The atmosphere in the massive chamber centered around the stinking and bubbling tar pit was cheerful yet subdued, like an after party following a long eventful day and a huge holiday meal. Everyone had grouped up into little cliques and stood or laid around the edges of the chamber in little pockets of light. A low murmur of chatter was only interrupted by occasional outbursts of laughter or song. Most were clustered around the exits that led to our old separate and now abandoned territories, but it looked as if everyone was present in this one room and we had collectively given up on sequestering ourselves away in our own holdouts.

  Still, there were clear divides between the houses, with only a few individuals seeming to break away from their extended families and crossing the invisible lines between. Hodak broke away from us almost immediately, giving a friendly wave before laying down near the rest of the smiling Brightenjaw dwarves. Jozoic followed a moment later, clapping a hand hard against my back before marching over to the Hammerting side. He moved towards their leader, Cerrik, who was talking in hushed tones with Kazek near the edge of the pit.

  I thought about joining them, the pragmatic part of myself telling me that now was a great time for networking and making friends and allies amongst the other houses. I just didn’t have it in me though, I’d been through too much too quickly and craved downtime. Another part of me wanted to bail on this whole thing now that everything was said and done, but I knew I had to stay and wait out the timer for everything to count. Rin and Ali’s conversion in the chat log had calmed down. They’d be safe without me for now.

  Kikkelin and I continued to the Galidurn slice of the room, passing through the Bassaldourn section of the ring. We got a mix of indifferent, tired, and mean looks from the resting dwarves, but no outright hostility. We paid them little attention, and walked in silence past the scowls from the bastards who had previously raided and knocked out quite a few of our brothers and sisters.

  Once we made it into our own area, Sallis waved us over to a circle of stone blocks where she was sitting with Bomilik and Lokralda. They were tinkering with a contraption that was cobbled together from a couple of small stone vats and twisting copper tubes, but it seemed like Lokra was doing most of the work while the other two watched.

  I sat down next to Sallis on one of the stones, while Kikkelin crossed the ring and sat down on the floor next to Lokralda. Somehow, she seemed to know exactly what they were building and added her own hands to the careful work.

  Sallis smiled over at me and gave me a surprisingly hard punch in the shoulder. “So, what’s the word, mighty conqueror of foreign tunnels? We all set?”

  I rubbed my arm and nodded. “I think so, the water is draining and leveling out between the two sections. We should be good to ride out the rest of the timer.”

  Bomilik gave us a weary smile from the far side, and Sallis answered. “Finally, some good news! We just wait it out now? Hopefully the others are happy to cut the drama and lay about for a while. I swear I’ll start a feud if any of those slimy fucks decide to ruin things now that we’re nearly finished.”

  I laughed a little, nodding along with her again. “Agreed, my life’s messed up enough to want to deal with any more of that down here.” I paused for a moment, and then changed the subject. “So, what are we working on here?” I asked, pointing at the mess of tubes and pots.

  “We’re working on a backup plan for oxygen production,” Lokralda said without looking up.

  “But we’ll have too much hydrogen if we go this route, and the generator the Hamms built is barely capable of lighting a lamp and they expect it to crack water.”

  She turned back to a wide flat rock that lay on the floor next to her. The stone had a misshapen patch of some other color in the middle of it, and I realized it was some thin film of material stuck to the smoothed surface. She let out a hissing noise and sprayed a mist from her mouth over the patch, changing its color again. Then waved her hand over it for a moment before turning back to the vat and going back to bending and twisting the pipes around.

  “We need glass, and better conductors. This won’t work.” She huffed, dropped the tubes into the vat and sat back to cross her arms.

  “That cavern has collapsed. We don’t have the heat for glass,” Bomilik said.

  “Then why even bother? I only took the basic electrical and circuitry courses, but even I know this is pointless.”

  “What else would you do?” Sallis butted in.

  The redheaded Lokralda snapped her angry eyes over to Sallis and scowled. After a moment, she deflated slightly and shrugged. “I don’t know, anything?”

  “You could help with the oxygen candles, or the scrubbers,” I offered.

