《The Claiming of MINT Mountain, a dwarven mining tale》
Chapter 1 - 50% edit (under 25,000 word count)
The Claiming of MINT MOuntain, a dwarven mining tale
The story of One, Two, and Three¡ªthree little dwarf brothers¡ªends in a small bar on the docks of a port town
The pub is called The Licking Stone
The men in the bar tell the story of One, Two, and Three
One, Two, and Three were three dwarves left on a church''s doorstep when they were babies A note left with them explained that their caravan had been attacked and that no one had survived except these three infants They were wrapped in cloth bearing the logo of a dwarven clan
It took many years to uncover the name of the clan When they finally did, they learned that the clan had been annihilated This revelation sent the church into hushed secrecy regarding the boys'' past
With this knowledge, One, Two, and Three were taught to keep their origins a secret The three of them were as close as thieves
By the time they were around seven or eight, the church assigned a monk to take them to a small mountain outside of town and show them where the coal mine was
With the help of the townspeople and their church family, the boys made their own tools and built a small hidden refuge They weren¡¯t afraid of their own people¡ªthey simply didn¡¯t want to be the cause of anyone else¡¯s death
For the first two weeks, they would leave in the darkness and return only at night They hunted, mined, and dug The little metal they found, they learned to smelt in a clay furnace they built themselves It took them hours¡ªsometimes days¡ªto melt down small amounts of iron, but they persisted They fashioned chains to cut down small trees and crafted hand picks
With time, they built saws and constructed a proper campsite
This routine continued for a while Once they had made enough money and the right tools, they informed their church family that they were leaving Their journey led them to a port town near a vast mountain range
When they arrived, they wandered through the town, eventually ending up on the docks, watching the sunset This was their new home
The town itself was simply called Port Town¡ªnot the most imaginative name, but the people of this region were straightforward in their naming customs
They kept their hoods up, concealing their faces Because they were raised by humans, they had no beards and appeared to be short humans Some townspeople suspected their true nature but chose to ignore it
Sitting on the docks, feet dangling over the edge, the brothers finally asked each other something they had avoided for years: their memories of their parents
As they spoke, they recalled little stone toys¡ªchild¡¯s toys, like dreidels and other trinkets They remembered sucking on them as babies, the taste and texture distinct in their minds Each of them had possessed multiple versions of the same toy, crafted from different materials
They realized these were licking stones¡ªa term familiar to them from childhood At that moment, they turned around and noticed an empty stall behind them, just the right size for a small pub
That was the moment they decided: their new tavern would be called The Licking Stone
They gathered supplies and befriended local merchants, securing deliveries that allowed them to focus on mining rather than hunting for survival With access to better equipment, they obtained safety ropes and other necessities While digging for coal¡ªthe fuel that kept their operations running¡ªthey discovered a small vein of ore More intriguingly, they found a crack in the rock, from which a faint breeze emanated, suggesting an opening deeper within the earth
To explore further, they each acquired a headlamp, ropes, emergency candles¡ªand, for the first time, a bottle of booze each
The church that had raised them had strict rules about alcohol Some dwarves claimed it was essential, while others said it was unnecessary Since they were now on their own, they decided, as a family, to give it a try
The next morning, they awoke with the worst headaches of their lives, tied to their ropes inside a cave Their bodies were fine, but their heads throbbed One groaned, nudged Two, who then kicked Three As they stirred, realization dawned¡ªthey were alive That was enough
One attempted to turn on his headlamp, but it was dead, the liquid fuel completely drained He lit one of his emergency candles and took in their surroundings A stalagmite, about a foot away, held their rope The cave was small, no more than fifty feet across They had widened the crack in the rock and crawled through, opening up into this chamber
And in the chamber lay a snake
Not just any snake¡ªa massive, pitch-black serpent, its head cleanly severed Memories flooded back The fight The struggle Then¡ the drinking Oh no The drinking came first
As Two and Three sat up, they took in the scene The snake, about six feet long and nearly a quarter-foot thick, had been slain with several well-placed pickaxe swings They carried their bags as usual, so they stuffed the snake inside¡ªonly to realize it was still bleeding That would be a problem for later
They didn''t need to speak much; they understood each other instinctively With their single candle, they relit Two and Three¡¯s, illuminating more of the cave Scattered bones littered the floor They cleaned up as they worked, realizing this could serve as a home¡ªcozy in its own way
As they explored further, they discovered another opening behind a stalagmite, barely large enough to fit an arm through The snake must have come from there They knew they would need to break through
After ten minutes of searching and assessing, they paused and looked at each other There was no need for words
Home
They nodded in agreement, placed their hands together, and shared a smile Then, in a rare display of sentiment, they wrapped their arms around one another in a tight embrace
They took out their small shovels¡ªone of poor quality and the other two well-made They assigned the bad one for sand and soil, while Two and Three, using the better shovels, focused on moving rocks They filled in the area behind the stalagmite, preparing for when they would need to open it up For now, they used backfill, leaving a small pocket of air
As they worked, they noticed the wind being sucked downward When they placed the last bit of soil and sand, it kept disappearing into the hole They had to use rocks to block it As they made the hole smaller, a whistling sound emerged Curious, they removed some rocks and drove a climbing spike into a natural rock face to prevent anything from coming through while leaving an opening for air to pass The gap, about a quarter-foot wide on either side of the rod, served as a security warning system If anything tried to pass through, they would hear the whistling change
Two suggested building a fire pit with a vent leading to the hole, potentially smoking out anything inside However, he realized that whatever was lurking might charge toward them, so they opted for a different approach: trapping the entire room with spikes
They fashioned a rope ladder using their existing ropes, securing access up and down They cut small trees, no more than a foot in diameter, and spent days sharpening them into spikes If a spike couldn''t survive being thrown down, they deemed it unfit for defense
They arranged the spikes at 30- to 45-degree angles, depending on the floor, creating three levels of defense up to their head height of about four feet, five inches
Satisfied with their work, they returned to town But this time, their visit to the general store took an unexpected turn
They returned to town once more, heading straight for the general store This time, however, the shopkeeper took notice of them
"Hey, you guys are dwarves!"
Instantly, the three of them tensed, twisting toward him, ready to fight The shopkeeper raised his hands "Whoa, whoa! I¡¯m sorry! I mean¡ I misunderstood How can I help you guys? What do you need?"
Their postures relaxed slightly, but One¡ªalways claiming to be the oldest, even if only by a minute¡ªstepped forward "We need to smoke out some monsters from a cave We don¡¯t want to use wood or coal if it¡¯ll leave a residue Do you have anything that won¡¯t poison us if we decide to use that cave later?"
What they didn¡¯t reveal was that they had been trained by the church in various languages, poisons, and alchemical mixtures One wanted to see what the shopkeeper would offer¡ªwhether he was trustworthy But he also didn¡¯t know what might be hidden behind the counter Some trust had to be given to see what would happen next It could bite them in the ***¡ªbut they''d find out soon enough
The shopkeeper''s lips curled into a sly grin "Ohhh, I get it now My apologies, adventurers Have you been to the Adventurers'' Guild yet? If you¡¯ve got your adventurer¡¯s pass, I can give you a 10% discount on all sales here So¡ do you want me to tell you about the poisons I can offer? Or would you rather visit them first so I can show you the good stuff¡ªonly available to adventurers?"
One, knowing that this was a trap, said, no, I''m fine Just the way it is Do you have anything? What is your cheapest thing that you could offer us? The shopkeeper had kind of tilted It looked at him not getting the answer he was expecting But what How about mint? I have a large container of mint And if you burn that the oils can be very, very bad But it smells really nice So as long as you let it air out, you might be able to use that I can offer you that for 5s?
Before they left the church, they had done enough work that the church actually raised the money to let them go with it And they had taken that and sold coal after going and digging it out and had started small amount of money coming in So they were pretty good with that So they weren''t short on money by any means, but they didn''t have a lot 5 silver was kind of a lot of money But to do this right, they would need two of that amount So Penn Silver to get the job done
One, two and three all looked at each other, and they all nodded almost at the same time to each other And the shopkeeper noticed that And just smirk to himself, knowing these guys are totally dwarfs, but they''re not They''ve shaved their beard They must have really **** **** or something to have everybody hunting for them Someone would definitely pay for that information But for now, he didn''t need to get dead from them So he just kept his mouth shut, and he waited for what they were going to say
One turned, pulled out his coin pouch Put 10 silver down and ask for two of those Some more liquid for their lamps and some more emergency candles And with that, he put down another silver The merchant picked it up, grabbed the candles off the shelf, grabbed the two boxes of the mint, put it down Gentlemen, have a great day
As the door closed the owner called to the back and he called his helper and told him to get down here He was going to take off for a bit and he was in charge of the store till he came back
He waited about three minutes after the gentleman left, and he went out and went the exact opposite direction, down to the local bar because he had to go talk to 1 of his friends that worked for the underbelly If there''s any dwarf contracts out there it''s easy enough to make some money off of information in this town Looking for three dwarves on the run to his side, and disappointed self after talking to his contacts, there was absolutely nothing out there
But being the Loudmouth **** he was his contact, now was told to do three dwarves hiding, and he didn''t know why Hiding dwarves always ended in something big and exploding, which could be fun, but he would have tell one of his friends that was going to be coming to town in about a week and a half, who happened to be a dwarf about it, thinking maybe, just maybe he''d no more
They had gone to a different store owner who has made them a deal on the booze they had bought And they had figured out that he had also realized their dwarfs and the bottles of booze They had never drank something that strong So yes, they they loved it, but they couldn''t remember **** all And for them, that was not a positive sign So they were to know what he had given them And their conversation basically went, I gave you dwarven alcohol And the moment he said the word dwarf, they all looked at him and he went, I whatever Do you want something lighter or heavier?
This is one of the only times where all three of them started just yelling at the guy, telling them how they loved it so much, but how they woke up after a fight They don''t even remember having
One calmed two and three down and then the look on the alcohol salesman''s face was prices as he tried to hold in the lab and he had apologized right there on the spot, not knowing that they didn''t drink alcohol And that was her first He had given them actually strong dwarven alcohol What he now pulled out, he says on the house I have a couple extra bottles here Take 6 bottles This is some wine that a friend of mine made It''s **** but it''s cheap It''s yours as an apology This is low quality You can probably kill a bottle and it won''t hurt you I''m so sorry When you want something stronger, you come back to me And that''s what happens People get I didn''t say the other people I said people get used to it used to it over time The same that happens at the beginning They try to chase that over and over again Don''t do that, guys Keep it Keep it light and keep it Simple
They wouldn''t know how accurate those words were Keep it light and keep it simple, because they went home that night, and they all just had half a bottle in one of their wooden mug deck carved out over the last little while, living in the forest And as they were eating their stag potato, carrots and a mug of wine, they realized that they were happy and how to hold And they were ready for a good fight And after that one mug and that one meal, they were knocking away till the next day to do this They were going to do in the dead of night in the cave They were to start smoking them out So they got a good fire in their belly They started getting all the wood shoved down in there They started making a little bit more of an area to load the fire The whole 9 yards And then they just said, hey, **** it Let''s just put a fire up against this It''ll cook it solid so they can''t get through We''re like, yeah, that''ll work great So they started piling up the rocks right against the opening And then wood on top of that So, and then just so much wood, they were at least 20 feet away from anyone of the tips of the wood And they lit it up And they sat there for about two minutes and realized they should just get out 0 UT They climbed the ladder, and they were getting smoked on by that point And the horror was starting to fill up with smoke
They had grabbed a couple of the nicer ones of the wooden logs that they had sharpened the tips too, to make the sticks that were in the walls And they grab some big ones, some nice, long, thick ones that are like something''s coming through that hole coming up the I''m going to poke it, and they, they actually had another little pile of them right at the entrance to the cave So if anything came up and out, it was going after them They also had set up a small area with rocks where they could really quickly seal the whole thing But that was a last resort, cuz that would cause a landslide, and it screw up everything
They killed some more alcohol and then the scent of mint hit their nostrils and their brains just opened up Their thoughts, everything They were drunk, happy, but in control And they just started banging their drums on wooden logs and then just started dancing and having a party And this was they felt right They felt this was right on the smoke was coming and then they heard it They heard it and they went, yeah And they screamed with the scream from underneath They realized it was coming out of the cave But then he realized it was coming out of caves all throughout the mountains And it wasn''t a bone curdling scream It was that that you just got pepper spray anger and defeat and all the motions that come with just being screwed up
The absolute mayhem that then erupted out of small caves all throughout the mountain was backs and I''m not talking 1 or 2 million I''m talking one or 2 billion facts They just said screw this We''re out
Now those people that played Dungeons and Dragons probably know there''s a role you don''t like fires in places you don''t know, because it''s either gases or whatever, whatever is what happened next Because all those bats evacuating their body mass out as fast as they could from those caves out of every entrance made the absorption of fire from their smoking attempt to actually start pulling in fire through the hole because they had enough of a bonfire going in that cave and was pulling in so much air that the fire actually started pulling all the smoke and everything over there actually could be in the cave down below and they actually went and looked and they were standing over the edge looking down and they could see all the smoke being sucked in all the air was getting sucked in And I mean, a lot of air was going in and as they saw the fire going in and they heard the sound, they kind of **** their heads back out of the cave and they walked about 60 feet 2060 feet somewhere in between there away from The Cave Luckily enough because they did that what they got to see next is this even in the dark with the stars in the background the giant swarm of bats blocking out the sky
The sound is what first got their attention, because all of a sudden the sucking sound went away and it was like they heard a pop and the wind came pushing out very quickly Enough that they felt the wind hit them in the chest but then they heard Papa Papa Papa Papa Papa and it was just a popping was almost one big, long paw over and over again And what you saw next was different spots on the mountain Literally start shooting out funnels of fire, blue, greens, Reds, but not just those The pressure coming off of them was so much a shoot that into the air Their cave started shooting out and it was shooting out so much as they hit the dirt But the whole place was on fire They could see almost 100 different spots where a fire was out pouring out of the mountain
As the brothers holding each other and laying on the ground face down with the fire against their backs waited and as it settled down they were able to look up and to their backs to see all the fiery plumes coming off and starting to slowly die down And when there''s started to die down and they looked at the very top of the mountain at the tips of all three of the points that they could see in the distance, there was 3 large, almost volcanoes of fire, just pouring and slowly going down
Number one had two and three under each arm as they were looking standing up And he said, gentlemen, welcome to Mint Mountain
I don''t know if anybody''s ever stopped burning mint, but it is one hell of an nostril opener because what they were also smelling didn''t smell very good and they realized all those bats were pooping in those caves That''s guano That''s basically rocket fuel And they just said um teen thousands of tons of this stuff off Oops
So 12 and three Looking at their mess, said Hey, you know, we just screwed up and there''s gonna be somewhere investigating this, right?
All three of them looked into each other''s eyes They grabbed each other''s hands and they said brothers were like they just smiled and looked up with the destruction day It just caused let them come They can take us dead
In the town about 5 miles away The Shockwave was felt and it actually moved the bell and the bell tower just a slight bit I know that when the bell tower guard actually pulled on it It was already kind of going so it made it really easy He even noted that and he didn''t mean to pull it so hard thinking it would be hard to start but the bell It rang hard and it rang hard again and again and I guess if you had pulled it a couple times thinking you''d have to get it going and the bell just started to do hard rings scare you screw you rings the town was awake instantly and they all looked out to see the mountain on fire
It took about 10 minutes for the fires to die down And by that point, all the people in town were already working their way to the City Hall to figure out what to do and what was going on
The shopkeeper and the friend at the pub almost at the same time when they heard the bell, wondered what the dwarf said done But both of them knew because of them There was going to be more business in town, which means more money So this is a good thing for them Plus doors nowadays are good luck charms to find them He had already started asking around and had no clue why three of them were hiding and he was getting more excited by the day and grabbing a bottle of wine and sitting on his balcony watching the fire come out of the mountain He knew they both did that this is going to be a good financial month
As soon as the fire in their cave started to go down, they wanted to go check and they knew it was gonna be warm, but they didn''t expect how hot it was actually They all could get about 4 feet towards the end urance from the mouth before the the heat coming off made them stop
When that had all happened, there was small rock slides, and there rock side that they had set up actually didn''t slide And they were really impressed But they were like, OK, we have to go check it It''s like a bomb that hasn''t gone off That should have gone off And they just looked at all the weight was on their little support So what they did is they put a little bit more support under the lever and a breakaway 1 a little bit farther down And then they just kind of, yeah, they just prayed all the hell that it didn''t pop this still wanted to have it in case they needed it for the exact reason it was there So if they had it still
By sunset the bat the bats couldn''t come back The whole caves are so big, so they just, they bailed And that was the night that the bats infested all the woods around and some of the larger prey animals didn''t have a chance against those bats
They were in all the trees around the dwarf''s little cabin, but they didn''t get in The door said their cabin slightly buried into the side of the hill So it looked like a hobbit hole, but it was more of a cabin on the inside This is a nice way to hide it Looked green on the outside You couldn''t really tell from green and rocky if you didn''t know it was there
They couldn''t do anything until it cooled down South They went and they slept And when they woke up, they had no hangover and they had killed a whole bottle of wine before bed So they knew they didn''t hurt them not much when they went to go and check on the cave instead of blowing out air It was now sucking in air They slept It was still light out The sudden wasn''t too far pastena of the arch A K a noon
One of their favorite games is rock, paper, scissors or something or some people call it Rochambeau The three of them played and it was three who won He was the first one to go into the hole, and he wanted to go So they got their lamps filled up with fuel extra candles And as a entered, they realized there was glass everywhere So they knew it was sharp And they''re hearing the crunching of the glass under their feet It''s a little bit the sand have been turned into hard glass They had removed their ladder when they started So they threw it back down the opening to the smaller cave where they go down the ladder had been opened up because all the rock had gotten heated and cracked and fallen in So the entrance was quite big They had to figure out new places to tie down the ropes that weren''t cooked This took a couple minutes
One thing they noticed was that it was pretty much so ot on everything So they put pieces of cloth over their mouth when they went in and they got down the rope ladder and what they found was the slag tight or slag mite that had been there Now we''re totally destroyed through the heat and had fallen and broken on each other Actually slight widery powdery to them now that there''s cook so hot they realize they might need this or they put a small pile that off to the side and they said they tried to figure out what type of material that was later The whole place didn''t have very much ash or anything around that had all been blown out or sucked out with the immense amount of wind So once they broke the white the white stalagmites and they look past where the fire had been pulled down into it was another little caveroom like walking from one bubble to another bubble but they weren''t even they were higher and lower So as they started to move the bubble started to go lower Jade can be on a bubble and you''d go in the next bubble and you''d have to go down a little bit So what they started doing was taking their picks and breaking a little staircase and making a staircase down from one bubble to the next bubble and the next bubble and honestly they kept on going and it took about 6 bubbles for them to go okay We can keep on going We go back for dinner
All three of them didn''t even have to say anything They just about turned it and they started marching back out when they got out They had a barrel for water and then they had a wash barrel That was if you''re really dirty, used wash barrel By the time they''re done, the wash barrel had to go and get dumped But they made sure to dump it near their house so that all the nutrients would go into the soil that they were taught about for farming and all their their extras were in that same pile and all that So they got that barrel and they held and they helped all three of them because it was a big barrel But they walked it down to the river, which is about 2 miles away Then made some ropes hooked up so they could easily carry it between the three of them 1 in front to on either side of the back so they marched on down and they finished cleaning up on the river and I filled up this with clean water and then they brought it back home that night they ate and slept and dreamed of what they might find
This went on for two more days They hadn''t gone in a full 25 little orbs And these rims are like 10 foot by 10 foot by 10 foot, or 20 foot by 20 foot by 20 foot This used to be some sort of tunnel, but it got so hot that things melted together and the gases held them from well, yeah, they just held them And I guess there was always enough that they never ever fully sealed but they kind of did It was almost like a film lair
It was until they got to the 21st one that they realized how stupid they were being and didn''t even realize it The 25th one, the floor was see through They only had probably two inches Another one to go into the room, because what they could see below was nothing but darkness When they lamps went across, it was like looking through a pane of glass and looking through a floor over like a skyscraper It freaked up great the hell out So the first thing they did is they looked under the 24th and they had stone underneath it So they were right on the edge of a room So well, if they''re going to break it, they should break it already And they knew that So number two being the **** he was took a rock about the size of your head and just hooked it in the room And it bounced and then nothing happened They both looked at you and he just shrugged So one in three and two all grabbed a rock each And they all began to shot foot And number one did the hand signal for 123 and on three of the all shot their shot foot They all then shot from the middle of the room Thud thud crash the one that had been thrown first made a crack The next one made that crack bigger the 3rd one made the crack biggest and the 4th one the final one had just gone right there What came out of there was a pungent rot of sulfur and then the air went the other direction and they got shocked in and they just they weren''t sucked into but the air was passing from their back where they were had their back to the exit down at the hole and it was just flowing and flowing and flowing it it had been under vacuum on the other side of the 25th or broom was enough was another entrance to another set of orbs or rooms or something and as it starts sucking air it starts sucking in from that side but you could hear pieces of glass shattering and then more and more and more and then all of a sudden the far side broke and pieces of glass were getting sucked down into the hole in the 21st rooms floor and it was really weird to see bats going hi there by there as it just went past the down the hole with the air and they were getting sucked down and there''s got to be a couple 1000 50,000 bats getting sucked into this hole at high speed and the boys are like they were holding on to their lines and there was a little typhoon like they could stand I guess like it wasn''t that strong but I guess it was strong like they had low centre of gravity I guess
Number one had been counting with his hands, and they were kind of watching him what he was doing And they questioned, and he just said, 6768 sixty 9 And he just kept on counting with his fingers After a while, he stopped counting when the wind stopped sucking so hard And yeah, so what was it?
212 Seconds For air to flow in and fill that cavity that''s in there That is huge We found a giant cave system We can find probably lots stuff in here They''re all three of them were just smiling and they felt they were doing the right thing But that was enough for today They had the last bottles of wine to drink and they hadn''t had anybody coming in from town so they were going to make a quick run to town and get some more rope
They knew something was gonna go wrong when they went to town They could feel it in their bones, and they were not wrong, because the moment they walked into the general store, he smiled and told his apprentice tell Patty his parcel just showed up and then walked in to see his three customers where they hadn''t heard him say that to his assistant
He sold them all the stuff they were looking for and they left and then they went next to the alcohol salesman Then they told them that it was good and they wanted more of that And this time they wanted 3 kegs or barrels or whatever they could get And they were talking with the alcohol salesman getting them to give him a good deal And in the end, he got rid of some old apple wine Three casks of it They put one on each of their backs along with giant chunks of rope and some tools and some food And they went back into the hills
The three rogues that had been sent to follow them, literally told one of them Hey, I don''t need your help Go **** **** Go have a drink And he told the other two to go away And this old timer just do the follow the dwarves because he was in charge The other two are like we''re getting paid still right
The old guy who said yeah, and he threw them a couple of coins, two silvers each and they just **** off Tell the Guild master what I just did, and that shocked them not thinking he actually wanted them to rat on him Tell him I''ll be back in a day or three
With that he grabbed a backpack that he had hidden around the corner where he was talking with the other two Put it on his back and start walking into the forest behind them
About two miles out of town, he actually started to pick up his pace till he could see them in the distance The three boys saw the man as they were almost to their own house He waved to them once he saw that they saw them so they stopped in their tracks and they wait for him to catch up and ask what he wanted Why was he following them?
The old man smiled and said, I''m from the rogue skilled Let''s put this way People want to know why you''re doing mining And did you have anything to do with the fire on the mountain, or was it something else? People are really freaked out about that And there''s been actually a couple people hurt from the bats They''re getting more aggressive
As the three of them didn''t want to say, I think to the guy, but them just shutting up real quick and then trying to give their brothers each signals The old man just started laughing He goes, don''t worry No one''s in trouble You guys didn''t do anything wrong They just want to make sure a dragons not in town or something like that Plus, everybody''s kinda worried why there''s three dwarfs that have shaved their beard, hiding in our town, like to shave your beard is a great well it We''ve never seen it We don''t know why you guys are doing it, and we''re worried that you guys are gonna have something bad, or you guys are evil people But you don''t seem bad You seem like kids So, hey, my name is Larry Just tell me what''s going on
One, two and three, knowing that the jig was half up And if they had looked really closely, they couldn''t even see there where they lived So they just said, sorry, sir And they all bowed their heads to him
Larry said, hey, kids, don''t do that Now you''re making me feel bad Just tell me what''s going on and I maybe I can help
One, two and three didn''t know where to start, so two and three push one So one step forward and just said we were abandoned as babies and we know our parents are dead and our plan is dead So we don''t have anybody to go back to and we don''t want to die So we''re hiding here trying to find a place for ourselves
O the old thief was **** at himself Now it felt like a **** **** ****
Kids here''s what Larry''s gonna do for you And he just looked at him and said, take your heads up You haven''t done anything wrong What happened? I will take the blame if there''s anything going wrong, I will protect you Tell me what''s going on And he explained to them what everybody was expecting And I was Larry to come back with some knowledge of what happened So one explained that they were trying to clean out the cave And he pointed over to the cave, and they explained to them what he did And as he got to the part where the wind shains, larry just face pawned, and he''s like, and I''m guessing after that, the fire started in the mountains, and that''s what, yeah, we were knocked on our **** and we covered our head We put our **** in the air And once the fire died down, we looked around and, yeah, we went and didn''t check it, and there''s lots of glass rooms in there, molten glass and rock It''s been burnt, and it''s really beautiful Hey, Larry''s like, you''ve been in there already It''s like, yeah, we''re going to go back in You want to come with us, because these are kids like they want to have fun They''re excited
Larry just looked at him and said, kids, you may not know your heritage, but you are absolute dwarfs no matter what anybody says, just the way you act and the way that you''re happy and the way you you are awesome and perfect just the way you are So I will keep an eye on you and if it''s okay, I will sleep outside for tonight and tomorrow we can go in I brought my own tangent everything The three of them said, nah, don''t worry about it And he let them sleep in the cabin with them, not realizing that it was actually pretty big in there They can actually fit about 7 to 10 people in there if they wanted to They actually had extra bed made up in case And I had all the little sewing things that they had made from different animals and different hides and all that And that''s what they did for fun They made things with their hands
On one of the shelves was a set of children''s toys made of stone Each of them had made them in memory of the memories of their parents But it wasn''t till the next morning when Larry was looking around and they were offering him food, and he was offering them some food he brought for being warmed up on their fire pits slash stove area inside their house, which is amazingly beautiful They''ve been there for a couple years You can tell he was looking at the baby toys and he had picked one up and on It was one of the dwarven crests that he knew He knew of the House of Coal and fire, He turned around and asked the rhythm, do you guys know the symbol?
They all shut up real quick and just said no And Larry knew that they were lying, but he just dropped, and he put it down He says, OK, no worries So what''s for breakfast? And with that, they were happy to change the subject
That day, they went with Larry, and they went in to the cave system And Larry watched him as the guy started to go down into the the whole of the 25th Larry is like, I''m not going down there That''s too big for me I''d have to open this up a way a bit more So the Ashton just keep an eye on them up there and the 1 in 3 stayed up Well, there''s two turn to go down So to shimmy down the rope, I was in another room except this room was a lot bigger than they expected And as the light moved around the room, 13 and Larry looking through the floor of the room 24 could actually see the light coming through and realize that they weren''t actually on rock It was just thicker And they looked back into room 23 and they could see the lights So they actually moved back in extra room And Larry looked up, and they could see Larry pointing the light right off them It was hard to see because it was so thick But, yeah, and Larry was literally walking underneath them until he''s his rope stopped And he, he just turned around and pulled on, tugged on the rope, and they had checked for sharp edges So they helped to pull him back up What they weren''t expecting is to him to be a little bit heavier
He had this stupid smile on his face, and he said, hey, Larry, I have a gift for you, if you don''t mind keeping our secret
Being a rogue stealing in the secrets was Larry''s jam He loved that stuff So he''s like, sure, I can be bought off what you got
Number two said, let''s go outside, and I''ll show you when we get outside So they all had it outside, and when they got to the mouth of the cave, number two pulled his backpack off That was just a little bit heavier than it was when he went down there And he handed out, he pulled out all four of them, and he only had 4 of them, but they were eggs about the sizes of two fists put together, a solid metal And it was silvery metal too It was 4 teardrops They had warped and warmed up the metal so much of it melted some metal So he said, with these, we seal the pact of the secret Now, Larry, I''m willing to give you mine I''m best of my brothers Will probably give you theirs too If you can do us a favor, how do we get stuff from town without being assaulted or without someone figuring out what we have up here? And how do we And how do we get ahold of you so that we can sell stuff through you?
