A large wooden sign stood outside the town's entrance. It read Welcome to Galden. Home of the Galden Mines.

"Tristan..." A thought occurred to me.

"Yeah."

"You know what mines mean?"

"What?"

"Monsters."

"Yeah, monsters are a lot stronger than us." He shook his head and walked past the sign.

We walked through the wide streets. There were probably a hundred buildings total and a small market in the center of town. By the time we got there, most of the vendors were closing shop, and we were out of food. Luckily, the money Varga gave us would be enough to sustain us for a little while.

"So what do you want to do first?"

"We should get a room, hit the baths, and get a meal."

"Alright."

We found the town's inn on the far side of town. It was up a long staircase and was carved directly into the mountain. Luckily, it looked like it was old construction and was clearly carved out of the mountain itself. Before we opened the heavy iron door, I took a look around. The inn had a view of the entire town and the rolling hills and forests in the distance. In the distance, I could just make out the tower cutting through the sky above Galden's other mountain. It was kind of pretty.

"How much for the night?" I hadn't heard Tristan enter the inn.

"Ten for the room, five for a bath, and two for a meal." A booming voice sounded behind me. I turned to find Tristan talking to a dwarf. His beard was thick and braided, with a pair of small metal beads hanging from his mustache. Something seemed off about him, though. I looked him up and down and... he had boobs. Holy shit, he was a she.

"Sounds good. We'll take it." Tristan dropped the crystals into the dwarf's hand, and she handed over the key. "Thank you."

"Down that hall." She pointed to a hallway on the right.

They exchanged a few more words, but I didn't hear them. It wasn't my proudest moment, but I couldn't stop staring. Dwarf women had beards! What the hell? I noticed Tristan looking at me, so I gave the dwarf a little bow—why, I don't know—and followed him deeper into the mountain.

"Tristan..."

"What?"

"She had a beard."

"Yeah."

"She had a beard."

"Yes, Alex. She was a woman."

"She had a beard."

"Are you okay?"

"Is that normal?"

"Yeah, all dwarves have beards. Don't be weird."

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I shook my head. I wasn't trying to be weird. It was just weird. "Okay, fine. So where's the bath?"

"It's downstairs. Apparently, it's pretty fancy. It's fed by a natural hot spring in the mountain."

We entered the room and found a simple but serviceable area. There were two beds, a small table, a lantern, and a stone desk carved into the wall. I threw myself onto one of the beds, but the second I landed, I knew I made a huge mistake.

"Ahhh, ow, shit. Goddammit. Fuck." The bed was rock hard. I pulled back the thick comforter. It wasn't just rock hard. It was rock.

"You okay, Alex?"

"No, the mattress is rock. The fucking mattress is rock."

"Well, that's what you get for throwing yourself onto it. Galden was settled by the dwarves. I'm not sure what you expected. Haven't you been studying with Arden?"

Don't sass me, youngster. "Yeah, but I kind of only really could focus on the stuff about monsters. You try and study in a language you don't know! It's not like the texts were written for my level, either. He had me translating graduate-level shit and thought I'd learn stuff. Bastard."

Tristan sighed. "Poor little earth boy, couldn't learn good. What do they teach you over there?"

"Hey, don't you make fun of me." I laughed. "And not much, unfortunately."

"Or what, Earth boy? What are you gonna do about it?"

I jumped at him and wrestled him to the ground. After playing an intense game of Stop Hitting Yourself, I slung my backpack over my shoulder and made my way to the baths. After cleaning up, we had an admittedly great dinner of some sort of meat and some sort of potato, then slept in our rock beds.

***

The next morning, or what I hoped was morning considering we didn't have a window, we made our way into town.

"Alright, let's hit the market and see if we can find anyone who needs a hand."

"Okay."

We started in the market and wandered through the stands. The place was small and dense, but there were a lot of vendors. I saw a few people selling what looked like monster parts.

"Monster parts?"

"They're common here. There are a lot of strong monsters nearby."

"What do people use them for? Do they have special properties or something?"

"All kinds of reasons. Sometimes monster hearts have minor healing properties, and the mana crystals that form can be useful, and others can be turned into weapons and armor."

I imagined a sword made out bones and armor made of insect parts. It looked awesome in my head. "Can we check it out?"

"I guess."

"Great."

We approached a vendor selling various pieces of bone. Some were smaller and looked like they were from small animals, but the others were massive and had to have come from some kind of monster.

"Dragon bones, dragon bones. Come get your dragon bones! Rare and authentic dragon bones from the Frostfell Mountains! Only a few left. Hurry, hurry." He was a dwarf. I looked at his chest. She was a dwarf.

"How much are they?"

"Two hundred and fifty for the whole bones. Fifty for the shards. These are real, I swear on the Goddess's name. No fakes."

"What are they good for?"

"Good for magic staffs, armor, all kinds of things."

"I don't need any."

"You're an adventurer, right? How about this?" The dwarf woman pulled out a large tooth. It was a couple of feet long, and the end was sharp and serrated. "A chimera tooth. It's a real beauty. One hundred."

Something in me told me that was a bad deal. I didn't know what, but I felt it in my bones. I inspected the bones. Alden's writing came to me. The bones weren't the right shape to be a dragon's, and the tooth was far too thick, and they weren't serrated. That wasn't a chimera tooth. Damn, he'd actually taught me a lot.

"I'll pass."

"Fine. Suit yourself. But I know the man who took the tooth from the chimera. He killed it himself."

"I bet he did. Have a good day." I marched away from the woman. Tristan followed.

"Good call. I thought you were gonna blow our money."

"I'm pretty sure those were bear bones, and chimaera don't have serrated teeth. I guess all the reading Arden's been making me do has been paying off."

"Look at you. All scholarly. I'm impressed."

"Don't be a dick. You're just jealous."

"Whatever."

"Hey, look." I pointed. There was a crowd gathered in a small circle.

"What's that?"

"Dunno, let's check it out."

We approached the group and saw two people circling each other. One was a human, a guy about our age, and the other was a dwarf.

"I challenge you, Grenden, son of Groden. For the honor of my family and my name, I, Jorgan, challenge you to a duel."

"I accept."

The men squared off against one another. Each drew a weapon—the dwarf a pickaxe, the human a sword—and they began circling. Their movements were stiff and unpracticed, but I could see the gleam in their eye. They were out for blood.