The Way Ahead

Chapter 11: Roadside Assessment

Edwin stared. It was such a radical departure from what he had seen the past few days, he had to rub his eyes and check again to ensure he wasnt hallucinating. Then, he carefully inched his foot onto the... road, hoping it wasnt trapped or some sort of illusion or harmful in some other crazy way. When he did not, in fact, have his foot immediately bitten off, he stepped out onto the surface fully and nearly collapsed as a wave of comfort and warmth washed over him, accompanied by the buzzing of magic.

While he managed to avoid completely staggering to the ground immediately, Edwins legs gave out from under him enough that he was still driven to his knees, then into a seat on the strange, smooth black stone. It felt heated, warm but not uncomfortable. Presumably, it was meant as an anti-snow measure, but to keep such a massive piece of infrastructure warmed must have been insanely expensive.

Edwin tried to stand up, but with his legs acting decidedly non-cooperative, he instead found himself becoming quite well-acquainted with the road beneath him. On closer inspection, the rock- what was it, anyway? He couldnt place it- had a faint texture on it, presumably to aid traction, and was joined into a single, continuous stone without a single gap or seam. Right along the edge, on closer inspection, were nigh-invisible sigils, only visible because Edwins nose was two inches away from the rune in question. Probably, it was related to whatever magical nonsense made this sort of structure possible to begin with. What kind of skill would that be, anyway? Runistry?

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Basic Mana Sense Level 2122

Whatever it was, it was impressive. Probably meant to keep the road clear, clean, warm, and in good repair. He couldnt see so much as a speck of dirt on its surface, after all. It was so, so warm. Oh man, that felt good. Ah.

Any protests Edwin may have had about falling asleep on the side of a road were quickly overridden by a nigh-unanimous veto by the rest of his body. This was the warmest and most comfortable he had felt since he fell out of the literal sky, and ironically, was probably the cleanest bed hed had thus far. The buzzing of his mana sense was annoying, and he quietly turned it off, closing the metaphorical eye involved. He could practically feel the tension drain out of his muscles as he just let himself slip away

Level Up!

Sleeping Level 78

He woke up briefly as the sun rose, but Edwin just muttered something incomprehensible even to himself and fell back to sleep.

A branch was poking into his side as he slept, and Edwin absently went to shove it away and resume sleeping, but it moved in response to his attempted grab and insistently started prodding into his stomach, exposed by his movement. It took a moment, but Edwin eventually came to, blinking the sleep out of his eyes and being scared awake the rest of the way as he realized he was literally face-to-face with something with a very large mouth.

Edwin scrambled back, getting some distance away from whatever thing was so close to his head, and realized he was looking at a goat. A very large, very hairy goat, but a goat nonetheless. It had to have been at least as twice as big as him and was laden with a lot of heavy-looking bags, which was what finally brought his attention to the figure standing next to the goat, and the entity responsible for prodding him in the side.

It was a dwarf. That was the overwhelming first impression Edwin got of the person. Short? Check. As hairy as his goat? Check. Sporting a beard that covered more than half of their face? Very check. The dwarf stood warily as he looked at Edwin, holding a mean-looking pickaxe somewhat loosely as he peered at Edwin through something which resembled smoked goggles, one of the few things visible beyond his massive red beard. Honestly, he couldnt have looked more of a stereotypical dwarf if he tried.

Sa! Solsiniwash! Thas fanishel tankaile lae sorwal! His tone was quite insistent, though the words he was saying were utter nonsense.

Wha- What? Edwin choked out, vocal cords protesting at the sudden usage as he stared at the first person he had seen in Joriah (the dueling mages didnt count), I cant understand you.

Sa thas tankaile lae! the dwarf tried again, to which Edwin could only dumbly shake his head in response.

I. Do not. Understand. You. Edwin repeated slowly, doing his best to pantomime each word at each step.

Sa cavelstin? Sorwe shollen cilath, the dwarf seemed less angry now, more confused, Sa kiltana-shoshal? Sovish? Teltelki? Farsia? Vollok?

Edwin lamely shrugged at what was clearly a question, and at that, the dwarf sighed and started walking up the mountain, waving after himself in a clear indication that Edwin was to follow him. Without any kind of viable alternative, and excited at the prospect of seeing new people, he followed along. Once the dwarf and the goat got back in range, he Identified the pair.