One in three both looked at two and then looked at Larry and smiled the most evil smile
The next half an hour was negotiated was negotiating with a Larry and then Larry took up with all four giant chunks of metal He was so heavy he took him a long time to get back to town, but he had but he had now a business partnership to take care of
Larry didn''t even go to the general store or anything He went right to town hall and asteroid meeting with the mayor
No one in town knew that the mayor was actually in charge of all the different guilds, including the thief skilled He wasn''t the thief guild chief but they all reported to the mayor So the mayor needed to know and think something was going to affect him Plus, Larry and the mayor were family So Larry knew that the mayor could be trusted, as far as he could be thrown But with money, definitely trust
Within five minutes, he was in with the mayor, closed the door and said, I need you to pull out a deed for some land right now No questions asked And the mayor, knowing that Larry would never ever say those words without a good meeting, he said, why? I said, I need to buy the sign right now No questions asked OK, and he pointed over on the map, on the wall, and he said, and M703M and 74 and NM 72 7079 actually
Mn70-mn79
The mayor had gone through this before and OK, not a problem Did it cost you this much? And the moment he said that Larry just pulled out one of the teardrops, that was huge And they said here''s my payment and that''ll cover everything else to loan it, uncle
The mayor took the Teardrop held it in his hand and asked what the **** did he find? The next couple of minutes were describing how 3 human miners came selling stuff and that he was sending keep an eye on them And this is what he found So they''re buying the mine and they''re going to work it I don''t sell to our town, and I''m selling through me and the smile on Larry''s face and the smile on the mayor''s face They shook hands and he said pleasure doing the business The nephew
And with that, he went down to the appraiser''s office in the same building and rang the bell
An older man was sitting at a desk, and a younger man said, how can I help? And he said, I have an appraisal of some medal, unknown type I need you to please get your boss to appraise it, please, for me
This got the older man''s attention This man was kind of short and looked like he didn''t look human It looked more like a gnome It was really weird, but uglier The little man waddled up to the counter, which he didn''t even is he didn''t even see over it But he had a little ladder, and he came up and he said, let me see it You got
As he put the teardrop down the old man whistled and said, I haven''t seen one of these in probably 50 years I guess this is from what happened the other day with the mountain getting too hot for you How many do you got?
Larry replied, I''ve got three I might be able to get more, but I need to know what they are first And this looks pretty darn pure So can you tell
The old man walked over to one of the shells, and it had a glass set of mechanisms and contraptions on, and there was a spot where he put it in He said, give me a second and he put it on this holder on this holder lit up and he pushed a button and it scanned it and he pushed button It all went down and he waited a minute and there''s a printer just slowly printing off a whole slower printer grab the piece of paper, grab the item, brought it back and he started reading off a piece of paper This is silver 999% silver We will offer to you at for this weight 17 gold pieces each
Larry agreed that would be perfect and asked if he could have the half of that kept in the bank, which is also was the bank for the town and the other half If you could have it as a promissory note for the general store And the reason Larry did that is that if you did that, you actually got a discount at the general store because you''re holding the money in the banks for them So it was a 10% discount
Larry, after that took a couple pieces of his own silver as a thank you to the boys for making him the money and went over to alcohol place and talked to the alcohol vendor Grab a couple of bottles of wine after the stories they have talked about the horrible stronger stuff and headed back to the boys
When he got back, the boys were down in the cave, so he opened the door to the Little Home And on the table, they put a note
¡°with this is for you Now you can buy stuff without having to worry about money from the next little while from the general store And he''ll tell you when you have to have more and hear some why Congratulations on opening your mind And here''s the D to the mind It''s all yours and legal proper with the city I will come and check back in a week or a month Have whatever you got ready for me Stop in at the general store and tell him that you''re looking for me If I don''t come see you first
At the very bottom PS I''m leaving a stick with a little piece of red cloth on it at your front door Hide it if I''m coming to see you guys or I need to come see you guys You put that out and if I come up and I see that the red flags there, I''ll stick around Even if you''re down in the caves So stay safe Find me in town if you need to¡±
************
Larry left the boys alone, I went and went back to town, went to his contact and let him know that the boys and that''s what they were They were children were under Larry''s protection And Larry was 1 of those people He didn''t grow up in this town and he was hiding Everybody knew it in the bad guys guilt I mean, they were all pretty sure they knew what was going on, but he had a couple tattoos that 1 of 2 of them got to see Think of I think it''s Russian Mafia They have rules about how tattoos are The tattoos of this gentleman has make everybody very, very nervous around him At the same time, Larry''s the nicest guy you''ve ever met
So when he headed back to the bar and talked with the owner and Justice said, Hey, Those boys are under my protection There wasn''t too many questions other than **** And then the next question is, hey, when McDurbish gets into town Let me know I have to ask him some laws from his race Do you understand?
Larry and the bartender tavern owner were business friends They had their own little way of communicating with each other Larry got his message across, but this also let the bartender know that there''s something with the boys up that it''s in trouble with the law Probably So one of those rules is when you find that you just stop asking questions, get your nose cut off or stuff like that So the boys now have a somewhat good alibi with the bad guys in town and they can do their stuff through Larry and Larry Well, he waited for two more days and then McDurbish showed up
Just happened to Larry B at the pub when Mcdermott showed and out of respect for the old dwarf, a tankered of the nice, good dwarf whiskey was given to him The moment McDurbish Saw free alcohol and a big mug of it He knew they needed something, so this is going to be an interesting question the night, if you will
As they sat down only one question had to be asked And Larry just looked at McDurbish
And asked as he drew in the dust on the table, the symbol that he had seen on the dreidel in the dwarfs home
As he is about to finish drawing it, Mcdermott saw his eyes opened up real big and he went down He just wiped the little way and he goes who wants to know about that?
Larry knew instantly this was a touchy subject
Larry looked at the man and just said, simply, there may have been an incident where some people had died and that was carved into a piece of wood where we found them What is It
McDurbis Took a deep breath and relaxed and looked at Larry and just said that was a really bad family that died because one of the kids fell in love with another family and it didn''t turn out well Now that family is gone forever We don''t talk about it Please
McDurbish Looked at Larry and asked these graves where are they? Will they ever be found?
He knew some of the the rules that these men like Larry followed So asking this was almost asking for proof that they were killed by this person He really didn''t care He just wanted to make sure that no one would ever find them knowing that the history would bring bad business if it was ever brought up
Larry, not knowing this, said they were in the deep woods I found them as I was travelling It was very odd and they had been partially digging up by some animals I did rebury them, but I don''t think I''ll ever find that spot again It was in the deep, deep woods
McDurbish Actually looked quite happy with that answer, simply because a story for a ghost in the past should sometimes be kept in the past
And with that, they change the subject, and they start talking about anything else So that made Larry very happy to know this around the end of their conversation He did ask very quietly that symbol what the name of the family was
McDurbish Not thinking there''d be any problem with a little bit of information to say that the the clan was called a fire and coal
Later on, they would go their way And with that day from on, Larry knew something about the boys that they didn''t know
After they left McDurbish Now I was very interested how a family that used to own an entire mountain and was murdered off over 40 years ago Let someone would find that old of a grave in the woods by accident He knew better He smelt the gods involvement in this turned his nose up at it Put one finger on one nostril and blue out of the other one And this is for you and blew it into the dirt thinking this is going to bring nothing but trouble Though he knew as being a dwarf, he would quietly go look up what actually happened He had one or two friends in the old clan houses that might be able to tell him more next time he''ll come around He maybe have more information for Larry and that would buy him another good drink It''s always worth a talk to get a free drink, especially in these backwaters
Larry also had some friends and when he went and talked to the bartender, he asked to send a message by bird to the central city of the country It was cost, but Larry wanted some more information
The message was very short and simple¡± Dwarf clan name fire and coal send rep with information to sender¡±
And with that he would get a small ball rolling, knowing that something wasn''t right here and he didn''t have a problem dealing with bad people But when good people went bad for bad reasons, that wasn''t allowed Big, big, bad people, the ones that eat other people and sell other people for slaves, stuff like that, kill for the fun of it Hunt humans for fun That''s just held no He had his morals even being an **** and a bad guy But he had his just know Larry had feelings for these boys He was going to let them be them He was going to make sure that whatever was going to come after them, he was ready
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**************
A week later
In the main cathedral the priests were giving sermon for over 4000 people The 14 bird coops they had around the church''s property We''re always checked three times a day This day a message came in for information to be sent to one of its outposts The message was short, but all this was directly sent to the information brokers of the church
Being that there was different religions, this one religion was that of the darkness, the shade
These people believed that you could not have light and not have darkness and not have darkness without having light So they were there for not balancing They were there as part of the darkness They just made sure that they were the darkest dark that they allowed and the blackest dark was what they thought They basically killed people things They toppled governments They did whatever the hell they want But when they became about human beings being sold for body parts, meat, money, when the human was taken out of humanity, they would stop in to go Hey, no, you''re too much of a **** **** They had been around for very long time and it was actually quite easy for them now They just made sure everybody knew the rules And bad guys didn''t need a lot of rules to kill people They just needed a lot of rules not to kill people It was a lot easier that way, actually Think of inverted cops
So one of their outposts asking about dwarf heritage they walked back directly to the library and asked, because in this church, the people that found the job got to do the job So monk number 55131 who is just among and didn''t have a name yet Not until he got his first job And by getting this piece of paper and being able to explain what''s going on to the higher ups in the church, he could earn the right to take the test by going to the outpost with the information and filling in the operative with the information so that no one could steal it because it would all be in his head and then come back safely This would prove for him to be a proper member of the church This would also earn him his name
Show He went to speak with one of his friends who actually worked in the library, and she was just such a sweetheart of a lady But she was strict So when he came in with a smile on his face, she knew exactly what was going on He was on pigeon coop duty today And if anybody came in during that time, and they had that stupid smile on the face, they always had that piece of paper in their hand She knew exactly what was going on He got his So she needed to help him find what he needed to figure out So the first question before he could even say was, what do you need to find
The monk looked at her and just said Dwarven Heritage family line coal and flame or flame and coal
That one change in the message would open up a can of worms, because whence they started looking into it, they actually found two entire dwarven lines, both at 1 time were 1 and that were split One called coal and fire, and 1 called fire and coal They found a story explaining that there was one mountain and two brothers had a fight over a woman 1 one in the woman, and the other one wanted the sister of that woman But the women didn''t love the men the way the men loved the women So one man was happy while one man was sad This put a wedge between the brothers and in the end the leader of the Klan told them to make Holmes on either side of the mountain and whoever could get down to level 300 feet deep and the middle of the mind first would inherit the mine
The sad tale was one brother was better at minding than the other 11 was a little faster The problem is the gentleman that was faster was also the one that got to marry the girl that he wanted, but she wanted to marry the other guy So when the mind collapsed on him the faster of the two brothers, she went to go to see him, but he was an interested in her so she was angry What no one knew the other brother had a secret wife He just didn''t want to bring her into this family feud and she lived far away with their daughter it didn''t come into light that she was even alive till 50 years later when she went to new to a new city from the little town she was in and she registered her name They found out one brother had taken fire and coal and her family was coal and fire So it was recorded It was recorded as a different family from the original family of fire and coal The bloodline of fire and coal was snuffed out at that point without anybody knowing about her and she registered under a different name until now
The monk in the librarian getting so excited when they figured this out, got a little more excited than they should have And another couple of monks who were nosy kind of listened into what they were talking about enough that 2 of them ran in different directions out of the library to go at two different people 1 was one of the head of the clergy Another was a lawyer for the clergy While they were so engrossed, they did not hear everybody come in and surround them in the library as they were talking about this And after another couple minutes, the librarian looked behind the monk to see everybody just smiling at them This was a very good day because this was a very good find The reason for that, it was worth money
But because of conflicts, the lawyer brought up, they were not going to profit off this in case it ended up in someones death But what they could do is go write a book, a story and ask for permission from the descendants if they could publish it The moment they published it, they had the right to go to the dwarven people and put in a lost clan informational referral slash refund slash Give me money and I''ll tell you who they are and what''s going on
Dwarves were very, very big on family lineage to the point where if you could if you could prove someone''s lineage was incorrect or null and boy you could basically ask for almost anything they it was extremely important to their society and their personal belief system Mountains had been lost over this and in this case a mountain had been lost The mountain was a good mountain, but it wasn''t very popular with only having whole and magma It''s stunk, really So
The head priests and the lawyer priest asked a monk what he thought he should be doing in this situation This was the test if he was worthy to go out and be in the world with their name
The monk took a minute to think about it and then looked over at the librarian who he had had a crush on for so very long, and he pretty much was sure that it was reciprocal, but not allowed his brain started to come up with a plan and he looked at the head priest and just asked
¡° Can I request? to have? the test of the faithfulness And I want the librarian to be my proctor The test will be to go and find out what happened to the clan of fire and coal And I will hereby inform you now that I will put in the dwarven documentation of research before I leave This will be three things to me My naming ceremony Her naming ceremony and my request of marriage to her¡±
Everybody just started smiling ear to ear These two kids had grown up together and were in love They even got caught kissing one time a long time ago And we''re well, getting hit on the knuckles with a ruler would be a light statement Let''s put this way They both felt it They were very young for that No one wanted anything else but their happiness And this sounded like a great reason for them to get out So with the head priests blessing, he agreed
But then all eyes went to the librarian, and she dissed, looked at the monk, and he looked at her, and she just nodded her head
With that everybody was cheering and happy in the library And then someone just had so they had a quiet cheer It was great They all decided with the hand signals to move to another room and they could start talking about what they were going to do and how they''re going to do it That went on for many hours and I believe one of the priests even went and raided the liquor cabinet and they all had a very good drunk night Next day, the monk in the librarian would have to put in paperwork with the dwarven people to let them know that they are looking into a story from their old history And they would like to have a historian of the dwarven archives look up information This alone would send up some kind of red flag, but because it''s been done enough as long as it wasn''t a really weird red flag Hopefully it wouldn''t get picked up and they could just get the information for some money
One of the reasons for the church was to make sure information could be sent to where it needed to be and research ed research could be researched in safety They had lost too many people due to monsters and other things that just came out of the darkness Like if there was darkness, creatures from your worst nightmares would appear So this one So this wasn''t a good world People needed protection The church had their nights, their Paladins, their exorcists and every other job you could think of They had cities devoted just to protecting the citizens and letting them do adorable job of the normal day within a giant ring city Those were all over the place But where they were about to go was quiet from what they were told But was also the wild so they wouldn''t be going alone
The paperwork got sent over to the dwarf quarter And the head pre said requested a and a couple of nights to go on a trip to make sure that the town that they were going to go to was how do I put this? Was not invested with something super evil Got to remember, these aren''t good nights and good paladins These are your bad guy Like, let''s go see what kind of trouble we can make in town, but let''s make sure there''s nothing like demonic or something from the void there Like, let''s go Let''s go cause some problems
Now, the dwarfs getting a request like this is nothing, as long as the money is prepaid, which it was And within one day they already had a scribe show up at the church with two books and 20 minutes of his time available for questions because they had just already read the books while they were waiting
The monk was grabbed and introduced to the information broker And they talked once the clan''s holdings were brought up the scribe told the monk that they were no money for that plan It was dissolved a long time ago So honestly, the other one, the clan of coal and fire is actually still a real clad But the clan of fire and coal was murdered off and disbanded It was actually what happened and why they were called at the end One of their enemies took a bomb into their mind right next to a colvain and lit it on fire with an explosion They think to this day that mine and that whole mountain is still burning So that clads just gone So the weird part is the symbol is on both clans and accepted on both clans So when the scribe said this that sent up a red flag for the dwarf But he just added it right there And the monk didn''t want to bring it up So he just let it die too quite quickly, actually And they finished talking and they went their own ways The monk was I have enough information Let''s grab my lady and let''s get this show on the road But that''s not what would have happened
Because when that dwarf scribe went back, he went directly to the Klan chief and asked what it meant because he knew because he knew a lot of the rules But this was not in any of the books he had looked up and he couldn''t understand what this meant But he asked, what if one clan had the same crest exactly of another clan, and they were both accepted? Does that make them the same clanges with different names? And the look on the king''s face was, what are you talking about? There''s only one shield per clan There is no 2 names I think he had brought back the books with him So he showed the king and the king called in a lot of people in the end Because after about three hours, the whole of the King''s chambers was filled with people and tables that have brought in and other documents that were brought in when the whole clan was looking up the clan of fire and coal And what they found out was, yes, the original mountain was gone and only one generation after that survived But in that one generation, 2 of the heads of household had given their lives and had died And the last of the houses is the maids and the ladies in waiting were released They were told they had no more hold because their mountain was gone But what no one understood at the time was that they had invested in other clans and that investment over time was correlated and given to the king to keep an eye on under his supervision And it was passed on from 1 family to another family for three generations now So the king was holding on to a small nest egg basically for them And it was always in the King''s coffers for the dwarfs But because this was actually tried to been written out of the history books they found while going through documentation a long time ago, knowing that I ever found this informational bit since it was tried to been hidden They even looked back through withdrawals from that account after talking with the known bank and the dwarven and known banks both showed that one of the previous kings took out money against the account So there was actually interest owing to the bank So the moment that the current king figured this out, he told him take money out of that account right now to pay But he was stopped by a lawyer The lawyer went No, you don''t You screwed up You pay that extra money that needs to be in there You put back the money that was supposed to be there, and he had an account and go over it And the king, knowing that he couldn''t break the law here, had to go through and take it out of his own finances What they found in the end, that it wasn''t the only one that was being taken from over the years But the other ones could be dealt with right now They had to worry about this And they realized all they could offer was three platinum coins What? a fortune You would think a platinum coin wouldn''t be worth that much Maybe a couple hundred bucks Couple 1000 bucks No, we''re talking a billion We''re talking a sweet billion dollars Three coins is a billion 333 Million per platinum and these were as big as a tire from a truck and a about half a foot thicker of platinum These things were enormous and that''s what he owed this account in the end So he made the account proper and put it away But now there was a very large amount of money for a descendant if there was and if there wasn''t, it would go back into the king''s holding Now the king Everybody expected the king to say Let''s find these kids and kill them and blah No If one of the houses was still around, he''d rather have it back and funded with its own money to help the people out do it the right way It would be great for his people He needed something really good for them
So before anybody could get some stupid idea, he told everybody that was in the room that no one and he repeated no one is allowed to harm these kids or these people or whoever were looking for But no offence if there are people that have a relations to the originals, we need to get the grandmasters of the clans down here to do the ritual of blood to verify the people once we find them So please inform them of what we found privately But give us a week or two to have a head start before all the idiots leak the information and then whoever these people are, I''m going to take 100 of the guard put them on detail with the captain of the guard for the castle and 20 of the guard from the castle are going to follow the trails back to these relatives clan heads, these family and bring them home
********************************
Well, it took about a week to get most of the stuff done, Larry Had 52 gold to spend around the boys asked for was a little more than anybody was expecting So Larry had to do it as if he was doing it for one of the guys in town and do it a couple times But he was able to make enough of an order for rope because those boys were going down some pretty sheer cliffs in those minds all so some explosives never was cheap, but always is great And Doris Love explosive stuff He knew he had to get some of that He''d get a whole whack more alcohol from him and they like the cheap stuff So light and cheap and he could get locked to that the same time he bought a wagon if they needed to, they could rent a horse for a day But they leased out the wagon They get store stuff on it Came with a tarp Got a couple of those Some more axes Basically, he made it look like he was working all week and he was actually disfilling this one order But doing it slowly through many of the companies in different places in town Like this wasn''t a total small town, but it was big enough You get lost in
All the people that knew Larry knew Larry is up to something, but kind of being that there was a couple of families in town, they all kind of knew that Larry had taken somebody under his wing, and it was just keep an eye out for them and doing them the favor And the mayor also knew that was making some money So everybody was happy and no one needed to know what was going on So everybody just kept their own business
Larry had already gone back to the boys with this stuff, made two trips out there They weren''t there, eat both times, so he put it all into their place in the mountain And he put the flag outside their cave So when they came back, they''d see that someone had been there the second time he was there, the flag had a little note saying thank you And said two weeks Come back Dinners on us
When Larry made it back to town after the second trip to see the boys, he was not expecting a small group of people showing up in town, and he could tell instantly that they were altogether cause they all kinda dressed alike and they were all looking the same type of dishevel they were a group of some sort But then when he saw the weapons on them and the smile and the young people and two of them holding hands, he got a weird idea because if he was right, this is going to be more of a pan the **** and he was expecting what he wanted and what he wasn''t expecting was a lone dwarf already finding Mcdermish and talking to him in town this was a giant cluster **** Larry''s eyes right here in front of him All the things he did not want were in front of his eyes He wanted just to turn around and bail hard But the moment Mcderish caught Larry''s eye and saw how pinned Larry was Mcdermish basically froze and the dwarf that he was with realizing that the person he was talking to just stopped and froze not looking at him Look to see where he is looking And there''s this giant of a man human with this meanest look you could ever want to know And the dwarf just looked at McDerbish and looked at the man and pointed and said come here The church people did not miss this and they were also looking at this and they started walking over to the dwarfs Larry knew he had to come up with something real quick or else there was going to be some serious problems going down
As all three groups met up before anybody could say anything, Larry just said, point blank Not very loud, but enough to get their old their attention ¡° I asked the bartender to find me some information on the clan of fire and coal because I found a grave in the deep woods with the symbol and he drew it in the ground and I asked Victor Bish what they were and he told me it was for a clan that was no more Well, what do you want to know? Cause you''re all here looking for whatever this is
The dwarven man looked at the whole group and said to the man and woman holding hands Are you from the church?
