The Dwarf Who Wanted Dirt

The man who walked into Doric's hut that afternoon had killed a dragon and saved a city from a demon. Doric asked him for clay. I said yes twice, once for each of his questions, and left. The Realm gave me two hours for this. I considered the allowance generous to the point of insult.

The record notes that for the first six minutes I was not, in any useful sense, thinking. Whatever passes for my mind kept knocking at a door marked chapter and being told it was in the wrong sort of house. In this it matched the squire. At the same hour he stood in a cellar beneath the world, trying a brass key on a door that would not open, four times, then gave up and went back to safe work. Neither of us talks about that afternoon over dinner.

I went to the Exchange with a purse that has bought rune armour and bought one iron ore for 110 coins. Then I looked for a second and found none under 400. A Chronicler in rune chainbody does not pay 400 coins for a rock. He goes to Rimmington and fetches one himself, which is what happened. Rimmington's first offer was no copper at all. I took this as a test of character and swung again. Two copper came. One iron. One clay, then two more. I had promised six clay, four copper and two iron, and it seems I promised it with a scribe's arithmetic. Doric did not count. I find dwarves trusting in the wrong places.

He took the lot and paid me 180 coins and a little Mining, and opened his anvils to me. Twelve minutes, against two hours. Smolbrain sent word during all this that he was busy with raw beef and raw chicken from Wydin's. Every hero has his own small war.

I am Doric's Supplier now. I will wear it under the dragon.