A Perverted Path to Victory

Sara Brown

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She woke to sunlight piercing her eyelids, a pounding headache, and the soft cursing of an archmage.

“I didn’t realize!” Garen whispered. “I didn’t think she would still be here. I was coming to ask you where she was.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” her dad responded. “I think she might not— oh, no, she’s awake. Good morning, Sara.”

This is bullshit, Sara thought, her thoughts stomping forward to the slow, throbbing beat of her aching head. Naps should make you feel better, not worse. She reluctantly opened her eyes, winced at the sun, and stretched her arms out wide, turning to face the door.

Tulian’s lone archmage had his hand on the half-opened door to her dad’s office, his gray stubble wrinkled with awkward regret. He was wearing his usual unadorned brown robes, and if Sara had to guess, she thought he’d gone even longer than usual without shaving. The salt-and-pepper had gone from a light dusting to something approaching a full beard.

And he looks nervous, she noted. Great. Let’s see what the fuck happened now.

“You’re fine, Garen,” she assured him, her voice strong despite it all. “Dad was supposed to wake me up hours ago anyway.” She shot a narrow glare at her father. “Actually, he wasn’t supposed to let me fall asleep at all. Which he did on purpose with that lecture.”

“No I didn’t,” he lied, his chubby cheeks the very picture of cherubic innocence. “It’s not my fault you always fall asleep in class.”

She snorted a laugh and rolled her eyes, turning to Garen. “Whatever. Okay, what’s up? You look like you’ve got bad news.”

Rather than responding, Garen took a step to move fully into the office. He shut the door behind him, made sure it clicked, and then his eyes glazed over, his focus turning inward as his fingers twitched in tiny bursts, playing microscopic strings. After a moment he nodded to himself, satisfied.

“We can speak freely here,” he announced. “My wards are intact.”

Sara straightened in her chair. “Okay. That’s technically good, but now I’m wondering why they wouldn't be.”

He took a breath, scratching his stubble. “No particular reason. That is, I have not detected the presence of inquisitive or hostile spells. But it is good practice to make sure, because I believe the first of Tulian’s prophesied visitors has arrived.”

Sara was out of her chair in an instant, one gauntlet swiped off the floor and dragged onto her hand in the blink of an eye, and then she was moving across the room to her pile of discarded armor with enough speed to send every loose paper in the room flying. Right as she knelt to grab her helmet, Garen held up a hand.

“It is not an emergency.”

“How?” After checking the padded lining of her helm to make sure it was in its proper place, she dropped it onto her head, clamping the visor shut. Her voice echoed within the steel. “My goddess boss gave us a whole-ass prophecy about crazy monsters coming to fuck up Tulian. That’s not something I’m gonna fuck around with.”

“I do not believe this individual is a monster, Sara,” Garen said. “And they are already in the city.”

Fire ran through her veins, adrenaline boiling away the last of her fatigue. She hefted all hundred pounds of her blacksteel breastplate up and slapped it onto her chest, walking backward to her father’s desk.

“Dad. Help tie me up.”

“Uh-” He blinked at the mess of leather straps that dangled like the limbs of a dead octopus.

“It’s just straps that go into buckles, straight across. There’s so many because this breastplate is gonna take harder hits than most and we didn’t want them to snap. Untangle it and match ‘em up.”

“O-okay,” he stuttered, nervously plucking at the straps. Thankfully, though the blacksteel armor had been a first for Hurlish as much as it had been the world, the final product wasn’t any different than common types of breastplate. A front piece and rear piece came together to sandwich her torso, held together by simple leather in such a way that nothing important could be easily cut. “I think I can get it…” He muttered, beginning to match like to like.

“Thanks. Now, what are we dealing with?” She asked Garen. “Demons, fae, Lovecraft bullshit?”

Garen pursed his lips. “When my wards were tripped, it was by a single man and an animal entering through the west gate. I have already cast my vision across the city, Sara. There is no chaos, no fire, no fighting. No reaction at all, in fact, as if their arrival has gone unnoticed. I feel confident that they do not represent an immediate threat.”

“Can you give me some details on that, Mr. Fancy Wizard?” Sara shrugged herself into her arm protection, which she’d left assembled enough that it could slide on like the sleeve of a jacket. Another ten pounds settled onto her frame. “Why aren’t they a threat? You said they’re one of the Time Spiders, right?”