And by that they knew the Implication was not of the religious type of church, but the church that dealt with the bad things that go bump at the night
The monk just smiled and the lady did a little bit of a curtsey to the dwarf and said yes, Sir, we are from the church and we are here just to basically find out what we can''t We are basically on our honeymoon and this is a nice little town And to be honest, I haven''t gotten out in so long I need to get some violence out of my system being locked up in the city so much So we decided to come out here and maybe help out the town with some monsters and hang out and drink and just enjoy the time away from the city
The old dwarf just started howling, laughing, and he said no, that sounds like a perfect idea I think we should all do that and we can just stay in this town for a couple of days and your name Sure, I never did catch it as the dwarf looked up at Larry
Thinking quick not to give his real name, he said, I''m Charlie, the spy But my friends call me Larry
The church knew exactly who he was It was the dwarfs he was trying to throw for a little bit of a loop And to say that the dwarfs after what he had told them, they didn''t know if Larry was a guy that killed the people that they''re looking for or did find bodies in the woods These guys need to get Larry very drunk and see if they could get information out of them So yeah And they had no problem killing a human Their strength could definitely put an ax through his back easy And the people from the church would happily help out too, because the church and the dwarfs a long time ago became very good friends when they took out a lot of bad people in the really bad town And after that, they always made a deal Don''t **** each other off and be friends And it''s worked out for almost 1000 years So the dwarves in the humans, well, the dwarves in the church at least get along
Larry knowing that his actions would be scrutinized now would lead to them talking to the guy at the general store and Larry couldn''t just run off and tell him to shut up because any would have to pay him to do that So hopefully they wouldn''t find out about him, but they probably would So Larry knew this wasn''t about if it was how long before they figured out about the kids So he decided to try to postpone those long as possible And Yeah, the kids were fine up in the mountain as far as he knew He was just going to leave them alone As long as he didn''t take them to the only figure it out And at worst, they could start grilling Larry on where the kids were But Larry wasn''t going to let these hyenas near them
For the next couple of days, Larry played tag basically where he disappeared from one group and then the other group would find them and he would basically just run around town, literally running around town and then going to have a beer and then go for another rent And he did this to screw with them because at this point he wanted Tucker them out and the married couple they had gotten married before they left the capital They thought this was hilarious They''re sitting on Veranda with fresh baked bread and coffee watching the other church members try to sniff out something And it was just so stupid to watch them try and not know what the hell they were doing Yes, they were trained, but there wasn''t any information they could find They thought So they were just enjoying themselves
It wasn''t until later in that afternoon that there was a little bit of a kerfuffle and the librarian actually ran into the three boys as they were leaving town seeing that these three young boys who she thought were like 6 and 7 were these guys are actually 10 They actually don''t know And the person that had brought them in had already died So yeah, a little bit of a missing information will be in their paperwork
Now Thinking these were very young Dwarf children, but seeing how they had shaved their beards and they had already had stubble coming in from the morning shave, she knew something was definitely up and she didn''t actually press it too much because as she walked up and tried to talk to them, they just got really defensive and then looked at her and shook their heads and then very quietly and quickly walked away from her at, like, really fast speed of walking, almost running And she didn''t chase them She just let them go But realizing that something was definitely not right here, she went back to town to talk to her husband
The monk wouldn''t get his name until he had fixed or gotten the information correctly, but because there was more of a story here, it was their duty to be a part of it and record it for the church So when they went back with their story, then they would get the monk a new name given to him for his deeds That was a great honor in the church and the librarian would also get a proper name And because they were together, they would get a family name And that was a great honor from the church So they were going to find out the story here But she knew that she had to be careful because to end the story without a full ending would get her into trouble And the ending was not where they were at the moment She could feel it There was more to this story than meets the eye
She called a meeting of her people, and she explained what she had found But she also explained what was going on and how they acted And that threw up red flags that someone was probably hunting them, and they were hiding up So that right there, she asked to have a message sent to the church explaining that they would be in this town indefinitely until this problem was solved And they would wait for a word on word on if the Knights in Paladin should stick around or if they had other business in town, the church wanted to be before sending back But the monk and the librarian wanted to stay there and finish this The Knights inhaled it also wanted to stay and they made that known in their message, but they didn''t expect to be allowed
It would take a couple days for them to get a reply, so they just bunkered in now Now I knew that they had three dwarf children that were being hunted They thought and were hiding out in the mountains Sounded about normal for dwarfs, so they were going to just wait till the church got back to them on what to do And until then, they''re just going to keep this little town safe And pluck more information
Larry couldn''t get away from these people and it took a couple of days, but he had heard that the kids that came into town and the kids now knew that everything was going down badly and that they well, Larry didn''t know if he went back up to the cabin if they''d even be there So he decided in the middle of the night that night to make his way up to where the boys were But of course, the Knights and the Paladin were watching him and followed
When Larry got to their cabin, it was a bad it was abandoned It looked like they had like they had taken everything and ran away But the weird thing was the red flag wasn''t anywhere he could find it So he looked over at the cave entrance and he didn''t find it It wasn''t till he turned around from the cave entrance Did he see it hanging up in a tree and next to that was a piece of bark that had been rolled up and the red flag was kind of around it And it was up in the tree So when Larry grabbed it down and he opened it up, it just had a arrow pointing down well it was more of a picture showing a cave pointing down in the cave So Larry kind of got the idea And as he went, OK, cool Grab it and he just broke it away and made it go away because they just used a little bit of coal from the fire to draw it on the piece of it So as he broke it up and just went away, he also had noticed that he had been followed So now in knowing that information, he just basically played dumb, showed the paladin and the nights when they came up and blah, blah, blah And he was all **** at them And they went through the whole charade of this And when they went into the cabin, the dreidel and all the toys were gone But as they were looking around, there was one rock and someone actually had carved that into there And it was something you couldn''t remove It was part of the house So I guess they couldn''t take it with them And when they saw the symbol they knew that they had found somebody that knew that symbol So the Knights and the Paladins basically said that they were going to stay there and wait for them to come back They started up the fireplace And the moment they did that, whatever was in that fireplace started to smoke and it choked them right out It almost exploded I could just the smoke came 0 it was disgusting And they all had to get out of that cabin And the boys had left a little bit of a present to anybody that came looking for them
With that Larry said **** you and he just went back to town, hoping that they didn''t want to go traveling down into the cave too much and go looking, but they they had found the cave entrance along with the cabin They said weren''t too far apart So Larry had to ditch these guys and then come back with some gear to find the boys But he also had to follow the churches rules So he didn''t have to tell them anything, but he didn''t hold anything back It was a fine line of being **** **** and then letting your friends get **** ****
What no one knew was the boys were actually in the cabin in a false wall in the back, and they had their own air supply So when that bomb went off and those guys all ran out, they actually opened up a small little flu and let the smoke go out the front of the house with those guys to air out the house And then they closed it, allowing someone to stay in the house of the guys didn''t come back when they knew they were gone They''d let the whole house air out for about 20 minutes and they were still in their little Heidi hole The brothers all asked and looked at each other except one who knew he was the one that had done it He had drawn in the rock enough times with his fingers to leave an imprint So now that is a sight if they were going to run away or not And their misdirection about down in the cave would be a good one for what they found
2 weeks earlier
So to explain what they had found, they had gone down through 25 Small bubble caves and came across a glass floor for the last three caves and on the 26th they had broken through into a giant cave system below Well, number two while he was moving around through them for the last couple days around number 17 found another room behind the glass and before he broke it open he showed his brothers Now they were super happy that they didn''t open it because as they put light to it, they could see that there was a liquid inside and they wondered what type of liquid would have survived that heat and they were like, no, we don''t want to play with that crap Whatever that is, it''s probably toxic is all hell to our health So they just left it there
But it made them start looking at the walls And if they hadn''t been looking, they wouldn''t have seen it on number 4 Little Dome room 4 is actually one of the smallest of them all the off of the right hand side as you''re going downhead about head height, not to the left and up a little bit There was this shining glitter And if they hadn''t been looking, they could have just missed it But once they saw it and they brought the light to it, there was something reflecting the light in there So they gently with the axes done through the the the rock slash glass It was semi transparent, but it was also not perfect Very, very crude
The moment they put a crack in the glass, and they let whatever was outside, inside that little crystal started glowing cool part It wasn''t the only one There was a whole little cove of them behind only about 2 feet deep and about a foot thick and wide But that brought so much light in, and they''re trying to figure out what they''re looking at These crystals, they weren''t bright until they made a crack, and they let Aaron And there''s only a little bit of air getting in there They were thinking, but these things are becoming brighter and brighter to the point where they just, it was like a light
Now they didn''t want to screw it up too bad, so they actually put some dirt and some water and they made a little plug for the crack and they sealed it up It would take about three days for that little bit of air to function all the way through down this little weird tube But #14 of the caves, which start glowing cause there was a giant chunk of that crystal all behind it And because there was enough in 14 15 got this radiant shine This radiant shine actually made it through a small pieces down below into the main cave Now the main cave looked like it had Starlight coming from above It was really neat to look at
The boys had been doing enough cave diving to find a couple of caves around 11 that actually went towards their home They had spent a couple of days a couple of days mapping out all the little micro caves and all the little slots until they found one that actually connected up with their home And that''s where they were hiding Their first idea was to pull on the landslide pin and collapsamine entrance They had waited for everybody to leave But they could still hear the Paladin in two nights outside the house
After quietly discussing it between the three of them two and one agreed And Rochambeau did in three laws So three was asked to go down into the tunnel system, go into 11 go down to 13 crossover and come up one of the air shafts where they had actually pulled a pole room in case of emergency to pull it If they had to collapse it, but they never thought they''d actually need it So it was in a very awkward spot And three being honestly, the skinniest of the three Well, he was tasked to do it
What the kids didn''t not know was that, yeah, the Paladin at night started off as minors These were old school dwarves So they were inspecting the **** out of everything that these kids are doing And don''t get me wrong there''s a lot of noise in the woods But when you hear a piece of wood being yanked on by a piece of rope, you know what that sounds like So they look up, and they''re about 100 feet down the hill and off to the right They hear it click, click as something''s trying to be folded in the rock start sliding And they just smile ear to ear and back the hell up That cabin still there But the cave entrance for the mine is totally plugged and covered We take at least the least the three kids a week to unblock it
The two nights looked over at the Paladin and the Paladin just smiled and said they''re dwarfs I''ll give them that We''ll put it in the report and we''ll tell the king when we get back For now, let''s wait here for a while And if they don''t come back to their house by let''s say tomorrow, we will say that they are hiding and we''ll go back to town We know they''re not going anywhere They found their horde A dwarf won''t give up their mountain when they''ve got it And from what I heard in town, someone just bought this chunk of the mountain So I''m then the kids are already flamed this mountain as their own So good We know where they are Let''s find out more about this family They come from and about town to have the great church in town after these kids and then meeting Larry There''s more about this than anybody understands I feel dark presence is here Plus, what the hell? There''s a lack of beer We have to fix that They had been to the liquor Bender and found that the vendor told the story of giving the kids heavy alcohol and them getting extremely mad But then taking sweet, fruity wine and enjoying the heck out of and coming back over and over again for the light stuff
This alone was enough was enough to put flags up that these children were not raised by dwarves plus no one could even give an accurate hair colour or beard colour The kids were always shaved and the this was almost against the law It was a personal, a belief, but to openly shave was not frowned upon like every one like everybody has to shave for hygiene, but yeah, keep yourself clean shaven for years Kind of makes all the nights and the Paladins brains just what the heck''s going on here? Crazy humans
They stayed there overnight The kids did not come back by this point They were long into the mountain They had taken their emergency bags with them and they honestly had gone down to 22 gone off a side tunnel that they had not explored yet and use one of their candles to check for sulfur and other gases in the tubes But most of the tubes were cleared out and what they were looking for was hot places to hide that had air tunnels going outside They were finding more and more of them because of the fire melting holes out of the mountain, which was becoming very beneficial to them, except the bats were coming back
It wasn''t until 17 left Did they find a set of small caves connecting, going downwards almost in a spiral and with a little bit of their help, they actually made a spiral staircase going down almost 100 feet when they came down into the last room They brought a torch in They were in a twenty foot diameter glass bowl and the walls had been melted
What made this room this cave special was? as they lowered themselves down the last five feet into the room They hadn''t cut the new stairs yet, but just injured it They realized that they are in a bowl The bowl was glass, but when they stepped on it, it reverberated in the wrong way They freaked out and they were standing there holding on to their ropes with their hands and themselves tied off, please They thought they were going to fall through But once they brought the light to the glass It was a dark green black glasses They couldn''t see through it So two seeing something with his magic eyes Ask the brothers to put out their torches and when they did two things happened
One in three were able to see into the next cave And the next cave was almost wrapped around them They were in a teardrop from a ceiling They were the chandelier And when they turned off the light, what they would see is right across from them and a little bit up It would just be little pinpricks of light blue that were feeding down and and looking down Well, what scared the living **** I mean, absolute car out of two was with his magic sense He could see these things directly below him moving And they had magic to them Every once in a while he would see a something move past one of those little bits of blue light And it had legs So to just just quietly and slowly freaking out, climb back up the rope and into the other chamber and didn''t say a word 1 in 3 of course, seeing this followed after him And when they all got up there two told them to follow him And he got back to their safe room at the top of 17 And he told him what''s down there This free one in three out just a little bit that there was something with lots of legs down there
From this point on they were absolutely paranoid of going deeper So they actually decided to go back up to the cave entrance and start working on cleaning it up and shoring it up so that they could use it once it was time to dig it out And at the same time, they just started looking into the side rooms that, honestly, were there, but they had to break into They''d find a little bit of a piece of glass between the two circles And some were really thin, and some were like 4 feet thick, and it was more rock than glass So after a while, they relied on two with his eyes, because magic kind of wanted to leave the mountain So if they got to a room and they didn''t know which way to go, they''d ask too And two would just sit there and watch And I''m talking super small amounts, like watching lightning bugs or something super small that you just have to catch the whiff of it And then you have to see which way it goes So after a while, he would just start seeing little flickers and these little flickers would go towards this 1 area, and it would be just a chunk of rocky point The other two would have been like, okay, and they''d start going there, and they either find a vein of metal or a crack into another room And if it was metal, I guess the man who was leaving through the metal But now the boys had metal to sell And if not, it led them into another room They had enough food for about three days, and they can always go back up into their home While they did this for four They were really hungry, needed water The whole 9 yards And when they got back inside their house was food, water, a note from Larry telling them that he had taken confidence to 2 of the people from the great church And in return for that, they had admitted that they had witnessed the kids and witnessed that the church was hunting down children And because this was not a bad thing in the church''s eye, but it''s kind of goes against They were the bad guys that killed the really bad guys That''s the stuff that makes you into a really bad guy So that''s just kind of a off the table So they were waiting for permission from head office to stay in town and open up a branch of the Great Church And Larry actually loved it And the mayor had already given permission and everybody was on board the church The church army of the two nights and palden were waiting to get permission to either leave or stick around and clear the area to make sure there was nothing really bad
The dwarfs on the other hand had kinda gotten a little belligerent
Three days after the boys had come back to their cave and resupply and gone back down to do more cave searching at that time they actually left the red flag and a note Telling Larry where outside the house, in the ground they had buried it and that they had found a little bit of mineral wealth if they could sell for the boys and for the group, they would be back up in a couple of days They had ways in and out and not to worry about them And thank you for the food Keep it coming They were going to be able to hunt while they people from town were around and they asked for any more information what''s going on and just keep them informed
Larry came back into town in the middle of the night with the bag and he literally went to his uncle''s house and he knocked on the door and the mayor came down and was like, what the **** is? And he didn''t even let it finish And Larry just pushed into quiet And the moment and the moment that happened Hi Larry smile that smile that you get proved that Larry is up to absolutely no good His uncle said, I''m gonna need a drink for this, aren''t I?
Larry asked and kind of pointed to his uncle study and said let''s let''s go in there and talk And when they went in there and Larry closed the big double door with the bag on his back, the uncles like what''s in the bag? So I own this What''s on my back I also own that mine Does that make sense? Yup So if anybody comes up, says that someone else owns it No, it does not I legally own it, and you''re backing me on that And in return for that, you can have almost what''s in this bag The **** problem Did you get me into now? Larry, the uncle was very interested, but also, this was not too good to be true This definitely smelled like trouble
Larry just looked his uncle in the eyes and said three dwarf kids were abandoned and they made themselves a home and I''m letting them live there so that they can have their self a home and not be abandoned Does that make sense uncle?
The mayor, Larry''s uncle was the most not despicable manual ever meet He wasn''t a snake charmer, but he had the golden tongue And he knew when he was being sold something that was too good to be true And then he had to think, and he went pour to drink for himself, and he just handed blurry the bottle Larry was one of those huge guys where he was just going to do it himself And honestly, Larry went over to the shelf and grabbed a mug because he get a least gravel onto it And he poured mug, and they had ice Like this was semi technology So there was ice and a bar fridge It was using magic non electricity, but nonetheless
The uncle snapped his finger and said, I got it I know where the problem is Are they a proper clan? Larry, Larry told his uncle the story of how the Klan died and came back, and all the information he had gotten from the different groups in town And the moment Larry mentioned the dwarf and the Great Church, his hands hit the desk And he''s like, Larry, I told you to stay in low profile while you were here You already got yourself in enough trouble This was supposed to be a place to lay low You weren''t supposed to bring problems here
Larry just raised his glass Looked his uncle dead in the eye and smiled, said, hey, I didn''t bring this here I just found an opportunity and I''m taking advantage of it Now I''m going to protect three kids I don''t Do you have a **** problem with that uncle? The uncle looking straight in the eye He said if they are a proper clan, this could be a clan war You go and find out if this is going to be a **** clan war in my town If the answer is no and you can give me guarantees of that or some sort of assurance, then what? I will take what''s in that bag and we will start a proper business partnership like you don''t want it to do with it from the beginning But the mayor, Larry''s uncle was looking at him as a very angry man that wanted to take him up, but the harm the town could have because of a clan war was nothing to be scoffed at and everything to be feared
Larry didn''t move and he waited for the mayor to look at him And when he looked at him, Larry still didn''t move He just kept on smiling and this was the one thing that Larry got from his mother that the mayor could never ever get could never, ever have, could never, ever earn And that was just a hint of fear in someone And it''s not that he was worried that his nephew would hurt him, but Larry''s talent was for being an agent of chaos is the nicest way of saying it, and he did it with a smile He would shake your hand and introduce you to the devil He wasn''t evil He just had evil or more chaos than evil, not evil Just he had chaos on speed dial and truthfully, I think And the mayor even asked him one time Did he ever just have the phone connection open with chaos and just forget to hang up one time Larry that one time just looked him in the eye, smiled and nodded And from that point on, the mare was always a little hesitant of his nephew
It wasn''t until the little game of staring slash, who''s got the bigger pee pee? that the mayor just said, fine OK, what''s in the bag? And Larry smiled Even fingered his eye I honestly don''t know I haven''t even checked Let''s let''s dump it out and see So, mayor, I''ve done this is enough times Do you have a rug we could possibly use? And the mayor, of course, had a rug in the next room and just opened the door pointed Larry brought it in, laid it out and then dumped the bag on the rug
The thing the two men did almost not in tandem, not at the same time, but almost in unison, was they both grabbed their glass, went to their chairs, sat down, looked at what was in on the carpet and took a sigh, a deep breath, and just basically started to think, because what was laying in front of them was about 20 pieces of black rock But within those pieces of black rock was silver, gold a green glowing one, blue glowing And 1 that didn''t have any colour And it was a type of glass But when the light hit it, and I bet you the boys only got to see a little of this underground, because they were above ground, they had more light The moment it hit, it was like putting light into a prism, except this was magic Everything that that light went in and then hit if it was magical, it would almost not imbued It was like photosynthesis for everything around that little bit of magic If it was a magic item, it would absorb it If it wasn''t, it wouldn''t really absorb it Maybe over time, it would absorb into the wind The whole building would become magical But that''s the point This was a focus, a literal lens that converted light into magic This alone That one little piece that was no bigger than a piece of a dice was small er than three inch by three inch by three inch The two of them just can take their eyes off of it and every once in a while one of those lights would hit piece of metal inside the other pieces of rock and they would actually start absorbing the Magic is the metal like that it would absorb it and that metal out of just a hint of a glow You could turn off the lights in the room would start glowing after a while This was immense this was a magical mind It was something different
The first one, the move any actual movement other than just a little bit of twitching and looking around was the mayor who got up, walked over to one of the walls, looked at the clock that was there, realized at 5 in the morning and said **** I''m already awake Let''s do this Went back into his bedroom I''d started to get dressed out of his housecoat and slippers Within 10 minutes, he was back Hem and Larry Larry had already rolled up the carpet, and they had just thrown it over his shoulder And the mayor led the way to City Hall and down into the Treasury The mayor the mayor took us out of keys out and went to one of the lock boxes in the Treasury and just said, dump it in And they dumped everything, including the carpet now in there, because the carpet was glowing
The mare looked over at Larry and said, come back to me in a day, and I''ll have most of that figured out for price We''ll buy it all off you, and I''ll give you coins for the kids I''m gonna start up a trust for them You''re gonna put the first amount of money they get in And when the legal issues start coming, we''re gonna give this legally larry And I want to hear these words come out of your mouth and repeat after me Uncle, I promise to protect these children But when the dwarf human or elf law comes to town, I will come to you, the mayor of this town, first before I do anything great Church of myself on their ass¡¯s
Larry wanted to show to his uncle He was serious about this And then him and his uncle would be on the same page Larry, in front of his uncle in the Treasury Vault, went down on 1 knee and bowed his head and said, I will protect those children and let you deal with the law But uncle, it is your job to deal with the law Do you understand?
Larry looked up and his uncle smiled, put out his hand Larry stood up and grabbed it by the the forearm and the two of them held each other And they looked at each other, and they repeated the family crest So their family motto, if you will, ¡°until the law fails¡±
Larry took off and yeah, it was a good morning because the mayor decided the Baker He could smell it from the down the street He said I deserve this and he went in knocking on the Baker''s door down the street in the Baker hooks up and goes mayor Come on in unlocks the door and let them in Mayor sits down out of stool, out of counter and talks with the Baker for the next 20 minutes After that, he leaves with two big bags full of Danishes and sweets, paeden and everything Next stop is actually to the mayor''s assistant and one of the people that runs the Treasury That''s he''s knocking on this guy''s door The guy is like, who the hell''s here at this hour of the morning? He comes to the door and opens it up to see the mayor Him not wearing a shirt in the mayor''s like, good morning, Murphy We are going to have a great day I brought you breakfast and handsome a bag of danishes When you get to work I''ve got a key on me Come find me We have a vault to inspect We had someone come in the middle of the night and drop off something pretty rare You''re going to have a good day with the appraisers fees I think you''re going to get So my gift to you and if we could have it all checked out by the end of the day, I''d love to know what we got
Murphy being one of those really old cranky guys actually put on a smile, took the Danishes, which were way bad for his diet and close the door on the mayor The mayor just might and turned around and walled before he got less than 10 steps to door open and Murphy holding the bag with a shirt on and his shoes on started walking with the mirror back to work The two of them headed back with their bags of pastries and headed directly to the vault
Murphy opening after opening up the safety deposit box putting it on the rug, inspecting it, freaking out, shoving it back into the safe deposit box, eating three of the Danishes, going into his personal stash of smoke weed that he wasn''t supposed to have at work anymore And the mayor was getting mad that he had a stash, started smoking it pretty heavily and handed one off to the mayor, who also got quite blitzed just to calm the hell down, realize that they didn''t not have enough money in the bank to cover what was there almost guaranteed that one little crystal alone could buy the town
What not too many people knew was the mayor''s family, who Murphy was married into were old were old members of the Great Church, like really deep old school, great church, and they had gone off and Larry''s little bit of his family wasn''t really a part of them anymore But Murphy at one point, just like Larry had been a part of it, and he realized right there how screwed they all were But Murphy wanted to know who dropped this off
When the mayor just looked at Murphy after being asked, who dropped this off? The mayor just looked at him and said, what have you been hearing around town lately? Took Murphy less than 30 seconds to come up with the three kicks
That then ship Murphy up hard And then he started to pace and puff, puff, puff, puff, puff, puff, pacing, eat other Danish and he just started walking circles in that office over and over again, until he just stopped, looked the mayor and said the law
The mare looked at him and said, Already discussed it We''re in charge We have to fix this
All Murphy could do is kinda just slump into his chair and say the one word you could think of that kinda describes the whole situation they were in ¡°Fucked¡±
They must have sat like that, getting high and eating sweets for at least an hour, until the mayor''s secretary came in looking for them, finding them stoned and eating munchies at like 9 in the morning She just almost started freaking out until the mayor just had come here, handed her the pipe and the bag of Danishes and for him to do that to her with no contacts She knew something had just gone down, so she calmed down and asked what''s going on
The mayor secretary and Murphy were husband and wife When she found her husband totally calm at her getting angry and the mayor had just gotten up She looked at her husband and he just put up his finger for a second to her and just it was like just wait for it
The mayor just went over to one of the sidewalls where there''s a whole walk of boxes They pulled a nice little ornamental box open They looked at his a velvet line empty, went over to the safety deposit box, looked inside, put something from in the box, safe deposit box in the little velvet box Close the safe deposit box back up, locked it, walked over and handed the box to her
She opened the box, looked in, looked up at the mare than her husband, down at the box, closed it, handed it back to the the mayor, took the pipe, lit it, started puffing and then looked at the bags of sweets, grabbed you and sat down in the desk opposite her husband
The mayor was gonna start, and all he said was Larry before he could say anything else She just said, and looked up at the mayor and said, the three kids, huh?
The mayor and Murphy just looked at each other, and they, they knew that''s why she''s the smart one of the family She was near town She, she really was the boss of the whole crew What no one realized was she used to be the captain of the ship, literally, Then she married one of the Pirates, and they went inland and set up their own little town and settled down And, yeah,
The mayor hadn''t told Murphy this, and he just looked over at her and said, everything that''s in that box is set up for the law We are already in charge of setting up an account for them and getting the process going, because this is their horde, and the word horde had connotations in this world to have a horde was to be a person of influence if nothing else, mostly people that had hordes were contracted by the local governments and Knights kings, emperors, whoever Because you didn''t usually earn a horde without either doing work for it or doing a lot of bad things for it
The mayor looked over at Murphy Murphy just was smiling ear to ear and when the mayor looked over at his secret ary she had stopped moving and was absolutely still and he had only seen that basically four or five times in his entire life working with the three of them She didn''t just have a plan She was about to have orders and the boys They fell in love with her one being a brother and one being in the lover So they were all part of the crew in the old days and They might have to grab some more of their crew members through this, I think And she just smiled, and that smile was all they needed That was the gift, to have her smile made their day She just looked over at the mayor and said ¡°
¡° Murphy I want you to get me a general list of everything that''s in there I don''t want split into three groupings one that we''re going to store here that we can use to pay off small amount So the cheapest stuff that goes into one pile that''s going to stay here Then pretty much everything else is going to go in the second pile But the 3rd pile only want 1 or 2 of the best items Like this box share I want to have it filled with just a really, really, really good stuff and that is going to have to be a gift for the king I want that representative in town here brought to the mayor and the mayor is going to explain that there are we have to get people involved because the kids don''t have any buddy but the culture at this point they won''t allow a non cultured group to take care of the children they will fight for them but we have to show them that they''ve already failed them and we are doing better than they are¡±
Being so blitz other mind, they had it noticed that Larry was literally on the other side of the door with his back against the wall And he was just resting But his ear was just in the right spot where he hit understand the conversation and he just had a giant smile on his face So He just turned and left, and no one even knew that he was there But he knew exactly where he had to go to do So Larry just took a left out of the City Hall over to the pub slash in that the dwarf investigation squad, aka the two guys that were here drinking and hanging out for a week while they tried to figure this out
As Larry and Larry entered the main floor of the inn, off to the left was an eatery slash the bar So it''s kind of like a tavern, if you would, as he walked in They all knew him in town He just waved to the bartender, and the lady behind the desk, and he just kind of looked around the room, and he was hoping to find them in there But no, the lady at the front desk kind of looked at Larry and said, with her hands and no words, what you''re looking for
Larry, not using anything but hand signals and a little bit of charades Just short people and she went and she went out They were out by pointing her thumb behind her to the outside of the world
Larry was like, just bowed his head, gave her a little hat nod and took off So he was decided to go over to the bakery next And before he could even get there, he could hear them They were at the bakery and they were just filling their face with the the Danishes They really seemed to like the ones in town here Now you have to remember Larry''s not a little guy Larry''s a human teddy bear He''s super quiet, and I don''t think there''s a lot of fat on this guy, but he could just give you a hug and you would pass away He is He is nothing to be scoffed at
The two dwarfs saw this mountain of a man Well, not a mountain, but a very impressive human start strolling up to them And Larry always wore black just what Larry did Black or gray That''s just what he was He came and asked the gentleman as he got about five feet from them He said, gentlemen, can we have a conversation about the three individuals you''re looking for privately? And he said it with a depth in his voice to kind of get the message across that he was smiling But this was not a happy smile This was, I''m here to do business Let''s go have a talk
The two of them were not afraid of any human So of course, why not? They decided to start walking back towards their tavern where they could have a beer and have some of their dainties this early in the morning And, oh, it was going to be a good morning As they were walking one of the two, the younger of the two, looked back to Larry, who was behind them, and asked, so, what is this all about? Do you have some information, maybe, to sell us about the children and what''s going on
Larry just had the biggest smile and his eyes open wide and just said we''ll wait till we''re inside
Both of the dwarfs instantly changed their attitude a little bit on the way Larry said this And they were one more notch on that 0 my god, are we about to get shanked here? Scale of what the hecks going on?
They entered the Inn, went over to one of the tables that was just basically 2 long benches with a table in between on the dwarf sat on one side of the table Larry sat on the other side
One of the two dwarfs pulled on a notepad, and the other one started asking Larry questions And like, what can we do for you? And hi larry
Larry said some general greeting and he basically looked him straight in their face and said I''m gonna make this very straight and clear I''m gonna ask a simple question and based on your answer, you may have a friend here in town or you might have a lot of enemies So I''m gonna make this very clear And here''s my question to you If you were to find these children would you take them from here by force if they did not want to leave?
To the dwarfs This really wasn''t a question These were their kids, and they were coming to get them So the younger the one, no one that was taking notes, just looked up at Larry and went, of course, our family, like, well, also we gonna do And he didn''t really say that with words He kinda just looked up at Larry and with his hands, was like, what? Like, what are you talking about? Like, just the amount of difference in thought here was the divide had to get across
It was then the older man understood that this question was more of a test And he stopped to think, what was he being tested on here? This was a question of violence that was understood But what if the children didn''t want to leave? What would keep the children here? And then he understood the children had something that they didn''t want to leave
The old man dwarfed looked over at the younger dwarf and snatched a pad of paper away, folded over all the pages and get to the back In the back of this book was a set of documents that had been rolled with a roller So there is the same over and over again, kind of like making copies He went to the back with one of these sheets, and it was a form that they would fill out and it was a legal document So the old guy pulls one of these sheets out of the back of the book, hands the book back, keeps the pen type writing device and starts filling out this form in front of Larry
After a moment or two, Larry is very interested in what''s going on here The young dwarf is just astonished that the old dwarf just automatically going to a writ for whatever is going on here He has no clue what he missed and he just kind of shuts up and watches what''s going on And Larry is like, well, at least the kid can learn as he notices that And he looks over at the kid and then back to the old timer
The old timer finishes right finishes writing and looks at it, thinks if for a second and then just spins it around so Larry can see it and basically it''s not that complicated It''s like all of three paragraphs It says basically this
______
Proper letterhead for the dwarven kingdom This is a royal decree from a agent of the crown With all the flowery little extras that would come on a royal document for aesthetics and how it looks Lots of sharp lines in the letters
On this day, I officer of the crown McfinaSwitch Mctoggel Hereby give a writ for the three children of fire and coal or at their discretion, coal and fire here by are reinstated with the family names and all the duties that come with it They will need to accept this & this document, which will be taken back to the king and from there the king will read all the reports and then make his decision And at that time, if the decision is to return, and remove the children back to the homestead compensation for that relocation will be discussed
This rip will only last for one year at that point It is null and void This is to give time to get all the proper paperwork done in the heritage of the lost clan
Larry looked over the document and said I think that''s perfect, but I''m going to be letting you know that the kids aren''t going to want to leave so you better be willing to pay them a fortune to leave And then when I meet a fortune, I think it''s just smarter for you to make friends with them than to try to make them leave That''s all I''m saying And then Larry did something he promises uncle he wouldn''t do This promise was about 12 years ago when Larry started to hang out in town Larry then with his palm faced up on the table and his arm displayed He raised his sleeve on his right arm all the way past the elbow And what the two dwarves saw there was a decree from the Great Church naming Larry as a gray member, the younger dwarf looked at the tattoo that was there I knew it was from the Great Church, but didn''t know all the things that he was seeing He had never seen of this The older of the ones, the dwarf Well, he didn''t **** a brick He just looked at it and said, I understand And said I will sign this here if you are good with that
Lowry district his head and said no I have your word on this after this conversation, I would recommend to you, gentlemen Take that piece of paper Go see the mayor right now I bet you by tonight you''ll be back on the road The older man felt and felt like he had just been slightly played But because Larry didn''t take the piece of paper, he didn''t understand what he he was basically given a piece of information by Larry and threatened to be a really bad person if they didn''t play nice with the kids Basically, the old guy was like, yeah, no, I got that So yeah, something Something wasn''t right here And these people were protecting the kids So this was, this was a step up in perception for the old man towards his town
Larry just put his sleeve down, got up, nodded to both of them and said, gentlemen, you have yourself a great day
Larry then took off out of the Inn and actually went directly to the other end, where the honeymooning couple from the Great Church were up on the balcony As he walked up, he just waved to them and they said, come on up and he the bakery wasn''t that far So he said one moment and he literally went and got himself a bag of danishes and went to go hang out with them for next little bit He need to let them know they had actually checked up on Larry and understood he was a member of the church But when the records are locked and you don''t get to see them, they know that Larry''s either done some really bad stuff or is hiding And that means that he''s just the local guy for in town So they understood that And after talking with the mayor the first day they got there, Larry was told to be their reps So Larry was local, if you will,
He entered the room and headed to the balcony with them and grabbed a chair As he put down the Danishes and they looked over at him, he just had this really, really **** eyed smile He filtered his head at them and said you guys are staying, aren''t you?
