chapter 71
As soon as we got off the airplane, something felt off. I was still getting the same amount of stares—that hadn’t changed—yet everyone, especially the dwarves, seemed agitated for some reason.
As we made our way towards the space elevator, the dwarves seemed to get even more agitated, as I saw them in groups arguing, sometimes pretty loudly.
“What’s going on?” I finally asked Thoron.
“Do me a favour and ask me after we get to the shipyard. Until then, just do your best to ignore this,” Thoron said that so seriously, getting his point across extremely well. I didn’t ask any more questions, but I was getting worried.
The elevator ride went very fast, but the arguing of the dwarves didn’t seem to stop. As they were now closer to me, I could hear them better. The things they were arguing about didn’t make much sense. It seemed that the main topic was either to go to war or not, against whom wasn’t said.
Finally, we reached the shipyard, but as soon as we got off, Thoron started to drag me off to the side, towards the town of this place.
It was a lot bigger than the third cave, with thousands upon thousands of people living here. As we were finally away from the area close to the space elevator, Thoron finally started to explain.
“I will not be the one to brief you, but we will soon meet them. I can, however, say that all of this is because of the management solution you helped us uncover. Oh, they’re already here,” Thoron said, as he seemed to have recognized someone.
I looked where he was looking and saw four dwarves who seemed to be wearing quite modern clothing. My eyes quickly picked up that the material was incredibly tough. A quick look with my mana sense made it clear that these individuals were strong, and way out of my league.
“Just know that this isn’t anything bad. In fact, it’s the opposite. While it’s unfortunate what your solution made us discover, we are still incredibly thankful. Although not all dwarves will be, that’s why this bit of secrecy is necessary.”
“Anyway, I will meet you back in the third cave, and thank you once again,” Thoron said, extending his hand toward me, and we did our customary handshake, where we both grabbed each other’s wrists.
“Berth Master Thoron, we thank you for your service,” one of the tallest dwarves I’ve ever seen said. Up close, their uniform looked even more impressive. Then he turned toward me and continued, “Remi Graves, please follow us.”
Immediately, the other three basically surrounded me, allowing me no way of escaping, but even if they were a hundred metres away, I didn’t think I had a chance of getting away.
I was going to trust Thoron for now and believe that they would not cause me any harm, but if necessary, I would do my best to at least take a few of them out with me if it came to that.
We walked quite quickly, and every time I tried to ask anything, they just asked me not to speak. It didn’t take long until we were off the streets, walking inside closed hallways. Soon, we reached a door that was made out of solid wood instead of the metal all the other doors were made of.
As the door was opened, the scenery changed from sparse metallic décor to rich, warm, and inviting decorations. There were multiple hallways leading off this room, each lit by living flames. There were carpets on the floors, and so many objects were made out of wood.
This place was definitely for the rich, and just a moment after we stepped in and the wooden doors closed behind us, I saw a fancy-dressed dwarf quickly walking in from one of the hallways. He gave off the air of someone who was in charge of keeping this place spotless.
“It’s a true pleasure to meet you, Remi Graves. Come, you are expected.”
We immediately started walking. This time, I wasn’t surrounded. Instead, all four of the people who escorted me here were walking behind us.
“I would’ve wished we had more time, but I will have to satisfy myself with you at least knowing the proper way to greet a Lord of a dwarven clan.”
The way he said ‘Lord’ seemed to have a double meaning. It seemed I was about to meet dwarf nobility, but also someone strong enough to be given the other Lord title.
“As you are being honoured, you are to walk to the distance of three steps from the Lord and then bow your head. The Lord will do the same. After that, you are to move to him for a handshake.”
“Both of you will grasp each other’s forearms, and you will wait until the Lord lets go. After that, things will go into a more free-form exchange.”
He then looked at me for a moment, and it seemed like he wasn’t too happy about how I was dressed, but he got over it quite fast.
“Do you understand what you must do?”
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Yes, but I do have a question about the handshake. Thoron and I sort of made our own handshake between our two species. Humans usually shake each other’s hands, while you dwarves use the forearms. So we kind of met in the middle and held each other’s wrists.”
“It is truly strange that even in the old stories, there are some mentions of your handshakes, and it's an interesting idea, to meet in the middle. I will give you a head nod after you bow, if you are to do the handshake you spoke of.”
After that, it didn’t take long for us to reach another set of double doors. The person I was talking to opened them, and inside there were three people waiting. Two of them were standing to either side and a little behind a truly ancient dwarf. I could easily sense the power he had. All of his hair was pure white, and his face was more wrinkles than anything else.
The person leading us quickly walked up to the old dwarf and whispered in his ear. Surprisingly, even though I was so close, I couldn’t hear anything.
A moment later, it was my time to walk closer, and when I was three steps away, I gave a head bow. Now, if I had to get on my knees or something, we would have had problems, but a head bow, I had no problem with.
As I finished the head bow, I saw the head nod that indicated I should do my version of the handshake. The Lord then bowed back to me. I stepped closer after that and grasped his wrist, and he did the same to me. His grip was strong, and I had a feeling he could crush my wrist if he wanted to.
Both of us ended up looking into each other’s eyes. He looked ancient, and one of them was artificial. Then I’m pretty sure he smiled, although with all those wrinkles, it was hard to tell.
“My name is Lord Gundur VIII of the clan Gundur. It is good to see that the old stories didn’t lie. Now please, sit,” he said while letting go of our handshake and then pointing toward the chair.
There were two chairs placed facing each other, quite close to a fireplace. As I sat down on the seat, the heat of the fire felt quite nice. It took the old dwarf a moment longer than necessary to get onto his chair. I guess even though he was strong, his old age was still affecting him.
