The roman officer crossing the field toward them grew less and less impressive as he approached.

From a distance, he was just a red plume and shining armor, but as he grew nearer, it was obvious that he was trying to hurry without seeming to jog, and he kept a hand on his breastplate because his armor was apparently slightly too big.

"Typical." Garrik muttered under his breath.

"Typical how?" Ba'Rush said.

"Sending a narrow stripe to greet us." Garrik made a point of turning around and looking busy with some supplies on the other side of the table. "Probably some sort of punishment for the poor kid."

"Narrow stripe?" Stew asked, still using Femur's voice.

Raek looked down at Femur. "Noble kid. Young equestrian with his first officer rank."

"Leg snapper," Ba'rush added, "kind of green officer you hope steps in a hole early in a campaign, so he doesn't get you killed."

The Legionnaire arrived out of breath and red faced. He looked to be about eighteen and his freckles matched his plume. "Health to you. I am Tribune, Narrow Stripe, Marcus Servilius Iberus of the Second Minerva Legion. I come bearing greetings from Gauius Julius Caesar, Consul of Rome." He looked around, seemingly at a loss for whom to address, then he looked at Ba'Rush and his expression cleared. He spoke, but instead of Latin, the words that came out were in a language that seemed to be made entirely with air through his teeth and sounds in the back of his throat. Stew was surprised to find he understood this too. "Well met, potential opponent. I am tingle over the kettle arrived. Big leader would like to feast with your cave raisin."

Ba'Rush leaned down until his tusked face was inches away from the young officer's. "You may address me as Prefect, Tribunus." He sniffed at the now even paler man as if trying to find a foul odor. "Prefect Ba'Rush, retired. I served the legion longer than you've been alive. And I'm not a slave of the dungeon." He looked down at Femur. "But sure, the cave raisin's all yours."

Stew felt Femur reach for his dagger. "Just let me stab the orc a little, and I'll work for free for six months," Femur's thoughts were dark, but also a little tired, as if this was an old grudge between orcs and goblins, rather than a specific issue with Ba'Rush.

"If he signs up for a dungeon crawl, I'll let you two have first crack at each other." Stew sent back, then turned his attention back to the tribune, who had been saying something.

"...at your earliest convenience to discuss matters of utmost importance." The kid finished and drew himself up to his full height. "May I carry your response to the consul?"

Stew wasn't sure what he missed but thought he had the gist of it. "I will speak to the consul. We can meet at – let me see that." He took the plans from Quintus' table. There was a plot marked for a "Dungeon Consulate" just outside the actual entrance. Looking at it had given Stew some ideas earlier, but now it he saw an opportunity. He would have to create several false cores to take the strain, but he had the mana cores to spare, and it would be a good chance to show off before negotiations started. It was obvious the Romans had pulled out the stops to impress him. Maybe he could return the favor.

He squinted up at the sun. That was going to be a problem though. "We can meet at midnight over there in the Dungeon Consulate."

Quintus opened his mouth, then shut it.

The tribune looked puzzled, but took his cue from Quintus and didn't ask. "I will convey your message." He turned around, already looking relieved.

Stew relaxed just a few seconds too early.

Femur, silently fuming in a hijacked body, exploded as Stew released his grip. "And bring some horsemeat for the stump snuggler."

Ba'Rush lunged and Femur drew his bone dagger.

Stew was about to retake control and try to smooth things over before it got too far out of control when a voice that felt thunder but was no louder than a whisper knocked both Femur and Ba'Rush back from each other.

"Enough!" Theus gave them each a mildly disappointed glance.

Behind him the tribune jogged back to camp without looking back. Stew was grateful for that, but he suspected he had just lost some respect in the eyes of Quintus and the delvers gathered there.

To Femur he said, "I'm going to need you back in the dungeon. We'll need to gather some false cores, and I'm going to be sending up some trolls." Femur turned and headed toward the dungeon without argument.

Stew waited until they were back through the entrance to add. "If working with Ba'Rush and the others is going to be a problem, I'm going to have to start sending Cecil up to represent me on the surface, or maybe even make one of the others my level 1 boss so they can do it."

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"It's not what he said." Femur spat. "It's that he's hanging around with that shadow lurker. Never trust a rogue or any that work with them."

"You mean Raek?"

"Sure if that's what he's calling himself. I had them list out their family lineage and the rogue barely pretended to make his up. At least the big guy told the truth."

"You think Raek is hiding something from Ba'Rush too?"

"Of course he is. That's what rogues do." Femur reached his cave and tossed the cracked and flickering false core out of his bag onto the pile of decaying false cores at the back of his hut. "As for the the other bosses, trolls can't step out in the sun, and I'd like to see how that bunch would take to talking to a skeleton or a necromancer. Or a cow." He snorted, coincidentally sounding very much like Bossy.

