tMFUtM - b1c4 - Four Weirdos (Patreon)

AN: You might have heard rumors that I finished this chapter 30 minutes before upload. They are definitely probably not untrue. -cough-

In my defense, I ended up in a bit ill condition over the weekend due to mixing up my spouse's food with my own. Stupid restrictive for health reasons diet.

Anyhow, on with the show! Hopefully there won't be any major mistakes or problems.

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“At last… civilization!” Even from the town’s open gates, he could smell the difference. The air was rich with the scents of smoke, bodies, oils, and food—a welcome change from the dense stink of plant life. Seriously, how did anyone breathe out there without their nose running and their eyes watering?

After he woke up as himself once again, there had been a strong temptation to just… go home and pretend nothing had happened. But no, magic was far more dangerous than even he had ever believed—he had to find some sort of solution. The extreme option was to journey north and hunt down Tharamond (it was his muck that got Rugrim into the situation, after all), but all things considered, he’d rather find some other mage that could help him prevent his magic from acting up again. …Or whatever had happened.

Thus, his journey continued. He never did find the little village he sought (stream, yes; village, no), but after camping in the ruins of an abandoned farm on his second night, he had finally reached… Zen City. Sunbaked brains came up with the worst names.

According to the loamy map, it was a bustling major city. Instead, what he walked into was closer to a sleepy town, surrounded by the decaying ruins of what had once been the outer city.

But hey, at least it wasn’t more wilderness.

Rugrim… really had no idea where to even go from there. At a glance, the town was mostly inhabited by the dith, but he had never really interacted with a non-dwarf before. At least the dith were of a comfortably familiar height, though their garish and vibrant hair and lack of beards ruined the immersion far more than their slight builds ever could.

If he lived in a shallow, sandy story, he’d venture over to ye olde tavern and find a lead—what rubbish. Even if the town was large enough for local adventuring sorts to bother with, the area was clearly too safe for anyone with real power to bother with. And that was what he needed. Instead, he resolved to buy some of what he needed before he moved on. After all, he was… increasingly unsettled by the number of crucial things he’d somehow failed to pack.

Small clothes were important.

He wandered through town, drawing polite greetings that he had to return (silty weirdos) as he progressed, until his ears finally found a far more familiar sound. The ringing of a hammer on simple steel—music to his ears!

Finding the smithy wasn’t too difficult. The sound carried quite a distance, the scent of charcoal and oil provided direction as he closed in, and the massive, prominent “TOWN SMITHY” sign probably helped a little too.

“Just need to get some equipment to maintain and repair my gear. That’s it.” Rugrim reminded himself aloud. Sure, the smithy was unlikely to be as well stocked at a proper dwarven expert of the craft, but it was all too easy to get distracted by finely wrought steel and buy things he had no need for.

Not that such a thing had ever happened before, of course.

As expected of a proper smithy, the storefront was something of a polite suggestion. The building used only two walls—back and store-side—while the remaining two were absent, with the roof’s weight supported by beams made of wood. The rich aromas of creativity caressed his nostrils and welcomed him into the shop. By stone, it was good to know that some things would remain consistent, no matter where his journey took him.

Wondrous steel tools! Sure, the limitations of the smith were obvious, and the quality of his steel was dubious—but they were still steel! Along one wall varyingly-freshly made tools meant for tilling the land or harvesting the bounties of the world were hung, waiting for owners. In a barrel in the corner were a few spears, because self-defense was an inevitability of life. And shelved among the back wall were a variety of hand tools meant for varying…

Rugrim prided himself on his focus. It was an important facet of life for a miner. After all, a single moment of inattention could harm far more than just himself—a careless strike could bring the wrath of the mountain down on everyone in the shaft. But when he tried to move his eyes past the blacksmith and their customer, to look at the next array of goods on offer, he was pulled out of his commerce-induced focus.

“An elf! Excuse me!” He called out before his better sense could throttle his tongue. It wasn’t just rude; it was probably futile. After all, it wasn’t like every elf would be some great scholar of magic. And even if—

“Huh?” The fey turned to face him, a confused look on her face. Sure, fey had pointy ears, but they were nowhere near as long as proper elven ears.

Ugh, what a disgraceful muck of a mess.

“My apologies, good lady, I thought you were someone else.” Rugrim braced his fists against one another as he bobbed his head apologetically.

“A mage! Oho, and Tin said we would never find one here!” The woman tossed her multicolored hair dramatically as she strode forward, an ominously bright smile writ across her face—much too high into the air. The woman had to be nearly half again Rugrim’s height!

“I’m not—” He tried to protest.

“I should have known that the realm itself would provide what I needed, when I needed it! Ah, all that worrying; how silly I was! Come on, I have to show you off, er,” she paused for a performative cough, “introduce you to the rest of the team. Shopkeep, I shall return for the armor plate as soon as I am able!”

The woman seized Rugrim by the shoulders and began to bodily steer him toward one of the open sides of the smithy. It should have been easy to stop, yet even when he tried to set his feet, he just found himself sliding across the floor. Just how strong was she?!

“Okay, yes, I am aware that you are not… much of a mage, but that’s fine! We just—” She continued to prattle on, at a volume that practically had his armor rattling.

“How do you even know any of that?!” Rugrim complained.

