A hefty trek later we finally arrive back at the Dwarger city, there’s a lot more movement going on than last time we were here. Especially when it comes to soldiers, who are walking around with steam powered machinery.

“Halt!” One of the Dwarger soldiers spots us and runs up to us. “State your business!”

“Uh… We are looking for a captain…. uhm Trogsomewhat…” My sister tries, shifting the weight of the inquisitor on her shoulder.

“Thrognoum Mountainforge, captain Thrognoum Mountainforge.” Hilda jumps in to help my sister.

“Right, yeah, that guy.”

“What business do you have with our captain?” The Dwarger soldier didn’t lower his guard at all and if anything was getting more on edge.

“Burgbar, stop it! These are the people I told you about!” A familiar Dwarger soldier comes running out of a building a bit further down the road. It was the leader of the group we’d saved earlier today.

“Ah. I’m sorry.” The Dwarger soldier takes his hand of his weapon. “Can’t be too sure with these strangers.”

“Sorry for Burgbar.” The leader apologizes.

“Don’t worry, we understand.” Hilda reassures him. “But we do have some more information for your captain.” she nods towards the inquisitor who’s still KO on Lise’s shoulder.

“Oh, you caught a high ranking one?”

“Yes, where would you like him?” Élise shifts the guy’s weight again. “Not that I’m complaining but I have been carrying him for a while now.”

“Right, follow me.” The leader leads us through the city’s streets while the other Dwarger soldier gives us an escort as well. The more we walk through the streets the more soldiers we see tugging along with war machinery.

“Is this all because of your report?” Nikki asks the leader.

The leader shook his head while looking around the corner to make sure we weren’t going to get walked over by one of the bigger machines. “There were enemy ships spotted near the harbour but our defenses managed to hold them off together with the aid of another foreign vessel. I think they called themself pirates?”

“Ah, is Captain Taylor still here?” Sam asks.

“You can go and take a look later. They were repairing their ship in the harbour. I heard the city council also assigned some mechanics to give them some upgrades.”

“We’ll definitely have to go and take a look then when we are finished.” Hilda states as we round the corner and enter the city center. Three steam machines have positioned themselves around the main building. They look a lot bigger than everything we’ve seen up to this point.

“What are those?” I ask, pointing at one of them.

“Those are the most recent models of steam land walkers.” Our Dwarger friend explains.

“Walkers?”

“Yes, of course, how else would they move? Wheels are so primitive.”

“I’m pretty sure they don’t know what tracks are.” Hilda whispers in my ear.

“And do they have weapons too?” Sam asks.

“Yes but they are currently stowed away inside of the walkers themselves.”

“With that kind of engineering I can see why they had issues with your small squad. I wouldn’t want to fight it head-on.” Sam says.

“Yeah, me neither.” My sister agrees as the Dwarger leader opens the door of the central building.

“Bring the man downstairs through that door, I’ll bring the captain to you.” Our friend says while pointing at one of the many doors attached to this room.

“Alright.” Hilda runs ahead to open the door for Élise. We all follow behind her. A spiraling staircase twists down for quite a while, being lit by gas fed lanterns on the side of the wall. After descending what appears to be several floors we finally end up in some kind of prison room. Currently there’s a Dwarger guard sitting at a desk, watching over the only other prisoner, the inquisitor we’d fought earlier today.

“Ah, another prisoner for interrogation?” The Dwarger guard looks up and pushes his glasses up his nose.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

“Yeah.” My sister answers. “The other guy was getting the captain, they’ll be here soon I think.”

The guard nods and gets up, taking a ring of keys out of the drawer of his desk. “The interrogation room is through that door.” He tosses the keys over to Sam who quite easily catches them. “It’s the 24th key.”

“Aren’t you a bit too trusting, just giving us the keys like that?” My sis walks over to the door while Sam looks for the key.

“I overheard the interrogation of the other one. You look precisely like the people that beat him. He was swearing and cursing a lot about you lot. And as they say, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

I hear Hilda speak under her breath. “Huh, so that’s a proverb here too.”

“Fair enough.”

When Sam finally finds the key, we enter the interrogation room, which is actually surprisingly big. My sister put down the inquisitor on the chair which was clearly built for the prisoner as it had steel shackles and chains attached to it. The Dwarger guard helps her with the several clamps before he walks out again.