"Promise me you'll be more careful, and we'll give it another try. I need you to contain yourself tonight when we meet with Caesar. If he's anything like his reputation, we do not want to make an enemy of him."

Femur cocked his ears in thought. "How is that one minute you don't know a nose from a knuckle and the next you're the Oracle at Delphi?"

"It's a long story." Stew said.

"How long?"

Stew wondered that himself. Had he really traveled back in time and into the past, or was this just some imitation next door to his own that only seemed to be two thousand years out of sync? "Get some rest. It's going to be a long night. I'll send the trolls up with the false cores."

Stew switched his attention to Beryl's mind.

For a moment, he forgot all about negotiations with the Roman as he stared in awe. Where he had left the trolls in a network of caverns, connected to the Hidden Vale, he came back to a city straight out of a dream.

The trolls had requested a big order of living stone, and a huge order of reinforced stone. Now he saw that Beryl and the others had used it to transform the rocky tunnels into a vast open area with a single stone tree in the middle that spanned the entire space. Trolls strolled along the branches and swung from limbs arm over arm like giant apes. Crystals like leaves formed a glowing canopy in hundreds of colors. But even though they were stunning to see, the colors blended in unexpected harmonies and contrasts, changing constantly as he watched. It was like watching one of those Christmas light displays synced to music, only he couldn't hear the music. He felt like there was a hidden message or meaning to the progression. It was. Mesmerizing.

"Did you want something?" Beryl's mind was as complex as the canopy, changing and full of hidden patterns, cool and crisp, powerful, a supercomputer mind. It was as distracting as the leaves in its own way.

"Romans are here, not the town builders. A legion."

"Do you think they will attack?" Beryl's mind remained just as cool, but it seemed to accelerate.

"No, nothing like that." Stew hurried to explain. "At least I don't think they will unless we provoke them."

Beryl considered. "That does seem likely. Romans generally use violence as a tool to achieve their goals, and their goals are usually obvious and monetary, not like the Helvetians."

"They're worse than the Romans? In what way?"

"Fanatics. They think we're animals. Trolls, Orcs, Goblins, even the Fae."

"Really?" That didn't make sense. If what Garrik said was right, he had seen two Fae fighting alongside the Helvetians, and they had seemed to be in charge. "There were some Helvetians here, or at least, I think they were, there were Fae with them."

"You are talking about Lithel and Sella. They are outcasts, traitors, and the Helvetians are behaving oddly lately, all because of their new king."

"What do you know about him?"

"Very little. He calls himself Merlin. He's a powerful wizard. He appeared suddenly, and he's not Helvetian himself. Some say he's Anatolian, but a traveling gnoll told me she heard him speak at a gathering of the clans and he claimed to be from the northernmost of the Atlantean continents across the ocean where only the Phoenicians trade, a place called 'Arethustra.' At least that's the way she remembered it.

Atlantis. That was new information. Atlantis was real, although it was supposed to be a city, not multiple continents the way he remembered the story. Between the leaves and the sparkling brain and the conversation topic, Stew almost forgot why he came to see Beryl. "I know you're just getting settled in, but I wonder if I could ask you to work on two projects for me, one, a rush project?" He explained what he needed for the aqueduct and the meeting hall.

Beryl thought for a moment and said, "We'll need more reinforced stone and some of that mana glass."

"No problem." He could make all he needed now.

Then the troll told him how much.

"That's alot" He waved his hand at the big cavern and the tree. "You did all of this with very little reinforced stone."

"We're going to do some compression techniques to make it many times more durable. I will need to confirm with Amethyst, but some of these load bearing members are going to be under tremendous strain. The mana glass will be for the meeting hall."

"In that case I'll need your help even before that."

"What can I do?"

"You said you're a production analyst? Is that just a title for leader?"

"We don't have leaders."

"You're not about to say you're an 'anarcho-syndicalist collective.'"

"I don't know what that is."

"That's fine." Stew paused. "Do you really know something about improving an industrial process? Do you even know what an industrial process is?"

Now it was the troll's turn to pause, it's mind churning around Stew. "Why wouldn't I? Trolls built this world from the creators' plans, and we were on time and eleven percent under budget."

Stew was too stunned to continue. He had learned more brain bending things in twenty minutes talking to this troll than he could handle. And that was saying quite a bit considering what his recent history had been like. He gave it a long, slow think and let out a hypothetical sigh. "Right. OK, let me tell you how the golems work."

They talked for over an hour, but by the time they were finished, Stew had a whole new respect for Beryl and trolls in general, and was feeling a little less intimidated by his visitors.

On the other hand, he was going to have to meet with Julius Caesar later tonight and talk him out of taking over, even though he brought a legion and flying naval task group with wizards and steam cannons.