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An Age of Mysterious Memories
B 4 C 51: Derbrightmine Incident

B 4 C 51: Derbrightmine Incident

After an arduous, annoying trek, we make it safely through boomstick territory, basically. There’s a palatial entrance carved into the side of the mountain-range. Oddly, we haven’t spotted many, or any dwarves honestly. None actually. There aren’t even any guarding this entrance into their city-structure.

As the three of us enter, it slowly becomes apparent why they don’t have, or need guards posted along the exterior. The murder-holes with longarms sticking through them like turrets cause even me to gulp. Even if those are single-shot muskets, I doubt my luck would hold enough that every single one missed, or glanced off my armor at a weak angle. They look a bit more advanced than muskets though. Not by much, but still.

I blow a bated breath through puffed cheeks as we continue to pass into their territory. It’s not long before I can sense that we’re being followed. It seems there are some sort of secret side-tunnels from the murder-holes back towards the interior of their region.

Suddenly, the walls ahead of and behind us open up. About a dozen dwarves spill out, all heavily armed, weapons pointing our way. Hell on handrails. I could maybe kill all of them in a single fireball, they’re so close. Could Dippy live through one? I think Teuila would be mostly fine. What if they have spare gunpowder or explosives on their personage somewhere? Teuila might not be fine in a series of chain explosions. Te glances towards me with anger in her eyes, but I shrug with fear in mine. If she has a plan, I want her to take the lead.

It will be pretty hard to negotiate peacefully if we start by slaughtering a dozen people upon uninvited entry into their territory. Teuila parses the same information, so she bites her lips as we stand at the ready, unsure of what to do.

One finally speaks, edging uncomfortably close to Dippy as he says, “You, lizardskin, with us. Ye two, follow them-there ta, heh, immigration. A capo will see ye in a bit.” His accent is thick, somehow a combination of Scottish and New York Sicilian.

My mouth tries to form words as I want to object. I do not want to have Dippy separated from us. I worry they’ll harm or kill him, as ten dwarves surround him and usher him away. The two dwarves on us, I’m far less afraid of. They’re close enough that my danger wraps could guide my reflexes away from their muzzles, or bring my shield to bear in the path of any of their shots. Should we knock these two out? Slay them? Rescue Dippy? Teuila appears to be biding her time, fighting her knee-jerk reaction to take these two out. I’ll follow her lead.

We’re led to what might pass as an interrogation cell, if it weren’t so ridiculously opulent. Brightly polished metal trim along runic engravings adorn every edge and seam of the room, any corner, doorway, edge of a floor slab. They try to shut the door on us, but Teuila makes a show of force by shattering a massive section of the stone door in a single punch. She glares at them, daring them to try to retaliate, to try to trap us. There’s an unspoken conversation happening, Teuila’s anger, their nervous twitch as their hands stray towards weapons. Teuila makes no move to harm them though, and after several tense moments, they walk away to find a capo I guess. Isn’t that like, a mafioso? Some sort of middle management in an organized crime syndicate? I snort back a laugh as I put a few things together.

Teuila raises an eyebrow my way, so I explain, “So, Te, knowhow I have those Fakeworld memories, Earth memories?”

Teuila nods, prodding me to continue, “So, there’s a region, I think it’s called, um, Italy. Some of the people from powerful families in that region, you know, people migrate or whatever, anyway, there’s lots of different styles of families and stuff. One kind is called something like a mafia. They’re basically organized crime incarnate. May or may not be incredibly violent, often extortive, may or may not have hands in various pies like drugs or money laundering or gambling or whatever.”

Teuila looks confused at my tangent, so I get back on track, “Anyway, so, in them, a capo is someone in the middle. It’s short for something like caporegime. Something like that.-"

A burly, balding man with a dark beard, and side-hair slicked back to a ponytail enters, saying, “Ye seem tae know a lot about the families.” He’s tall for a dwarven individual, but still stocky. His height might even be the reason he’s a capo.

He motions towards the table and its seats, but Teuila and I both stand next to it, leaning on it disrespectfully. In part, because a seated position takes just a fraction more energy and time to dodge a sudden attack. We don’t exactly trust these jerks yet.

The capo continues, unfazed, “So, what brings ye travelers tae our neighborhood? With a lizardskin no less?”

Effing racism. I think. Maybe that’s not an offensive term? I doubt Dippy cares about his scales being commented on, they’re a beautiful mix of blues and azures. Teuila seems affronted by the term though.

Teuila growls, “The -Kobolds- are getting sick, their diet is cramped by your constant extortion. We’re passing through, but we want it to stop.”

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The capo visibly sweats as Teuila’s hands grip and shatter the edge of the stone table. Even I’m a bit shocked at the strength of Teuila’s digits. The capo responds, "We're doin' 'em a favor. If the kobolds knew what was comin' they'd be beggin' us tae take their gems 'n' minerals."

Te snarks in return, "Oh really? What could possibly be coming that would make them do that?"

He straightens up, stiffens, and glances around, almost nervously, "A word ye'll not have heard, a name that's as it sounds. Terrorzin." Wait, Terrorzin? That sounds familiar somehow. A Tee sound, a Zee sound, and an Enn sound. Where did I hear some syllables like that?

Teuila rolls her eyes as she scoffs, "Am I supposed to be impressed? Scared? Am I supposed to feel anything at all? Who, or what, is Terror's inn? A bad night's sleep after a poor meal leading to some nightmares?"

