“We’re going to be RICH!!!” exclaimed a man with an almost Scottish-sounding accent.
“We better hope the crates the Fouriers wanted are here or the Captain’s hair brained plan will be for naught,” said the female voice with an accent he couldn’t quite figure out. It was a mix of Chinese and South African with some flairs he just couldn’t put his finger on.
“Screw those Fourier bastards! We don’t need their money, Kopa. I mean look around, either way, we’re rich! And this is just one of the holds!! I’m not sure the Folly will even have room.” Said the man with the Scottish accent.
“I’d really rather not and we do need their money and more importantly their backing if we want to keep the Folly flying and the Capt out of jail. As much as I hate the Fouriers you have to admit they know how to force you into an agreement.”
“To change the subject, I have some concerns about this amount of magic on our ship. It’s going to wreak havoc on our systems. Not to mention our systems are going to wreak havoc the cargo as well, but assuming we can make it to a Tribe planet in time we should profit heavily. Even more so if the contraband the Fouriers contracted us for is in here and we can successfully get it to Volundr,” said a second man, this one with a slightly effeminate edge to his voice and an accent which reminded Andrew of someone from the UAE back on earth.
“Did you hear that communication from Capt, sounds like one of those pointy-eared bastards was able to get out a distress call. Let's get this lot loaded before one of their fleets responds and ruins our fun or our implants fail from all this magic. Hurry, but don’t let your guard down, there are obviously a few of those pointy-eared bastards lurking around,” said the woman.
For the next hour, Andrew hid in his crate. The lights from the pirates occasionally gave him a start when they lit up his crate, but mostly the time was spent trying to figure out the magic in his sword and listening to the odd whirs, hisses, and clanks coming from below.
Bob if the dwarves find me what will they do to me?
[Bob says they’ll likely dissect you for parts.]
Seriously?
[No in all likelihood they would arrest you and try to understand why Bob and I have interfaced, much like the Elves.]
Great so it’s stay here and get experimented on or get transferred and get experimented on?
[Bob would like to point out that the Biaobel has no one to hold him accountable should he abuse us. The same will not be true for the Dwarven government. While most of what it knows about the dwarven government is propaganda, it is fairly certain that here are many in Dwarven society who would legally come to our rescue if the experiments went too far. While Bob worries about Dwarven Tech influence killing it, it knows that once Biaobel understood how our connection was possible he would kill us to keep it from getting out. So it would rather take its chances with the dwarves as it believes something about you might protect it, as you protected me from the magical energies.]
So, the Dwarves it is!
[While Bob agrees with that, it would like me to point out the best course of action is to remain hidden until these Dwarves make it to the Tribe planet they spoke of as the Tribe would let us live our lives in peace as long as we contribute to their society.]
That sounds very preferable indeed, thanks for the advice y’all.
Andrew spent the next hour hoping that he would get transferred to the Dwarven ship and not be found in the process. As time went on, he began to worry he might get left on this ship as it drifted through space slowly losing its heat. As the panic of freezing to death started to kick in, he briefly considered getting out of his crate so he could talk to the dwarves. The only thing that held him back was the fear of them mistaking him for an elf and killing him before they realized their mistake. As he was debating how he might do so without being killed, he heard what sounded like a set of steam hisses nearby prompting him to look out of the vent. What he saw was almost unbelievable, it was what he could best describe as a three-meter-tall clockwork automaton made of brass. While most of its inner workings where covered by thick brass plates he could see some gears twirling behind the plates as the automaton lumbered about. The sound seemed to come from steam and smoke which emanated from small pipes near it’s shoulders and which seemed to go under the plates to connect to its internal workings. He watched in awe as it effortlessly picked up a crate and walked it to what he could only describe as a hole in space in a beautiful brass picture frame. His brain had a hard time comprehending what exactly he was seeing. The frame hung in the air unsupported and inside it there appeared to be a whole other world. A world made of brass, gears, carbon scoring, and grit. On that side of the portal, there were similar automatons wordlessly taking crates and stacking them neatly on the other side. As he looked back at the brass wonder working on his side of the portal, marveled at the intricacies of its gears as they spun and twirled as it placed the crate through the portal. One of it’s kind taking the crate and stacking it nicely as the one before did. As he watched he found that there were 10 automatons on his side of the portal and at least half that on the other side. Andrew couldn’t get over how it appeared that these robots worked without electricity and seemed to function solely on steam and gears, yet worked better than any robot he had seen on earth or yuta. His suspicions about how they functioned was some what validated as after what must have been another hour of work, one of the automatons on the other side handed an automaton on this side a two chambered brass and glass capsule which seemed to filled with coal on one side and water on the other. The automon on this side reached into it’s back and retrieved a similar capsule, this one appearing to be empty, and handed it back to the first automon before installing the new capsule. Once done the automaton went back to work. After a short bit a gear in the automaton shattered and the unit shut down.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Well that was bound to happen with all this magic around,”said the man with the middle eastern accent as he walked into view.
