"You called, Overseer?"

Urist's voice was so deep, it reminded me of Lurch from the Adams Family. I imagined them standing side by side, and could barely restrain a little giggle. I scratched Stalker behind the ears, trying to hide my amusement. When I had myself under control, I spoke again. "Urist, I am not a fighter. I know I'm not. I always counted on traps more than military dwarves to keep the fortress safe."

He looked at me, and the expression on his face was so obviously 'Tell me something I didn't already know' that I almost laughed, again. He clearly read the humor in my expression though, and sighed. "I don't understand what is funny, Overseer, but I would like to understand why you called me here."

"I'm sorry, Urist, I wanted you to see the data that was provided to us on the S9, the enemies you fought outside. I do not have the expertise in combat or military matters that you do. I understand capes better, and I know human technology better, but I suspect that you and the others will be better able to create an effective defense if you have the most complete data possible. This is that data."

Urist looked at the laptop computer, staring for a moment. "One page of data? That's all the device holds, Overseer?"

"Huh?" I looked at the screen, then it struck me what Urist was seeing from his point of view. "Oh. Sorry. The screen changes, Urist, in response to input." I thought for a moment. "Like pulling a lever changes the state of a mechanism. Imagine that there are millions of tiny levers inside the machine. The screen is thousands of dots, and the levers inside the machine change the colors of the dots, changing the appearance of the screen, based on the input from the mouse," I pointed at the mouse, "and the keyboard," I pointed at the keyboard.

I carefully dropped Stalker to the floor and stood, motioning for Urist to sit.

Urist looked puzzled, but was mumbling to himself. "Millions of levers? Millions?" He looked at me with an incredulous near-glare.

My temper frayed a little bit at his disbelief, and I snapped at him. "Blood Feud, Urist. I have not forgotten. There is no subterfuge or game-playing here. Human technology is extremely advanced."

I felt the connection between us grow stronger for a moment, then fade. Urist's expression grew more serious, and he nodded, then sat and looked at the computer. The fingers of his one hand traced across various components with delicate grace. "A mouse. I suppose it's vaguely rat-shaped. The keyboard doesn't seem to have any resemblance to keys though."

"It's far too complicated to explain easily, Urist. You can use it without understanding it. Most humans know less about computers than me, and use them just fine."

"Teach me to use it then. This first page of data promises a great deal." He was looking at the table of contents, known abilities of the living S9 members.

"First, though I know you will be careful, I need you to avoid touching the screen. It is the most fragile part of the computer."

He nodded slowly, looking back at me a little. "That makes sense, it's made of levers that are made of light."

"Ah, not exactly, but close enough." I coughed. "Sorry. Back on track. How to use it, not how it works. First, your fingers are simply too big to use the keyboard, so you will need to use only the mouse. It is rather fragile, but I saw the care you were using just now, so I will not warn you to be gentle with it. You seem to already understand that."

Urist shrugged. "It's an unknown machine, extremely strange, and you say it's made of millions of levers. That means it's very fragile. It certainly doesn't smell like adamantite."

"OK. If you carefully move the mouse across the surface, like so," I moved the mouse and pointed to the pointer on the screen with my other hand. "it will change the location of the mouse pointer. A lot like using a stick to point at diagrams on an engraving."

Ten minutes later, Urist was an expert mouse-user, navigating through PowerPoint presentations like a pro. Well, sort of. Despite his complete lack of computing experience it was scary how fast he scanned the documents and his retention was frankly incredible. When I had challenged him about how fast he was reading, he didn't even look away from the screen. "I'm over a thousand years old, Overseer. Even with the, ah, benefits I have due to my nature, you don't get that old if you aren't at least moderately intelligent. I've been reading for a very, very long time. I have memory tricks I use to read very fast, upside down, and in mirrored reflections. All sorts of things. Information is pretty critical for me. Keeps me alive." He paused. "Well, you know what I mean."

Before I could stop myself, I blurted out, "You fought two forgotten beasts for a sock! How was that intelligent?"

He looked up at me and grinned. "It was a good sock. I wanted it back."

