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So, emerging from a tunnel into a stone box with machicolations in all walls, and a murder grate in the roof? That was fine.

Being escorted through multiple corridor sections, fortified the same? That was also expected.

Beyond the main gate? It was what a dwarven city would look like if you sectioned it off vertically with slabs of bedrock. All right angles, all the stonework covered in tiny ward-runes...

“It’s... almost normal.” I said.

Blackrock broke out laughing.

“Shut up, Kantud.” Gondon said.

He didn’t.

“What were you expecting?” Gondon asked.

.....

“Well...”

“Be honest.” Kantud said. “It’ll be funny.”

“Hell knights. Blood ritual pits. Abomination gates. Enslaved ogre guards. Ancient thunder lizards.”

“We actually have that last one.” Kantud admitted. “Not here in the city, but you’d be amazed at how scared trolls are of those things when you armor up and put war banners on them.”

“Oh don’t put ideas in the larva’s head.” Gondon said.

“Too late.” I said. “Is there any way to get thunder lizard meat?”

“Thunder lizard... merciful gods, you would EAT them?” Kantud asked.

“Well, unless they’re Aware...”

Kantud made a rude hand gesture. “Noble, hard working beasts, and worthy of our respect. And you’d EAT them.”

Gondon cleared his throat. “I’ll remind you, squishy, that we need to resupply here. And heal. Hard to do that if you’re picking fights and mocking the Fractured culture.”

“Like by calling people Fractured in our own city.” Kantud said. “Call us Stone Children, or Duhric, or even dwarves like ignorant surface sots do. But you ought to watch your words.”

“Hey, how do we pay for our supplies, if our coin keepers are back in Othello?” I asked.

Gondon picked out a large purse, shook it to jangle the coins inside. “How were YOU planning on paying... Damn you, larva!”

Kantud broke out laughing, and then repeated the conversation, in brief, to a passing Merchant.

“That is a thing of sadness, not of mirth.” the woman said. “Back when my mother was of Othello, they knew to tell people these things before they needed to know them.”

“In days of old, when men were bold.” Kantud agreed with a nod, and guided us onward. To Gondon, he said: “So, not to put too fine a point on it, but does the squishy eat real food.”

“He eats squishy food.” Gondon grumped. “The cost of which you WILL pay me back once we return to our own mines.”

I blinked. “How long do you think it will take us to resupply?”

Gondon stroked his beard, which didn’t actually exist. “Two days, I reckon. How’s your pack weight?”

Never, ever, ever tell a dwarf that your pack is light and easily carried. You’ll end up with sixty feet of black steel chain, two dozen pinions (which, used properly, actually aid climbing), and other climbing gear of questionable merit and hefty weight.

“Are we climbing soon, then?”

“Somewhere between four to eight days, depending on how quickly we can scout out the remaining cavern networks.” Gondon said.

“Well a cavern only takes... wait, NETWORKS? As in more than three caverns each?”

“It was on. The. Map.” Gondon said.

Kantud dropped us off at their common Warrior barracks, right next to their training grounds.

“I don’t care. I’m getting sleep. Try to steal my coins, and I’ll cut your hand off.” Gondon said.

I was too tired to argue, and my armor just smelled in a manner that chain and cloth... well, it can get pretty ripe, too. But, faced with a safe, firm bed?

I never stood a chance; armored or not, I was firmly asleep with barely time to pull off my gauntlets, boots, and helmet.

Remember how in human cities, young people roll barrels around with hot sand to clean your armor? The dwarves did it one better. Metal barrels, on rollers, over a fire. So long as the rollers were turned (by some contraption of gears and water being turned into steam by the same heating fire), your armor got cleaned without you needing to watch over it all day.

Gondon just blinked to see me in leather and cloth. “You look ... extra squishy.” he said.

“Do you need me to help getting supplies?” I asked.

“Do I want you insulting friends I’ve spent decades making? No, no I do not.”

“Should I watch?”

