The ocelot and dwarf eyed each other for a moment. Vivi was about twenty centimetres shorter than the captain and with her slim body, she would likely rely on dodging around to hit the dwarf in a weak spot. Which surprised everyone present when she charged straight at him. The captain propped up his shield and readied his sword. I would have expected him to strike at the approaching feline as she arrived but instead, he swung his triangular shield, threatening his attacker with its point.

Vivi tried to move around but the dwarf kept her on his left, tracing her approach. After almost two full rounds, she decided to attack. With how much she moved, the dwarf would easily outlast her. The ocelot ducked forward, making the dwarf push his shield towards her. She then pushed off the ground and took a step on the shield. Without my [Owl Senses] Skill I would not have been able to follow her movement as a claw made of water scraped across the dwarf’s helmet. He had turned his head just in time to avoid getting cut in his face. The sword swung up in an attempt at retaliation but the ocelot was simply too fast.

She landed behind Captain and turned around, this time aiming for his legs. Just as she closed in, the shield swung around the dwarf ahead of his turn and forced Vivi to abandon the attack. The two got some distance and slowly circled each other, panting.

This time, the dwarf made the first move. He charged at Vivi with quick steps, sword readied next to his shield for a sweeping motion. Vivi lowered her body. I spotted a tiny amount of doubt in her eyes before she refocused. As the dwarf arrived, she jumped up. The sweeping strike went wide below her paws and the dwarf turned on his heels to bring his shield towards the cat. Vivi landed on top, causing him to lose balance. But when she tried to take advantage of the captain’s stumbling steps, he suddenly turned as if standing perfectly stable and punched her with the pommel of his blade.

The hit threw the ocelot off. A few small gashes were visible where her claws had raked over the shield but that was all the damage she had gotten in. The two went back and forth for another minute, the aggressor always changing until Vivi finally landed a good hit with her water claws. I wondered how much of her Strength she had used as the gash on the dwarf’s face was rather shallow. It stopped bleeding after only moments and the dwarf called the spar.

“Good. That was good.”

He approached us as the spectating guards piled in close. They were talking to each other in hushed voices, excited. I heard them say things along the lines of “They both drew blood on Captain”, and “Did you see how fast they were?”, but paid them no deeper mind.

The captain nodded to both of us in turn.

“You two are both very agile. You are lacking in Strength, Fio, but your magic attack should make up for that. How much of your Strength did you utilize there, Guardian?”

“More than half?”, Vivi answered him. She sounded not entirely sure of herself.

“Hmm. Then it should be fine. I suppose the Monstrosity will be about as sturdy as I am in terms of Constitution. You should be able to injure it. I still want you as primarily a distraction. Our ranged attacks should be our primary form of doing damage. What does everyone else think?”

Starting with the vice-captains, almost everyone added their own little notes and observations to the pool and soon we had a basic strategy locked in. Vivi and I were responsible for getting the Monstrosity out of the lake so the archers and crossbowmen could shoot it. We would be avoiding getting hit as much as possible. That said, I was encouraged to use my [Winged Death] if I saw an opening. Vivi with her melee attacks would stay closer to the shore and try to approach the node when an opening presented itself. That should draw the beast away from me and give me some time to breathe. The true challenge would be avoiding any magic the beast could use. We had very little chance of scouting that out beforehand but I promised to give it a try. Maybe sneaking around the lake at night might show me some of its habits.

With that settled, we decided to wait two more weeks. I hinted I was working on something that might help us and it would take a little longer to see how useful it really could be. The captain was fine with waiting. The Monstrosity would not get much stronger in that time, if at all. That was simply how little race levels grew. He was also hoping some of his guards could hit another level or two in their classes. One of them was apparently just about to reach their next milestone.

The captain took us aside after the sparring and planning were all done. He led us into his office and sat down. I shared a look with Vivi. She looked equally curious about what he wanted to say.

“You two. We might have a chance. With your help, this town might be able to grow prosperous. Thank you for that.”

He bowed slightly. Vivi tilted her head and I let out a small scoff.

“It’s not like we don’t get anything from this”, I sent.

“Right. That’s the case for Guardian Vivi. For you? I’m not sure what you are getting out of it that risking your life like this seems worth it.”

I shrugged my wings. Helping Vivi was the plan and without the dwarves, we probably would have had to fight some monster anyway. Getting paid on top of that? I would gladly take it.

The captain shook his head and ran a hand over one ear.

