Chapter 39: Dwarven De-escalation

A rhythmic click resounds against the pine desk as Dvengmir plays with one of her beard braids while reading a copy of last month’s mine report sent over by the [Foreman]— moreso the [Foreman]’s [Secretary]— and frowns as she compares it to the one submitted by a Gypsum [Union Miner].

There are inconsistencies between the two— Not around the coal crawlers, no, they can't falsify that or the fines and litigation would blot out the sun— but in the smaller details. Things not necessarily needed on record when they have [Miners] or a [Foreman] with skills that make it irrelevant. Things like the dimensions of the unfinished shaft they came from, height, width, depth, flammability of nearby shafts, placement of braces, etc.

Things common knowledge, irrelevant, or just forgotten to the average [Miner], but very important to know if she's gonna be sending adventurers down there.

The [Foreman's] report is more thorough, but the [Union Miner] has less to hide. Then again, at Gypsum hardness, they've got a lot to prove, and a report that leads to action might get them to level.

Dvengmir reaches for her dwarven tea, only to have the cup jump slightly into her hand and spill as the dull-picked brute from the bronze-rank party in line slams his fist into the other end of the desk.

“These can't be all we get from this! We killed over a dozen of those bugs!” The dwarven man yells into the face of the dephi in front of him.

“You did. Commendably so, and a note has been personally made by the [Guildmaster] in your file that will help you if your party ever wants to be more than bronze ranks on the edge of civilization. But, their corpses were in poor condition and not much in the way of valuable material could be recovered. You also decided to have the guild handle the sale of the parts which comes with a modest fee. Your total is 9 silver. Nothing you or I do will change this. I have it all on written record if you'd like to review it.” The pale [Knowledgeable Receptionist] replies, letting out a bit of soul-speak to have those near him feel how he is exasperatedly telling the truth.

Dvengmir lets the splashed tea drip from her palm a moment as the bronze-rank team captain breathes in for another round of impotent yelling. She looks up to see their teams [Geomancer]— the only one with real potential— tugging on her captain’s sleeve and nervously glancing towards the simmering woman behind the other end of the desk.

The [Hammer Warrior] captain ignores her and tugs his sleeve from her grip.

“Listen here you small-armed—”

“You spilled my tea.” Dvengmir says, interrupting the man.

She does this tactically, subconsciously. Firstly, to give the dwarf the opportunity to calm down— and failing that, prove beyond any doubt that he's being a rock-headed moron— and secondly, because she knows how much comments about her deskmate’s arms bother him. She's been here long enough to know that's like a beard to dephi.

The dwarf blinks at her for a second, slightly familiar with her, but not familiar enough and too indignant to care.

“So? Can't you see I'm getting robbed here?! I'd buy you another one if I had my money!”

The metal cup smacks against the adventurer’s hollow skull with a thonk, and Dvengmir vaults her desk with a single motion.

Foot collides with chest, and the two begin throwing limbs on the wooden floor.

“So, those are aliens?” Demarcus asks Cy as they watch the two dwarves beat the shit out of each other from their far table in the adventurer's guild lobby.

“Yep.” Cy says, watching with an entertained grin as the bronze rank team tries to pull them apart. “Well, they're an alien race. Not all of them are space dwarves.”

“What, some aren't spacefarers?” Izzy asks, watching as the 4 armed [Receptionist] hides beneath the desk— which is a sturdy pine for this exact purpose.

“Yes and no.” Cy says, relishing the phrase.

“Some of them are from our universe, somewhere out in the cosmos, but most are from here. Same with humans.”

“There are humans not from Earth?” Mato asks, carefully watching the brawl peter out bloodlessly.

“Yes and no.” Cy laughs. “Humans are from Earth, but plenty are born in the Wider World and will never step foot on Earth.”

“Ya see, the Wider World is its own— well, world, for lack of a better term. A world with gravity, laws of physics— though more malleable than we’re used to— history, a sun, one and a half moons, people—”

“One and a half moons?” Izzy asks.

“Someone blew one up a while ago. Not important. What's important is that people live and die here. Get married, have kids, fight wars, all that jazz. There are billions of people here, and less than 1% are actually from our universe.”

