Dragon’s Cleft was a sight. The entrance to the town was a narrow gorge with three storey high walls flanking the river up to the cliff face. A massive portcullis stood above the river waiting to be lowered in an emergency. Above the walls it looked like the cliffs had been chiselled flat to block any attempts at climbing them. Past the gate the town was surrounded by sheer mountains on all sides; each hundreds of meters tall. The origin of the river was a waterfall maybe a kilometre past the gate. To the south of the river was a pasture covered in goats. I could barely see the ground beneath them. If I knew one thing about goats it’s that they’ll eat basically everything until only bare soil is left.

To the north the town rose in five tiers before terminating in a cliff. The first tier looked like it was mainly inns, taverns and warehouses. The second was maybe for various workshops. The next two looked like residential districts. The houses were small, with steep eaves to keep the snow from piling up and small windows covered in wooden shutters. The buildings on the top tier were more ornate. They could have been government buildings or temples or something of the sort. All in all it wasn’t a huge town. But it was a veritable metropolis compared to the holdfasts we’d seen.

Our barge tied up at the dock while Gorn settled the fee. I had a feeling he had been spending a lot of money getting us here. Of course I was grateful for the gift. Especially since he didn’t expect to be paid back.

Afterwards he took us to a dingy looking two storey tavern on the first tier with a sign of a one horned minotaur on the front. The inside was a bit more interesting. The walls were covered in trophies. Wolf pelts, horns and antlers of various animals and even a bright red scaled hide of some dragonlike creature.

The room was mostly empty. There was a mixed group of satyrs and humans in dark green leather hoods, with large hunting hounds lounging at their feet. And at the bar were three humans in bronze armour and white tabards with a golden sun emblazoned on their chests. Gorn looked nervous when he saw them. The barkeep was a white haired human man with a gaping hole in one eye. It was fucking disgusting. Get an eyepatch you old shit I thought. After scanning the room Gorn said, “It’s a shame I don’t recognise anyone here. Hopefully some friends will finish with their quests soon so we can have a real party. We’ll be staying in the common room for now. There are rooms upstairs; but they’re a bit pricey for my purse. If you want privacy there’s an outhouse out back. There’s also a bathhouse two streets down. I’ll be going to freshen up before we head to the alchemist to get rid of our loot.” It didn’t take much to convince the rest of the party to join him.

The bathhouse was new to me. There was a lukewarm bath in a rusty tub followed by Finnish style sauna. After which you were supposed to cool off by jumping in a freezing pool but I skipped that part. Our clothes were also getting pretty dingy. But the bathhouse offered laundry services and I was grateful to take them up on it. The look on Gorn’s face was a bit pained. But I feigned ignorance and thanked him profusely for his ‘gift.’

It was mid-afternoon when we headed towards the alchemist. The shop itself was on the fourth tier in a posh residential neighbourhood. It was a three storey affair with a garish tapestry of a bubbling violet potion on a turquoise background hanging in front of the door. To my surprise the embroidery for the bubbles and smoke crawled around the cloth in a decent impression of a Harry Potter painting.

We pushed passed the door to see a tall counter immediately in front of us. All the valuable stuff was behind the counter in shelves along the walls. Trusting fellow I thought. The young satyr ‘goating’ it immediately went into a back room to fetch the proprietor. I a burst of purple smoke a gnome in violet trousers and a maroon coat over a scarlet shit shirt appeared. He had fancy looking goggles over his eyes which might have fitted a steampunk more than fantasy. He had light purple skin and an afro dyed with stripes matching the colours of a rainbow.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Good afternoon to you all. I hope you lot mean business. Potions of Many Tongues aren’t cheap you know.” The gnome said, rather grumpily. Though by how readily he decided to show off his wares I suspected he was in a fairly good mood. Maybe he just had resting bitch face?

“How much sir?” I found myself asking.

“For a beautiful young girl like yourself I’ll give you a discount. Fifty marks.”

“You used a fifty mark potion to make a sale to this lot! Are you insane?” Gorn exclaimed.

“Now, now. No need to be coy. I was lucky to see that most interesting looking airship teleport in. I know exactly how deep your pockets are.”

“We have no idea what caused the teleportation and the ‘airship’ is broken. I’m not sure what you expect from us. We’re here to sell troll liver.” Rachel said.

The gnome rubbed his hands together. “Hmm, what a shame. Troll liver is so common in these parts healing potions cost a tenth of what they do in the lowlands. They won’t buy you much. But I’ll make you a deal. I’ll pay you two hundred marks for the salvage rights.”

I started to get a funny feeling in my gut. “Let me get this straight. You used a fifty mark potions to speak to people you had no idea couldn’t speak the trade tongue. And you want to give us another two hundred for a device you’ve never seen. I don’t pretend to be the most intelligent girl in the world. But I know when someone is bullshitting. You must have been tracking us with a scrying spell to know when we’d enter your shop. And if you saw the plane come down you must have been tracking us from the beginning. I’m sure two hundred marks is a generous offer. But I’m sure we can get better if we shop around.”

The gnome was starting to look annoyed. “Shop around where? This town is a dump. The only people with more liquid capital than I are the council. And they’re not going to spend city funds on a device that will take years of study to understand.”

“We understand it just fine. There are engineers on the plane who know about the basic design. We just don’t have the resources to fix it.” Simon interjected.

“Two thousand marks if you let me talk to these engineers.” The gnome responded eagerly.

“Let’s talk to the council and see what they offer first,” I suggested. “There’s no need to rush.”

Gorn then added, “Two thousand marks is a really nice magic weapon. I don’t know what an airship costs. But it’s worth more than my gear combined.”

“Like I said there’s no rush. We can sell the troll liver now and handle the salvage rights when the rest of the passengers are safe. It’s not going to be cheap housing them for the winter.” I was hoping that the gnome hadn’t found out about Mama Lindisfarne’s offer of her warehouse in the city.

“Fine, fine.” The gnome said grumpily. “Do you have any other artefacts of a similar provenance? I wasn’t lying when I said that troll liver is cheap as dirt here.”

Meacham took out a pair of binoculars. He looked very reluctant when he said, “we don’t have many of these. You’ll have to give an amazing price for this one.”

The gnome took the binoculars and looked them over. He replaced his goggles with a pair of spectacles. He then looked through the eyepiece, took the spectacles off and looked again. “A double spyglass that doesn’t use magic. Interesting. The Artificers Guild can’t come after me if I sell these. But can your engineers make them?”

Simon then said, “I’ve taken an optics class and know the theory. But I’ve got no idea how to make the prisms.”

“Prisms? The potion is having trouble translating the term.” The gnome was rubbing his eyebrows.

“Rays of light change direction when entering different materials. What we want are glass prisms inside the casing that reflect and focus the light towards the eye. It’s the glass I have no idea how to make.”

“Hmm. And this uses no magic? Making the glass will be tricky without it. But I think I can manage using alchemical alternatives. The Artificers Guild will have no reason to come after me. Shall we say I’ll give you fifty marks for the method and another twenty for these binoculars.”

“No deal!” I exclaimed. “It’ll take a lot of experimentation and Simon’s time is valuable. Plus we’ll want the binoculars back if you can successfully copy them. Let’s say twenty marks to rent the binoculars and ten marks a day for Simon’s time. With a fifty mark minimum in case you figure it out sooner than five days. And we’ll need one of those language potions to speak with the council.”

“Fine. But you’ll have to testify under truth potion you can do what you say.” The gnome spat in his hand and held it out. I did the same. It was gross; but when in Rome ….

“Oh, by the way, my name is Aelfric Unraed of shire Tevelurbis.”