After asking around a bit, they were told the direction to a smith that would be able to help them. They’ve heard that most smiths in the town wouldn’t trade with people under level 25, so they hadn’t really much choice of where they’d go with their business. When they arrived at their target location, they were surprised in a positive way. At the time they were told that only one smith in the town would do business with them, they’d kind of expected a run-down back alley shop. But, in front of them was a nice looking building with a smoking chimney on one side.

When they entered, they were greeted by a loud fight.

“Listen up you son of an orc! I ordered the axe four weeks ago and your message said it would be finished last week. Here I have it here!” A dwarf that was wearing the heaviest armor Daniel had seen up to now waved a piece of paper in front of the other dwarf that stood behind the counter.

Dwarf – D rank

Dwarf – D rank

“I know what I wrote Kargarn! How should I’ve know that Angulf would buy all the endurium on the market. You want a dark steel weapon, for that I need endurium. It is the fault of the count who wants to have a pure endurium war hammer for his son. The boy is only at C rank, why does he need such a weapon! Every smith in Irondeep is in the same situation right now. Brak has some orders for orichalcum weapons that he can’t fill because there is no endurium to be found on the market right now.” The smith explained and tried to calm his customer down.

“What, you haven’t even started? What do you want me to do now? Even if you get the stuff, it will take you more than a week to finish my axe! I didn’t kill anything for a week, a week! I need to fight something or I’ll go berserk! You know what, I just stay here sitting in front of your counter until you finish my weapon!” The armored dwarf shouted.

“You can’t do that. That will turn off all my customers!” The smith complained.

“Well, look at me, I can.” The dwarf said while sitting down.

The smith groaned and closed his eyes for moment. He seemed pretty annoyed by the whole situation. When he had a look at Daniel and his group, a smile appeared back on his face.

“Greetings customers, what can I do for you? Please ignore this homeless person, in my limitless mercy, I’m allowing him to stay here for the day.” The smith asked.

“Homeless? Homeless! You piece of shit, give me my axe and I’ll leave.”

Deciding it would probably be best to say something to prevent the fight from starting all over again, Fedor spoke up.

“We are here to melt down some coins, to sell some equipment we got from bandits that tried to rob us and to buy some stuff.” The Russian said with a load voice to be heard over the raging dwarf.

They moved past the angry dwarf, removed the silver and gold ore from their inventory and put it on the counter. Then, Fedor put the heavy armor of the boss next to the ore. When the smith saw the armor, his expression changed.

“Really, Bandits you say? I made this armor myself. While the customer was the most annoying piece of shit I’ve ever met, I think he was an adventurer and not a bandit.” The smith said and looked over to the other dwarf. “Maybe, not the most annoying piece of shit I’ve ever met.”

Daniel decided to intervene in the conversation before the other dwarf was able to react to the insult.

“That might be true, but when we met him and his friends on the road here, they were much too interested in Anna and Isabella here. We had no choice and defended ourselves.” Daniel explained.

“So I should believe that four persons at level 15 were able to defeat that piece of shit and his friends? Do you think I’m stupid.” The smith asked in an annoyed tone.

“Well, I think they underestimated us. When we saw that they wouldn’t be reasoned with, we attacked first. Two of them were dead right at the start of the fight.” Daniel added.

“Well, in the end, I don’t really care.” The smith said and looked at the three bullet holes in the chest plate. “You must have some special weapon that is able to penetrate my forged high steel like this.” He added and sparked the interest of the other dwarf. Kargarn stood up and had a look at the bullet holes from Fedor’s desert eagle.

“Interesting, no magic residue. That was made by a physical attack.” The armored warrior commented.

Deciding that the dwarves were far too curious, Daniel removed the lump of unknown ore from his inventory and put it on the table, in the hope of moving the conversation away from the bullet holes.

“Haha, endurium today must be my lucky day. I can get rid of you a lot sooner than I expected.” The smith commented to the other dwarf.

“You still need to ask them if they sell and then you need to forge my axe, you greedy asshole! But, isn’t it weird that these greenhorns have a lump of endurium ore? I’m level 28 and newer had it dropped in front of me” Kargarn observed and the smith looked at Daniel in a weary way.

“You are right, either they stole it or they had a first clear.” The smith decided.

Daniel felt uncomfortable. These dwarves were not only far too curious, but smart, too. Luckily, this time Anna decided to intervene.

“We’ve heard much about how honorable dwarves are. If you promise that you won’t tell others, we will explain where we’ve gotten that ore.”

The smith and Kargarn looked at each other and then nodded.

“Ok, we promise we won’t tell.” The smith said.

“We are travelers and were summoned to a goblin dungeon. When we cleared the first level, we got the ore. We are here to get better gear for the second floor.” Fedor explained and the rest of the party looked at him in a reproachful way. He could have left out the fact that they were travelers.

“What? I think we can trust them. You’ve heard before, they don’t like the baron. Or has the count another son? Doesn’t really matter, I think it would be very unlikely that they would run to him and tell them about the new dungeon and the travelers that arrived in his realm. Besides, Jacob asked to get another fighter for the second level anyway.” Fedor explained.