I stared at him for a moment, then laughed, and turned towards my bed to take a nap while he finished reading the two hundred or so pages of tightly-packed data about the S9. Then I remembered what Urist was, and it struck me. Being in the same room alone with him was very not safe. Especially if I was asleep. I turned back towards him, remaining standing.

"Humans taste foul, by the way. Just to let you know. Barely palatable at all." I saw his eyes looking at me in the reflection of the laptop's monitor. "Ulok was dying. He satisfied my needs for at least a season or two."

"I... see." This, for some reason did not make me feel safe. Imagine that.

Urist shrugged. "I want to stay alive, Overseer. I'm in a very strange place right now, and you know more about the place than I do." He paused. "I'm fairly confident that I wasn't even real before you pulled us out of our world, based on how strangely limited our knowledge was. I refuse to believe that Dwarfkind, if we had been real, could have missed something like shelves. That would be like us somehow not realizing that round things roll better."

I floundered while trying to decide how to respond to that. "I, uh..."

"You don't need to hide anything, Overseer." Urist spoke calmly. "I watched you when you summoned the non-warriors and the supplies here. Somehow you drew us out of that pendant you wear, I think. Like sketching characters from a book. I can feel a little bit of what happens in your mind, through our link. If I exert myself a little, I can widen that link a little."

He's very likely going to be right up front when the S9 comes, the first to die if I don't do this right. He deserves the truth. "You were all part of a game, Urist. Like a book, yes, a book with rules. Played on a machine a lot like the one you are reading on now. The most complex game ever created, but not complex enough to truly be alive and react realistically with the world."

Urist stopped reading and turned to me. "We have holes. Gaping holes. We're filling them, gaps in knowledge. Innovation. Are we dwarves really alive? What happens if you die"

I stared at him. Metaphysical questions from a Dwarf. "I don't know, Urist. Dwarves bleed here too. You reproduce. There was a child born here. But I don't know. If I die, you might simply disappear. Or maybe if I die, nothing will happen to you and Dwarves and Humans will coexist in this world from that point on. I don't know."

Urist snorted, and turned back to the computer screen, raising his handless left arm in the air. "You don't even know if this world that I am in now is real, do you? Perhaps you are a construct in some greater being's machine of millions of levers?"

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I swallowed. This was getting deep. "Urist, I'll be honest with you, if you're thinking like that, I'm pretty sure you're actually alive." I remembered what he had just said. "Or, at least as alive as I am, anyway. In a certain sense, with the whole undead thing."

Urist clicked the mouse and advanced to the next page, and he started speaking again. "So let us examine this reluctance of yours to sleep in my presence. We cannot rule out that you are what keeps me alive. Not definitively. If I inexplicably become hungry far sooner than I should, for some reason, do I risk my own existence for an awful-tasting meal or do I do find some worthless peon hauler in a dark corner somewhere and have a tasty snack that has no chance of ending my existence?"

I couldn't put any holes in that. Even if human blood tasted good, the logic still held. Still. Psychotic dwarven vampire legendary axeman in my bedroom. Not Sleeping. "I see your point, Urist. Please forgive me if I am still unable to sleep in your presence."

I could see him smile in the reflection of the screen. "No offense taken. I accept your fear of me as a compliment."

Scary dwarf in my bedroom. I shivered and sat on my bed. "You're nearly finished anyway, aren't you? You've been reading very quickly."

"Yes. Unless there are other documents?"

"Not that I saw. Wait. There is documentation of other designs of other fortresses that might be useful for defense as we extend the fort downwards. That might be something useful for you to know?"

Urist shook his head. "Get one of the legendary mechanics in here. Let them read the other documents, then send them to me. Working together as two experts, we will be better able to quickly exchange ideas in a planning session. You are welcome to attend the planning session as well. I would suggest Adra Greensiphon. She is very intelligent and will probably be nearly as fast as me to learn about this machine, and how to use it. She will also likely be able to decipher plans and documents related to her profession nearly as fast as I read these."

I summoned Adra as Urist continued clicking page after page. Before Adra arrived, Urist stood. "This information is very troubling. The one called 'Siberian' has immense, unbelievable power, and can share physical invulnerability by touch."

