Chapter 25 - The Dwarven President of Industry

From the perspective of Grace

We walked through the city gates, the guards seemed to eagerly escort Razan away. I felt a bit worried, but the guards seemed to tell I was a bit on edge. “Don’t worry, he’ll be away from us for a bit but we’ll take good care of him.”

I looked over at Elowyn who also seemed a bit suspicious but ultimately said nothing at all. I wanted to ask her what she felt, but it was probably not a wise idea.

We passed through several city streets, in between the buildings looked to be an ever twisting system of alleyways that led to stairs taking you to different parts of the city. I never could have imagined a city like this existing in my dreams.

The buildings themselves however were the typical stone houses, though the occasional front part of the house was visible, I could see dwarves going about their business, many of them drinking and eating. One of the plates looked to be horse meat.

We wandered through some more streets, this time the buildings looked to be more business-like, with several weapons, armor, and tool stores on display. There was on occasion something like a clothing store, or a toy store. All of which looked more industrial, many of the products evident in their metallic nature.

Perhaps if I got some free time later, I definitely wanted to check some of these places. I was broke, sure, but I didn’t want to buy anything, I just wanted to explore.

“Don’t tell me you’re not amazed by all this, Elowyn?” I asked her, she looked almost bored.

“I’ve been here before, once or twice on diplomatic talks with my father. But I don’t like machines, it’s a mockery of what magic can do.” Elowyn reminisced.

“Hehe, well, you’ll be able to do your shopping later. For now, I need you to meet with the President.” The lead dwarf pleaded.

Finally, we found ourselves towards a massive building, the guards in front wore shinier and more expensive looking armor than the rest, and gave us another patdown before we came inside. Surrounding it were towers armed to the teeth with those turrets.

The inside of the fortress, which was the best way I could describe it. It was well decorated, with several lavish looking carpets, with even more elaborate looking designs. It almost resembled a lion surrounded by flames.

But in reality, it could also have just been a bunch of artsy concepts put together for a pretty looking carpet.

The walls were covered side by side with expensive looking paintings situated in even more expensive golden frames. They mostly depicted landscapes, some depicted dwarves. On the bottom of these paintings were little written descriptions on who was being shown.

Holiday Stormhelm III, Rudoph Stormhelm II, Mikhail Stormhelm IV.

All of these had the same last name. The guards seemed to notice my curiosity.

“These paintings depict our president's esteemed lineage, going back hundreds if not thousands of years. Coincidentally the Stormhelm lineage is our only known line of rulers. Despite the fact we hold elections every ten years.”

“The winner was always a Stormhelm.” The guard exposited, and I eagerly listened.

I had mixed feelings when I heard that, despite being democratic in nature, it almost felt like a monarchy. One side guaranteed the right to rule because of their birth. Yet with how prosperous the city looked, I could understand why the Stormhelm’s had so much trust with their people.

Father always told me happiness has a cost, prosperity too. I wondered what kind of a price the Stormhelms must have paid to have a lineage and future so prosperous.

Finally we entered a room. The room was full of expensive decorations and artwork. In the middle was a desk, situated in the chair opposite of us was a dwarf who resembled the ones in the various paintings we saw.

He had a big bushy beard like the rest, but it was more greyed out, he was bald, and wore a nice black and white striped tailored suit.

“Welcome, Elowyn. It has been a long while since we last spoke. I heard what happened with your father, you have my condolences.” He gave a polite bow, his voice was rough, yet filled with genuine sympathy.

“Thank you, I’m still getting over it, but I appreciate the sentiment nonetheless. We are here to talk to you about an alliance. I’m sure you are aware of what happened in Astora?” Elowyn asked.

“Indeed I am, the old king got assassinated, and a young upstart took his place. But I’m afraid I will not sign onto this alliance, if you’re plotting to attack that is.” The president, whose nametag read ‘Reuben’, spoke. He wasn’t even paying notice to me, focused entirely on Elowyn.

The atmosphere began to get tense.

“Now, now. Look at it this way. He may be a ruthless tyrant, but I have my own people to look out for, and I cannot just attack a Kingdom because I don’t like its ruler. I will need a more compelling reason to join you.” Reuben seemed like a businessman through and through. Even trying to haggle with us for an alliance. I can see why he was so popular.

On his desk, I noticed a small communication device, I’ve heard of those before, they were relatively new but they allowed for sending magical constructs to communicate. I saw one at my dads church, and I noticed he was already talking to someone. Rather, he was on hold.

