Chapter 12 The City of Tradition #2
The noble seemed thoughtful. “I’ve never heard of anything like this.
It must be incredibly expensive, or everyone would use it.
The coldness sounds like a side effect, but being able to practically become invisible in the darkness…
I know more than a few people in Greylune who would kill for a cloak like that. ”
“I suppose having the deputy guild master of the Alchemists’ Guild as your boss has its merits.
” Kraghtol said. He put the cloth away again and felt it cooling in his pocket.
The reason he had been so sure that it was alchemy was — besides the fact that the effect was not explainable otherwise — it fit the Principles he had dreamed of so perfectly, especially the Principle of Darkness.
In a way, it was not unlike the effect of the glowing paste, just using the opposite Principle.
That made way more sense than trying to attribute this alchemical wonder to one of the four elements.
He had been itching to recreate the effect, but knew from his experiments in the student laboratory that this would just be a waste of Activator.
Valir had no further objections, and after a hearty lunch, they started their investigation.
Kraghtol was reluctant to draw more attention to themselves than his unusual appearance did anyway, and they didn’t find out much about either topic during the first few days.
A general mistrust of outsiders seemed to be part of the Dwarven way of thinking, but even more so, an immense stubbornness.
When a dwarf had decided not wanting to help them any further, they would dig their heels in the ground, cross their arms and tell them to get lost, sometimes literally.
That, combined with the careful approach of asking around, yielded little results aside from the information that, yes, the lockbox was of Dwarven origin, and that it would be very difficult to open without the proper key.
The city of Bronzebreak, on the other hand, was fascinating.
It burrowed deeper into — and under — the mountain than Kraghtol had originally realized, and almost certainly contained even more than a thousand steps connecting the different layers of the city.
The Bronzebreak mountains were ore-rich, and often, the ‘streets’ of the city turned into a network of mining tunnels without warning.
Some of them seemed deserted, but others were being worked in by Dwarven miners.
Either way, Kraghtol didn’t want to risk getting lost in the labyrinthine network outside the official city bounds.
Unsurprisingly, the main trade good of the city appeared to be metal products.
About half of the city comprised different forges, furnaces and foundries.
It wasn’t very cold anywhere in Bronzebreak — because of the lack of outside weather — but near the metalworks, it was sweat-enticingly hot, which explained the choice of materials that Kraghtol had noticed at the dock cavern already.
Organic material, such as wood, posed a much larger fire hazard.
The one thing that kept creeping back into Kraghtol’s mind was his dream from the start of his ship journey.
He hadn’t told Valir about it yet, because it was just a dream — even if it hadn’t felt like one — and he didn’t want to look na?ve.
But everything here in Bronzebreak reminded him of it, specifically the part where he had seen beyond the pillar of stone.
Within. Everything he had felt, no, absorbed, when he had understood that Principle reflected in this city.
The architecture, the materials, even the inhabitants.
Would a dwarf who were to make a similar experience be drawn to that Principle, feel themselves resonating, like he had with both Order and Chaos?
It was frustrating. Kraghtol felt like he was on the verge of a mind-shattering insight, but all was based on a wild dream he had after almost passing out after a sleepless night. Taking that seriously was madness, but he also couldn’t just let it go.
Just as he was contemplating letting Valir in on his musings while climbing one of the many narrow stairs near the metalworks, something else caught his attention.
“I think we’re being followed,” he whispered.
Valir stopped so suddenly that Kraghtol nearly bumped into him and spun around.
“What do you mean, followed? More kidnapers?”
Kraghtol had nearly forgotten about the incident in the el Greylune mansion, but the fact it was so readily on the noble’s mind sowed doubts regarding his explanation of the attackers’ motives. But it was just as likely that Valir always assumed everything was about him.
“I don’t know. But I think we’re being watched. There’s someone in that mineshaft over there, always ducking away when I look over.”
Valir squinted his eyes in the direction the half-orc had subtly indicated with his wide chin. “The mineshaft up there, half a city away? How do you notice this kind of stuff?”
Kraghtol shrugged. “Do you expect me to look at the stairs or your backside the whole time?”
