"Brr! Isn't it too early in the year to be this cold?" Bekhi waved her arms about in an attempt to improve circulation. "I thought it would be another month at least before I needed to use my coat again."
I couldn't help but agree with Bekhi. If you went by Earth temperatures and months, then it was only October and the temperature was down to forty degrees fahrenheit. To make things worse, dwarves as a species were made by the gods to be extremely durable in high temperatures so that we could work the celestial forges, but that meant that anything approaching freezing could easily kill the unprepared dwarf.
"Quit your whining, Bekhi." Richard said in a sarcastic tone. "Look over there, this is nothing for the Tochkans. They don't even consider this cold."
True enough, the wagon train was passing by a group of kids who were running and playing merrily while barefoot and in short sleeves. Evidently they were well used to the cold weather.
"It's going to get much, much colder before it gets warmer." Newman said with a dramatic shudder. "During the worst parts of the winter, it will get so cold that boiling water thrown outside will freeze before it hits the ground. That's why any caravans that cross the country spend the winter here. The adventurer's guild maintains a bunkhouse and a warehouse to keep everyone warm and safe. They also provide a smithy to repair any weapons, so that's where you'll be working, Kvalinn."
"It may be warm and safe, but it's more boring than a Guarteriarian's sermon." Richard complained. Guarteriaria was a country to the northeast of Einangrad that was very religious to the gods. Despite there being thousands of gods in this world they somehow had at least one church and one preacher for every single one, and every one of them was extremely preachy. I hadn't met any personally so far, but Richard had compared Newman and Peter to them whenever their stories went too long.
"So will there be other adventurers I can fight against?" Bekhi asked with a grin. "I haven't gotten to use even half the weapons I packed."
"You'll just be disappointed." Kat said tersely. "You're too good. Weapons are too powerful. Fight would be over before it began."
"Besides, there would be no room in the winter hall." Newman added. "There's usually over a hundred adventurers all packed into the hall and every one of them will be focused on keeping warm. But if any try to pick a fight with you, then feel free to take it outside if either of you can survive the cold." Bekhi started grumbling and cursing in dwarven at the boring winter ahead.
"It can't be all that bad, can it?" Peter asked while looking at Newman and Richard. It was his first time this far north and he was as clueless as I was about what it was like here.
"There are some benefits to wintering here." Newman said. "We party leaders get to trade information and alert each other about what roads are currently hindered by dragons and giants."
"So that we can go fight them!?" Bekhi asked with a beaming grin. Newman just glared at her.
"So that we can avoid them. Not even your weapons and training can take down a dragon or a giant before it gulps down at least one of us or a mule whole, and that would cut into the profits of the expedition. Also, the dragons in Tochka breathe frost magic that is much more dangerous than the cold weather, so you would need much better armor than you currently have to survive the fight." Bekhi looked over at me expectantly, but I waved my hands.
"I can't add runes to leather armor, and we don't have money for even iron armor. We also need to use our savings to buy clothes for Gerde. She can't keep wearing my spare shirt forever."
Upon hearing her name, Gerde poked her head out of my rucksack and gave a little yip. Ever since the weather had turned colder, she had refused to stay in her sling, and instead she had made a nest in my sack out of spare clothes and weapons. The only time she popped her head out was to alert us to wolf attacks or make barking sounds for food. She was able to eat solid foods now and would smile happily while gnawing at meat jerky like a puppy with a bone.
"Speaking of Gerde, have you two decided what to do with her?" Newman asked. Bekhi and I looked at each other with uncertainty.
"Well…" I had to admit that I had grown very attached to Gerde over the past several months. But what type of life would I be giving her? Currently I was a traveling adventurer without a family, clan, or even a home. Would that be a good life for a child to live? Surprisingly, it was Richard who had the answer.
"Keep her." Richard scratched his red hair in embarrassment. "My pa used to take me on hunting trips when I was her age and I did just fine and learned a lot from him. Plus, Gerde's way more useful than I ever was."
"Definitely keep her!" Peter added with enthusiasm. "I really want to hear what happens if you two raise her! Ancient records never told if beastkin were armed with dwarven weapons, but with you arming her and Bekhi teaching her to fight, I bet she'll turn out to be legendary!"
"Gerde is safe and happy." Kat said with a distant look and a tear in her eyes. "More than can be said for many children in Zaihan."
"What do you think, Bekhi?" I asked her in dwarven so that our discussion would be private. "If we keep Gerde, then you and I would be her guardians or adopted parents. Would you be ok with raising Gerde as our daughter? Teaching her the runes, instructing her in combat and weaponsmithing, and having her call us mama and papa?"
