmental shield but she really had a blast even though all we did was kind of stand there while I used constructs. I thought it would be hard to find a volcano with an open, exposed lava lake like that but it turns out a number of the mountains along the northern ridge are volcanically active or at least sort of active. Something I'll probably have to keep an eye on the future.

A number of trees randomly taken from around the valley will be providing the wood I need for supports and finishings. I'm floating with Elise in the middle of the construction site as the rings use constructs to move materials around and do the actual work of building.

"So how are you building all of this, anyways? You got castle plans in your head or something?" She keeps doing kicks and her tail in midair to spin herself around, watching the constructs at work. Kick, tail, kick, kick, tail.

"No, just a rough idea of what I want. The ring is doing most of the work for me. I know I need supports for upper floors and stuff like that but it's the ring AI working out the best placement for them, how to fit it together, all that."

"Coooooool. Hey, you got a pool?"

"No, I don't have a filter pump designed yet. But this isn't much more than an elaborate house right now. Adding on new sections as I need them is something I figured I'd probably have to do at some point but I can fly, so building them slightly apart from each other and linking them isn't so much of a problem."

She stops, folding her arms under her breasts and frowning. "Well, not everyone can. You're gonna have people living here with you, right?"

"That's the plan."

"Who, though?" She leans in really close to me, almost face to face. "Hmmmmm?"

I don't answer right away, giving it some thought. "I guess... the people working with me, people I take in or give work. A castle needs staff but nobody in town needs jobs except for the prisoners and there's plenty of work to go around for them."

"Gonna fill your place with cute, scantily clad girls, huh?"

"If I find any who want to stick around, sure, why not." I make a flippant gesture.

"Hah. Boys." She looks kind of amused to me. "Genkits don't have a nudity taboo like humans, but even we don't tend to do that. It's a non-issue instead. You're planning to build a team of people, though?"

"Kind of. I can't do it all alone, after all. Kuri is already helping me and I strongly suspect if I asked her to run the place she'd leap at the chance. She likes doing new things and looking after people. I'll need people who know magic. People who can research technologies or reverse engineer things. All kinds of talent, really."

She's nodding along to my explanation, looking thoughtful as a room is built around us in flashes and flickers of blue light. "What would it take to convince you to train me with the ring you're going to make?"

I blink, looking at her. "You'd probably make a good fit for hope." ... "I got news that there is another like me. Someone of a different color. Yellow rings run on fear and -"

"Ren."

"-Ren would-. Yeah. Exactly. But that's only if they turn out to be somebody I can't work with. If they're brutalizing people... I have to stop them."

"Well... I'm interested. Obviously. But I got to looking around town and it's just, we come from an underground city. Living up in houses? It's kind of weird. Different."

"Really? Underground?"

"Yeah. After the Purity War, one of our stipulations was getting territory. No one wanted to give any up, so we took Antarctica. Obviously they all thought we were crazy but nope. City Zero is built under Mt. Erebus, wrapped around the magma chamber. We use geothermal power for everything and the mountain on top of us ensures that no one will ever take us out with a nuclear strike again."

...

"Again?"

"Yeah. Anyways, the point is, a lot of us aren't super comfortable living above ground. If you built barracks here... your castle would have a billet."

"Hmm. That would mean building a road to Durjak, but... yes, I could do that easily enough. It's still a six kilometer run to town, though."

"Woohoo!" She throws her arms up, rifle overhead, almost hitting the newly made ceiling above us. I've been finishing the interior of the place with classical, ornate styles, like victorian-era churches. "Maybe we can find a mage who can design a pool?"

"If you can find somebody and convince them, have at it. I'll even help you build it."

"Challenge. Accepted." She's rubbing her hands together, Mr. Burns style. "So, you'll be inviting Kuri here, then us, does that mean I get my own room?"

"Sure, if you want it."

"Ooh, good. Good. I haven't had one of those in ages. I'll have to find a double bed for it."

