Starting With an SSS-Rank Goddess Summon!

The dwarves gasped and several stumbled back in awe.

”She... she went straight to the territory?!” Dagna cried, her spectacles slipping down her nose.

”Your sister is already standing on the grass inside Blessed Land,” Kara said with a small smile, turning to the next woman in line. ”Who’s next?”

Dagna dove forward with both hands out.

”Dagna Greyrock!” she yelled, clamping her fingers around Kara’s palm. ”I want to join Blessed Land! Take my runes, my Lord!”

FLASH!

[New Troop Registered!]

[Unit: Dagna Greyrock (Precision Runic Engraver / Artisan)]

[Relocating unit to Blessed Land...]

SHING!

Dagna vanished in a pillar of silver light.

Her spectacles, which had been halfway down her nose, hung in the air for half a second before dropping onto the floor with a tiny tink.

”She forgot her glasses,” someone whispered.

”She’ll want them,” another said.

”Somebody go after her!”

”Go after her where?!”

Kara quietly bent down, picked up the spectacles, and set them on the worktable.

”Next,” she said.

Next came the graying smith, whose grip nearly crushed Kara’s knuckles.

”...I swear my hammer to your mountain! I want to join Blessed Land!”

FLASH! SHING!

The process moved down the line.

One by one the female dwarves stepped forward with radiant teary grins, clasped Kara’s hand with fierce devotion, and vanished.

Between each handshake Kara had a word for them.

She praised an engineer’s boiler designs, complimented a mason’s joint tolerances, and told a nervous young apprentice that the forges of Blessed Land burned hotter than any furnace.

’I mean... Thora’s forge does burn really hot.’ Silas thought. ’Besides, I can always increase the tier if they need more space.’

Kara sighed.

”Your hands are far steadier than they look...” She told one.

”Th-thank you, Lord Vespera! I want to join Blessed Land!”

FLASH! SHING!

”Don’t let anyone tell you stout is a flaw.” she told the next.

”Nobody does, my Lord. Nobody dares. I want to join!”

FLASH! SHING!

FLASH! SHING!

Ten dwarves... Twelve... Fourteen...

The room, which had been crowded and stifling ten minutes ago, grew steadily emptier and quieter.

One apprentice vanished mid-sentence while talking about her favorite bellows.

A woman with ash-gray braids hugged Solenne, kissed both her cheeks, and disappeared before she’d finished crying on her.

”Y-You didn’t have to!” Solenne squeaked into the empty air.

Finally, the fifteenth female dwarf, a young girl barely out of her apprenticeship, took Kara’s hand, whispered her tearful oath, and dissolved into the swirling silver vortex.

FLASH!

[New Troop Registered!]

[Unit: Greyrock Apprentice (Ventilation & Thermal Engineer)]

[Relocating unit to Blessed Land...]

SHING!

The pillar of light collapsed inward and faded into the dim air of the shack.

The room went dead silent.

The roaring clatter of boots, the chatter of craftswomen, and the tearful laughter of sisters had vanished as if somebody had cut a rope.

The only sounds left were the dull distant thud of a tramway rolling past outside and the soft crackle of the tallow candles burning low.

Solenne stood by the door with her satchel pressed against her chest and her golden eyes turning wide as she stared at the empty space where her friends had been.

’...And they’re all going to Blessed Land.’ She thought with a small smile, she was happy.

In the middle of the earthen floor, Kara stood alone.

Her suit hadn’t a single stitch out of place after fifteen successive handshakes as her violet eyes were calm and unreadable.

Over by the rear racks, the ten male dwarves hadn’t moved.

They stood shoulder to shoulder in their thick leather aprons, picks and sledges resting against the dirt, square beards perfectly still, dark eyes wide with nervous suffocating anticipation as they looked across the nearly empty floor.

Then they stepped forward together, boots crunching on the dry slag.

The eldest, a burly gray-bearded dwarf with a scarred cheek and thick calloused hands, cleared his throat and reached out toward the Lord of Blessed Land with his knuckles white.

’What are they doing...?’

Slowly, the black-haired woman turned her head, and her violet eyes settled on the men with an icy unblinking stillness that seemed to freeze the air in the shack.

’Aren’t they aware that men can’t join Blessed Land or do they want to ask for another favor...?’

The gray-bearded dwarf at the front cleared his throat.

His name was Torvald. He was broad even for a mountain dwarf, with a nose broken in three places and a beard tied off with wire rings.

He’d spent the last twenty minutes watching his daughter Borna show off her cold-iron work with an anxious protective squint, and now that she’d vanished into silver light, his weathered jaw worked in silence, wrestling with an awkward mix of pride and worry.