The monk was kind of grumpy, and then he just looked over at his new bride, librarian, and she was ear to ear happy And just, she nodded, and he went, yeah, we''re staying there Larry''s is like, good I need some help So we''ll get you taking care of the mayor And he pointed to the librarian and said this, the mayor''s assistant needs his assistant And trust me, that''s where you want to be She has the pulse of the town, and that''s where you''re going to be, because we''re going to need a lot of help going forward now Monk, you are going to be given a very, very special You are going to be literally named a guardian Means you can''t leave the city You not know I''m not even going to do that to you You are going to be my replacement You are going to be the gray man of this town I''ll talk to the mayor about it, and I''m going to be their guardian I have no problem with that I like the little guys Just until they''re old enough to take care of themselves properly
The monk of the librarian were just gobsmacked, and they didn''t just get their names They also got promoted and their own towed They they were, they just got everything they could ever wanted And they had time to make a family now and a place they wanted to make a family
Larry understanding of the emotions that he had just stirred up going from having nothing to having your dream of a place that call home A lot of people that came through the Great Church started off in a bad way and did maybe bad things But the idea was that everybody was worth something No one was worth just killing for the fun of it So why not treat the people with at least a little bit of respect? So Larry understanding what he had to do Just said I''m going to go and make one more stop and I''ll be back later on if you''re around
With that he headed to the city call and his unkel
As Larry entered City Hall, you could go downstairs so the balls were upstairs to his uncle''s office So he went upstairs and a secretary wasn''t at her desk, so he was guessing they''re all still downstairs So he just picked his head into his uncle''s office, and no one was there So it''s perfect He let himself in
Larry literally went right to the mayor''s chair, sat down in it, looked around, opened up some drawers until he found the notepad that had the mayors logo and everything on it And he literally just wrote the following on the notepad
As of today, Larry has hereby certified as a trainer for the Grey Church He will be here by legally taking responsibility for the safety of the three minors known as 1,2 and 3
This does not give myself Larry any privileges to their finances But the town, known as Port Town, Hereby will hold any finances and will distribute them at the children''s wishes And keep an eye on them so they can grow and become valuable members of the community This when they turn 14 will be their choice to continue this agreement or change it or end it I hereby will not harm them and will care for them with the help of pork town This means that there will be no legal issues contesting their rights and privileges in human society and dwarven society
Larry kind of liked that and he had just the right piece in it So he then signed it and put everything back where he found it Left the off to close the door
As Larry was crossing the assistant''s office He saw the two dwarves on a window coming towards City Hall So Larry Spec up a little bit, headed down the two flights of stairs to get to them to the vault area
As Larry came on the door, he just used one of his tricks and the lock just kind of wasn''t in the right spotting Put a little bit of weight into it and pop the door open and it came through the door Everybody in the room is fun to see who it was as he just came through the big grin on his face with all like Larry, because they didn''t try to stop him from years He can always get in when he wants his a real pain that way
He looked at everybody and said, hey, guys, Showtime The moment Larry said that everybody was like, OK, what''s going on?
Larry walked up to his uncle, lifted him out of his chair, stood him up, grabbed his lapels, the collar, and then just made sure that it was all lined up Good and said you have an as he was saying this handed his uncle the piece of paper he wrote It was rolled and he handed to his uncle He said your guests are going to show up in less than a minute You need to get upstairs and into your office and that you and he pointed to the assistant and said you might want to meet them at the door Gives him an extra moment if you get into his office and that''s all they had to say And Larry just literally left that office and walked through another quarter down below and out of back door and just down an alley in the way And with that it was all the pieces were in order It''s like Domino''s rate of fall
As the mayor may or made his way up the stairs and almost crossing the threshold of his office He had just opened up the rolled up parchment Larry had handed him, and he stopped dead in his tracks, looked down at it, realized what it was, and just that little **** **** **** **** He planned all this
And as he said that his assistant who had come up the stairs and the worst weren''t very close indoors, she actually ran up and got towards her desk, finding the mayor frozen step She looked over his shoulder, and within three seconds of reading it, she just spun around, pushed him and closed the door and tried not to hyperventilate
She sat down and less than a second after she sat down, the downstairs door opened, and she could hear two people coming up the stairs
As the dwarves came up and met her eyes, she waved to them and said, good morning gentlemen How can I help you?
Within a two or three minutes of communicating, they were in front of the mayor and the mayor asked how they could be of service to these fine doors today and all that schmoozing that they do And it felt very fake But at the same time, it was the normal that they dealt with So basically politics
The moment they? brought up the subject of why they were there The two dwarves straight up just looked at the mayor and said, what can you tell me about the three kids that are living outside your town?
It wasn''t a secret So for them to ask, the mayor was trying to see what they wanted because Larry didn''t give him any more information than that And these dwarves hadn''t come to see the mayor yet Talked to almost everybody else, but not the mayor
The reason we ask straightforward is we just had a conversation with Larry and yeah, we understand that we may be stepping on something a little bit more important than just three lost children Now, our culture demands that we take them home But why are they here? Why are they shaving their beards? And why do they they look at everybody that''s dwarf with fear? That''s
Chapter 1 part - B
what we''ve been told by our people and anybody around town. These children seem to be absolutely terrified. But the three of them together. I also. heard they''re strong and they have their own house and I. like all the things I seen what''s going on?
The mayor, his entire personality just changed. And it wasn''t that he went colder or anything like that. His looked at the dwarfs and he said, we''ve adopted them because they had no one else. If you.''re gonna screw with that, then the whole town will have an issue with you. If. you want to make this better, then maybe you can explain to me why they''re so afraid we can''t even get that out of them. And they are terrified of every. thing until they''re not. They are some of the most fearless dwarves we''ve ever met. But when it comes to social **** they are just gotten nothing.
As the mayor tried to tell them the story, the dwarf cut him off and said, we now about the grave, or maybe not the grave in the forest and all that jazz. Where do they come from? And the mayor just said, literally, one day they showed up in count. We don''t even know where they came from before that. But they picked this town as their new home. And then they bought themselves a mine. And the two dwarves had. no clue. I mean, absolutely no clue that these kids already owned a. owned a mine. Oh, and the mayor cut it into actually technically because they are not. registered with us. They don''t own the mine. Larry does, but somehow Larry gave them the deed so until I have that deed back whoever owns that deed owns the mine and Larry says it''s theirs when they turn of age until then, he is holding it for them now. Do you understand why Larry did this and why Larry''s going through all this trouble for them
The younger the Tudor is still not learning his lesson, piped up. But this time, what he said was, sometimes the truth comes from the mouth of Babes.
Are you telling me they have their own horde already? Then the young one was always at tears, realizing that these three got **** **** but they simply got their own horde. They were home. They made their hope.
The older dwarf seed, the younger one, almost crying. One tear, one load tear fell from the old dwarf face and the bear sought. The bear just nodded. The old dwarf just smiled. and the mayor was about to put down Larry''s piece of paper, but the dwarf at the same time almost did the exact same thing and put down the piece of paper that they had brought on the two of them looked each other. They each took a piece of paper and they handed to each other and they read it as they started laughing at the dwarf started howling and he said, I think we''ve been playing here and the Bears like Yup. I think we got played here by Larry and the boys. but the bear was super happy and the dwarfs were super happy to fight another class come back through the dead So by Dorman law it would take a lot to be at those boys out of their clans now hoard.
But cold pragmatism kicked in on the old dwarf, and he went right to. the money and he thought about he goes OK before we go any farther How and what is going on with their money and how are they buying stuff and selling stuff if they don''t come into town?
The mayor just smiled and said the cities bank has already accepted coal and other things from the kids, and they already have enough to survive a year of food, tools and booze, and the three of them together when he said that the 2 dwarves just smiled because of the three things that dwarves need a job, food and some way to unwind. So for now, it was acceptable, and the town was gonna take care of them. And a **** murderous **** that has spawned for these kids is gonna protect them. A **** great church member is their **** guardian.
About 30 minutes later, the merit already cracked open the alcohol and handed out drinks to the dwarves. The assistant came in, looked them over and was waived in by the mayor. The mayor said, we''ve agreed on all the steps here and the only thing we have to do is get the officer here to open an account with the city so that we can transfer money to the king in return. in return for paying the taxes properly because dwarves doesn''t matter where in the world they are, have to pay taxes to their king as tides to keep their royal names and their clandings. There is also back taxes that probably have to be paid if the kids are to have it perched from the system as indebted or if there''s something wrong.
The two dwarves in the marriage didn''t even notice the secretary, the assistant. She had a little box no bigger than a foot by 1/2 a foot. It was a little jewelry box, but it really, really basic wood. Super not noticeable. in her hands. She just kept it hidden under her arm until the right moment
The dwarf looked at the mare, took a coin out of his pocket, flicked it to him. The mayor took a piece of paper, wrote bank number on it, signed it. The dwarf signed it, and they had one gold coin in the bank for the Dwarven King. Now, the older of the dwarfs looked over at the young one and said, what''s the how old is the. dissolvation of the one of the 2 clans and the one of the two was what got the mayor''s attention right there, cuz they were ready to pay the taxes. They would, of course, know it coming here, looking for it.
Now this is what kinda got weird, because the dwarfs kinda grabbed at the collar and said, well, we actually found a clerical error in the paperwork, and we don''t. know which one the boys want. Fire and coal or coal and fire, but they''re technically both belong to them. One was annihilated, and the other one was just dispatched because the heads were gone. So we think the children are of the house staff, we think. We just don''t know. There wasn''t very good records when they let them go. They just gave them money and let them go. And then the kids showed up. So we don''t know, like we can''t even find any of the people that used to be part of the clan taking care of the clan. It was. screwed up pretty bad. So now that we know that there is actual people and we don''t have to chase down ghosts, we''re just going to go back and tell them that they''re around and we''re going to have them fix all the paperwork and then we''ll come back and everybody was super happy with that. But then. that brought up the taxes. Is it going to be taxes on two clans
The old man was about to just say, no, no. And then he stopped. And he went, well, what if that is actually a possibility? The clients technically not dead, so they closed it illegally well. The other clans got money in the bank account, but you can''t use that on the other clan to fix the taxes. So how do you get taxes? So, huh? That little bit uncertainty through not their plan into disarray, but was perfect for the mayor''s plan. Well, their plan
The mayor put up his hand to get the attention of the old dwarf who had kind of gone into limbo and talking to himself, thinking about this problem, and just said, well, we may have a solution, but we''ll need the king''s permission. Would you be willing to consider a trade, something that we have here in town that we could trade for paying the taxes if you were to take it back with you? Also, a gift for the king at the same time? It''s kind of like we''ll give you something kind of important.
The dwarf was not expecting this and was well taken aback Was a nice way of saying he was wasn''t hostile at all. It was like, wow, I always love something like that. What would you be talking about?
The marriage just put up one finger and said, as long as you don''t ask where we got them from. and you understand why. Once you see what we have for you ok?
The dwarf was getting a little nervous doing what the hell you pulling out. You''re gonna try and stab me, or something like, what''s going on here? Like something is weird and the young one was just totally confused. He was just kind of trying to figure out what the heck was going on.
The mayor and his assistant''s eyes met, and she emerged into the box in their hand. And the black cloth in the other hand that she had brought
The mayor walked over to her gently. removed the box from her hands and put the black piece of cloth over his right arm as if he was a major DA at a restaurant and said, Sir, I''d like to offer you what''s in this box. But what he did is he walked up to the dwarf and just gently opened it up on the dwarf''s eyes, met the two jewels on the other side in the weird little piece of glass in the middle and was like, 0 those are beautiful. But the question, the thing in the middle that was being so plain and why was there a piece of glass there? It took about five seconds for that little piece of glass to get the right amount of light to start up. But the moment it did, the two jewels on the either side start getting a glow as the light was reflected through the glass onto the gems And, oh, that made the two. dwarfs kinda tilt her head. They they knew what that was, but that wasn''t. something wasn''t right here. They it couldn''t be what they were thinking was. So the mayor gently closed the box and he said, gentlemen, I''d also like to let you know that one of the properties of one of the two gems in there take a look and he said put this over your head and reel from the box and they put the piece of cloth over and said so black on the light and then they open up the box. Whoa what? the hell there was a test to prove that magic glass, which is a naturally occurring magical material and how it works.
What the mayor just did was the full test. You take a magical gem, you put it next to the glass, you put light through it. That glass then charges that gem. You then close the light and you show that the magical light coming off the gem is enough to even recharge itself with the globs. The more it recharges, the better the glass. The perfect glass I''ve ever registered was 101%. You actually got more energy out than you were burning. So if you just put it around, put it somewhere, it would recharge even in the dark. That''s also the most deadly, because that means it never stops charging, which it could explode then, if not drained enough. And that actually did happen to that one.
So when they saw that one. door looking with the cloth over his head as the light started to increase. He paused, stuttered. And then before anybody could say anything his hand had come up into that case and taking the two gems out. He then closed it. Ray almost on his nose by doing this. And then kind of. took the cloth off his head and the merit pulled back the box at that point. And the door. and the door looked over at the mayor with his hand out and he dropped the gems in with the dwarf out in the mayor''s hand. And the mayor didn''t understand what was going on.
The dwarf was super angry, and I mean super **** furious. He had just **** over his own clan, not realizing what he had just signed, because he just realized that if this is real and this came from this town, the kids may have found a day of super magic glass, super strong, super powerful, and to get them out of the horror, they have to pay for it. They didn''t have enough money to pay for this stuff. This stuff was, you get, like, a small piece every 50 years And they had a piece of size of a dice in their hand here, and they were sending it as a gift of the king to pay his taxes. It wasn''t until the mayor was holding open his hand, and he saw the other two gems the moment the light reflected them. Something inside of them didn''t change, but it was almost like a little engine that started on these gems. We''re giving off a nice blow to them. And the mayor holding them was kind of startled because, well, they had never seen this happen. The gym is before, but other than when you use them in a staff and you channel magic through them. So the dwarf right there took the box from the mayor leaving the gems with the mayor.
He was now holding this box to his chest. The old dwarf, and he just scowled at everybody, realizing how screwed this deal had just gotten into kids favor. He didn''t know what emotion to feel other than anger that he was played so much. But then after a couple of seconds, he calmed down took a deep breath and said, we gotta go and talk to the king. We will be back. And with that, it got up, walked out and he. stopped, looked back at his assistant and said, grab those pieces of paper, make sure you get copies before we leave town.
Describe that was there, his magical ability was one that allowed him to copy stuff. He had to actually write it out, but he had almost like a photographic memory for copying stuff. It was part of the Magic, but it made it a lot easier. So the old dwarf. headed out on the young dwarf stayed there, finishing up copying of the documents and then ran back to their end to go meet up with the older dwarf who had already packed up everything, got horses ready and literally they did not like horses, big horses, but they were getting too big horses and they were going to ride all night. all night long and they were going to get back to civilization very quickly and get to the king side as soon as they could. They weren''t going to stop if they had to. Yes, it was like 4 to 5 days to get back but maybe they can make it in three if they use the big horses. They really hated these huge horses
Once that young dwarf left, the mayor and the assistant bailed right down to the vault. and showed Murphy the two gems that were still in the mayor''s hand.
The mayor not being a great magic user, but still having the the minimal mobility could feel manager coming off these two gems more than expected. So when he showed Murphy, Murphy looked at them, grabbed both of them, walked over to one of his machines on the wall. There is a glass container. He just dumped them both in to one each its own container. and put the sealer on within seconds. Murphy''s machine rolled up and lights that were very dim before were bright. Like seriously bright.
Great magical batteries, you would think yeah, it kept on getting brighter every couple minutes or a couple seconds. Murphy''s machines would get brighter and you saw Murphy going hold on a second and looking at a gauge and the gauge was already maxed out and he''s like and he started grabbing cables from all around the room and plugging machines into this one machine and every time he plugged in there would be a spark and the main amount of energy on this the. on the dial would drop from Max down to like half and a little less than half, but then it would start crawling up well by the 3rd machine that Murphy had hooked up. He just looked at the mayor with pure beer in his eye and he said take these to the well and hook him down there right now and he literally just handed him two bottles to the mayor and told him to run.
The mayor didn''t need to be told twice. He could see a runaway stone when he, when he he knew what he was looking at. So the well was literally less than 60 feet away, but the old guy wouldn''t have made it fast and probably would have dropped them. So the mayor just bailed with these in his hand as he made it to the well, he just opened up the lids and dropped them. Well, the moment that he opened up the lid, they started getting brighter. So he just dropped it to gems in, and they you could see them like little glow sticks dropping down the well as he just decided to turn around and then left. 321 boom. And the water shot up and hit the top of the wells. cover. And the marriage just went back into this mayor''s office. and just said put it in a request to have the well checked. I think I just blew it up. The assistant just nodded her head and OK, what the hell was that? She asked. And why did they go critical and go overload?
Murphy kind of scratched his head and said that was probably on me. One of those stones on the. left was from the kids, but the one on the right was one that I had when I first showed up here. I traded some of my money for this one stone. It was slightly red glass and I thought it was beautiful and I always kept it in the bolt and never thought about it in a dark spot. Well, I guess the three of those gems really like each other because the moment we brought the middle one, which is that the magic glass, the 3 of them. three of them started interacting, causing a runaway effect in them. What if that happened to all the gems down in the mind? And that''s why I think the red one came from from the old days of very rare form of Monte Cristo coloured Magic Crystal. I''ve only heard of clear and he took a clear with him right when he left and Murphy looked at the mayor and the mayor just nodded.
The mare looked at Murphy and said, did you get an estimate yet?
An estimate, Murphy looked at him and started laughing and he said, um, minimum, a platinum coin from the king.
Everybody froze when Murphy said that. because that was enough to buy a castle with. That was a large amount of money. and he just said minimum. So they might have up to two to three castles worth of money in that little vault. And that''s only what the kids have just now found.
The mayor just said, send a message by bird. And another 12 days from now, in case the first one doesn''t make it, but we are hereby requesting a gold level lawyer to be. posted here in town and that''s by the mayor''s decree. No questions to be asked. Just do it. And that lawyer needs. to be fluent on dwarven law.
The. Assistant nodded her head and went Out of the vault and. started to get that all set up.
The mayor just slumped into one of the chairs there, grabbed one of the balls, pulled the Hork off, took a long swing of whatever the red liquid was, coughed and it was so strong. Looked over at Murphy and asked him why the hell do you have dwarven whiskey in here? And Murphy just looked over and said, have you ever heard the story of what the kids drank for the very first time drinking alcohol? The mayor looked at the bottle in his hand and then looked up at Murphy and Murphy just nodded. I took another swig with the mayor going, holy crap. They''re going to need it. And then, well, handed it back to Murphy, who also took a swig.
In the dwarfen capital.
The two dwarves rode their horses for two days and one night before reaching the next outpost, where they immediately ordered and paid for two fresh horses to be ready in three hours. They then rented a room at an inn, arranged to be woken in two and a half hours, and requested food to be prepared for their departure. After paying, they slept briefly, were awakened as planned, and set off again without delay.
They reached the dwarven capital within six days.
During the final stretch of their journey, one of their horses began to tire. To keep moving, they both rode a single horse while leading the weary one by its reins. When they arrived at the last outpost, they purchased a replacement horse and completed the final half-day ride to the capital.
When they reached. the King''s castle within the city They were advised that it was the middle of the night and the king''s court would not be available till the morning. They were shown to two guest rooms where they just passed right out.
In the morning word. reached the king before court started that. the representative sent to find out more about the fire and coal clan. has returned in a bad shape and were sleeping and had not been woken.
The Dwarven King. being different than normal royalty simply told one of his stewards that. when it was their time to have an audience with the king later that morning, they were to give them 30 minutes of warning and then bring them in whatever state they were from their bedroom to the king.
This prompted two stewards after court had been started and they. had figured out the order for today. They realized that to have the most amount of time to sleep and also to give the king his report as quickly as possible, they would be put shipped in line, which would mean it would be before lunch that today would need to wake them.
The knock came on the. older dwarven officer of the court''s door.
Very groggy, tired, hungry and sore. The dwarf got up and went to the door to find a Stuart bowing. And without missing a beat, informed them that they had 29 minutes to be in front of the king. And he could hear another stewart knocking on the door of the assistant to that door.
The realization. took about 10 seconds before the older dwarf realized what had been said and. just said hold on and as quickly as possible, ran back into the room, jumped into the bathroom and started cleaning themselves from the road within three minutes. They had basic clothes on for mining, which would mean that they could at least show up respectable to the Kings court because any minor coming to the Kings Court was a respected person in their eyes and he didn''t have all his fancy dress available and ready for the court. So this is what he would show the king.
The older dwarf and the first stewart were at the younger dwarf door with the. younger steward. and. we''re waiting. They didn''t have to wait long. Only about two minutes And then as the door opened, the older dwarf saw what the younger dwarf was going to wear and just yelled at him to go put his mining gear on It was set a coveralls with a proper shirt and boots.
Bing chastise like that in front of people. All the dwarfs that could hear it just kind of laugh and every. body was in a good mood, but it. wasn''t until they started walking to the king''s chamber that the. officer of the court who had made sure to grab the small wooden box that they had brought all the way back.
The walk from the rooms to the king''s meeting. All slash thrown room. The older dwarf, his heart rate started to race because his younger. dwarven assistant had no clue what was above the half and and to know what type of **** show this man was about to bring on the king''s head. Didn''t just get him riled up His heart reached New speeds and higher pressures. And he had reached in years, giving him the feeling. of lightness in his body. even though all the pain he fell from little blonde ride. and a pure anger on being swindled to the point where his honor. was besmirched by a member of the Great Church, and he had to fix this immediately.
They reached the chamber doors and were asked to wait And when the turn came moments later, they were announced, and the door is opened. They started to walk in. the normal routine would be to walk down the middle of the hall. Projections up to the king and speak. But that''s not what happened. The older dwarf just slowed and the younger dwarf being on autopilot just kept on walking until he realized that the older dwarf wasn''t beside him as he went to kneel down in front of the king. And as he kneeled, he looked back to see that the older dwarf had stopped and was looking around the room. His eyes rested. on a sword and shield against a wall. And as he started walking up to this, the king stood up, realizing that this is going off of protocol. The whole room was watching the guards were all on guard and freaking out just a little bit because where they were walking to this person was walking to a weapon in the king''s chamber, which would not be allowed
As the older dwarf got up to. the sword, he pointed at it and then bowed his head to the king while still pointing at it and asked for. permission to touch it.
The king, not being a fool. Did three things in rapid session.
First, on the side of his throat was his. pickaxe and on the other side of his throne, attached to the throne, like the pickaxe, was his shield. The king picked them up himself. Place. to shield on his right arm and the pick in his left. He didn''t like that, so he swapped them. He liked the feel of it. He tightened up the bracer on his arm with the shield, and then. he used. the wooden part of the. pickaxe and smashed it on his throne three times and got everybody''s attention at this point. And he just gave up the orders.
Guards to me.
Every guard in that room didn''t just rush. They rat. They pulled tilt boogie right to the king. God formation and made a bubble around him. Spears and swords on the ready pointed at the dwarf still pointing at the sword on the wall. Where a sword was hanging.
The third thing the king dead was look at that older dwarf and say out loud at the top of his lungs.
I gave you permission to remove that sword and take it with you as you present yourself to me immediately.
What only some of the older nobility had ever seen, but only the younger ones had heard of. Was a way of restoring your honor if you **** **** really bad.
For the king to. see one of his trusted people that actually raised him in front of him with a sword about to either harm him or harm himself. The king was very upset and wanted what the **** just went bad and why was this dwarf going through all of this.
All the eyes were on. the officer of the Crown, the man holding a sword, walking towards the king and all the guards. as. he reached 15 feet from the guards. The king with just one. wooden piece of his pick ax. Bashed the wood on his throne and all the guards surrounded.officer of the crown. McfinaSwitch Mctoggel
The moment he was surrounded, he went down to one knee and held the sword with both hands above his head. At this. point, some one had taken The Apprentice off to the side so that he didn''t get caught up in whatever was about to happen.
The king and a very gruff. And honestly, a bit angry. shouted ¡°report, officer of the Crown¡±.
The old dwarf started to talk and said to the king
I officer of the crown McfinaSwitch Mctoggel Hereby ask for leniency for me assistant In regards. to the outcome of the mission you had sent us on Sir and I please ask that my family''s honor not be tarnished with my mistakes.
This took the king aback because the next thing had happened is he bowed his head and put the sword on the ground, put his head to the sword, which was literally saying, take my head, sir. Do not harm my family as to how 1 of the people that raised him show respect like that and be that afraid of him. He was angry just for them. Be afraid of him.
But what he did next shocked the king.
He stood up with the sword still on the ground and reached into a pocket and pulled out the wooden box and offered it to the king.
He then said these words to the king. Your Highness, we have found the lost clan of fire and coal. And they. send this as tribute to you This is a great day.
This absolutely shocked the king and the whole room. This was a great thing. They could understand why he started off with the sword and that whole part of the different rituals like he was splicing rituals here. The king dropped his shield and his pickaxe was attached to his belt and he. pushed his guards out of the way and went down to see the person that raised him and told him what that hull''s going on straight to his face and where the guards went to stop the king. But the king just pushed him out of the way and pointed that that guy and said kicked that box and opened it. Make sure it''s safe. I want to know what''s in there
That one guard waved two people over, who then walked. off to the side with that guard and that box and those three people made sure that there was no magic, no bombs, no nothing but the gas that came from all three of them. When the box was open and then. they looked at all of them as they looked over at the king as they saw the night, the two people that were there to inspect the box, all of them hit the ground, put their foreheads to the ground and the box was in the night''s head in the air with his head touching the ground.
Whatever that was in that box was. a giant **** as a king viewer. What he was about to open was going to screw with his head somehow. So he just told one of the Knights to bring it over to him. Look in it and make sure it was saved one more time in case they were under a magic spell and the night that he pointed to was one that he knew personally and trusted. So when that night walked up to the king, just peeked into the box. His eyes going so wide he just spun as fast as he could to the king, presented the box and then slightly opened it.
The King closed the box the moment and little shot of white escaped the box from the sunlight peeking in. when the king slammed that box closed, he froze. And then all he said, I want everybody but my guards and these two here out of this room now.
As people started to shuffle out, you could hear a little bit of grumbling in the back. And the king just snapped his head through the one person he thought he heard grumbling, and the person just shut up. They put their head down and just kept on moving, and everybody moved very quickly after that. Once everybody was out, except the guards and the two people from the expedition, the. doors were locked. I had nod was given from the guard that had locked it or to the king. And the king dropped his formal everything and just walked up and said, what the hell? Tell me what''s going on and why I have a piece of the royal glass in my hand. And what the hell colors this? It''s clear, but it''s not clear.
McfinaSwitch Mctoggel Looked the king in the eye and said, either the kids found it that you sent me to find or the town literally gave that up to protect the kids And he was crying. He was openly crying to the king, saying, I found them. They have their own horde. And then I **** it all up.
The King asked how how did you **** this up? It sounds like it''s amazing. Why aren''t they here? Why don''t you bring him home with you? You know our laws. What happened that you couldn''t bring them all with you? How did you **** ****
McfinaSwitch Mctoggel Had reached into a pocket in his Overalls I pulled out two pieces of paper and then. just handed that to the king.
As the king started to read through. the two pieces of paper, the looks that he went through, the different emotions the king went through was everything from astonishment to pure rage to bafflement to just confuse. And then in the end, chuckling
The king walked back to his throne, sat there and fought. And it wasn''t like a little thinking. This was like 20 minutes of thinking during that time. No one really said anything but the king did tell everybody to sit down. He had to think about this. And he told some of the stirs to bring refreshments and food, because he was hungry, and he needed to think. So a keg was brought out. jerky. dried sugary fruits. fruit juices. and the kitchen was told to start producing warm and hot foods.
Because this room sometimes was also used as a banquet hall and even. a hall just for events. There was a door on the side that had double shutters and the moment the king said that the double shutter is open and it was a direct access to the kitchen. And you can hear the fire is getting lit and the kitchen started cooking and food started to come out.
Around. The 20 minute mark. He stood up, and he made this pronouncement.
Summon all the people that were escorted out back in allow them food, drink and merriment. Today we are celebrating 2 things. 1 the reclaiming of a lost tribe. Of the Klan fire and coal number. 2. we are celebrating within only one year These children have earned the right of a horde and with that right comes responsibility. I hereby call the Matron of the families at the keeper of the records to certify the actions to preserve their clad and hoard.
***
All the people that had been ushered out of the king''s chambers were waiting. They couldn''t hear what was going on inside. And after five minutes, everybody was really talking. After 10:50 minutes, people had maybe, like, moved around, maybe even one of you people left to go get stuff and get information. And there was small groups of people communicating. And after 20 minute mark, the guards were trying to keep everybody quiet. But what happened on the other side of the door? All you heard were in unison. The pounding of Spears against the floor in rhythm over and over and over and over and over again. And then the doors opened to the king''s chamber. And you could hear it a 100 times louder as all the cars were smashing their spears on the floor.
With that one of the Herald came up. to the people that were looking through the open door and made this pronouncement.
By order of the king
I hereby call the Matron of the families at the keeper of the records to certify the actions of the # serviving members of the fire and coal clan and the compliance with the law of a HORD!
The king. welcomes all that were asked to leave to come back in and celebrate with him to day this great honor.
