Weed spent his time wandering about the city in the middle of the night. If he approached guards for help, he would be chased away for being an elf intruder. After several failed attempts of getting help, Weed gave up on the idea of asking the dwarf guards for help. He instead decided to map the city in his head as much as he could, till he could find some help. As Weed began mapping it, he started noticing a trend. Just like Lavias, this city too could be sectioned off into five parts (including center). What made it confusing was player’s couldn’t figure out which entrance / exit led where. Sometimes an exit would lead to the floor above, sometimes to the floor below. However unlike Lavias, where players could travel from one block to another either through the central town square or the outskirt’s roads, in the Northern Mountain city, if players used the stairs they could end up in a different block. To sum it up, mentally mapping the dwarven city was impossible for an average human. Weed could at most could remember the turns here and there…but the entire city…it would take a lifetime to uncover. Weed also appreciated his circumstances when he received a pop message saying he gained the lost & found skill.

Luckily, Weed managed to wile away his time till day break. With more NPC’s on the street, he just began following them around. Though it seemed mundane and a waste of time, something about following the dwarves around got Weed’s interest. There were all sorts of dwarves during different times of the day. Early in the morning, there were the mining dwarves who returned from the mines. They specialized in mining precious stones and gems. Following where they came from, Weed learnt at which levels of the city different ores and precious stones were mined. There were many different types of mines, there were private and public mines. Private mines belonged to some of the dwarvish clans that lived in the city. The public ones were typically those considered too risky to mine in or nearing depletion in minerals. While depleted mines were filled with scavengers, as Weed named them, they would search long before they could find any mineral. The riskier mines, were rather empty, fears of being crushed in boulders or explosions ran high. The rewards here were greater; these mines were filled with an abundance of rare ores and gems. Since, the costs were too high for a clan to dedicate resources to a public mines, thus they never took over such mines. Weed mentally noted to visit these mines whenever he needed precious stones.

During the later part of the morning, dwarves who specialized in gem polishing and ore refinement could be seen headed to their shops and factories. These shops and factories were located very close to the mines. The stones from the mines were loaded into iron carts on tracks and pushed straight into these shops. Each cart was usually guarded by a two man team of dwarvish soldiers. Only one cart would leave the mine at given point of time. Factories were again owned by clans however the smaller shops were owned by individual dwarves. These dwarves were open to buying freshly dug minerals from the cheapest seller. It didn’t matter to them whether the mineral came from a public or a private mine. Factories on the other hand would only accept resources from their own mines. Weed was often shooed away if he got too close to the carts or factories but he would approach again and again.

During mid day, the polished gem or refined ore would be packed away in wagons to be taken to a jewelry house or a forging house. Precious stones were guarded heavily as they were no longer stones dug out freshly from the ground but polished gems. Here again Weed interestingly noted that wagons from factories received clan protection where as private shops went for hired mercenaries or in house guards. The factories had a clear edge over the smaller shops in terms of cost advantages. Being larger in scale they could do everything from within at cheaper rates. However, going by the finished products being packed away in the wagons, it was evident that the smaller shops had higher skilled dwarves at polishing and refining.

Following the wagons, Weed reached higher levels of the city. The forging and jewelry shops were located on the upper levels of the city. The lower levels were dedicated to mining and mining related activities, however as Weed travelled upwards he noticed there were residential areas, shops, farms…garrisons. The higher he went, the poorer the society became. There was a clear difference visible in the wealth in equality between the dwarves. The houses were smaller, the streets were narrower and dirtier. Weed smiled as he realized that human society worked the other way round. The forging / jewelry shops were near the highest levels of the city. The reason was because they needed their chimneys to exit out. The forging / jewelry shops were all owned by individual dwarves. It seemed that clans had no representation in the final product. Weed’s eye’s sparkled as he analyzed the entire value chain. There was wealth of information in what he saw. In the very ore to sword process, he saw the political and economical ideologies of the dwarves. They weren’t much different from humans in terms of societal structure but they appeared to be more closely bonded regardless of social status. Maybe it was because they were all passionate about rocks?

