The Runesmith

‘Could it be someone from my ‘family’? No that makes no sense, Robert should be nowhere near here and my name shouldn’t have leaked. Could it be someone from the Arden house? Maybe someone that he trusts?’

Roland was making his way down the street while wondering about Arthur’s visitor. From the short conversation he had with him, this individual was somehow interested in his runic items. This didn’t help much, even the city lord himself was pretty fond of the magical creations and so would other people.

‘I guess I’ll find out when I get there, he sounded more perplexed than afraid so it should be fine…’

After racking his head a bit he decided not to worry too much. From the tone, it didn’t seem that it was anything that urgent. The situation was probably not that grave as Arthur never mentioned an adversary. However, just to make things less troublesome he decided to peek at the runic camera’s that he installed throughout the Valerian vila. While the image quality was still not the best it would answer a few questions.

‘Hm, are those the dwarves? Why are there so many of them… There is someone in the middle but it’s too blurry to make out the face.’

Roland started squinting while trying to examine the footage. The recording showed a group of dwarves arriving at the front gate. Two of the faces were easily recognizable as he had multiple run-ins with the union.

‘Dunan and Bamur are in the front, by the way, they are acting… the person in the middle must be the master craftsman the Union sent here…’

It didn’t take him long to figure out what the situation was. His theory was confirmed after passing some carriages that had the Union’s symbol on them. It was clear that his competition had finally sent out someone to truly compete with him. This person had probably arrived at the Villa to voice their complaints and the entourage they brought along was probably there to back them up.

‘What do those dwarves want? Hope they won’t try to use blackmail again…’

His history with the Union was long and tiresome. They had tried to price him out of the city and also forced all the shop owners to ghost him. Only thanks to Arthur and the thieves guild was it possible for him to make it through that period of his life. Now he had some semblance of power but the Union was still a big player here. Even if he wanted nothing more than to send them packing, they had a lot of money and were not easily replaced.

‘Ugh, I’m already getting a headache just thinking about this…’

At this stage, the city wasn’t there yet. There were many streets that needed to be laid out with wires to power the street lights. Then he also needed to create various runic items that could use the supplied mana. The mining area needed to be secured as they needed a steady supply of mana crystals from it. Before they created more wind generators or went geothermal, they needed to subsidize it through the mine.

Getting into another war with the dwarven Union could waste a lot of money. Arthur could of course throw them out of the city but it would set them back by at least half a year. The tax revenue that they were receiving from their shops was immense and replacing them with other craftsmen would take a while. With the influx of new adventurers, they needed to supply all the demand for magical weaponry.

“Greetings, Knight Commander!”

“At ease.”

He was greeted by the guards at the gate that saluted almost instantly when they saw him. Even now he was still getting used to how they treated him. In their eyes, he was some mysterious knight that had been hiding out in plain sight. Some even worried that he would seek vengeance for the times they gave him the stink eye. Such things didn’t really bother him as he had no pride concerning his noble heritage or being a knight.

“Why are these people here?”

“They arrived along with the new master craftsman, Commander!”

His newfound position at least made it easy for him to get information. To the side, there were about twenty dwarves that clearly belonged to the union. They had created a little spot for themselves on the side of the road and were probably waiting for their leader to return from the Villa.

‘Those two aren’t there so they must have gone inside along with the new guy…’

Roland could already see himself getting shouted out by an old dwarf with more experience than him. While he was a full-fledged runesmith his work mostly focused on the runes. This person that arrived could be his senior and superior in the way of runes. Yet, he was no slouch either and was also interested in some input.

‘It wouldn’t be bad to have someone to bounce my ideas off… but considering that this is the union that we are speaking about, they might demand that I hand over all of my schematics…’

In the past, all of his runes came from using his debugging skill. After copying and analyzing pre-existing runic structures he was able to reverse engineer the designs. These of course originated somewhere, it was worrisome if he had some angry dwarf accusing him of plagiarizing. Yet, laws against this didn’t exist so it was unlikely that such accusations would amount to anything.

“Did you see this master craftsman? How did they seem to you?”

“No Sir, they were behind all the dwarves, I didn’t really take a good look…”

“Hmm… Try to get a better look next time.”