”Well, my Lord,” Torvald rumbled, his voice scraping through the quiet. ”The girls have shown their work. If you’ve got use for fifteen sets of tongs, you’ll need men to haul the ore carts and swing the ten-pound sledges... We don’t mind breaking our backs in your mines so tell us where to put our marks...”

He took half a step forward with his thick palm lifting toward Kara but Kara didn’t lift hers.

She stood straight beneath the low ceiling with a calm face, though Silas felt a dull familiar irritation stir behind the mask.

The rules of the territory were hard-coded into his core.

Men couldn’t join Blessed Land as Troops... and no amount of pleading would persuade the ledger to bend.

”You really can’t come.” Kara said plainly with her feminine voice cutting clean through the drafty room.

Torvald froze as the hand he’d extended hung in the air for two heartbeats before his thick fingers curled inward.

Behind him, the younger men shifted, boots scraping on the slag.

A red-bearded youth holding a rock-drill grip scowled so hard his brow swallowed his eyes.

”Can’t come?” Torvald repeated, his deep voice dropping a bit. ”What d’you mean, can’t come? Is our clan’s iron no good? We swung hammers beside those girls since they were tall enough to reach the anvil horns... Borna learned her three-point bevel at my own bench!”

”Your iron is fine,” Kara said calmly. ”Your trade isn’t the problem... Blessed Land has laws, and even though I’m the Lord, I don’t get to bend them... Men can’t join, Not as Troops, not as miners, not as guards. The gates simply won’t open for you.”

The last thing he wanted to do was for the same thing that happened to Ititius to happen to these innocent dwarves.

’Maybe I can get a gig...?’

A heavy silence dropped over the shack.

The red-bearded youth took an angry step forward, his sledgehammer shifting in his grip.

”That’s a load of guild-hall garbage! We took the same blacklisting the girls took! We starved in this ditch together! If you take our women and leave us here to rot, who’s going to work the blast flues when the winter freezes come?!”

”Hush,” Torvald barked, throwing out his left arm like an iron gate to shove the younger dwarf back.

His dark eyes locked onto Kara’s violet ones, hunting for deceit or mockery but he found neither.

Kara stood with her hand resting loosely in her trouser pockets looking completely steady.

The old dwarf let out a long ragged breath that stirred the gray hairs of his mustache.

His thick shoulders slumped by an inch with the stubborn pride draining out of him and leaving behind a dull aching weight that had clearly been dogging his steps for years.

”So that’s how it is,” Torvald muttered, looking at his own cracked boots. ”A closed gate...”

”It’s the law of the land,” Kara said. ”I don’t make exceptions, maybe one day.”

Torvald was quiet for a long moment.

He looked at the empty anvil where Borna had beaten out the mirror-finished wedge, then at the blank dirt floor beside it.

”Is she safe?” He asked quietly. ”My girl. She talks loud and swings her hammer too fast when she’s angry, but she’s got a good heart... She won’t starve up there, will she?”

”She won’t starve,” Kara answered. ”She’ll have an anvil of different alloys, three meals of fresh meat a day, and more coal than she can burn in ten lifetimes... Your women will be treated with honor... They’ll build our walls and shape our armor, and no guild master will ever threaten them with debt-chains again.”

A bitter sorrowful smile cracked Torvald’s lips and pulled at the pale scars on his cheek. He wiped a hand down his face with his fingers catching on the wire rings in his beard.

”Good,” the old smith whispered. ”That’s good... We spent two years watching them skip meals so the forge bellows would have oil. If they’re out of this gutter, then the Greyrock name still has a hearth somewhere.”

He gripped his sledge in both hands and planted it in the dirt like a boundary stone.

”We’ll find our own way... We’re dwarves... We’ve chewed gravel before so we’ll manage.”

Silas watched the old man’s knuckles whiten on the handle and that stubborn foolish dignity was familiar.

’Ah fuck.’

It reminded him of the miners back in Sector 5 who’d rather freeze on a mountainside than beg anyone for a bowl of watery soup.

”You won’t have to chew gravel,” Kara said.

She reached her right hand into the empty air beside her hip.

FWIP!

A heavy rectangular travel case materialized in her grasp.

It was built from reinforced black boar-hide, bound with polished steel corners and locked with two thick brass latches.

Kara stepped forward and set it on the edge of the nearest timber worktable.

The legs groaned under the sudden dense weight.

CLACK! CLACK!

She flicked both latches open with her thumb and lifted the lid.

Stacked in neat banded rows were thousands of crisp deep-blue certificates bearing the silver seal of the Central City Grand Reserve filled the case.

Each voucher was threaded with fine mana filaments that glowed faintly with the authentic minting array of the banks here.

Torvald’s breath caught. His mouth fell open so fast that a loose tooth showed against his lip.