Bekhi thought for several minutes as we walked along the wagons. It was clear that she was struggling to reconcile the dwarven traditions of not becoming a parent until you were at least thirty, with her desire to keep and take care of Gerde. Eventually she came to a decision and tapped at the lid of my rucksack and Gerde poked her head out a little.
"Hey, Gerde. Can you say mama?" Gerde just made a yipping sound before ducking back into her nest. "I guess we'll have to work on that."
"I'll make her a weapon or two while we are wintered." I grinned at the thought of making cute mini weapons for Gerde. Of course they wouldn't be too dangerous, I'm a weaponsmith, not an idiot.
"Good luck, you two." Newman said with a grin. "You're gonna need it." He then launched into an extensive parenting lesson that lasted until we reached the city we would be wintering in.
The city of Tatartorsk was the capital of Tochka. It was roughly in the center of a country that was shaped like a rectangle. With a medium sized population of twenty to thirty thousand people, it was the largest city in the country. It was surrounded by only a banked dirt wall that looked more for obstructing the wind, rather than for defense against armies, but then again, the city was so far from the borders that they must have figured that if an army got to the capital then they were as good as toast anyway.
As we walked along the streets, I could see that the buildings were all single story structures that were built entirely of wood with either no windows or miniscule windows of a couple inches. The streets were surprisingly wide, but I found out later that it was so they could just tear down a row of buildings to stop any outbreaks of fires.
When we arrived at the warehouse where we would be storing the wagons, we met with a couple other adventuring parties. After storing our wagons and sending the teamsters to the stables that they would be wintering in with their animals, we all went to the adventurers winter hall.
Like every other building I had seen in the city, it was entirely made of wood, and was split into two parts by a wooden partition. One half was set up as a sleeping area with rows upon rows of hammocks for everyone to sleep in, while the other half was the socializing area where we would be spending most of our time. There were long study tables and benches that stretched out from the roaring fireplace. Naturally, the ideal spot to sit was just far enough away from the fire that you were scorched, but so far away that you froze.
"We'll set up here." Newman took wooden boards with our names written on them in Imperial and hung them on a couple posts that the hammocks were strung up to. "We'll draw lots on who will guard our area first, and take a rotation afterwards."
"Is having our belongings stolen a big problem here?" I asked with just a hint of worry.
"It's never been too much of an issue." Newman replied. "Usually the other adventurers are kept in check by the knowledge that their comrades will kill them for stealing their belongings, but sometimes a desperate adventurer or foolish thief will rifle through the bags when no one is looking, and I've seen more than one trusting fool lose their life's savings here."
With that information in mind, we set up a rotation between the five of us so that someone would always be watching over our bags. The hammocks were set up so that they were three high so we just left our stuff between the two rows. After that, we went to the main hall since it had the only fireplace.
Newman went to join the other party leaders at a separate table, while the rest of us tried finding a spot around the fire.
"Hey, Richard! I haven't seen you since that mission through the Westian Plains. How have you been?" A middle aged adventurer waved Richard down and had his group make room for us at the table. Richard sat down next to the adventurer with a relaxed smile.
"Brytta, good to see you. I've been here and there. Currently I'm protecting a caravan from Handel to the Thombuldahr Mountains with these guys."
"I recognize Kat, but who are all the rookies? Bait for the ogres and Zaihanians?"
Richard then quickly introduced the rest of our party around the table. Although he had some fun with our names. Calling Peter the amazing wizard of being annoying, Bekhi was the crazy fighter, and I was the insane weapon maker.
"I get the kid being a wizard, and the girl being a good fighter, but what makes him insane?" Brytta asked in curiosity. It was at that moment that Gerde waved her arms to demand that she be let out of her sling. "Fenblod's foals! Is that a baby!?"
"It's more than that, it's a beastkin baby from the Eternal Forest." Richard grinned as he watched the surprise ripple through the hall. "Also, he can make weapons that can slice steel, mince minotaurs, and bisect wolves. I've seen Bekhi take down an ogre with a single blow thanks to the weapons he made."
"By the horse's hooves! Can he make weapons for me? My sword has seen better days and I need to replace it soon."
"Get in line, Brytta. Kat and I are first, then he's making an 'experimental weapon', whatever that means, for the kid. After that, he might be able to make one for you. If he's not too busy taking care of his daughter that is."
I was soon deluged with requests for new weapons. Everything from spears, to swords, to halberds, to daggers, everyone seemed to want one. I was only rescued when Newman waved me over to the leaders table.
"This is the dwarf I was talking about, the one who adopted the beastkin child and can make the best weapons I've ever seen outside a royal vault. Kvalinn, these are my fellow party leaders" Newman then gave the names of most of the people at the table.