He stared. “A… time spider?”

“What she called the prophesied enemies of Tulian,” her dad explained, still working on the multitude of buckles. “Remember? The prophet elf lady said that they were coming because they were like ‘spiders on the web of time’ that felt the ways Sara was changing the future. So now Sara calls them Time Spiders.”

Something rather close to affront flitted across Garen’s face. “That’s… that’s ridiculous. Referring to such great and ancient threats as mere insects is trivializing at best, and— ”

“Garen,” Sara deadpanned. “Do you really think you’re gonna convince me to not make fun of something? Of anything? Ever?”

He hesitated, then loosed a well-worn sigh. “I suppose not.” He firmly patted down his robes, as if some of his lost dignity might pop out of the wrinkles and creases. “As to your question about why I suspect this particular… Time Spider… is not a threat, my reasoning is simple.”

“They’re already in the city and shit isn’t on fire?” Sara guessed.

“More or less.” Garen pointed a finger to a random spot on the wall, presumably in the direction of the entity he was tracking. “As I have so often reiterated in our lessons, Sara, mere physics do not dictate our land. This is a world of Intent, and Intent is the aspect of reality all the most effective of wards must turn their attention to. This individual was only noticed by my wards once they were in the city proper. Had such a powerful individual come with Intent to do harm, I would have known much sooner.”

“Are you sure?” Sara wiggled her fingers, checking the fit of her gauntlets. After how many times someone’s skull had collided with them, they tended to need extra attention. “What if they’re another wizard or magic-type? Couldn’t they hide their Intent?”

Garen’s face turned sour. “If they could, it would mean I was no match for them. All the more reason to try and address this with as much calm and peace as is practicable.” He made a gesture at her bruised and battered armor as it continued to crawl up her frame. “At the very least, could you not wear your more diplomatic armor?”

Sara did have two sets. This was her war armor, made by Hurlish to be the thickest and heaviest set of equipment she could still effectively fight in, rather than the gracefully-sculpted diplomat’s armor she’d gotten so long ago in Sporatos. Without the Sporaton advantages of master armorsmiths and artificers, her war armor was an ugly, ungainly thing, always evolving to take advantage of her growing Levels and Tulian’s advancing industrial capacity. Hurlish’s latest rendition was based on her dad’s knowledge of second world war vehicle armor. Steel made by mixing a precise ratio of carbon, nickel, and manganese, pressed between heavy rollers while still aglow, compressing the final product into the hardest sheet of steel yet achieved in this world. To do that for body armor had been a hell of a time, achievable only due to Hurlish’s absurd strength, with which she was physically warping the pieces into shape. When even that wasn’t possible, where the armor’s curves were too steep or complex, Sara had welded together separate pieces, requiring long, exhausting hours of spellcraft over many days. But it had been worth it. Even before undergoing what minimal enchanting Tulian artificers had to offer, the quarter-inch thick steel plates of her armor could stop a musketball cold.

And they had. Time and time again, first in testing, then in combat, her armor had been smeared with lead shrapnel, dented by impacts, and suffered ditches dug from superhuman blows. Not only had she never removed those blemishes, she and Hurlish worked hard to preserve them, doing so anywhere that it wouldn’t compromise the piece’s ability to protect her. She could understand why Garen didn’t want her to wear it. Armor was a powerful symbol in this world. For Sporaton Knights, what they wore represented their House’s prestige, honor, and wealth, the sum total of their noble service to the all-powerful King and Kingdom. A Knight would wear their armor to the crowning of a new monarch, to joust in elaborate tournaments, or even just to impress their friends they visited. Not Sara. Her armor was harsh. Primitive. It was war paint of the industrial era, all brutalist slabs and harsh angles, worn for only one occasion, for one purpose.

“No,” Sara said. “No, I’m not going to wear my diplomat’s armor.”

“But it—”

“Look Garen,” she said as she cinched her belt up, “you’re not the one that’s gonna have to explain to Evie why I went into a dangerous situation wearing some pretty, flimsy toy. I am. Can you blame me?”

