All around me, the dwarf settlement extended up and down along the cavern's walls.

I’d been in a few dwarf-built settlements underground before and each tended to differ depending on where they’d carved out their settlements. When you have an existing natural cavern like here? They took the route that required the least work.

Korvath had been built in what could best be described as an underground canyon, so the dwarves had taken to building their homes in the walls, dwellings carved into the rock. A single road threaded its way down to the bottom. Further up, the outskirts of settlements were carved to the side instead. Even dwarf architects hadn’t bothered trying to build on the cavern ceiling. Not for this settlement, at least.

The Imperials had hung an arcane sun from there, necessary for those of us whose vision wasn’t functional in the dark underground. It hung there, a ball of glowing light that hurt to look at directly, especially as the intensity grew. At its dimmest, you could see the rune-encrusted metal sphere directly, shedding a dim light barely greater than a single moon. They’d even made it go through a day/night cycle of a consistent twenty-four hours, which was more than could be said for the length of day and night on the surface.

The guild headquarters and most of the businesses lay near the bottom of the settlement. Farther to walk if you didn’t live down here, but easier access to the tunnels and caverns further below. Which left those dwarves who hadn’t fled with their kingdom on the levels above, where I currently walked.

A few watched me from the fronts of their houses. I could feel the weight of more eyes looking at me from within those houses. I did my best to ignore it, simply waving a hand in greeting. No one bothered to return it.

They may have chosen to stay behind, but those who hadn’t fled deeper into the earth did not like surface dwellers among them. Tolerated at best, and only with the strict understanding Imperials would come down on anything remotely resembling a rebellion.

Going past the still-dwarf inhabited parts of the settlement, there were a lot fewer people in the houses and a lot more walking the street. Not too many, though, and only a dozen along my path toward the bottom.

Most adventurers would have left on their delves by now. Those left would either be those taking the day off, new signees, or groups who’d finished early. Which meant my path to Halmon’s shop was mostly free of interruption.

I ignored a pair of adventurers making the sign of Halspus at me. An irritating itch sprouted behind one of my eyes as one of them tried to follow me, shrieking something about succubi coming from the depths to tempt the honest, good people of the world.

Trying to correct him on me not being a demon wouldn’t help, and the only person coming close to falling for temptation down here would likely be him. I just hoped the little prick of divine magic that had hit me didn’t irritate the imp.

A wall near me shifted, turning liquid. I kept a wary eye on it, but after a few moments, it stilled.

Nothing, I told myself. There were other practitioners of magic down here, all far more active than me. The spirit was likely attracted by them, not me. Best to keep my mind focused on the task at hand.

According to the directions he left, Kalsyp’s lab would be near the bottom, but I had enough time to check in with someone else first.

Halmon’s Ingredient store was unmarked, looking like another residential dwarf home taken over by someone from the surface. The granite walls only had a single door that remained firmly shut, and only the lamplight under the door hinted that this place was lived in.

Halmon was a big believer in the idea that if you wanted his services, you’d find them yourself. This was not the best business model, and it was probably why he remained relatively minor despite being an excellent supplier of alchemical ingredients. However, given how some of those ingredients were sourced, I could understand not wanting to advertise too publicly.

I knocked thrice on the door, then waited. After a few seconds, a voice barked from within in a short clipped tone.

“We are closed. Come tomorrow.”

“Mr. Halmon,” I said, pitching my voice high enough to be heard through the rock door hopefully. “I appreciate this being relatively close to closing time, but this is about an ingredient I acquired in part thanks to you. Just some questions, shouldn’t be too long.”

There was a pause, then a sound very similar to the hiss of steam leaving a teapot. “Falara,” the voice hissed, followed by several words in gnomish that I could only guess the meaning of.

The door opened, a young woman behind it, a slightly apologetic look on her face.

“Mr. Halmon will be out shortly. He said he needed to go…” her voice faded as she searched for a diplomatic substitution to what I was sure had been a string of profanity-laden instructions for myself: “Freshen up? You’re welcome inside, though.”

Nodding my thanks, I entered Halmon’s shop. It was a converted front hall and dining room, racks of herbs, preserved animal parts, crystals, and other alchemical ingredients crammed into every space wide enough to hold a shelf. The kitchen had been converted into a counter, and I’d never ventured to the second floor or any other part of the residence turned store. Wooden doors separated those parts from the parts of the store available to the public, clearly installed by Halmon himself. Dwarves always used stone when and where they could.

One of those swung open, and an elderly balding gnome in a suit stepped through carrying an empty basket, his expression carefully neutral.

“Mr. Halmon!” I waved over to the gnome. “Already packing up for the day?”

