The Quantum Wanderer

“Good afternoon, dear guest.  I am to be your guide.  Please follow me.”

We follow the dwarf, and we go around several different corridors, until we are outside the palace, in the street that we used to come.

“Sir guest, how should I address you?”

“Marcelo is fine.”

“Considering you are an adventurer, I was intending on showing you the guild, but what do you want to see?  His majesty told me to take you where ever you want.”

“Oh. That’s nice.  Can we go see a good metal worker?  I want to buy a set of swords.  One for each of us.”  I giggle a little.  “My old one just broke…”

“During the trial?  Do you have it’s parts?”

“They were left in the trash, in the room we were in.”

“Just a minute, please.  I will be right back.”

The guide turns back, and goes to a guard, that salutes him.  He talks something to the guard, that just goes running into the palace. 

The guide then comes back to us.  “Sorry for this.  I am going to take you our best metal worker. Just please understand that he is…  odd.”

We walk through several streets, in a sector that has a lot of shops with weapons and armors.  At one edge of the sector, quite close to the cave wall, there is this two floor house.  The lower floor is apparently a shop.

Outside the shop, on a rocking chair, is a dwarf.  He is smoking a long thin pipe.

“Ho ho ho…  The outsiders…  Congrats on passing the trial…”

“Thank you, mister…?”

“You can call me master Brokkr.  What can I do for you?”

“My girls and I are looking for arms and armor.”

“Ok.  Take a look inside, the prices are on display.”

I enter the shop with the girls.  When our guide is about to enter, the old dwarf hold his arm, and he stays outside.

The shop is a lot bigger than I thought.  I see a lot of sections, with a lot of weapons.  Their design is actually beautiful.  There are a lot of axes, but there are some sections for other kinds as well, like maces, crossbows and others.  There are some sections for swords as well, separated by the kind of sword.  There are some in a katana format, short swords, long swords, claymores, even some weird formats. 

I start looking for a katana sword for myself.  The most expensive ones have beautiful handles and a sheaths, with intricate designs made with silver and gold metals.  According to a plaque, they are selling for two platinum each.  I take a look at the blades, and I get very disappointed…  Although it is using adamantite, it has a lot of microscopical cracks, and the metal is in a very brittle state.

Some of the expensive swords are emanating mana, and I take a look.  There is mana stored in the blade, but the blade has the same issues.  And I don’t know how to refill the mana in the blade.  And the connection of this magic sword with the handle is very fragile.  The first time one uses this, it is going to be the last.

Just out of curiosity, I go to his clearance section.  The leather sheaths are crude, and the sword handles are made a plain wood.  These are going for a gold coin each.  I pick one to examine, and now I am surprised.  The blade, it is beautiful.  It is almost a reflexive as I got my iron sword. 

When I enhance my eyes to take a look, I get even more amazed.  It has the smallest mana channels, that would theory allow me to insert mana in the handle, and have the mana propagate to the blade.  In spite of being made of adamantite, I can see that the edge is harder than the main body of the blade.  It means that it won’t break, and the edge is designed to retain sharpness longer.  I enhance my vision, and see that it is very sharp.  Almost mono-molecular sharp.  I have my pick.

I help my girls, and each of us pick a different style.  Funnily enough, all the best swords are in the clearance section.  I am going to spend 5 gold coins on the best blades imaginable.  The consistency of the blades are remarkable.

I step outside, and the two dwarves are chatting.  They apparently know each other.

“I have made my choices.”

Master Brokkr enters first, and our guide enters shortly after.  He looks at the swords I placed on the center table.

“I will be taking these.”

“I thought that Mithril adventurers would have more coin on them.  Why are you being cheap?”

“Cheap?  Do you want me to pay for handles and sheaths?  I am really disappointed with those.”

 The shopper turns around and looks seriously at the guide.

“You told them.”

“No, I just told them that you are excentric, old man.”

He looked at the guide’s face very closely, for a long moment.  He turned to us.

“Fine.  Where is the coin?”

I reach for my bag to get the coin, but the guide interrupts abruptly.

“Hold!  His majesty instructed me that your money is not good within our city.”

“Humpf!” The metal work made a face.  He turned to me and the girls.

“You can pick your swords tomorrow.”

“Why?”

“Do you really think I am going to deliver *these* blades in these handles and sheaths?  They deserve better.”

“Ok.  Can I ask you to remove the handle from the swords?  I want to do a kind of… treatment to the blade.”