“I suppose not,” he admitted, if only after a lengthy pause. “Caution is admittedly warranted. But please, you must understand that this situation is different from your other meetings. Whoever this individual is, they are not another Carrion Admiral or High Monarch. By your own definition, this figure is a ‘Time Spider’. An individual of such power that they have sensed your effect on fate itself, and thus saw fit to bring themselves here. Their kind and their actions are not influenced by nations or peoples, Sara. Their actions are what cause them to rise and fall. I ask that you keep that first and foremost in your mind.”

Sara began to respond, but her dad grunted before she could. “He’s right, Sara. And since I’m guessing this whole thing is gonna take up the rest of your day,” he grunted again as he helped latch a greave shut, “and you’re definitely not gonna let me come with you, there’s something I want to say before you go.”

“Yeah?” Sara didn’t hide her surprise. With her breastplate secure, she turned around, kneeling down to secure her heavy boots, so she could face her dad. He didn’t often try to give her advice, much less with his Serious Dad Voice. Cautiously, she asked, “What’s up?”

“I was going to talk to you about the Empire, actually,” he began, “but since this happened, I figured it’ll fit both. I think…”

He took a deep breath, bracing himself. Sara looked up at him, eyebrows raised and eyes wide.

“I, uh, I think that…” His Serious Dad Voice began to fade. A single finger scratched the thin hair above his ear. “I think you need to accept that, in the societies you’re interacting with, at least as they are right now… and probably will be for a long time yet… And since political willpower is so heavily centralized…” He took a steadying breath, “When it comes to making the changes you want, I think that you might, possibly, need to start looking at a… um…”

She waited.

He cringed. “A more top-down approach.”

Her bright expression darkened in a flash. She shot to her feet, arms thrown wide.

“Dad, are you fucking with me?”

He winced, holding up his hands. Garen looked between the two of them, baffled.

“Look, sweety, I know I haven’t seen or heard everything you have, but by your own descriptions, the material conditions of the Empire aren’t ideal for—”

“Ideal? Fucking ideal? When has there ever been an ideal time for—”

“If two hundred years of war haven’t even begun to incite the development of rudimentary class consciousness—”

“How many times have I told you about how completely fucked our models for class warfare are when under the influence of Skills and Levels—”

“I know and I agree that they are, which is why I think that you need to consider that the size of the Empire and the existence of a deified ruling class that possess true effective might that’s likely in excess of the combined might of even a united proletariat—”

“Do you really think I’m gonna start trying to turn fucking aristocratic nobility into a vanguard party—”

“I’m not asking you to turn them all into Trotskyists, but you need to accept that your current path is going to encounter obstacles even Marx didn’t account for—”

“Every major social revolution has obstacles Dad, that’s why it’s a revolution, not a shift! Do you think that those super-charged bourgeois fucks are going to let me just waltz on in and—”

The back-and-forth rants rapidly spiraled into overlapping chaos. Sara’s sentences were shouted and offended, aghast, yet they were met and equaled by her Dad’s quiet but firmly spoken arguments. They were finally interrupted by Garen physically stepping between them, a hand raised just like one of his students. They both pulled away, blinking in surprise, having nearly forgotten he was there.

“May I ask that either this argument ends, or that you explain its nature to me?”

Sara lifted her visor to make sure her scowl could be seen. “Dad wants me to cuddle up to those Imperial fucks like it’ll ever make a difference.”

“I’m just saying, Sara,” he said with measured patience, “that sometimes the fastest way to make things better is to get to the people in charge. I know you hate them. I do too. But there’s something to be said for at least trying it, alright?”

She scoffed. “You haven’t met these fuckin’ people, Dad. They wear gold armor and can kill a dozen peasants with a swing of their sword. Asking them to care about the people working their lands and serving in their armies is like asking an anteater to care about ants. They never will.”

“If there’s anyone that can do it, it should be you, right?” He reached out and gave her armored forearm a pat. It clanked. “I’m just asking you to try. I know you want a revolution, Sara. But something’s gotta be said for making things better in the meantime, right? Just a little bit?”

WIth a concerned expression, Garen looked between them both. “I was under the impression that you were attempting just that, no? The establishment of an Imperial Commoner’s parliament was the first step in that plan.”

“Yeah.” Sara rolled her eyes, then bounced up and down a few times, making sure her armor didn’t move too much. Her boots cracked the floor every time she landed. “I got the Imperials to make a Parliament. But if you ever thought the elites were gonna actually listen to them, you’re crazy. All I wanted was a way to get the peasants organized enough to incite a mass revolution. Dad wants me to try and make that Parliament actually work.”