"Why? You like to sprawl out?"

"No, duh. I plan to share it with somebody. Does it look to you like we're going home?" She shrugs. "I'll miss Zero, don't get me wrong. Ren wants to try and find a way back some day but I'm kinda wishy-washy about it. I mean, look at this place! I hope she succeeds anyways, though."

"Why is that?"

"Zero is named that because it's our springboard, our origin point, our fortress. But ideally we want to expand. We always figured it would be offworld but, you know, above the sky offworld. Another universe is more sideways but this is a whole world we could settle. We get along with plenty of humans now but if you were in our situation..."

"Yes, I can see the appeal. But in the meantime, you plan to build a life here? You want to stay?"

She nods firmly. "Yeah. I do. This place is interesting. You're way cooler than anyone I left back home." She thumps her tail on the floor behind her. "No, I wouldn't go back."

"Good. Then you can help me pick out the furniture for this place."

She turns her head slowly to look at me, staring.

What?

"What?"

"It's really weird that the first person who gets me is a glowing blue human. Yesssssss. Lets go find some gothic furniture for your doom castle."

"For the last time, not going for the evil overlord theme here, Elise."

"Not with that attitude, you're not."

 

Hurry up and wait, that's how it usually goes.

There weren't even any chairs. The administration district was pretty in its own way, but the lack of chairs. It made her seriously question the merits of their interior designers. She couldn't blame the architects. The whole district was all large halls of black and white stone with faux-gold finishing and indirect lighting so that the acoustics would ring for days and days and you felt like you were walking in the hall of some great dwarven king, which wasn't actually too far from the truth. The whole thing was still basically a massive, ornate office space though. When you were down there on official business, it wasn't to admire the workmanship of the place.

"Lieutenant?" She turned to look at the adjutant calling her attention. Shit, he's cute. Why doesn't anyone ever warn me about the cute ones? A cloud leopard, to her the boys markings made him look exotic, different. Keeping her opinion firmly to herself, she raised her eyebrows to him a little, tilting her head slightly as she faced him. "The General is ready to receive you."

Nodding but not speaking she followed him down the hall, trying not to stare at his butt on the way. Eyes firmly ahead, that's the ticket. With mild relief he stepped into the room ahead of her and held the door open, stepping back out once she'd entered the room and leaving her with The General.

AKA Dad.

"Hiya, da'. Was this all you?"

"Yes and no. Come and sit down, I'm not grilling you. You want a drink?"

"Nah, that stuff's kinda ick." Relaxing, she dropped into one of the armchairs in front of his desk, not bothering with decorum at all and sitting sideways in it with her legs over the armrest. "Besides, you didn't call me alllll the way from New Delhi just to have a drink with you. I'd probably be a little less annoyed if you hadn't made me wait for half an hour with no chairs. Your staff are buttheads."

"It's true, they are. But they're also useful and talented so despite the fact some of them have... personality issues it's something we learn to look past to get the job done. They make the effort, we make the effort and you know how we get about working together."

"You're not answering me~" She singsonged it, tilting her head back. "Must be serious if you're trying this hard to beat around the bush."

He rumbled, pouring himself a glass of scotch. "You've been chosen for a small team being sent through an experimental gateway to explore the other side."

She sat up suddenly. "Holy shit, they actually finished that thing?"

"They did." He sips the drink, looking somber. "They're sending you for a couple reasons. For one, you're the only one Ren listens to and they're sending her. You two are kind of a package deal as far as the brass are concerned. You were there during the negotiations for the New Delhi military base, how much attention were you paying to the diplomats?"

"About as much as anything else."

"What did you take away from that whole thing?"

"Instead of negotiating like it was a business deal, the way they set it up gave them better odds. Most political negotiations happen between state heads or diplomats in closed room sessions. Taking all of them to a park and having families there playing while they talked changed the whole thing from a big serious affair to an informal meeting between equals and friends. Inviting them to bring their families and having a bunch of genkit kids there was what made it work, though. A bunch of people they didn't know and it would've just looked like we weren't taking it seriously."