“TREATMENT TO MY BLADE?!? ARE YOU INSANE?  ALL OF YOU, OUT!!!”

I lift my hands, the old dwarf is red with anger, but our guide holds his shoulder.

“Remember the bells.”

The old dwarf inclines his head, and looks up to the guide, then at me.

“What did you use in the trial, human?”

“I used a regular iron sword, but I kind of forged around it with magic.”

The old dwarf was now passing his fingers around his beard, from this chin all the way to his belly. 

“An iron sword?  HA.  That I have to see.  You got my attention, boya.”

Brokkr picked up the katana, and a pin out of his pocket.  With it, he pushed a pin that was in the top of the handle.  He then tapped the blade twice, and the handle came off, with the hand protection.  He placed the blade on top of the table.

I have done this some times already, and I started creating the neutron crystal around the blade.  I noticed that there were some molecular level imperfections, way less than the iron or leather that I had worked on in the past, but the amount of mana to correct this was way higher.  If the amount of mistakes were the same, I don’t think I would have mana to do that.  After that, I created the the neutron crystal, paying attention to go around the mana channels, making the grooves into tiny tubes.  Although this was a lot of work, it was very interesting.

When I was finally done, I look up.  The old dwarf is looking at the process.  Each girl is looking around the shop, while our guide is having some tea in a couch in the corner.

I put the blade on the table, and the smith picks it up by the part that is going to be under the handle, but it slips, and it falls on the floor.  I push it so that it doesn’t hit the dwarf, and it falls tip down.  It hits the floor, then falls to the side.

The dwarf goes on all fours, examining the floor.  There is a cut on it where the blade fell.

“HO HO HO! You got me interested, boya.  I will prepare a handle that is deserved by this blade.  Is there any motif you have in mind?  Wolf, tiger, dragon?”

“DRAGON!” The dragonesses answer at once.

The dwarf laughed.

“You are the first I enjoy in a very long time, boya!  Dragon it is!  The other swords as well?”

“Yes, please.”

The guide gets up, and tries to say goodbye to Brokkr, that is trying to pick up the sword blade from the ground.  The guide became invisible to Brokkr, and ended up giving up on trying to talk to the old smith.  We just leave the shop.

“Well, what else do you want to see or visit?  This city is not really tourism oriented…”

“Do you have a guild?”

“Sure.  Follow me.”

We get back to walking through the streets.  There are a lot of dwarves around, all of them with beards, whispering to each other as we pass by.  A lot of hidden staring, but that’s something to be expected.  While we walk, our guide start talking a little with us.

“I am really amazed…  I don’t think I was born the last time old Brokkr said something good about a customer.  That is almost a miracle.  But then again, being the ones that won the trial…”

“Why does he try to deceive the customers?  He might even bump into a poor adventurer that would just get the cheap stuff because it is cheap.”

“I asked him that a long time ago.  He said that is actually retired, that his metal smithing is now a hobby for an old bastard.  And he said that that was the way he found to get his swords to a deserving person.”

“That…  actually makes some sense.  But won’t he be taking a loss?”

“Only in time.  Those morons sell us the ores for coppers…  Oh, no offense intended, sir Marcelo.”

I laughed.

“None taken.  I think the same thing, actually.  I have another curiosity…”

“Sure, ask away.”

“Where are the women?”

The guide stops suddenly. 

“WHAT ARE YOU INSINUATING???”

“Huh?”

“ARE YOU FUCKING BLIND?”

“Huh…  No?”

Our guide was gesturing towards the straight beard.

“Didn’t you notice beard?”

“Yes… What am I missing?”

She walks over to me, and grabs me by the wrist, and brings me close to a couple of dwarves.  One has a curly beard, the other has a straight, flowing one, like our guide’s.  She points at the one with the curly one.

“Male.”  She points at the other one.  “Female.”

I look back at the girls.  Cecilia is laughing her butt off, while Opal is shaking her head.  The other girls were looking at odd places, to avoid making eye contact.  Apparently the blunder was bigger than I thought.

“Oh!  I apologize deeply.”

Our guide sighs.  “Sure, no problem.  It’s a good thing that you’re so skinny, if you had a little more meat on the arms I would be a lot sadder.  Let’s just go to the guild.”

We get close to the guild, the noise coming from the inside is way louder than average.  As we enter, the silence sets up.  After some time of silence, the dwarf that I assume would be the guild master appear on the top of the stairs.  She comes down until midway in the stairs.