“I had assumed your goals were more… utopian than that, I suppose,” Garen murmured.

“Nah.” Sara slipped her sword belt on, then swung her cannon over her shoulder, completing the ensemble. “You want a quote I believe in, Garen? ‘Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.’” She headed for the door, casting one last glance at her dad. “At the end of the day, it’s us versus them. But sure, Dad. I’ll try and rub elbows with those greasy fucks. I don’t think it’ll do anything, though.”

Her dad, holding himself up like his torso had been filled with helium, finally collapsed with a grateful sigh. “Good. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that you got a new Level right after meeting with the Carrions. I know you hate it, honey, but Amarat didn’t give you the powers of a diplomat for you to go around chewing people out and starting fights. ”

She stepped from the room, Garen following behind. “Probably not. But I’m definitely still gonna use ‘em for that.”

“Yeah.” Her dad sighed as she shut his office door. “Yeah, I know.”

Silent, they walked down the hallways for a bit. When she was confident her dad couldn’t overhear anything, Sara turned to Garen.

“He’s safe in there, right? Like, if shit goes sour with this meeting, he’ll be fine?”

“Yes,” Garen assured her. “With most of the old King’s Keep’s wards having degraded, this University is the most heavily fortified structure in the city.”

“Good. I don’t want anything to happen to him.” As they made their way down the University’s hallways, her Blessings began to pick up fragments of conversations. None of them were discussing anything unusual, which she hoped was a good sign. “Do you know anything about what’s here?” She asked Garen.

“Only hazy impressions. They are ancient and highly Leveled, which is to be expected.”

“If they have Levels, that at least excludes demons and extradimensional Lovecraft bullshit, right?”

“More or less. According to current understanding of such entities, that is.” Garen cocked his head, inspecting some invisible thread. “Well. It would seem this individual knows their way about the city. They are making their way directly to the University.”

“Ugh. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”

“We shall see shortly.”

They flew down the hallways together, a metallic avalanche drowning out the gentle swishing of Garen’s robes. Though the vast halls were mostly empty, a few students did happen to cross their path, only to leap out of the way. A Champion and Archmage all but sprinting down the hallways wasn’t something you got yourself involved in.

As they reached the University’s main door, the one that stood just opposite the aerodrome’s entrance, Garen spoke up.

“Wait.” She paused, one hand on the door. Garen waved her back and dropped his voice to a low whisper, leaning into her ear. “They are outside, now. Waiting in the street. I can only assume they know you are here.”

“Sure seems like it,” Sara agreed. She checked her weapons one last time, then fixed Garen with a stern look. “You’re confident that this person has no hostile Intent? I need you to say you’re damn confident, Garen. Otherwise I’m going to hole up in your room and wait until I can get half the Tulian military in the streets around them before I walk out that door.”

It was a shitty position to put the man in, Sara knew. But that was what an advisor was for: getting answers and opinions she couldn’t get herself. Garen’s expression twisted with anxiety, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. After quite a long while spent considering, he finally answered.

“I am as confident as I can be, Sara. Nothing about their behavior indicates hostility.”

“But you think that showing up in force might change that?”

“I can’t know. But if it does, the army will likely be slaughtered.”

“Great.” Sara closed her eyes and squared her shoulders, grabbing the door handle. After a moment centering herself, she flung the door open, her most blinding smile on her face.

Down at the very bottom of the university’s steps, standing on all fours, was…

An armadillo.

A fucking massive armadillo.

Not, like, an exceptionally large normal one.

This armadillo was the size of a damn SUV.

Hidden beneath her Blessings, Sara gawked at the thing. Claws as thick as her wrist rested on the concrete, running up into short, stubby legs who ended somewhere beneath the band of thick hide protection. It was a proper armadillo, too, the kind with banded rings that ran all the way across its shell, and despite its size, it looked exactly like the type that could curl up into a defensive ball. Its pointed snout had a thick keratin plate running from the tip of its nose to the top of its head, where two flicking ears were batting away swarming insects. It wasn’t a clean beast. Its entire lower half was caked with mud, which even now was falling off in thick chunks. Looking behind the beast, Sara could track its path through the city just by the smeared piles of dirt it had left behind.