“Can you do that without offending them, and asking questions or making statements showing that you’re an under-educated surface dweller? Please?”

“I can watch that.” I said.

“That’s not the same thing as you can stop it completely.” he said.

“I admit it.” I said. “How can I learn things without asking questions?”

“Become observant. That’s actually one of our core skills.”

“So this is training?” I asked.

“This is me asking you to shut up. If you can learn while doing that, so much the better.”

In retrospect, now, I can see his point. I suppose if someone tried treating me like... Well, I can’t actually say that, because I had been treated with almost exactly that prejudice, and done nothing. In the future... I’m still growing, I may find a better way to cope.

“I notice,” I said to him later, “that you’re doing your own haggling.”

“You think someone else is going to do that for me?” he asked. “Someone that I, as an outsider to this community, can trust?”

“And they don’t care that you’re Warrior caste?”

He stroked his chin. “Okay, but don’t be dumb about what I’m about to tell you. These dwarves call us Calcified because we adhere to the ancient caste laws. They ... are less strict.”

I blinked. “You mean I could...”

“No. I absolutely do NOT mean you could do anything. See, larva? I don’t want you trying to weave cloth out of your chest hairs...”

“I don’t have chest hairs.” I said.

“... or trying to smelt metal ingots out of ore, or telling the rune masters how to orient their runes to point at the moon when they can’t see the damn thing. I know you’d mean well, but I’ve noticed you try to do everything. All at once. You. Lack. Focus.”

Well, yes, that was blunt. And yes, I’m so glad that he didn’t know me when I was younger.

“So, for the next two days, can you JUST be a Warrior caste? Nothing other than a Tunnel Warden?”

“I don’t know. What do we Tunnel Wardens do when we’re in cities?”

“Heh. We prepare for the next trip out. We sleep, we heal... how is your health, by the way?”

I told him.

“Damn you, squishy. Next time, tell me. You could easily have fallen, and if you had, you’d have died. I’d have left you for the spiders to suck into a lifeless husk.”

“Is that how I’m supposed to leave you?”

“If I fall and don’t get up on my own? Yes, larva. You leave me, you take my maps if you can get them, and you return home. Always choose life. Always.”

“Abandoning unconscious members seems the opposite of choosing life.” I said.

“You can’t just hole up in a cul-de-sac, larva. Either you’re traveling to get food and water, or you’re camping near enough to it that anything wanting those things probably wants to eat you, too. Out here in the fringe, waiting around is more dangerous than to keep moving.”

“But that can’t be right, or cities wouldn’t exist.”

“Sure. We carve out cities wherever we can fortify. We patrol the surrounding earth, just to be sure nothing comes and destroys them. But that takes lots of people and lots of time. We don’t have either of those things.”

“Because limited supplies?” I asked.

“Because limited everything.” he said. “What, you think I’ve been limiting us to two sleeps each because I’m some manner of sadist?”

Well, actually, yes, that thought had crossed my mind. “Not a sadist, no. But the thought that this is a training run had crossed my mind.”

“Ugh. No, lad. We aren’t training. This is an actual run, with actual concerns, where we can end up actually dead if you actually gark things up bad enough. Do you know why I’m not pestering you about cleaning your armor?”

“Because we’re safe?”

“We’re not safe. We’re outsiders. Clanless, caste-less, outsiders to these people. No, I’m lettin you clean your armor because you squishies stink. And THAT smell draws all kinds of attention that I don’t have when I’m alone. It’s like you advertise that you’re part of the ecosystem.”

“And you don’t?”

“Of course I do. But... different ecosystem.” he said.

But then we were at the next vendor, and he had purchases to make, prices to argue. It was almost human, but I didn’t want to offend him by making that comparison.

Yes, that is his name. I’ll take the liberty of still calling him Blackrock at times, just as people call me Black Eyes, Snake-Face, or other physical features. But for those who observe formality, he is Kantrud of Thoron, Warrior of the Tunnel Wardens.

.....