“I’ve got Magic Sense. I can see the magic within you, silly. Anyhow, as I was saying, we just need to power you up with a few levels! Easy peasy sleezy breezy. You’ll love the others too, I’m sure; even if they are less magnificently capable than I am! Between the three of us, we passed through even the dense monster populations that have settled into this region. Though, might I say, you locals—wait, are you a local? Eh, either way, whoever is local should probably get on remedying that problem before it chokes travel out completely. I mean, what kind of a town can survive with no merchants or supplies? Trade is the backbone of civilization! Without trade, what difference is there between us fifteen and the monsters that ruin our world?!” She just… kept talking.

Rugrim tried to stop her, he truly did. There was almost no pause between her sentences, but he still struggled to make interjective noises between each—not that she paid them any mind. He tried to plant his feet and brace himself, unsuccessfully. He even tried to grab a wagon she shoved him past, but it moved with them until his fingers couldn’t sustain the pressure any longer.

The woman was a monster. Absurd tallness aside, she sure didn’t look as powerful as she was. Sure, she had muscles, but beneath the armor and layers of colorful fabric there was probably a slight build—fey were scrawny in most of the tales he had read!

Yet there he was, a powerfully built dwarf, helpless to escape her politely. Which left him with no choice whatsoever except to embrace rudeness. Truly, he had tried.

“Enough of this muck, unhand me!” He shouted.

“—par for the course. I mean, what kind of civilization fails to tend to its roads? It would be unthinkable up north! Problems like these stem from the top; your civic leaders bear the first and greatest failure. However, I will admit that—” No good. The deluge of words continued unabated.

Frustrated, Rugrim tried to throw himself to the side to escape her insufferable shoving.

“Whoa, careful there! You nearly tripped, my good friend. So anyway, as I was saying—” The muddy fey managed to catch and steady him.

His next step would have been effective. Dramatic, but effective. Unfortunately, it was at that moment that the horrible fey shoved him through the door to some sort of dingy tavern. It was the kind of place that spawned without health codes or care. Worn, treacherously splinter-riddled furniture; ancient stains; a sour aroma that could only be festering vomit; brazenly insufficient and inefficient ventilation; and lighting that was minimal by even dwarven standards—and most people couldn’t see as well in the dark as dwarves!

“I found him!” The woman’s voice projected into the tavern with enough force to send the contents of unclean tankards wobbling.

Aside from the unkempt tavern master, the place was sparsely populated by inebriated locals, a serving wench covered in sores and rashes that suggested some advanced disease, and… a single table occupied by a visible aberration—people so unusual that they could only possibly belong to that feral fey.

He had assumed the woman to be tall, but no. The hulking armored figure kneeling on one side of the table was tall. A mountain of steel and brass that had to be more than twice his height, yet they were also built just as stocky as any dwarf!

Opposite to them, was a man that was openly gawking at the spectacle that was Rugrim’s arrival. A demon, given the craggy, black segments that dotted his skin—most of them hidden behind his neatly tailored pin-striped, blue trousers and coat. A pair of glasses, little more than thin lenses held daintily in a fragile wireframe, sat neatly on his nose. He had the scrawny build of the chronically undernourished and was gazing Rugrim’s way with an idle expression that reminded him far, far too much of the dwarves that worked at Tehmpp’s.

The final seat was occupied by something that Rugrim first took to be a cloak piled haphazardly into the chair. But no, when the hood turned his way an unsettlingly bright pair of green eyes fixated on him. Hanging across the chest of the diminutive being—slightly better than half Rugrim’s height—was a strange piece of metalwork that looked almost like a bizarre rendition of a bare skull. Except there were whirring and moving bits within it, along with all too frequent sparks providing brief pops of illumination.

“Dawn, mind your volume.” The gigantic entity said the first reasonable words Rugrim had heard since he set foot into the sunlight.

“Oh, but Tin, I am excited! After all, you told me that I would never find a mage, yet here he is! Okay, I know he doesn’t look like a mage, but I swear he is! After all, I can see the magic within him! Just like that guy! …Wait. Two mages?!” Oh stone, her voice could get louder.

“This is Origin, I was almost done interviewing him for our party mage.” The giant… wait, no. They weren’t a gigantic being wearing armor.

It was the voice that finally clued Rugrim in. It was just… off, in a strange way. There was no accent, and the inflection of personality felt far too clean. But as he took a closer look at the entity, taking a few steps closer under his own volition, the improbable truth became impossible to deny. There were no seams or straps on the armor. The joints were plated by clever segments that could slide and adjust to enable movement.

Rugrim had seen fragments of them. It was rare, but they occasionally dug up a piece of the past. Golem parts were generally worthless—nothing more than a curiosity. They were thousands of years old and tended to be impossible to deconstruct without tearing apart the delicate little gears and bits that made them up. As far as he knew, no one had ever found an intact golem. Some of the books that he had read speculated that there were never any intact golems and it was simply some sort of artistic competition amongst craftsmen in the past.

Yet there one was, kneeling on floorboards that had once (…at least) been soaked with urine. Alive. Or whatever the proper word for an active golem was!

“Eee! I can’t believe our party is going to have two mages! With this, we will practically be legends already—even before we achieve a single feat!” The fey brought him back into the debacle, crushing his wonder beneath the heel of fear.

A… party? With her, a mucking golem out of legend, whatever in the stone that cloaked creature was, and just… some guy that looked like he belonged behind a desk?! No, no, by stone—NO!