When asked about it, Valir just laughed.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course not. I’m just taking a break from being me, like I said. In a way like you did when you used that potion, just not quite as spectacular. That reminds me. Not that you would have done so anyway, but please refrain from using my family name if you can help it. Just Valir is fine.”
“So, you’re hiding your identity?” Kraghtol asked.
“I wouldn’t call it ‘hiding’. Let’s say I don’t plan to … impose myself on people. If anyone asks, I’ll be honest, of course.”
Kraghtol nodded. That sounded reasonable and wouldn’t — as far as he understood — affront the noble’s family as much if they got wind of it. On second glance, the clothes really suited Valir. The dark, simple linen shirt with short sleeves gave him a less flowery appearance than his usual silk clothes, and provided a stark contrast to his light skin and blond hair. Despite surely not exercising much, Valir’s body possessed a hint of lean definition, much less than Kraghtol’s own bulky frame, and the half-orc caught himself watching the way Valir’s muscles moved under his skin. When he realized he was staring, Kraghtol quickly averted his eyes. Luckily, the noble hadn’t noticed.
“So. This is Bronzebreak. We can drink to your successful escape from Winterstone, of course, but what are you going to do now? Do you plan to stay here? That would be quite a sight among the dwarves.”
Kraghtol shook his head with determination. “No. If I’m unlucky, it’s only a matter of time until the guilds here hear about what supposedly happened in Winterstone. I didn’t plan on staying here very long. I just want to do two things before I leave.”
“Seems like you have thought about this a lot. And what are these two things?”
Kraghtol lowered his voice now.
“Well, for one, there is that lockbox Virex hid. I was supposed to take the key too, but I couldn’t find it in time. The lock looks Dwarven to me, so I guess here are my best chances to find someone to open it.”
Of course, Valir asked the obvious question that Kraghtol himself had pondered for a few hours.
“Why would you want to open it?”
The half-orc sighed.
“There are a lot of flimsy excuses, such as Merress not having the key and so on, but honestly? I’m curious. Curious what might be so important that he gave up any chance of surviving just to make sure the lockbox got to Merress. I promised Virex to give it to him, so I will. But I also want to know what’s in it.”
Valir thought about it for a moment and shrugged. “Fair. If he told you to take the box and the key, he couldn’t have expected you not to have a peek, or he would have said so. And the other thing?”
“Voldrik. That mentor dwarf the Hawkes mentioned. Apparently, the guilds were after him as well, and perhaps he knows what to do in situations like this. I know I can’t stay here, but I honestly have no idea where to go. And even if he doesn’t, I can still tell him about Marla andTorven. They helped me so much, and perhaps he can do something for them.”
“Hm. Didn’t they say he fled? ‘On the wings of his dream’ or some other peculiar phrase.”
“Yes,” Kraghtol admitted, “but that was forty years ago. Surely he would have come back to his home and family in the meantime? I know I don’t plan on taking so long to return to Mistpine.”
“Perhaps he is dead.”
Kraghtol shrugged. “Possible. But dwarves live longer than humans. And anyway, asking around can’t hurt.”
“You are probably right about that. What about the piece of cloak you ripped from Virex’s assassin? Do you think it makes sense to ask around about that, too?”
Feeling safe enough from spying eyes and ears, Kraghtol took out the piece of fabric. It was cool, but warmed up quickly.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. If there’s one thing I want to avoid, it’s attention from professional assassins. Besides, we already know it’s associated with that woman who met up with Dean Quenning. And I think I understood how it works on the journey here.”
“You did?” Valir asked.
“Yes. I think — no, I’m fairly certain — it’s alchemy. Perhaps it has been infused with a potion, or perhaps the fabric has been woven from alchemically treated threads. It looks like a normal dark fabric in the light. But in darkness, it becomes cold to the touch and merges with the surrounding darkness.”
The noble seemed thoughtful. “I’ve never heard of anything like this. It must be incredibly expensive, or everyone would use it. Thecoldness sounds like a side effect, but being able to practically become invisible in the darkness… I know more than a few people in Greylune who would kill for a cloak like that.”
“I suppose having the deputy guild master of the Alchemists’ Guild as your boss has its merits.” Kraghtol said. He put the cloth away again and felt it cooling in his pocket. The reason he had been so sure that it was alchemy was — besides the fact that the effect was not explainable otherwise — it fit the Principles he had dreamed of so perfectly, especially the Principle of Darkness. In a way, it was not unlike the effect of the glowing paste, just using the opposite Principle. That made way more sense than trying to attribute this alchemical wonder to one of the four elements. He had been itching to recreate the effect, but knew from his experiments in the student laboratory that this would just be a waste of Activator.
Valir had no further objections, and after a hearty lunch, they started their investigation. Kraghtol was reluctant to draw more attention to themselves than his unusual appearance did anyway, and they didn’t find out much about either topic during the first few days. A general mistrust of outsiders seemed to be part of the Dwarven way of thinking, but even more so, an immense stubbornness. When a dwarf had decided not wanting to help them any further, they would dig their heels in the ground, cross their arms and tell them to get lost, sometimes literally. That, combined with the careful approach of asking around, yielded little results aside from the information that, yes, the lockbox was of Dwarven origin, and that it would be very difficult to open without the proper key.
The city of Bronzebreak, on the other hand, was fascinating. It burrowed deeper into — and under — the mountain than Kraghtol had originally realized, and almost certainly contained even more than a thousand steps connecting the different layers of the city. The Bronzebreak mountains were ore-rich, and often, the ‘streets’ of the city turned into a network of mining tunnels without warning. Some of them seemed deserted, but others were being worked in by Dwarven miners. Either way, Kraghtol didn’t want to risk getting lost in the labyrinthine network outside the official city bounds.
Unsurprisingly, the main trade good of the city appeared to be metal products. About half of the city comprised different forges, furnaces and foundries. It wasn’t very cold anywhere in Bronzebreak — because of the lack of outside weather — but near the metalworks, it was sweat-enticingly hot, which explained the choice of materials that Kraghtol had noticed at the dock cavern already. Organic material, such as wood, posed a much larger fire hazard.
