Every dwarv in the huge room tracked me as I walked the plank. The crude bridge bounced under my feet and caused me to walk with slow deliberate steps for fear of losing my balance and destroying any semblance of dignity by falling into the tar pit just below. My mind swirled in a chaotic mix of warring nerves and determination, and I watched my feet for the first few steps before forcing myself to look up.

Public speaking was never something I was good at, even back in school before the Links arrived. I was always so worried that I would say something improper or just plain wrong and it would turn everyone against me. On top of all that, Bomilik was a hard act to follow. Yet I couldn’t afford to be so self conscious anymore. Max had given me the warning and it was up to me to present it.

“Um, thank you.” I said once I stepped into the gap Bomilik and Sallis made for me on the inner ring-shaped platform. The silence rebounded and almost caused me to choke on my own words before I could start again, but I needed to break free from the hesitation and make up an argument on the spot that didn’t involve a super powered AI being running simulations for me.

“There… is no time for a recess, honored council.” I started. Sallis jabbed an elbow to my side, giving me a sour look and shaking her head. Cerrik frowned and the two raider groups' leaders puffed up and stood a little taller, Raktaur even chuckled lightly. I stole a glance at Sallis and gave her a questioning look but didn’t want to distract myself any further. I refocused on Cerrik and kept going.

“We can all agree that math does not lie, right?” I ventured, seeing how Bomilik had managed to sway them with science and hard facts. Following in his footsteps seemed a good place to start. “I ran some numbers of my own. The rate of flow and the volume of the chambers mean we only have another hour and a half before the water traps overflow and this room will start to fill.”

I could tell Fedrick wanted to argue against my words, but whatever etiquette governed the moot held him back from speaking out of turn. Growing slightly more confident, I continued.

“How long will it take to clear your collapsed tunnel to balance the water levels if you do end up agreeing with Bomilik’s assessment? I am unsure that we could manage to clear the blockage even with industrial equipment. We do not have the time to retreat and consider, we must act now.”

I looked around at the representatives and nodded my head, as if I were agreeing with myself. The others gave me a mixed reaction. Kazek grunted in agreement, Bomilik nodded sagely, Cerrik continued to frown sternly, Dorne quietly laughed while the two raider clans frowned.

“I do not think I am better than any of you, or claim that I am smarter than any of you. I only wish to bring what I have seen forward. That is what is right, is it not? I have not had the chance to meet any of you outside of my own house so far, but know that we need to work together. We are brothers, five houses under one clan working towards the same goal. I may be different, but we share the same goals. We all want to pass this trial and earn the chance to take up greater responsibility within the clan.”

I looked around and paused again for a moment, wondering how I could show off my work. My hesitation stretched for a little longer than the other natural breaks in my little spiel and must have signaled a chance for someone else to speak.

Cerrik and Fedrick both spoke up at the same time, then glared at each other for a moment before Cerrik continued. “You say math does not lie, but interpretation can mislead. I would see these numbers and equations.”

I looked to either side at Sallis and Bomilik. My inventory was basically empty, I had nothing to write on or write with. I only had a sort of loose plan to ask Max to project his proof onto whatever surface I could find to write on and trace over it myself. Max sighed and face palmed in the little video screen in the corner of my vision.

“Dude, just message it to them.” A notification popped up above the chat icon, pinging a whole bunch of times before automatically closing itself. “There, done.”

I blinked, and must have looked confused for a moment because Sallis gave me a look again. I ignored her and tried to recover. “I, ah, sent you the figures, but would be happy to write them out and explain them if necessary.”

While I waited for a reply from the dwarves, I pushed a thought at Max. “Could you have told me that and waited for a moment first? You’re going to blow our cover.”

I got the mental equivalent of a shrug back. “Eh, It’ll be fine. I spent five credits on a one-time script to send everything so fast, something you could do on your own if you had the knowhow. Notice how they’ve all gone quiet? They’re all too busy with their own internal arguing over Bomilik’s explanation to question that part. I wish I could read what they’re saying, haha. It looks like Fedrick’s head is about to explode.”

The pictures of all the dwarves' facial expressions Max had overlaid onto my vision had disappeared when I stepped forward to argue against the recess, but another one displaying the dwarv in question materialized. Fedrick really did look super pissed off. His face was beet red, his jaw clenched and unclenched, and it almost looked like he was shaking even from this distance. I watched his eyes track side to side and up and down as he perused whatever message Max had sent to everyone.