Moments before the Herald started to speak all the nights and the smashing of the Spears on the ground stopped into his dead silent. The moment met. the Herald stopped. You heard a small hit by the keg on his throat and then the guards in the room all as 1123. And then they smashed their spears into the ground. The reverberation made it real. It made it vital. It made it an order by the king
It wasn''t more than 30 minutes with a little old lady in a wheelchair. A. dwarf of great age was rolled into the king''s chamber to find a party half naked dwarfs everywhere, drinking, breaking out. There was more booze than she had ever seen in the King''s Chamber, like they just kept on bringing it. She came to a party and she missed this. She''s like I heard what''s going on.
The king came up to his mother And keeping his calm try not to freak out. He told his mum she was sold. He was worried that she would have a heart attack when she heard. But she was just ear to ear smiles, and she just called her personal. chair pusher and helper over whispered into her ear as the little dwarf girl just bailed out of the room. I beat full tilt boogie gone.
The King smiled to that, knowing that those words are set so much at the motion for one little old lady that this is going to be one hell of a party
He added, expected her to do it. She had done. And moments later, one of the church belts in town was being rung. It was 7 bells. A pause for two minutes, and then seven bells.
No one in town had heard this in almost 100 years. So as everybody came out thinking that things were going wrong, some of the older people that knew what that meant started to tell people, and then just cheers at partying. And there was a giant citywide party. Everybody was freaking out that 1 of those babies was brought back. But then after about 30 minutes, the bells stopped. And then. it started again. But it wasn''t until the 8th and 9th the 10th ring that everybody realized it was different. Then it stopped at two minutes past another 10 rings. Two minutes past another 10 rings. At this point, after the first 10 rings, everybody was looking to the people I told them about the Sabbath that asked what the Ted was. But most of the people that had were listening to it were crying because the dwarven people had another horror. They speed their people at another home. They had another family. They had bowed a lost tribe This was a party. People were sent out of the main city to all the other towns with the news as soon as possible. Port Town was on the lips of everybody. A town that was named poor town because it was a port town Was now one of the most popular and going to be well known towns in the entire continent after this. The party didn''t stop for 3 whole days.
********
Back in port Town.
Things were starting to get a little interesting because all the messages that had been sent from town to the gray Church has been coming in And let''s put it this way, after the first one, it was like, oh, this is cool. This is great. They''re having some stuff going on after the 2nd rows. And what the **** is going on in that town? And what are we getting to? By the time the request to have the Paladin and Knights return, that wasn''t going to happen. They were already sending more people there when they got the message that their. monk and librarian want you to stay there and we''re requesting to take responsibility for 3 DWARVEN children personally. Larry was the **** guarding of these kids. Larry, the Larry that was banished to that town for the **** he pulled. Larry, that could take out almost anybody he wanted without even trying. Larry, who is so high in the organization that they couldn''t just fire him for his stupidity and his. wearing his heart on his sleeve and he was doing it all over again. And what did Larry get himself into a **** international dispute between the dwarves?
Well, the last message bird that came into the Great Church before everything went to **** wasn''t from port town. It was. from the dwarven capital. There was one of the members of the Great Church who was in court with the king a day ago. And now the entire city was in an uproar that a clan and a horde was sounded porked out there. was not just a zeal about the message. It was a **** straight warning that the world was about to change. There was hundreds of dwarfs drinking 3 day straight. The last time that happened, a war broke out. But instead of a war drinking party, this was a celebration. And that was the only thing. And I mean the only thing that stopped an entire contingent of the great church from calling in the rest of the members of the entire great church to come down on portal like a **** **** **** ****
The head honcho of the military branch. I had honcho of the financial branch and that hunch of the religious branch for the Great Church. All that up after 20 minutes, it was decided that there would be a mobilization to port. town But due to the fact this is all positive, they''re going to keep a positive light on all this. And they were going there to sanctify a brand new actual church of the gray, which hadn''t been done in probably 20 to 50 years. And it was. usually it was in some middle of the nowhere place that had something special, which this was that. So yeah, this would work. But they also realized that this could be an international incident. So with a financial head decided. with permission from the other two to go to the dwarven king himself and find out what needed to be done financially to bring this from a war possibility to a straightforward. initiating a new horde into the dwarven ranks.
It was interesting to see, because the three of them all had their bags packed and were in the stables around the same time. They had already given off the misses to all the underlings, and to see them read the misses and start freaking out the whole places like you kicked the beehive as they met. They all gave each other a hug and said, good luck to you. And I literally 2 went out one way, and the other one went the other way And they went to the port town and went to the king. the representative that went to the king was given orders to go to Port Town after with their information to update the others. And they would have. a three way conference on this once they had more information.
*****
In the king''s throne room. during the party
After the second day, the king''s throne room had gotten. party was still going, but it had gotten a little bit slower and calmer. People like cleaned up and the king was sitting in this throne, doing some work while some of the staffer just off the side doing work with food and drink, which was not normally allowed, but because they''re still partying, it was not a big deal at all, as long as you didn''t hurt the paperwork. But this is when an entire can. ting of people started marching in lockstep and you could hear them. The king looked up for Miss Throne, thinking his guards were coming, but the sound wasn''t of metal. It was of leather and stone to see. the Staffs of the caretakers and he guessed it was all all the class of caretakers, the ones that they respected to teach, to raise, to make good dwarfs were coming to see him He stood up straight into his clothes and he just smiled because he knew his mother had done this and he was waiting to see what she had put together.
As they came into sight, his mother was being pushed in a wheelchair in front of. everybody. I''d be hide with 5ROWS. Why? And he''d see at the end of it. Must have been one or 200 of them. Men in women who had basically promised for their life to take care of the young and teach them and make sure that if there is something that was going to hurt them, that they would hurt it first. The protector of the shelter.
If you could see the beards of most of them were just covered in shininess. And he realized it was crying and thought these people had been crying for hours. So happy with the smiles on their face, being able to do what they''re about to do. Just all they were just. so happy to be there right then right now. You could feel it
Magic in this world Was it that harmonic to people''s emotions But in their mountain, their people could feel each other if. a small percentage of them were unhappy. The rest of them window it when everybody was happy. Everybody felt it, and it was a great feeling. But the feeling he was getting from these Guardians, these protectors of children with that of pure utter donger. But a rage of passion and protection that he knew they were going to do what he doesn''t take care of these kids.
The line of people as they stopped reached out the doors and around 1/4 to the point where the king couldn''t see how many people were actually there. There must have been over 500 people. He couldn''t believe that they had this many protectors and guardians of their children. And he realized it was adults that their kids had grown up. A lot of them were just literally siding up right then and there.
The king was just shell shocked to see this as. they pushed. the little old lady in the wheelchair up to her side. He put up a hand, pitched the nose bridge. I looked out at his mom and said, mom, I didn''t have time or the ability to tell you because I didn''t want you to get angry. But we have a small situation. We understand how to fix it, but you have to be informed if you''re going to do something this large.
He had been given two copies of those documents as the originals went into the files on the 1st day. He pulled out the copies and handed to his mom. She looked them over then. anger, understanding, anger, a feeling of love. Everybody behind and feel her. She was so in tune with the energies in this room. They I went through the emotions with her. Even her son felt what she felt. And then. she just was confused until he literally took the little wooden box off his throat that he had just moments beforehand. Motion to be brought to him. Putting a black cloth over it, which was assigned to her that this was a magical item that couldn''t be reacted to light. And the thought of what this could be went really she kind of went hail a little bit, but she put her head under the cloth, lifted up the box, closed it, handed it back to him, sat back in her chair. and just stopped moving for a couple moments
This first and foremost freaked out to everybody behind her, especially the two people that were there for her health. They basically came up, checked her pulse and she didn''t even bat an eye when they didn''t know she was just lost in thought and they realized that her heart was racing. She was just thinking really hard and she had her other assistant look into her face and that person read her facial emotions as she was thinking. And then as that person just took a sigh and then. put a thumb up. Everybody behind the relaxed because she just was thinking we didn''t take more than 30 seconds at most before she put her hand up and her two assistants came down to her ears. and she whispered into their ears the following words.
Write this down.
Three times three times 3 Prepare to go now. three in three days, three and three more days. That will. continue for 30 days. Each of them will take 333. gold per group with them and will deposit it in a town of Port Towns Bank This influx will allow three of the lawyers from this the king''s a personal clan at 3 from. volunteers. from the Guardians to be going in 30 days. They''re goal is preserved the rights of the horde and the children. And that is it. By any means necessary. She looked at the king and he just nodded.
She continued by saying bring a book of recording to this room right now. and be ready to get a second book of recording if necessary to have over 1000 pages per book and everybody that had volunteered and is behind us now will sign their name, their clan and what they hereby are willing to donate to this order. This will be the order of fire and coals guardians.
The king. Went to his mother''s raid in front of her and kneeled down, took her head and kissed her hat and put his head on her knees. This. was taken by every. body as the king say yes, this is to be done He then stood up, went to his throat. I live with three hits of his wooded part of his pickaxe. The yards. basically started bagging their spirits. About a minute later, the king banged his wood part of his pickaxe one more time, and it all stopped by. that point. two lines had been formed and two books were brought out. and everybody that was behind the Batron. was already signing their names and information in. This went on for hours that after someone retired their name, they would go off to the side and grab food and booze and start the party. In the end, there was almost 2000 people that had signed the books they had to get a third book because some of the people''s writing was so messy that they took them too much room. This was amazing. The king that had bribes looked into what was just off of the donated
Families that had donated small amounts of money or small items. This was given off to the tax collectors and would be acquired. immediately an account would be credited as a thank you from the king for doing this for tax purposes to each of those families. Any money would be put into the bank and any items of work that were of proper and respectful to the operation and to the king''s wishes would be taken with them. And if not, they would be held by the king here in the capital until the day they were retrieved by the rifle claimants.
It had gotten out that there was three boys, so all the female dwarf. s that were of the same age. And this is quite young. Parents had offered them this. The king took as respectful, but not respectful, due to the child''s ages. So all those were held and given to the Guardians to start vetting all those families. This. actually was a great thing for the king. He now had a reason to verify that the trading of all the nobles and non nobles was up to stuff with the dwarven laws to make sure that every dwarf knew how to mine knew how to read, write, drew beer, cook their own food, wash their own clothes. It was like kid boot camp for the dwarf. It was great. He just got 1000 2000 new families. and for the the Guardians could take care of this one. This would take a lot of the people that wanted to go to the Newtown and reduce that to just a couple under 100 hopefully
The roles that the dwarfs had to follow was that they would not invade. But that''s why 3 by 3 by 3 was the way they would do it. And they would slowly infest the town every couple days. More would show up. And every couple more days, more would show up until they owned everything in that town. And once they owned it, they would fix it. They''d make it so that it was a dwarf cow, a dwarf cow that had its own horde and a brand new slash old clan.
And the last thing any large amounts of money or anything really weird or an entire clan being promised or land or anything that was. more unexpected. The king was going .... more unexpected. The king was going to deal with personally and honestly, it took another day for it all to be figured out. But there was only 3 families that had done anything really weird.s that had done anything really weird.
- Clan of glass Was? Actually, one of the sub. plans of the King''s own lineage for them to do what they just did by offering to send it. entire team from there. secret glass Masters to verify and train because, as part of what had to be told, the king informed the group. that actually took care of one of the great dwarven secrets magic class. This clan a long time ago was. given the task of mining, purifying shaping and learning how to use magic glass to recharge gems. Those gems were always registered. with a percentage. How much energy they put in and how much energy came out. So if they put in one candle''s worth, but they only got half a candles out, that would be a 50% they. were taken off to the site on game one of the party and asked to appraise the piece of magic or maniglass as some people called it and it wasn''t until there was a large explosion. Guards all rushed to a side room off the king''s main chamber and A confirmation of what the officer of the crown had told them about exploding gems. The king didn''t tell the. clan of the glass this to see if they would be able to recognize this. And gladly enough. they weren''t lack in the. lock in their training cuz they recognize it in time to get rid of the gem that exploded. Not realizing that it was actually across the room bolted onto a wall. But was it till they closed the box and someone blew out a light that they saw a gem on a wall glowing bright green and getting brighter? There was now a dwarf that had a haver in the emergency room, basically because he had taken it off the wall by hitting it. Yeah, there was a horrible wall and his hammer had a dent in it and it flew across the room. But while the ripping of his hammer out of his hand basically ripped the muscles in his arms a bit, he was going to be in a cash for a couple of weeks. But everybody survived. Yay. Nobody died. The king. realized for them to want to send someone that he would have to make sure that no one knew who they were. So he asked scribes to make a subclan. in a fake book for a cover story for the clan of glass to go to Port Town. But as the king was saying this, the clan of glass member that had signed the book with the information heard. this and yelled at the king. Don''t you dare. The king was taken abat, but the old man looked at the king and said you have to remember one of our clans rules is we don''t lie and we look for the ones that have the magic touch. We will go there and inspect these children. And if one of them or all of them have the magic touch, we will teach them the way of clan glass. I''m hoping that they will be able to bring. more material. to all the clans so that we can start turning on the old machines that have lost power. Do the fact that we''ve overused the little bit of manic laughs that we had and it''s not just burning out what''s left is already foggy and smoky and doesn''t work very well. The king. Jess agreed. And then went back to his paperwork and told the scribes to ignore what he had just said.
- This would not normally happen, but one of the people that had volunteered with the Guardians to protect the children was one. of the clanless. And normally you couldn''t come. to the king or being the chambers without either having a legal reason or being invited. So to see. a clanless put their name in to move them and their family. to poor town. and to offer fealty to plan. to plan fire and coal this. was taken very serious The name was looked up and the name of this landless. was that of an actual guardian from an old plant and the clan had been disbanded just like the clan of fire and coal except this guardian. There was notes under their name. And when the notes were revealed in another book had to be retrieved, which then took almost entire day to find because this book was actually in one of the churches within the city. And when the king saw what was written in this book and evil but delicious idea came into his mind and he agreed that they would all signed another book that they agreed. And this would be the following rules.
a) Anyone signing this book hereby. rednecks any connection to any previous plan. and hereby with honor and respect in their heart. Agree to join the clan of fire and coal in. doing this. They will own nothing but they will show fealty to the new three kings. of the clan. Fire and coal. and will agree to all rulings by the three or until they''re coming of age at 14. The king of the dwarfs. This will not go against anything that could harm the children. This is. said in writing by the king. So everybody understands that if you are part of her family and wish you join the clan of fire and coal you are joining as Guardian. Everything that you are now is part of fire and coal.
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When the representative for. the clan list was called to the king. It was a woman. She came to the throne and kneeled. And the king just threw the book he had just signed his name in two down to the floor in front of her and told her to pick it up and read it.
She was afraid that she had screwed up really bad by offering heard her family to go take care of this other family and become of their family. But when she read what was in it, she just started crying And she had a pet on her. But the king threw her a pen made of gold. I said, keep it. You''re gonna need it And she took the golden pad after replacing her pad and signed the book right there in front of the king. She then put the gold pad in her pocket and hugged the book to her chest, stood up and bowed to the king. He stood. He stood up, bagged his fist to his chest and said, be off with you and be be good and build that book with your family.
She froze for a second, nodded to the king, turned around and arlety. She ran as fast as she could. That was not okay even when they''re in relax mode, till the king kind of tilted his head and everybody looked around and he just started laughing and. one of his advisors that was on a pretty good term and honestly quite drunk right now. That was great next to the king just kind of looked over and said what am I missing? What just happened?
The king. Waved over one of the scribes that w....ding it. There was a bit of confusion
The look of pure shock that rolled over the advisors face when he realized that he was looking at a 200 year old book that had been almost filled to the brink with names. He realized it was from one of the churches orphanages, and he. realized it was in almost every name of every one of the people the dwarfs in the entire city that had no clan. These were all not a sum, all of the clanless.
The advisor that. looked at the king and asked what did he rate in the book he gave her
The king spun the book that the clanless had written in and all it said was we. the clanless wish to join the clown of fire and coal as guardians.
The king had taken that literally so. he allowed her to adopt every single one of the cladless into that clad, but he knew that they could have hundreds of people mig rating to this town for over a year. That was the law. We couldn''t invade. So what that book came back, they would be. told the laws at the rules, but most of them already knew this. I knew why 3 by 3 by 3. It was an old way. Everybody kind of knew that it was the only way around that rule. So the moment that first 3 by 3 by 3 were sent out the whole city knew how they were looking at this whole scenario.
- The clan of harmonics was a very old clan that only had like three members, and they were musicians at heart, but they were magical. And that was the whole point of them. It was that a small group of dwarfs a long time ago had found a cave that resonated, and they used it to magically resonate their magic and cause an inverse loop, allowing them to literally burst their own eardrums to increase their magic in a way. Over the years, they had grown to have a large number. But then. in recent years they only had three members left The Clan head. her husband and their daughter. Their daughter was almost 20 years old, so not young enough to be eligible for marriage. But what was offered was better than a marriage proposal They wish to spend the next five to 10 years. in the mountain and the city of Portland. seeing if they could find another harmonic chamber because the last one had been broken due to overuse and high harmonics. and from what they were told from the little bit about the mountain is that there was a large fire and fire sometimes. made interesting. abilities. happen in rock and rock formations. So for them to. move their entire clad there just to explore a mountain. Sounded like a great idea. And he approved it right off the bat. But under the condition that the clan head would. sign a writ of bird to the cake. to the king saying that hem and his wife or his daughter and someone of their choosing would continue on the lineage of the clan of harmonics for. 200 more years by law.
When this was presented to the clan upper modics head with his wife and daughter there, that being called to the king''s throw-through, it was the. 3rd day of the party and the cake himself when it. went into the personal wine cellar. I brought out a bottle of ancient meat made over 600 years ago by the ancient king himself.
When the king brought this bottle out I put it on a table between himself and the family members of. the clan of harmonics, and he also put the piece of paper beside them. They all read the piece of paper, and then the husband looked at the wife and then they just started crying and hugged each other, getting out of the way. Their daughter read it. She just looked up at the cave with puppy dog eyes and he just looked over, pulled a pet out of his jacket pocket and gave it to her this other golden head. She took it and looked at it and then looked at the paper and then signed it before her dad did Her dad realized what she was doing, got bad and think I''m supposed to sign it first, so she had it to her mum and dad could sign the document also..
And with that, they toasted with 600 year old brandy. to the long life of both the clan of fire and coal and the clan of harmonics. The king let them know that they would have to wait a year before they were allowed to even go near that town Are they understood? They said they''d be ready. And with that, they were dismissed and they went to party.
Outside the main horde of the dwarven king in the outer city is where most of the clanless lively. And truthfully, because they were shunned so much, they had their own little society. That whole society had no. clue what she was holding as she walked through the encampment. Go. ing to their chieftains. house when her friends. saw her cry that she wouldn''t talk to them. They should start following her. They had to understand what was going on in she knocked on the mayor of undertown. and Jesus she couldn''t stop crying.
When the mayor opened the door and saw one of his daughter''s friends. he had no idea what was wrong, but she was crying, but she was smiling at. she just looked at him with a just giant smile and started to cry and went for a hug After a moment, he pulled her away from him and he looked her in the eyes and she just handed him the book. He opened it instantly and looked at it.
The looks that went across his face captain. the entire crowd that was watching outside his house. It was packed from quarter to quarter edge edge. It was just packed. Shoulders shoulder, but they were all watching the mayor.''s the mayors house was just a little higher than the street so they can all kind of see his face. and the boss thing he did is he closed the book, looked out over all of them.
He was about to speak to the crowd when. the one that brought the book, grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him to their face together and talked into his ear and said the clan of glass and the clan of harmonics are going with us. Not permanently, but they''re coming to sanctify the mountain. We have one year to prepare. Do you understand? The boys are shaving their beards to hide within the humans.
This made the mayor not just freaking out. This is like saying something absolutely racist, and he just didn''t understand for a 2nd. But then he understood that they were hiding, that they were scared And she let him look into him. and see the what the Guardians needed to do.
The mayor looked out over the crowd one more time, and then took a very deep breath and said to the entire group that he could speak to they were all went dead quiet as he started to speak.
To what it all who are clandestif. you are willing. to follow the laws of the clans that means the king of the clan will give you your laws. You have to give up everything that you currently have for the new clan. But the clan of fire and coal is given the ability to accept any. clandest in one year. War protocol. 3 by 3 by 3 has been initiated. Any that wish to leave earlier than one year have to shave their beards for the next year to prove they are willing to protect. these three new kigs.
The **** of the dwarven nation by either who they followed or by their own actions were just given the ability to have an out some that were **** beyond all compare, just ran. They would shave on the way they were gone. They were going there. Did everybody do with poor town today? But it was on the lips of everybody for at least today. So a couple people just bail. And you could feel the wind leave.
99 maybe 90% of them were still there. But what the mayor said next. made. the whole group starts. stopping their feet.
By the ancient war accords by. three by three by three. We will not invade this town one month from now. 30 of our people will go and every month after that 30 will go. These 30 will pave the way for the rest of us. And in one year the rest of us will descend on that town. If you think you can bring the most success to. one of the three first monthly missions come to us. Bring us the family you wish to bring. 30 families the first month Thirty families the next month. Thirty families the month after that you will not live in the town. You will go to the mountain Be ready to work hard. in a year we bring the beauty for now. We bring the pain.
The other tower erupted is easy. to say it was pure noise pure insanity, ear wrenching insanity. Everybody was screaming. They just got to do me some life.
Wow. The bear was fish talking and the banging and noise started up. Two dwarfs, a man and a woman, old. But where people would have to push others aside, no one would touch these two, not out of disrespect, but out of pure respect. Everybody would look at them and bow their head, as these two came through To know them as fallen king and queen would be rude, but true. They came up to the bear and bowed to him and went down on both knees, put their head to the stone and asked to be a part of it.
The bear in the wig that they were in town and that they had lived here, but knowing that they were so disgrace that they just they they were taking care of by family. They just they. were not shunned. They were just so depressed that they couldn''t fix their old **** that they just hit away and to have these two cub after that saying that. the mayor just grabbed the book and his daughter''s friend who brought the book still had the golden pen from the king This was a magic ped She was shaky has because of her cry it smiles she had to depend off to the two royalty or ex royalty who. notices the power and magic coming off the pen as they the ex King reached for and his hand touched it a bright yellow light shawna from the back of the pen and just reached to the sky. when the light dissipated the pen had this bright blow to it like it had been recharged under a bright light and it was photosensitive. It glowed He. happily got up and went to the book before anything could be done or stopped and he signed it up. giving up everything he was as a king and everything he owed and everything. and then he looked at his wife who stood up crying and just took the pen inside it She then handed the mayor. the pen grabbed her husband and kissed him in front of everybody. I just stood there for a moment in their embrace.
Dartmouth dwarf there expected them to do what they just did next. The. exqueen. Now a carburetor. Pulled a knife out from her back, like the Japanese people do. And went to her hair First her beard, and she cut it short. She did not shave it. She then went to her ponytailer back and did the same thing She then looked at her husband, who took the blade by the blade. He grabbed the blade by his hand and cut into him, and he grabbed it and looked at her and she let go. He then took the blade handle with his other hand, took it, cut his beard and cut his ponytail too. She then took the knife back and put it back where she had been holding it. The two of them picked up in 1 in each hand. Their beard and ponytail, and they showed it to the crowd Everybody was dead silent. This was heresy. This was this. was the path. This is of a true believer. They. would do whatever it took for. protect this new clad Ed, they were going to bring it all. their life was thou part of the clad. They turned to the bear at who still had the book open and He. let him itself and the queen put their beard at Ponytail in the book of the mayor closed in the two of them walked off. No one was saying a word. They just made way. Let them believe.
The silence was not eerie. It was it. Everybody was now thinking. Everybody was now. Am I really going to sign that book and go that far to give up everything? Everything I have worked for for a new clan. I know nothing of. There was so many football that just bailed from there. They knew the mayor had the book all day. to do assign it and then they would be put on the list. more than half. More than 75% just got up and quietly left. They had to think about this. They had to really decide there was a very odd group that just didn''t move. There were a lot of things. And you could tell who they were because of the extreme amount of armor on them. These were armor dwarfs. You could not see anything through their arbor. It was chain where you would have eyes and openings, but everything else was solid plates. But they were so fine that they were almost dragon scale. Each one of these men and women had built this material themselves as this was their armor. That was part of their lineage, their family.
Very quietly so not to make a noise and bring people back as the last. of the people left all the the warriors all. the defenders, all the Guardians that were **** **** that came up to the mayor and the mayor had already seen this coming and went inside and grabbed a small night table and brought it out. before the mayor even had it put down two other doors had taken away from us and made it allowable, set it all up. They even brought out chairs like everybody started to help within minutes. There was a line form to sign the book. and they literally would put Arby''s. The dwarven RB was a subscription itself to a cause. All the old war metrics and all the people that had lost their masters because of battles they had lost all. the people that were treated badly. There was no thought to them. This was what they were meant to do. They were meant to protect a horde and the people of the horde.
It took less than 10 minutes because all anybody wrote down for subject of what they were bringing. They just put army. Some of them put rank that they used to have the. people would be called hard first and vetted first. The mayor knew this. They all knew this.
Because of the war accords by three. by three by 3 the Warriors and Lesser was an emergency. Would not be allowed to go for one year. A small contingent would be sent at first and into the middle at the end of the 3 by 3 by 3.
After all, the military left there was a couple of dwarfs that had been sitting against the wall, drinking. They had left and come back. And they all just waited and waited. And the mayor not before he started packing up everything. But he looked around, and there was just a couple of people that he recognized, and he realized there''s another group waiting. And when the loss of the army guys was done and they gave the mayor a moment to take a bathroom break and hold on yards, when the mayor came back, one of those helper is letting him know there''s another line up outside waiting for him And that was under 20 people. But these 20 people, he knew exactly who they were. There''s two groups, one were the miners, one were the engineers Each one of them was a convicted criminal because they got someone killed. That straightforward.
They had lost their clan over it, or whatever had happened in the end. Their clan was disbanded, and they were now here now. Everybody used the idea that. they killed someone. But the truth was that none of them did. Each one of them had been a part of one of their clans plots. And those plots had had some people killed. They not one of them had used their hands or any of their knowledge to make something to help someone else to kill. But they were tied to them. And it''s so much easier to just be accepted as a murderer in dwarven under city that it is to try to prove. something you can''t prove. Just people that really don''t give a **** So this is their way of getting out from that idea that they were murderers. The mayor didn''t know this, but one of the assistants kind of whispered in his ear that they were all here for a part and for the murder they did not commit. And when the mayor heard that he just looked at them all and realized that they had all come forth for a new start.
He looked em over. He told them to sign up and told the scribe, group one, these right here. I will fill in the last 10 with people to make it security safe and maybe even one person to keep an eye on these convicts. But he said it was such love, and they knew it too. One of them took it wrong with the rest of them. Just kind of realized it, and they put their arm around the one that took it wrong, and somebody whispered something into his ear. And when the kid heard these words come from another dwarf, the kid relaxed.
We are convicts no more today. but don''t tell anybody. We don''t want our reputation to get all noble and all. We''re going to go there and cause some trouble, but we''re going to cause it for the boys, for our kings. What do you say? Want to go cause some trouble?
The small group of dwarfs around the young dwarf that overheard this, basically, it is just like hell, yes. Are they all just lined up to sign the book? And that was, it was done under a minute and 1/2. And they left the subject empty. And the mayor just looked at describing, he said, for them, team one, the rejects. They all looked at each other, and they accepted, and they all just shouted out the rejects.
They left the mayor went back in. He had a couple of people helping him in his assistance. They started to go through what they would need to have a crew of mercenaries slash. guards are able to do odd jobs and protect then they needed the miners to go into the actual caves and then the engineers to make the bridges and find find the core of the whole if they could, they would have one month to make a core for their whole a place to stash the horde and a place to protect it. Another place to protect the three kings.
This little bit of the story you don''t see much more after this, only because over the next couple of weeks to months, two years, things start appearing in port town because of this groups just start wandering into town. until it''s time for the. flood comes
Back in the king''s chamber on day three Of the party the king. looked at one of. the scribes and said I guess we have to officially do it Send messenger by foot, by feather and by magic to the Kings and Queens of the human and elf Please ask them to pass on all messages to the relevant also parties that. the three by three by three packed has hereby been enacted for the port town of Port Town on the continent of the human/dwarf/elf partnership.
*****
When you hear of Alf Civilization, some people like people living in trees, eating only vegetables in trouble through trees and blah, blah, **** and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, no, they are nothing more than humans that live longer have pointed ears and have an affinity for certain types of magic. And that''s just because a chunk of humanity was it human race. from somewhere else, a long time ago, and humans had babies. After a while, they looked like elves and they were elves, or they came to this planet as elves. No one knows, but they''re here and they''re elves. They meet. culture, buildings inside scrapers. They do love the trees and do make buildings within trees. So I guess that is kind of racist, but not the point. Should see some of their forts. They build out in the wilderness for their kids. It''s like jungle gym for adults. It''s great. And honestly, they really do love hunting.
