Vin had thought the heat was bad going down the stairs, but he was absolutely drenched in sweat by the time they reached the town proper. The fact that the hard-skinned dwarves seemed completely fine in the blazing heat just added insult to injury, and he swore he could hear quiet chuckling any time he grabbed his waterskin for a quick drink.

  At this point, Shia, Scule, Reginald, and him were basically passing it around nonstop, and even with Mana Well at his disposal he was beginning to get worried that he’d run out of mana before accomplishing what they came here to do.

  Alka certainly wasn’t helping either.

  “My, what a lovely town this is!” She said loudly, humming to herself and swinging her arms in wide arcs as she walked beside them, completely unbothered by the heat as a golem. “This place is quite nice, don’t you guys think? How about we stay here a couple of days? Just put our feet up and relax? Forget about everything we need to do for a bit?”

  “Alka, I love you, but I’m going to shove you into that lava filled lake if you don’t shut up,” Shia grumbled, grabbing the waterskin and pouring fresh water all over her head before handing it over to Scule. “This place is the worst.”

  “Hey, just be happy you’re not Forpurt,” Vin grinned, trying to keep their mood up in all the heat. “Imagine that guy down here, covered in fur as he is? He’d probably pass out before making it halfway down the stairs!”

  Chuckling to himself as everyone stopped complaining about the heat and started debating what a capillan would look like shaved, Vin turned his focus to the dwarven town they were walking through.

  Unlike most of the previous towns they’d seen, Valdora felt like it had been built with a specific plan in mind. Rather than a sprawling, random assortment of buildings, each one seemed to have been placed according to a larger plan, making things just feel organized and well thought out. The buildings themselves were made from finely crafted stone of varying colors, and the rooftops were constructed from iron shingles.

  The dwarves themselves seemed to be a rather reserved people. Vin spotted plenty of different looking dwarves going about their daily lives as they walked across town, but few bothered to do more than give them a curious glance before turning away. They didn’t even seem interested in Scule’s tiny frame or the trogum’s strange looking form.

  Again, just like with the heat, Alka was the only exception.

  Quite a handful of black streaked dwarves with heavy duty leather aprons were following their party, muttering amongst themselves and pointing at Alka’s various joints as they walked. Based on the hammers many of them were carrying and the tool belts around their waists, Vin could only assume they’d been discovered by the Blacksmiths of the Crater, and they were clearly impressed by whatever had created Alka’s new golem body.

  The longer they walked, the more smiths seemed to crawl out of the cracks around town, falling in line behind them. By the time the heavily armed warrior they were following stopped in front of a particularly large building and spun around, there had to be nearly a hundred smiths trailing right behind them, all of them carefully examining Alka’s alien form from afar as if trying to piece together how the golem worked.

  “Clear the street!” She shouted, frowning at the massive crowd that had gathered. “Official business!”

  The grumbling intensified, but the crowd of smiths did end up slowly clearing, the various dwarves dispersing into the many streets and alleyways as ordered.

  Letting out an annoyed grunt, just about the most emotion the woman had displayed so far, she gestured for them to follow her inside. Doing just that, Vin spared a quick glance at the building’s face.

  Unlike the many houses and random buildings around town, this one was clearly meant for something important. There were chiseled, iron coated pillars leading up to the face of the building, and even some strange looking bushes with bright orange flowers growing all around the perimeter, which marked the first plants Vin had seen since entering the volcano.

  Taking one more swig of water, Vin put his waterskin away as he stepped inside.

  Immediately, he let out a sigh of relief as the air dropped from cook an egg on the hood of your car temperatures to a far more balmy dear God it’s hot. He didn’t see any sort of engravings like the stone villagers of Sakis used for their own temperature control, but frankly, at this point he didn’t care what was providing them the much needed magical air conditioning.

  They’d clearly stepped into some sort of large foyer, and Vin took in the metal wonders surrounding them. The walls were lined with armor stands, each one displaying an entire suit of armor that looked almost too ornate to actually wear into any sort of combat. There were a good number of glass cases dotting the floor, with a wide variety of weapons and tools depicted amongst them.

  Strangely, many of the suits of armor almost seemed to be displayed haphazardly, as though they mannequins had been dressed in a rush. Similarly, the different items contained within the glass cases weren’t quite centered.

  While Vin was busy admiring what looked like a pair of scissors smelted out of some form of gleaming blue metal, the dwarf’s voice startled him.

  “In here,” she said, gesturing to a side door.

  Following her directions, Vin blinked as he realized she’d led them into some form of business room. Containing little more than a large table capable of sitting about a dozen people, the room was entirely empty.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “Take a seat and don’t go anywhere,” she ordered, turning to stare at Scule specifically for whatever reason. “I’ll have guards posted outside the room. Once we finish going through the journal, then we can talk.”

  As if her word was law and there wasn’t even a chance they’d talk back to her, she closed the door on them, and Vin heard the telltale sounds of it being locked. Thankfully, Scule at least waited a few seconds for her to walk away before snickering.

  “Like that could keep me in here?”

  “Are the two of you trying to get us all killed?” Vin demanded, turning and frowning at his two companions. “Scule, asking them to read the journal was smart, but you’ve got to have some tact! And Alka, are you serious? I know you like cracking jokes, but what if they really thought you were some sort of battle golem! Were you planning to take on a mob of heavily armed warriors without so much as a sword?”

