Ironshore was a bustling town, though its population was low enough that it often seemed a lot sleepier than it really was. Still, there were enough wary glances aimed at Elijah that his trip through the city felt claustrophobic in a way that had nothing to do with tight quarters. So, he was more than a little relieved when he arrived at his first destination, which was the central government building where Ramik kept his office.

The lobby was much the same as always, with a floor of white ceramic tiles, in the center of which was the crest of the Green Mountain Mining Guild that had apparently financed the operation. It consisted of a single peak, surrounded by a circle of iron. Elijah had seen it often enough that he barely paid it any heed as he crossed the lobby and mounted the stairs on his way to Ramik’s office.

When he arrived, he found that someone had preceded him with news that he was coming, because Ramik greeted him at the door, offering a long-fingered, green hand. Elijah took it, shaking it firmly as Ramik said, “You seem different. You must have needed the rest your island could provide.”

Elijah shook his head. “Yeah. Something like that,” he said. “Can we talk? In private, I mean.”

“Certainly,” Ramik said. “I was just finishing up when a runner brought word of your arrival. Come in!”

Elijah followed the dapper goblin inside, where he found Carisa, the dwarven leader of the mining expedition. Like all dwarves, she was around four feet tall and stout, with a blunt-featured face and a mane of red hair that set her apart from even her own people. She smiled broadly upon seeing Elijah, and she too offered her hand. When Elijah shook it, he couldn’t help but note that her grip was far stronger – and rougher – than Ramik’s. She was a woman who worked with her hands, while Ramik clearly specialized in administration.

As befit their positions within the town, Elijah thought.

“Sit, sit!” Ramik said, gesturing to one of a pair of chairs on the near side of a big desk made of cherry wood. It was ornately carved, and even though it smacked of age, it smelled like the forest to Elijah. The chairs were made from the same material, though they sported colorful cushions. As Elijah took a seat, Ramik asked, “Can I get you a drink? We’ve made some headway in our distillery, and the results are quite good. Not the best, mind you. Even if we’d nailed down the recipe, truly good whiskey requires quite a lot of aging. But in a few decades, we might be able to make something better than passable!”

“No thanks,” Elijah said. “You seem like you’re in a good mood.”

“Why wouldn’t I be? The orcish horde has been defeated, and we’re coming back stronger than ever!”

“Plus, we found a deposit of blood tin in the mines,” said Carisa with a smug smile. “Just like I predicted.”

“You didn’t predict blood tin,” said Ramik.

“Well, no. Not blood tin specifically. But I knew there was something down there!” Carisa countered. “If we can find some sun copper, we can make vampiric bronze. Think of it! And you know sun copper is a lot more common than blood tin.”

“Would be better if we found divine tin,” Ramik countered.

“On the frontier? There’s no chance!”

“I’m only teasing,” Ramik said with a subtle smile. “You’ve done a phenomenal job. Truly, this will be quite a boon to our economy. We may even want to branch out and send merchants to other cities.”

“I thought you had to send everything back to your guild or something,” Elijah said.

“Oh, no. Not at all. The fees for something like that would bankrupt this operation within a day! We’re only taxed until we reach the end of our contract. After that, we will be completely independent,” Ramik said. Then, he went on to explain that that was one of the benefits of a Branch – and the reason they were given one to import. It gave them the ability to transfer ethereum to their sponsor’s headquarters. In return, the Green Mountain Mining Guild financed the founding of the town. “So far, we’ve only barely kept our heads above water, but with this discovery, we should be able to start growing. Especially if we can establish trade relations with other settlements.”

“I could probably help with that,” Elijah offered. “Not with the people part. I can guide someone to the two other settlements I found.”

“You’ve explored the region?”

“Oh. Yeah. Only a few hundred miles,” Elijah said. He might’ve gone a bit further than that implied, but it was difficult to keep track of that kind of thing. “I found two other cities. One’s only a couple of weeks away, but the other is quite a lot further. Maybe two months? Distance is difficult to gauge.”

“Indeed,” said the goblin, tapping his lip. “We will have to do it eventually. Ironshore is self-sufficient, but we will never pay our debts unless we branch out.”

After that, Elijah and Ramik established the groundwork for how they were going to tackle the issue. For Elijah, it wouldn’t really put him out, so he had no objections to leading someone to Norcastle. After that, he intended to go much faster, so that was where his guidance would end. That was perfectly acceptable to Ramik.

“So, do you expect me to do this for free?” Elijah asked. “Because I did that before, and it got me a knife in the back for my trouble.”

“Ssethik was not –”

“I know you had nothing to do with it. But it put things into perspective,” Elijah said. “I don’t think the people here are ever going to really accept me. Hopefully I’m wrong, but I just don’t see it right now. So, I’ve done everything I intend to do for free.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“What do you want?” Ramik asked.

Elijah shrugged. “Maybe some of that ore you were bragging about,” he said. “Not much. Just enough for personal use.”

Ramik hesitated for a moment, but Carisa cut him off. “That ain’t unreasonable,” she said. “Say, a fifty pounds?”

When Ramik objected – more to Carisa’s interjection to the content of the deal – she pointed out that the mine and its output was within her purview. As such, she had the authority to make the deal. After that, it was just a matter of negotiation. Elijah had no context for what blood tin was worth, but he reasoned that more was better. So, he managed to increase his payment to sixty-five pounds, to be delivered after he led someone to Norcastle. Thankfully, he wasn’t required to make a return trip.

“And I don’t think I need to point out that if someone lands on my island, they’d better be ready for a fight,” he said once the negotiations had concluded. “It is not undefended.”

They both insisted that they had no intention of going there uninvited, and what’s more, they assured Elijah that they wouldn’t spread the news of his absence. That was just about as much as he could expect, so he left it at that. In the meantime, he went by the Branch to withdraw some ethereum for the trip, then headed to his most anticipated destination.

