Nicholas was sitting in a computer room with few other people, he was currently concentrating on their very first programming exam on the computer. It wasn't an exam which held much relevance though, it was only there to check how people had progressed.

Everyone had taken the exam, but as there was a time limit some people wanted to use all of the given time and Nicholas belonged to the same group of people.

"Times up guys, Turn in the exam." The overseeing teacher looked at the clock and claimed.

Nicholas left the computer room accompanied by everyone else who had stayed till the end.

"You sure took your time Nic."

Ken and Elle were sitting in front of the room waiting for him to leave. They hadn't had the time to talk today yet so they were eager to chat. Nic had been thinking about yesterday for most of the morning. He had grown attached to that little town of Ironedge and still felt slightly sad about his departure.

"Why the long face Nic? Did you fail?" Elle asked.

" 90% not even close."

"Hmff. I only got 75%." Elle said with slight frown.

"100% here, bow down peasants." Ken said and struck a pose.

"So whats the problem Nic?" Elle asked again.

"Ah.. I left my starting town yesterday. Sort of feel emotional about it."

"Grow some balls boy. You weren't gonna stay there forever were you?" Ken said with a snarky tone.

"That's true. Still, I cant really help it."

"Well at least you got out of there. Where are you off to now then?" Elle asked.

"I'm going to Dvalfgar to learn more blacksmithing." Nicholas answered.

"Blacksmithing again. You've really started to like it huh. No more interest in adventuring?" Ken asked.

"Got to admit, I have started to like it, but the idea of adventuring still intrigues me. I will get to it at some point. Besides there's much more to that world than just exploring I feel." Nic explained.

"Well as long as you're entertained." Elle claimed.

"That I am." Nicholas answered.

Dvalfgar was build inside of a huge mountain but it only used a little more than half the mountains interior. The mountain itself was in a horizontal oval shape and had three entrances to the city at north, west and south. Around the entrance of each gate there were what you could call a small village which housed the gate guards and patrols.

The South gate was usually the most uneventful gate as there were only two places that used the entrance. The Quarry which was a few hours away and Ironedge.

Today was one of the few days where the guards had to raise their attention as they noticed a large clump of vehicles approaching. To their slight disappointment it was only the caravan which had passed just yesterday. They were on route to pass the gate but some people dropped of the carriages and head for the south gate.

They kept an eye on the people that approached, there were no real limitations on who could enter but anyone suspicious would have to be checked and any large shipments had to be notified about the day before.

"You there! Halt!"

A small person cloaked from head to ankles was stopped at the gates, you couldn't see much of them other than they had a large backpack and a quiver and bow strapped to their back.

"Remove your hood."

The person removed their hood and revealed their bright gray hair and a feminine face with bright green eyes gazing at the guard. The guard was slightly shocked at the little dwarf as she opened up her cloak revealing her equipment more. The person was of course Aleyn.

"Something the matter?" She asked

The guard snapped out of his thought.

"What is your business here?" the guard asked.

"I intent to live and work in the city for some time. Do I need a permission for this?" Aleyn asked the guard.

The guard looked her up and down and requested to see her backpack. After inspecting the content he deemed her not a threat and let her enter.

"Welcome back to the home of all dwarves,." He said as he gave her backpack back.

"Thank you."

As she passed the guard she could see a lot of people walking in to the dark tunnel that was the only direction to go. The tunnel was long and wide, it was also tall enough to probably fit three carriages on top of each other, she estimated probably 25meters. At the end of the tunnel she could see a flickering torch. As she got closer to the torch the sound of the crowd inside the city got louder and once she reached the torch itself, she had to stop and gaze at the opening in front of her.

What she saw after the torch was a great huge open space paved with smooth rock and amongst it you could see a huge cluster of buildings with roads and paths going through them. The opening itself was wide and tall, if there weren't buildings in the way you could probably see straight to the north and west entrance from the spot she stood on.

It was as if someone had made a city and build sphere over it. Which was almost what they had done. The dwarves had carved the mountain through the years and build their home inside of it, enforcing it with pillars and magic from the inside.

She turned her head away from the city and faced towards her right where Camedyrs workshop should be and what she saw was not what she had expected. A huge dark building with chimneys going through the rocky roof was build right besides the huge rock wall that cut through the mountain separating it from the city.

It was like a massive warehouse from the real world but it had huge open doors on its side like you would find on a farms warehouse. You could see heat and hear the impact of hammers hitting anvils escaping from the house.