  Scule at least had the sense of mind to look a little embarrassed, but Alka’s golem body was almost completely unreadable. The only thing that ever changed were her eyes, and Vin hadn’t been around her new form long enough yet to know what ‘apologetic’ looked like.

  “Sorry Vin, honestly I think the heat was starting to get to me a little bit there,” Scule said, sounding entirely sincere for once as he rubbed the back of his head. “I know I’ve been letting my mouth run a bit knowing that people couldn’t understand what I was saying anyways. Now that they can, I’ll try and be a bit more careful.”

  “I appreciate it,” Vin sighed, collapsing into one of the chairs and wincing at how uncomfortable it was. “Sorry guys, I don’t want to be the ‘team dad’ or whatever, I just don’t want to put us into any more dangerous situations than we have to be in.”

  “Sorry,” Alka finally said, the glowing lights making up her eyes dimming slightly as she took her own seat. “A large part of how I dealt with being dead was making a joke out of everything. I guess now that I have a body again to lose, I’ll have to take things a little more seriously.”

  “Not all the time, but maybe just when we’re making first impressions,” Shia smiled, sitting beside the Slayer and resting a hand on her arm. “We’re just as happy as you that you have a physical body again Alka. After everything you’ve been through, we wouldn’t want to see you lose it so quickly!”

  As if he could sense the comradery and didn’t want to miss out, a rather damp Reginald scurried out of Vin’s pocket and ran over to the golem, running up her shoulder and rubbing against the side of her head, leaving some distinct streaks against the white marble.

  “Ew, Reginald, you are soaking wet!” Shia cried, staring at the sweat drenched rat in horror. “Vin, give me your waterskin!”

  “Reginald, come here!”

  -----

  By the time the door finally opened and a trio of dwarves entered, Vin and his friends had had plenty of time to cool off and work on some of their outstanding projects to pass the time.

  Reginald had begrudgingly received a bath from the disgusted elf before going off to sulk in the corner of the room. Shia was now deep in Meditation, having finally picked up the skill and using it to work on her runic formations. Scule was messing around with some of his poisons as per usual, and Vin had enlisted Alka’s assistance to help him practice mastering his Introspection skill. The goal was for him to be able to tell when his body was being moved while he was deep within his own core, and so far, he’d had little success in that regard. Only something causing him physical pain reached him all the way down there, meaning as he was, someone could literally sling his body over their shoulder and run away with him while he was in the skill and he’d have no idea until he finally decided to exit.

  Hence the practice.

  Alka’s painful pinch snapped him out of his skill practice, and he blinked at the sight of the three dwarves entering the room and closing the door behind them. He recognized the armor-clad woman that had led the mob easily enough, but the other two were new faces.

  One was an older man with grey hair and an almost perpetual frown practically carved onto his face from the way his wrinkles sat. He had to be one of the smiths based on the heavy leather apron strung across his front, and he looked like he’d rather be anywhere but here.

  The other was a well-dressed man with long hair and a well combed beard decorated with small iron bands. He held a large, dusty tome in his arms and wore a simple green robe. The man looked more curious than anything, and it seemed like his eyes couldn’t decide on which of them was more interesting as they darted between every member of their party in turn, even stopping on Vin just as much as the others.

  The dwarf with the tome took the head seat at the other end of the table, but the smith and armored dwarf remained standing.

  “Before we talk about your reasons for coming here, we have a quick matter to attend to,” the warrior started, gesturing to the frowning smith standing beside her. “This is Rudas Stoneshaker. He has a few questions for you.”

  Vin immediately recognized the last name from the journal, and his heart dropped as he realized he was most likely speaking with the dwarven brothers’ father. He’d come here intending to notify the dwarves of the dead brothers of course, but he hadn’t expected to be breaking the news directly to their family. Taking a deep breath, Vin steeled himself for what was to come.

  Without ceremony, Rudas looked straight at Vin, grunting.

  “Did they die fighting?”

  “Huh?” Vin blinked, shooting a confused glance at Shia, who looked just as surprised as he was. “Yes… We found them surrounded by dozens of dead monsters, their warpicks still in hand and covered in blood and guts. In fact, they actually died defending this being,” he said, gesturing to the trogum that had been surprisingly quiet ever since being directed into the room with them. “It was only thanks to their efforts that it escaped unscathed.”

  Seeing as the monsters would have immediately started eating it if the dwarves had fallen any sooner, that’s not a total lie after all.

  Vin didn’t really know what to expect when he told the dwarf the news about his dead sons. Tears… A shaky breath... Even just a whitening of the knuckles as he clenched his fist perhaps.

  He certainly wasn’t prepared for nothing.

  “Good,” the dwarf grunted. Without another word, he turned and walked out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him once more.

  Vin stared at the closed door, his mouth slightly agape.

  Slowly, he turned to look at the remaining two dwarves still in the room with them. The armored woman still looked completely unfazed, but the tome carrying one at least looked just the slightest bit embarrassed.

  “Please, don’t mind Rudas,” he said, stroking his beard and offering them an apologetic smile. “Things have been tough since The Shattering, and people grieve in different ways.”

  “Okay…” Vin managed, still blown away by the seeming complete lack of caring on Rudas’ face.

  “Anyway, on to more pleasant topics,” the dwarf grinned, clapping his hands and rubbing them together. “My name is Nohral Scribener, and I’m the de facto leader of our small town at the moment. Now, if you wouldn’t mind me asking…”

  “Exactly what are you people, and what do you want with us?”

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