“Oh!  Sir Marcelo and ladies!  Welcome.  Come up to my office.”

She turns around and start climbing up the stairs again, and the noise around the room starts again.  Out of the blue, one dwarf stands up, makes a motion with a large cup, and shouts out.

“Hey Paola, another sex party in the office?”

She stops, and I can see that she is pissed.  She breaths once, and then turns around.

“You know what Wrinkly?  I will fuck anyone, I just won’t fuck YOU!  Can you even grasp how smelly you piece of shit are, for that to happen?!?”

She looks at us, and gestures with the head to follow her.  The rest of the room start laughing a lot.  The dwarf puts some coins on the table and leaves.  I can hear Paola muttering something.  She opens the door to her office, and we enter.  She closes the door after herself.

“Heh.  I am sorry for those morons.  I am pretty sure you have already met your quota of idiots as well.  So, how can I help you, sir Marcelo?”

“Well, I didn’t expect you to already know my name.  Was it the king or the guild?”

She looked at the guide, and just gestured with the head to the door.  The guide left us.  She did the silent spell, and then continued.

“Where do you think your enchanted adamantite tag was created?”

“So much happened, I had almost forgotten about your tag.” Cecilia comments.

“Why is this tag thing important, my lord?”

“Well, the different tags carry different privileges.  The tags you have, mithril, allow you to have noble status.  I am allowed to enter a court and talk directly to a king because of my adamantite tag.”

“What about that other one, my lord?  The enchanted adamantite?”

“I don’t know.  Leopold couldn’t say either.  Paola, do you know of any privilege for the enchanted adamantite?”

“No.  I am amazed we were even able to make one.  Only Brokkr was able to assemble it, and he slept 3 days after that.  There are some fairy tales around it, but mostly are mole shit.”

“Oh, by the way, your name is Paola, right?  I heard from the altercation before.”

“Yup.  Paola Gunzsandwich.  Nice to meet you.”

“Oh, my pleasure.”

“So…  What brings you here?”

“Well, I am an adventurer, so when I heard about a guild, I just had to visit it.  Do you guys get many quests?”

“We do get an occasional monster, it does happen.  I don’t know if there is anything worthy of your… grandness.”

“That’s ok.  We are already getting some adamantite weapons, so I am already happy.”

“Really?  Strong and rich…  If I only were single…”

“Actually, Brokkr didn’t charge us much for the weapons.”

“Brokkr?  Did you manage to make the old goat sell you something?  Dye my beard impressed!  I think the last time he sold something was before I was born.  A set of halberds, they are above the throne room.  The last enchanted adamantite weapons ever created.”

“Really?  That is impressive.  Do you know what characteristics the halberds have?”

“No one except the king and Brokkr do.  It has been told that there will come a crisis when those weapons are going to be needed.  But so far, nothing.  It could even probably be a rumor, you know how these things go.  A couple of months ago there was a rumor that the demons’ capital had been burn to ashes by dragons.  Still there.”

“Yup.  I even heard that Arthuria tried to make some gain in the war during the time, but they were defeated royally.”

“Those morons…  But back to the main subject, how long do you intend on staying?”

“I don’t know…  It is going to depend on the girls as well.  I was told that there are no Inns here.”

“Yes, there are not many people visiting.  Actually, there are not any people visiting. You are the first being visiting in a long time, other than the monsters that pop up eventually, like a nest of termites or ants that get too close.  Few monsters can actually breath here.

“Other than that, we are mostly self-sufficient.  The lower layers provide food.  We have all sorts of artisans, and all of them are skilled. It just so happens that metal workers are better paid, but all our artisans provide objects with a good quality.”

We chat a little more.  Paola tells me that there was a beginning of panic when the trial bell rang.  No one knew what the bell was for, it had been standing there for some millennia, and at one point everyone just forgot.  People running, screaming, but then the king came out, announcing what the bell was.

I ask her about the hot spring baths, and she gives me a city map, and marks 3 points in it, close by the elevator that would go down.  After that, the girls and I go downstairs, to take in the sight of the guild.  At first, everyone gets quiet, staring at us.  It looks like they are suspicious of us.

Our guide is sitting on a table, and we come to her.  It is weird being too tall for the place.  Good thing the dwarves are not that much smaller, a two feet difference allows for still using the same furniture, albeit a little cramped.  I go to the board to take a look at the quests, and they are very similar in nature to the other guilds.  Some monster hunting, some escorting, and a lot of quests on bandit culling.