So when at the Royal Capitol of the elf part of the Kingdom. a messenger recorded the message and took it directly to the King and Queen, who honestly, we''re just sitting on a balcony with breakfast in the morning and we''re just talking **** while they waited.
Then you ask, waiting, waiting for what? Well, not the thing is, they knew something was up. The entire world''s manifield wasn''t just buzzing. They had musical inflection to it, and it was dwarven. They could feel the pump of the rhythm, and they knew it had a hard base. When it felt like Earth, they knew it was the dwarf doing something. So they''re expecting something where they. expecting to have a chunk of the land contested under the old 3 by 3 by 3 compact. Hello, this. was one hell of a what the ****
This started off investigations and ended with, after two days of them getting information and the. birds coming in saying a messenger was on foot with all the details and because they were coming from the Earth capital to the Elf Capital Magic was used.
It wasn''t lost on. their spy who recorded the three groups that had come by the king''s order during the party of three days to get special pieces of paper because of this They didn''t know what the pieces of paper said, except for the one of the undercity. Everybody knew what that one said. So they knew that they had an entire flood of dwarfs going to be going to a town. It wasn''t until they read the lines of the clan of glass and the clan of harmonics the elves just. start dancing. And when the king started dancing and the queen looked at him, I''m like, what are you doing? And he just had it in the paper and kept on dancing.
One of the rules for the three by three by 3 contact is you could get into a battle. You weren''t being attacked the whole continent was all of theirs. If they wanted a resource, they had to do things like take over a city, show that they could take care of a city, protect the city, do taxing properly, don''t break the law, take care of the criminals. They had to do all these things and the dwarfs. We''re going to flood that city. They didn''t have to worry about **** But the best part is the. would do all the work too, all. the owls really wanted was more glass. Madaglass. Everybody needed man a glass of protection. Mine of managers. was the best thing possible for the entire continent. It''s just it was going to cost through the nose. So the first thing the king did was tell all his advisors to reach out to every single one of his people. Every single 1 and let them know the dwarfs were going to be requesting so many products for the making of alcohol and foods. And the next coming months and years that the king would hereby give out small reimbursements to help you start the farming process and then. as long as you paid back at 10th of what was given and sold to the dwarfs when they needed it and or to the king who would then sell it for you for a good price. This was a royal decree.
The Queen understanding, because she read the report, but being more interested in the clan of her harmonics, because there''s. this old story that was kind of passed down to royalty that the clan of harmonics was around. But basically it was dead. But in its heyday, what they did is they tune entire mountain to magic. By doing so, they found a manna thing. No one really knows what they call it. It was a place in the world where the manner wasn''t pure. It wasn''t strong. It wasn''t weak. It broke the small barrier of reality. It was. like, if you were near this point and you use magic your will would affect the world with your match. It was a way of tuning your magic to the magic of the mountain. It was an amazing, amazing thing. And to have that, have that ability to have that maybe come back to have a tuned mountain and have a man a glass mountain to that if it is true to be a man of glass mountain. What? if they were able to. charge the whole mountain range.
The Queen called over one of her. spies slash ladies in waiting. These ladies hope. fully help the queen out when she needed things done. And she basically just said three things to these ladies. Her representatives listen and wrote down her words and then just disappeared As in walking out of the room and will never be seen again until this is done. And by that I mean holy crap, the queen had a cool idea. This is what she said.
As Queen of the elves, I hereby request under. 100 people of the Elvin population to move to Port Town. This is to do three things. One to make products of Alvin quality and keep the standard of quality in that town to such a high state when it comes to wooden products and anything else is needed. Number two, most of the people will go into the forest and start hunting and clearing the forest and replanting trees for regrowth and starting up. a wood processing industry there. The third is to take almost no money at the beginning for these services But how a large amount of debt owed to the royalty. So when it is time we have the right to request one of the mountain peaks in the mountain range as our own but we will not ask for what''s in the mountain. We''ll ask for what''s on the mountain and we will build a fortress on top of this mountain, one that even the dwarfs will want to help us build one to protect the mountain and the three new kings. And after that is done, we will. give a copy of all of our magic books to this. new clan as a welcome gift. and we will promote magic for the next hundred years in a school in that castle on top of the mountain.
The king was not just a little taken back. He had a smile on his face, and he was so proud of his wife at how she is. She has so smart, they had time. They just had to make good with all the people that they were going to deal with and to give them good furniture when they had nothing to give them firewood for down to the caves. Give them what they needed to make, what they need, and honestly, to have food coming in. They make. money day in, day out. They know how to do it. They just had to be good to the people and they would and they would make sure food always flowed there and that will always be respected. And that''s all they had to do for the 3 by 3. Either pick the fight or pick the help and they chose to help this town because they believed in it. And honestly, they wanted their own little place there too. Why not? They all done it before. Why could they do it again? They had been. away from war for so long that they just decided it wasn''t worth it. They''d rather bust their **** show little backbone muscle and cut some trees down and turn trees into mana glass
********
Happiness was not the first set of emotions the very. first human who saw the message had when he saw what the 3 by 3 by 3 compactors being activated over
The reason is that the town, poor town, was a very small town, but it was technically in the humans district, if you will, of the continent. They are allowing all the different groups, but they were at the moment in charge there. So this was more of an invasion to the humans than anything. And they needed to get something out of this. They weren''t just going to give up a land. What the hell?
This one teddy man. would cost so much problems for the three new kings just because instead of going directly to the human King and queen, he went to one of the generals who wasn''t racist, but had been alive long enough to see some pretty horrific battles and was pretty **** **** about a lot of them. This wasn''t a way of getting back, but before. he took it to the king. He sure by hell would make sure that he understood what was going on on this little short message was not good enough.
But lucky for the kids. the look of questioning himself, the general. gave off, which he never usually did. Gave this one member of the Royal Guard A bit of hesitation, and he said, directly to him. General, I am going to tell the King and Queen next. And before the general can come out of his stupor the the Royal Guard scribe. Walked to the king and queen who were in court at that time. And he got in line. to be announced.
Two things happened within the next three minutes. One, the. member of the court that announces you realize that a page was in line. Pages go around. They tell their thing to the messenger, blah, blah, blah. Unless it''s important, then they get in line. So something important just got in line. Number two, the same. person that would announce you to the king saw the general run up to this person. Drag them off and off to the side for a moment. He overheard. Let me have time to find out more information. I''ll get that to you. Just tell them. But just let them know I''m looking into it. OK. the Subscribe and the general split in the scribe went back in the line.
The messenger for the court would have informed the. court guard and the king. If the general had pulled that person out to find out what was going on because I didn''t need to have a repeat of the war 200 years ago because of what''s going on in the background, humans had caused so many problems that they were super paranoid. And that''s just it. It was like an adult watching over their children. They just watched everybody cause they''re expecting everybody to make a mistake. This is. what they allowed the gray church to get so powerful over the years is because they didn''t. ever want to have a war that bad if they were going to do something bad, the great church would come to them and tell them not to be a dip. And they promised to listen after the last two times they didn''t and it almost made the entire continent die through magic and through pure war and death.
When? The messenger on. the announce the scribe. The script entered. stood in front of the king, and the king asked him to tell us the message. His swap hand signals were already given, and the kicker already knew something was about to happen, so he wasn''t freaked out. He was wide awake and looking.
The scribe said the following words¡± King I have emissive from the dwarf in royalty. Informing us active. activation of the three by 3 by 3 compact on the port town of Port Town in our area of the continent.
Before the king could even say anything. the scribe dropped to his knees, put his head to the ground and put his hands over his head. I said, I apologize your majesty. I informed the general of your army first before telling you and he has already run off to collect more information. This was my. failure and I will accept whatever punishment you deem necessary and proper and just.
The king looked at the scribe in his armor, bowing to the king, and he looked. the king over at the head of his guard and he nodded twice. The head guard came over and picked up the scribe off. the ground and the king looked the scribe directly in the eyes and said you will spend the next 10 days in the leftmost tower on floor 14. You will help the witch on floor 14 with whatever she needs and keep her company for the next 10 days as your punishment. You will be fed as a knight should be fed and when you are done you will be going for night''s training and by God you will learn with. gone with you. Please take this night away for re education.
Under the head nights. helmet. There was this stupidest biggest smile because this is a great way to get a promotion. But it was a **** **** So yeah, there can be a lot of cleaning in this one scribe slash nights future now. the head of the guard just had to go figure out what the general one is up to and get more information himself.
The king. Before everybody moved, just looked at the head night and gave one nod and said, general. And the night went, yes, Sir. And then took the new to be night and left his. kings thrown room
The King sat back in his throat. His wife wasn''t with him right now, and he needed to talk to her because well, part of the compact was that each king would have a white and each wife would take care of the great church for king. for their kingdom. So he know. needed to have his wife go talk to the great church and deal with this properly The other countries had their own way of doing it, but they still follow the rules because they technically screwed up the blast 1. So they were then the hot seat until someone else screwed up. Hopefully it wasn''t them again.
The king then called? on one of his advisors, and told him to send Duke Herald not joking. He was a Harold who then became a Duke. Two port town to take. it over and explain what the **** was going on there within 2 weeks.
Back in port town.
Larry had gone back to see his. uncle. and what he found out was the boys just owned the town at this point. They had enough in there to buy at least five or six buildings if they wanted. They''ve already paid from the mine, and they have a surplus of money. So the mayor, I''d already sent a bird messenger. to the gray church, informing them of A1 platinum legal fee needed for the town. Please send lawyers.
When the mayor told Larry this wow, Larry whistled to have the mayor put a platinum down on this was basically all in basically.
And they knew everybody was coming so. Larry then just asked his uncle for a note saying that. Larry had the right to order anything he needed from any of the stores in town in any bulk. And if anybody had a problem with it, they were come directly to the mayor. And City Hall And the mayor would pay for these items And if there was no payment, they would take it out of the city''s own coffers until that could be replenished by Larry.
The way that Larry had worded that the mayor smiled his **** off, signed his paper, wrote it alert and gave it to Larry this way. They could go back and forth when they needed stuff. If they didn''t have the cash, and it would all just come down to what the bank in town hall had, not what the kids had. and they could leverage that down the road if they needed to. But I even Larry didn''t think they needed. But this way, at least they could get what they needed coming and going.
So Larry went over to the Bruce shop, the local store, to all of them, the bar, everybody showed the piece of paper around, so that when Larry needed stuff, he just had to ask, and the bills would be sent to the mayor. And everybody was on board. It''s like an open black mastercard. Hell yes. Let''s party on Larry''s expense.
So as Larry made order after order at the general store of the guys, I just started bulging out, knowing he had none of this stuff, and he had to start ordering it, especially amounts of food. And then he caught on, and he just looked at Larry and said, what the **** happened?
Larry looked over at the shopkeeper and just said three. by three by three at Port Town.
The man lost 20 years and started acting like a giant kid, dancing around, jumping up and down, being gleeful, hooting and hollering because it was like winning the lottery. It was he. He had to do stuff. He had to get stuff coming in. He wouldn''t have enough stuff soon. Everybody would be buying him out. He''d be empty all the time. He had to get a lot of stuff coming in. Okay. So he had to set up and he just kind of went into his own little world. And Larry just tapped them on his shoulder And the guy had been taking notes up until that point. So Larry just looked down at all the stuff he had requested. He turned paper round, wrote a couple more things at the bottom, signed it, Larry turned it around, gave it to him. The shop owner was just out of his own mind. Just he''s just in La La Land thinking. Larry took off with a smile on his face. He did this three more times in town till. the point where he had everything he could want for food to becoming, for supplies, for everything. And everybody knew about the 3 by 3 by 3 compact. So the town was just in an uproar. Basically, the mayor had just given a black Mastercard to everybody in town to upgrade the living **** out of this **** as quickly as he could be. Four people started showing up, and Larry was the guy they told everybody how awesome they were. Even stopped by the Baker and told the Baker, who then started hiring the thugs and the. the pickpocket kids from around town. Not that that they were pickpocket kids. They all knew who their parents were. But these were the little **** **** that you had. Well, you couldn''t get rid of them. And you hope that they grew up to be a better little people that they were now.
And when they explained it to the kids, what they were going to be doing, they were literally going to be running bread from building to building every morning and making more money in a day or two days. They did in a week. Each one of the kids and even the thugs are like hell, yeah, we can make sure that no one steals the bread. They''re like, no, no, no. We need to need the dough. We need those muscles. And they just laughed. They no, never had to do violence again. And they got paid with bread every morning. They were kind of in heaven and well, being guys that made beer, free bread means free beer in the end. Kinda. They just had to have time patients and well, yeah, red beer was something that their dad and mum taught them how to make. They could. Well, they knew what they were going to do. So this worked out really well for everybody. Everybody was profiting. And the day wasn''t even done yet.
*******
The monk in the librarian always. in the morning, we''re watching the show, and it was always when Larry showed up. Larry was just pure chaos. But to hear everybody cheering before Larry took off out of town, they waved him down. Then they just asked over the balcony what''s going on and all he had to say was this.
We may have started a three by 3 by 3 compact between the dwarf steel''s and the humans again here in town. You might want to pick up building to turn into your local church before they''re all gone. I give you like 6 hours to talk to the mayor before everything is **** ****
This was like telling them that they just won the lottery. They, they ran instantly to the mayor, like they didn''t even they came downstairs, and Larry was just standing there, and they ran past Larry. The librarian came up and kissed Larry straight on the lips, and then took off with her soon to be husband, who was super jealous when he saw her do that. But literally was like, okay, that was definitely worth it. This is gonna be fun And the manic look appear insanity on Larry''s face would make John Drew Volta. Just smirk.
As the monk opened the door to the City Hall for it, it seemed to be white. She rushed in, and the receptionist, the mayor''s assistant, saw them rush in and just pointed up the stairs and said his door is open, go right on in He''s been expecting you.
The mayor was absolutely **** **** drunk at this point. He had been drinking for a couple days now, and just a smile on his face. Big, rosy nose and everything is like, if I''m going to go out, I''m going to go out drum and stone and full of dainties and super happy. I''m going to have a big steak tonight and he was just with a giant smile in his face.
He had just become one of the richest mayors in all the continent because of the 3 by 3 by 3 compact. So he knew that the Great Church was going to want some property. So he was waiting, and he was looking out the window, and he saw them rushing up. He just started smiling. And when they came into his office, he just looked out the window, and he pointed to a building right across from the city hall. That was one of the really nice old buildings. It could probably hold around 40-50 people at any one time comfortably.
The librarian looked out the window, and they shook her head. The monk was kind of a plex, and she said that one and the one on each side of it, please. We''ll pay for it all right now. The gray church will hereby give a life. debt to the town of Port Town. or two members of the Great Church until the proper. currency can be financially held. Also known as we are your hostages and your collateral until the church pays you. Whatever the hell you want for those three buildings.
The mayor not even trying to like this is a good deal, and his mind he wasn''t going to say no and he was going to have a very large contingent of the block. market probably because of the great church alone, which means whatever they found down there would always have adventures and others to come and help clear it out. And now with the amount of dwarfs like probably 30 to 40 that he was expecting to show up in the next couple of months because they''re going to throw a couple hundred doors at us where he was thinking was. he ever **** out by a couple zeros.
The monk not giving a **** either, and the librarian just putting up their lies for this went to the mayors desk and pointed at the bottle of booze and the mayor went yo join in and she was. she was going for the boots. The month took the mayor up and found his stash of weed pulled out a joint from the case and started puffing in the mayor''s office booth, then looked over at him and gave him a sneer and said share would you
The monk smiled ear to ear, handed the joints of the mayor who took 1 hell of a deep drag, handed it back, who the monk actually passed it to. He seemed to be wife who took it and then passed it back to the monk after taking a pull. While that was going on, the mayor was blowing the smoke out the window. And coughing his **** off.
The mayor''s assistant stuck her head in and. said to the mayor. I feel a little bit energetic. I''m going to go and talk. to my husband for about half an hour I''ll come back. You guys just stay tight and keep happy. I''m going to lock everything up. So let yourself out when you''re done.
The mayor knew what that meant So about 20 minutes later, what. a very happy howl came from the depths of City Hall and the librarian and the monk looked at each other. They both looked at the mayor who just started to howl. because. his appraiser was putting his hours in, if you know what I mean.
The town was in party mode, and everybody just didn''t give a **** They knew tomorrow they''d have to work hard. But for today, everybody. was just on cloud 9.
Within the four days, everybody in town had bought as much land as they possibly could within reason. And IOU''s only went so far before. the mayor had to basically tell everybody, unless you have cold heart cash or something that you can put up as collateral going forward, I have to be able to sell these other people too by the laws. I can''t hoard it at a new hoard site And he started laughing at his own joke.
What had happened in the past went a three by 3 by 3. Compact would happen. Was, if there was nothing around the first one to get there, would basically own everything. But because there was a town there or a city, the local.''s who could would normally buy as much land as they could, so they would own the town. And then. when the Lord would come in and have to take it over, they would have to pay for what they took over. You couldn''t just take away the land without giving people payment. It just didn''t work like that through the rules of the compact. So by doing this, they were all basically ensuring that they wouldn''t get kicked out and they would make money in there by selling off these pieces of the property. They''re paying cheap for now. But shortly, they would have the ability to say you fix these two pieces of property and you can keep that 1 all of a sudden, all these pieces of property started having small houses and shanty towns built up. And then after a while, if they don''t get them built up to a certain stage, then that would be a forfeit and they would be told to leave and someone else would come and continue on the work or to air down and start over again depending on how bad the work microchip is. And that''s the thing. A lot of people didn''t fail doing this. It wasn''t hard to build a little log cabin. So knowing that there is dwarves coming and that they had forced all around them along. the mountain range. they they knew that they were going to have something beautiful shortly. They just didn''t know what yet. They just had to be ready with all the supplies and especially the food.
The mayor was thinking of the rules when it came to getting. food into a town for a compact was to find the first traders that come in and make contracts with them to keep supplying over and over and over. And as they had problems, have the adventurous fix the the transport problems seemed to work the best and the safest. And honestly, it made everybody get paid. So yeah.
*******
With a couple of jugs of pretty strong homebrew and. 3 bottles Of a hard cider. The boy said, never tried. He was told by the salesman at the alcohol shop. And his back filled with food in beat jerky and things to keep everybody going, along with a chunk of rope. He started up to go see the boys and go have an adventure with them while he let the town basically implode on itself. It was always fun to come back after a week or two and find how much stuff can change in a short period of time when people put their minds to it. And. well, he was going to ask the boys if he could live with them in the caves because it wasn''t going to be caves for much longer from what he was seeing. And the boys had no idea what was coming. So he had to protect them. So he was going to be around a lot more with them. So he had to get the understanding them better
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsZDWNk_RIA
Sound track to larrys adventure with the 3DB¡¯s
.******
Did you think that technology didn''t exist in this world? If you did, you''re kind of mistaken. By mistaken, I mean, you''re **** insane. What the hell is wrong with you? Dwarves humans and elves have plains. They have electronics. So to have the absolute. dregs of any society who don''t have a lot be offered a new home. You don''t get in the way of that.
The king of the dwarfers had sent people immediately to be the first ones to make it to town before anybody else got there, after they received their message. I had only took a couple hours before they had been sent. So those. dwarven riders on especially. raised horses to get very far, very fast, very quick. Made it to Port Town in four days, not 5 1/2 to 6. The horses honestly they think they were going to die. They were so ran dead like they had to stop once or twice. Or else they would have died. But when these horses made it into town, the guy that takes care of the horses in town was going to hurt these dwarfs. He was so angry at them to the point where he called a healer and he told them that he was going to be paying a healer to heal these **** horses before he would take care of them. He wasn''t going to have them die on his watch. And did they understand that the doors not having a **** issue with that said please and thank you, please. and thank you. We have no problem with that. And here and they gave him a each a gold coin for these four dwarfs in full light leathers. for each one of their horses. and said keep them here. We will be back. We have to talk to the mayor immediately.
Larry was up with the boys. The town had been basically bought out by the locals. And these four dwarfs are literally bolted to town like a lightning bolt. As they get up to the front door, the mayor knows better. He''s not going to get in their way, but he is going to protect his building because they will get violent quicker. They are strong. So he already meets them at the front door and walks out himself and meets them on the stairs just outside the door to the City Hall.
The mayor just puts up a hand and said, good dwarves. Please tell me who you represent before we communicate. I am the mayor of this town.
The main dwarf the head honcho of this little expedition says, I have been sent by the king of the dwarves to announce the agreement of the 3 by 3 by 3 compact. It struck. It has started.
And that the Declaration of war basically made them start jumping up and down and hugging each other. And they just looked around at their new town because they weren''t leaving. The Bayer understood that war nowadays was a little bit different, and he was kind of really happy. This is the more civil version of this. So he just pointed over at the end. It said, boot and booze over there. It''s on me. Tell them, and they just, they just shook their head. They said, no, we brought buddy. Don''t ever have to worry about that again. You have no idea what it meets to us to give us back, not just a clad, but three new kings at a hoard at the mayor hearing those words. More the **** first time dropped to his **** right there. The three by three by three, called back to his like, winning in the lottery having three kings. He almost expected, but the horde they didn''t expect him to agree to the hoard, because that means that the whole place was under protections and no one was allowed to start murdering others. All the major parties would said their kings here, if there was a problem, which means he just went pale white. He just became the mayor of a peaceful, superpower town And I depuked. He absolutely puked on his front steps off to the side a little bit behind a pillar. But he just started puking, losing everything that he''d been drinking. And the dwarfs looked over and just started laughing because, well, it''s not the first time or last time a message from a dwarf will make a human puke. They''re guts out. And they just started laughing and patting him on the back
When the mayor was finished, he came up for breath and wiped the sludge from his mouth on his sleeve. They looked over his shoulder at the dwarfst. They all just gave him thumbs up. They said, it''s a pleasure to meet you, mayor. We''ll talk to you later. Good luck. You''re going to need it. Have they all just smiled and laughed out and made a joke about the mayor being a light weight when drinking.
**********
Larry''s adventure to meet up with the boys.
So Larry made it back up to the campsite and found the cave entrance to be plugged in. Kind of freaked out a little bit when he noticed that. But as he looked around, he saw where they had hidden the red. flag last time, and there was another little round piece of wood there with no flag. But Larry recognized it.
It just said in writing, stay in. our house will be back. See you soon.
Larry wasn''t gonna say no, but when he went into the house, he realized that there was a whole walk of little rooms and little outcoops to sleeping. And Larry had one of them carved with his name, and it was. the biggest one on the floor and by the door. And it would be the one that the dwarf brother. s would always give to the one who was keeping eye on the house. So it just felt right to give it to Larry. One of the men told the others They all agreed without having to say much other than a head nod So Larry realized that the boys really did adopt him and he really did adopt the boys. So Larry not being right into. like mining with tools and all that didn''t mean he didn''t know magic. And he knew enough magic to realize that he could do a little bit around the place. So the thing with magic and minerals specially mountains, if the mountain was magical enough, you could basically use the rock''s own latent stored magic energy to do small things And if you had a focus, you could use that to focus the areas to do more detailed fine things. And that would absorb all the energy in the area. While Larry didn''t have a focus, but when he went and started touching the walls, he felt magic. Like more than you did outside or anything like this little room. And then he realized that the boys must have. had that little piece of gem, that little piece of clear glass in this room. So Larry realizing that this could have been bad goes around and just are touching the wall in certain places and smoothing out little bits here and little bits there and just starts making it look nicer and feel nicer and little things like popping a back hole under the fireplace and cleaning out the flu by putting his hand up there and just smoothing it. Like even the smoke in there, the flu was semi magical. Like something was definitely going on. And the boys had definitely found something and it wasn''t until Larry had camped out there overnight, gotten drunk off the dwarven heavy stuff and woke up to three little kids poking him. Great. Is he alive? Is he alive?
Larry tried to open his eyes, but it hurt. He went to smile ''cause he could hear them. And even smiling hurt. So he just said, keep it down. I''ll be with you in a couple minutes. One of them handed Larry a cup, and Larry just downed it, not realizing it was the cup from last night, and it was more of the whiskey. So after a couple of seconds of sputtering and fallen out of his bed. and then truthfully, him just kind of sitting there being drunk and beginning drunker. He said hi guys, I need some food. Excuse me. And he just moved himself on all cores around for his backpack and started grabbing some old, a day old bread and started shoving into his face. He then found his water sack and started just drinking. He realized that he felt like **** So he ran out of the house, not the puke, but while the other end.
The boys were in the house talking when Larry came back in. He was semi sober and a lot less in pain. And he was now focusing enough to be able to go, hello. I''m glad to see you guys are okay. I have some. paperwork for you. And he dove into his backpack and pulled out the adoption form. Basically, the mayor has signed off on and the information about the declaration of war on the town.
Larry, being the **** disturber that he was, just sat there, smiling, letting them read it, going through the motions of what? Ah, this is great. This is not great. This is great. This is not great. This is war because of us. What? And he goes literally. You guys are now the king of this mountain, the three of you. 3 kings. This is your horde. Do you understand what that means?
All three of them, almost in sync, just shook their head. No. And Larry kind of face palm that they didn''t know what a hoard that they even had was. So Larry sat there and explained it to them while they. well, ate some of the food he brought for them. They''re hunger for being down in the cave system.
Larry explained that a long time ago, Dragons still were around, and Dragons were large lizards that had been evolved because of magic. They basically had gone into a cave and their eggs had been maturated around magical energies, enough that when they were born, they were bigger and stronger. And generation after generation, they got bigger, strong and smarter to the point they could understand language. And then their culture starts survive. because most of them didn''t ever lose the aggressive tendencies other than the lizards they came from. A lot of times they would do things that would get them exterminated and only the ones with great sentience communication and the heart not to kill were honestly left alone. The ones that would go into a town and just slaughter for food because they wanted to eat something and oh, look, a human was there or anything like that. They would. Yeah, they would put down those type and a lot of times the Dragons that were more mature would even try to take those younger ones someplace where they could train them. But they didn''t have a great success rate because they were just so feral. So a long time ago, one of these smartdragons had his whole and after. he threatened to annihilate an entire kingdom. All he asked is to be left alone and is hoard not to be stolen. And that was absolutely fine Now he didn''t live more than A150 more years after that. Well, 200 years later, some stupid. adventurous decided to triumph. down into this rumored place where the dragon horde that hadn''t been seen in 200 years. Blah, blah, blah, all that jazz. And they found it. So they claimed it promptly through the government, through the kingdom itself that started. up rules that it ever found a horde, something that was precious. You could claim it. And because of that, that was now the new standard for any kings and Queens to have storage. So rulers of countries would literally dig out the mountains and create entire bolts inside the mountains that would be their hordes. These were recognized and overtime wars were fought over hordes until the Great War happened, where the three great nations dwarf L and human all agreed to never, ever have a war like that again. They would agree to have plans and hordes And the goal was to civilize the entire continent. They hadn''t even traveled away from their continent to other lands except in very, very rare expeditions. And most of those never came back. And from what they could tell, there was more land out there. But due to the fact that magic was in the air. flying in the first hundred to 200 years was not a possibility. So boats. And then they found munchers in the sea and just a lot of bad things nowadays. What would happen is they would take a plane and they would send it a 1 way trip with a magical device to send back images and that would be a way for them to plan 1 way trip across to make landfall. And they had done this in 1 or 2 spots. But these were small expeditionary camps that honestly, even after 50 years we''re still very small because not a lot of people wanted a one way trip. So when the great compact of three by three by 3 was agreed on, they would never ever start a grand war. Each would be a micro war, a war of economics and how it would work is if you wanted something in the other''s land, you could ask for it. You could take it, but you would have to prove first that you would take it or that you could supply what the people were asking for before even that if you were going to be there, you were there to protect the area, not eradicate the people and take it from them. The people that were there could be bought and their land could be given like the sold to the new groups. So if the Earth Kingdom had land that the dwarfing kingdom wanted the dwarfing Kingdom could form a proper town city and pay taxes properly every single one of them. Or they could buy the land and turn it into a dwarven and pay the dwarven king his tide. Who would then pay the king of the humans for the land It''s all about the prophets. At the same time, if one of the parties didn''t care or didn''t want to get involved, they didn''t have. So in this case the elved didn''t want to get involved in the land distribution dispute. But they wanted to be there to make money and buy products and sell their products, which was economical in its own right.