His neutral expression turned into a thin grin. “Yep. And you know the rules. You are not in the store on time, you do not get access to my stock until tomorrow.”

“As loathe as I am to miss the opportunity, there are problems of a different nature I need to discuss with you. The ingredient I mentioned. Preferably in a more private setting?”

Not too loathe to miss it. My lab was likely being destroyed as we spoke. Best not to dwell on that too hard. Increasingly, one option was becoming the most likely one to deal with this problem.

Halmon grunted, then turned to his assistant. “Harie, finish packing, then get ready. I’m not missing out on tonight’s expedition. You, follow me back.”

I gave Harie a polite smile before following Halmon toward the back through a beaded curtain. Politeness was key, even with the impolite. Especially when said impolite could and would threaten those who were impolite back with explosives.

The tale of Terry the thrice-exploded was very popular in the guild tavern.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

The back of the store was a storeroom, shelves filled with various packages and boxes, a few herbs poking out on occasion. Elemental lilies, Dragon Toadstool, Mortaietia, a full stock. I felt a pang of jealousy looking over it all. This overshadowed the collection I had in my lab. Correction: used to keep it in my lab. If anything were left intact, I would be quite shocked.

“Get that look off your face,” Halmon snapped. “If I find one thing missing from back here, I’m coming to the surface and pouring holy water down your throat.”

“Why Mr. Halmon, I have no idea what you mean,” I said, hand up placatingly. “Have I not been an honest and well-paying customer?”

“Yes,” he snapped. “Which makes it even more likely you are part of a bigger scheme. Tell me which ingredient you had trouble with, and then get out of my store.”

I suppose this is what I got for associating with the least reputable ingredient supplier down here.

“The ingredient in question isn’t defective, I just have questions about where you got it from. Or more accurately, how you heard about it, since I handled the harvesting process. The wyvern whose location you suggested to me has brought me back here,” I said. “It seems that-”

“I don’t know anything about that,” Halmon scowled, folding his arms across his chest.

I sighed. “Yes, I’m aware of your policy regarding admitting when you’ve given someone information, and I am willing to pay for you to ignore that policy.”

“Ain’t nothing to pay for. I got a hot tip, I sold you the hot tip, and the person who gave me that tip ain’t popped in since then,” Halmon waved his hand dismissively. “So we have nothing to talk about or trade coin about. You can leave.”

“I disagree,” I said, putting a single pound down on the table. “You saw the person who gave the tip. That’s information I could use, Mr. Halmon.”

He grunted. “Put the coin away. You’ve been a good customer. Probably trying to rob me, but good for now. But I don’t have much. And my name does not come up. In any circumstances.”

I pocketed the coin. “Anything is a help. It’s a start, at least. And your name will not come up at all.”

“Really should grab someone capable of making binding oaths down here,” he muttered. “But that would mean bringing a third person in. Fine. Red hair, green eyes, taller than me.”

I frowned. That wasn’t a lot to go on, although it did sound Keltish. Probably not the best idea to assume. “How tall, approximately?”

“Taller than me,” the gnome replied. “Anything beyond that is your concern, not mine.”

“Well Mr. Halmon, I am most grateful I did not spend a coin on this after all,” I said.

He grunted. “Out, please.”

“Certainly.”

I didn’t pay too much mind to the door slamming shut behind me as I continued on my way down. Well, that was one line of inquiry pretty much sunk. With everything that had happened, the sudden death of a wyvern and the very poor guarding of her corpse had stuck out in my mind as rather suspicious. Just in time for a series of poisonings requiring materials from her brain to cure? Didn’t taste right. Someone was trying to play me. The only question was, who?

One name lept to the forefront. Versalicci would tug me around just for the kicks, but especially if he thought the pressure could be leveraged to make me rejoin the Black Flame. I frowned at the thought. The main issue with that was nothing connected Versalicci to the poisoning business. And if he knew who I was there were easier ways to apply pressure.

I stopped a few levels down, leaning on the short wall keeping people from toppling off the ramp. I still had about ten to go before I reached the bottom.

This was infuriating. I had the names of people who I knew would love to try something like this, but there was no evidence they were involved, and other people I’d never encountered before went out of their way to mess with me.

“Miss Falara?”

My hand was on my saber’s hilt before my mind processed whose voice it was. Behind me, Halmon’s assistant had backed up against the wall, frightened.

I let go of my saber. “My apologies Miss Harie, I’ve had a difficult day. May I help you?”

She eased up, the tension fading out of her. “No, but I can help you. I overheard your conversation with Mr. Halmon, and while I can’t promise miracles, I think my memory of the customer you asked about is a little more concrete.”

