Daedalus is a curious creature. Or at least, that is what Lia thought. She had met many merchants and artisans in her life, but none of them were quite like the man who stood before her. The people of Penzamen were loyal to their deities, and their deities were loyal to them. If they ever needed anything, whether it be food and water or even weapons and armor, their deities would be happy to provide. As such, there was no need for blacksmiths, and many of the people in Penzamen did not even really know what blacksmiths were like. For Lia, after meeting one for the first time, she decided she did not want to meet many others.

  After Lia finally got used to all of the heat from the furnace and all the clanging from the anvil, she noticed that the blacksmith swinging the hammer was a very old man. His long white beard swayed with each hit of the hammer, sending beads of sweat and little pieces of steel flying through the air. Lia got anxious that he would at one point hit his own beard with one of his swings, but he managed to swing his beard to safety every single time.

  Daedalus continued to hammer until he noticed the party out of the corner of his eye. He sat up straight to look at the party and dropped his hammer onto the anvil. As the hammer hit the anvil, it made a loud thud that rang throughout the room. He brushed off his hands a little bit and walked over to Prometheus. As he got closer, Lia could tell two things about the man very quickly. One, he was incredibly short, standing at about four feet tall; two, he was the most muscular person she had ever seen.

  "What the hell do you want?" Daedalus asked the group. Lia almost audibly gasped. It was astounding to her to meet someone for the first time and immediately resort to slurs.

  "Charming," Prometheus said, "Everyone, this is Daedalus. He is the best blacksmith in all of Xerxes, and he is the blacksmith joining us on the Desert Winds. If you need any new equipment or any improvements to your gear, I am sure that Daedalus can provide you with what you need."

  Daedalus nodded to everyone. Garus smiled widely. "Prometheus, you never told me there was a dwarf onboard!" Lia had never seen a dwarf before; that explained his size. Most of the people in Penzamen were humans or elves, like Lia. They even had some Genasi who had escaped Xerxes, but dwarves were definitely one of the more uncommon peoples to be there. Most dwarves stuck to their mountains and rarely ventured to other places; the majority of dwarves were from Limgren if Lia remembered correctly from her studies.

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  Daedalus looked at him confused, "What does being a dwarf have to do with anything?" Garus said something to Daedalus in another language, but no one seemed to understand, including Daedalus.

  "Am I supposed to understand that?" Daedalus asked.

  "You don’t speak Dwarvish?" Garus was shocked at this discovery.

  "I am from Xerxes; it would not make a lot of sense for me to speak the mountain folks' language," Daedalus answered. Lia was finding the first dwarf she met rather unpleasant. She had always heard dwarves were a strong race with a rich heritage of work and culture that led to many songs and other tales that represented them. She had always imagined dwarves as rather jovial people, but Daedalus was anything but.

  "Do not worry about him; he is just a little bit prickly. Once he gets used to you being on the ship, he will open up. You should hear the songs he sings at Thalassa’s Beard," Prometheus said. Daedalus looked angry and crossed his arms.

  "I do not sing," he said.

  "When you have a couple of drinks in you, you do," Prometheus retorted. Daedalus grunted, clearly unamused. Lia noticed Prometheus giving Daedalus a less than satisfied look, to which Daedalus sighed.

  "Listen, I am obligated to help each of you on this journey. If you need anything from me, just let me know what you want, and I will do my best to get it done as long as it doesn’t stop my other work. If you need magical items, I can help with that as well; just let me know what runes you want, and I would need you to provide the gemstone dust," Daedalus said this and then immediately went back to his anvil.

  "Charming," Lia said under her breath. If there was one thing she did not have patience for, it was needlessly rude behavior. Sensing that the conversation was over, Prometheus and the rest of the party left the room and continued down the hall. The other rooms on the floor were what would be expected of a floor dedicated to magic. An enchanter, an alchemy table, the number of magical processes and practitioners aboard the ship were astonishing to Lia. Ingenuity was never something that the people of Xerxes were known for, but Lia was realizing that maybe they should be.