Chapter 3: The Sharp Anvil
Exiting the guild, Don headed south, following the clanging of steel until he came across a dome-shaped domicile. Hanging from the door swung a Dwarven sign that read ‘Sharp Anvil’ and carved above it stood a tiny statue of Gunthrie, the Dwarvish god of creation. Only a few feet away and already the chill peeled away, replaced with a bone-deep warmth.
The Sharp Anvil was the same as it ever was. No one was working the outside forge, but seeing as it was Camue, Don wasn’t surprised. The Sharp Anvil was as Dwarven as Dwarves could get, and so of course the shop wasn’t open during the Dwarven religious day of rest, but just because it wasn’t a workday didn’t mean Zera quit creating. It was in her bones, as she would say.
He knocked on the front door.
“Who is it?” called Zera in Dwarven.
“Donovan,” he called. “May I enter?” he replied in Dwarven.
“Aye. Enter.”
Don opened the door and ducked under the swinging sign, his hair brushing against the ceiling as he came up on the other side.
Like a dragon with their hoard, Zera held onto the old ways steadfastly. Where shops expanded to cater to the new, taller clientèle that flooded the market after the war, the Sharp Anvil’s ceiling stayed stubbornly at a measly five and a half feet tall. And where shops began accepting customers who only spoke Common, Zera threw out anyone and everyone who didn’t at least try to talk to her in Dwarven.
A bad business practice, his father said, if it weren’t for Zera. Best blacksmith in Agrivik, she is. It’s why his father struck made her their weapons and armor supplier. The best supplies for the best enchanting. It’s why his father taught him Dwarven, for delivery runs between them.
Sparks flew from the hot piece of metal Zera pounded. “Aye, and whatcha comin’ about here for, laddie? Your momma all right?”
“She’s hanging on.” Barely, he did not add. “I was wondering if you’ve got any new weapons for sale, and if you’ve got any customers looking for enchantments or potions.”
The hammering paused. Zera rubbed at her beard, her thick, oil-stained fingers leaving smudges on her otherwise perfect braids. “Hmm. Not many customers these days, with winter coming. So far, no one interested in enchantments or the like. I’d send them your way if I had any, laddie, but for weapons,” she drew her breath and then hollered, “OHM!”
Rapid footsteps sounded below them, getting louder and louder until—
THUD!
—a hatch in the room's corner flipped over. At first, Don thought a green slime had appeared at the ladder, but then the slime kept growing and growing, arms and torso and then legs, until he realized it wasn’t a slime, but a half-orc, crouching low as to not hit his head on the ceiling.
Don had heard word of Zera adopting a runt abandoned by its tribe a few months back, but he’d been too busy with his mother and the reopening to give it much thought. This, he realized, must be that half-orc.
“Ohm, take Don to the shop and help him pick something he’d like, yeah?”
“Yes, Zera,” the half-orc, Ohm, said in the worst Dwarven possible. He didn’t have nearly enough guttural inflection.
Ohm then crouched even lower, duck-walking through the open archway that led to the store part of the domicile. Don followed him, ducking only slightly.
“Anything that catches your eye?” asked Ohm. This up close, the guy looked young and gangly limbed, like a teenager who hadn’t finished puberty.
A good introduction was the best weapon to a businessman’s arsenal, even if he was introducing himself to a teenage half-orc. Don held out his hand. “Hi, I’m Donovan. I help run the Happy Cure-All. You’re Ohm?”
“Yeah,” said Ohm. He took one look at the proffered hand, grabbed it, and then reeled Don in. Don only had a few seconds to take in his new position, head firmly familiarizing itself with male half-orc tiddies—the tunic Ohm wore was tight—when two slaps landed on his back, hard enough to collapse a lung.
“Right,” said Ohm as he drew back, “Which one will you like to buy?”
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Pockets 30 gold emptier and bag laden with daggers and his belt scabbard holding a new short sword that Don will hopefully be able to enchant and sell, Don headed back home.
On his way, he thought of what Zera said. She was right. As far north as they were, winter was a bitch and no adventurers wanted new equipment when they weren’t adventuring. He barely had customers as is, and he needed to boost winter sales. Warming charms were always popular this time of year, but creating a ring of warmth was far beyond his capabilities. He could try to consult his father’s journals, but that hadn’t been helpful so far.
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Maybe he could diversify. Make a coat of warmth or something. It will require sturdy coats, though, and he was no tailor. But that was a thought… Do research, make an offer to a tailor on a commission basis—create coats and pants and socks of warmth for those hard winter months. It could make up for their drop in sales.
He’d only paused to wonder if he shouldn’t return home but scout out potential tailors—should he scout or write a proposition first?—when someone knocked him to the floor. The butt of his palm skidded against the rough cobblestone. His skin scratched as his knees hit the stone. Hard.
“Watch it, mate. What’re you pausing in the middle of the street for?”
Whatever content mood Don had cultivated evaporated as he picked himself back up. He adjusted his belt and half a mind to draw his sword, never mind the fact that he wasn’t a swordsman.
“I don’t know,” he seethed. “Whatever was I thinking?”
“Yeah,” said the human, shivering in a short-sleeved vest in late fall Agrivik. “Gotta think better about these things, bud. Say, you wouldn’t happen to know something about a hole around these parts?”