We sit to taste the ale.  It has this spicy feel to it, almost like a hint of wasabi.  It looks like it cleans up your nose.

I notice another difference from a human guild, most adventurers here use axes instead of swords.  Just like there are some humans that prefer axes, there are some dwarves that prefer swords as well.  The statistics is just inverted.

Now that I know, I notice that about a third of the adventurers here are women, and they look a lot less soft than some other humanoids.  I even see a woman sitting on the bar having some ale, when another dwarf, that is swiping his fingers in his beard, comes closer.  I know it shouldn’t matter to me, but bearded women is still something new in my head. 

The girls are planning the hot springs, and I am distracted, looking at the new couple.  The guy finally goes for it, and kisses her.  They are at it, when all of a sudden the guys pushes her, and they start fighting.

At some point, the people in the guild split the fight, and the guy is apparently really pissed off.

“You fucking son of a mole!  I am going to cut your head off, and you beard with it!”

He looks around at the people holding him.

“Let me go!  He is a beard smoother!?”

The girl runs away from the scene.  The people holding the guy start laughing, really bad.

“At least your dating improved! You got to date someone!”

“Fuck you!  I am going to clean my dick on your beard, asshole.”

The angrier the guy got, the more the people around him laughed.  I asked our guide what was going on.

“Well, that was a beard smoother…  It is known that if you apply enough heat to hair, you can smooth it, so he smoothed his beard…  I guess that Alvíss wasn’t paying attention.”

We keep chatting a little bit, and the guide tells us that we probably should be going back to the castle, our room would probably be ready by now. 

We follow her back to the castle, into a separated area.  Indeed, there is a room ready for us.  The chairs in the room are bigger than the ones we have seen so far, and the ceiling in the room is a little higher than the guild’s.  The bed is very big, almost as big as the one we currently have in Ironhold.

The guide tells us to clean up, the king is going to offer a banquet in our honor.

The room also has a bathroom attached to it.  I look at the shower, and instead of magic, it actually a kind of fawcet to it, but one of those industrial types that is a lever.  I open it up, and the water that pours down is steamy hot.

We all have a shower, and dress up in some social clothes.  After some time, someone knocks on our door, and we follow this person to a dining room.  There is a big U shaped table in it, with two chairs with high ornate backs on the base of the U, and several chairs on the outside of the U.  We are taken to the right side, and the girls and I occupy the first 6 of the 15 chairs on that side.  Some dwarves come from a side door, and provide us with Ale.

Other people start showing up, and they start sitting around the table.  The sitting arrangements seem a little random.

Their expressions are varying a lot as well.  Some of them look intrigued with us, some of them look angry, some of them smile.  The ones with white beards are either intrigued or smiling.  All the angry ones have red or brown beards, though some of the young ones seem just resigned to the idea.

After the table is full, a bell rings, and everyone stands up.  I look around and I stand up too.  I see that Cecilia stood up, but the dragonesses did not.  I gesture them to do it.  Opal sighs and nods at me, then she stands up and the other girls follow suit.

Dávrin comes in. He has his wife on his arm.  I have to say, the whole scene is kind of fantastic.  They sit down on the base of the U table, and so do we.

The king raises his cup.

“When I was a kid, in my father’s rule, I was left to hear the tales of old from my grandfather.  He told me about our bells.  The time bells, so that I could keep track of my engagements.  The war bell, so that I could call on brothers in arms.

“Then he would point to another bell, and tell me that it had not been rung in forever.  That he didn’t know of anyone ever hearing it.

“He told me that it was going to change everything, and he told me about the trial.

“Prove your strength, prove your blade, cut the cable and be a dwarf!  Today I declare that you, Marcelo, are our tallest dwarf!”

Most of the dwarves raise the their cups, as well as me and Cecilia.  The dragonesses are kind of… resisting.  I blink at Opal, she sighs, and pick up her cup and raise it as well.

As well as some dwarves, the ones with the angry look.  One of them cross his arms.  The other ones, that are paying attention to him, follow suit.  The king stands up.

“Austri! PICK! THAT! CUP!”

“But your majes-”

“HE IS DWARF!”

The anger in the face of Austri intensifies, but then he puts on a creepy smile, and lifts his cup.

“So be it.”