“Y-yes sir! My apologies, Commander. Miss Mary received the guests so I…”

The soldier looked a bit frightened by his response and started bowing to the point of his helmet falling down. Roland was taken aback by this reaction but soon realized that it wasn’t so strange. This man’s life could be taken away in an instant if he was deemed useless by someone of his position.

“It’s fine if Mary was there.”

After scaring the poor guard at the entrance he headed in. The dwarves that were there he remembered from within the city. His intelligence stat allowed him to remember faces quite well. These were not any normal craftsmen, they were all in higher positions and were even allowed to have apprentices.

‘There are even some shop owners here, they really cherish their master craftsmen, don’t they?’

This reminded him a bit of the time he tried informing his father about his goal of becoming a runesmith. His old man didn’t want to have any of it but his attempt at teaching him a lesson backfired. Now he was there and already a tier 3 class holder in his early twenties.

The human race that he was part of didn’t treat their workers as well as the dwarven race did. To them, they were just a means to an end. The people wielding the weapons were far more important than the ones making them. It was easier to replace a craftsman or buy something from the union than to train a soldier.

“Hm? One of the turrets just went offline. What are they doing there?”

Roland mumbled to himself while glancing at his small display screen. Due to this being an unforeseen trip, he decided to wear his full bulky armor. Through its mapping device, he could see the layout of the whole villa and the turrets placed on the walls. One of them just went offline while he was walking.

‘Could this person have similar skills to me or did they use something like the anti-magical powder?

Normally, no one should have been able to access his runic device but it was shut down by an external force. When he tried to access the golemic eyes in the vicinity, there also was no signal. His steps became slightly faster as he needed to get to the bottom of this. Could this person be actually planning to cause some trouble and would he be there in time before something happened to Arthur?

If the city lord perished, his father could hold him accountable. Under this assumption, he started rushing over to the back of the villa where Arthur’s and Mary’s dots were still visible. When he arrived there the dwarves that went by the names Bamur and Dunan were there. They were not alone as a third member from their race was with them.

‘Is that the master craftsman?’

To his surprise, there was something different about this person. First of all, they were tinkering with his turret while standing up on a ladder that was being held up by the Enchantsmith, Bamur. The person on top of the ladder had the height of a dwarf but they didn’t look as bulky and their figure was slightly off.

“Awright, wha made this? th' outside looks like 'twas shat out by a donkey bit th' runes aren't half bad.”

‘It’s a woman?’

The voice was a bit lower but it sounded like it belonged to a woman. She was also smaller than the other dwarven craftsmen with her arms also not being as thick. Compared to a human she looked quite gruff and stocky but her figure belonged to that of a woman.

It was quite a surprising turn of events. Roland didn’t expect to see a woman be the new chief of the union branch here. Society in this world was mostly patriarchal in nature, it wasn’t forbidden but there were some roadblocks set up for people like this woman here. If she managed to gain this spot, then it meant that she either worked extra hard or had ties to some people that could pull strings.

“What th'...? Who did that? Wis it ye…”

Without thinking he used his analyzing skill on the person before him. This time around the person he was trying to inspect had the usual status blocking item. He was quick to use his method to go around it but to his surprise, this person realized what had been done.

“Ah, if it isn’t Sir Wayland, jus the man we were waiting for.”

“ ‘Ey, don’t ignore me! Ah don’t care if ye'r a knight or something, ye shouldn't peek at a lassies intimates lik' that”

“Lasses intimates? Uh, care to explain?”

Arthur posed the question while quickly moving in his direction. Mary was also there keeping an eye out but she remained in the role of the maid. It didn’t seem that she was that interested in this master runesmith. Considering that Mary was very pedantic about the safety of her lord, it was probable that there was no danger here. This didn’t mean that he wasn’t in danger, as the woman that looked to be in her mid-thirties was stomping his way.

The most obvious part was the lack of facial hair which the men wouldn’t be seen without. Her hair was long and braided back into a bun. While her body wasn’t exposed, Roland could tell that those arms were packing some meat. Her hands had visible calluses that some women would rather hide behind some gloves.