Having travelled from bottom to top of the mountain city, Weed also gained an understanding of the city. There were two types of staircases. Spirals and Straights. Spirals took him up and down but to a different block whereas straight ones took him up and down between the same block. He was also able to recognize the various symbols and markings hidden away in the city. If the exit had a snake carved above it, it meant it was a spiral staircase. Depending on which way the head of the snake pointed, it would indicate which block the stairs would open into. Straight staircases had numbers written above them usually indicating the current level where one stood in the city. The real trick was figuring out directions such as north, south east and west. Unlike human cities, where players could look at stars and guide themselves, dwarvish cities had no stars. However, Weed did notice drivers of wagons continuously referring to an instrument all the time…a compass. It seemed that the dwarves had set up some sort of magnetic contraption around the city on each floor for reference. With that they knew which block of the city they were in at all times.

Weed was no longer a lost bunny in the city of the dwarves. Weed headed to a dwarf shop and purchased a compass for 10 silver; which was cheaper than purchasing a map of a single floor for 10 gold coins. He headed to the lower levels of the city. A library is a luxury of a developed society, it was bound to be somewhere on the lower floors. Weed was right again with his guess, though he had to ask a few dwarves for directions; they were most unpleased to help him however after a few polite but forceful requests they reconsidered.

Weed dashed into the library and began reading through the minerals section and dwarf cities. The dwarven city library was identical to the design of the Lavias City library. They were so similar that Weed momentarily forgot he was in Northern Mountain City. Weed recollected himself and began picking books of the shelf. Weed could always log out and search the information he needed on Skyholm’s Great White Halls but he doubted he would get the information he was looking for. It was likely that players would speak about where they can learn dwarvish blacksmithing rather than what the surroundings looked like, their history and origin.

There was something in nomenclature of game that bothered Weed. The Great Silver Lake was an example to cite. It shone silver at night and thus was known as the Great Silver Lake…would that imply ‘The Great White Halls’ were shining white in color? If they did then a precious stone like diamond or the ceiling material would indeed shine bright…but it would not stand out in the hall. Rather it would have the opposite effect; it would merge with the surroundings owing to the brightness. Ideally, the precious stone would have to be of a different color yet refractive or reflective in nature to outshine the background.

“Skyholm City….” Weed read out as he found what he was looking for. “Located north of Lavias…built by the Great Emporer Barc Puremoon…………The throne room also known as …The Great White Hall, known for its shining white marble and brightness. The marble was polished by a master of skills so great, that even though a handful of torches are lit in the room, the room absolutely dazzles in white……”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Weed shut the book, “Tourist places to visit in Skyholm.”

‘So it’s a colored stone? Not diamond or the ceiling material?’ Weed raised his eyebrow as he pondered about the question.

Weed moved on to the next book he had with him, ‘Northern Mountain City – Architecture: History.’ Weed wondered who would ever read these books as he blew of the dust from the book.

“The Grand history of the Northern Mountain City…” Weed quickly flipped to the last page…“3,000 pages……all in a language I don’t understand.” The book was written in dwarvish scripts. By being elf, Weed only knew two scripts, humans and the elves. Similarly, those players who were dwarvish would know the humans and dwarvish scripts at the start of the game. Learning a language and it’s scripts did not require actual learning in the game, rather once the player acquired the knowledge of the scripts, they would be decrypted into the native language the player understands (mandarin in this case).

Weed went to the language aisle section to look for a crash course in dwarvish scripts. Weed kept looking around the library in wonder. It was unbelievably identical to the one in Lavias City. Even the various reading sections of the library were in the exact same position as in Lavias. ‘Odd beyond a doubt. However it is a mystery for another time.’ Weed opened the book on basic dwarvish text and began reading it. Although, it was simply identification of alphabets, Weed could see a timer countdown showing that he had to read this book for an entire hour before he knew the basic alphabets. At the end of the hour, Weed got a message saying;

TRRRINGGG!

- You learnt the basic dwarf script –

- You can now read the dwarf script, however as you read a basic book, you will often find it very hard and slow to read the dwarves script. It is recommended you study all three levels and learn the language. -

Weed sighed and pulled out another book on dwarvish scripts; Intermediate Course in Dwarvish Language - Estimated time to learn course: 3 Hours.