Inheritor of the Bringer of Radiant Gold and Good Fortune

Adult Torvelk Goat

Huh. That seemed like an... impressive class name. A bit unwieldy, perhaps, but that may have just been the translation from whatever language the Inheritor spoke. Certainly more impressive than Edwins. He couldnt help but wonder what kinds of classes were typical, and how much stronger than him everyone must be. Hopefully this wouldnt be too long of a walk, though it was far easier the sorts of treks he had been doing recently. The road cut straight through several ups and downs in the terrain, with the ground directly below the road either dug out or filled in to accommodate at times, was always inclined at what felt like but couldnt possibly have been an apparently uniform angle, and never had any holes, cracks, slippery patches, or any other obstruction.

It had to be magic, Edwin thought as they walked along one stretch of mountainside which hadnt melted yet. The snow was piled up high on either side of the road and perfectly cut off at its edge, without so much as a single snowflake on the black stone. Really, it was eerie just how perfect it all was. It would put the quality of nearly any road Edwin had seen back on Earth to shame, though it was really only sized for foot traffic from the looks of it.

The dwarf must have had a high level in Walking, or some equivalent. It had been about two hours of hiking uphill at this point, and Edwin, even being somewhat used to spending a lot of time on his feet by this point, was starting to flag. He had gotten a level-up in his own Walking skill some time ago, which was usually a sign he had walked enough to need a break, but his companion hadnt so much as slowed by a hair. Edwin was run ragged, as the comfort the road exuded was slowly eroding away the near-constant state of adrenaline he had been running on for the last week. He was nearly at the end of what he could feasibly accomplish when what had to be their destination finally came into view.

Ahead of them, inset into an exposed cliff face of the mountain, was a massive door. On either side of the gate, depictions of snakelike dragons were carved into the same kind of black stone that the road was made of, and carved above the apex of the colossal work of masonry was what looked like a bust of a dwarf, a massive beard captured in intense glory.

Drawing closer revealed that just massive might have been an understatement. The door was at least a hundred feet tall and absolutely covered in all manner of intricate carvings and inscriptions. From his cursory examination, it looked to Edwin that there was a story of some form being told, and the carvings telling it were almost fractal in nature, larger pictures being composed of smaller pieces of art, with those in turn being composed of their own smaller carvings until the detail was too small for him to see. The doors themselves looked utterly impractical, and it would be more likely to get an A grade on a Dr. Schwer test than for the doors to actually open if physics had anything to say about it.

For a moment, Edwin thought- kind of half-hoped, really- that he might be proven wrong, but then the Inheritor moved off to the side of the road, to the base of the doorframe. He knocked on a part of the wall and said something incomprehensible to the raw stone. After a moment had passed, that section of the wall was drawn up in the blink of an eye, revealing a dark passage behind it. While Edwin was initially hesitant to enter into such an ominous-looking passage, a glance from the dwarf and what seemed like a barked order to enter had him hesitantly following behind the goat. What else was he supposed to do, anyway? Stay on the outside?

Right after Edwin stepped past the threshold, the door behind suddenly just reappeared. There was no sound, no rush of wind, just the sudden cessation of light from behind him, plunging the tunnel into complete and total darkness.

As his eyes adjusted, Edwin realized it wasnt completely dark, instead lit by some very, very dim magical crystals inset into the walls. The stone in here wasnt as immaculately carved as the outer doors, but was nonetheless composed of the same smooth, featureless black rock as the road.

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Seeing Level 1314

As he progressed along the winding corridor, Edwin noticed a few tiny holes in the walls. They looked like arrow slits, which he presumed meant this passage was meant to function as a sort of gatehouse in case wherever this was found itself under attack.