"Yes. Just so. When we asked that question to the diplomatic corps they gave us a big splooge of fuck all about how our political reputation made it all possible and the good will they've built up and blah blah blah." He waved it off, sitting back down at his desk. "It's a bunch of horseshit. The trick to it was basic psychology. You have a degree in psychology and Ren's balls in your purse so you get the job."

"Kiiiind of an exaggeration, there. I mean, she listens to me, but it's only 'cuz the whole squad listens to me and she never has to yell at them. You remember Lieutenant Dingher?"

"I remember the court martial. And the cat jokes. Who the fuck is Schrödinger, anyways?"

"Exactly. She just needs the right kind of personality to maximize her usefulness and I happen to fit the bill." She shrugged. "I don't run her or anything. Oh and he's a human physicist from the 1950's."

"I don't want you to go."

She turned and sat up properly in the seat, really looking at him for the first time. The tinges of gray at his ears and nose, the way he kept staring at the desk. This was a man she'd seen actually fighting, covered in crap, shooting at assholes in underdeveloped backwaters and having the time of his life doing it. Now here he was, refusing to look her in the eye.

"What's the catch you're not telling me, here?" ... "It's one way, isn't it?"

"We don't have another gate on the other side. You're being sent to both assess the place and to try and build one. We're sending everything you'll need with you, but..."

"But you're worried something will happen and we'll get stuck there."

He nodded.

Leaning back in the chair, she oofed slightly, thinking that over. "How many are being sent?"

"Four groups. You're all being sent to the same area and you'll be in group A. The idea is for you to drop in, clear the zone and then help situate the next group that arrives. Once you've secured a perimeter, the engineers will build the new gateway and attune it to ours."

"Do you know what's over there?"

"We know it's habitable. You'll all be going in full environmental protection armor. It's not space, but fuck knows what's floating around the air there."

"Well... okay. What about the Ark Program?"

"It's still on. Colonization isn't something we can afford to just... there's more than one way to attack a problem."

"Why is Tychorus so worried about this?"

"They're worried because all our eggs are in one basket, here."

"That's not true? There's genkits living in 23 different countries around the world, now. A single massive strike doesn't risk taking us all out anymore. They had one chance at the bio-domes and they failed, now we're entrenched and they'll never be rid of us."

"That's not what I mean, Elise. We're all on one planet. A massive asteroid strike, a large enough volcanic event... if we ever have something like the Siberian Traps again, that's it for us as a species. We need to get off this fucking rock. That's something the humans don't seem too worried about, but nobody made them stare down the Darwinian fucking barrel, did they?"

"No, I guess not. This is really important to you, isn't it?"

"Important enough to send my daughter and not pull rank to get her reassigned, yes."

"Then I won't disappoint you, dad."

"You never have, Elise. You never have."

 

It was the wildest ride she'd ever been on. The moment they stepped through the gate the phase shields protecting their carrier were nearly overloaded, the power systems going into critical as they struggled with herculean effort to try and compensate for the sudden drain on the shields as whatever existed between worlds ate and chewed and tore at them. When they got through to the other side the vehicle just quit, rolling three feet before stopping.

Then the combat began.

An explosion rocked the carrier and Ren hit the manual release, all of them filing out of it doubletime as more explosions went off around them, like somebody unloading mortar rounds at them. Something their combat doctrine could deal with. The first out of the carrier activated their skids and began sliding out, fanning around the apparent source of the artillery as fighters came screaming out of the treeline around them. The first to meet their fighters fell pretty quickly, the others drawing back as people hurling fireballs and some kind of cold beam advanced on the genkits forming a defensive line around the carriers.

