Dungeon Divers

Ch. 7 Dungeon Crawl

With destination in sight and the promise of shelter the remainder of the trek through the snow passed quickly. The river's edge led us to a frost covered dirt road that snaked its way toward the village. As we left the frozen wilderness the road smoothed as to signal our arrival from the unforgiving wilderness into predictable civilization. From frozen mud uneven, from large grooves caused by various wagon wheels to a masterwork of evenly laid stone.

The stone road wasn't simply a paved path but artwork which held traffic. Each stone was fitted not by mortar but by craftsmanship that only a true master could accomplish. The mosaic work I had seen in museums allowed for gaps due to the limitation of the medium, this road had no such defect.

The entrance to the town depicted stout bearded men with pickaxes going into the mines. Another section of road showed a group of men surrounding a floating eyeball that was shooting a ray outlining a man, whatever that ray was doing the man clearly did not enjoy. The planning and foresight alone, showed how these people were head and shoulders above any artisan or engineer on earth. These people were truly the children of art and engineering personified.

We made our way to the only building that appeared to be open, all the while I continued to admire not just the road, but the structure of the buildings as well. Even the simplest of structures was expertly built. No door hung crooked, no window stuck slightly open. Every building appeared as if they had been built yesterday, but the weathered stones, yellowing windows, and aged shingles showed that couldn't be true.

As we grew closer to the only building that showed signs of life, we could see the yellow light that shown through the windows, we could hear the sounds of deep rough voices. The stones in front of the building depicted all the steps of making whiskey from the growing of the grain, the burning to make charcoal, fermenting, filtering, the rolling of barrels, and finally a group of the stout men standing in a circle hands held high in a toast.

Anticipation swelled inside me, through that door I would finally see a being from another world. While the stone road gave me a hint that they were wide and had big beards the stone could only offer so much detail. A clear window next to the door finally offered me a view of the actual people. The people were all much wider than their stone depiction, almost as wide as they were tall. They all had beards of varying shades of black, brown, and orange, some curly some straightened, some ornamented with dozens of jewels and some with only a few. They all wore simple clothing of white and grey. But beyond that, their actions remained as one would expect in any bar, some were drinking and laughing, others in quiet conversations, and some all to themselves.

"Damn," Riley said her voice breaking my trance, "Does anyone speak dwarf?"

We looked around at each other, then everyone began shaking their head.

"Common and elvish," Noah said dejected.

"Same," Hannah said.

"I got common, elvish, gnomish, and celestial," Naomi said. Her voice sounding apologetic as she brought her eyes to meet Riley.

"I just speak, English, sorry" I said.

"Newbie, right," Riley said, bringing her hand to her forehead. She appeared irritated at herself for forgetting. "Look at your sheet, it should have filled out some languages once you were done."

Great, that sheet again, I thought. Tucking my book under my arm I used my magic hand to fish out my sheet from my backback. After breaking some ice that had formed over the buckles, I removed the glass tube holding my sheet. Taking it out of the tube and unrolling it I noticed more had been added to it. My eyes naturally drew to the word money, I saw that I had some in various types of metals. I had no idea of their true value. Scanning towards the bottom of the page I saw languages. "Common, Elvish, Dwarvish, Gnomish, Celestial, and Orcish," reading them aloud to the group. I quickly rolled it back up and stuck it in my bag. "It says I speak that language. But I couldn't tell you a single word in dwarven even with a gun to my head."