“I’ll go and get you some chairs if you want to follow along with the interrogation.

“Sure thing.” Élise replies, Nikki and Hilda nod along.

“I’d like to sit that out if that’s possible, though….” I raise my hand.

“Me too.” Sam raises hers too.

The guard nods and walks away.

“Is it okay if we wait upstairs?” I look at the rest of the group.

“Definitely.” Another voice comes from behind us. I turn around and see our Dwarger friend and presumably the captain, standing behind us.

“There’s a little relaxation room for the guards on the left side of the entrance, should be easy enough to find. But before you go I’d like to offer my deepest gratitude for saving my men and putting your life on the line for our city and our nation.” The captain bows to me.

“Ah… uh… yeah, no problem at all…”

The captain looks at me a bit weirdly after my reply but luckily my sister jumps in to help.

“She doesn’t handle praise that well.”

“I see.” The captain nods and walks past us.

“We’ll come and look for you when we are done.” Hilda helps the returning guard with the chairs.

“Alrighty.” Sam nods and takes out of the room and up the stairs.

“So where did that captain say the relaxation room was?” Sam looks around in the lobby at the identical doors.

“To the left of the entrance.” I say to my girlfriend and head towards the door on the left.

“But… does he mean the left side when you come in, or the left side when you go out…”

My hand hovers over the doorknob for a second before I quickly retract it. “That’s true… what if we enter a room we aren’t supposed to go in and we get arrested?”

“I don’t think that’ll happen… maybe…” We both stare at the closed door when we hear the main door opening.

“Hey, is anyone here?” A familiar voice calls out.

“Captain Taylor!” I run up to her to moment I see her face.

“Oh! Fancy meetin’ you lot here!” She gives me a pat on the back. “But do you perhaps know where the captain of the guard is?”

“He’s downstairs interrogating an inquisitor we brought in.”

“Ah… I guess I’ll wait ‘till that’s done then. It’s not that urgent anyway.”

“What were you here for?” Sam asks.

“Just a couple of questions I had concerin’ me ship. The engineers said to take it up with the captain.”

“Oh.”

“Is the rest of your group downstairs too?”

“Yeah, Ami doesn’t like sitting in on interrogations so we were looking for the relaxation room.”

I nod.

“The bar is this way.” Taylor walks over to the opposite door and pushes it open for us. “That other room is the bathroom.”

Me and Sam look at each other and start giggling.

Taylor joins us at the bar, since there was no one else there at the present she slides over the counter and starts looking through the drinks. “Don’t worry, it’s a self-service bar.” She sniffs one of the bottles, shivers and quickly puts it back. “Let’s not drink that one.” And she continues looking. “Got any preferences?”

“Not really, just not alcoholic.” Sam replies as she sits down on one of the barstools.

I sit down next to my girlfriend. “If there’s no milk, anything else non-alcoholic will do.”

“Non-alcoholic, huh.” We hear her rummaging on the bottom planks behind the counter. “I think most of these do have alcohol in them. I think these Dwarger kinda enjoy getting intoxicated.” She sniffs another bottle. “Nope, not this one either.” She sniffs a couple more bottles before she finally gets up and places it down on the counter. “I think this is some kind of apple cider.” And takes three glasses from the cabinet behind her.

“Can I smell it for a second?” Sam asks, a bit of a weird question if you take it out of context.

“Sure thing.” She hands over the bottle.

“Hmmm.” Sam puts the bottle down again. “It definitely looks and smells like apple cider. I’m not detecting alcohol so that’s something.”

“So, everyone wants a glass?”

I nod and Sam nods too.

Taylor quickly fills up our glasses. “Bottoms up.” She takes a big swig from her glass. “It’s definitely good stuff, that’s for sure.”

“Aren’t you going to drink alcohol?” I ask our favourite pirate captain.

“Not this early in the morning.” She smiles and shakes her head. “And I’m sure this Dwarger stuff is a bit stronger than I’m used to as well. But anyhow, what have you done since we last saw each other?”

“Not that much to be honest, we just ran into these inquisitors and now we’re here.” Sam replies. “But what about you? We heard your ship got a bit shot up?”

“Ah right, you adventuring folks do sleep very long… and about my ship, that’s a bit of a longer story.”

-Story time!-