“I can’t help but notice you decided to come out here instead of bringing this up inside Mr. Halmon’s shop?” That raised the worrying possibility that the gnome was in on this.

Harrie winced, looking over her shoulder. “I…want to request something in turn. Something Mr. Halmon wouldn’t approve of.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You have my attention. What do you want?”

“A referral,” she said, doing her best to meet my gaze. She seemed to be resisting an urge to look back over her shoulder as she talked. “I’ve always wanted to join the guild, and my apprenticeship with Mr. Halmon was to be a stepping stone to joining the guild itself. However-”

“You’re worried that by the time the apprenticeship is finished, the guild will have left.” I finished for her.

She nodded. “No one can give me a definite time, but the monsters coming from beneath cannot be endless. I want to feel the taste of adventure at least once in my lifetime. And the guildmaster talks to you fairly often.”

“Mostly because he wants to recruit me, and I’ve kept the possibility open but never decided one way or the other,” I said. “I have his ear a little, but not by much.”

“A little is more than nothing,” she replied.

I looked over Harie with a more critical eye than I had all the times I’d encountered her in Halmon’s store. She was young, not as young as I’d been when I’d been conscripted into what some might term a very morbid kind of adventure. What kind of excitement was sweeping her up into the mood to head on one? Definitely one different than mine had been, and not one I really should pry into.

“The information on the customer who supplied the tip first, please,” I said.

She nodded. “It was weird, he couldn’t have looked more Keltish, but his accent was Varavian. Not heavily, but just enough there for me to pick up on.”

“You have a lot of experience picking up on accents?” I asked.

“No, but I once helped some immigrants from there adjust to the city,” she explained. “Even the ones who got our language the quickest had these traces of their old accent. They sounded very similar to him.”

“Cosmetic mods, more than likely,” I said to myself. “I suppose if you want to keep your identity secret, an entirely different ethnicity is a good idea. Not being able to disguise your accent makes it a little less worthwhile, though.”

“I don’t know who else would have picked up on it,” Harie said, joining me at the little stone wall. “It wasn’t the weirdest thing about him, though.”

I raised an eyebrow. “It wasn’t?”

“Nope. The customer was dressed like he’d just come from a fancy dress party. Top hat, fancy coat, I think he even had metal woven into them.”

“Metal thread?” I grinned. Finally, something was fitting together. “If I were to bring you some clothes, do you think you’d tell if they were the same ones our mysterious Varavian masquerading as a Keltish we’re wearing?”

Harie frowned, thinking. “I could tell if they looked like the ones he was wearing, but if they were the exact ones? No.”

“Close enough,” I said excitedly. “I’ll see when I can bring them down. You’ve been a great help Miss Harie. I can find you down here once I have the clothes ready?”

Those I’d left with Tolman, who’d keep them himself for now. Leaving them at my apartment seemed unwise.

“At Mr. Halmon’s shop, and if not there then down at the guild hall. The Guild master lets me sleep there and earn some extra coins doing mundane tasks. And he wants to hear what Mr. Halmon has been up to.”

I nodded. “I’ll check either of those first. My thanks, Miss Harie.”

“You’re welcome. And the Guildmaster?”

“I’ll suggest it. I can’t do much more than that.”

Truth be told, I didn’t know what Almaseck would say. He’d been trying to recruit me for a few years now, but an apprentice alchemist might be too low a level of experience for him.

Harie nodded, then started to walk back towards Halmon’s shop, and I continued my way down. The Delver’s guild was close enough to make out people walking between the buildings down below.

The guild hall occupied the old town hall of the dwarves. Three stories tall, it still bore the scars of battle. Hasty repair work had been done for the chunks in the roof and wall that were missing, but only the texture of the stone gave away what parts had been redone by mages.

As large as the building was, the entire guild didn’t fit in it. The guild sprawled across all of the lowest levels, spreading like a fungus across abandoned buildings repurposed from their original use. Oh, some still served their original purpose; the military barracks now housed adventurers.

Easily a hundred of them lived there now, although I only knew about a dozen close. Most relationships down here I kept strictly mercenary.

I waved to a few adventurers as I passed, people I’d worked with freelancing for the guild. They’d get word to Almaseck I was here sooner or later. I’d be invited for another recruitment attempt disguised as a conversation.

Hopefully, I’d have finished my business down here and be done by then. Not that I didn’t enjoy my discussions with the Guildmaster, but I had few enough hours in the day as is.

I was one level away from Kalasyp’s lab when my step faltered. A grey orc in a suit had rounded the corner, the insignia of the guild on the upper right chest of his suit jacket.

Helvek, Almaseck’s right-hand man. I wasn’t dodging the meeting with the Guildmaster.