His hand, which had been steadily creeping toward his sword, paused. He drew it back as anticipation curled around him. He shouldn’t. It wasn’t mature or befitting a store-owner. But it had been so long, he reasoned, since he’d had a good laugh, and he deserved one, didn’t he? Plus, this guy was an Asshole, and if he didn’t do it, someone else will. Weakly, Don asked, “A hole?”
“Yeah, I’m supposed to meet a guy here. He said meet him at a hole? I dunno, he mumbled the last part.”
The perfect set-up! Fuck, he couldn’t not do it now. It was tradition.
“Well,” started Don, “there are two places called ‘hole’ around this part. The Hole in the Ground and the Hole in the Wall. Which one was the one your friend wanted to meet at?”
The human, older than Don but not too much older, with large, bulging muscles, furrowed his bushy brows. “Uh… the Hole in the Ground? I think?”
“Right,” said Don as he closed his eyes and sighed. He really couldn’t not do it now. He opened his eyes and noted the position of the sun in the sky. It was after noon—the Temple had to have let out by now. He clapped Bushy Brows on the shoulder. Close contact, he learned from his father, was good at getting the customer on your side. “Let me lead the way.”
He steered the guy to the town center. “So I take it you’re new around here?”
“Yeah. Just got in the city yesterday.”
“Looking for work or just passing by?”
“Wanted to join the guild. Heard Agrivik’s guild is the best in the Kingdom for easy money and fast rank climbing.”
Oh, he could just imagine Edward’s face now. “I don’t know about fast rank climbing, but yeah, I guess it’s easy money. Even the newbie member assignments get a few big missions now and then.”
“Yeah? You part of the guild?”
“Oh no, no, no. I wanted to be when I was a kid, but then things happened—“
“Things?”
Don briefly entertained spilling his entire life story but found it didn’t help his timing. They were coming upon the town center quickly.
“You see that mountain over there?” asked Don. He pointed to the mountains to the east, the snow-capped peaks towering over Agrivik like an outstretched claw.
If Bushy Brows found the change of subject strange, it didn’t show on his face. “Yeah?”
“That’s Dragonrend Mountain. And see over there?” He pointed to the west, where a hazy mountain stood, covered in fog. “That’s the Haunted Mountains.”
“Right…”
“Well, you do know how Agrivik’s guild came to be, right?”
The brows did most of the talking. “Uh, no?”
Don smiled. “Well, you know about the war, right?”
Bushy Brows nodded slowly. Just looking at him, Don knew he had no fucking clue. “Yeah. Heard all about it.”
He carefully guided his tourist around the claw mark and onto the town center proper. Around him, the stalls and carts surrounding the center snickered and craned their heads to watch, but he had Bushy Brows focused on him.
“Well, some stories exaggerate and everything. Basically, a long, long time ago in Myro Valley—that’s the valley we’re in right now—stood Agrivik, this town. Originally, it was a small, Dwarven-only mining town. Had been for centuries and millennial. But then one day—“ He thrust his finger accusingly at Dragonrend Mountain and Bushy Brows obligingly followed the movement with his eyes. “—the dragons from Dragonrend Mountain, who had been peaceful marring a few stolen cattle, attacked—“ He pointed at the Haunted Mountain. “—Euthilian City.”
“Euthilian City?”
“Old underground city hidden in old caverns. It was home to a lot of Shade Walkers—“
“Shade—“
“They’re people who can’t exist in daylight without damage. Vampires and dark elves and stuff.”
“Vampires?”
“Yeah, didn’t you notice the pale people walking around town with umbrellas?”
Bushy Brow’s eyes darted around, and Marrow, one of the pale Shade Walkers who was a dark elf and not a vampire, but at a distance, could look like a vampire, waved from under his well-shaded market stand. He gulped.
“Anyway, the dragons weren’t just satisfied ruining one city. No, they set their sights on this little mining town. Add to that the necromantic beasts, undead zombie hordes, and soul-sucking ghouls that started pouring down the mountain because of the dragon’s wreaking, and it almost looked like this little town would not make it.”
“B- but they’re gone now, right? The dragons and haunted shit? Like, the war’s over, the guild’s here, the place is still standing.”
“Oh, yeah. This all happened 100 years ago. Agrivik asked the kingdom for help. The kingdom accepted in exchange for Agrivik becoming a part of the kingdom. They sent people who fought everything back and that group eventually developed the guild to keep everything in check—but every now and then…”
“What?” cried Bushy Bow. “Every now and then, what?”
“Well, most guild missions are mountain missions. Some guild members come back possessed. A dragon picks off an entire adventuring party in one claw and then flies over the town and drops them from 1,000 feet up. All we usually end up finding is a splat—hey, are you afraid of heights?”
Bushy Brows shivered; his bare arms covered in goosebumps. He looked one second away from pissing himself.
“N-no.”
“Really? Look under you.”
Obligingly, Bushy Brows looked down and found a hole. Not a pothole or a sewer hole, but a massive hole, wider and taller than three horses laid length-wise and a drop that could kill a man. He only had a moment to register the large, consuming darkness before he fell into it, a scream torn from his lungs.
And he could’ve sworn his guide’s laughs followed him all the way down.