“It goes like this: there are Aspirants, which are people from our universe that die and choose the Game of Gods. There are Denizens, which are the descendants of Aspirants, they are born here and will die here and go straight to oblivion. And then there's Natives, which are people or sapient beings native to the Game of Gods and never existed outside of it; like elves, dragons, goblins, etcetera. Most natives don't have levels cuz of something to do with the Great Work.”

Mato narrows his eyes, and Cy continues.

“Few people you meet, if any, will have been from our universe— like her.” Cy says pointing at the female dwarf [Receptionist] who is rebraiding her beard pulled from the fight.

“You can sometimes tell who they are cuz they look out of place, know stuff the rest of the world doesn't, or are just high level. Aspirants get a bit of an advantage over others because they have a previous lifetime of experience to draw from and don't age the same way.”

“Doesn't seem balanced.” Demarcus mutters.

“It is cuz it isn't. Or at least, that's what I've heard. But hey, feel like getting registered now? Kinda need to be adventurers to use the rooms here.” Cy remarks with a shrug.

“Couldn't we have just found an inn or something? I wanna shower before anything else. Not making the best first impression smelling like this, guey.” Izzy asks.

“Cuz this is a tiny mining town in Bumfuck, Nowhere. There really isn't an inn. There's rooms at Town Hall for visiting representatives, a waystation a few miles up the road, an adventurer's guild, and a stable with the post office. Those are the options. So, adventurer's guild. This kills two birds anyways and the dirt and blood will make it easier to convince them you're adventurers. C'mon.” Cy says, pushing himself up from the table and snagging his burnt Wood staff from where it leaned against the wall.

He swaggers up towards the desk as the team of adventurers scoop up their bruised captain and their coin.

Cy steps wide of them, giving an amused nod to a little metal spider-like creature on one of the dwarves' shoulders. The little mech clasps two of its appendages in front of its ‘eyes’ in a universal symbol of apology as the dazed [Hammer Warrior] yells back to the desk.

“This isn't over!”

“We'll be here!” Dvengmir yells back.

The party awkwardly shuffles behind Cy as he approaches the desk with a smile.

“Nice work there. Wouldn't have bet on the [Receptionist] beating the adventurer in a fist fight. Combination class?” Cy asks.

Dvengmir gives a quiet bark of a frowning laugh. “Don't you know it's rude to ask a lady her class? It was just a scrap regardless. What can we do for you?” She asks.

Demarcus jumps unnoticably when he finally realizes this bearded dwarf is a woman. Izzy takes a step to the side to watch the dephi extricate himself from beneath the desk, lower arms braced against the floor as his upper arms maneuver the chair and pick up some knocked over papers. Mato watches the other group leave as Cy leans on his staff, attempting and failing to look suave.

“I’m hoping to help register my friends here as a bronze rank adventuring party.” He says.

“Easy enough to do. Righteousness, mind grabbin’ me the registration forms?”

The dephi, Righteousness, narrows his eyes at her, framing those rectangular pupils until most of the eye seems black, and the hair around his throat seems to slightly vibrate.

A layered feeling, foreign to the people receiving it, is registered in the surrounding people's minds. Not necessarily felt, but witnessed, like being heard. It's a feeling of irritation at the dwarf for the fight she just caused, as well as a deeper feeling of sustained frustration at her general attitude. The feeling fades, leaving the 3 newer humans disoriented and confused as one of Righteousness’ upper arms dexterously pulls a piece of paper from a drawer.

“Thank you, and get the rocks outta your boots. Believe it or not, that was dwarven de-escalation.”

“What the fuck was that?” Izzy whispers to Cy.

“He's a dephi. The way the Great Work translates their secondary language makes them essentially psychics for ideas and feelings. Empaths.” Cy quietly explains to the group.

“Okay then.” the dwarven receptionist begins, “And will you be registering with them or are you already registered as an adventurer?”

“I will not be registering with them.” Cy answers.

Righteousness raises a bushy eyebrow at Cy's carefully worded answer, and shifts his seat to better see the truth stone attached to the underside of the desk.

He gives a quick and subtle elbow with an upper arm to Dvengmir. Unable to use soul speech to explain his suspicions without also having those nearby ‘hear’ it too, he just gives the dwarf a look and hopes she picks up on it.

She does not. But thankfully knows the drill with this sort of thing and gives the relevant spiel anyways.

“No problem. Do keep in mind though that if you aren't registered with the adventurer's guild you won't have access to most of its resources and programs, some of which are pretty sweet— not here necessarily, but other guildhalls.”