The display I noticed said ‘Astora’, he was talking to the Astoran King? The new one? I didn’t say a word, but the possibility he was in cahoots with Astora was now evident.

“Anyways, end of discussion, war is something to be avoided, you know.” With that, he ordered his guards to shoo us away, before they could, the door swung open. A guard out of breath ran in.

“Sir, came to report a prison break. There was also an attempted prison break as well, however we got that one under control. Two of the special prisoners.”

Reuben’s eyes narrowed. “We’ll discuss the matter then, I need the full details, you two. Feel free to stay in one of our lovely hotels for the night, guards. Can you arrange that for them?”

The guards nodded and took us away, Reuben looked a bit anxious at that. “A prison break, how awful.” I commented.

“Yes, very dangerous prisoners. Both were to be executed tomorrow.” The guards informed us of the situation. Unfortunately they didn’t seem to have the names of the prisoners.

Finally, we made it out of the fortress, and back into the city. We were thankfully escorted to a rather nice looking hotel. “Please do not travel too much further, the city is a maze, and President Reuben may wish to speak with you at a later time.” The guards warned us before leaving.

“I suppose that’s fine, that gives us some time to discuss what comes next, you saw that communication device, correct?” Elowyn asked.

I nodded. “If he’s with Astora, then…”

Elowyn agreed. “Razan is in danger, if anything it may be likely he’s one of the two special prisoners they mentioned. The guards were a bit off when discussing them, as if they were trying to hide something.”

In other words, this was never going to work as long as Reuben was allied with Maxwell. Besides if the execution was scheduled for tomorrow, then that means we did not have time.

It seemed both me and Elowyn were at an understanding. However, how will we go about this?

“How about we split up, we can cover more ground that way. We just got to ask about the escaped prisoner.” Who knows, maybe it was Razan that escaped?

“Hm, good idea, but be careful. This is a big city after all, how about a signal if we need each other?” Elowyn suggested.

“Good idea, I can cast a flare using magic, can you?” I asked. Elowyn nodded. “Good, then let’s do this.” With that, we left the hotel against instructions and went out into the city at large.

I wandered around the vast city streets. Every person I asked about the escaped prisoners gave me a strange look. Anybody that did want to talk about it didn't really seem to know about it, and just felt like gossiping.

“Oh man, I wonder how Elowyn is doing.” I was beginning to feel stressed out, there was no flare in the sky which meant Elowyn likely was still searching. Maybe this was a bit much, I finally saw a guard putting up a wanted poster on a random billboard.

I waited for him to put it up and leave before going towards it. It was focusing on the escaped prisoner. Jackpot, I looked at it, hoping I would see Razan’s face. But instead I was greeted by the face of someone else.

Tetsuo?

That is the same Tetsuo that Razan mentioned. He was in town somewhere, and he was the escaped prisoner? In that case, Razan must have been the failed escapee. I didn’t really want to meet him again.

In fact, I felt stressed out just by looking at his face, even if depicted in art, brought back some scary memories.

I took a step back, before turning away.

However I saw something duck into the nearby alley, I swallowed my fear and peeked inside. I saw someone in there. It looked like…

Then he turned around.

“T-Tetsuo?!” I gasped in surprise, before I could leave he grabbed me and covered my mouth. “Shh…” He hushed me, the suspicion in the towns people quieted down before letting me go. “Don’t rat me out, will you? Wait a minute.” He looked at me.

“You were that priestess demi-human with sensei.” Tetsuo’s eyes flashed in recognition. “Then sensei must be nearby. Where is he?”

He still had a good grip on me now, so I had no choice but to answer honestly.

“Captured, about to be executed tomorrow. Me and Elowyn were trying to find a way to rescue him.” I admitted. “Just don’t hurt me…please…” I added that last part weakly.

“I won’t hurt you, but is what you said true? That sensei is about to be executed tomorrow?” He let me go now, seemingly in thought. “Call Elowyn here, I have some information then you two might want.”

I nodded and cast up a flare, Elowyn would teleport to where we were almost instantly.

“You’re that Golem!” She was about to fire magic upon him when I got in between us. “Hold on Elowyn! He wants to talk to us!”

It seemed finally we had a good lead.

“Fine, but it better be something good, escaped convict.” She hissed, her hatred for him quite clear.

“The information being…”

“Maxwell Lancelet arrives tomorrow.”

To be continued.