It was then he saw his first dwarf. This dwarf honestly wasn’t what Andrew had in mind when he heard there would be dwarves. The dwarf was short, no more than four foot five, and had a beard, but from there the similarities to the Tolkienesque dwarf ended. As he was dressed in somewhat flamboyant colors, though his wardrobe wasn’t all flourish and instead was very functional in design. His shirt, vest, and pants were made from slightly too-tight form-fitting leather, with various exotic tools strapped thoughtfully all over his body. On his head was what looked like a turban made of beaver skin that had a top hat-like brim. His beard was well kept if quite a bit shorter than what Andrew expected a dwarf to have. It was more of a longer goatee, with multi-color beads woven through it. On his face was a set of googles that looked straight out of a steampunk novel. Made of leather and brass, they had many different lenses on shafts, most of which were up and out of the way. As the man worked on the Automaton, the various lenses and apertures of the goggles seemed to move into and out of position as if they knew what this man needed and when he needed it.
After he was done repairing the automaton, it returned to duty. The man turned to someone Andrew couldn’t see, held up the cog for the person’s inspection, and said, “Just as I feared, all this magic is going to cause us innumerable issues until we unload this cargo.”
“Are we good?” asked the female voice.
“Until we aren’t, but we’ll get through it. I know how much Capt wants this haul, so we’ll make it happen. I just hope it doesn’t cause us too many issues along the way.”
“Correction you know how much we need this haul if we want to continue flying and eating. I don’t know about you, but I’m quite partial to both, especially the eating part, “ the woman said with a chuckle.
Time drug on as Andrew waited to see if his crate would be taken or not, but only half an hour had passed when an automaton approached Andrew’s crate before lifting it up and placing it through the portal. Passing through the portal felt the same as the experience one felt when a ship jumped. Once through though, Andrew was crushed to the floor. The gravity must have been three times that of the Elven ships. He suspected it was close to double that of Earth norm and he could hear the Automaton’s steam workings whine and creak from the extra effort. Even breathing wasn’t easy as the atmosphere was thick from the increased gravity and his chest felt like he had a sack of rice sitting on it every time he took a breath.
He struggled to get back up to the vent and see his surroundings, the gravity making his body feel as if he were wearing a lead suit. After an immense effort, he could once again see out of the vents. Where he found that his luck had prevailed once more, and his crate was again at the top of his stack. Though the hold he was in was maybe a 10th of the size of the previous one. The walls were curved and appeared to be made of solid brass, with beautiful patterns carved into every surface. Here and there he could see brass piping all neatly bundled and precisely placed traveling to places he could only imagine. It struck him how the piping was worked into the designs on the wall, giving them a 3d look that added to the overall art. By the curve in the wall and from experience he assumed he had been transferred to a ship, but not knowing Dwarven tech he couldn’t not be sure. What he was fairly certain of was that he could hear the sound of what he guessed was a very large steam engine somewhere in the bowels of the ship. Its hisses and whirls sounding like the ones which came from the Automatons but orders of magnitude larger.
Do Dwarven ships run on steam power?
[That should not seem surprising Mr. Lather as ultimately even large nuclear powered ocean going ships back on earth were run by steam. Bob has confirmed that Dwarven technology is primarily steam based though.]
How do they fold space with steam?
[Unknown]
Andrew was knocked out of his own thoughts, the voice of a man who sounded like an American Movie Action hero with an indistinct Americanesque accent.
“That’s it. time to get back to the Folly. I’m happy to say the crates we came for have made it on board. We’ve detected a fleet inbound and I don’t plan on going down like Enona, so portal back immediately. I’m also pleased to say that we have enough contraband to both get us thrown in jail for a century and make us enough money to live like kings for that century. Assuming we don’t get caught or dead.” said the man with the voice of legends.
Andrew saw one of the space holes expand, as the flamboyant man came through and then further as the Automatons came through each carrying a final crate. They set crates in neat stacks before each walked to a cubby on the front wall and folded themselves into a box that seemed to take up no more than a two-meter cube. Subsequent automatons climbed upon their folded brethren before folding themselves into identical boxes, stacking themselves four to a stack. While he didn’t see the other crew members he did hear each as they laughed and joked about what they planned to do with their share of the loot as they left the room.
Once they left and the lights turned off he gave up fighting the demonic gravity and laid on his side to help ease his breathing.
[Bob would like me to inform you, that it knows only what it would call propaganda about the dwarves and little facts. One thing it does not know is that without your protection, the energy of the dwarves would have killed it.]
Bob, I’m not sure what I’m doing to protect you, but I’m glad you’re still around even if you’re a pain from time to time.
[Bob would like to point out you only feel like that because of your cognitive shortcomings and not because of any actions of its own.]
Yeah, sure, Bob. That said I’m beat and need to try to rest before whatever insane thing that the universe throws at me next has a chance to manifest.