Chapter Forty-Three

It wasn’t until Dwarguy turned his mech around to face the coming threat and started to move deeper into the cavern to put himself in the way that I realized just how bad that explosion had been. A stone fragment had pierced the metal of his mech and was embedded where his legs would be.

He drew hammers off the back of his mech where he kept his armaments, the broken remnants of a sword dropped from the metal hand to clatter on the stone floor, and as Loysa stood behind us, Tess and I rolled between the legs of the mech and leveled our magipistols into the darkness.

“Aye lasses, ah got two hammers here an there’s a lot of em com’in, do ye got any other crazy ideas?!” Dwarguy exclaimed, his voice echoed not only out of the mech itself, but off the walls.

I heard the mana flare to life on the end of Loysa’s staff, “I have plenty of mana left for an area protection spell, but I don’t know how long it can hold out against… well, that’s a lot of voices.”

“I could probably cast a spell to collapse the cave.” Tess suggested. Her laugh ‘suggested’ that she might be joking, but I couldn’t be sure. Clearly she was a little crazy.

“I’d rather not turn to a smear on my first quest.” I said… as if doing so on my second or third one would be preferable. “I can try talking to them… if they kept their intelligence, they might listen.”

I pushed myself up off of the cold stone ground, and put my pistol away. It seemed this world hadn’t invented special ‘holsters’ for firearms yet, one more thing to get to, but for now at least if it was out of view, that was probably for the best.

I moved around to the front of the mech and shouted, “We come in peace! We don’t mean any harm! Please, listen!” I shouted into the darkness, I didn’t know if they’d even understand me, my heart was racing and my nine tails glowed blue at the tips as I readied myself to cast what magic I could. I obviously wasn’t on par with Loysa or… Utu help me, Tes’alay, but in the confines of the cave my fireball might still find a target.

I held up my hands, “There’s only four of us! The golems outside attacked, we had no choice! I’ll pay damages if you want, just please, hear me out!”

The sound of approaching feet and voices slowed and came to a stop, despite my kitsune vision, I couldn’t see them approach, which meant that this cavern went truly deep within the mountain before it came to their city.

That focus was also probably why I missed them coming from the side. A segment of the cave opened, and lights sprang to life in the darkness which illuminated the rotted corpses of the dwarves. Their noses were long gone, but their ears remained and their eyes, some had them, some didn’t, some had only one. Those with them, the eyes were milky white as one would expect of a corpse.

The life was gone, they all carried walking sticks or canes, reducing the shambling steps, and the lead dwarf shouted, “Who’re you?! And what are ye doin in Undercity!”

‘Undercity? Steelven? This world tends to name things very literally… but then again back home there was a city just called ‘red stick’ because of a red stick there, and a place called ‘Lost Pistol’ since someone lost a pistol there… and then again we did just name places ‘New’... somewhere else. I probably shouldn’t judge.’ I shook the thought off… my new kitsune nature seemed at least a little more random than my old one, so I tried to focus on the walking corpses approaching out of the darkness and put myself in front of them.

“Ah, yes, hello there, master dwarf.” I gave a sweeping bow, “I’m Aiko Tsuniki, toothless adventurer, ah, I’m here on a quest, I would like to get some magitite from your mountain, if that’s alright.”

“Well, it ain’t! Get yer tails, all of em, out! Bad enough ye broke our golems…” He shouted and leveled his walking stick at me, shaking with annoyance, “But we were all busy tryin to decompose in peace!”

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“Um, I’m real sorry about that. I promise. And I did say I’d pay for it.” I promised, my hands were still up in what I hoped was the universal sign of surrender.

The dwarf I was speaking to at least had both his eyes, that made eye contact easier, and he stepped a little farther from the hidden passage. On a practical level, I could see why they’d have something like that, ambushing invaders from behind would be extremely easy. But it also set me a little ill at ease, it was like one of those ‘they were right here, and then they just disappeared’ horror vibes.

Did not like it. No, no I definitely didn’t.

The dwarf I spoke to however, either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “You betcher ass you’ll pay fer it foxy!” He snapped, “We’ll bill yer guild the parts, labor, and materials! And you’ll have to pay to send people to fix it too, since we can’t any more thanks… to…” He trailed off, his walking stick shifted from me… to Tess. “You!” He howled, “Surround them!” He shouted, and dwarf zombies swarmed out of the cavern, I went for my pistol, my heart raced…

‘So much for talking!’ I thought and was just about to cast fireball at the entrance to try to keep them back when Tess shouted from behind us.

“Wait!” She held her hands up beside her head in surrender, the dwarves still swarmed, but they didn’t come closer, they were just… everywhere.

Rotted faces, ragged, patchy beards, faces missing jaws or teeth… and the odor of death was everywhere at once.

“I’m sorry! I really am! It was an accident! I didn’t mean to bring you back! I just wanted to ask one spirit a few questions!” She exclaimed as she stepped out from behind the mech and approached where I stood.

“Please! Listen, I might be able to help you!” She shouted, and the dwarves relaxed a little bit.

“Help… how?!” Their evident leader snapped. “Thanks to you, we’ve got no way to die… we just sit around waiting to decompose! Nobody comes to shop! Nobody comes to buy magitite! And we can’t mine it anyway because the ones who found our bodies took all our tools!” He shouted, “We don’t even have the tools to make tools anymore!” I could feel the rant coming, so I jumped on the only thing to come to mind.

“What if we could arrange for some tools! And a dedicated magitite buyer! Also… I know you miss alcohol and things but… but what if-” I caught sight of Loysa out of the corner of my eye, “what if I offered you something else enjoyable to do that would pass the time and that might actually get people to come to Undercity again and maybe make you rich while you did it and even though you can’t enjoy alcohol you can still feel pretty good and-” stopped and took a deep breath, I’d rambled on without stopping, but I had their attention.

I knelt down so I was eye level. “I know somebody, somebody important. They need a lot of magitite. They just got burned on a large supply deal recently and will be open to another source. Plus…” I looked over at Tes’alay, “Didn’t you say the ore on this mountain was special?”

“Yes. It’s hypersyncronized, it has a very unique mana signature.” She said, and I got the feeling she was about to offer another apology, so I raced ahead.

“Right, so the source is guaranteed quality, he’ll like that. I could request that he supply you with some tools up front, and in exchange, less the government contracts and what Tess needs for research, you give him exclusive purchase rights and a great deal on cheap, guaranteed quality magitite. This stuff here’ll work for mechs, right?” I asked, and looked at Dwarguy for confirmation.

He didn’t emerge from his mech, but he did answer at least, his voice hollow but clear through the metal weapon, “Aye, lass. In fact it might be better’n fine. Ye would need to send a sample to Yorgim, an I’d need ta try it out, but if I endorse it, he’ll listen.”

He knew exactly who I meant. Thanks be to Utu for his protection.

“And… what about the other thing? Even if he agrees, that would get us mining again, but what’s the point of that if we’re stuck with no tourists or visitors, just swingin picks all day isn’t all of life.” He said, and I rushed to my next pitch.

“Gambling.” I said.

“Lass, we know how to play cards, but-” I interjected before he could finish, fearing the loss of momentum, I cringed inwardly to do it, but I touched his shoulder with one hand.

“No. Not just cards. Something this world doesn’t seem to have, or if it did, I’m sure I’d have heard about it by now. I can teach you about other games, and something special. Casinos.”