The Newt and Demon-8.84 - Fishing

The dwarves had taken their lack of space in stride. Instead of complaining about it, they did as they had often done before. They dug deep into the ground, like their cousins elsewhere in the world, creating something of a city directly beneath Gronro. Grot led the way through tight tunnels as Theo was carried by the powerful ogre. Humiliation had all but faded. His first fear was that others would judge him for being weak, but the opposite had been the case. Several dwarves in the small town above had saluted him or otherwise expressed their gratitude for the difficulty of his task.

Being crippled didn't seem so bad, so long as others understood that it had been a self-inflicted condition. One meant to give them all a chance at a better life.

“Now everything you see here is temporary,” Grot said, gesturing to a broad series of caverns that currently did not seem to have much use. Torches burned on the walls, but every couple of tunnels revealed the use of magically powered life sources. "We're working on the first floor, which will be our primary living area and a space for the craftspeople, but I think what you'll find truly interesting is on the bottom floor."

The confusing series of tunnels continued to lead down. Theo took in all the details, looking at the way the dwarves had hewn into the rock with appreciation. It was a job done completely without tools. Every piece of rock that had been moved or shaped had been done by hand. An increase in base strength and endurance likely helped them, but it wasn't enough to excuse the absolute enormity of everything around them. Between each floor, they didn't have stairs but ramps, and the alchemists saw several people pushing carts along temporary mine tracks.

"It's amazing what you can get done when you're bored," Theo said with a soft chuckle.

Bilgrob laughed as well, shaking his massive head. "Except now you're on a forced vacation. If I see you so much as lifting a finger, I'll take that finger off."

“Noted. This is kind of a haunting position I find myself in, so you'll have to forgive me.”

"Anyway, these lower floors here are primarily meant for storage of materials, but in this upcoming room is the big reveal. I know you'll be happy about this, Archduke."

Most of the caverns they had seen up until that point were fairly massive. The smallest they had seen was a hundred square feet and seemed to be a particular place for a cluster of homes to be built. Some of those homes were already being worked on and had been chiseled from the rock itself. The workers who moved through the caverns all held hammers and large metal chisels. Movement for the stones was taken upward toward the surface. But as the group descended, they found one room that was positively massive. That was an even more interesting part on the far side of the room. Bright sunlight shone through, and Theo realized they had reached the underside of the island.

Grott sauntered across the massive cavern, strolling over to something that looked like a boat. It was about 15 feet long and had a series of mechanisms near the back and underside. Theo recognized them as proto-artifices.

"Meet our first round of airships made by hand. No classes, just good dwarven ingenuity."

Theo wiggled in the ogre's grasp, eventually getting him to place him on the ground. Without missing a beat, Bilgrob snatched a pick from a nearby dwarf and handed it over to the alchemist. "At least use a cane, old man. I don't want to see you collapse."

Theo reluctantly took his cane and hobbled forward a few times. That caused Grot to laugh. He came over and gave the alchemist some instructions on how to walk. It was Theo's left side that seemed most affected by whatever ailed him, as it felt stiff and there was a clear pain that ran from the top of his kneecap all the way to his shoulder, coming in staggering waves.

"Hold the cane in the hand on the side that isn't injured. When you step with your injured side, put your weight on the cane. That will take the stress off your body and let you move more smoothly. Don't go too quickly. Take it slow. Take it easy."

To Theo’s complete surprise. The dwarf’s instructions helped. It took a little getting used to, and his instinct was to hold the makeshift cane in the hand of the hurt side, but once he got the rhythm of it, he was moving pretty decently. Grot ran off and shouted something to some of his people as the alchemist and BIlgrob approached the newly created airship.

"Imagine the level of craftsmanship it took to make that thing," Theo said, running his hand along the wood. It was just normal wood, the same stuff they would use to create the ships and the harbour. He then turned his attention to the artifices, which were little more than tubes and containers of mana meant to direct energy toward the little bumps on the underside of the ship. He suspected those were something like anti-gravity nodes, although the specifics were likely more complicated than that.

“They did all of this without a system, huh? I can't say I envy them for making it happen, but I am impressed.” Bilgrob walked around the airship nodding with approval at each new feature he saw.

It took Grot a while to return. When he did, he did so with a finely crafted wooden cane, which made Theo laugh. "Just a quick job to give you something more dignified than a heavy old pickaxe."

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Theo accepted his new cane and used it to hobble around the contraption. "You truly made this all on your own. This honestly doesn't look like your work. Did you copy something else?"

Grot laughed a deep dwarven belly laugh. "You've got too keen of an eye, Archduke. We copied the models from the surface and we're working on some bigger ones, but unfortunately your man on the ground stole Throk from me, so I've only made it so far on my own."