Teuila doesn’t even wait for the capo to respond as she stalks to the rear of the room and starts hammering on the wall in frustration, causing the room to shudder. The capo answers with a slight quiver to his voice, "Hmf, ye'll know 'im when ye meet 'im, though, not for long. By then it'll be too late."

Since Teuila is distracted by pummeling stone, I roll my eyes, "Look, enough with your cryptic nonsense." I take a page from their own book as I continue, "If you don't stop hassling the kobolds, there might be a few accidents around here, like maybe some of those gorgeous, yet, load-bearing pillars get introduced to the reaction between sodium and water. Wouldn't that be a shame?"

Teuila snorts, barely stifling a laugh. The capo squints at me, "Ye wouldn't."

I wear a wicked sneer as I crack my knuckles and draw forth my staff from its hidden sheathe. I dare, "Try me. In fact, I so badly want you to try me, that I'm going to set up a spell to notify me. Sure, I might take a few days, or weeks, to get back from wherever I've journeyed to, but you can be certain I'll be back once you've triggered it."

He eyes me warily, but studies my hands as I gesture, trying to discern if I'm actually working a spell. I keep the staff shrunk, in the palm of my hand, collapsed down to the size of the handle of a kitchen knife. I’m not sure I can do what I claim, I probably can’t, but he doesn’t need to know that.

He scoffs, "Bet ye think ye're a real wise guy. Ye aint workin' any magic there. Ah knows it when Ah sees it."

It’s my turn to scoff as I let the light spell from the staff glow slightly, "Oh really? What circle of magic do you practice then? Sixth? Fifth? Fourth? These numbers don't mean anything to you? Then probably first, maybe second, if you even are a practitioner. I've been wielding the ninth circle of magics for my entire life on Rayileklia."

Teuila barely keeps her composure, stopping herself from laughing, knowing that my life on Rayileklia is scarcely more than a few days, a couple of weeks. I struggle to hide my smile, which ends up coming across as a vicious sneer. Perfect. Still, I let a bit of magic trickle from the staff. My eyes glow, and a translucent copy of my hand floats in front of me. I control the floating hand to sink, and draw a nonsense rune in the dust on the ground. Once that's accomplished, I press the floating hand downwards to make it appear to dissipate into that rune as I let go of the magic.

For good measure, I add, "And before you ask, I'm far, far older than I look."

At that, the dwarf begins to pale before us, the color draining from his cheeks. Apparently ageless or ancient beings are something to be feared. Duly noted. I can thank Lil for that later. Though it could just be any critterkin that never bothers self actualizing aging, the draconic bond that my inner circle all share to Lil's crystalline core, their literal heart, keeps us all from suffering any effects of aging unless we will them.

He clears his throat, trying to regain his composure, "Look, even if Ah wanted tae help ye out, we all answer tae the Don now, Don, he did us a favor, got us all tae stop bickerin', showed us what was comin'. We're all Derbrightmine family now. Family sticks t'gether. Y'know what I'm sayin'? Like Ah told you, we practically begged the Don tae tell us what tae do, so we're doin' it, and the kobolds would do the same. But, even just talkin' about it is one of the things not tae do, if we don't want it here even earlier. Ye said ye're puttin' your ear magics down tae hear when we're up tae shakin' down the kobolds? Guess who 'as their ear magics down in 'ere? 'At's right."

Frustrated at the cryptic answer, I restrain myself before I punch his grinning mug. There's some vague threat of some unknown terror, or rather, Terror's Inn, or maybe he said Terrorzin. It's hard to tell with his accent, it's an odd mixture of New-York-Italian, and Scottish. Regardless, it looks like fear is the way to get an audience with this Don.

Wait, something everyone on Rayileklia is terrified of, that requires precious metal in tribute? Is this another freakin’ evil dragon? One that’s extorting its spices from people or something like that? That’s effing hilarious. Absolutely hilarious if it really is. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure Kozzurth was trying to strike fear into me with the name Terrorzin when she died. I just couldn’t understand her final bloody gurgles. I knew it had some tee and zee and enn sounds.

Oh I’m going to effing enjoy this. I yawn as I haphazardly recall, “Boring, look, last week I was beheading an ancient purple dragon from the inside, to stop it extorting a village. Yes, from the inside. this week, if I have to, I’ll behead another. Terrorzin is the name of some dragon or something stupid, right? If you guys are extorting because you’re being extorted, just point me in its direction”

The capo somehow bursts into incredulous laughter, and I think he pisses himself just the tiniest bit in fear at the same time. If he’s scared of Terrorzin, but not me, Teuila and I can demonstrate a bit more power to really nail it home. I ignite a fireball from the staff and have it engulf me. I remove its normally explosive area of effect.

I growl through the roar of the flames, “We are dragon-slayers. I am untouched by their breath, and my leader over there, she can punch holes in stone. Do you really think your Don’s spooky bedtime story scares us in the slightest?”

I approach the dwarf so that he understands the flame is hot, and not an illusion. His beard starts to sizzle and curl as I draw near. Now I’m certain his breeches are darkened by moisture, at least momentarily. I allow the flames to linger a moment longer, drying him out to save him the embarrassment of needing to change before speaking with his Don.

I say the cheesiest, corniest, most cliché line ever, “Take me to your leader.”