"A beastkin? Aren't those the stuff of bedtime stories?" Asked an adventurer from the Empire. Gerde decided she had waited long enough at that point, and tried crawling out of her sling. So I put her on the table, and with her wolf ears standing up and her tail slowly wagging, she started crawling around the table to sniff everyone.
An adventurer from Tochka widened his eyes in shock as he started muttering in his own language, and another one from Guarteriaria made a hand gesture that seemed to have religious significance. Everyone else at the table uttered various swears that had been picked up from around the continent.
"Kvalinn? What in the name of your ancestors were you thinking when you interacted with a beastkin!? Don't you know how protective they are to one of their young!?" Yelled a Tochkan adventurer who spoke with an almost comedic Russian accent.
"Those weapons Newman was telling us about, can you make some for my party? We are going through the Gremzach plains in the spring and we'll need better weapons to face the starving wolves." A merchant adventurer from Vermogen started writing his monetary offer on a chalkboard.
"Enough about the dwarf, they're a copper a couple. Let me see the beastkin!" The only one Newman hadn't introduced as a party leader tried leaning over the other adventurers to get a closer look at Gerde. Newman gave a tired sigh and introduced the geeky looking man.
"Kvalinn, this is Tomas Makarovich. Professor of Modern History at the Tochkan University. He comes here at least once a year to get information from around the world to teach in his class. Evidently something like Gerde is worth putting in the history books."
"Of course it is!" Tomas said with stars in his eyes. "When the empire first started its crusade against demihumans, beastkin included, Tochka made the mistake of following their example and used them as cheap labor to rebuild provinces devastated by the second demon lord. But since Tochka didn't have the luxury of Zaihan keeping them in our borders, every single beastkin fled overnight to the Eternal Forest and we haven't seen a single one since then! This is the first time a beastkin has been seen in Tochka for over twelve hundred years!" Tomas then turned to me. "Young dwarf, would you be willing to allow your adoptive daughter to be examined by the university? You will be well compensated for your time and I will send a conveyance to pick you up."
I automatically looked over to Newman for permission since I'd been following his orders for the past several months. He just shrugged.
"Get some money up front, Kvalinn. Several of the nobility attend the university and you'll want to present her wearing more than your old shirt."
"That won't be a problem." Tomas waved at his servant who passed a small coin purse to him. "Take this silver and get a good outfit for yourself and the beastkin girl. And visit a bath house as well. Newman, can you still speak Tochkan? Please act as an interpreter for him and show him around town. Here is the usual sum for assisting me." He then passed several silver into Newman's hand, and walked out of the room almost walking on air from glee.
"That man never changes, does he?" Newman shook his head at Tomas' antics as he slid the silver into his purse.
"Nope." Replied an adventurer who was smoking a long pipe. "One time he got taken in by a liar who claimed that he met Crwydro, the god of wandering, and spent half the winter grilling the con for details. He only stopped when another member of my party enlightened him about the fibber's true nature."
"Aye, another time he bought a baby bunny with a bit of bone glued on its head for an exorbitant sum, thinking that it was a rare creature." The adventurer, who must have been part dwarf due to the length and thickness of his beard, frowned heavily at the deception from the past. "When I heard what the rascal under my command had done, I shoved the coins down his throat before handing him over to the guard."
There was a few more minutes of reminiscing about Tomas' oddities before they moved onto a subject they were all interested in, my weapons. After some negotiation, they agreed to cover the cost of materials and fuel, and would not attempt to steal my methods. A blacksmith setup was next door to the adventurer's winter hall, and while normally the guild would hire a local weaponsmith for the winter to take care of everyone's weapons, a guild representative agreed to hire me instead. Everyone shook hands and the deal was done. The party leaders had me stick around at their table during their meal though, mostly so that they could play with Gerde, whom they all found very cute.
The next day, Bekhi accompanied us to go shopping for clothes to wear to the university. Newman was also there, both as a guide and interpreter.
"Newman, don't the people here speak Imperial?" I asked as I listened to the conversation on the streets. "I thought the language was spoken by everyone on the continent."
"It was. Up until the second demon lord appeared in this country and the Empire sent no help from its productive southern regions. This so enraged the population, that they just stopped speaking Imperial and took up the language of the summoned hero who defeated the demon lord."
I wondered to myself about how mad you would have to be to switch from an English like language to Russian. And for an entire country to do it!? If they were dwarves then they probably would have wiped out the empire from back then to wipe out the grudge.
"So what's this bath house, Newman?" Bekhi asked. "Back in Vesturhildrun we just bathed in the river."
"What about in the winter?" I asked. "Or when you were in Nurnwuhr?"
