Neamov was impressive, there were no two ways about it. In a certain way, it was the most fantastic of the cities I had visited thus far. While it lacked the mystical element of the crystal-forest surrounding Neyto and the sea-shell ambience of Yugan, the Naga-Town Sigmir and I had visited a long time ago, it had something else that made it stick out.

Scale.

Size on a scale that made even Kolyug, with its sizable walls, look like a village, especially when seen from the air. Lenore provided me an aerial view, allowing me to appreciate the dwarven mountain-fortress in a way us landbound creatures simply couldn’t. It also allowed me to get a good idea about the lay-out of the city and it’s total size. The dwarves had built a semi-circle of walls around a central point, right next to sheer cliff-side that provided protection in one direction. On top of the cliff, hundreds of meters above, I could see the outline of fortifications standing out against the sky above, likely to make sure nobody had any ideas of dropping rocks into their city.

And what a city it was. Even from above, it was difficult to get an accurate idea of the size, but if I had to put down a number, I would have said that the radius of the outer walls was about two kilometers, making it a truly massive city. Within those walls, I could see different districts, distinct due to the colour of the rooftops but even trying to guess what they were was futile. In the middle of it all was the most interesting part, a large, ornate gate, leading into the mountains, protected by an inner wall.

While the outer walls were merely on a scale similar to that of Kolyug, akin to towering cliffs of grey stone, the inner citadel was simply daunting. The idea was similar to the Ashenforge-Dwarves and their construction-method, to maintain a defensive position above ground that protected the access into an underground network. The network was something I only knew about from Olivia but the large gate leading into the mountain was a bit of a give-away.

“That is one hell of a fortress.” I muttered, studying the defenses that Lenore had seen. While there were only two layers of walls, both layers had fixed positions atop them with installations that reminded me of some sort of firearm. I knew that the dwarves had steam-powered weapons of some sort but I had no real idea how they worked, the videos I had seen had been a little lacking regarding details. In addition to those fixed positions, Lenore’s sight revealed a multitude of magical defenses, spanning the whole city in a dazzling web of power, with especially high concentrations around the inner walls.

“It’s impressive, isn’t it?” Olivia asked, standing next to me, as I looked down on the citadel from our elevated position on the ancient road.

“You can say that again.” I agreed, only to give her a glare when she started to do just that, causing her to chuckle. “Can you tell me about those weapon-positions on the walls?” I asked her, knowing that she had by far the most worldly experience.

“Steam Projectors, they call them. At least as far as I know, I never had to face one of those in battle but when it comes to defending a fortified position, they make the dwarves almost impossible to dislodge. I don’t know if you noticed, there are different variants, one directly fires projectiles in a straight line, similar to a crossbow, only smaller projectiles but a lot faster, the other variant launches alchemical charges over a long distance.” she shuddered at the mention of those, making me wonder just what they were, to make someone who happily wandered through some of the roughest terrain I had seen thus far, with one hand and without offensive magic, that uncomfortable. Certainly, there was a possibility that they simply had disgusting effects without causing too much damage but it could also be simply too fearsome, even when compared to guns.

“Alchemical charges?” I asked, trying to find out more.

“Indeed. Again, I can only tell you what I’ve heard, but there seem to be multiple variants. They are all based on magical potions, filled with Astral Power, that are enchanted to activate, causing a sudden effect a long distance away.” she explained, causing me to start wondering as she continued.

“I’ve heard stories about a fire-version that spread out a large amount of Fire-Astral-Power, only to ignite it into a wild flare, devastating the area. Another story spoke of a light-version, that caused a tremendous ray of energy to lance out, somehow hitting their target and annihilating it.” she explained and I felt my mouth go dry at the idea. Brutal didn’t even begin to describe it. Unless I misunderstood the effect, it was something similar to the effect my interference into the strange storm-magic of the Wind Raptors had created, forcing us to seek shelter beneath that glacier. Only that it wasn’t caused by accident but on purpose, by lobbing a bomb at the enemy.

While the second version didn’t sound as large-scale devastating, I had a feeling that it was what they used to take care of powerful, individual threats. Unless I misunderstood, it sounded like the dwarves had developed light-magic to the point that they could create battlefield-ready lasers and mount them on the equivalent of mortar-shells. How they aimed those things, I had no idea but at the end of the day, it didn’t really matter. I didn’t want to be on the business-end of those things.

I slowly let out the breath I hadn’t realised I had been holding, once again making a mental note not to underestimate the natives. Sure, Travellers like me could grow a lot faster, especially in level, but when it came to creative ways of murdering other beings, the natives had had a lot more time to consider things, with all the fun means that magic added into the mix. Understanding and study, if I wanted to get to the top as a spellcaster, I would have to acquire as much information and understanding as I could, especially once the game was officially life.

“Why haven't the dwarves conquered the world?” I asked, my mind still reeling. I didn’t expect a response, but surprisingly, I got one.

“Mobility, quite frankly.” Olivia told me, before elaborating. “A lot of dwarven technology depends on steam, using it to transport and transform energy but as far as I’ve heard, they need a rather large installation in the first place, in addition to quite a bit of either fuel or magic.”

“There have been attempts to create vehicles, essentially carriages powered by steam but so far, the dwarves have been unable to come up with something that withstands the rigors of use in the wild. In addition, while these roads help draft-animals, they do nothing for such a contraption, making it even less efficient in comparison.” Olivia finished and I nodded in acceptance.

At the same time, it made me wonder, would Travellers bring knowledge from Earth into Mundus, to push steam-technology forward? While I had no idea how it had been done, such simple steam-contraptions had been turned into trains on Earth, which made me wonder, could such a thing be done on Mundus? Unless the developers had failed to foresee such an obvious idea, they had accounted for it. How, I didn’t know but at the same time, it didn’t really matter. Steam-Technology sounded fun and interesting but not for me.

On the other hand, I had noticed that some laws of Nature could be bent or broken with magic, at least my understanding of those laws. Simple Newtonian physics was broken whenever I used my Ice-Magic to move about large amounts of mass, without getting pushed back. There was some feedback, but it was far from the simple equal but opposite reaction. There seemed to be artificial limitations that didn’t make any sense to me, to prevent certain actions. For example, I should be able to hover by using Ice-Magic to push Ice against the ground below, using the push-back to lift me up. Normally, that was how it should work in a Newtonian world, if you pushed something, you were pushed back by the same force. Not on Mundus, the pushback was negligible.

But when trying to push yourself up by sitting on a block of Ice and trying to move that up, it didn’t work again, as suddenly there was such feedback, preventing the Ice from rising.

To me, that smelled a little like a developer making sure that flight was not something simply acquired with any old magic, but instead reserved for special magic and methods. Or I was missing something when it came to the underlying physics, but I didn’t think so.

“Let’s move on. I think if we hurry, we’ll be able to sleep in an inn tonight.” Oliva suggested, breaking me out of my weird mood and together, we continued to move on, taking on the last leg of our journey to Neamov.