Larry laid it all out and he explained to them that by his guess he was going to stay up here for at least a week with them. And then when that week was up, all of them, all four of them, would have to go into town and they would have to sign papers and become proper citizens now. due to the fact that they had been shaving this whole time, they would. start to meet dwarfs and Larry had to explain to them some of the stuff they just didn''t know. And Larry even had to learn it recently to make sure that he understood the cultural ramifications for shaving their beard It was a sign that the person didn''t just not have a clan, but they didn''t believe themselves to be dwarfish or didn''t have the proper upbringing that all doors were taught with for them to be shaving it and running around like they were It was. odd, but Larry told them to not stop for one year because until one year passed they needed. to keep the traditions that they had started going and in one year there would be a council meeting that the 3 boys, the 3 kings would be invited to where they would decide the outcome of the war They had one year. to figure out how to control the town. And that was one of the things in the compact you had to be able to control and protect the town. You had to control and protect your hoard and any people that belong to your plan had to be under your control and pay taxes properly and do it legally for proof that those people were not just hired to hire to be there for and then leave, but that they were staying there to make a home. This is to prove that it wasn''t just taking area. drain it dry and then run away. Well, this was done. It was a proper war. This was not taken lightly.
The boy''s reversing giant chunks of information. And Larry knew this, and he was just riling them up. But he just, at the end, he said, calm down. Don''t worry about it. For the next week, you only have one job, and that''s to show me how deep you and me can get in here safely. And then.
https://youtu.be/ozXZnwYTMbs
Larry did. something he loved. He loved doing, but knew better to Jen to use this other than it wasn''t an emergency magic. It was more suited for exact lead this moment when he had to share. not just information, emotion and feeling But he had to explain what was going on. So they understood. So instead of just talking, he turned on his mind magic. and told the boys to all hold hands. And when they did, Larry showed them what his imagination could dream up.
The bore of them were sitting around the table, but below their feet there was nothing. They could see the chair and they could see the table, but underneath it all around them was just sky and then. they started to fall, but nothing moved. There was like watching a T V screen and it was moving
They flew past the clouds falling as soon as the cloud cover broke. They slowed down, and they just looked down over there. entire continent. And then the distance they could see two other continents, one from the left and 1 to the right. So they were right over the main constant.
The view then streamed as fast as it could possibly go without becoming too blurry over to Port Town.
The boy is at this point something inside them, touched on something in Larry, and Larry was taken to a moment where the three of them sat on the pier with the sun set. And Larry looked at the 3 of them as they sat there. They look back and said, that''s where our bars gonna be. One day, boys, and they all agreed. And Larry said, damn right. I. After that, they zoomed through town, like through the buildings and above, all the way up to their house. But it wasn''t their house. Their cabin was different. It was bigger. It was more pronounced. And the cave was all cleaned out. And I had a gate on it. And as they got closer, the gate just opened, and they flew in. And it wasn''t a small cave anymore. It was dwarf and cut tunnels. And it went on and on, and it just, it was Larry''s dream of what this could be And it was just random, but they flew through cave after tunnel, after Grand Cathedral, until Larry just stopped in the grandest of all cathedrals. And behind him, there were three thrones. The boys didn''t even realize it, but within a flash and a blink of an eye, the three of them were sitting in the Thrones, and Larry was at the bottom of the staircase after the Thrones, looking at them with smiles and just said, I believe in you three. And he bowed and took a knee.
Well, Larry wasn''t expecting what happened next, because the whole connection went. wobbly and wet, and it wasn''t until they pulled their hands away that they realized the boys were just lovering. I mean, full on cry and Larry, who had a couple of tears strictly coming down that he had a giant smile on his face and he goes boys. You don''t know what''s coming, but it''s not bad. I trust me when I say you only have one thing to do for the next week. Show me how deep your rabbit hole goes, because we''re going to go down into your horde and see how far we can go. And you got to show me the best things that you can show me. Can you do that for me?
Not realizing that he just hit a sensitive subject one in three looked at chew like their heads whipped over at him when he said that. And to just smiled and nodded one nod and one in three just smiled so big as they were not going to be afraid to show Larry the secret they had found. And they didn''t need to say much more. They just put out the fire in the fireplace and started packing up. And Larry didn''t need to be told he knew what was going on. The boys are ready to go. So I took him about 20 minutes to turn everything off and clean everything up. And yeah, this is a Bush campsite. as they were about to leave, Larry had an idea, and he had brought some ink to refill old school ink pens. He took a piece of paper, and he poured a little bit of the income paper, and then folded the paper so that it covered almost all the paper like a Warshak test, except he told the boys to come here. And he put the piece of paper on the rock table that they had made And Larry put his hand on it, and then he put it down on the table and left a hand in print. Then. he told the boys to put theirs in each of the 41. of the other three corners of the four corners of the table facing inward and do the same thing. And all three of them followers a great idea. So they did that and they left their handprints on the table, their own little round table their family table.
Larry just threw the paper into the fire, and the little bit of heat that was left actually lit the fire. into the paper and the ink, not realizing but the magic in the ink because somehow there was magic in this ink. And even Larry didn''t buy magic ink. So what the hell it? made little sparkles as in the fire went out and the last remnants of that piece paper littered up the flu. It was magical looking, but to to it wasn''t just magical. He saw something special. because he wasn''t. trying to use his ability to see magic and it activated naturally. It stopped. needing to be turned on and off. And it was just on this. And this. was well let''s say trippy would be an understatement.
One in three had seen this partially before, and it was overuse of the ability, except you hadn''t used it in a couple of days because they said not to. So this. they just watched to make sure he had lost it and he seemed absolutely coherent, just super happy and look. at things that they couldn''t see.
Larry was gonna leave some of his stuff behind, but the boys just told him not to and to follow them. And as he started to walk to the back of the cave, he got really confused until he saw them literally disappear as he got closer. He noticed that there was a piece of stone that they had moved out of the way. But if you hadn''t known a look, it would look like the wall. And once he popped his head in the back, he realized there was another whole cave back there where they had made beds and everything. Or is there a little hiding hole, It wasn''t until he put his pack through. And then, well, crawled through to get in. Did he realize that it wasn''t just one cave? It was a scent of little caves. I''ll attach each other bubbles and the whole mountain was like this, except it was super solid. So. they had to be very careful how they dug through this. He just now realizing. So they told him to leave most of his stuff here. And they were going to just take him for the the tour of the staircase as they made and give him some information. And then they were going to come back and rest for the night. And depending on if there''s anybody in there. home when they got back, which and he showed the kids showed Larry that they made little keep holes and everything they could plug with rocks and Yeah. the last thing they did before they went down was they closed the little hatch to their home and they put a rock on the backside and it was a perfect fit so that no one could push from the other side. It could only be open from this side. So no one was going to get in in there.
The Grand Tour. It was amazing. They had gone down 26 of the tunnels, the little orbs, and they shown Larry and thank goodness for the stairs as Larry was having trouble. He was big and these things weren''t that small or big at times. Some of them are a little bit bigger and he had to do some maneuvering and some of them they actually had to make a 1 or 2 of them a little bit bigger to get him through. So after around 25 and you were on 26 they told Larry you can''t come past 2425 here and he asked why and he said look down and. it wasn''t until they put their lights out did Larry freak out and realized that they were over a very, very large cave. But there was light everywhere and they had explained on Cape 4 there was a crystal day broke and it let some oxygen or something in and after that just turned on and they''re worried that if they activated the wrong way they could burn it all out or it caused an explosion. So they had sealed it up and it giving off this light already. and Larry right there knowing exactly what the **** was going on said you guys are idiots. Do you know what man a glass is?
And the three of them actually knew they had been told stories when the religious church had been grown up in about how the dwarfs had found pieces of cleared glass that when you put light through it, it would basically admit Manna Energy and things in that area would then start absorbing it.
The boys. were then directly asked about that little piece of glass they sent with the bag that he took into the mayor. And what were they found in what was going on? Literally number two with a rope tied around him. Crawled into 20SIX''S room and went to the edge. He then took a little hammer and took a piece of the broken edge and it was about the size of his hand. Like a fist size chunk of glass. He brought it back and he gave it to Larry Larry just froze. He wouldn''t take it. He wouldn''t do anything and he just looked around the room. He was inside of a giant orb of this glass. But he looked around. There was different colors. This one was blue and green. The one in the next chamber. The floor was clear and the ceiling was black and the walls were blue and green. It was like something had changed. And he realized that there was pieces of glass probably down below that were getting light.
He told him to throw that piece of glass into the hole and never show anybody where this is until he is told to because this was not just a heart of their horde. This was the big enchilada, the big, big everything to them.
One and three and two just snickering through each other ''cause they just looked hilarious. Larry, if that''s important, what we''re going to show you next is going to make this look like it''s kid stuff. Ready. Come with us.
They backtrack up to the 17th or cave, and then went to the right. And this is literally where they''re going into the bigger cases in the bathroom. And the only. person that could make their way through the different twists and turns of all the little caves they went into next. They took them above an hour, but it wasn''t until number two. followed his sight that he led them back to the one glass wall that had the clear liquid in it. And now it wasn''t clear anymore. It was starting to get black. But the moment they got close to it and they put the light up to it. the lights itself took the material from block to clear and it glowed. The moment they did that, the room started to glow all around them. Larry just stood there, realizing how the three kids had just killed them. And they didn''t even realize it.
Larry wasn''t too sure what he was looking at, but from what he could tell, the moment they brought light in, he he actually stopped right there before he continued to think and he just stopped, looked at them and said turn off your lights right now. You never have light in this room, ever again until until we explain you have just found. something so powerful that it could explode. Do you understand what I''m saying with those words?
The three of them not needing light, because the room was quite glowing as it was. just nodded their head and were like, okay, we understand what you''re saying. What do we do now? And he just asked, Kay, if we leave right now, will it go back to being dark and not clear? And they just said, yes, we checked it 3 times, and then he shuddered when they said three times. And he said, okay, let''s get to hell outta here. Oh my god.
They backtracked for about 20 minutes until they were in the middle of what they called the labyrinth. It was just a lot of different rooms that were connected together through areas where the two orbs touched, and there would be a little hole. Some of the holes bath would fly through. Other water had come through and and they had themselves had broken a couple of them to get through to the other ones. Larry. sat down and just had to think and he could see it in there. It was everywhere this this. wasn''t small pieces of man a glass. It was one big piece of manic glass. They were in the middle of a giant piece of maniglass and they had no idea how how. like like the only thing I think saved these kids was all that the fire that had happened here had covered everything so that there was no reflections. But that wasn''t going to last. And as soon as some light came in, the mountains might explode this. This was insanity. There was more wealthier than in the whole country, whole continent. and these 3 the three of them. 8 year olds were in charge He just started laughing to himself and laughing and laughing and then the three of them Asked if he was okay Are you all right
Larry just had to call him himself, so he said, OK, here''s what we''re going to do. We''re going to go Oh, how did you even find this? And that''s when. two just stepped up and said I can see magic He can taste magic. Number three and number one, we don''t know yet what his magical ability is, but he can tell the difference by the. smell and taste of it. Three can do. He''s actually the one that picked most of the or that went into the the bin. And I''ve picked that one piece of glass at threw it in the bag I thought the metal would have been more important. I thought it was glass, but I didn''t think it was manic glass. But Managlass has, from what I understood, it''s. never very powerful. You always put more light in than you get man out. Why are you so scared of us with the lights here? Like it shouldn''t do what you''re saying.
Chapter 1 part - C
Very just smiled and said, Oh, you didn''t hear what happened in town when the mayor went to inspect. that piece of glass. The appraiser had put into the box with a piece of mana glass he had bought when he first started 50 years ago, and he put it in there to show the mayor that it was almost the same stuff. And then he put an emerald that you guys had put in one of the rocks. Well, when they opened it up and reflected sunlight onto the crystal, it energized the man a glass from the old. prospector and the emerald to the point that the dwarfs wouldn''t take them with them. And they handed it back to the mayor. The mayor almost lost half of the City Hall because until the appraiser realized that they were going critical. Do you know what that means? And they all shook their head. It means that more energy was put into those gems than they could hold magical energy. It''s supercharged them to the point where they threw them down the well and the well exploded They already have the work order in to repair the wealth. Your magic glass in this mind is probably better than the best one ever recorded. And that was 101% That piece of glass itself exploded and made bombs for a living. One of the humans actually used it in the last war, and they would keep on putting just normal rocks next to it in the sun with a lens on it. The light that went in was converted into magic, and they couldn''t swap the rocks out fast enough because they were exploding. And in the end, it literally had the rocks around. It explode That''s how they lost the war because they lost that one piece of magical glass. Now, how big do you think that piece of magical glass was that started an entire war between the humans and the elves?
The boys had no clue, but they all guessed bigger than a baseball. No bigger than your body. No, no, no. It must have been huge. It must have been a big piece of glass bigger than a dinner plate.
Larry, hold out a gold coin, and he flung it to them, he said, He''s no bigger than this. And a minute ago, you just handed me a piece bigger than your own head.
The gold coin was dropped, and they went stone still and were terrified. And Larry could feel the chaos running within them.
I don''t think we''re gonna have a week. I think we''re gonna have to go back into town as soon as we get back into the cave. So let''s just get upstairs and make sure we don''t get anybody coming down here and blowing this place up. Because one of the things I didn''t really tell you is that the 3 by 3 by 3 compact is a set of laws for the war. There''s ways around those laws. And by around them, I mean. you gave hope to an entire species of people on this continent. There might be a couple that are coming here to help bury quickly. And by quickly I mean now. you rang the bell for help. You don''t even realize that. So let''s go back to town and make it very clear what we found so no one screws this up.
Larry wasn''t put out or anything like that, but he wanted to give the boys time to have fun down here before it became like an industrial complex down here. But now realizing what was here. there there was got to be more, but it wasn''t until. they calm down. Did one speak up and go. Oh yeah. Don''t forget to tell him about the bugs or whatever those things were.
Larry snapped his head over to one and said what bugs were you talking about? And one. explained was they were going through one of the lower levels below 25 by going through some side tunnels and down about 100 feet. They came on the main level of what''s down 25 and they had light up for a minute and through the glass they could see legs. They didn''t know if they''re spiders or ants or what they were because it was very foggy. But the moment that they saw that they turned off the light and they bailed. So in the lower levels there were creatures. They didn''t know what they were.
That settled it there as I can''t let''s go. We''re going now. And Larry was like, we''re going and they made it back up to cave 4 and then the backroom to their home.
Larry was about to say something, but they just said to be quiet for a second with the finger over their lips. And they went over to the air holes that they removed the stones, and they looked through, and they didn''t see anybody. But then all of a sudden, two eyes were looking right through the holes that they had just opened. And all they heard was, hello boys.
They all screamed and freaked out for a second. But Larry was just kinda laughing, and he went over to the rock that was holding the little secret door shut. And he moved in the moment. He moved it. The dwarf heard it, and we pushed on the Rock and moved it out of the way. And then a nice balance. It was impressed. And he popped his head and said, hello there, boys. Don''t worry about my name. But me and my boys were the first ones here, so we''d like to let you know how this is going to go down And they saw Larry and they went, are you, by chance, Larry, they''re guardian.
And with that, he pulled his head back out and went back into the other room, letting everybody come into the main room where the Ford Wars were sitting around.
Before dwarf stood up and came before their king.s
Larry just stood back and let the three boys stand in front of these men. All. of them went down on one knee and bowed to their kings
The boy said absolutely no clue what the **** to do in Lawry''s just in the back, clapping and laughing and didn''t say this is awesome. I couldn''t have asked anything better guys. They were raised by humans. That''s why they shaved their beards. They don''t even know. But by the compact they have to keep their beard shaped for one more year. Until they can come out to being dwarves promptly. So for right now, they''re human kids, right?
The dwarfs understood and already understood what was going to go down here. So they just looked at the boys and they looked at everything and said this simply, Sir, we understand our duties. How can we help?
Larry pulled out his tags of the four dwarfs, brought booze to so the food the boost came out. And two of these words that had come on their trip were dead tired. So they found the cut out cubby holes crawled in. Emeryl cold, within minutes of having a drink and some food. The leader undescribed for the two dwarves that were there for the little poor man crew that was sent ahead. sat down. around the fire on the table, and they discussed what was going on and how they needed to get everything set up. The boys honestly didn''t do a lot of talking. They just listened as Larry did a lot of the talking.
Larry explained to them this mountain. history but then went on to tell a very embarrassing story of how three boys set the entire mountain range on fire, becoming the embodiment of their clan name. And he looked over as a colon fire or fire in coal and the four dwarves that had come in the two of them that were still there were kind of freaked out because they said hold on. We''re told it''s fire and coal Now, what do you mean they they they get to choose and no one that understood that. But it was then explained to them about the original name and how the symbol had two different house clans attached to it. So this brought up a giant question that no one knew what the name was. But for now they said we''ll gladly go with fire and coal unless there''s a reason to not do it that way because the clan of coal and fire was the bound. ary mountain is gone. So technically it would be firing coal if you were to do it legally and lawfully. And the boys didn''t have a problem with that. That so their family could name. They were okay with that. So they all just agreed to go with fire and coal like everybody else doing. They wouldn''t tell anybody about the name change unless it became a legal importance down the road. And if that''s the case, maybe they could use that to their advantage. So they all said OK, we''re not going to worry about the name for now But you set the entire mountain range on fire
Oh, and don''t forget, you also send a billion bats into the local area to college havoc for a solid month, killing things and yeah. their entire population got murdered from the fire. You guys made too. So yeah, you guys did some good damage. You guys lived up to your name and the dwarfs are just howling at this point. The other two had woken up over listening to this and laughing from their bunks. Just absolutely. howling. And now they had gotten a little bit of sleep. They were just laying there, listening. But when Larry started explaining that they had a big **** problem, the two that were still awake basically gave a kick to the other two and said get over to the table to listen to this. You''re going to need to know this So they groggily move their **** over to the table and sat between the table and the fireplace.
So what these boys, I don''t think, realize, is that they super heated some of the rock, which then crystallized. Normally you would be able to see through the rock, but due to the extreme amount of heat and time a large amount of the tunnels on your here are turned to glass.
This made the dwarves kind of **** themselves right here, thinking that there''s more than like a couple of pounds of this last in like one or two spots out there was caves, multiple caves of glass. And then. Larry dropped the bomb on them and he said, Oh yeah, I''m going to buy a forget to mention that these guys found a way of activating bioluminescent crystals that are in lace inside the glass by adding a small amount of oxygen. After their intelligence, after they realized they had activated it, they sealed it. Now the whole structure is slowly allowing that small amount of oxygen no more than a gold coins worth to flow through the system. It''s now lighting up the system slowly, which is. then putting a leg light through the glass and they''re radiating everything with magic. That''s why you can smell it because and feel it. Because when they close the main entrance. Oh yes. And I forgot at one point these kids were afraid of everything. So they closed the main entrance to their mind and they now use the back door here to get in and out so that no one could find it. They all just looked at Larry and said, oh, that''s not the best part. The boys went down 200 feet and there was something moving down there with legs and or spider. You pick. We don''t know yet. Oh yeah. And they might have magic shooting onto them right now. What Larry wasn''t expecting was the look on the dwarfs faces
The burst dwarf the leader of the the foreman expedition looked at his others, and he just discounts, and they just nodded their head with a giant **** **** eating grin on their face. And they''re just like, it **** does. Call it.
They just, everybody was waiting at the main leader, literally just got up. One grabbed his helmet, put it on his head, went to grab his backpack off of his bunkery and said, I was the leader of this expedition. I am hereby enacting. three by 3 by 3. Compact under extreme contact. of danger. I am hereby activating the war initiative. This. will be informed to all three of the major entities on this continent. Good day to you. I will be back. And he looked at his other three doors and he said you 3 keep these 3 safe. Learn everything and you are in charge of keeping everybody out of the mind. I recommend if this is actually what''s going down here that you send all of our people that come into the forest to find all the other cave openings and they all claim one. Hey Larry, how do you buy land in this town?
Larry Swaldon said, just talk to my uncle, the mayor. He works for the Great Church. Just tell him what you''re doing. And there will be. no question asked. And because this mountain is part of the horde, I''m going to say we''re going to go for a little bit of a walk. Me and you as that you leave town to go tell people. And I''m going to tell the mayor what''s going down here and we''re going to preclaim all the the places on the mountains. But I need exact locations when your people get here and they do the excavation of the areas, find all the cave openings because think of this. What happens if the the soot from the fire leaves one of those shops, those cave shops and like, it''s down into there You could have another Mount Doom explosion. Mount Doom is gone. It destroyed an entire mountain. There''s nothing but a lake there. Now, that was the only glass. mine on. record from over 10,000 years ago.
The other three doors that had come with. the captain said, no, we will not, sir. We''re coming with unit counter. Talk to the mayor and make sure we''re on the same page before we come back to take care of these guys. Now, guys, I''m expecting you can stay here for a day without anybody being around. And I''m not worried about you. You''ve been digging this mind yourself, so I''m not worried. Just if something goes wrong, hide swear to God, if you want sleep in the back and lock the door. If you know what I mean We''re going to go into town, talk with the mayor, and then I''ll be back with these guys in a bit. Larry said to the boys.
As they left, the boy felt something, because Larry led, but the four dwarfs were right behind him. And without even thinking about now, all started to go into lockstep. And the. short, little dwarfs men and this big human Velvet world felt poorly probably 5060 feet around them, and as soon as they were out of range they stopped feeling it. But for this short amount of time, the boys could feel the heartbeat the. emotions that these men. were putting into every football they did. This was a Marsha pride for them. I''d for some reason the boys were crying and they didn''t know why they felt good and happy and whole. But they did understand that yet they just felt something that they didn''t understand, but they liked it. and they were drunk and tired. So taking Larry up on his idea, They jumped into the backroom. and obviously went to sleep with the fireplace, but out and everything. If anybody came looking, they''d hear it and they could look at it.
As Larry and the four dwarfs got to the mayors office, City Hall. they entered, and the mayor was actually talking to his assistant and saw them come in and waved them in. And Larry just said, come on, guys. And they went up.
When they entered the office, the door was stopped behind Larry side by side. And Larry didn''t stop. He went in. He went right over to the mouth, and he told his uncle, come here. And he just pointed to the whole area on top of the mountain. He said, I need to buy this right now. And it has to be put away. And the mayor said, no, you don''t And boy was like, yeah, I do. I have to do this right now. You don''t understand. I''m the mayor said, no, you don''t understand. And he said, stop
The mayor went over to his wall, and he had these little. cabinet. slash wine holder type area where you would roll up a piece of paper and put it in. He pulled one out and he handed it to Larry. And when Larry unrolled the thing, he knows 1st have the old school club and leather and wax stamps on that. This was only done very rarely. So he started to read it. And after he started to read it, his eyes just bulked right out of his eyes. And he looked over at the dwarves and he went **** Oh, let''s see if this flies right he....ded over the piece paper to the thre Oh, let''s see if this flies right here. Right now. So he handed over the piece paper to the 4 Dwarfs
They held it in front of them, and the four of them read it together. And it was like watching all rainbow of all emotions. 1 would get mad that one would get sad, then the other one would get sad, then the other one would get mad. It was, it''s like watching someone go through withdrawal in fast forward. In the end, they all were angry, but they weren''t angry. And they looked at it and they went well played, Sir. Well played. We can accept this. You will be informed. by our king of the consequences for this action. But I think it was the right thing to do. And we thank you for doing this properly. I understand what''s in this missive and I will pass it on to the king. Thank you, Larry. And with that, the 4 dwarfs left. Larry and the king holding the piece of paper And Larry just handed a piece of paper back to the mayor and said, I can''t believe you put an IOU in the kids name and gave them the entire mountain for the clan.
The mayor just smiled and said, hey, there''s no price on this. They just owe me. Hopefully, if it comes down to me losing my town versus this piece of paper, I''ll keep my town.
Larry smiled and just said you go have yourself a great day. I''m going to grab some stuff and head back up to the boys. 0 and I should let you know. And as he''s leaving, he just tells his uncle. We kind of guess the war packed. The three by three by three. compact says if there''s something severely that could harm the people the mountain, the horde or the town this is reason to allow an army to come down and eradicate that pest No people that live here are considered pests. Only things that are monsters can be considered that anything with intelligence cannot be killed
When the mayor hears Larry start repeating off legal **** he knows something''s up and he just kind of focuses on danger and he just looked at Larry and goes, what did they find? How bad is it?
Ohh, it''s not that bad. The whole mountain''s a giant bomb, and there''s something with legs more than four down there. So, yeah, we got to basically corton off the entire mountain range so that no light gets in the wrong spot. Because after they landed on fire, there''s a lot of glass down there. And by a lot of glass, I mean, if the wrong chunk of light gets in there, the. the easiest thing would be if this place was exploded. The worst if a new Manuel popped up and that''s on the light side of what could actually happen here. So yeah, we have a ticking time bomb here. We''re all just going to make this work, aren''t we? Uncle.
The bear just said nothing with his mouth, a open like a fish, Larry just left. And once the mayor came back to his senses, he popped his head out and said, I''m going to step out for the rest of the day. You might want to come downstairs for the conversation I have to have with your husband. And then do you want to start running in adventures guild here in town? And he looked at her dead serious in and said, like, for real? Do you want to do it?
For half a second, she thought he was being not serious. And then she realized he was being serious and she said, yeah, sure, but he was going to help you.
Oh, and he said that''s easy with the amount of people that are going to be showing up shortly. I don''t think we''re going to have a shortage of people that we can hire to help us out. So you are hereby giving permission to hire 10 people to help you out in the next couple of days. Whoever shows up on. Yeah, I''m going to go talk to the other owners of businesses in town here. Let them know we have a. we have a monster infestation inside the mountain. We don''t know if they''re sentient or not. And also. maybe a ton of glass. An actual ton. If not, maybe more.
She pulled behind him But from that point on, for the rest of the day, until she left, you could smell just a little bit of urine in the air when you''re around her. She would admit to a pee herself just a little bit, but it still happened in the mirror. and the mayor wasn''t going to say anything. He. already picked twice that morning. So this is definitely not a day to be drinking.
The mayor went around to people that he could trust from the old crew. His pirate crew, and he let them know what was going on When they went into war mode, they knew exactly what they meant. It wasn''t more than an hour or two before the whole town didn''t feel like a ghost town. But the hustle and bustle was that of. having reason, having purpose, having drive and having fear, giving you energy to move a little hard, a little bit faster, a little bit stronger, a little bit more accurate with your everything He missed this feeling and he realized he could feel everybody in town The mayor realized that the Magic coming off the mountain was growing and he realized Larry wasn''t lying to him If he looked around town, he started to notice the plants being just a little bit more greener. And the. clouds being a little bit more fluffy and the wind being just a little bit stronger. Whoa. He realized his town was changing already. What would tomorrow bring? And without he walked into town. to talk to everybody.
Larry and the 3 dwarf men walked to the inn and got food and a helping for the boys for take out.
At the same time as Larry is at the bar and in getting food. He talked with everybody there and explained until one year is up. The boys are human. and they''re just kids. I know the age of fourteen.
One of the people that worked there didn''t know Wiley were doing that and honestly asked Larry why they were pretending the kids were human.
And it was one of the rules in the three by 3 by 3 compact said that if someone from another race came into the territory of another race and claimed land, they. had to give the right to the landowners the king of that to buy it from them. But if you. were human and after a year no one thought that judgment. then the king didn''t have to be paid because it was a town that would belong to him. and also the dwarves because whoever won the financial battle would be in control of the town. But because they didn''t fight it being owned by humans, which it was Larry until the year was up, which then it would go to the kids if they called them the Kings and they did all the stuff that they everybody wanted you for the next year they would. not be able to make sure that the horde was kept for the kids and the king could literally come and buy it out from under them by law. So until that time was up the kids had to stay hidden because to see a dwarf that wasn''t shaving in a human town was **** obvious. Really just very, very obvious.
So the young kid working at the end said, oh, so if I see a dwarf that shave and don''t stand anything and adrenal like a human person and just wink, wink, nudge, nudge, I understand because it''s probably the kids and. when he said probably the kids, the three. dwarfs and Larry all wicked each other and he said you you''re exactly right. Exactly right here. And they threw him a silver coin. They said go. You did good. Have a go. Just be good. And they told the kid to take off and they didn''t want to talk to him anymore. But they had to talk to each other.
The three dwarves looked over at Larry and said, Do you know that some of the clanists have been given permission to come here And Larry knew of the clanless, and he knew something about that was tugging at the back of his mind that he knew. And he looked up and he said, do they shave? And all 3 of them said, well, a matter of fact, some of them out of. screwing up so badly. or honestly, some of them burnt their face so bad they couldn''t have a beard. So due to reason, some dwarfs dust don''t have beards, and they''re shunned because of it If anything, those words might be showing up very shortly.