"In Nurnwuhr, we heated water in a pot and wiped ourselves down. And in Vesturhildrun we just waited for spring."
At that moment, I thanked the ancestors that among the awesome senses my dwarven body had, a sense of smell wasn't high on the list. Thinking back to my visits to The Halfling's Haven during the New Year's celebration, I realized that everyone there hadn't bathed in months and a human probably would've gagged from the smell.
"A bath house is something started by the first hero, Kitani Kata, who was obsessed with cleanliness and bathing according to legends. He apparently tried to bathe every day, even when there were enemies on the opposite bank of a river he'd still try to bathe in it. This bath house was set up by the Tochkan government as an attempt to preserve cleanliness among commoners, so we'll be able to clean ourselves with soap and hot water."
After Newman's explanation, I expected a Russian variant of a Japanese bath house, and that's exactly what I found. Where everything in a modern Japanese bath house would be made with porcelain or tile, everything here was made out of polished timber. There was absolutely no mixed bathing though, so the only thing I got to see was Newman's grizzled and muscular body.
Once we were all cleaned up, Newman took us around to second hand clothes stores. I discovered that he really wasn't kidding when he said no one spoke Imperial here. I tried speaking it to a couple different shopkeepers, but they either shook their heads or spat on the ground upon hearing the language. I sadly put a red X in my mental map on Tochka for places to settle down. The people here seemed friendly, but I had no desire to either learn Russian or hire an interpreter for life.
"Ooh, what do you think of this one, Kvalinn?" Bekhi held up the umpteenth dress she had found for Gerde. "This one looks cute!"
"Yes." I answered halfheartedly. After hours of this torture, I was beginning to sympathize with my father's aversion to marriage.
"C'mon, Kvalinn. You're taking all the fun out of this. Don't you want Gerde to look as cute as possible for the nobles?"
I looked enviously at Newman who was napping in the corner alongside several other husbands whose wives were shopping in the store. "I think both Gerde and I care more about her being warm during the winter." Gerde gave a yip sound from her sling as if agreeing.
"Don't worry. We'll make sure Gerde is warm too. Now stand still. We need to find something for you to wear too." Bekhi dragged me over to the dwarf section and started holding clothes against me as I cast yet another envious glance at the napping Newman.
It took several hours, and the entire purse that Tomas had provided us, before Bekhi was done shopping. When we returned to the winter hall, Bekhi took Gerde in her arms and went to show off the cute dresses to the other female adventurers.
"Rough day?" A mug of beer was placed by my head that was resting against the table. "I remember doing the same thing with my girl long ago. I'm Wolfe, and this is my son, Bert."
I lifted my aching head to see a middle aged adventurer and a boy who looked around ten years old. Wolfe grinned sympathetically at me and the little boy gave me a shy wave as I took a grateful sip of beer.
"Thanks. I've never seen Bekhi get this way about anything before. Not even weapons!" This prompted Wolfe to chuckle.
"I don't know if dwarven women are the same as human women, but when they have a kid, something changes in them. When my girl and I had little Bert here, she changed from the most dangerous duel sword fighter in the city, to the most cautious heavy shielder. Unfortunately it wasn't enough to block a giant's club."
"Sorry for your loss." I slightly lifted my beer mug in sympathy, but he just waved it off.
"It was many years ago, and she died as she wanted. With a sword in her hand. But enough about that. I actually wanted to find out if you were planning on taking your little one with you on your future adventures."
"We were planning on taking her on the rest of this quest. But after that…" I shrugged to say that I had no idea. Our current contract with Newman would end around mid summer when we reached the Thombuldahr mountains in the north. After that though, I would need to see if the mountain was a good place to set up shop or if we needed to keep searching, in which case I'd be taking Gerde out adventuring again.
"Well no matter what you decide, I just wanted to share some tricks I learned to keep your daughter safe when you take her out adventuring." He gestured to his son sitting next to him. "I've been taking Bert with me ever since he could crawl and now he's a rang G in the guild."
The rest of the day was spent listening to Wolfe tell stories of their adventures. It wasn't exactly the most productive use of my time, but since the guild smithy wasn't open yet due to it lacking supplies, my schedule was wide open. I learned a lot from Wolfe on how to keep an active toddler under control while in the midst of an adventure, as well as several general parenting tips and tricks that I later wrote down.
A few days later, Newman received a letter with the time and date to bring me to the university, as well as instructions that I would be staying at the university for several days to care for Gerde. I spent the intervening time taking orders from everyone in the expeditions for various weapons, the money I'd earn from this would doubtless be useful if it turned out that I could open my own shop in Thomboldahr. Barely giving a thought to the university and its professors, which later turned out to be a mistake.