Theo had made his way to the dwarven town on an airship. While the one that Grott had created was similar, it was unique enough to be considered its own thing. Whatever Belgar had been crafting on the ground was less elegant. These were the early days of airship travel, so he wasn't about to be concerned about details. As long as they ran, that was all that mattered.

"But it's still impressive," Theo said, "and your prototypes are functional. How many of them do you have?"

"We're cranking them out. This is currently our best model that is mostly stable. The problem is it needs to be fed mana manually, so anyone who can't control their mana can't fly it.” 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

“Can I have it?” Theo asked.

Grot blinked a few times. “Uh. I guess?”

Theo nodded, trying to swing his leg over the side of the airship but failing to do so. Instead, Bilgrob lifted him and placed him inside. The ogre joined him a moment later, adding significantly to the weight of the machine. Grot gave him a quick rundown of the controls, and before long, the airship was hovering a few feet off the ground. Although these were all prototypes, they seemed quite stable to the alchemist. There was no sign that the massive weight within it was a problem.

“Thanks for the tour,” Theo said with a nod. “And for the airship.”

Grot laughed, shaking his head. “Yeah, no problem. Let me know if you need any other free things.”

Theo winked, urging the airship forward. A moment later, they were out in the open air, under the flying landmass. The flight was smoother than the airship they had taken to get to Gronro. It didn't lurch or move around much in the air, even with the turbulent winds underneath the island. Theo guided the airship not back up to his island but down toward Boar Hollow. The view from above was stunning. There were the rolling forests he remembered from the early days of the planet and the now sprawling town that seemed more like a city. Belgar had truly done an amazing job with the region. Roads led in each cardinal direction, and each was packed with travelers going from here to there.

Remembering the location of this throne far in the distance, Theo reached out and attempted to make some connection with his authority as the Dreamwalker. But whatever thread would establish was vague at best. The system still wasn't done rebooting itself. He had a feeling it would be some time before that process was completed. The alchemist slowed the pace of the airship, finding a level where the wind wasn't whipping by them so fast.

"How many people do you think are going to leave this place? How many people are going to go to Erradon to fight the days away?"

"Hard to say. We're still in the early days of everything, Theo. People are just excited to get out there and explore the world. From what I've heard, Tero’gal has a lot of opportunities to spread out and create settlements. There's plenty of adventure to be had in any direction you can think of."

Theo smiled to himself. He sent the airship shooting forward again, angling for a place he remembered well. It didn't take long by airship, but the pair eventually spotted a sprawling sea in the distance. Elves had settled around this area, and while the alchemist was sure they had given it a name, he didn't know it. He saw the buildings made from local timber and the sprawling white sands of a beach. From a great height, the sea below looked like a deep blue curtain strewn with glittering diamonds.

The airship landed silently on the beach. It was an empty tract of land, far enough away from the elves so as not to disturb them. Theo removed himself bodily from the airship, pulling his cane with him, and eventually righting himself and dusting himself off. He no longer wore the Coat of Rake, which had been stripped of its powers and rendered useless. The clothes he now wore reminded him more of the rags he had when first arriving on Iaredin.

Without a word, Theo kicked off his boots and approached the line of water, racing back and forth over the sand. The wet spots it left glittered with small shells poking through here and there. If he dug his toes deep enough in the places where the wet sand met the dry sand, he could feel small creatures moving around. Maybe they were sand fleas or whatever equivalent this world had. Bilgrob plopped down on a dry spot, digging his toes into the warm sands.

The waves pushed and pulled. Fish darted somewhere just under the waves. The sun blazed overhead, making the top of Theo’s head uncomfortably hot. Sweat formed on his brow, dripping down his face and into the water. Ever-present on the beach was the taste of the sea on the air, the call of sea birds overhead, and the constant sound of waves rushing in and drawing out. Somewhere in the distance, a tiny fishing boat worked an area with large nets, the sound of them impacting the water almost audible from such a distance.

The reset had come so quickly. So much activity had kicked off and then left, like a pilfering goblin in the night. Theo drew his knees up to his chest, listening only to the sound of silence in his mind. He knew it would fix itself. The alchemist knew the system would fully reset given enough time. But for now, the silence of his own thoughts was deafening. Louder than the birds. Or the waves. It screamed…

“Do you like seafood?” Bilgrob asked.

Theo tried not to smile. He wanted to bury himself in his own thoughts and sulk. Maybe he wanted to hate himself with Tresk and Alex. Maybe that was a person who truly deserved to be hated. Who he was before accepting the Tara’hek was a construct, he realized. It wasn’t that who he had become was fake, it was the other way around. Only when he had accepted the bond had he really figured out who he was. Now, he only had to endure the construct for a while before he was once again granted his peace.

“That depends. Deep fried?” Theo asked.

Bilgrob made an offended sound. “You could deep-fry anything and it’d be good. That’s cheating.”

“Then, no. I hate fish.”