The orc spoke drusily; that was one of the main dwarf dialects. His name was Donut, and I could hardly explain to him why I was laughing. I only told him that the name sounded funny in my language and he should please pardon me, with an as serious face as I could muster. I was a bit surprised to find an orc-speaking dwarfish. He was a kind of peasant/settler at the border between the dwarfish Kingdom of Poronia to the north and the Rezantium Empire of Constancius to the South and West. To the East, a bit further away, was another Kingdom, inhabited mainly by humans but more tolerant of other races than the empire was.
The coredrans to the South, the vampire had spoken about, were one of the human nations from the Rezantium Empire. Constancius' aspiration was to unite all humans into one empire, continuing the work of his for-fathers.
I learned all this whilst eating a frugal lunch Donat was sharing with me. He had a dog, a very clever little one that he employed to herd the bison type of cattle, but he had not allowed it to chase the brawolfs as it would have been utterly outclassed. He had a shack not far away from there and offered me to stay for the night, but I preferred to ask about the town. Yes, it was further to the north, about two hours walk, relatively close, and he agreed that I could reach it before the night. The road to there should be more or less safe, but he added: safer during the daytime, less so during nighttime.
He offered to take two of my catfoxes that he called grellins. He said they were pretty precious, could be raised for fur and reach a price in gold, but he could not pay gold to me. He could offer them a home where they would be free to chase rats and other little pests, and he would pay me two silver for them.
I took him on his offer. We fed the little grellins some bison milk through a milk-imbibed cloth, and I left with one little grellin in my bag. It was the smallest one, and he was afraid that it would not survive the day.
He offered again to let me sleep in his shack as the night was getting closer, and he advised me not to sleep in the forest at night.
I left, hurrying up for the town. I soon found the road and continued on it towards the city. I met other people on the road, some peasants coming from town, and we waved to each other, but without talking much, everybody in a hurry to reach their destination before nightfall. I accelerated my walk towards town with bouts of flying. The road was relatively safe now, so I could use my mana on it, and it was a damn pleasant thing to fly.
I followed the meandering road cutting short just a couple of corners and arrived in front of the town still by daylight, bless those who decided not to synchronize night and day with Earth. However, it was getting late when I arrived in front of the gates.
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The small town of Stoneborrow was surrounded by a sturdy stone wall about five meters high. The guards at the entry were some rough bearded wide-shouldered humans that made rude but funny jokes about my attire and my bloodied legs and strongly recommended the Pit's Tavern, which should have good wine, good food, very good pillows, and a giant bath. That is if I have the silver, as it was one silver per night, including breakfast. I was happy to find out that there was no entry tax. Only after I passed through the gates did it suddenly dawn on me that the majority of the population were dwarfs, not square-shouldered, bearded humans. I should have known this based on what the orc had told me, but my excuse was that I was really tired. Stupid me, Andy being small, a little above one meter and a half, I felt perfectly at ease between the dwarfs; only when I saw the first rare humans did I realize my mistake.
The town was densely populated with relatively broad, stone-paved streets between stone-built houses linked to each other with two meters heigh stone-built walls. Finally, civilization after the dungeon hours and the forest dash run; however, there were too few trees or anything green inside the town.
They had an adventuring guild office that the guards had pointed me to, and I went straight there to get more information about the area. The receptionist, a very light-skinned dwarf girl about as tall as me, was just about to close and call it for a day, but she greeted me happily and invited me inside.
She had a rattle mill with the gift of a gab, and all I had to do was to provide the direction; she would tell me anything I wanted to hear, including a lot of things I didn't want to hear, all with an incredible rattle speed. It reminded me of those Irish dances, where the noise was coming from her mouth, not her ratling feet. I only had to swallow the torrent and try to digest the interesting parts. Her name was Loana, and she was the only receptionist at the guilt.
I soon received an adventurer id from her as Andy, mage level five, race eladin. I was really surprised to see they had a crystal that could be used to read the level, and she told me I was level five, not four as I thought. Maybe the travel from the grotto to the town granted me another level?
She told me a lot of news about my race, the eladen, a very elusive, almost extinct race. I did not protest and did not tell her that I was a dark elf. Not sure why I did that, maybe to hide the origin of my abnormal wings and horns? She observed happily that I did not have the usual sharp claws the eladen were portrayed with.
I know that I somehow had a connection with the eladen through Cala, so this was not entirely wrong.
She saw my little grellin and told me that I could sell it for one gold as long as it survives. Basically, their fur is worth one gold, having some mystical attributes to it, but it was now too small to retrieve it.
When I asked her where I could buy a portal scroll, she recommended the shop of old Hanner in the jewelry district, but I should hurry up as all shops were soon going to close for the night. As I left in a hurry in the direction she had pointed me, she also added some words about the Pit's tavern. She did not mention the bath, but she mentioned the food there must be exceptional.