Dwarves on the other hand liked to show them off. The rougher their hands were, the better. Her face when going by human standards was on the rougher side. She was certainly not someone that cared about makeup but her face wasn’t that bad either. There was a certain fire in those eyes that drew him in and her chest was not something to scoff at either.

“I just went through her status screen, that’s all.”

“Is that so?”

“My apologies if I offended you but I am responsible for the Lord’s safety.”

“Th’ Lord’s safety?”

It was better to shove the blame onto his responsibilities as a knight. In a way, he was required to check for her status and anything that could be deemed suspicious. Without having a good retort the woman seemed to back away from this problem. Her status screen reminded him of his own ascension ritual which had those same classes as potential choices.

‘Looks like the usual runesmith path that any Master Runesmith takes but she will probably be superior to me when it comes to blacksmithing… and that golem class might give her some insights that I could be lacking…’

If it was possible he would rather remain on neutral grounds with this person. However, the first impression was now gone and he was caught spying on her status screen while going through her blocking device.

“Yes…”

“If ye wur able to do that... Urr ye maybe th' lad a've been hearing about?”

“Aye chief this wis th' person, he is responsible fur a' o' it!”

Before they could continue with their conversations, Dunan rushed in from the side. It was the same dwarf that he wrestled the orichalcum anvil from. It was no secret that both of them didn’t like each other and perhaps the younger dwarf was waiting for their new leader to chew him up for it. Harsh words left the mouth of this woman but they weren’t directed at him.

“Wha said that ye could speak? Did yer mother not teach ye proper manners?”

The one getting chewed was Dunan and not Roland. He even received a smack to the back of the head from his superior that he couldn’t do anything about. Bamur, who would usually back up his fellow union member, remained in the background without even letting out a peep. She was keeping the two on a short leash and not taking any back talking, when Dunan tried raising his voice he was instantly smacked again.

‘Is she his mother or something? The two look like kids that did something wrong.’

It brought a small smile onto his face to see the Union dwarves getting some pushback but he couldn’t relax yet. What did this woman come here for and why was she tinkering with his turrets? Was she actually trying to get to his secrets or here to complain about his unorthodox use of runemithing?

“Just go stand thare 'n' hold yer mouth.”

The two nodded and quickly moved to the side. Now he was left looking at the small woman that was around one hundred and forty centimeters. Dwarves in this world were usually somewhere between one hundred twenty and up to a hundred fifty centimeters in height. She was taller than the usual female of her race and also the reason why he at first took her for a man.

“Are ye th' one that created that monstrosity?”

“Monstrosity? Are you talking about the runic turret?”

“So ye gave it a name.”

“Yes? Is there something wrong with it?”

“Wrong wi' it? Where do ah even start? Th' shoddy design, th' unpolished edges... How can something be so ill yet... Yet so exquisite at the same time?

“Huh?”

“How does it not explode? How did ye do it? Ye must tell me, how did ye git around th' trace expansion problem?”

“Trace expansion? Ah I guess it goes around the standard route that other similar devices use…”

To his surprise, the woman started suddenly praising his runic turret. While the outer shell looked abysmal in her eyes. The components that made out the heart of this creation were worthwhile to look into. Roland used a lot of runes as their base but liked to play around with the components to get as much efficiency as humanly possible. This left most of his creations to be over-tuned on the inside but somewhat plain on the outside.

“Wait, is this why I was called here?”

“Ah yes, Master Brylvia was intrigued by the various magical contraptions around the city. Why don’t you have a chat with her while Mary prepares some tea?”

“...”

Roland could tell that Arthur here was attempting to sweet talk himself into another good deal. The woman before them was the new leader of the dwarven union that they had bad relations with. Her presence was something that they would probably need to live with for some years. Roland realized that Arthur wanted him to make a good impression. This explained why he allowed her to tinker with the runic turrets and the golem eye system around the villa.

“That armor... Those runes... Marvelous could ye tak' it aff?”

“You want me to take off my armor?”

“It’ll be hard to examine it while yer sportin’ it, yeah?”

For a moment he could have sworn that he saw some drool running down her mouth that she quickly whipped away. When looking in her eyes for a moment he remembered a certain noble mage that was too much into runes. This dwarven lady was similar and it didn’t seem like she would take no for an answer.