“Ah. Well, it is very likely we could succeed without you. It’s just not possible without paying a high price. You see, this town is my home. All the dwarves that live here, and I mean really live here, permanently, they are what I consider my clan, my family. I want to give them the best they can have and this? This is the chance. If we can turn Borsdown into a proper city with a major node and a Guardian, it will flourish. All the people here will have better lives. More chances. Especially with the amount of vis crystals that should have built up near the lake...”

He trailed off leaving the words hanging in the room for a moment. Then his eyes moved to stay on Vivi for a moment before fixating on me.

“So. About your reward. You have a risky position. Your Class warrants a first strike and weaving in and out of combat. For that alone, I can offer you 100 gold in addition to the library membership. Whatever device you are working on will increase that depending on how effective it’s going to be. What do you say?”

I tilted my head. That was over double of what he had offered before.

“What do you pay your men?”

He blinked.

“Ah. That was not what I was expecting from you. Sorry. Ehrm, they get five gold a month plus equipment, lodging and food. Dangerous assignments like this are paid with bonuses depending on their contributions. Between 10 and 30 gold, usually. This time might be a bit higher.”

So he was essentially paying me more than double what his men got? Even if I considered the costs of their equipment and food, that probably did not come close to 100 gold. Why was he paying me so much?

“You’re getting a much higher payment because you didn’t swear an oath to protect the town. I’m basically buying your loyalty for the time of this expedition. It’s not uncommon for external contractors or mercenaries to be overpaid. The people needing them are either in a bind or see some immense profit from the results. I am of the latter. If Borsdown becomes a proper city it might become more respected in the dwarven hills. Our quarry provides good stone but it’s mostly run by the dregs of society. I really hope we can improve this town and get a full library as well as workshops from every major clan here. That way, the children born in Borsdown will have a much easier time following their passion and far better chances to join a clan able to support them. I’m rambling again. Is that enough of an explanation?”

I nodded. That was not what I expected.

“It doesn’t feel to me that this town is all that rowdy. Is security that good, or what?”

Again, the captain had to look for words. This time, Vivi answered before he could get to it.

“Safrah said it’s very rowdy. They do their work but the dwarves from outside are lazy and much prefer getting drunk.”

The captain nodded.

“That’s pretty much it. All dwarves like to drink but normally there wouldn’t be anywhere near as many drunks out and about every single night. In part that’s because we don’t have a fixed day off for everyone with the way, the quarry needs to be run. But mostly it’s because they are lazy bums who don’t like to work. There’s also a few dwarves who cheated on challenges or their Master Practical. They’ve been sentenced to lifelong digging and don’t care about much besides drinking.”

Huh. That sounded… very tame. I had expected much worse when he said dregs of society. Like murderers or rapists… When I expressed my thoughts the captain looked extremely shocked.

“Why would anyone go so low to murder someone? If you have a grudge that bad, you can issue a death challenge. And ra… I don’t even want to say that word. If anyone did something like that they would be executed on the spot by their own parent. That’s absolutely disgusting!”

His outraged face made me take half a step back and bow with an apology. He calmed down quickly and let out a sigh.

“I mean… I’ve heard about some humans being really scummy. It’s why they are only let into the trade city unless they have proven their honour. But that bad? I can only imagine orks doing that kind of thing…”

He shook his head in disbelief.

“Now, don’t you go mention that unless you are talking to a librarian. Our children are taught what terrors people can bring onto each other but other than the teachers and keepers of knowledge, no honourable dwarf will ever want to talk about something like that. You might even have your honour challenged.”

His eyes were boring into me as if trying to burn the words into my mind. This seemed really important to him. And it sounded really important to me, as well. A society like this? It was almost utopia. There had to be shadows somewhere but from the captain's reaction, they were very well hidden. I might have to reconsider changing my Class if I stayed longer in dwarven lands. [Assassin] was likely to keep stagnating.

I acknowledged the captain’s words with a mental image of trust and friendship. It brought a slight smile to his face and he accepted it with a curt nod.

“As long as you understand, that’s good.”

Before we turned to leave, Vivi had another question.

“Is the quarry growing because of a node?”

The captain nodded.

“Most likely, yes. When this place was found, a team of miners from the Gurrin Clan tried to dig for it but they were only able to reach about 200 metres into the ground before the stone started growing faster than they could remove it. Artificers set up the warding stones near the quarry and now it only regrows every night until it reaches them. Some say the node is even bigger than a major one but I honestly can’t tell you if that’s true. The measurements done by some dwarves told us we should have reached it so we had to be close. I’m convinced it’s just a pure terra node, maybe a bright one. They usually have larger effects on the world around them.”

“Too bad”, Vivi hung her head.

That would have been way too easy. And it would have made all our planning useless. If Vivi had gotten that node, I would be happy for her. This way, we still had to struggle a little.