The heavy oak door of the family dwelling creaked open, letting in the muted sounds of Deep Rock. Grok sat on the edge of his bolstered bed, the morning light filtering through the stained glass window depicting the great mountain, its peaks piercing the sky. He’d woken with a strange unease, a disjointed feeling like a finely crafted cog misplaced in a clockwork mechanism. His father, Borin Stonebeard, had been bustling about since sunrise, a jovial glint in his eye.
The visitors arrived soon after, their polished boots clacking on the stone floor, their fine fabrics a stark contrast to Grok’s worn leather tunic. Borin introduced them with pride, each name dripping with importance – Master Thordak, the wealthy mine owner; Lady Elina, a renowned merchant; and Lord Grimbeard, a powerful guild leader. They all spoke with a kind of hushed reverence when they described what they'd heard from Borin. How Grok lived! The way he could discern a mineral vein by the feel of the stone, how he’d coaxed life from barren land into a fruitful farm, how he had, with his own hands and only mud, shaped metal into tools of astounding quality.
Grok glanced at his father, seeming to understand he had exaggerated his stories from last night's storytelling, gone off to god's knows where, made contact in hopes his son would get a job and settle down.
Grok felt uncomfortable the way these dwarf lords praised him. The skills they so venerated – the skills born of necessity, honed in the unforgiving wilderness – felt almost foreign here, in this world of meticulously crafted stone and intricate clockwork. To him, they were merely tools for survival, not achievements to be lauded. Yet his father puffed out his chest, beaming with pride. Borin painted a picture of Grok’s experiences as uniquely valuable, an edge that no city-bred dwarf possessed. The wealthy folk offered him a position, a high-paying contract as a sort of… specialist. From surveying, to carpenter, to agriculture, to a miner, all kinds of offers. It seemed isolated experience, was impressive on a resume. The list of potential roles seemed endless, each more outlandish than the last. It was a golden opportunity, a chance to live a life of comfort and prestige, and it was all built on the back of his wilderness skills, the ones he viewed as necessary, not grand.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
"I will think it over," Grok had mumbled, the words feeling like lead on his tongue. In truth, he wasn't thinking about their offers at all. His mind was still wrestling with the puzzle that had lured him back to Deep Rock in the first place – the fabled underground cavern, whispered about in old miners' tales, that he was sure existed. He hadn't come home to settle, to bask in the comforts of the city, but to rest and to re-equip. He was, deep down, just using his family as a good place to plan his secret search for the cavern. There was certainly something to be said about home. He had missed them a little, he supposed, judging by the genuine warmth that bloomed in his chest when he saw his family again.
He’d spent the last week catching up with his family, watching his siblings scamper around the house, his mother's gentle smile. He'd buried himself in the city's libraries, pouring over tomes on the latest clockwork technology and delving into old mining logs. He felt a pang of nostalgia as he looked at old models of clockwork and was amazed at how much things have changed. He felt behind. But then again, he's seen stuff these city folks would only dream of.
His plans for the cavern remained carefully hidden, secured within the stubborn walls of his dwarven heart. The offers? They were just another piece in the puzzle, a potential resource. He had a thought, a spark of an idea. It was a known fact that more mining meant more tunnels, more potential for finding things underground. He was a dwarf, after all, and stubbornness flowed in his veins like molten metal. If he couldn’t find the cavern on his own, by sheer force of will, maybe he could just dig his way to it.
He needed more miners. That was it. He could hire on newcomers, those who had not quite made their mark yet, those hungry for a good paying job and not afraid of hard work. He needed someone with the skills to go deep. Someone who respected the stone as much as he did.
A slow smile spread across Grok's face. He wouldn’t be fighting anyone's battles, he wouldn’t be a champion, but a recruiter, a leader of those who knew what it took to carve themselves a place in the world.