He'd given Mari plenty of time to complete his cloak, and he was more than eager to see the result. So, it was with some degree of expectation that he entered her shop. Fortunately, there were no judgmental customers or precocious children around, so he was able to get Mari’s attention straightaway.

She greeted him with a subdued, “Hello. I was beginning to wonder if you’d forgotten about your order.”

“I’ve been busy,” Elijah said apologetically. “Island upkeep, you know? Anyone who tells you that owning an island is hard work is probably trying to sell you something.”

She didn’t even crack a smile, prompting Elijah to mutter, “Tough crowd.”

“In any event, I completed work on your commission almost a week ago. Would you like to inspect the item?” Mari asked.

“Of course!” Elijah said a little too enthusiastically. She just looked at him with that same expression of tired disapproval. Pointedly, her eyes flicked to his bare feet, which only deepened that demeanor. Then, she just shook her head and disappeared through the door at the back of her shop. That left Elijah to peruse her other goods. As always, everything was sized to fit much smaller people, so he predictably found nothing that would work for him.

Not that he needed a larger wardrobe, of course. Fortunately, his clothes transformed right along with him when he took on one of his other shapes, which had saved him a lot of trouble. Briefly, he imagined Bruce Banner ripping through shirts as he transformed into the Incredible Hulk, which made him thankful that he didn’t have to invest in implausibly stretchy purple shorts.

He was admiring the stitching on a goblin-sized suit when Mari finally returned carrying what looked like a bundle of brown fur. She set it on the counter and announced, “It turned out much better than I expected.”

“Grade?” asked Elijah, straightening to his full height. Thankfully, the ceilings were of a height to accommodate his taller figure. If it had been dwarf – or worse, goblin or gnome – sized, he would’ve had to stoop.

“Low Complex.”

“Really?”

“I don’t lie, boy,” she said. “The leap from Simple to Complex isn’t as dramatic as it is from Complex to Sophisticated, but it is still the best item I have ever crafted.”

“Really?”

“Are you going to question my every statement?”

“Oh. Sorry. I’m just surprised is all,” Elijah said. “I thought you would have created much better items, for some reason.”

“That’s because you don’t understand crafting,” she pointed out, which was a fair assessment. Elijah liked to dabble in item creation, but his archetype and class were ill-suited to the endeavor. That he’d had as much success as he’d enjoyed was due to a variety of factors, but mostly, it was because of the grove and its dense ethera. Without that, he wouldn’t have been nearly so successful. “Do you think high-quality materials are made available to someone like me? No. That’s why I came here. On the frontier, there are far more opportunities.”

“I guess I could see that,” Elijah said. “So…what’s with the cloak? You said it’s Complex-Grade? What does that mean in practical terms?”

“It is far more durable than a Simple-Grade item,” she said. “It would take a concerted effort to destroy that cloak. In addition, it has two abilities associated with it. The first is called Temperate, and it will protect you from extreme temperatures. Wearing that cloak, you could be stranded in the most frigid tundra on this world, and you wouldn’t feel more than slightly uncomfortable. The same goes for scorching deserts.”

“Nice,” Elijah said, though he was a little disappointed. It was a useful trait, but it wasn’t nearly as flashy as some of his equipment. “What’s the other one?”

“It’s called Cold-Blooded,” she answered. “In normal temperatures, the cloak will provide a modest boost to your physical attributes. However, the colder it gets, the more dramatic the increase.”

“Where does it top out?”

“In temperatures native to this world? It could reach as high as fifteen points to each attribute. No more than twenty.”

Elijah couldn’t help but grin. Now that was more like what he had expected. “What’s it called?”

“Cloak of the Iron Bear,” Mari answered, handing him the bundle of fur. Elijah took it, then let it unfurl. For a moment, he was lost in nostalgia and grief as he looked at the soft, brown fur. That had once been a living creature. A noble animal that had only wanted to guard its natural treasure.

And now it was a piece of clothing.

“Are you displeased?” asked Mari.

Elijah shook his head. “No. Just remembering a friend,” he said. The moment the words left his mouth, he had to remind himself that they were false. The bear hadn’t been a friend. It had barely tolerated his presence. Any other impression was the result of his psychological issues as well as the rose-colored lens of nostalgia. “Thanks, Mari. You outdid yourself.”

With that, he drew his knife and pricked his finger. After smearing a bit of blood onto the fur, he injected some of his ethera into the cloak, binding it to him. Then, he slung it over his shoulders, fastening it into place with a pair of silver clasps that had been molded into the shape of a bear’s head.

After that, the two settled their accounts, and Mari told him not to hesitate before bringing him any other interesting bits of hide or cloth he found. He nodded along, then excused himself.

With his new cloak draped over his shoulders, Elijah set about completing his other tasks. First, he went to the town’s largest general store, where he bought traveling supplies like rations, a couple of pots, and a sack of tea leaves so he could enjoy a taste of caffeine each morning. He also purchased some salt, pepper, and a couple of other interesting spices. Now that he had money and availability on his side, Elijah had no intentions of ever eating bland meals again.

Next, he headed to the barber to get his hair and beard wrangled into something approaching order before finally sharing a meal with Ramik and Carissa. This time, they chose a more intimate dining experience at what seemed a much more upscale restaurant. Elijah ate venison that had been doused in some sort of spicy gravy, and for the first time in quite a while, he had some bread smeared with honey butter.

That made the entire meal worth it.

Finally, now that Elijah was as prepared as possible, he set out for where he was supposed to meet the person he was intended to lead to Norcastle. As it turned out, Elijah was happy to find that that person was Kurik. So, he was in good spirits as they set off for the pass that would allow them to bypass the towering mountains.