Path of Dragons

Book 7: Chapter 10: Adjusting Plans

As she leaned back in her chair, Carmen let out a long sigh before downing the last contents of her mug. The beer was bitter, with a hint of ethera and an undercurrent of roasted caramel that set it apart from anything she’d drunk before Earth’s transition into a post-World Tree era. Her chair tipped back, and if it wasn’t for a recent influx in levels that gave her a few extra points in Dexterity, she would have fallen. As it was, she managed to hook her foot under the table’s support, which arrested her momentum and helped her avoid a disastrous spill.

“Good catch,” said Carissa, sipping her own beer almost daintily. It was an oddly feminine sight, given the dwarven woman’s rugged appearance, which included heavy shoulders, a face smudged with dirt, and a silky wisp of a beard that was usually only visible in the full light of day. “But if I’m honest, I was kinda hopin’ you’d fall. Woulda been a good story.”

“Drunk woman tips over,” Carmen responded, pulling herself back to a normal position. “An epic tale of lost balance.”

“Don’t get all sarcastic. You’re better when you’re earnest,” Carissa stated.

Carmen sighed again, then glanced around for the pub’s server. The buxom girl arrived only a few moments later, her chest heaving as she scurried to refill Carmen’s mug. When she caught Carmen staring, the waitress offered a shy, insincere smile before heading off to meet the demands of the other patrons. The pub was absolutely packed, and rightly so – the city had yet to overcome the shock of nearly being conquered, and people were still in the throes of soothing their tensions with copious amounts of alcohol and revelry. Thus the packed pub, full of merrymakers who all laughed a little too loudly and much too frequently, while drowning themselves in low-quality beer.

LIke the waitress’ forced smile, it all rang a little hollow.

Because the threat was still out there. The mayor’s people had already spent quite some time interrogating the dark elves, and while they hadn’t learned any operational secrets, they had found plenty of cause for distress.

Like the fact that the attacking army, as numerous as they’d been, had only represented a fraction of the dark elves’ force. They were the least of their armies – of which there were nine remaining – both in terms of levels and raw numbers. From what the captives had said, there was an entire nation of Illythiri – that was what the dark elves called themselves – who’d settled far below the surface.

There was also the distressing news that the bulk of that force was engaged in their city’s – called Eldrathûn – defense. They hadn’t revealed the nature of that threat, only claiming that it was far more terrifying than anything on the surface. That was the only reason they’d chanced emergence so soon. Without that threat, they would have remained below, gathering their strength until such time as they could overwhelm anyone who stood in their way.

“You really shouldn’t stare like that,” Carissa said. “Might make the poor girl uncomfortable.”

Carmen blinked, her inebriated mind struggling to catch up with Carissa’s meaning. Then, understanding pushed her drunkenness aside and she realized that, even though her mind had been miles away, her eyes had followed the waitress across the pub. She quickly averted her eyes and sputtered an explanation, but Carissa only laughed.

Eventually, Carmen decided to change the subject, asking, “What about your little plan? How’s that going?”

Carissa frowned. “Can’t corner that stubborn dwarf for nothin’,” she admitted. “You know he don’t even have a house in town? He used to live mostly in the wilderness, but now he’s stayin’ at that gaudy hellhole, the Imperium. Can thank your brother for that.”

“Elijah? He’s my brother-in-law.”

“Same difference,” said Carissa, taking another swig of her recently-filled beer. She smacked her lips. “But that Kurik – that is one fine dwarf.” Her words were wistful, which definitely didn’t fit her appearance.

“I’ll have to take your word for it,” Carmen responded with a slight smile.

“You’ve seen his beard, right? So long and coarse. Mmm.”

Carmen laughed. Dwarven attraction was a strange thing, and it usually centered around beards. Of course, Carissa’s feelings ran a bit deeper than that. Even before the Trial, Kurik had been one of the most powerful dwarves in Ironshore, but in its wake, he’d become a bonafide hero. Regardless of culture, that was a recipe for popularity.

“What ‘bout you? You makin’ any progress on that front? You find a pretty little thing to –”

Carmen shook her head. “I don’t have time for that kind of thing. Plus, the pickings are pretty slim. No offense, I definitely prefer humans, and there aren’t that many of us around.”

“You’re missin’ out. You ain’t lived ‘til you’ve had an eager gnome –”

“Please stop,” Carmen groaned.

“It’s the tiny hands and natural dexterity. They –”

“Not listening.”

“I’m just sayin’ –”

“Nope. Moving on,” Carmen interrupted again. The last thing she needed was another one of Carissa’s bawdy stories. “Did you think about what I asked you yesterday?”

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“’Bout participatin’ in the Great Forge?”

“I’m thinking of changing the name to something more inclusive of other tradeskills. But yeah,” Carmen answered.

“Not sure what place Miners and our like could have in that sorta endeavor,” Carissa stated. “We don’t mind helpin’. We make fair laborers, so long as the pay is right. We’ll be workin’ overtime to get the mine back up and runnin’, but I’ll put the word out to th’others. Might be a few as’ll take y’up on th’offer.”

Carmen nodded, wondering if Carissa would even remember the conversation in the morning. She’d imbibed quite a lot of alcohol over the course of the night, as evidenced by the thickening of her accent. Soon, Carmen wouldn’t be able to understand her at all.

Regardless, the subject bore some thought. To date, Carmen had been trying to build the Great Forge all by herself, and she’d accomplished quite a lot like that. The foundations had been laid, and she was almost ready to start building the frame. However, she had recently come to the realization that she was going about things all wrong.

Doing it all alone was all well and good when all she wanted was a nice forge. But for what she wanted to accomplish, the whole idea seemed woefully narrow-minded. In the beginning, she’d taken some inspiration from the temple in Argos, but at some point, she’d lost that thread.