It also had a rider. It took Sara a little bit longer to recognize that, however, because they were as absurdly short as their steed was massive. A small saddle was atop the armadillo, seemingly attached to nothing, and upon it sat a short, hairy, stocky figure. They wore a steel helm of an intricate design, their torso protected by a scaled breastplate of a design Sara didn’t recognize, and they had had more tools and weapons dangling from their body than someone thrice their height should have been comfortable carrying. When they slid off their mount and hit the ground, it sounded like someone knocking over an entire tool locker.

Oh my fucking god, Sara thought. That’s a goddamn dwarf. A straight-up Tolkien-ass dwarf. Dad is going to be SO pissed that he missed this.

A small crowd was gathering behind and around the dwarf and his steed. They didn’t seem to recognize the significance of the visitor, not yet, but a few had already spotted Garen and Sara standing just outside the University, and those were the ones who were starting to put it together. Whispers rose and excitement bubbled, the cityfolk’s natural urge to gossip rumbling to life.

Sara ignored them. In the fraction of a second it took for the dwarf to hit the ground and then straighten themselves up, she threw her Blessings to the max. The world gained an impossibly crystalline precision, her senses losing the need to focus, replaced instead by an all-encompassing torrent of information.

The dwarf was old. That much was sure. It was hard to tell for their kind, her Blessings told her, but she was. She was also a she; it seemed that dwarves lacked any kind of sexual dimorphism, but if there was one thing Sara’s Blessings were good at, it was finding out what was in someone’s pants. The woman’s prodigious beard had been finely braided into dense ringlets, like chainmail, creating a carpet of brown that ran down nearly to her waist.

There was something about her that Sara couldn’t place. The same thing that set off Garen’s wards, she suspected. Not a threat, nor some aura of overwhelming power. Merely a sense of… solidity. This woman was a stone wall of a castle given life, unchanged and undamaged through all the centuries of hardship she’d endured. She had a way to her, an expectation for how all things in all circumstances should go, and she wasn’t going to compromise.

As her Blessings began to delve deeper into the dwarf, past the skin and into the things that lay beneath, Sara let her abilities fade. Not all the way, of course, she wasn’t that stupid, but she didn’t need to go that far. She’d learned what she needed about the woman already.

“Champion of Amarat,” the dwarven woman called, raising one arm, elbow at a right angle, fist curled.

“Aye,” Sara responded, somehow knowing she was to return the gesture. “But more than that, I’m the Governess of Tulian. And you are?”

“Beryl Gróin, The Master Smith of the Dwarves by Clan Acclamation.”

Beside her, Garen barely contained a sputter. It didn’t take her Blessings to let Sara know that dwarves didn’t declare someone the Master Smith without good reason. This lady was a bigshot.

Sara’s reaction was unfortunately less well-informed.

Fucking Groin? Her last name is GROIN? Oh my god, I’m gonna have to try so hard not to fuck everything up.

Thankfully, none of it showed on her face. Though they’d only exchanged a few words, Sara’s Blessings were working overtime. She watched the dwarven woman’s stance shift, her pupils dilate and contract in response to every syllable that rolled off her tongue. She was, to Sara’s relief, what you might expect from a Dwarf. Brusque and direct, uninterested in pleasantries.

Sara walked down the steps so she wouldn’t have to shout to be heard. Behind her, Garen began casting a spell, creating a bubble of silence between them and the crowd.

“Why have you come to Tulian, Master Smith?” Sara asked. When it came to unknown cultures, she’d found it best to err on the side of using the fanciest-sounding of someone’s titles. Much less likely to cause offense that way.

Beryl looked up at her. From up close, the height discrepancy was even greater. She was maybe four feet tall, the top of her helmet just barely equal to Sara’s naval. The closer Sara looked, the more ornate that helmet became. Her Blessings, meant more to inspect people than objects, couldn’t see all of it, but she suspected she’d need days spent with a microscope to catch every last detail.

“All our people’s prophecies have gone up in smoke,” Beryl stated. She was speaking Continental, but it was a thick, rugged accent, so antiquated it was nearly another language entirely. If it wasn’t for her bullshit goddess powers, Sara couldn’t have understood a word. Beryl craned her head up to look Sara in the eye. “Best we can tell, that was because of you. Now, apparently that doesn’t feel quite right to the Seers. It was you, but it wasn’t you. Something’s off. But we know it was from ‘round here, and it was because of the guns you made.”

