"The greatest of all gods would be whichever one invented liquor." - Old Dwarven joke

The week that followed was a time of leisure for Cal, which she mostly spent in a relaxed manner, where she sampled the various delicacies and odd cuisine the dwarves had to offer by day, while at night she gained a reputation for having repeatedly drank dwarves under the table.

She also watched young dwarven soldiers compete in sport - though some say the sport in question was part of dwarven military training -, where two teams of dwarves, the numbers of which she had seen vary from ten to fifty each, would attempt to "score" on the other, which was done when a sturdy metal ball with several handles forged onto its surface was brought to a designated area defended by the other team.

The "game" itself tended to devolve into a chaotic, violent mess, which according to the dwarves in the audience was the only proper way to play that game. More than once Cal saw injured dwarves who had to be carried out from the playing fields on stretchers for immediate healer intervention.

While she was in Arsgant, Cal also found another smithy, one jointly ran by a goblin and a dwarf, who she learned were a couple, that specialized in ranged weapons. She realized that to use her halberd as a projectile was far from an ideal option for when she needed to hit something too far to hit reliably with throwing darts, and looked for a solution there.

She found a large windlass crossbow that suited her purpose when she asked the goblin shopkeeper what he would recommend for her. The crossbow was large, and heavy - heavy enough that Cal would have had difficulty using it without her magic -, and more importantly, heavily modified to enable it to fire a variety of ammunition.

Standard bolts are of course an option, and a spyglass mated to the top of the crossbow helped greatly with its aim. Other than that, the shopkeeper demonstrated how the crossbow could be used to fire nets compacted into a ball which would expand in flight, or small canisters filled with alchemical explosives or poison gas, as well as solid steel balls for when a percussive impact proved more beneficial than a penetrative bolt.

Cal found the weapon quite easy to use even for someone untrained with it like herself, and purchased it on the spot, together with a healthy supply of ammunition of all sorts, to the delight of the couple that owned the shop.

She also picked up her order of knives at Harmon's smithy, and gave him high praise after she tested the knife on a log similar to the one she broke a knife on just the week before. This time, the log split in half cleanly as if axed, whereas not even the slightest damage could be seen on the blade of the knife. The knife itself was quite heavy for its small size, easily as heavy as a normal one-and-a-half sword, but Cal did not mind the weight. The adamant steel gleamed a darker grey than usual due to its much higher adamant content.

In the end, it was only after another sumptuous meal and many barrels of ale that she left the smithy and Arsgant itself near the evening, headed for Dvergarder where she headed straight for the adventurer's guild and inquired on whether a reply letter for her had arrived or not.

Aideen's letter had only arrived earlier in the day, it turned out, and Cal chose to head back to the inn at Arsgant first - she still had one last night's worth of room already paid for there - before she unsealed the envelope and read its contents.

In her letter, Aideen replied that Ergan had arrived in Paradise a couple days before Cal's letter came. His situation as a "champion" had been confirmed, and he was offered his choice of destinations, but he chose to stay in Paradise for the time being. She also mentioned that it's a shame Cal missed his gobsmacked look when he realized who Aideen was.

Other than that, Aideen informed Cal that talks had progressed favorably with Al-Shan, and that both parties have agreed to start the operation of the teleportation gate by spring of the next year. Vernon and Martha would head to Al-Shan to help set up the gate and teach about the maintenance it required, and return via the gate along with a delegation from Al-Shan. Cal mentally noted down the date so she could be present for the occasion.

Cal stayed up late that night, drank a dozen rowdy dwarves under the table, and left town the next morning.

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Due to its rather barren lands - with more fertile lands only really found near the coastlines to the nation's south - Knallzog did not look like a large, prosperous nation at a glance. Most of the nation's larger settlements are built underground, often with a citadel above ground being the only sign of their presence.

The many villages strewn sparsely above ground are typically inhabited by members of other races who resided in the nation, specifically those unable to adapt themselves to life beneath the ground. Even though most villages are relatively self-sufficient despite the barren lands, most villages chose to remain no further than two day's travel to the nearest large underground settlement, for the wildlife that thrived on Knallzog tended to be of the more dangerous variety.

Cal found that out when she shot down a duck that flew overhead with her new crossbow - the weapon had a winch installed in its rear to help rewind the string to firing position, although Cal just used her magic to do that instead - and found a rather large wyvern swoop in to snatch the dead duck in its maw.

That wyvern ended up as her dinner in its stead. Its meat was rather stringy, but of good, strong flavor if one liked gamey meats, and a good match for the strong ales favored by the dwarves. She can't help but wonder if maybe she should make jerky out of it, as jerky had always been a good drinking snack.

Cal took the scenic route on purpose this time, for while the lands of Knallzog may be on the barren side, it did not mean the landscape does not possess a beauty of its own. She allowed herself to wander around the nation some, until she hit the seashore.

Down south, the sea shores were different to the sandy beaches she remembered from Ur-Ank. In some places, the land was separated from the sea by a steep cliff, while in other places the shores were more rocky than sandy. Those settlements that lived by these rocky shores relied on the bounty of the sea in their own way, due to the multitude of shellfish to harvest from the area and the many seafowls that made their nests by the cliffs.

Sometimes, a villager down on his luck might have ran across a giant eel instead of shellfish, and end up its meal instead. Cal had checked the waters when a village she visited happened to harvest shellfish, and ran into the man-eater in question herself. The creature was quite massive - easily fifteen meters long, with its long body as large around as a man's waist - and its large jaws unhinged only to reveal a smaller, second set of jaws inside that shot out to grab its victims and pull them into its gullet.

The creature chose the wrong victim that day, as Cal caught its second jaw and yanked it out of the creature's mouth instead, before she put it down with her halberd without much difficulty.

Later that night, the villagers learned that the man-eater they feared proved to be quite delicious when grilled over fire and slathered with a sweet and savory sauce.