Elise was one of the ones moving to the left, hitting the trees and getting into them. Dense clusters of objects made it impossible to use the skids to full effectiveness but that just meant that going up gave her an advantage. She could climb easily due to the gloves and boots where their enemies seemed to be ground based fighters. Since ground based fighters rarely look up, she got herself up high in a tree and started to take aim.

On her side of the battle, things were going well. The advantage of using the higher ground provided by the trees was helping the genkits tear them up but on the other side they were losing ground due to open spaces dependent on formed firing ranks. They were cutting their enemies down something fierce until a cluster of explosions tore into the genkits line.

No. This is all wrong.

Jumping out of the trees she dropped, activating the skids and hitting another tree, then sliding down it. Kicking off that she hit the ground running, sprinting back to their line as fast as she could. Enemy fighters were grabbing things and running off with them, clearly intending a shock-and-awe ambush to somebody just arriving. She had no idea how they knew the genkits would arrive here exactly, but it was something to worry on later.

"Keep pushing! Send them running home to momma!" She could hear Ren screaming from across the battlefield but she seemed to have things in hand so she didn't pay her Colonel any mind for now. Instead she pulled out her hand scanner, pointing it at a wounded genkit. Safe to move? Good show. Picking them up as best she could she started rolling towards the medical carrier as fast as she could.

It had avoided getting hit, unlike the other carriers. One of them was flipped over on its roof. As soon as she dropped off her casualty she was back out to find another person. The genkits too injured to move, she tagged instead so the medical teams could come to them. Where she found dead raiders she took pictures with her helmet to study later.

It wasn't until nearly an hour later that they realized the carrier with the parts for the gate had been destroyed.

They were stranded.

---

"You think they'll send the other groups?"

She was sitting with Ren, eating an MRE with her. Ren was having two but bears tended to be much larger than other genkits, so it wasn't that odd for her. Elise was sitting with her legs against her chest, picking at a salad when she asked the question.

"Without an all-clear signal from us? No. Getting here is one thing. They'll want to know what happened to us and might send something but the whole reason we went in blind was that they couldn't get any telemetry back. Tychorus will be reluctant to continue spending assets and lives on something without knowing whether or not they were getting returns. And then there's the other problem."

"Ma'am?"

"They didn't have a lot of the exotic matter needed to make the connection. If they try to send the parts for another gate, we get one more try, tops. They were really clear about that. If those fuckers had taken out any other carrier it'd be fine but they hit our one soft target."

"We're not getting backup?"

"Maybe." She says it quietly, glancing around. "There's nothing stopping Zero from sending more aside from the fact that from their end, it probably looks like we all died."

She took that in, suddenly finding the salad not so appetizing anymore. "What's our next move, ma'am?"

"We set up a base camp here. If they decide to say screw it and send the other groups anyways, it'll probably show up here. Same with any supplies or anything else. The gate wasn't big enough to send a mech through but maybe somebody in Liara will feel spicy enough to give it a shot anyways. It's all maybes so we gotta monitor this area."

"Well, most of our MRE's are gone. They got the water purifier too, so we're down to bottle filters now. They somehow got one of the plasma cannons off a carrier and took off with it."

"You fucking kidding me? What'd we get hit by?"

"Well, you saw the pictures as much as I did. We're not dead either, everyone whose suit breached is still just fine. Half our analytics are fucked but the engineers are confident they can get at least two of the five carriers working if we gut the other three for parts."

"Fuck. Alright. People means civilization, so I want scouts getting out there and finding it for us. In the meantime I want you to do an inventory of everything we have and get a couple people to shoot something local that looks like it might be edible if we stick it into a fire long enough. We'll have the testers check it out and see if we can eat it safely."

"Yes, ma'am." She got up, taking her salad with her. She couldn't conscience wasting food right now, no matter how she felt about the situation.

Dad's going to flip his shit when he finds out.

One problem at a time.

 

One Week Later


If every day is like this, I could live like this forever.