The corridor didnt stretch on too far, and as it rounded the final bend, Edwin was able to see the inside of this stronghold properly, and the sight took his breath away. Everything he could see was carved out of a single piece of black rock, trimmed in gold in several key locations. Stairs, which really shouldnt have been capable of supporting their own weight, stretched to balconies far above. Gems were inset into the floor in a handful of prominent positions, causing the room to sparkle with multicolored light. At first, Edwin wasnt able to tell where the orangish-yellow light pervading the entire space emanated from, but then realized the massive cavern was lit by glowing rivers of molten metal, flowing through stone troughs and falling in waterfalls across the space. Most notably, it flowed in a trench right in front of Edwin, between the door and the rest of the citadel, with only a single bridge connecting the two sides. It couldnt be practical to do something like that by any stretch of the imagination, but what a sight it made.

In the distance, Edwin could hear the sound of metal striking metal in an almost rhythmic beat, the sound of what was surely a smithy in the distance providing a percussion beat. The air was warm, dry, and smelled like iron, perhaps unsurprisingly given the rivers of molten metal- he just couldnt get over that aspect. It was just so cool, and properly fantasy. There were a few dwarves walking around, though they all moved with purpose and sadly none were within his Identify range.

Was he being called? He was probably being called. The dwarf- the one Edwin had tagged with The guy who found me on the road using Outsiders Almanac- was gesturing at him while talking to another dwarf with a black beard no less massive than the firsts. The goat, for its part, was nowhere to be seen. Still, it seemed as though he was being summoned, and so joined the two dwarves as they talked, though he kept getting distracted by the architecture, particularly the stone bridge over the molten metal- would it have killed them to include guard rails? He wasnt able to follow the conversation anyway, and all he learned from Identify was that the other dwarf was a Chief Goldworker. On a whim, he tagged that dwarf with Welcome Party, because why not?

Level Up!

Identify Level 1213

Outsiders Almanac Level 2223

A few minutes of quite animated talking later, the Goldworker tossed a small pouch of what sounded like coins to the other dwarf, then snapped his fingers and motioned for Edwin to follow him. With a shrug (and hoping he hadnt just been sold into slavery), he did so, and was led up a fairly prominent staircase, into what must have been the throne room for whatever dwarf king ruled this city.

On either side of the throne, made of wrought silver and gold, were about a half-dozen statues of what were likely the previous rulers of wherever this was. Either they were all male or dwarven ladies also had beards, but the detail on the statues was incredible. He could practically make out individual hairs on their beards. Only one of the statues, one of the two closest to the throne, was made of the same black stone as the city and road, though. Weird. He had thought they had a pretty clear theme going on, but apparently not.

And there was more talking. Great. Edwin didnt have much patience for this sort of thing when he could understand what was being said, to say nothing of when he couldnt, and he was practically dead on his feet at this point besides. There was more of the glowing rivers metal around here, too. It was so cool to watch and- oh. His attention was being grabbed.

The king said something, and then another thing, and a third thing. Each time sounded like a different language, but it all sounded like gibberish, so he could only shrug in response after each time. The dwarf king, apparently somewhat perturbed by this development, stroked his black beard- even more impressive than any he had seen so far, it must be said- it had various trinkets braided into it- and called out to someone. From off to the side, another new dwarf appeared.

This new dwarfs beard was much smaller than the others he had seen so far, thus gaining an immediate appellation in Edwins mind, and after skittering into the room and bowing to the king, Smallbeard turned to Edwin and somewhat nervously motioned for him to, once again, follow along.

Edwin had the distinct feeling that he was just getting passed along from dwarf to dwarf until someone figured out what to do with him, but he was warm, mostly comfortable, and saw the potential for an actual bed, so he played along. He could really only imagine what he must look like at this point. Scruffy, unkempt hair, dirty and tattered clothing, and even skinnier than usual. At least he looked the part of a haggard survivor. Still, where was Smallbeard taking him? A quick check showed he was a Page of the Graven Word, so maybe going to a librarian or scholar of some sort? Not sure how useful that would be, though. There was no way anyone here would know English, theyd be stuck with pantomimes for some time until Edwin would be able to puzzle together enough words from Dwarvish to explain what happened, and wouldnt that be a fun time

His suspicions were proven correct as Smallbeard stopped, knocked on a door, then led Edwin into a fairly spacious room, lined utterly with books. Sitting off to one side was a bespectacled silver-bearded dwarf, who turned to the newcomers within the library, adjusted his glasses, and spoke in perfect, modern English, without so much as a hint of an accent Ah, Thrandin. What have you brought me today?