The younger dwarves behind him leaned forward, eyes widening until they looked like polished copper coins.

”By the stone...” one of them choked.

”Thank the gods I visited the bank before coming,” Kara said casually, brushing a speck of dust off the top bundle. ”There’s three hundred thousand Spirit Credits in this box... Apparently SC looks very different in the Sovereign Realm, I wasn’t aware of that.”

Torvald didn’t touch it.

He backed away half a step, staring at the open case as if it were packed with live blast-powder.

”Three... three hundred thousand?” His gravelly voice climbed into a wheezing squeak. ”My Lord, you could buy three complete foundry terraces in the third ring with that much coin! You could pay off the guild liens on our ancestral mine twice over!”

”Then go buy them,” Kara said smoothly. ”Pay your debts... Buy proper iron, rent a clean hall with high flues, and put your names back on the trade registry... Hire a crew, set your prices, and don’t let the Iron Compass Guild squeeze you out again. Consider it compensation for taking your best smiths.”

Torvald stared at her as his eyes became glossy.

His weathered hands trembled as he reached out and brushed his fingertips against the cold steel corner of the case.

”We can’t pay you back,” the old dwarf whispered. ”Not anytime soon. If we buy the foundry leases, it’ll take us years to clear a profit...”

”I didn’t ask for a loan repayment,” Kara interrupted, waving a hand. ”I asked you to survive... When Blessed Land needs pig-iron shipped in bulk, I’ll send an agent to your shop. You’ll give me the clan discount so deal?”

Torvald dropped to one knee with his heavy leather apron slapping the dirt.

The nine male dwarves behind him followed at once, dropping their picks and sledges with a dull rumble and planting their knees on the hard floor.

”Deal, Lord Vespera,” Torvald said, bowing his gray head until his beard brushed the boards. ”May the deep earth remember your name... The Greyrock Clan is in your debt until the mountains crumble.”

The red-bearded youth bent last, glaring at the floor with his ears bright red.

”...Thank you very much.” he muttered into the dirt.

”You’re welcome,” Kara said. ”Keep your hammers moving... Hold onto Dagna’s glasses too. My agent will collect them with the first iron order, and she’ll want them back but for now, Solenne, let’s go.”

Solenne jumped, ears twitching up from where she’d been watching with wide misty eyes. ”Y-Yes, Lord Vespera!”

They stepped out through the battered doorway and left the dwarves in their dim, newly funded sanctuary.

’There’s no agent...’ Silas thought, if glasses were an issue, Thora could always make a high quality one.

Outside, the alley was still damp and cold, but the morning sun had begun to burn through the coal smoke over the Adventurer’s Sector.

The muddy track was filling with early foot traffic, mercenaries in rusted mail, beast-tamers dragging sulking hounds by their chains and street peddlers wheeling carts of fried grease-bread toward the main avenue.

Solenne walked right at Kara’s hip.

Her nerves from the flight had completely evaporated and been replaced by a bouncy light-footed joy that practically floated her over the muck.

Her nine silver tails swayed in wide lazy waves behind her with the fur catching the sun like polished platinum thread.

”That was wonderful, Lord Vespera,” Solenne murmured, leaning in close to pitch her voice low. ”Torvald looked like he was going to faint! You really saved them... Without that coin, the bailiffs would’ve seized their tools by the end of the week.”

”Tools are cheap,” Kara replied in her smooth feminine voice. ”Good ironworkers are hard to find... It’s an investment.”

Beside her, Solenne’s tails gave another cheerful rhythmic flutter.

Silas glanced down out of the corner of his eye.

The soft silver fur brushed the wool of his trousers with every step... all nine of them.

Thick, ridiculously plush, and perfectly groomed thanks to the expensive celestial shampoo she’d borrowed from the suite’s bath.

They looked like nine living silk clouds dancing behind her waist and a familiar dangerous itch lit up in his fingertips.

’I can’t help it,’ he thought, his Gold Core giving an amused unrepentant thrum. ’Nine of them... It’s practically a crime to let them wave around in the open air like that.’

Kara reached out with her right hand.

Without breaking stride, her slender fingers plunged into the thickest bundle of silver fur at the base of Solenne’s spine and gathered three tails into her palm with a firm greedy squeeze.

”H-Hyaaaah?!”

A tiny strangled shriek tore out of Solenne’s throat.

Her spine snapped straight as a board.

Her boots locked against the cobblestones so hard she nearly skidded face-first into a puddle.

Her golden eyes bulged, and her delicate fox ears pinned flat to her hair in a fit of pure electric shock.

”L-L-Lord Vespera?!” Her face went the color of a ripe pomegranate in less than half a second.