I joined in on the distraction and opened up my inbox. After navigating through to my sent messages, I realized Max had sent it to every single dwarv in the trial. With a tiny effort of intent, the message opened and I blinked at the mass of numbers, symbols, letters, and small charts. Math was never really my thing, and the huge block of mathematical proof didn't really make any sense to me. I had to trust that Max hadn't tried to hide a joke or insult in the full page of math, and that he would help me explain it if anyone had questions.

After a long five seconds of silence, the seemingly friendly Brightenjaw dwarv Dorne was the first to speak. “This would take a while just to sift through properly, but the simple stuff checks out. Anyone see anything false?”

There was some more glancing around and whispering between the representatives and their quiet companions before Cerrik spoke up. “I see nothing amiss. Serral agrees with the assessment. Taxik gives it an initial pass as well.”

He locked his eyes onto mine, then his eyes slid to my side and he continued. “Kazek, you should have opened with these arguments. If this is true, and it indeed looks to be true, we must act quickly.”

Kazek’s forearms flexed as he clenched his fists at his sides, but he nodded in agreement. “What is done is done. We must move this discussion forward and settle on a solution.”

“Cracks and fissures!” Fedrick bellowed out before anyone else could speak. “Are we to take the word of a human and an infidel over what we all know in our blood? House Galidurn will lead us to failure and ruin. We, at the very least, need to confirm this calculation and take readings and samples of our own.”

“We do not have the time, Fedrick,” Kazek answered. “Do not let your hatred and jealousy rule your actions. Let us put it to a preliminary vote so we may put this argument to rest.”

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Fedrick glowered, but his ally Raktaur was starting to look more skeptical. Cerrik and Dorne both nodded, seeming to agree on something for the first time since the meeting started. Kazek let the silence hang for a moment before continuing.

“Unless you would disregard the outcome of a vote?”

That drew sharp breaths from most of the assembled dwarves, and a quick and heated reply from Fedrick. “We will not break the covenant, and I am insulted that you would suggest we would.”

Kazek’s eyes narrowed and he shot back, “Insulted enough to step into the ring? I would gladly add injury to insult and show you the weakness of your arm when pitted against true dedication.”

“Enough!” Cerrik yelled before the two could continue their argument. “We will put it to a vote. It seems prudent to conserve our phosphor, so each speaker will cast a single measure. I put forth that we take Galidurn's finding as fact and move forward with discussing a plan to secure ourselves within this chamber.”

The Hammerting dwarv reared back and slung a mouthful of glowing blue spit into the center of the ring before anyone else could interrupt again. The glob was about half the size of my fist and floated on the viscous tar.

Kazek followed suit immediately afterwards, doubling the size of the blue blob. Fedrick snarled and stomped his foot, causing the crude wooden platform to shudder under all of our feet. He spat out a bright red blob with enough force that it pushed the growing mass of mixing swirling colors off-center and closer to the Rocksteady side of the circle.

Dorne Brightenjaw looked between Kazek and Cerrik for a moment before casting his own glowing blue vote, then Raktaur surprised me by adding his own blue glob to the mix and finalizing the process. The colors mixed and swirled together for a short moment before the blue overtook the red and flared brightly before settling into a dimmer yet solid blue color.

“It is decided. We move forward with securing this chamber against the flood,” Cerrik said. “Let us focus on the solutions rather than bickering over past decisions and petty rivalries.”

A tinkling chime sounded and something like a popup appeared in the corner of my vision next to the little video screen showing Max in his headset. Instead of a normal semi-transparent quest box or notification, this was a simple white text message without a background that transposed over my vision. My eyes flicked over to it, and I had to suppress a groan as I read it.

Alianora_Badass: I’m a little disappointed Kazek didn’t get to kick Fedrick’s ass. He sounds way too whiny to be able to back any of his bitching up with action.

The message was followed up with a string of laughing, pointing, and sadface emojis, and I rolled my eyes before pushing a thought towards Max as Cerrik started to detail the collapsed tunnel. “What is this, some game stream now?”

“I mean… isn't it? This should be less distracting than us all chattering in your ear. Just ignore us if you’re busy. I’ll mute the message alerts unless I think they’re important.”

I sighed and took his advice, shifting my focus from the edge of my field of view back to look at Cerrik as he spoke about the methods they sealed the tunnel with. Ali’s message hadn’t seemed all that important to me, but I was not going to argue with Max about it right now. The text was easier to ignore at least. I shifted my attention back to Cerrik, who had started speaking again while I was caught up in my head with Max.