“The rest of you,” she says looking at the 3 humans behind him. “Take note that if this man regularly finds himself alongside you when fulfilling bounties, contracts, or finding some sort of treaure— and you pay him from the pre-tax proceeds— the guild will look into the matter and may consider it tax evasion. So, either don't pay him, pay him after the guild has collected their percentage, or make sure he gets registered.”

“I'm not gonna take their money. Or magic items. Don't worry about it.” Cy reassures with an irritated eye roll.

“Won't be taking valuables of any kind eligible for guild tax?” Righteousness chimes in to clarify. Earning a ‘subtle’ glare from his deskmate for butting in.

“No.” Cy reassures, unhappy with the interrogation.

Righteousness chances a glance under the table, where the truth stone stays a dull grey, not glowing at the sound of a lie. He gives an upper shrug to Dvengmir, who continues.

“Alrighty then. With that out of the way; Names, classes, levels, and any next of kin please? You’ve got the option to leave your class and level vague for privacy if you so wish, just giving the ‘tier’ and category of class, but keep in mind that the guild having this information on file can be very helpful later on.”

“For instance; it can help with emergency medical treatment if you have a skill that may affect that, allow us to get contract-givers in contact with you if you're particularly suited for their needs, plus it looks good on rank increases. I'd recommend it unless you've got a class that's better not shared.”

The group desperately tries not to glance at Cy simultaneously, assuming that a time travel class would probably be ‘a big deal.’ Mato shrugs and steps up, trying to draw attention away.

“I'll go first.”

“Great! We have to have a truth stone active while you make the statements, just for posterity. A lie won't necessarily disqualify you, but it will be noted down. So, please word the information in simple statements like ‘My name is Dvengmir. My class is [Receptionist].’”

The dwarf woman gestures for the dephi to hand her the truth stone, and he makes a show of opening a drawer and reaching in while detaching the stone from beneath the desk with a 3-fingered lower arm, attempting to conceal the fact that they had the stone active the entire time.

The dwarf places it on the desk.

“My name is Mato Holt. I am a Tier 2, level 1 [Respectful Ranger]. No next of kin.”

Dvengmir writes the information down as Demarcus steps up.

“Demarcus Davis— sorry. My name is Demarcus Davis. I'm a level— Tier 2 [Warrior]. I don't have any next of kin, I don't think. How does that work here?”

“My name is Izzy. Tier 2 [Punk Rocker]. Ugh. I'm a tier 2 [Punk Rocker]. Don't think we have next of kin.”

Dvengmir finishes writing down their information as Righteousness uses a skill to copy the registration form as he puts away the next of kin section. She can't help but make the observation, slightly excited at meeting the 2nd group since integrating.

“Aspirants then? Don't worry, the interview is over, you're not under scrutiny anymore. But no next of kin, all tier 2, and you're looking around like you're down to your glowsticks.”

“I have no idea what that means, but yeah, aspirants. You too? Where are you from?” Izzy asks, excited at the prospect of meeting a space dwarf.

Dvengmir’s ruddy skin grows a shade pinker at the cheeks from the fascinated look the humans give her.

“I lived on a Dwellgyl station in the Hypis belt. Nothing special. I hear humans are all from… dirt? Is that still true?”

“Earth? Yeah. Ya sayin’ yer not from a planet?” Mato replies.

Righteousness does his best not to interrupt or scare off the line of conversation by looking too interested. Humans aren’t ever rare but he'd never met a human aspirant.

“Oh no. There's very few habitable anymore. We mostly live in orbital habitats, rings, or stations. Terrestrial life has been… disorienting, to say the least. I just pretend this place is one big ringworld some days.” She says with a nervous, morose laugh.

“But enough about me. Back to the job.”

Her tone and expression relaxes into something more professional.

“I asked because that likely means you're unfamiliar with how adventurers work. Basics is that you take on contracts as you want, or bounties, or turn in killed monsters. Some adventurers are just explorers or dungeon delvers. You kinda just do whatever you like and we facilitate you getting paid for it.”

“The big thing is that there are 4 ranks. Bronze, silver, gold, and legendary. You start at bronze, and guildmasters will determine when you level up to the next rank. Monsters, threats, dungeons, and several other things are assessed by this rank system as well to help adventurers and contract makers determine difficulty, pay, things like that. Would you like to see a bronze contract and a silver contract to compare how it works?”