Knowing she had found what she was looking for she did not go there immediately, she had other plans. Aleyn instead walked up to a patrolling guard pair and asked if there was a inn where she could stay at nearby.

There were two big inn's which housed people in the vicinity. One which housed travelers and provided them with a room to sleep in and another which was a bit more high classed as it was bigger and had a spa in it amongst other things.

Not needing a spa she chose to go for the cheaper inn, it was located at the south west side of the city and it took her roughly 15minutes to walk from the south entrance to it. She booked a room and left anything unnecessary in her room before heading to meet Camedyr. Only wearing her leather equipment and backpack as she traveled through the city once more.

As she got to the building she took a moment to gaze in wonder at the height and width of it all. As she was staring at the building up close she heard a voice from the inside.

"It's not gonna fall on ya you know."

She quickly looked down and tried to find the source of the voice.

As she searched, she found a figure sitting inside the room that was just inside of the huge door. There were many sets of armor, weapons and tools hanging from the shelf's across the whole room. The figure was sitting in a chair next to a drawer, reading a piece of paper.

"If the whole mountain comes down, this building will be the last thing to fall with it. I can tell you that much." the figure said.

"I don't doubt that." Aleyn entered the room and replied.

Once she entered she got a lot better look at the figure. It was a beast man who had the characteristics of a lion. His mane wasn't all poofy and lush like you would expect, but he did wear a beard which resembled one slightly. His actual mane reached behind his head and down his back.

He was two heads taller than her and you could see a tail flopping around next to the chair. He wore a sleeveless shirt and ragged pants which were held up by a belt.

As Aleyn stared him the beast man noticed her look him over.

"Never seen a Lionkin before?"

"Erm, no can't say I have." Aleyn answered unsure of herself.

"Can't blame you. We usually inhabit more warmer places." he replied and rose up from his seat and approached her.

"Anyway, you here for business or something?"

"I'm here to meet Camedyr Tin-flame, we have an unscheduled meeting."

The lion took a look at her and rolled his eyes.

"As much as I would love to believe that... I don't. Master is out at the moment anyway, if you feel persistent then you can come back in an hour or so and try again."

He then turned and went back to his seat.

Well, if the guy wasn't in then there wasn't much she could do. She decided to take a look around the City and then come back and see again.

She had no real destination so she just looked around and went where ever looked interesting. At first she went to the middle of the city which housed the dwarven arena, probably the biggest and tallest building in the whole city. It resembled the roman colosseum in size and form but it was obviously made with dwarven architecture in mind. It was currently free for anyone who wanted to book it for duels or other fights and since there was no one guarding the audience entrance she went to look inside.

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There were a few people sitting in the audience watching a pair of people fighting, sadly as she was about to sit down one of the duelists had already lost and a person from the audience jumped down to heal both of them. It seems like they had a proper training group going on as everyone in the audience looked ready for battle except the person who jumped down to heal them. Having lost interest she left the arena and head towards the north entrance.

The north side didn't seem much different, though it did house more exotic shops and people. It seemed that the sea wasn't that far from the north side and it was the place where people who came by ships stayed at. She entered a few stores looking at the merchandise which varied from exotic crystals to foods and many other things. She was about to leave for the west side of the city when she spotted a house which had a billboard with the picture of a wand on it.

Having had her interest aroused Aelyn entered the building. It turned out that the wand represented a magic equipment shop. Each wall was filled with books on bookshelves and in the middle of the room there were racks filled with equipment. She went to look at the books but looking at the titles they seemed way too complex for her at a glance.

"Extracting essence.", "Perfecting manipulation." she read through the the titles in her head.

"Expensiiiiiiiveee." a high pitched voice came from the opposite side of the room.

"Who, what, where?"

The voice startled her, when she had entered she thought the place had seemed empty.

"Expensive books." the voice sounded again, this time closer.

She was confused as she couldn't see anyone, but the voice was definitely closer.

"Hey down here." the voice this time came from below.

She looked down and what she saw shocked her in a new way.

A person half her size was standing next to her. It was mostly a shock because it was the first time she had seen someone smaller than herself.

The short person was another beast man. It had the characteristics of a ram but it walked on two feet and had humanoid hands and body while its legs and face kept some features of a goat, looking at their face she determined the person was actually a young little girl.