“—the mortar lines should be easily penetrated and dissolved with hydrochloric acid. We created a copper fitting used to pressurize the tunnel and speed up the bonding process while creating the plug. Our reserves of the acid are running low, but if anyone has discovered a saltpeter deposit we can combine it with our still accessible steam vent to create more of it. The steam is suffused with sulphur and should allow us to create enough of it quickly.”

Kazek spoke into a short pause as Cerrik looked between the speaking dwarves. “We have a saltpeter deposit, it is what allowed us to create the grenades we used in the defense of our own forge. I will send for our reserves.”

“Very good,” Cerrik replied. Kazek gave a nod to Bomilik, whose eyes started to dart from side to side as he drafted a message to one of the dwarves back in our headquarters.

“We have not agreed to enact this plan, only to take this mess of numbers and equation as fact!” Fedrick protested.

The Rocksturdy representative Raktaur turned to his raider ally. “Give it a rest Fedrick. Just because you can barely do your division and multiplication does not mean it is gibberish to everyone.”

“You pretend you understand this mess and back the word of a human over the opportunity to continue to advance our capabilities? No wonder your house has come crawling to mine to seek—”

“Silence!” Cerrik rang his tuning fork again and caused us all to wince slightly.

“No! You are not our King nor elected chancellor. You are a weak willed politician and—”

Cerrik rang his fork yet again, and everyone started shouting. Max’s muted form was shaking with laughter and speaking animatedly in the corner of my vision in his little face-cam, and a couple of messages from both Rin and Ali scrolled next to his window but I ignored them.

I hadn’t missed much of my equipment down here so far, but I suddenly found myself wishing I still had my Megaphone engram as I joined in the shouting. “We don’t have time for this!” I yelled into the abyss along with everyone else while Cerrik repeatedly rang his fork.

I wiped my hand down my face and turned to look at Sallis, who was in the middle of throwing more angry glowing red blobs at the Bassaldourn team. The two previously silent dwarves standing next to the speaking representatives from the Bassaldourn and Rocksturdy teams began to charge towards us from either side, coming around the ring while shouting challenges and insults at each other. Sallis and Kazek shoved them back, while the two dwarves yelled and pointed fingers at each other on either side of our group. Sallis grabbed the one trying to push past her by the shoulders and kicked one of his legs out from under him, sending him into the tar to sputter and struggle.

I jammed my fingers into my mouth to try a finger whistle, and then spat to the side when I realized I still had my tar coated gauntlets on. I quickly pulled one of them off and tried again, struggling to get the angles just right for a moment before it finally worked. After one short blast, Sallis and Bomilik looked over at me with wide eyes before I took a deep inhale and blasted the whistle for as loud and as long as I could manage. Both Kazek and the dwarv he was grappling with plopped into the tar to one side, but the rest of the dwarves finally calmed down and stared at me in amazement.

“What the fuck, guys?” I yelled out into the relative quiet, the only other noise being the sound of the struggling and gasping dwarves that had fallen into the tar. “Aren’t we supposed to be proving we are capable adults down here? Why the fuck are we squabbling like children and pointing fingers back and forth? What do we gain by insulting and knocking each other down? Maybe you all can afford to flunk this shit and try again next year, but this is—”

I had nearly started ranting about my own desperate need to pass this trial, about how my home had just been torn from me and my world turned upside down, but managed to cut myself off before I could reveal too much. Max had calmed down in his little video screen and was now leaned in close to the camera. He grinned and flashed me a thumbs up.

I coughed and took in a breath to finish my rant, but Bomilik reached up and clapped a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Kaninak is right. Now is the time to act.”

Bo looked at Kazek as he struggled in the tar for a moment before turning to face the center of the ring. “I say we end this farce and move on to action. We must dismantle the plug, or come up with some other means to balance the pressure.”

He sat out a bright green blob of phosphor spit into the middle of the ring before turning and helping Kazek and the struggling Rocksturdy dwarv out of the tar on that side. I frowned and looked around the room at the other dwarves, who were still mostly staring at me. When I realized I was still the center of attention, I turned away and started to help the Bassaldourn dwarv out of the tar as well.

Sallis blocked me with a scowl and shook her head, gesturing back towards the fortified entrance to our territory. “Nah, screw that guy. Let’s go help Lokra with the saltpeter and get to fuckin’ work.”