Now, she needed to adjust, but as her plans expanded, she had come to the conclusion that she couldn’t do it alone. Those thoughts flitted through Carmen’s increasingly drunken mind as Carissa’s comments devolved – both in terms of clarity as well as appropriateness – until, eventually, Carmen found herself stumbling back to her old forge. There, she collapsed into her cot – she often found it tedious to go back to the island – where she quickly fell unconscious.

The next morning, she awoke feeling the previous night’s overindulgence. Her mouth was caked with dried drool, her body was sore, and her eyes felt like someone had shoved sand beneath her lids. On top of that, her stomach roiled with nausea, and the second she rolled out of her cot and planted her feet on the floor, she experienced a wave of dizziness.

Carmen was not usually a heavy drinker. Most of the time, she cut herself off well before she reached the point of inebriation. And now she remembered why. As much as she might enjoy a night of celebratory drunkenness, she’d long since decided that the morning after was not worth it.

“Carissa’s a bad influence,” she muttered before pushing herself upright and staggering across the forge to a bathroom she’d installed shortly after building the smithy. After that, she used every trick in the book to recover, taking a cold shower, brushing her teeth, and drinking a foul concoction that crazy alchemist claimed was a hangover cure. It settled her stomach, but it did nothing for the lethargy she felt.

So, she decided it was best to just muscle through it, get some breakfast, and hopefully run into Elijah so she could beg a little healing. Of course, she could have just gone to the new clinic, but her pride wouldn’t allow that. After all, there were still plenty of people who hadn’t recovered from the wounds they’d incurred during the battle. Taking a Healer’s time when other people needed it more just didn’t sit right with Carmen.

So, she resolved to suffer through it.

To that end, she dressed and, after lighting the forge, headed to The Roasted Goat – a restaurant that had sprung up in recent months. When she arrived, she was greeted by the smell of smoking meat and grease, the din of conversation, and the sight of an area that looked like someone had mixed a Waffle House with an Irish pub. It was an odd look, but it somehow worked.

Perhaps that was because of just how varied the clientele was. Every race that called Ironshore home was represented among the diners, with gnomes sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with dwarves, humans, and goblins. It cast the whole scene in a surreal aura that seemed both appropriate and like something out of a movie that didn’t quite know what it wanted to be.

Carmen probably should have been used to it, but every now and again, she found herself amazed at what life on Earth had become. She lived in a world with a wide variety of sapient species, monsters, and magic. Her brother-in-law was one of the most powerful people in the world, and her son was following in his footsteps. It didn’t make sense, even if she could easily trace the chain of events that had led them to those places. It all fit together, but that didn’t make her incredulity at the current state of the world any easier to accept.

Thankfully, that feeling passed pretty quickly, and she shuffled inside and dropped onto a barstool. A dwarven server plopped a plate of greasy breakfast foods – sausage, eggs, and gravy-covered biscuits – in front of her. He even gave her a cup of hot tea, for which she muttered a hearty thanks. It wasn’t quite coffee, but it would do.

“You look like you’ve seen better days,” came a familiar and refined voice. Carmen glanced out of the corner of her eye and saw the mayor sitting next to her. To the proprietor, Ramik said, “My usual, please.”

The dwarf grunted, then headed off to fill the order.

Meanwhile, Carmen asked, “Is this just a chance meeting? Or did you need something from me? Because I have to be honest with you, I’m not in any state to talk business.”

“I heard you’ve begun to rethink your plans for the Great Forge.”

“Oh? Who told you that?”

“Carissa. I met with her this morning,” Ramik said. “She claimed you were going on and on about needing more help. As I understand it, you want to incorporate other crafters into the process. Tell me what you need, and maybe I can facilitate it.”

Carmen almost groaned. If the goblin had approached her even a few minutes before, she might’ve ignored him. But with a little caffeine coursing through her veins, she felt a bit more human. So, she spent the next few minutes explaining what she wanted out of the project and how that would change her plans. For one, she needed a much larger plot of land with which to work, and on top of that, she would require quite a bit more material. Finally, she said, “And I need help. This is too big of a project for me, and not just in terms of work. If this is going to be what I want it to be, I need representatives of every sort of crafter. It’s not just a forge. It’s…”

“A temple devoted to crafting.”

“Something like that,” Carmen said.

“I think we can make something like that work,” Ramik said. “Of course, we’ll have to work out the details. You can’t expect us to facilitate something like this, providing land and materials, and you take all the benefits. There will be taxes.”

“Of course. We’ll go with stadium rules.”

“I beg your pardon?”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Then, Carmen explained how, in the pre-World Tree version of Earth, city governments had often subsidized the construction of stadiums meant for professional sports teams. On the surface, it seemed a bit silly to spend so much money on what amounted to entertainment that served no governmental purpose, but the idea went a bit deeper than that. Those sports teams brought a lot of money into their respective cities – both directly and indirectly – and that was meant to recoup the city’s investment. A similar idea prompted many other cities to give tax breaks and other monetary benefits to large manufacturing plants that would bring both revenue and jobs to the locals.

Whether or not things actually worked out like that was a matter of intense debate, with both sides having points. However, Carmen wasn’t necessarily concerned with whether or not a similar arrangement would help Ironshore. She was far more worried about seeing her plans bear fruit. She did have reason to believe that her project would end up being extremely beneficial to the city, though.

“I think we can come to a similar arrangement,” Ramik said after listening to Carmen’s explanation.

“Good,” she said. “Now, I’m going to eat this greasy food, then head to my forge where I hope to work off this hangover. Stay if you want, but please…just stop talking.”

“I can do that,” Ramik said with a genuine smile. Then, they both dug into their meals, enjoying them in silence.