I'm standing on what has become the garden veranda of the residential part of my stronghold, reflecting on how besotted I am with it. The residential wing itself has quarters for everyone who could possibly want to live here but I dedicated an entire tower to myself and extended this veranda out from the side of it into the cliff face above the rest of the castle so that when I look down, the whole stronghold is spread out before me looking out into the valley below, the castle framing the old growth forest surrounding Durjak. The whole view faces south with the trees stretching out east to west like a sheet of green, violets, blues, purple and gold as the various trees compete with each other for their place in the sun. Right now that sun is sitting firmly on my left, morning light spilling out across the valley and giving everything that early glow that morning light seems to have but sunset somehow lacks. I have the environmental shield allowing scents so I take a deep breath and revel in how fresh the air smells, the green tinge to it.

The veranda itself is a work of art as well, though everything growing in it is still new enough that it doesn't look very green yet. A pair of crescent shapes with the outer edges sloping up to a small terrace leading into the tower, it has garden beds lining the outer edges all the way to the bottom. That was Kuri's suggestion, almost an insistence that I have as many houseplants in the tower as possible. I'm not really clear why, but she was vehement enough about it she actually offered to bring her brother here to help tend to all of it because he's supposedly her assistant for herb gathering. Since she isn't planning to return to Skal she mostly just wanted an excuse to have him here, I think. He seems like a nice kid at least.

Rising up I float my way to the terrace and walk in through the open balcony doors. I didn't bother dressing when I got up but apparently nudity bothers neither the Skal nor Genkits and after the third or fourth time I passed somebody naked in a hallway I shrugged to myself and decided I didn't care either. But I'm still human and clothes are something ingrained into us from the literal moment we're born. I won't be traveling around the world nude, but in my own place - my own castle - I can be comfortably casual about it. It also seems to put the others at ease but I won't be taking walks around Durjak without pants any time soon.

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.

Walking out through the living space the balcony connects to, I wave to Samazurasha, who's currently hanging plant pots on the balcony of the loft above my living room. It's a large, open air design without internal walls, the whole thing about the size of a large cabin. Everything I'd want for myself, really. Kitchen, washroom, bedroom, living room, veranda and den. The rest of the tower is just empty right now but I'm sure I'll find uses for it eventually.

"Hi Ainsley!" He waves with one hand, almost dropping the pot. "Oh sh-! Sorry. Sorry. Kuri said you'd woken up so I thought I'd start early."

"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."

"It sounds good. I'm guessing you have plans to put a lot of these in here?"

"Yeah! It'll be nice and green in here. It'll smell right too, right now it just smells like woody death and sap."

I frown a little. "What do you mean?"

"You can't smell that?" He looks puzzled, tail twitching behind him. "Like this really sweet smell overlaid on the smell of cut wood." I shake my head at him. "Huh. Is something wrong with your nose?"

I smile and shake my head at him. "No, something is right with yours. You see how your face is shaped differently from mine?"

"...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."

"Ooh. That's neat." He gives a big wide grin. "You must miss a lot like that. I feel kind of bad for you. Maybe you should try being a genkit one day? Elise said you just reshape yourself when I asked about you."

"Oh she did, did she?" I chuckle. "Maybe. Probably not though, I'm still on the fence just trying a different body as a human, never mind somebody with acute senses and a completely different body shape. Maybe one day but I got a lot on my plate as it is."

"What's a plate?"

I pat Sammy on the shoulder. "The little disks that we've been eating off of."

"Oooooh. I'm still trying to learn their languages, you're pretty much the only person I understand, here."

"You're doing pretty well, so don't sweat it." And he is, actually. Both him and Kuri are picking up the language at a frankly astonishing pace. Ren assigned a couple of grunts to give them the basics and according to those two, him and Kuri rarely need to be told twice about anything. I strongly suspect their memory is eidetic but I've just had too many interesting things to do and see to really spend time focusing on it right now. Soon, though. I want to know as much as I can about them and the Skal. Tovalon as well and... whatever this region is.