"Yes, she's invulnerable. We're probably going to have to just try to hide from her. I don't think any of them have special senses that will let them track me unerringly. If they split up to try to chase me down in the 3D maze I'm having the miners create, then I should be able to direct the military to the ones that are killable. It's a matter of balancing how many traps there are against how badly they want to catch me. I don't want them to catch me, clearly, but I don't want to be too safe either, or they might not split up, so they can be killed."

Urist scrubbed his jaw, looking at me. "You understand that fairly well. Yes. Too many traps and they all stay with the invulnerable one. Too few traps, and you might have to do a lot more running around before you can get them into a trap."

"Crawler might separate. He's very tough." I pointed out.

As he walked towards the door leading out of my quarters, Urist agreed. "True. Let's discuss this later though, after Adra reviews the other data you have. I need to start pushing what I've learned to the rest of the military, so everyone will have the information. Most of these humans will die quickly if caught off guard, I think." He paused. "This S9 group. They are all combat veterans. Hunters. Killers. Like me. I recognize this, and I will make sure we won't underestimate them, even if they split up from the invulnerable one."

Adra arrived a minute or so after Urist left. I taught her how to use the mouse, then panicked when I realized that the USB device Dragon gave me had been in my pocket when I walked through the Dwarven bath. A quick inspection revealed that the device claimed to be waterproof, and it connected and data was properly visible. I immediately copied everything from Dragon's USB to the laptop, and then disconnected the USB device, putting it on a table in my quarters to make sure it dried out fully.

After I showed Adra how to navigate the Wiki, she started plowing through content.

I didn't even think about what her reaction might be to the non-technical parts of the Wiki until she called me over. "Overseer. The rumor has been going around that we weren't really real before. Is this really what we were? A game?"

Didn't I just have this conversation? I sighed to myself. "Yes. It's true. Right now though? I don't know. You seem to be as real as I am."

Adra looked at me for a minute with very serious eyes, then turned back to the screen. "Thank you, Overseer."

I went back to my personal storage cabinet and got a mug, then walked into my dining area and scooped a mug of beer out of the barrel in my private drink depot. I drank down the mug and filled another, then grabbed one of the prepared meals and walked back to my bed with it.

As I sat on the edge of my bed, Adra giggled. A very deep, throaty giggle that startled me, but it was definitely a giggle. "There are some very good ideas in here. Most of them are simple and obvious, but I really like the goblin grinder. We had smasher bridges, collapsing floors, and obsidian mixers, but mostly magma baths. Was that your preference, or was there another reason?"

I was relieved. "You aren't going to ask more about whether you are real or not?"

"I feel real. I have a child that feels real. I'll just act like I'm real and not worry about it, if that's OK?" She looked at me, clearly concerned, obviously not wanting to discuss it any further.

I nodded. "Fine by me."

Adra let out a sigh of relief. "Good. Less to distract me. What about the traps?"

"Well, I've always liked using magma. Something about melting away all the useless bits of goblins and leaving behind their metallic equipment is just, well, elegant."

With a grin, Adra pointed at the screen. "I agree. Whoever wrote this understands both of us, Overseer. At least when it comes to enemies."

I looked at where she was pointing. At the bottom of the entry for Magma was a quote 'Magma is very well known for being the perfect solution to any problem encountered by dwarves.'

We both laughed, but I wasn't sure we were laughing about the same thing. It was still relaxing.

I walked back to the bed and sat again and Adra continued paging through links of the offline wiki.

Turning my attention to the food in my lap, I took a deep sniff, holding it under my nose to try to identify it - it smelled delicious. I'd never smelled anything like it. I took a tiny taste and it tasted very good. Stalker chose that moment to jump up on the bed next to where I was sitting, and cuddled next to my leg. I scratched him absently on his back, and he purred loudly.

Adra sniffed the air. "Do you have any more of that, Overseer? I haven't had a good cat roast in a long time."

My stomach did a double-flop. I gulped and looked down at Stalker, trying to keep down the beer I had drunk on an empty stomach. I spoke carefully while I handed Adra the plate, trying to control my gorge. "I'm not sure, Adra. Ah, you can have this. I'll... go find something else."