Drakes had a cruising speed of a little over thirteen miles per hour, only needing to stop for a fifteen-to-thirty-minute break every two hours while carrying a rider (at least in good weather conditions). They could fly for about ten hours per day that way, but the fatigue of their riders was also a concern, limiting them to a more practical eight hours. This meant that rather than around twenty to twenty-five miles in a day, Rai and Isa could travel over a hundred, and terrain was no obstacle. Even so, it took them more than eight days to fly from Plentira to Ferrigen, the City of Dwarves, far to the east. The arrived around midday near the end of the second week of spring, the winter snow having fully melted to reveal spring blossoms.

Even knowing that it was also called the City of Metal, Rai was taken by surprise. While the surrounding foothills and mountainous terrain was decked out in greens and yellows (as well as pinks and blues), the city itself, built into the partially-excavated sides of two adjacent mountains, was utterly bereft of nature. The smaller buildings were made of stone, but all of the larger buildings, whether in height or width, were made of shining steel and glass. As impressive at Plentira had been, it had been somewhat recognizable; this vista was like peering into an alien world inhabited by foreign beings. The sheer amount of metal that had been turned into structures was mind-boggling, and the aesthetic was utterly bizarre to him.

Where did all this even go between now and the modern era? Rai wondered. So much steel surely should still exist in some form, and yet there is no trace of this city at all. In fact… if I’m remembering my geography correctly, there’s a massive lake-filled crater here instead of mountains.

“This city kind of gives me the creeps,” Isa said as they approached its walls. “It feels so… lifeless.”

“I would have thought a city of craftsmen would be up your alley.”

“Me too. But something about the way this place is built just feels… wrong.”

“Attention drake-riders! Land in front of the gates or be shot down!” a magically-enhanced voice called out as they approached within a thousand feet of the wall.

“Guess we’re landing. C’mon, Skycloud!”

“Down we go, Paxta!”

Spiraling down, they landed a short distance away from the southern gates and made the final approach on foot. The dwarven gate guards looked up at them with undisguised disgust.

“Ugh, drakes,” one of them said. “And a saurian. Hey, human! What in Holy Morxi’s left testicle is that thing riding on your head?”

Ew. Talk about vulgar, Rai thought. Also, what’s with the hostility?

“She’s my familiar, Braveheart. She’s a carbuncle.”

“A carb-what? Never heard of it.”

“You wouldn’t have. Her kind are… rare. By the way, you seem to dislike our mounts… does your city have something against drakes?”

“Against dragons,” one of the others answered. “And therefore against drakes, draconids, and saurians. Kobolds are all right, though, the little bastards. They don’t think they’re better than us.”

“I’m pretty sure drakes don’t think they’re better than anybody,” Rai pointed out.

“No, but they’re closer to dragons, and dragons… we tend to have conflict with dragons here.”

“Because you have a lot of precious metals?” Isa suggested.

“That, and also because we took the mountains from them and they’ve never forgiven us,” the third guard said, picking his nose.

“You… took the mountains from dragons?” Isa said incredulously.

“They were full of all kinds of useful metals that the dragons weren’t even using!” the first dwarf said. “So our ancestors drove the dragons off, what ones they didn’t kill. And serves the overgrown lizards right!”

If ever there was a time for the word “flabbergasted,” it would be in describing me right now, Isa thought, shaking her head. Their ancestors killed and drove off dragons so they could mine metals? And they think they’re justified in hating the dragons for it? I… have no words.

“…Right…” Rai said, struggling with a proper response himself. “So… is this going to be a problem for us?”

“It means that the saurian’s going to get a lot of hate, and you’re not allowed to bring the drakes inside the city, but otherwise, no,” the second dwarf said. “What’s your purpose for coming to Ferrigen anyway?”

Rai glanced at Isa. “Well… we’re looking for something that we have reason to believe ended up here. A rock, black, glowing green. Probably between a few inches long and half the size of a fist. And while we were here, we thought we might check out some of the craftsmanship the city has to offer, since we heard that’s where Ferrigen excels. Also, you have a battle arena? Isa’s a warrior, and I’m a combat artist as well, so we were considering fighting in it.”

“Well, if there’s one thing we got besides metal, it’s rocks,” the third dwarf said, still picking his nose and leaning on his halberd. “But, eh, I bet finding a single stone’ll be kinda hard.”

“If you want to fight in the arena, you should join the Spring Tournament,” the second dwarf said. “We have three tournaments each year: Spring, Summer, and Autumn. The semifinalists, second place, and winners of each tournament get pretty substantial prizes.”

“Hah! Like a saurian could ever make it that far in one of our tournaments.”

“I dunno, she looks pretty tough.”

“You need more than ‘tough’ to get far in our tournaments! The only time the winners aren’t seventh or even eighth tier is when the true badasses don’t even participate, and then the winners are sixth tier.”

“Is magic forbidden?” Rai asked.

“Naw, but damaging spells are nullified in the arena. Magic weapons, mystical combat arts, as well as non-damaging spells, all work fine, though. So… while there are plenty of mages who fight, it’s the combat artists that win.”