"Oh don't worry, Skal don't really sweat. That's why we're next to the ocean, it's nice to go swimming and fish don't usually try to eat you back when you stick to the shore."

I shake my head a little and leave him to it, heading down the tower steps and smiling to myself.

This is the life.

 

Although Durjak has plenty of metals to work with now, including a few they'd never had access to before, I've been thinking about long term solutions. The town doesn't have a mine but we do have a surplus of population at the moment and founding one is a little difficult when nobody here except me knows how to find veins of ore. More to the point, the area is kind of poor for that. There's plenty of iron and copper to be found if you know where to look but most of the value in this particular region where the town is lies in the rich soil, easy water access and the loose stone all over the foot of the cliffs leading up to the ridge where my stronghold is. It's great for cobblestones.

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.

The result is that as I walk through town with my arms folded behind my back, the whole impression I'm getting of the place is vigorous, prosperous life. The genkits and whatever Skal pass through town have been wild for setting up greenery anywhere they can, proplifting plant cuttings and using clones to create flowerbeds. I think the tree-person might have helped too but I never got the chance to talk to her.

When I step into the inn I'm hit with a wall of noise. There's a group in the corner singing loudly and drinking beer - the ones I'm here to see, I suspect - and a few folks eating or drinking. The innkeeper, Bradley, sits up a bit when he sees me and waves. "Ho there, Lord Ainsley. What can I do for you today?"

"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.

"Lad, folks need someone to look up to. Every community has a leader. Now, before you got here, that was Mason and Mason's a good man. Competent man. I've not a word to say against him. But he never wanted the job and was pretty relieved to offload some of it onto Ren, who loves leading people. You know -" He gestures between the two of us. "- And I know that she's a blunt force instrument, so you should probably get used to people around here calling you Lord because you have far more sway in town than Ren does. Folk do what Ren says because she knows what she's about, can make a fast decision and gives a shit about people. She's also a fighter and loves to throw down. Let people treat you like you're her counterbalance and folk will be much reassured that she can't do something assinine like pick a fight with another community."

"Hmm." Something to that, I think. "I suppose I'm just not particularly comfortable being thought of in that way. It's not something I was aiming for or particularly wanted."

"The best leader a people can have is somebody who isn't ambitious for the position, but will take the mantle and do the best that they can when it's thrust on them. I know you can be that person." He nods at me. "So, what brings you to my bar today, anyways? Besides putting up with my bullshit philosophical moments, I mean."

"Taking a look about town. And them." I point to my right at the drinking group and Bradley nods, turning around to grab a pint and filling it for me. "They're a rowdy lot but they've been treating folk here well."

"Thanks, Bradley. Cheers." I raise the mug to him a little when he hands it over and get back up, wandering over to the group in the corner. "Hey there, lads. Mind if I grab a seat?"

"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.

"I did. The artifact which makes me glow can do all sorts of things." I take a sip and have the ring nullify the taste for me. Ethanol isn't very good. "Like mine, for example. But that's sort of the problem. See, I'm trying to set this town up for the long term and these folks need ore of their own, they can't go relying on me forever. Nobody here knows fuck all about mining, but..."

"But we're dwarves so you figured we'd know, eh?"

"Those platinum rings in your beard suggests you got them somewhere."

"Hmm." My questioner leans back in his chair, looking thoughtful. "You've a good eye there, son. Aye, dwarves mine, but none of us are miners. We're merchants, lad! Now, that doesn't mean we can't help you." He grins a little, revealing a gold tooth. "It just means we'll be happy to take a finders fee for setting you up with our contacts."

"I can live with that. Gold or platinum?"

"Oh, either one is fine, lad... depending on the purity. How pure?"

"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."

The one who greeted me picks it up and also bites it, then throws it on the table and slaps it down flat with his hand.

"Miners? Aye, we'll get you miners. A fair sight else as well if you can get more this pure."

