Chapter 687: Ingenuity (2/2)

“Yeah. Not easy to make but quite popular in the Pit. I know most rich folk prefer live renditions,” he said and activated an enchanted box.

The sound of string instruments immediately resounded, a surprisingly fast pace compared to most music Ilea had heard so far in Elos. “I want this,” she said, carefully touching the device with childlike fascination.

[Voice Summoner – Rare Quality] – [Enchanted]

“It’s quite a nice device to have around,” Pierce agreed. “Can it be louder?”

“There’s a few gears on it. Feel free to fiddle around with it. What color did you want it, lassy?” Bralin asked.

“It’s been a while since someone called me Lassy,” Pierce said with an almost predatory grin. “Make it blue. Dark blue.”

“As you wish, princess,” he said and continued his work, occasionally humming with the music.

Ilea tried the different gears. One thing she noted was that the piece only seemed to allow for a single song to be captured, and its mana was used up rather quickly, meaning someone had to go recharge it after every single rendition. Not much of a problem with her extensive inner storage space and incredible wealth, but it would take some time to record the music. Ah I wish I had some epic themes for battles. But I’d have to first try and recall everything, give a musician my shitty rendition and have them copy it with actual talent.

“How much is one of these?” she asked. “Without a piece of music stored inside.”

Bralin glanced back at her, a part of his suit’s arm inside the other war machine’s back. He shrugged lightly. “Three or four gold pieces.”

“What if I buy a hundred,” she said.

He just shook his head. “Gods,” he muttered. “Ten to twenty percent discount.”

“Hmm, I can just have Goliath copy this,” she mused, hearing a tool clatter to the floor.

The music still played in the background with Bralin staring at her. “Did you say Goliath? As in, the legendary Dark One smith from Hallowfort?”

“Yeah, he made the armor too,” Ilea supplied.

“By Lilith,” he whispered. “You truly do not cease to surprise. He’s a fucking legend. A myth. Every year there’s another fool who goes north to find the settlement.”

Pretty sure we could add this place to the teleportation network at some point, Ilea thought.

“Any one of us ever make it up there?” he asked. “Out of curiosity.”

Ilea nodded lightly. “Yeah, there’s quite a few dwarves there. Mostly various Dark One species. Terok is one of them, if you know him.”

He laughed and got back to work. “Terok she says. I know about eighteen of the fuckers. A few of em went north too. Might just be he’s a distant cousin of mine.”

“Dwarves,” Pierce mused.

He pointed at her without taking his eyes off the steel plate he was checking. “You better watch your mouth, lots of things that can go wrong with a high power war machine like this one.”

“Just put in a remote detonator,” Ilea said. “Maybe then she might actually shut up.”

“Don’t give him ideas, I can only get so excited,” Pierce said before she groaned. “Ah it’s not the same knowing you’ve actually faced down a Dragon.”

Another tool fell to the ground. Bralin looked up and sighed. “Please. I’m trying to work here.”

“How long will it take?” Pierce asked. “I’m already bored.”

“We can go sign you up for the Forged Dome,” Ilea suggested. “I’d love to watch you fail.”

Pierce whistled. “You’re on, goddess. I’ll fight you to the bitter end.”

“A one second battle doesn’t sound particularly interesting,” Ilea retorted.

The Elder walked off, finishing her drink before she placed the glass on a nearby workbench. “Jokes like that aren’t funny when what you say is true.”

Ilea smiled. “They are to me. See you later Bralin, and thanks for the work.”

He hummed to the music and waved them off. “I owe you at least sixty gold pieces for that sword.”

“It was a gift,” she said, making sure Pierce heard her. They teleported out into the street, Ilea stretching as she breathed in the fresh air coated with a healthy layer of smithing fumes and metal particles. “I’ll give you one for eighty five,” she whispered to the Elder.

Pierce looked at her and huffed. “I will purchase your intriguing tool. Here, that should be sufficient,” she said and summoned a small chest with obviously dwarven runes on it.

Ilea checked the thing and made it vanish, a hundred gold coins richer. “You’re even worse with gold than I am,” she said and threw the woman one of the massive blades.

Pierce caught it with surprising grace, swinging it around before she made it vanish. A few people stared at them, one young dwarf rubbing his eyes.

“Gold retains little meaning to me, Lilith,” Pierce said in a fake haughty accent.

“Seems like Verena found the Shades. She’s coming back this way. Let’s meet her on the way, I wanted to try some of the local dishes anyway,” Ilea said and started towards one of the side alleys.

“Always thinking about food,” Pierce said.

“What else is there in life?” Ilea asked, soon with her first bowl of steamed vegetables and juicy green meat. The hint of metal added a unique taste to the dish.

Pierce of course joined in, a bottle of ale or a drink added to each plate or bowl.

The festivities had spread throughout the whole of the Pit, either that or it was just a normal thing at this time of day. A time of day Ilea couldn’t quite discern without a visible sun. Dwarves greeted them as they passed, many of them showing light bruises, dents or cuts on their armor, some even with missing limbs. The machines that were, not the people piloting them.

“You’re healing them, aren’t you?” Pierce said.

Ilea swallowed, her eyes closed as the enjoyed the taste. “Hmm. What? Oh, yes of course.”

“Have you no regard for the local healer guilds? How else will they make a living,” she said in a deadpan voice.

Ilea could see into most of the shops and smithies nearby. They weren’t near the wealthier areas in the higher sections of the bowl after all, where enchantments likely protected against that kind of intrusion. “They don’t exactly seem to have workplace safety laws,” she said, seeing a working dwarf hiss as he slipped and cut off one of his fingers.

He grabbed the finger with gritted teeth before he watched the thing regrow instead. Glancing at the severed and bleeding piece, he threw it into a nearby fire. The dwarf muttered something as he looked up for a brief moment and then got back to work.

“Hmm, this one is good,” Pierce said. “Forge’s Forge Ale,” she added, reading off the label. “If only everything didn’t have this slight taste of metal.”

“Might just be the air,” Ilea said. “Probably not healthy either.”

“Ah, you’re just blowing things out of proportion. Typical healer talk. A bit of metal in the air is perfectly healthy,” Pierce said and waved to the other Elder a few dozen meters ahead.

Verena was followed by the two familiar Shade creatures, their excitement near palpable. Both of them looked at everything they passed. One stopped to pick up a block of iron from a stall. The other one joined to add some comments as they both admired the piece.

“You really do internalize it all,” Ilea mused when she reached Verena. “Thanks for getting them.”

“They weren’t hard to find,” Verena said, choosing to ignore the other comment.

“This place is full of wonder,” one of the Shades said, a joyous expression on its mist like lack of face.

Ilea didn’t know how she could tell but chose not to question her sanity quite yet. “We wanted to sign Pierce up for the Forged Dome, care to join us?”

“Ah, yes! We have heard much of this fabled Dome,” one of them said, returning the slab of metal without a shred of interest left.

I wonder if they’ve already forgotten about the Soul Forge.

Ilea pondered the implementation of forges in pretty much everything around them as they made their way through the city. The building they sought wasn’t hard to find, but the problem was that most of it was gone. Hmm.

A lane of destruction went from their position to a distant cannon, the likely culprit of their current issue. At least it got the Warden too, she thought and turned back to the remains of the stone building.