The human just looked at him for a good second. “Yes. The former would be wise. Perhaps you’d stumble less that way.”
It was true; Kraghtol’s natural tendency to run into all sorts of things had even increased here in Bronzebreak, and he blamed it on everything being lower than usual. But just looking at the ground in front of him couldn’t keep his mind occupied for long.
“Anyway, what are we to do about it? Even if we sprinted up there, they’d be long gone by the time we arrived.”
“Yes, it’s not the first time I’ve noticed something. I kind of felt watched since we left the docks. But I wasn’t sure until now. Truth be told, I sometimes felt that way in Winterstone as well, but never like that. How about this: we agree on a codeword, and when either of us notices…”
He let his voice trail off, not sure how to continue.
“We run; I’m just not sure which direction.”
Valir nodded slowly.
“If it’s just one. Do you think you can take them in a fight?” he asked.
Kraghtol gritted his teeth.
“Yes, probably. If they’re not armed. But I don’t want to fight.”
“Chances are we don’t have to. If we can surprise whoever is following us and we are in a position of strength, they might be willing to negotiate. And I would rather know what we’re dealing with than have an unknown danger at our backs.”
The opportunity didn’t arise until after a fruitless day of asking around.
They had changed tactics and resorted to asking about famous inventors instead of mentioning a ‘Voldrik’, but that didn’t make things better.
Inventors, as they were told, were a thing of the distant past. After the unification, a consensus was reached to shun them, and consequently, there hasn’t been an inventor in the last one hundred years or so.
Just as Kraghtol was about to explain to the shopkeeper with the long beard — which was hardly a unique feature here — that perhaps the inventor they were looking for had left the city before becoming famous, Valir nudged him.
“Clock tower!” he whispered. It was a stupid codeword, but it had been the first they had come up with.
Immediately, Kraghtol spun around and spotted the movement in the open door of the stone building just as it disappeared around the corner.
Not paying the shopkeeper any further attention, he burst into a sprint, taking chase after the silhouette now running from him.
It was a compact figure, definitely smaller than the attackers in Valir’s mansion.
Probably a dwarf, or a small human. Perhaps a child.
Had he had the opportunity to just follow in a straight line, Kraghtol’s longer legs alone would have been enough to catch the shadow in a matter of heartbeats.
Apparently tough, the chased one knew that as well, and dived into one of the maze-like tunnels at the first opportunity, making sharp turns as often as possible and using their small size to their advantage.
Still, although he bumped his head on the low ceiling, the half-orc slowly made ground and just turned around a corner, almost able to see the back of the runner clearly, when something hit the ground in front of him with a metallic clanking sound.
Kraghtol had hardly any time to identify the item clearly before a spring sprung, a cogwheel turned in a sharp, snappy quarter turn, and a fizzling sound emanated from the small contraption.
Seconds later, the whole tunnel filled with thick black smoke that made Kraghtol cough and his eyes tear up.
He had no choice but to break his pursuit, feeling his way back until he could breathe and see freely again.
When Valir arrived half a minute later, panting, he was still coughing.
“Have you ever seen something like that?”
Thankfully, the contraption had stopped spewing smoke after a few minutes, and Kraghtol had retrieved it from the tunnels.
Now, half an hour later, it was sitting on the tavern table between them, and Valir was poking at it with a fork as if he was afraid to touch the bronze metal.
The whole thing was ball-shaped with a few mechanical parts on the outside.
It didn’t look particularly complicated, as far as clockwork was concerned, but Kraghtol still shook his head before hesitating.
“Nothing like that, no. But I’ve seen clockwork that looked similar — only a lot more sophisticated — up in the clock tower of Winterstone. Admittedly, I don’t know any other clockworks.”
“Hm.” Valir still tried to get the device to do something but gave up when his fork-induced prodding didn’t have any effect.
However the mechanism worked, it was clear that the tension of the spring was spent. Without opening up the ball, the details would elude him, but Kraghtol guessed the mechanics were there to ignite something on the inside, which in turn produced the tear-inducing smoke.