“What about people that are both?”

“Why, are you?”

“We both are. Fifth tier, fifth circle.”

All three dwarves stared. Even the nose-picker dropped his hand and widened his eyes.

“Double-fifth?! At your age?! Dragon dung!” the first dwarf spat.

“Believe it when you see it in the arena,” Isa said with a toothy smirk.

“So… what’s the toll?” Rai said.

“Toll? For entering the city? You don’t know anything about our city, do you?”

“We don’t owe anything?”

“Of course not. That would imply our city needs your money. We’re one of the wealthiest cities on the continent!”

“We can just… enter, then?” Isa said.

“Hah! Good one! No, you need Identification Cards.”

“And those are…?”

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“Cards that identify us, I would imagine,” Rai said dryly. “And how do we go about getting those?”

“You follow me into the guardhouse,” the second dwarf said. “We’ll ask you a few questions, subject you to a few spells, and at the end you’ll pay a nominal fee for the production of your cards.”

“So there is a toll, it’s just more roundabout,” Isa said.

“No, this is a fee, not a toll, and you only pay it once, not every time you enter the city.”

Rai and Isa managed (or rather, Braveheart did, since she could communicate with animals) to convey to the drakes that they were free to go wherever they wanted as long as it was outside the city and that they would be called through their magic collars when their services were needed again, then turned them loose. Next, the dwarves escorted the trio into “the guardhouse,” a structure built inside the wall. There, a large candle was placed on a table, along with a steel tablet the size of Rai’s head and a crystal ball.

A fourth dwarf took over as the questioner: a woman who looked like she regularly wrestled bears. She introduced herself as the Gate Guardian.

“The candle will indicate whether you’re telling a truth or a lie,” she said. “The crystal ball will allow us to read your memories, and the tablet will record your body and soul signatures. Also, that contraption on the wall will take your picture when we’re done. Now, first, tell me your names.”

The questions were, in Rai’s opinion, fairly reasonable: name, race, occupation, age, tier and circle, home city, whether they had killed people, whether they were wanted for any crimes, and some other similar queries. They both answered honestly, three of their answers drawing some attention. The fact that Isa was an evolved kobold came out when she told them she had just turned nine years old; that they weren’t from a major city drew some attention as well (though they didn’t mention they were from the future). Finally, the fact that they were indeed both fifth tier and fifth circle at their ages drew a lot of raised eyebrows.

Then the crystal ball came into play, and the fact that they were from the future was revealed. This caused the guards to confer in a distant corner of the room, loudly enough that Rai could hear them.

“Should we report this? Their memories, combined with their testimonies to explain the memories, show that they’re time travelers!”

“So what? Not our problem.”

“But the Ruler might be interested in the whole apocalypse thing…”’

“We’ll decide later. For now, we’ll just finish up and give them their IDs.”

Finally, the tablet recorded their “body and soul signatures,” which Rai wasn’t really sure what that was, but apparently would prove that they were who they said they were because while other aspects of their cards could be faked, that couldn’t. Once this was done and their pictures were taken, the cards were created by another magical device, then given to them when they paid the (rather expensive) fee.

After that, they passed through the wall and into the city. They quickly discovered that the despite Isa’s comment about it seeming lifeless from a distance, it had a thriving and active population constantly on the go. Unlike Plentira, there were very few beasts, and the people were almost entirely dwarves. Children ran through the streets, dodging around adults who strode with purpose and laughed boisterously as they spoke with one another. They got a number of curious looks and more than a few ones of dislike aimed at Isa, but nobody parted around them like they were accustomed to experiencing in the modern era – largely because there simply wasn’t enough empty space for them to do so.

Most of the buildings were only a few stories tall – aboveground. However, the further into the mountainside one went, the further underground the buildings went. Because the city was built by dwarves largely for dwarves, each story was shorter than Rai was used to, with barely more than half a foot clearance above his head. He was thankful that they were even that tall, as he was six feet tall and dwarves were generally shorter than five feet. Navigating the city was both easier and harder than he expected, since the layout was almost soullessly logical, but it was designed with all three dimensions in mind.

Plentira had been more expensive than he was used to the modern day being, but Ferrigen was even more expensive than that. While a meal at a tavern and some decent alcohol would only cost a few silver back home, and the equivalent would cost nearly a gold piece in Plentira, it took five gold to get two meals, one beer, and one water at a tavern here. He wasn’t sure how much of that was higher cost of living, how much was lower value of gold, and how much was being them being overcharged because Isa was a saurian. Whatever the case, Rai didn’t dare try to haggle for fear of drawing the locals’ ire.

From what Rai could see, only about five percent of the population was human, while another five percent were kobolds and another ten percent were gnomes. Perhaps because of this, a human man approached them while they were eating and sat down uninvited at their table.

“You’re a fresh face around here. Visiting the city?” the redhead said.

“Yes.”

“Sightseeing or here on business?”

“A little of both, but mostly business,” Rai replied. “We’re looking for a particular rock we have reason to believe ended up here, and figured we’d compete in the arena while we were here.”

