Almost ready. I PM'd Cryl to let him know I had to leave for a couple days in order to complete a quest and could be reached by PM if needs be. I warned him about the contents of my bedside cabinet, asking him to take good care of Lena, accept her into our group, invest in some nice fat buffs and get leveling.
I walked downstairs to the portal hall past a few stationary patrols posted at the castle's key points. A couple of women and guards recoiled, shrinking out of my way, still wound up by Frag's security drills even though the threat level had now been lowered to yellow. And there I walked, a ghostly figure adorned with the Lord of the Dead's black crown, the breastplate's yellow ribs sticking out, a tiny piece of dark amber pulsating over my heart. I had used the precious gem to decorate my admittedly unaesthetic breastplate, filling one of the three available enhancement slots which incidentally had also boosted my Dark spells. It was probably a good idea to remove the breastplate in polite society, for fear of scaring everyone shitless.
I quickly arranged for a teleport to a small town about a hundred miles away from the castle. Its name didn't say much to me: my choice had been random. The portal popped open, taking me there. Another three minute wait in order to arrange for another transfer to their nearest town. Rinse and repeat. Fifteen minutes, six teleports and a hundred fifty gold later, I completed my little loose-end tying-up operation, ending up at the already-familiar square in the Original City.
When I'd been there last, I'd made a mental note of an imposing shop sign that competed with nearby bank logos. Thror's Gem House. I dreaded to think how much it cost them to keep a high-end edifice like that in the city's main square.
The massive door opened easily. Gear wheels turned, initiating a system of counterweights. Needless to say, everything worked without so much as a squeak. In place of an ordinary shop bell, I was met by the sound of a miniature gold hammer striking a silver anvil. Its significance dawned on me when I saw the goldsmith's apprentice in charge of greeting customers. A dwarf! The first ever dwarf I'd met in this world!
We both froze, studying each other. The dwarf stared at me with surprise, seeing a High Elf in a Drow city. His eyes widened as he took in my friendly status and the Mark of the House of Night. And once he noticed the piece of amber on my chest, he seemed to lose all contact with reality.
"With due respect," I patted his shoulder to wake him up, "I'd like to see Master Thror."
The dwarf startled, coming to. "I'm afraid, the Father of the House doesn't receive visitors any more," he cast me a guilty look.
I raised a puzzled eyebrow.
"I'll go and ask," the dwarf hurried to add. "He might make an exception... exclusively for you."
He disappeared, leaving me wondering who it was I was about to see. I needed a goldsmith, not some patriarch mascot figure.
I couldn't have been more wrong. The reclusive House founder turned out to be a brow-knitted giant—as far as dwarves went, of course. His bulging muscles could have belonged to a blacksmith not a jeweler, his eyes squinting at you as if through a helmet visor. An enormous pole-axe on the wall hinted at his fine military past.
If he'd read my appearance better than his apprentice, it didn't show. Not a muscle twitched on his poker face. "What can I do for you, young Elf?"
"I'm not going to waste your time, Sir. Let's move straight to the point. I've managed to lay my hands on a few items allowing me to build a Travel Altar. My limited skills don't allow me to embark on a project of this scale which is why I've come to your shop as it's the best in town. Think you could help me?"
Now his eyebrows did twitch. "Do you mean you have in your possession an item that used to belong to a God of Light, boy? So now you want to make a Small Altar? Or," he added just a hint of sarcasm to his voice, "you just happen to have some sacred relics to build a Big Raid Altar?"
"Not quite," I reached into my bag and produced two dark fragments.
The dwarf swung round, grabbed some paperwork from the desk and covered the stones with it. Then he raised his hand and made a complex signal with his fingers. I barely heard the hidden gunslots closing. He definitely wasn't your cute and cuddly grandfather type.
Thror froze, listening intently, then nodded, satisfied. He removed the paper and lovingly ran his hand over the stones.
"My apologies are in order, Sir Laith," he mumbled. "Technically, our clan belongs to the branch of Light. Not that we really know who we're supposed to worship there. Their clerics have no problem accepting our gold, but when it comes to our requests to create a temple dedicated to the God of goldsmiths and jewelers, they keep saying they don't have sufficiently powerful artifacts! And they've just used the recently acquired God's Heart to summon Asclepius—the God of physicians—and add him to their Pantheon. Asclepius, for God's sake! What were his parents thinking about, giving him a name like that!"
I nodded, soaking up the precious snippets of information. Seeing as I'd already been up to my ears in Gods' dealings, I had to keep my eye on the ball and learn all I could on the subject. I needed to know every detail, from their Gods' names and jobs to Venus' bra size if only she existed in our world.
The dwarf was already rolling the stones in his hand, studying them and analyzing their stats. Was he performing a spectral analysis of the reflected light? Or just admiring them? Neither would have surprised me.
"This is a complex and challenging task," he finally said. "It requires the level of a Famed Master in Goldsmithy. There're only three of them in town."
He was talking up his prices, the bastard. "I do hope you're one of them," I returned. "And if not, nothing prevents me from going to the birthplace of all true masters, the Kingdom Under the Mountain. Plenty of portals around."
The dwarf flinched, poker-faced no more. "They'll take them off you—and they just might allow you to keep your head. Or they could distract you with prayers and rituals while their masters fight for the order behind the scenes. It's not every day that a Famed Master lands a job that can level up his goldsmith skill."
I smiled: it hadn't taken much for this pick-wielding operator to give himself away. "So you see, Sir, it's in our interests you get the job, isn't it? Having said that, laying my hands on these fragments has drained my finances. Then again, knowing the advantages it could bring you, I'm quite prepared to give the job to you for the very modest kickback of a hundred thousand grand."
The dwarf fell silent, dumbfounded. Why not? I had better break the proverbial mold before he charged me full whack. Finally, he regained his composure and roared with laughter, slapping the desk.
"You're a joker, you really are! I very nearly believed you! I almost showed you to the door," he said with a hint of irony in his voice.
I smiled against my will, confirming my status as a joker. Thror opened a massive writing cabinet which contained, instead of office supplies, a small barrel of something definitely alcoholic. The dwarf tapped the barrel's fat slats, listening to the resonant echo, then poured two mugs and banged them onto the desk.
"Let's share a small cup of Dwarven Extra Dry. No good discussing a two-hundred-grand order dying of thirst!"
I choked. "Pardon me! I don't need an altar of solid gold. It has to be as light and inconspicuous as possible. Ideally it should look marginally better than a campfire tripod. Otherwise every Tom, Dick and Harry will come running wondering what I have here. So I suggest we share the expense: the altars for me, the experience for you."
It was his turn to choke. "I don't make kitchen utensils! I'm a goldsmith! And of all things, I don't work for free! Having said that," his glare clouded over, then glistened again, "you, Sir Laith, bear the Mark of the Fallen One. It stands to reason you have met. And the fact that you have the stones tells a lot to somebody with my experience. Very well. I'll make you the altars you want free of charge, provided you bring me a small vial of the Fallen One's blood."