Her horns were small and growing outwards. She wore a blue one piece dress that covered her from neck to her inwards bent kneecaps. She wore no shoes as she had hoofs for feet.

"You here to buy expensive book?" the little girl asked as she looked up and straight at her.

"Ah no, I just got curious when I saw the wand at the front and wanted to have a look." Aleyn answered very frankly.

"bawww."

She muttered in a sad manner, but immediately perked up.

"If you got question come ask."

The little rams speech was a little broken but you could understand her. She hopped back to the back of the room, without making any real noise.

"What a cute little thing." she thought to herself and smiled.

After having a look around the book shelves and not understanding any of it she decided to just give up and leave for her next destination. She entered the western side of the city

The western side seemed to lack shops and only had houses where people lived, but it did house some other important buildings as well such as the city hall and the adventurers hall.

First she entered the city hall and after seeing the front desk and the whole place empty of customers she decided to ask some questions about what she could do here.

The city hall cooperated mainly with the adventurers hall to provide work, but it also was used to purchase land inside of the city borders which extended every year due to the city expanding further in to the mountain. The city hall also housed the city's only court room where people could settle political disputes and plead for their unjust punishments.

Having had enough of the city hall she decided to have a look at the adventurers hall to see how it was compared to Ironedges.

As much as the adventurers hall in Ironedge was modest, the one in Dvalfgar was massive compared to it. Even the front door was huge and took a bit of strength to open.

She pushed herself in and inside she was met with a lot of gazes. She wasn't wearing much armor or didn't carry most of her equipment at the moment so she didn't look much like an adventurer. Giving the inside a good look everyone who were staring at her pointed their gazes away.

The inside of the house was pretty standard looking, there were tables where people were discussing things and setting deals and at the end of the hall there was a reception just like in Ironedge. The place had a second floor, but it seemed to be out of limits for anyone but staff so she didn't bother about it too much. On the left side of the whole wall there were a massive number of requests.

Having had enough of looking around she went to look at the requests. The quality of had definitely risen a few notches from Ironedges requests as even the copper requests seemed exotic.

As she was looking at the requests, a group of people gathered next to her.

"Hey girl, you looking for big strong men to help you?"

One of the group members had gotten even closer and looked to be flirting with her.

"No, not really. I was just curious on how much the place differed from my previous hall." she said frankly.

"Then you aren't in a hurry anywhere yea? How about you spend some time with us." the man had gotten even closer and placed his hand on her right shoulder from her left side.

"Not interested." She said with a emotionless voice.

"Come on babe. We can show you some good time." he was laughing and smirking as he tried to reach for her breasts with the very same hand.

At that point she had had enough and looked away from the wall of requests and looked straight in to the guys eyes. She took her left hand and put some strength into removing the guys hand from her shoulder.

"Not. Interested."

She stressed each word and as she removed his hand the man started convulsing and yelling in pain. She pushed the guy on the floor where he was trying to endure the pain of getting his fingers broken. As he did that the two others came to his side, one of them picked him up and the other threw a punch at her.

"You bitch!" he yelled as he put his strength in to his punch.

Aleyn opened her right hand and just received the blow in her palm, relaxing her elbow so that her hand wasn't just a wall of meat. She caught the punch which had some noticeable strength to it but she could still overpower it. She grabbed the fist and twisted the hand behind his back in a hold and sighed.

"Come on guys, I don't want any trouble. I just wanted to see the board."

After saying that she pushed the guy away from him and he got knocked into the third rascal who was holding the flirter. They staggered and took a mean look at her, but in the end they decided to leave her be.

She sighed as she had caused some commotion, a lot of people had looked at the exchange and some were even ready to intervene. To their surprise she didn't need any help and as she had repelled the trio they turned their gaze away from her.

Still, she had made an impression she didn't mean to which annoyed her. Even the reception girl seemed to be looking at her with intense eyes.

Having had enough of the attention she decided to return to the south side to see if Camedyr had arrived..

As she was about to leave, the door opened in front of her and a group of large men

glad in expensive looking armor and robes strolled in pushing her aside. They didn't even notice her until she yelped when she hit the floor, which caught their attention but not their pity.

She stood up and dusted herself off and left as she didn't want to make a fuss and she didn't really care for apologies that had no actual regret behind them.

"You get these people everywhere huh." She thought.

The man who had run in to her was about to give a half assed apology, but to his surprise she didn't even acknowledge them as she strode out.