“I didn’t make them,” Sara corrected, the instinctive reply easily slipping out. “My wife did. Hurlish of Tulian.”

Beryl nodded. “I’ve heard her name.”

How? Where the fuck did you even come from?

She didn’t ask the question aloud. Standing in front of this dwarf was one of the strangest sensations Sara had ever experienced. It reminded her of meeting the King in that parley tent during the first war. Back then, pressure that had built around her when King Sporatos was nearing his breaking point, as he contemplated striking her down then and there, resulting in a truly physical presence of growing tension. But this woman didn’t have any of the King’s hostility. That made it all the more remarkable that the very air itself seemed to grow dense around her, heavy and difficult to breathe.

“Is your wife here, then?” Beryl asked, casting a glance about. “Or just you?”

“Wouldn’t tell you either way,” Sara stated. She kept her tone dry, matter-of-fact, devoid of any meaningful emotion.

Beneath her chainmail-woven beard, Beryl frowned. It was the most emotion she’d yet shown, and it faded quickly.

“That wife of yours make that armor?”

“For the most part,” Sara answered. “I helped. But she did the bulk of it.”

Beryl stroked her beard. “You put a lot of work into making it ugly.”

“Sure did.”

“Why?”

“It’s for killing people. Nothing pretty about that.”

“Mm.” Beryl’s eyes swept over the blacksteel breastplate, inspecting the beaded welds that had succeeded in creating— according to what they could research, at least— the world’s first true piece of blacksteel armor. The magical alloy was far better suited to blades, and tended to fail and lose its mystical properties the wider you stretched it. Lightning-powered heating, welding, and a freakishly strong blacksmith had circumvented that problem.

“That’s real blacksteel,” Beryl noted.

“It is.”

“It’s an interesting piece,” the Master Smith said. Sara got the impression that it had been centuries since she’d said something like that about a piece of human craftsmanship. “I’d like to meet Hurlish of Tulian some day.”

“Won’t be today.”

“Mm.”

Beryl spent a bit longer leering at Sara’s armor, not bothering to hide her interest. Eventually, impatience got the better of Sara.

“You came to make a deal, didn’t you?”

Beryl looked back up. “I did,” she confirmed.

“What was it?”

“Ten enchanted blades of my own make in exchange for knowledge of your cannons and powder.”

“No.”

Sara didn’t offer any further explanation for her refusal, which left Beryl staring at her, brow furrowed.

“Do you know what it means to be a Master Smith of the Dwarves?” She asked. It wasn’t a rhetorical or insulting question. The woman knew Sara was a Champion, still young to his world, and younger still to the hidden niches of power that rested in the cracks of history.

“I don’t formally know, but I can infer,” Sara replied, equally matter-of-fact. “You can create weapons of great power, masterfully crafted and elegantly enchanted. Tools that will become heirlooms to last a thousand human generations.”

“Correct.” Beryl patted a pack that was dangling from her armadillo. “Ten swords for knowledge alone.”

“No.”

Beryl’s small, hairy hand fell from the bag. She frowned openly now.

“Why?”

“You’re a Master Smith. The weapons we build now are our defense against all comers, and our advantage is unique. The tools you make with that knowledge will eventually put us to shame— and then put us at risk.”

“I can offer guarantees that the knowledge won’t be shared.”

“I believe that you’ll not share it willingly. I doubt you’ll be able to keep it from all who try to steal it.”

“Hmph.”

Behind her, Garen was sweating. Sara still didn’t think this Beryl Gróin was a threat to her safety, not directly, but she represented something truly dangerous. Even less had been written about Dwarves than Elves in the histories Evie had forced her to study. They were an insular, powerful society, and any attempt to breach their subterranean homes had been turned back by arrows that pierced a dozen men and spears which skewered armored soldiers like fish on a pike. What’s more, very little was known of where they lived. Though the accounts were sketchy, it was reported that dwarves could carve stone and tunnels at a rate that put even modern Earthly industry to shame, and they traveled far deeper than any human mine, too. For all Sara knew, there was a Dwarven city sitting a mile beneath her feet. Wildly unlikely, but technically possible. She could understand Garen’s nerves.

“What do you want from us in exchange, then?” Beryl asked. “Our greatest Seers are struggling to collect the tatters of wars we once knew every detail of. Wars we were going to win. Now some of those tapestries won’t be repaired until it’s too late. Your city has our solution.”

