The Mark of Quality

I immediately noticed studded iron reinforcements on the fronts of each building along both sides of main street.

Why did a vegetable stand need this? The frame left no room for even the store’s name, which was instead written on a banner hanging from one of the iron rings on the iron front-facing wall. Meanwhile, the inside of the building was all wood. So it was all, literally, a front.

Ahead of us, Jupiter began retelling the history of Ardesburg, waxing poetic about how all the humans in the Redlands first came from the south. She was not wrong, but that didn’t make the storytelling any less annoying.

We walked through the main street to the town center, but instead of entering the colossal stone-and-marble building that clearly looked like a town hall, we turned left onto a smaller street. “We are still preparing the main room,” an advisor said. “So let us show you our furnaces.”

We walked to the end of the street, where furnaces and buildings stood all along the edges of a large cul-de-sac. A trio of workers melted iron ore in a blast furnace, and the fresh metal liquid flowed into a stone building right beside it. I looked inside the open doors of that building and saw a number of larger furnaces, manned by many workers.

“It is these larger furnaces that make the Ardesburgian difference,” Jupiter said. “Inside these furnaces, we are able to keep the metal completely separate from the heating material, without compromising on evenness and temperature. We have since shared much of this technology with the people of the Caelus Mesa, but ours is both the original and the best.”

One of the advisors grabbed a wooden staff from the inside of the stone building and presented it to Jupiter. “To ensure that our handiwork could be distinguished, we have developed proprietary technology to create a brand, with which we emboss each of our authentic grade five bars,” Jupiter explained, holding out the staff.

“Beautiful,” Aleare commented.

“Why don’t you all take a look?” Jupiter said, handing the staff towards me.

“I don’t feel comfortable handling something of such importance,” I said.

“Now, now, don’t be shy. Not everyone gets to see this,” she pressed. “And pass it along to your entire group, will you dear?”

I gingerly held the brand in one hand. The carved metal at the top of the staff was almost painfully white, and looked totally untouched despite how Jupiter said it was used. Below the relief of a dragon I saw the large letters “A5” underneath. I passed the brand along to Merlum.

“The material of the brand could resist temperatures hot enough to warp any other common metal,” an advisor added.

Once we were all done looking at the brand, we handed it back to Jupiter, and we started walking back to the town hall. It was sunset now, and I watched as a few villagers lit torches along the side of the road to help light the way.

We walked up the steps to the front entrance of the town hall. Jupiter leaned the staff against a pillar before taking out a very complicated-looking chain of rings, on which was dangling no fewer than ten keys. After unlocking some part of the chain, she was able to isolate the key she wanted, and she used it to open the door. In front of us was a white and marble entrance hall, flanked with three doorways on either side and a grand one in the front. We took the first doorway on the right and walked down a carpeted hallway to a small room filled with books. There was a table in the center that fit no more than six.

“Unfortunately we won’t have the space to fit all your ambassadors,” Jupiter sighed. “Who will be the core five who will sit at the table with me?”

The typhins began discussing among themselves. I heard Aleare volunteer to sit out, and I also volunteered. Lotus looked at me worried, but didn’t say anything.

“So will you have a human ambassador with you in the room?” Jupiter asked.

“I will be there,” Lotus said.

With one more typhin stepping out, we had our core groups, and I watched as the doors to the room closed with a conclusive thud.

“So, what do you think about these people?” Aleare asked.

“Do you usually get treated like this?” I replied.

The other typhin, who was standing to my right, shook her head. I wasn’t sure what her name was. “We usually get some amount of suspicion. Occasionally we get disrespect. But nothing to this extent.”

I sighed a breath of relief internally. That probably meant that my fellow hunters in Mosston treated the typhins normally, at least.

“Sorry if this is a stupid question, but why do we need this deal so much?” I asked.

“It would be our biggest achievement since unifying the western edge,” the typhin to my right responded. “We don’t have any business with the finished products right now. Being able to secure this deal means both getting one of the biggest buyers of raw ore and being able to expand into processed goods in one go.”

I nodded, feeling completely out of my league.

“Hey, did Jupiter just leave the brand outside at the door?” Aleare asked.

I remembered what happened when we walked in. “Yeah, you’re right. Maybe we should bring it inside?”

“Yeah, let’s go do that,” Aleare said.

“I’ll stay here,” said the other typhin.

Aleare and I walked back out to the front entrance, pushing open the massive iron-reinforced doors to the front steps. Where was the staff again? Aleare and I looked around before I spotted the staff collapsed on the ground next to one of the pillars. I hobbled over to it and picked it up, then passed it to Aleare because he could hold it in two hands. We headed back to the door.

It was locked.

“Are you kidding me?” I said, jiggling the handle.

Aleare watched me fiddle and push against the door a bit longer before speaking up. “Let’s just stay out here, Ray. They don’t need us in the building. Hopefully they will come out soon enough.”

I shook my head, knowing he was right. “Alright.” So we walked to the steps and sat.

“Well congratulations, Moonlight, you have failed our test.”

Aleare and I whipped around to see Jupiter standing behind us, her eyes cold. Test? What did she mean by a test? Then I saw an advisor slip back behind a pillar.

I heard running from the hallway and Caramine peek her head out from the entrance. “Mayor Jupiter! What is going on? Would you care to explain?”

Jupiter pointed at Aleare, who was holding the brand. “Your members are trying to steal. We placed the brand in a conspicuous location known by your people and made its importance clear, in order to test your character. And just as we suspected, one of you took it, fully intending to make a mockery of our name.”

I panicked.

“Steal?” Aleare stuttered. “No, we would never. I figured leaving it in such a conspicuous place would be dangerous, someone could easily knock it over—it had already fallen over! We wanted to make sure it was ok, and we wanted to take it inside! Please, take this back.”

Jupiter snatched the brand from Aleare’s hands as he grovelled towards her. “Anyone can claim that, liar,” Jupiter hissed. She turned back to Caramine. “There is no deal, Moonlight. We in Ardesburg have better things to do. My advisors will lead you to the exit gate, and you would do good to make sure that you and your kind never set foot in this town ever again.”