“Travelers, how unexpected.” The smith said and then paused. “I pay you double for what it’s worth if you take Kargarn with you to that dungeon. He is driving me insane and he’s been here for less than an hour.” He added in a hopeful tone.

“Hey you son of a goblin, you can’t just get rid of me!” Kargan shouted, but then stopped. “How far away is that dungeon and what kind of monsters can be killed there?” He asked with a sudden interest.

“I don’t know how fast you are, but maybe two days travel. We’d need to pass through some heavy snow, though. For the monsters, the dungeon is called Goblin Fortress and there are green ones on the first floor and we’ve met blue ones on the second.” Daniel explained.

Kargarn and the smith started to laugh.

“Must be your lucky day Kargain. Some travelers appear with the endurium for your axe and now you have a chance of destroying a dungeon and a first clear at the D rank.” The smith summarized.

“Maybe.” He turned to Daniel. “I hope you don’t want to challenge the dungeon with just you. I’m crazy, but I’m not insane!”

“Well, we have one extra person. He is level 29.” Daniel explained.

“Ok, I’m in. Let’s go.” Kargain said with a smile. It looked like he couldn’t wait to kill something.

“They have to finish their trade first. How should I create the dark steel for your axe without the endurium.” The smith protested.

“You said you wanted us to pay double. How much is a lump of endurium in this size normally worth.” Isabella asked.

Before the smith could say something, Kargarn spoke up first.

“50 Gold coins, don’t let Fibrem cheat you! He is a cheap bastard!”

“I don’t cheat my customers you son of a retarded gnome.”Fibrem protested and turned to Daniel. “Here, 100 gold coins for the ore. I can give you 8 for the armor. I’d have to change the chest plate.”

“Could you refit for him?” Daniel asked and pointed at Fedor.

“Yes, but this would take a few days. Mmmmh, I can do it for five gold.” Fibrem suggested.

Daniel took out the sword from the bandit boss and put his own saber next to it. The bandit’s sword was twice as thick as normal longswords on earth.

“I need something in between. I’m used to fighting with the saber and to use fast attacks, but in the last fights it turned out more and more that my saber is too light. There is not enough force behind my attacks and I always have to be careful not to attack in a way that would damage my weapon. We got this weapon from the same man as the armor, but it is too heavy and unwieldy for me right now.” Daniel explained

“It is normal steel and made for a strong fighter. The bastard was cheap and didn’t want to spend the coin for high steel, but at the same time wanted a weapon that wouldn’t break with his strength. Let me get you something better from my storage room.” The smith said and went through one of the doors behind the counter.

When he came back, he was holding a weapon that was looking like a slim medieval long sword in his hands.

“This is a high steel weapon. You’ll have a hard time breaking it as long as your strength is below 80. I can sell it to you for 10 gold.” The smith proposed and Daniel looked at Kargarn. The dwarf had probably a far better understanding of weapon prices in this town than himself and his friends.

“I would take it of 8.” He commented.

“You little shit, he would have paid 10!” Fibrem yelled at the other dwarf.

“I take it for 8 gold.” Daniel interrupted their new fight with a smile and the smith stopped yelling at the other dwarf, sighted and accepted the deal.

The haggling over the rest of their items went on for more than an hour. When they were finished, they had bought the armor refit, light chainmail armor for Anna and Isabella, the high steel longsword for Daniel and a high steel shield for Fedor. They agreed to come back after the dungeon hunt to get Fedor’s new armor. All in all, they still went away with a profit of 81 gold coins and 600 silver coins. That included melting down their nuggets for which they only paid a fee of five percent.

“About time I left that shithole. Ha, he really believed that I would’ve stayed there for weeks. You should thank me for getting 50 extra gold coins from the cheap bastard.” Kargarn boasted.

“I thought that dwarves would never lie, in addition the stuff he sold looked of good quality, why do you call him cheap?” Daniel asked in confusion.

“Ha, not lying would be boring. We just never break our word. I call him cheap because he is one of the best smiths in the town, but still does business with everyone in order to get the last coin.” Kargain explained.

When Fedor tried to distribute the money, Isabella declined.

“Most of it is from the ore, I wasn’t part of the fight where you’ve gotten it.”

“You have much to learn if you want to be an adventurer. First rule, never decline anything that is given to you for free.” Kargarn said in a teaching tone.

This was more like the first rule in becoming a cheap bastard like the dwarf accused Fibrem to be, Daniel thought. However, Isabella took the advice. Daniel himself was now the owner of a small fortune of 195 silver and 20 gold coins.

“You said we need to move through snow. We should get some warm clothes and the right gear. You being new probably means you have nothing of that sorts in your inventory.” Kargarn suggested and the others had to agree with that estimation.

They followed him to a few shops and bought some tents, thick fur clothes, snow shoes, lamps, rations, ropes and even fire wood. After that, they left the dwarven city behind and traveled back to Northhill.