That was a threat, Sara quickly decided. Subtle, incredibly tiny, and one she may not have even noticed herself making, but that was a threat. Our city has a solution for her people’s problems: they want it, and that means they’ll get it.

She used her Blessings to glance at Garen without turning her head. He was hiding it well, but there was sweat pooling beneath his robes. The dwarves were no joke. She had to offer them something.

They’ve got long lives, don’t they? Almost like elves. I can work with that.

“You know how to make blacksteel,” Sara said. It was a statement, not a question. “Tulian doesn’t, and we don’t have a way to learn. I’ll give you examples of our weapons in exchange for that knowledge.”

Beryl set her jaw in a hard underbite. It made her long beard jostle, which she stroked back into place.

“Don’t like that deal.”

“You aren’t refusing.”

“Not yet.”

They waited for a while, both mulling things over. Sara took the moment to observe the multitude of tools hanging from the woman’s body. It was hard not to; the collection was an art museum unto itself. Hammers of all sizes, daggers, knives, metal punches, prybars, and many different versions of each sort, all slightly altered to better fit some niche purpose. They hung from the woman’s armor in such density that it was difficult to study the actual form of her protective equipment, but from what Sara gathered, it was a perfunctory set, almost an afterthought. Just enough to protect her while she traveled, nothing more.

Of course, those enchantments could change everything, Sara reminded herself. The scales of the woman’s armor were inscribed with a completely foreign set of glyphs, none of which Sara recognized. Whatever their purpose, it was safe to say that they were heavy-duty. Opening her other senses, Sara felt magic wafting off them like heat from a boiling furnace.

“Blacksteel is guarded for a reason. A council of clans has to be called, a decision made. It would take decades,” Beryl said at last. “I can’t offer you that.”

Lie, Sara immediately noted.

“Yes you can,” Sara refuted. “You’re the Master Smith of the Dwarves. The secret we want is carried in your head right now. You’re important. You’ve political capital to spare, and very few will question your judgement.”

Sara looked around, searching for something in particular. The crowd around them had grown even further, but was thankfully being controlled by a mixture of City Guard and Tulian Army troops. She inspected the rifles on the backs of the soldiers carefully, one by one, until she finally found what she was looking for. With a sharp whistle that she sent piercing through Garen’s spell of silence, she called out.

“Rifleman Rek! Get over here!”

The man, or more accurately the boy, nearly snapped his neck with how quickly he jerked around. When it became clear that Sara could have been talking to no one else, he looked to his commanding officer, who nodded him on. He crossed the concrete runway trepidatiously, the whites of his eyes bulging.

Sara held out a hand as he approached. “I need your rifle.”

He skidded to a stop, just out of reach. “M-ma’am?” He stuttered.

“You heard me. I’m taking your rifle, Rek.”

He clung even tighter to the leather strap across his shoulder, knuckles turning white. “B-but ma’am. This is a Hot Rifle.”

“I know. That’s why I want it.”

Still, he hesitated. With Hurlish out in the Empire and no longer producing more, Hot Rifles were becoming a commodity in the Army of such value that they were beginning to cause discipline problems. No one had killed another soldier to get one, not yet, but more than a few brutal fights had broken out over attempted or suspected thefts. The number of soldiers with the skills to take advantage of their increased range and accuracy was barely in the double digits, but rarity alone was enough to incite greed. It was another problem on an endless list that Sara needed to deal with.

Thankfully, the man’s better sense prevailed. He unshouldered his rifle and handed it over, then saluted. Sara returned the salute, then pointed back to the line of soldiers and guards holding back the civilians.

“Tell your CO that when you get a new rifle from the armory, you get your pick of the litter. I can’t promise there’ll be another Hot Rifle, but that’s the best I can offer.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he barked, retreating with slightly higher spirits than he’d had a few seconds before.

Sara turned to the dwarven woman, now with the long rifle-musket in hand. The bayonet was attached, as it always was for crowd control, and it had thankfully been polished to a mirror sheen. She held it out in both hands before Beryl, letting the woman inspect it.

“This weapon, just like my armor, was made by Hurlish of Tulian. I will give you it— and only it— in exchange for actionable instructions on how to create raw, malleable blacksteel.”

