Chapter Thirteen

The elf woman had a reasonable talent for sketch making, or so I thought when she showed me the finished result after I gave her a clear description. When I nodded, “That’s him.”

She frowned. “That’s him alright.” It sounded like she knew him, but somehow I thought it was better to not ask questions. So I quickly made my excuses and left with Dwarguy to do my ‘emergency quest’.

I didn’t even know how much the quest was going to pay, but I thought better than to ask, ‘I doubt I can really refuse his offer anyway.’ I thought, he may have been short, but I’d never felt so menaced in my life. ‘Whoever stole from him must have balls of solid rock!’ I shook my head in disbelief as we exited the building and my unlikely guide took me to the first mech. A four legged model that the dwarf pilot was clambering into.

“Hold up!” Dwarguy’s gruff voice rang out before the cockpit could close. The pilot, a similarly squat figure in the way dwarves were, with an ink dark beard that was neatly trimmed below and with a scruffy handlebar mustache that jutted out beyond his cheeks, paused in midgesture with his hand still on the pullbar to close up. “Wait!” my companion called out again and ran over on stumpy legs.

“What?!” The dark haired dwarf groused, “What are ye bother’n me for, worried I’ll beat ye in the first round if ah get more practice in?!” He laughed openly, his mouth going so wide I swear I could see the molars in the back of his jaw.

His laughter stopped when he saw Dwarguy’s expression. “Who’s your friend there?” He asked, relaxing his hold on the pullbar and letting his hand fall away.

“Aiko. She needs to check yer mech, and don’t argue, Olafi, less’n you want to be dead or a wreck.” Dwarguy replied, and the seated dwarf’s face became somber, his brow furrowed, and he got down from the brown leather pilot seat.

“What’re ye on about?” Olafi demanded, and while Dwarguy explained, I held out my hand and began to inspect the flow of mana.

“Sonofabitch!” The dark haired dwarf shouted, and Dwarguy pointed back toward the entrance into the interior office space of the arena, there were several wolfpeople barrelling out in the directions of other pilots, moving so fast they’d gone down to all fours to get the word out before it was way too late.

“Aye, see. The boss here has already sent out the pack to let everbody know.” Dwarguy looked toward me for confirmation, and my face was probably pale, because he didn’t wait for me to speak to say to his comrade, “See?”

“It’s bad.” I said, confirming what he already knew.

“We got’a check the rest, but I’ll bet good creds that there’s not a one that’s any good fer this.” Dwarguy said and shivered as he considered, most likely anyway, how close he may have come to dying to entertain people.

Olafi was staring at his own mech like it was a serpent about to bite him, the same thought clearly going through his head.

“Aye…aye…” He mumbled, and Dwarguy grabbed my arm with his meaty fingers.

“Lass, we’d best go, hurry up now, we ‘aven’t got all day.” He said and I allowed him to half walk, half drag me to the next.

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I inspected every single mech over the course of the next two hours, and every single one of them had a faulty magitite core that was ‘off’ in the same way as all the rest.

Along the way though, there was a growing crowd of the little dwarf and gnome pilots who followed from one to the next as if they couldn’t believe it happened to all of them. By the time I got to the last one, I felt like Gulliver looking down at the lilliputians. They were a hardy lot, all of them, some with scars from blades or burns, one even had a mechanical hand, while a few others had mechanical fingers where their natural ones should have been.

I really wanted to be positive, so I said, “At least we caught it, right? I mean, what if we hadn’t? Plus,” I tilted my head toward the arena, “at least you’ve got the good ones. Swapping them out may take time, but you can do it and then everything will be fine.”

“You did a good turn for us, lass, what’s your name?” A blonde bearded dwarf asked.

“Aiko Tsuniki.” I answered, “I’m an adventurer. Or, I’m trying to be.” I added with a sheepish blush. I noticed the use of the phrase ‘A good turn’ and I wondered if that was related to the heavy use of gears… it probably was.

“Well lass, the mech world is a small one, an ye may have saved a buncha our lives today. You can bet the guild will hear about it.” He said it loud enough that I had to wonder if his hearing was starting to go.

Two dozen other heads were bobbing up and down in steady nods. I was honestly embarrassed enough by all the attention that I felt nervous even though it was positive notice. I’m a little anxious about being focused on so much in any situation, I much prefer my tools and toys and things to tinker with. But it did still feel nice to have their gratitude.

“I just did what anyone would do.” I mumbled, “I saw a problem, so I said something, I’m a tinker, tinkers fix things.”

The dwarven and gnomish mech pilots were as much engineers as warriors, and I could see the approving glints in their eyes as they recognized a kindred spirit. They were the sort who loved their work, fiddling and working with their tools and machines to make them work as well as they possibly can, always pushing the limits of possibility.

It was impossible for me to not like them.

But even so, I did still have to get back to meet up with Loysa. I didn’t know what she’d have to say about all this, but I liked to think she'd be pleased. “I wish I could stay, thank you,” I bowed to the little mob, “for letting me see your mechs, I’ve dreamed of seeing those for what seems like forever. Now though, I need to meet up with my friend and-” I stopped when Dwarguy put his hand on my arm.

“Aye lass, ‘fore ye go, you don’t know squat about where your place is or how to get there, an ye still need to collect on the ‘emergency quest’ that’s probably already in with the guild. Let Rollo handle all that.”

Before I could ask who Rollo was, Dwarguy shouted, “Ay Rollo! Here boy! C’mere!” He bellowed and a spindly short wolfboy who was more wolf than boy jogged over from where the other ‘pack’ of security people had clustered after I finished giving notice. Most animal people seemed to have more or less human bodies and only a few features of beasts. This one was indistinguishable from a wolf except for his hands and the fact that he walked upright.

“Yeah, Dwarguy… what do you want?” He asked, his voice wasn’t quite cracked yet, he was clearly still young, I wondered if becoming more human was part of the growing process here. But that was an answer that could wait.

“Take the lass to the guild, get her reward. Take her to Mr. Schnee’s hotel and get her room, then go to where she tells you and pick up her friend. And don’t let her outta yer sight lad, she’s got all the common sense of a child that ate too much lead.”

I blushed. He wasn’t wrong.

But even so!

“You got it!” Rollo replied and the ends of his mouth drew back. I think he meant it to be friendly, but to me he was just baring more teeth.

He grabbed my hand with his furry one and said, “C’mon, I’ll get you where you need to go, trust me!” He had such wide, innocent eyes even for a wolf that I just couldn’t doubt that he meant it.

And then I was ‘off’ yet again to the gods only knew where.