Larry raised his beer muggy, said to dwarfs and facial acne. And all of them were disgusted, but then realized what he was getting at. And he they just raised their mug. Yes, yes. Dwarven acne, you''d say, I like that. And they all laughed in a conspiracy method for the simple fact that they knew. for the kids, after a while, should be able to come into town. with all the shaved dwarves that we''re going to be showing up shortly.
They took the Food, and they headed back to see the boys. And when they got back, the boys were hiding in the back, and they gave them into the all clear. And when they came out, they gave the boys the the food. They were so hungry. They''ve been eating ration food to have something that they were about to eat it colder. But Larry said, hey, hold on, hold on. And there was so much magic in the room. He just put his hand over the three bowls, and he just started moving his hand around them. And the error around them started to warm up. And the edges of the Bulls kind of got a little crispy in that he stopped. And he just took a spoon and mixed all the bowls, and they were now slightly warm. They weren''t cold anymore. They weren''t boiling, but they weren''t, they weren''t tap warm either. They were a little bit warmer than that.
The dwarves all looked at Larry and said, ok, we knew you could do some magic, but are you a Grand Magus?
He said no I failed out of the Magic Academy because my magic was 2 chaotic. I don''t. know what it is, but this mountain is so magical. I think because of the glass that it doesn''t take much like there''s so much magic here. It''s it''s not hard to do anything. like and he just put his hands across some one of the walls and it just softened and smoothed out. It''s like I''m not even trying hard.
The dwarfs literally all went to the rock themselves. And they''re like, we know how to morph rock, and we can''t do it. So why the hell can you do it?
Larry and the older dwarfs had no clue why
It was not until 2 said ¡° When I look at you Larry, you have. a glow around you. When I look at the three older dwarfs here, I don''t see any glow around them. Does that make a difference? And what does that glow mean?
Two knew it was magic, but he didn''t know why Larry had it. And the others didn''t. And then it hit them all at the same time that the dwarfs had used up all the last magic to keep their horses, which were tuned to them, going to get here and drain their reserves. They were just had no reserves for mana
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Larry worked with the six dwarfs from that point on to make a game plan on what they wanted to do. And the dwarfs that have come advised that the first thing they should do is get everybody looking for those cave entrances and seal them up. After that, they can open up the main. mining shop that with buried. and that by that point more people would be coming and they would be more telling people what to do than doing it themselves. And Larry disagreed and said K for now, everybody is at a long day. We''re all just going to hang out here and then tomorrow we''re going to go down in the caves and we''re going to go cave hunting. And two, can you please show us around using your magic site and we''ll see if we can find anything else special
All three boys were just super happy that they''re going to go do this and they weren''t afraid of the dwarves anymore and they were having a great time and they had someone to look up to like Larry and. everything was going so good. So. they just spent the next couple days not making their home in a family place, but making it a place where they enjoyed everybody''s company and they went down into the mine and they started literally mapping it out. And the moment the three older dwarfs were shown to the glass, they dropped to their knees and started praying his they understood how dangerous what they were a little these standing on was when they saw when they saw the glowing crystal their jaws dropped. They didn''t just have glowing crystal that. was 100 percent pure liquidized manacrystallized So that was a little crystals in there where the outside was solid, but the inside was liquid, which means that when you activated them, they basically were battery that were unstable. on their good days. that they made it balance out and they hadn''t blown themselves up was a miracle and it was impressive to boot.
Larry advised the three older dwarfs that the three younger ones were going to take them to where they saw the left. legs and the older ones that don''t even worry about it. We understand they''re there. We''re not ready for them, so let''s not start a fight or give them something. So Larry then told them about the liquid room and when he described it, they had heard it before, but they didn''t understand when they realized that they were in a glass orb of man a glass surrounded by a liquid that went black when it had no manner and clear when it was filled up with some manner. They realized that they had found their way into a geode with a manner, glass bubble on the inside of it. It was literally a focusing lens. One. candle in that room. If it was just left to go, might have enough energy to destroy the entire mountain So they realized that they. needed to figure out how to how to be down here without light.
When they had all gotten back, one of the older dwarfs said that he was going to go stay in town. So if any of the other people from the clan showed up, they''d have someone to direct them and tell them what was going on. So he. wish them all a good night. He said that he would swap out with someone else tomorrow and all three of the older dwarfs agreed to that. And over the next three days, there would always be someone in town to. direct man. ners of the Klan to start hunting for their own cave entrances. Supposedly there was 100 of them. They had to find if not more.
Over the next week or so, anybody that came into town was told to leave the boys alone and were told about the shaving of the beards and about all the rules. And we''re told to keep their **** mouth shuts.
One or two randoms from. randoms from the dwarfing kingdom had made it there A small group from the Great Church had shown up, but had found that they had a new church to work on and started to work on immediately The randoms that showed up actually got hired by the church instantly to help them do the repairs as they needed laborers And because there was always dwarfs working on buildings whenever someone showed up from out of town, they would look up and yell and the dwarfs would always point them to the end where the ringleader was for the group, who would then let them know where to go. And every single one of these dwarfs after meeting with their representative town, we''re told to go say hello to the mayor, show their have magicrespects and open up the bank account. They were told to start. There was only one person that showed up without any money. and the ability to start up the account. So they were given a promissory note to. the older dwarf that was in the in and they returned that dwarf gave him the younger dwarf that didn''t have anything a gold coin and said give this to the mayor after that come back to see me and I''ll get you work so you have a place to sleep and live for going forward and this this kid even know more than 16 or 17 he had been in the mines for six years and that was hard. He had no more family. It was just him. So when this opportunity was given to him he just started and he Kinda hopped a train, if you would, except this was a carriage that was being driven by. ten horses and had skis overgrass instead of wheels. It was a ride he would never ever want to do again, but he had one hull of a blast riding it.
That story alone. got that young dwarf a new job with the dwarf in the inn, so That night. when the **** change happened, the older dwarf took the brand new apprentice store that he had basically accepted up to the boys. cabin because there was enough room up there.
Larry being bored while they were all gone had actually started practicing on his geomancy and actually it started pushing into another cave off to the side where the boys had actually dug out, not knowing there was a cave there. And they were able to make another couple of rooms. And over the next couple of days, larry had popped through a couple more side rooms and made this into a small, little, actually cozy little multiple. room department for, well, almost a half dozen to a dozen people
When they showed back up at the house and. everybody was inside He. just said, hey, everybody, I got another one for the house and he just brought in the kid and he put his hand on the kids head and he made him bow to everybody. And the three young boys came up to him and. this older boy looked at them and realized that he was looking at the three kings and he dropped to his knees and put his head to the floor so fast that he actually all broke the skin and started to bleed a bit. He was grateful to have a place to call his new home.
Three was about to say something, but before he could, One stepped forward and approached the boy. Instead of lifting him up, One simply placed a hand on his forehead.
A small amount of energy flowed from One¡¯s hand into the boy. When he pulled away, both of them¡ªOne, on his hand, and the boy, on his forehead¡ªhad a little bit of blood. The wound was still there, but instead of fresh and bleeding, it had turned pink and sealed itself. It wasn¡¯t a perfect heal, but it had closed.
Everyone stared at One as he looked down at his hand, then at the boy, then back at his hand. Finally, he muttered, "It just felt like the right thing to do."
Larry started laughing. "If you just did that, you probably have magic of the mind like I do. But yours is likely mind and soul¡ªmeaning you can heal. Very impressive, young king. Very impressive."
With that, Larry pulled out some candy and chocolate. The boys had tasted chocolate before, but the kind they had bought wasn¡¯t very good. This, however, was different. The moment they tried it, they were hooked, devouring every bite of the chocolate bars he handed them.
Nearby, an older dwarf¡ªstill young but older than the three¡ªwatched in silence. These are my kings, he thought. They¡¯re so young. A deep sense of responsibility settled over him. He realized that, as their older brother, he had to protect them. A nurturing instinct awakened within him.
He turned to the older dwarf beside him and said, "I understand now. I know what I have to do."
But the older dwarf didn¡¯t need words to understand¡ªhe already knew. Their purpose was clear: to keep the young kings safe, to teach them what it meant to be dwarves, and to guide them through the dangers ahead. Not all dwarves were good, and there were enemies out there who would see them dead before the war ended in a year. That was something they couldn¡¯t allow.
For the next week. The Boys would take. different members of the dwarven expeditionary party down into the tunnels when they would map it out. They found things that they said they wouldn''t talk about because the door said that they were too special to be told just yet, but they marked them all down in a piece of paper and said that only the Kings and they knew the paths they went to and they were marking them out on a 3 dimensional map like the Great Kings had to do for their great hordes. And because there were so many micro caves everywhere. the only way they were able to navigate some of these places at this point was because you could see the magic flowing from cave to cave. The cave come from below and they haven''t even made it down past the cave where they. saw the creatures with the legs, and that''s where the the magic led to. So they had to at one point go through there to get lower. So they''re all like OK, what do we want to do and what are we going to do and how is this going to be? And it wasn''t until couple days later with, say, five days later, they''re all in their little hut and The person the dwarf that was taken care of the town for the day came to the house and he didn''t let them in. But what he did is he said this is our base camp. You''re not allowed to go in the house unless it''s emergency and knock before you come in and please be respectful of the owners of this house and everybody, all the doors that had shown up and were brought to the cave knew exactly what they meant. They were told their first job was the massively spread out over the top of this mountain range and find all the case. It was number 1 most important thing. What they were then to do is record where they are and then start closing them up and or putting it so that no light can get down. And the moment these people were told the light part, they realized that this is safety reasons. But air has to flow through some of them. So they all realize that this was something to do with the clan of glass because they only saw stuff like that around the royal palace that used the magic of the clan of the glass.
You have to understand the moment the party started in a dwarven capital. Knowledge was shared, and everybody understood what they were going to be doing. They were thinking they''re going to go and find a small day. But the moment they''re told that they had to plug up the whole mountain range, they realized that this could be Mount Doom again. I''m this scared to shut out of everybody that their new home could be Mount Doom and it could blow so very quietly. And they said nothing to no one. They were permitted not to speak to this, to anyone ever. This was a national secret, and they all started to go out. No, one in the cabin thought there was more than one or two or three people But there was over 40 people that had shown up. They were all sent to start claiming the mountain and hunting and making small camps.
Literally a day later, there was a knock on the cabin door and all the kids were downstairs, but there was the two elder dwarfs inside, and Larry was down with the kids. Well, it was some of the hunters. They had killed two bores, and they only needed one because it would have gone bad if they kept it. So they brought the other one for the Kings.
The Knights knew out of respect for people doing this. What to do and they had brought in paper. They basically in a book started recording all the gifts people were bringing to these kids. And this is something they definitely could use things that they couldn''t use. They would probably turn them away for now, but food and a full bore. Now the two dwarfs saw what was going down. and they were starting to get their magic back, but it was still super light in them, even going down and being around the glass. Something was just they were saff. It was more abnormal than anybody was like. Maybe it was the area they''re in because Larry had been here longer, but all the doors that came here, they they all complained that they were very drained here and they made. no sense. But the Kings and Larry had magic. So did they have to attune to the mountain? And the moment one of the older dwarfs in charge real. ized that. maybe having the clan up harmonics come was exactly what was needed. But what if they tuned it wrong so that. was now a thing to be brought up to them when they got here. But they wouldn''t be there for another two months. The first that were coming were the Guardians and they hadn''t even shown up yet.
The people that had shown up were. very hairless humans, but were very short. Yes, that''s what they were that. around 40 doors were willing to shave off all their body hair and these people almost like monks had done it and they looked like monks too. All the same robes and everything. And they showed up when they had shown up in town in a group. They were asked. to go see the dwarf in the past. in the tavern. And they said, but we''re not dwarfs. We''re just short humans. We''re dwarfed. We''re dwarf people. We''re short. humans, And every single one of the people working, looking at them was flabbergasted and just. they were incredulous. They were trying not to laugh at how bad that they were playing this up. But they were playing it up right. So they said then you have to go see the mayor. And they all went and saw the mayor and they screwed up because each one of them handed a gold coin to the mayor and said, hey, mayor, we''d like to move to this town. And with 40 gold coins, they were each open to bank account. I were like absolutely human short people. You can live anywhere you want. Do you need help finding where to live and blah, blah, blah, blah. And he just said, blah, blah, blah, blah to them. And they went, thanks, Sir. Goodbye. And they all walked out. And they knew that the mayor was in on it. The mayor knew they were in on it and they were expecting some short humans to show up shortly to help up with labor. After that, they all went directly to the in and they basically put a piece of paper down with the dwarf on duty. He just picked them all up. They all went to eat and get food and drink And because they were not dwarfs, they drank fruit juice and water. The bartender looked at all of them and just said absolutely fruit juice and water beer mugs came out with a farathi head on the top of them all. And they just nodded to him and said thank you There was no one there to see this. So it was just them and he was making good coin after that. The dwarf. The one in charge had sorted through all the papers and started rattling off jobs and numbers on the pieces of paper. They didn''t have names. They just had numbers. Five digits. It was really weird that it was. And actually, I know, no, they weren''t allowed to do because they had learnt from other wars that people were tagged with numbers and treated like property. So that was not an O. K. Thing. So he was a. was about to start reading out names. He looked at. He said all I hope is none of you have these numbers tattooed on you, do you? None of them raise their hand but one of them did get up and go directly to the old door. And on his knuckles he showed them to him. But what the dwarf saw when he looked at the knuckles with a mathematical code 3.1415
He just gave that to work a quick nod, knowing that it wasn''t against. the rules to have math as is number, and he understood why he picked that number too. Now, so he approved it and he said OK and he literally just started reading out numbers and said you''re going to be helping with the great churches buildings and he read out 12 names. He then split up another 12 and then in another 12. by the time he was done, there was six crews out there, a dwarf craftsman and workers that are just going to plug away fixing this town up. They were all told at the end of their shift that would be brought back here and food would be provided for their wages for the day. And then after that, they''d all be led back out of town to one of the camps that they were setting up. But for the rest of today, they were all going to go back to the camp and make sure that they had a place to sleep and that everything was set up and spend the day getting set up there And there was a town store here that they can all use and grab supplies to go back up It all made sense. So tomorrow they''d start their job today. They get cleaned up and set up. So after all this, everybody said they had one hour to get their supplies and meet back in town center. And once they were all done, they all. walked up to the kids little. hole in the world who had now gotten quite big because every once in a while, Larry would come back and then try his luck at pushing through a wall. And he was finding little sub rooms because secretly between him and 2 2 is telling him where the thin spots were. So it made him look real good and had a lot of fun doing it.
The people all were showed where the main. entrance to the mine would be and they were told that there was another crew that were going to be up on the mountain doing work. And if they wanted to do mountain work, let them know and they could take 1 or two days every week or 2 just to go do mountainwork. They needed the whole place. recorded properly and they would prefer to have two man to three man cruise go out for safety. There was. six people instantly put up their hand and they said okay perfect. I got three different two man groups and I''ll pair you off with a person that''s already going up there. How much do you want to do?
Two hands went up with the two fingers and. then four hands went up with three fingers. He recorded it and asked for their numbers and he found the sheet. She recorded it down. He said OK and now he led them off to the left of the camp to wear. their starting their own logging and basically the dwarven cab site. They were going to find one of the cave entrances and then we''ll start building a stronghold. But the first thing they got told was they are not allowed to go in the mountain without talking to someone because of things they found in there. They don''t want anybody dying or causing a mount doom.
That warning about Mount Doom rattled everybody because one of the stories that went around was about the clan of glass. And how. 10,000 years ago, there was another impaired chunk of the continent that got blown away when one of the mountains got supercharged and basically turned into a giant bomb.
Everybody that heard this knew that this was a possibility. So it wasn''t a shock, but to see them so scared of it and so make your rules are ready. Dwarfs realize that were rules were made to stop people from doing stupid things. And that means that this was a very precious mountain, and they really had to do it. So after hearing that, almost all of them put up their hands and had the two fingers go up. So he just went to all the papers and wrote two beside all of them and said, thank you very much. Just look at it done a lot quicker What I''ll actually do then is I won''t start you for 5 days, and you guys are all gonna live out here living off the land, going back in the town. But I want you on that mountain, finding every cave. I want you closing them up from light. And if they''ve got an air flow, leave it going. But make it to the low, no liking go in. Make it so we can keep things from coming out too. There are monsters. down below when we know them, we have not seen them up above. No one has. So we haven''t broken into their territory yet, and we''re not going to. So the idea is just be careful what you find and just let us know anything you might find. You never know what little thing could be super important.
One of them is a **** **** and said, Hey, I write stories for a living. And this is called foreshadowing. What kind of crap did you guys already find down there? I don''t want to play this game.
He got cheering and a couple of paths on the back from people, but the. dwarf, who''s in charge, looked at them all and just said no, he''s absolutely right. We don''t want to play this game, so do not start screwing around and he didn''t give out any more information, but he was just dead serious. The laughter all kind of stopped at that and they realized this was a touchy subject that they might actually have. One of them looked at the old man and said Sir will the army be here soon then? The old dwarf just smiled a toothy grin and said, son welcome to the army.
The look on all of their faces was. Pierce up joy to get their records expunged. A new hope and often. a job with the dwarven military a government job Hell yes. All the ones that will be here to defend the horde will. earn the right to be called soldier. that nowadays. was respected throughout any of the areas on this continent. and respected by each of the races. It was a goal ball dwarfs to get a job that paid you to drink. God loved the dwarven government.
It was decided to leave the main. entrance to the mine, right beside their house, closed for now, until they were ready to open it properly. But that did not stop to and Larry from having fun with their little house in the. mountain. But it wasn''t until Larry started pushing his way closer to the outer edge where there would be outside air, not raw. Did he come across something that Was a game changer for? the doors that didn''t have magic?
What had happened was Larry had asked to where the thin wall was in one of the side rooms that he had popped into. And he said, no, nothing along the sides of the waltz, but up and then to the left. And there''s some weird magic coming from there. So, Larry worked his way up, and he made a little crappy, fair case, and he got up, and it was glass, but not maniglass. Just normal sand glass. And he realized that he was working a little bit above. where the kids had their cabin built into the wall. He was about 10 feet above theirs, into the right And he''s basically doing a lap around the top of there. And as he got closer to. where the entrance to the cave was he found a room no bigger than 5 by 5 But it had an entire burn mark going through it from one hole out to another 1. And the moment Larry popped into it, he noticed that there was fresh air coming into it. So he broke the glass and rock. And what he broke, there was no magic in it. But it was, it was magic was coming through. It was porous. And she said stop. Don''t break anymore. because the light from their candle was in the room activating maniglass right above their house. It wouldn''t take much for a beam of light to come in. Saturate that pocket and then let it just saturate their little cave. Larry hearing this thought. Hold on a second and he put his hand near where the outside wall should be And he closed his eyes and he just thought about it. And he couldn''t move the glass, but he didn''t want it. It disturbed it. It broke it. It made it non functional. If you screwed around with the glass. If you broke in, it seemed to work. But not if you use magic to break it. So he put his finger and he started to push and he just kind of found some stone and pushed through and he made one solid little light. It was only about half a foot thick between the outside world and this little cave. The moment you did that, a small beam of light entered and he wanted to do this. But he also took something and he plugged the whole really quick. That one little bit of light that came in lit up the whole room and now the rock behind and on the other side of this cave was now slow glowing for a couple moments. Larry. just sat down in this room and said hold on a second. I want to try something.
He then started feeling around the room for all the stone and he started to tell it to come to him and it started freaking liquify and he was able to pull out all the stone out of the room and leave nothing but man a glass. He. laughed his **** off. He wrapped himself around the bottom and he made a bull and he made it so that when you got into the room, you sat in this bowl and above you was managast. He then shoved more stone back in that little hole, but he made it so that it was a plug. You could literally pull out, but it had a little lock, so it wouldn''t fall out if even there was ground shaky. You had to physically lift it up and twist just like a little lock. Larry, I''d be getting really good at playing with the stone and doing small things. So after setting this up and sitting there and testing this, you realize this was a chamber just to infuse someone with man a real quick. So he called 1 of the the older dwarf guys and he said, come here and try this and explain what he had done on the dwarf was a little bit worried, but shocked. But he''s like, I''ll give it a try. So he didn''t open up the whole to the outside world and let light in what he did is he just sat there trying to. feel everything in the room. and he said he felt it. He could feel a lot better in this room than any other room, but he still couldn''t move it. So Larry said OK, pull up the pen. I just stand in that room for a one minute, not even a minute. After about 30 seconds, 1 that hole.
After seven seconds by 8 the plug was already being shrugged back in. The room was glowing. The dwarf feeling this he felt hot. He started stripping down to his underwear right there. And you could see some of the tattoos on his body had gone from being dark under the skin to being glowing as he looked down with them. He said they haven''t done that since the day I had them installed. Wow. And he just, he was on literal. fire, but not literal fire. His skin was crawling with energy and his body. It was like looking at the veins in your skin. He. just sat there and Larry had his head stuck in this thing and he was watching it. Guys, how is it? Are you OK? How are you feeling? And Larry''s getting a dose of this too. Larry''s just on cloud 9 because his power for the mind was understanding what this guy was thinking. So he was not listening to his thoughts, but his emotions were there and he was happy. He was sore and uncomfortable. But as he sat there practicing, you could see him breathing in and then breathing out. Larry, you could watch and the room around him. It was almost like the room started to suck in and out and in and out and in and smash all the crystal in the room. Crack. this now gave them a piece of information. They both of them wished they hadn''t gotten because when that glass cracked, it didn''t explode. It was broken by magical means, which means that it was fine. But all the energy that was hidden behind that glass on the rock that was attached to now how to weigh out and that room filled with a baby blue greenish mist that was almost toxic to them. It was so potent. But Larry had been sucking it in for a while, so he just it was he was like smoking a bowl and doing a line of coke and then having the best sex of your life. He was just rocking. roll on the dwarf, on the other hand, look like you was on fire and having a fever. And the both of them knew instantly when this happened to get the hell out and they got the hell out as they were removing themselves. The mist was leaving the cave and was being pulled out with the air Larry grabbed the dwarf and they left the gear in that room. He just got the dwarf out and went 2CAVES over and back into there and they closed their little entrance with magic. It wasn''t hard. It was super easy. Just like liquid putty just over the whole and it was gone. Larry looked at the dwarf who basically. was having a **** **** trouble breathing just. laid there on the ground in a lot of pain and they just said catch your breath. Don''t pat it. I Larry just went over to him and the two of them had a moment of pure calm. Larry calmed him down. And by doing that the the the dwarf calm down enough that it was a re occurring self replicating. feeling of calm between the two of them.
They didn''t know how long they sat there, but a couple minutes later, the other dwarf that was there watching all this said, what the hell was that? And why do I feel nauseous right now? What did you choose idiots do?
Larry informed him and the only sane dwarf in that room went outside to look, and he literally above the cave coming out of the stones where they had pulled the the trigger was a small bit of magical fog coming out all over the stones. Now you would think it would just blow down the mountain like normal. But no, something in the pile of rocks just sucked it up like a vacuum and you could see it and all just get sucked in. The dwarf just looked at when crap and he knew he''d have to go figure it out, but there''s still miss coming out. So you just let it be sucked up. If he had to get a bomb out of there or it exploded, maybe we clear up the kit for them. But he went in and told them what was happening and then went back out to watch the mist. By the time the mist was done, Larry and the other dwarf had come out and were. watching as the last of the mist got sucked in. They always. went over to the pile of rocks and dug where they saw it. The mist disappearing and what they found. was a piece of normal rock that was just glowing. So Larry took it, went into the the house, into the backroom, into the K system And then he went down one of the side tunnels of a cave 3 where there was absolutely nothing but rock and they had checked it with magic and he just put that rock in there. He then took a little bit of magic and he put up pieces of rock that were very thin like little wires. It would stop most things. But if anything was going to break through it, they were going to know. So if that rock started doing stuff, they would know. they didn''t know what that magic was going to do to that rock. The worst that could happen is that it would explode.
When Larry came back in, he asked the dwarf that had gotten sick, how he was feeling and his work just said, stop yelling, please. Just stop yelling.
Everybody stopped talking and just started smiling at them and he asked why you smiling at me and. Larry put his hand over his mouth and as quietly as he could, he said. I wonder if you had good hearing when you were a child. The Dorset, of course I had good hearing, and he said it so quietly he thought he was yelling The dwarfs magic hearing was coming back. He just got zapped and he he wasn''t good for the next two days. They had him in the bed and he would go out puke, come back in, eat some food, pass out, wake up, put his head in a cold water to cold down. He just basically got way too much manner, way too quickly. And Larry, he wasn''t wasting this. He went into town for the next few days. I was basically reading everybody and understanding what was going on and he was basically committing chaos But all in the name of the three kings and then. he got some more supplies and went back to hang out with them during
By this time, messages and made it back to the dwarven king. And with the knowledge of an enemy in the under. neath, the underground. this was not celebration. This was a dialect coloration of war. The old school. but not against the three races This was to protect the mountain range. And with that. the three by 3 by 3. Compact wasn''t broken, but it was amended with a true declaration of war. And this was sent off to the other races. With that being done, the Guardians, 100. of them and 100 of the army were told to move out immediately. They would continue on with the 3 by 3 by 3 compact. But for right now to fulfill, they were sending the maximum. They''re allowed. 100 auxiliary, which the Guardians were and 100 of the army.
To see the parade of people leaving to hear the banging of the weapons of the Spears on the ground as they. as they left in Lockstep drove the city to absolute theory and viver the. people were working 14 hour days not because they wanted to help out, but because they had so much energy and they needed to burden, they wanted to do things with their talents and they felt energized And honestly, with so many people leaving, it felt lonely at times. The streets weren''t as packed, but there was still thousands and hundreds of thousands of people in these towns under this mountain. So to have a couple hundred here and there go just kind of gave hope to the rest of them when it was time to go.
When the human and. elf representatives, kings and Queens received the Declaration of True War. What happened was that of pure and other happiness, because there was no other reason for them to play shadow games Both of the. races sent the normal about the people they would send 20 and 20. So 40 people from the dwarfs usually the elves and the humans. They didn''t know that the dwarfs maxed out and did 100 and 100 so they didn''t know that they were sending 40 to take on 200 more. or less. Yes, this was a human land, but the **** showed that they were about to walk into was gonna be marvelous.
Because they were all sending their armies. This opened up all three. adventures to come and the adventures guilds were all informed by each of the Kings. This made an open call to arms to go dumpster diving in the bottom of a mountain and get loots to do it But the rules were always the same. Everything had to be sold back to the horror that it came from, and they would. pay you for it. And they had appraisers there that were a 3rd party to make sure that everybody got a fair deal on what they were bringing out.
They were all informed that man a glass would not be permitted to be removed from the mountain at this time. due to the volatility of it and they didn''t want the town or her another World War to happen. So everybody that agreed to that was allowed to go and be part of the well. the giant army of different races that were coming. And do you think the adventures from the other races other than the top three, the Big Three, the ones that you don''t hear much wouldn''t be sending people the? minotaurus. Oh, they were sending at least five of their youngins to prove themselves. And in return, they wanted one piece of man. The glass to be sold to them so they could return the magic they had lost so many years ago. They asked these five miniatures to bring back magic to them.
The lizardmen. had an age secret that had run out of power to get even one piece of man a glass would allow them not just to play more islands, but to increase the population by a hundredfold.
The elf king, He sent a very direct message to one of his oldest friends, Adam. Magical Academy and let him know that he had a line on some magic glass and that he recommended that this acquaintance of his 5. or 10 or 20 of their best artificers, aka people that made magical items using maniclass and other items to pork town as soon as they could with at least 100 gold on them each. And this was to repay the favor of him introducing him to his wife. This was a long time debt that was hereby being paid.
The professor who read this message took it directly to the head of the academy, who read it and said no, I will not just send 510 or 20 Let''s go. Let''s have a competition and let the best of the best go and represent us there. I know the elf cake will want a castle there and a magic academy. Let''s go make that happen. He''s been dreaming of that for years. I could see the gears in his head turning. I will. take 50 of the brightest students we have. And 10 of them. The top 10 will be given the right to start their own divisions at the new school once it''s built as teachers. They will have to finish all the schooling here, but they have a job offer if they make it to the top 10 in this competition.
The professor was just shocked and so happy that he ran out and. the professor just started shouting to everybody. He''s just he lost his mind The chairman of the school just looked at the window laughing and said if we can just turn on the machine in the basement and maybe just maybe we can finally get into the old library again.
End of chapter 1