Beryl, to Sara’s pleased surprise, didn’t try and lift the gun from her hands. Instead she bent forward and inspected it, holding her chainmail beard away so it wouldn’t graze the metal.

She scowled. “The craftsmanship is—”

“From my wife,” Sara interrupted, a dangerous growl rolling deep in her throat.

Beryl glanced up, meeting Sara’s eyes for a moment. Then she went back to the gun.

“The craftsmanship shows… promise,” she said cautiously. “I can see the hands of a Weaponsmith at work.”

“I’m not interested in your false humility,” Sara rumbled, though she could tell that Beryl was perfectly honest. Best to convince the woman she was missing something about the rifle that Sara already knew. “Of all the weapons in the world that can be built in numbers enough to supply an army, this rifle stands as far above them as the mountains do the ocean. Give us blacksteel, and it’s yours.”

Beryl kept inspecting the weapon, lips twitching beneath her bushy mustache, eyes darting this way and that. Sara was curious to see how long it would take the woman to realize what was happening.

Not long. Less than a minute later, Beryl scowled up at Sara.

“You are casting illusions across its form. Hiding its workings from me.”

“I am.”

As the weapon had been built by Hurlish, it worked as a spell focus for Sara. Her magic had shifted the crystal lock to a conventional flintlock, smoothed out the barrel’s rifling, and generally muddied the craftsmanship. If Beryl had some Skill that let her memorize designs she had seen, she’d be copying a weapon leagues beneath a true Hot Rifle.

“Smart,” Beryl grunted. Then she nodded to herself. “Fine. A deal is struck.” The barest twinkle of a smile entered her eye. “We both fear what the other will become if given such power, aye? The sign of an equal exchange, I say.” She straightened, stepping around Sara to face Garen.

“Wizard!” Her gravelly voice bellowed. “I know your kind. I’ve secrets to tell you, and I give my word I will not lie or mislead.” Beryl glanced to Sara. “Does the Champion of Amarat witness this truth?”

Sara didn’t know what ritual this was, but Beryl hadn’t been lying when she said she’d give her word. She nodded. “The Champion witnesses it.”

“Good.”

Faster than Sara could blink and with a rush of dust-flinging wind, Beryl plucked the Hot Rifle from Sara’s hands and placed it in her massive armadillo’s saddle, appearing atop her seat a moment later.

“Find us a place of privacy, wizard,” she declared. “This deal is not for any shortlings to witness.”

Without any obvious command given from its rider, the armadillo began trundling forward, heading toward the University’s doors. Sara locked eyes with Garen, who seemed equally as pleased as he did trepidatious. Wizards and wyverns, it would seem, had much in common. Only the object of their hoarding changed. He was practically salivating at the prospect of learning how to craft dwarven blacksteel.

To Garen’s obvious consternation, Beryl did not dismount from her armadillo as she entered the university. The doors creaked and groaned as the massive beast’s hide scraped against them, its long claws digging deep gouges in the cobblestones in its effort to shove itself through. Garen was forced to watch as his university was defiled, helpless, chained in place by the promise of a one of the rare secrets even most Archmages didn’t know. When the creature finally managed to force itself inside, it quickly turned left and trundled off, every footfall tearing up what little carpeting the University’s students had managed to scrounge up from its old heyday.

“Shit,” Sara muttered, wiping her face down, turning to speak to the empty air. “Fucking shit. I just gave them a Hot Rifle. Evie’s gonna kill me. Who the fuck knows what they’re gonna do with that. The dwarves? Gods, I’ve got so much I need to learn about them.” She turned to enter the University herself, intending to drag her dad with her to the library, but was instead halted by a feminine shout.

“Sara!” Chona yelled. “We’ve been looking all over for you! We should have been in the air an hour ago!”

She resisted the urge to toss her head back and groan. So much. So very, very much to do. But still, she turned around, trudging toward the aerodrome.

I could stay an extra day, she contemplated. One extra day won’t hurt.

She snorted, thinking of the stories Hurlish and Evie had been relaying to her.

No. No, I’ve gotta get back. And I’ve got to put some crotchety elf bitch in her place. At least I’ve got that to look forward to.

Stepping into the cool shade of the aerodrome interior, Sara found herself glad for the visor of her helmet. It was all that was stopping her from rubbing her eyes until they were red and bruised.

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