Cy steps forward, pre-empting Mato before he could agree, and hurries to speak over him.

“Actually, you guys already had a contract you wanted to see, right?” He says, giving a very obvious tilt of the head and look between the 3 of them.

When they stay silent, Demarcus glancing at the truth stone at the table, Cy sighs and begins to violently rifle through a pocket on the inside of his brown cloak.

“You guys heard about the—”

He turns away from the desk and pulls out a scrap of paper, reading it quickly and shoving it back in his pocket.

“—coal crawlers in the western shaft, right?”

Righteousness looks confused and speaks up. “There are no crawlers in the western shaft.”

He begins to flick through a sheaf of papers on his desk, and Dvengmir opens her mouth to question when the door to the guild slams open and a breathless dephi runner shouts into the room.

“Crawlers in the western shaft!”

The receptionists’ eyes turn to Cy as Izzy hides her face in her hands.

He wears his best inadequate poker face as he replies.

“Those ones.”

***

The world is a dark and clouded orange, like Hollywood’s ‘Mexico filter’, caused by the nearby burning city. Two green clouds stand in stark contrast in the sky, and I dazedly stare at them. My eye opened only recently, and my brain is still booting, jogging to catch up.

I stare at the clouds, and at the flat edges on their insides, like someone cleanly cut a larger cloud vertically down the middle, separating it— and I decide that might very well be what happened.

My head thunders, making the sky pulse with every throb, like a nightclub in the clouds. I realize my head rests uncomfortably against something, and I painfully try to adjust, eventually rolling onto my side.

I stare at my reflection, head resting against the roots of some tree, and watch as a dollop of drool irrigates its way through dirt on my chin. I look like shit.

My reflection blinks open his eye, and I vaguely remember who I am, and more importantly who he is.

Scab Cy blinks and lets out a small pained moan as the hangover of blackout juice hits him all at once. He rolls over to put his face directly in the dirt, blocking the light from his eye.

He mumbles something in the dirt and I arduously try to lift my head to look around. I give up with a grunt, then take 3 short breaths to ready myself, plant my arms firmly, and hoist myself up to sit leaning against the tree.

I set my head back and it snaps backwards, bending at the neck as the sturdy wood I intended to lean my head against disappears.

The startle wakes me a bit more, and I see Scab Cy beginning to shift as I quickly turn to examine the tree, an ounce of fight or flight kicking in from the shock.

I find that the tree trunk ends abruptly 2-3 feet off the ground. Wood green in places, still slick from moisture, cut cleanly in an askew horizontal line— inches from my head.

My memory jogs, catching up to my body and breathlessly explaining as I remember why I was passed out on the ground with my doppelganger. My eye focuses, I look around me, and I see devastation.

The roving hills of dirt and sand have inverted into craters, the overall altitude of this region permanently altered. Some craters still smoke, some seem to be stuck, millions of grains of sand floating in the air like a tornado paused in time, and another has just turned to ruddy, dirty glass. Throughout all of them are clean slashes, where the very air has been cut in two. I realize I glossed over a space, and look back to find my eye unfocusing, my head hurting, and my mind forgetting as soon as I look away— this cycle of remembering and forgetting repeats until Scab Cy sits up next to me.

His lips smack for a second, and his mouth opens to make some comment before he stops dead in his roving glance.

I turn to where he looks behind me, and find another figure standing there, his blue frock coat cut in several places and looking ominously purple in the tainted light. He's turned away from us, staring down at something in his hands, which he mysteriously slips into an out of sight pocket before he slowly turns back to us.

My eye meets his, a social instinct for eye contact at first, but as they lock it feels that his eye is the only thing on his face— the rest of him falling away in darkness, consumed in the crushing weight of his gaze. I look through the window of the soul and see… everything. Things my mind doesn't have the machinery to understand. Impossible ages of choices, witness, loss, and glory.

There is an oppressive feeling to the air, a pressure that wasn't there before I knew he was present. My [Sense of Timing] flat out refuses to respond, drinking straight from the bottle in the bathtub as the phone rings.

My mind makes an executive decision, and decides to forget.

The immortal I might become opens his mouth.

“Hey you, you're finally awake.” Mysterious Cy says with a complicated smirk.

I'm about to ask who this man is, but choke back the incredibly stupid question.

I fail to catch the second one.