“A rock, eh? Magical, I’m guessing. You should see Old Man Quartz. He’s always got his ear to the ground, if you know what I mean. Tends to deal in favors rather than coin, though, so you might find yourself running around for a while. He lives on Adamant Street… you got a map?”

“Yeah, I purchased one before coming here.”

“I’ll mark it on your map, then. And if you’re here for the arena, are you planning to compete in the Spring Tournament? It’s the middle of next month.”

“We were thinking about it, yeah.”

“That’s always fun to watch. They’ve got some heavy-duty enchantments on the arena that keep people from dying, even if you try to cut off their head or stab ‘em in the heart. They just get knocked out instead. It lets people fight to their heart’s content without worrying about killing anybody.”

“That’s… incredible,” Rai said.

“That’s really amazing! Rai, you need to reverse-engineer that enchantment!”

“I doubt they’d let me study it, but even so it’s probably way beyond me. That sounds like a ninth-circle sort of thing.”

“Probably!” the redhead agreed. “They say it was set up by a previous Ruler about five hundred years ago; before that, it was a lethal arena.”

“How do you sign up, anyway?” Isa asked.

“Oh, that’s easy. Just go to the arena and speak to reception. It costs fifty gold per person to register.”

“That’s… a lot.”

“Not really. Everything’s more expensive here in Ferrigen than it is elsewhere, but on the flip side, pay is better too. Just find some jobs to do in the meantime and you’ll be fine. Though… do you have a place to stay?”

“We thought we’d use an inn.”

“For that long? …I wouldn’t recommend it, especially with one of you being a saurian. It’ll cost you almost as much per night as the tournament registration fee.”

Rai’s eyes widened. Even if I assume that a gold here is worth about what a silver was worth back in the modern day (a difference of a factor of ten), that’s still really expensive for just any old inn – that’s more expensive than a good inn in Fairholm.

“So what do you suggest?” he asked.

“Clearing out the deep mines. Deep underneath the mountains, where the all the new mining’s taking place, they’re constantly having to deal with monsters. Most of them are pretty easy to deal with, but sometimes they run into really dangerous stuff. There’s always work in the mines, not just for miners, but also for fighters. It doesn’t pay very well, but you can sell the corpses or partial corpses of monsters you kill for sometimes pretty significant coin. Also, you can sleep in the mines and they provide meals for free, so there’s that, too.”

“So, go see Mr. Quartz and then sign up for work in the mines?” Isa said to Rai.

“Yi-meep,” Braveheart said with a single nod.

“Your critter is cute. Even wears a little crown. Does it understand us? It looked like it nodded…”

“Yeah, she does. She’s a clever girl.” Rai petted Braveheart’s head with his fingers.

“She your familiar, then?”

“She is. Her name’s Braveheart, and she certainly lives up to it.”

“The gem on her crown looks valuable. Better be careful no one tries to steal it!”

“Oh, I think they’d be in for quite a surprise if they did. She can draw on my mana and spells known to cast magic of first or second circle.”

After some further chat, the redhead (who eventually introduced himself as Garrion) marked the locations of Old Man Quartz and the Mining Signup on Rai’s map, they finished eating, and they headed out. It took nearly three hours to get to Old Man Quartz, who lived in the underground part of the city in one of the parts that used to be old mines.

Old Man Quartz was, as promised, an old dwarven man – so ancient that he had to walk with two canes. His face was more wrinkles than not and his very long beard was almost wispy, but his eyes were sharp. He raised an eyebrow at Isa when he answered the door.

“A saurian? Coming to little old me? To what do I owe the… honor?”

Isa raised an eye ridge right back. “I get that we’re not well-liked, but you make it sound like there’s a reason saurians wouldn’t visit you.”

“Well, I was a warrior who fought against dragons – they try every so often to retake the mountains.”

“I’m not a dragon though… yet.”

“Yet?”

“I used to be a kobold. I’m going to keep evolving until I become a dragon.”

“Hah! Oh, wait, you’re serious. Hahaha! You’re funny, little girl. So? What are you here for?’

“We’re looking for a particular rock,” Rai said. “A black stone that glows green. It could be anywhere from a few inches long to half the size of a fist. Would have showed up in the city sometime in the last year. We were told you were the person to ask.”

“And what’s so special about this rock, besides the fact that it glows?”

“Well, it’s dangerous. It has an energy different from qi and mana that is, when not properly filtered, highly toxic. It can cause mutations, insanity, or even death. We’re on a mission to find and collect all of these ‘shards,’ since we can safely handle them.”

“Hm… can’t say that I’ve heard anything about a rock like that. Why do you think it’s in the city?”

“The God of Knowledge said that it was.”

“Oh? You got the Temple of Knowledge to commune with their god directly about it? Must be important. But if I’ve not heard anything, then it probably isn’t in the city proper, or whoever has it is hiding it. It might be in the depths – you know, the new mines. I’ll look into it for you if you can do me a favor.”

“What’s the favor?” Isa asked.

Old Man Quartz smiled. “Oh, nothing much. I just need one thing: a Diamondheart.”