"Oh, I think I can arrange that." I can't help but smile.

 

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.

Unfortunately getting around on the ground is just too slow and not very practical since, being dwarves, their city is in a damned mountain. I mean, of course it is. But they ended up being on the western side of the same ridge as a city of Skal underground builders and apparently since the two cities have merged its now a way into Skal from the other side of the mountains, which is great since the Skal side is basically just old growth forest outside the gate and all of it really, really doesn't like you.

No, it doesn't know anything about you. But it doesn't like you anyways.

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.

The front gate of their city was clearly a recent effort, probably done in the time that they've been here. They've carved a space about eight stories tall into a giant bearded face and then tore out a massive trench in front of it so that they could hang a drawbridge. It would seem that they're of a mind that if they decide you're not coming in, you're not coming in.

Given the way the rule of law seems to end at the settlements walls in this world, I can't say I really blame them for the sentiment.

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.

The inside of the city was a thing to behold. Looking out the inns doors I can see the massive hall behind the face. They divided each level to a function and just spread out their digging up or down. Most of the merchants and traders are on the bottom level since that's the first part of the city most people can access and the inn is no exception. Most of the Skal here are actually meerkats, since its their town on the other side of the mountain but there's a small mix of them here.

A burly dwarf almost as tall as I am is making his way in and steering towards me. When he sits down he snaps his fingers in the air at the nearest barmaid, then turns sideways and puts his legs up on the chair next to him, leaning back against the beam next to the table I'm sitting at across from me. When I open my mouth he holds up a hand and ah's at me, then holds up his finger. Well, okay. I can wait a moment.

When the barmaid brings him a tankard he knocks it back, chugging the entire thing down with an impressive amount of enthusiasm, then slamming the tankard on the table and growling his appreciation. "Aye, first beer after the days done is the best. Sorry lad, needed to wet me throat a bit before we begin." The barmaid is already bringing him another. "Names Helgar. Insvald says you're lookin' for someone to teach your folk how to tell their arse from a hole in the ground behind 'em. You their mayor or somethin'?"

"Something. I don't have an official position and I live just outside of town but I've sort of adopted the place and I'm seeing to it that they prosper since I've decided to make my home there."

"Hm. Bit more like a merchant prince or summat, then?"

"No. I'm a lightsmith." I generate a construct of a hammer, hefting it. "I'm perfectly capable of finding ore and bringing them whatever they need. That's the problem. I don't want them to depend on me because if I go missing or something happens to me, I want them to be able to continue on without me."

"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."

"How the feck did you get so much?"

"Trade secrets." He nods to that easily enough. "I can pay, is the point. We just need to work out the price."

"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?"

"Your people come out to the city. I'd offer to build houses but you don't seem the houses sort."

"Nah, can't defend a house worth a tin shit, really. Longhouses are better but underground is best."

"Good news for you then, I have a castle." He gives me a you fucking what kind of look but I continue on. "Your folks can live underground, you'll get along with the genkits on that score." More what from him. "You get paid in cash, teach the townspeople how to prospect and mine safely. Maybe get some trades people in to help them with their forging and stuff. It can be an ongoing thing."

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?"

"No, just whatever's out in the asteroids I've been mining."

"What the flyin' blue feck is an asteroid?" ... "No, y'know what, I won't ask. Okay. If yeh've never even heard of these, then plainly we folk o' the underground have a thing or two to teach yeh. You say you can mine yourself?"

"Yes. Getting ore out of rock at complete purity is barely even difficult. I've been daydreaming while I do it, I just have to hope hard enough."

"Getting arcane metals is part of why we mine so hard. Gold, platinum? It's rare and good, useful, but ultimately it takes enchantments like shite and there's nothing we can do to change that. Arcane metals, that's the ticket. Now, we've got a nice, fat vein of mithril pretty far down we've been trying to get to but there's certain... mmm, problems in working it."

"What problems would those be?"

"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.