“Who— did you kill that guy?” I ask, wincing at my voice.

Mysterious Cy’s smirk disappears.

“Yes. Yes I did.” He says, and looks behind me.

I turn, and find Scab Cy scowling as he pockets something. He looks back up at me, and then behind me, and the color drains from his face like he's turned to see a cop standing behind him watching him jimmy a lock.

Mysterious Cy’s voice echoes from behind me, speaking directly to my future self.

“You should go now.”

“But— wait, I have questions—” Scab Cy begins.

“You should go now.”

Because it's my own— but a bit more messed up— I can picture the war behind Scab Cy's face. Whatever he knows about my future brutally beating down the freedom fighters of whatever he was about to say and the protestors of his disdain for being told what to do. In the end, the resistance has a good leader, who knows this isn't the hill to die on.

He gives our future self a mocking salute and starts sweatily dragging me by the arm.

I feel a sudden camaraderie with Scab Cy when compared to the being standing behind us, who we are slowly picking up the pace to escape from. So I ask the stupid question.

“Who the fuck was that?! Besides— ya know— me.” I frantically whisper.

Scab Cy licks his cracked lips.

“That was the highest level— well— no that's an exception. So yeah, that's the highest level Cy I've ever seen. So far. Gotta add on the ‘so far’ there.” He mumbles the addendums under his breath.

He continues dragging me away and I shake his pull and follow alongside as we fast walk in step, climbing down and back up the other side of a smoldering crater that cooks our boots and leaves the air smelling sticky.

“How high?” I ask.

“Honestly, not sure. At least tier 8, could be 9 or 10. Probably not 10 though. Here's good.” He says, stopping me in my tracks with his tinier hand.

“Oh shit. Do we become a God?” I ask, the implications dawning on me as I whip my head back to the tree, only to see empty wartorn hills.

“It’s best not to ask those questions. Ignorance is bliss. You're gonna wanna get on your hands and knees here.” Scab Cy replies, his eye closed and his hair beginning to stand on end.

In my fugue I crouch for a second, before catching myself.

“Wait. Why?”

“Cuz you're gonna puke all over yourself otherwise. Alright, here we go!”

He raises his hands in the air, and a complex circle quickly burns itself into the ground beneath us. I have just enough time to dive onto my hands and knees before—

The world twists, bends, and I feel myself stretch as the memory of binocular vision assaults me with the image of the warping ground I see before me being overlayed with another. Blonde dirt morphs into grass fleshily like an early AI video, and the last thing I see is me killing that grass as I puke all over it.

A tinier hand pats me on the back as I retch and then fall onto my side.

“That's it. Let it out. Teleportation sickness is brutal the first time around.”

“Wha—” having to spit more bile out gives me more time to think of a better question. I let the world slow its spinning before asking.

“Where'd we teleport to?”

“Crocodile Creek. Little river town near the border of The Cinnadad Empire. Has a decent human population cuz the name is funny in a lotta human languages, and is the closest place I know of that isn't very loyal to the [Slaver] empire. We're gonna meet a past version of me and get you some stuff then… handle some business.”

I crack my eye open at the ominous end.

“What business?” I say, pathetically from the ground where vomit dries on my lips.

Scab Cy offers his left arm, which I take and he hoists me up.

“Why don't you tell me?”

I quirk an eyebrow. “You want me to tell you what I want to do next?”

“Sure, that'd be great. What do you think is our highest priority?”

This is obviously a trick question, and he's got that smug smile of knowing something I don't. I think aloud.

“Well, my first instinct is to go find Demarcus, I did promise him. Otherwise, maybe find out some info on the world and the aliens and stuff. Maybe a map. A shower would be nice, and some food— oh! Don't I have that blacksmith guy I gave sand to? I wonder if he made it out yet? I know there was a list of shit to do in the journal. What was— where— where?!”

I yank off my fanny pack and wind up inserting my whole arm down to the shoulder into it. I pull it off and shove my face into the opening, seeing nothing but a black void and feeling my breath bouncing back to me. I wind up pulling out my Pokin’ Stick from the bag and using it to stir around the opening of the bag.

“What the fuck?” I whisper, patting my coat and looking around at the ground around us.

“Did you do something?” I ask Scab Cy.

He sighs, shaking his head, and lays a tiny hand on my shoulder.

“We're gonna have to kill a lot of lizards.”