The two people who were behind him once again moved to stay behind him. I wondered if they were bodyguards or aides of some sort. Two of the escorts who brought me here left and closed the door, while the other two stayed to guard it.
The room itself was more like an office, but I think one of the doorways led to a bedroom. This place just gave me the feeling of a lived-in office.
“It wasn’t too long ago since that management solution report of yours ended up on my table there,” the old dwarf said while pointing toward one of the most magnificent tables I’ve ever seen.
“I was skeptical at first. The solution seemed so obvious, so easy. Someone with less experience might have dismissed it,” he said, while his eyes briefly glanced at the person standing behind and to his left.
“It was only a few days later that my analysts came back saying that this indeed could be the solution we were looking for to fix our failing society. How much do you know about dwarven society?” he asked me all of a sudden.
“Honestly, not too much, only what I’ve observed these past months and what I know from the stories of dwarves from our past.” He didn’t answer anything back to that, just waited. So I started to explain a bit more.
“What I have seen is that dwarven society is quite united.”
“You see, that’s something that isn’t entirely true,” he interrupted me just as I was getting started.
“It is true that dwarves are more united than other similar species. But there is a limit. When we grow distant enough, the unity fractures. Back before our homeworld was destroyed—and even going back thousands of years before that—there was the Great Fracturing.”
“We could trace our origins back to one mountain hall, yet over time we expanded, creating many more mountain halls in distant lands. The communication lines back then required a lot of effort, and over time, we grew apart. Then came the Great Fracturing, where every mountain hall declared their independence from the original one. That’s when dwarven nations were born.”
“You might be wondering why I’m sharing this piece of our history. Well, that space monster—” he spit into the fireplace and then continued like nothing had happened, “—that destroyed our beautiful homeworld united the dwarves like we were back before the fracturing.”
“We now had a united goal, not just surviving, but hunting and destroying that fiend. Yet that was a while ago now, since we finally accomplished that holy mission. We had changed because of it, but once again the different clans found new homes. New problems arose, yet we tackled them all together.”
“That was until that piece of paper you wrote landed on my table. When the excitement died down—that we had finally found the solution—you know what my first question was?”
I shook my head, so he continued.
‘Why hadn’t we figured this out before? You see, in dwarven society, we distribute problems to be solved by the ones who are most capable. So there are three clans out there who were given the problem that you solved with that piece of paper.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but I do not fully understand why this is seemingly so important. You’re talking like having bad managers would have led to the downfall of your civilization. But I don’t see how that’s possible?”
“Hmm. You humans also had stories of us dwarves, correct? Tell me, what personality trait would you say best describes a dwarf from those stories of yours?”
I hesitated just for a moment, but I already knew the answer. There was just a chance that he wouldn’t like it. “Stubborn.”
“Exactly. Dwarves, above all else, are stubborn. We get stuck in our ways. And while—with enough reasoning and a consensus of our leaders—we can change our society more easily than perhaps others… if we don’t have those reasons, if we don’t have to change, we simply won’t.”
“There would have been other ways we could fix this problem, but those solutions weren’t good enough… and we were just stubborn enough not to try them.”
“Now, back to those three clans. All things considered, they seem to be trying to solve that problem. Of course, there were many more—not just that one—and other clans tackled other issues. We were still operating like one mountain hall. We should have seen it coming.” He now looked sad and truly tired.
“The distances are vast in this galaxy alone, and some clans managed to get better opportunities than others. It didn’t take long after we made this discovery of yours public.”
“Many realized that those three clans that were steadily rising in wealth and status had already figured out that problem. Of course they would have. In this galaxy alone, there are plenty of examples of what you wrote about.”
“They were just trying to keep it hidden to raise their own status while keeping the rest of us down. They would have succeeded in another hundred years or so. Then they would have been one of the strongest among us. Yet the end result would have been the same.”
“The second fracturing has begun, and that is why I cannot reward you with anything for your discovery, as there are a couple of dwarven clans out there that hold quite the grudge against you.”
Well, shit. And I thought I was just going to help them out, not be responsible for what’s basically a cold civil war. And also, not getting a reward kind of sucks.
“Of course, it would be dishonourable to not give you anything, so you will be getting what I believe will be a worthy reward, it just won’t be public. One part of that you already possess. That delve license of yours should help you get a bit stronger before you leave here. And of course, you have complete freedom to go back to the planet whenever you wish.”
“Thank you,” I started, but he interrupted me again.
“Silly human, that wouldn’t be even close to what you deserve to get. Through Thoron, you will also have access to a lot of our shipbuilding database. Now, I expect you to not sell any of those blueprints you find there, but feel free to use any of them any way you like, especially for building that ship of yours.”
My mind started racing with the possibilities. This would help me so much. I had planned on buying ready-made ship components, which wouldn’t be perfect, but would give me an opportunity to later figure out how they worked and modify them.
But with blueprints, I could start by knowing how everything worked. It would also allow me to easily modify everything to even better fit my needs.
“I can see that glint in your eyes. I knew you’d like that. We’ll try our best to keep your identity a secret, but I hope you won’t hold it against the rest of the dwarves and this mountain hall. That’s somehow the size of this entire solar system, still trying to get used to that. If those bastards ever try to get revenge.”
“I hope you’re strong enough by then to teach them a proper lesson, like I would like to give them.” He squeezed his closed fist so hard some parts of his skin turned white.
“I will try my best.”
“Good, I hope more humans are like you. In this dangerous universe good friends are hard to find. Know if you need a place to rest, our docks are always open to you.”
"So does this mean I don't have to pay any docking fees?"
"You are funny, I like that."