As Weed struggled to contain his boredom he finally received the message he had been waiting for;

TRRRINGGG!

- You learnt the intermediate dwarf script –

- You can now read the dwarf script, however as you read a intermediate book, you will often find it very slow to read the dwarves script. It is recommended you study all three levels and learn the language.

- Dwarf Script reading speed increased by 10%.

‘WTH! I spent three hours reading that! 1 hour in RL spent flipping through gibberish sentences and that only leads to 10% increase in speed?’

Weed picked up ‘The Grand history of the Northern Mountain City’ however upon opening it each word took 3 seconds to be converted into readable text. Weed sighed as he closed the book and went for the Advanced course in Dwarf scripts. It had an estimated reading time of 24 hours or RL currency US$2. Weed chose to wait it out.

After a grueling eight hours of staring at a book which made little sense. The words finally started flowing like normal mandarin characters and Weed was able to throw the advance course on dwarvish scripts & languages. He hurriedly opened the book he was looking for;

“The ceiling of the Northern Mountain City… ‘Water Rock’ is a commonly found stone. It is a very good reflective translucent stone however cannot be used in place of mirrors as it is blurry and mimics the behavior of light subject to heating conditions.”

‘That explains why the ceiling felt like it was on fire when we saw it for the first time. It just mimics the patterns of the flames.’

Weed then flipped through different pages he could find on reflective and refractive stones. Rubies, sapphires, emeralds etc were the stones available; plain simple colored stones. Weed could not help but think that there was more to this. As he returned the book to it’s shelf he noticed the female blacksmith enter the aisle. Their eyes met momentarily, they smiled and crossed each other. Weed turned back once to look at what she was picking up to read… “The Grand history of the Northern Mountain City” and then went to the language and scripts section.

‘I guess that makes two of us.’ Weed thought to himself.

As he left the library, he noticed Thor and Cynbel make their way to the library. Behind them Pallidus followed and two other participants. Cynbel and Pallidus greeted Weed before hurrying into the library. Weed quickened his pace, he needed to solve the entire riddle before the others. The lesser time he spent on the riddle, the more time he could dedicate to preparing for the competition.

The two participants behind Pallidus noticed Weed coming out of the library, figured Weed probably solved the first part of the riddle. It then struck to them that by following Weed, they would gain a head start on even Thor and Cynbel; whom they had been following till now. It was a bit risky to follow a nobody blacksmith but given how much Thedore favored Weed the possibility Weed had solved the answer remained high. In the end, they began tailing Weed. Being dwarves they merged in with the local population and Weed had no clue he was being followed.

“Salos, do you reckon he really knows what to prepare for the final round?” asked tanned dwarf.

His counterpart, a thing taller-than-average-dwarf dwarf replied, “Trust me, Moses. He knows it. I can feel it in my bones.”

“You will feel a lot more in your bones if you turn out to be wrong Salos.” Moses replied as he cracked his knuckles.

After following Weed for a few minutes, they noticed he went into a pub and came back out before they could even step in. Weed then went into the next pub and came out again before they could step in.

“Is he looking for someone?” Salos asked.

“Or something?” Moses suggested.

The two dwarf players stared at each other and shrugged shoulders; clearly Weed was on to something that they weren’t.

Weed continued pub hopping, covering one level at a time. After 24 hours of pub hopping, Salos and Moses grew weary, the elf would enter, stay inside for about a minute and then leave. –

“Moses, I reckon the elf knows nothing. I can feel it in my bones.” Salos whispered.

*THUD*

Salos lay on the ground out cold with his eye turning blue.

“Told you, you would feel it in more than just your bones.”

The two participants headed back to the library to see if they could still find Thor or Cynbel. They weren’t as fortunate but they did find Pallidus exiting.

“Look it’s the seventh apprentice!” Salos squealed as he pointed at Pallidus.

“Shhhhh! Lets follow him.”

Pallidus went straight into a pub. The two participants froze in their steps. Not again!

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Authors Note:

1. Will be edited soon.

2. A short chapter. ~_~ still a long way to go before I reach till the amazing chapters....

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Connect to Royal Road – Elementarem Vim next Chapter?YesNo

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