  Everyone's eyes turned to me. Bomilik shook his head silently as Lokra huffed in frustration before speaking. “The Hamms took over that project, Emperor Cerrik already grabbed up all the materials and has the spineless new Rocksturdy generation blistering their feelers to sort the salts out. Kazek wants a plan B though, so here we are.”

  She kicked over one of the stone pots, cracking it apart and sending a wash of water over the floor and causing Kikkelin to quickly stand up from her seat on the floor and scramble away from the widening puddle. “They might as well ask me to grow leaves and photosynthesize the shite.”

  Sallis burst out in laughter, and I found myself caught in the middle. Bomilik caught my eyes for a moment, and we both turned back to Lokra to see how she would react. She glared at Sallis, and looked like she might blow up even further. Then the corners of her mouth turned up and she looked over the rest of us before we all broke into laughter.

  “Like one of those top-side green growths?” Bomilik asked through his rumbling laughter.

  “Aye, they call ‘em trees!” Sallis answered after catching a deep breath.

  “Or grass!” Kikkelin added through her giggles.

  “Then we could make like a tree and get out of here,” I laughed out as well, feeling some of the week's tension drain away.

  Kikkelin laughed even harder, but Lokra’s strained laughter died out as she gave me a questioning look. Sallis slapped her leg and shook off the laughter to ask, “What does that even mean? Trees aren't mobile, unless I’ve been lied to. They’re creepy enough without the ability to run around.”

  I ran gauntleted fingers through my hair, wincing as I ripped a few hairs out. “I, uh. Wrong crowd, I guess,” I apologized.

  Kikkelin pointed a finger at me, still laughing harder than the rest of the group. Between giggles she managed to eek out an explanation for the others. “It’s a line from one of their movies! Haha, haven’t you guys watched any of their media?”

  I shook my head, suppressing my own laughter and shaking my head. “Maybe it's just a human thing, haha.”

  “More like an in-group thing. You’re confusing the hell out of them,” Max chimed in. His sudden entrance into the conversation threw me off, I’d nearly forgotten about him for the first time since he hitched a ride.

  I sent him a thought in acknowledgement, but continued talking to the dwarves. If they weren't in on the joke, I’d just have to bring it to them. “We should all get together and watch a couple of choice movies sometime, if we ever have the chance.”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  The others agreed, and our conversation moved over to what we might watch. Kikkelin had watched hundreds of movies and binged dozens of TV shows, so we made suggestions and gave options and descriptions while the others judged. More jokes were cracked and laughs were shared. We discovered that Lokralda’s only experience with TV were dry documentaries about true crime or manufacturing processes, while Bomilik had watched a couple of reality TV shows. For the first time in what felt like forever, I got a bit of needed downtime and bonded with the group of young dwarves I’d become a part of.

  Nearly an hour later, after more jokes and deciding on a handful of must-watch movies, the conversation turned to something more practical.

  “So, does anyone else have an apprenticeship or program lined up for after this? I’m already cleared to start flight training with my father as soon as they crack the seal and let us out of this stinking pit,” Sallis said.

  “I yearn for the mines.” Bomilik said softly, his face set in a big smile. “Master Zukar promised that I could design one of the sections of the new eastern lift if I made it through on my first attempt.”

  “No way!” Kikkelin said. “If you need any relief work done, you better put my name forward.”

  Bo shrugged and gave a skeptical look in answer. “I will advocate, but my work will be structural. I’m unsure who will be in charge of decoration, or what the timeline may be.”

  There was a short pause as Kikkelin nodded, before Lokra jumped in, “I’m going to apply to the armory.”

  “I thought you were thinking of machine fabrication?” Sallis asked.

  Lokra shook her head. “I was, but after all this… I want to make sure we are ready. We can do without elevators, vehicles, or whatever other trinkets they would assign me to build. We need arms and armor more.”

  She leaned in and lowered her voice, checking from side to side that no one else was lingering around our group and listening in before continuing. “Plus, I hear there is talk of making an arms deal with some of the human factions. More wars keep sparking off, and the unaffiliated local factions are becoming less desirable and more competitive.”

  The joking and celebratory tone fell from the conversation, and everyone's faces set into stony seriousness. There was a brief pause, and each of the dwarves gave me some version of an apologetic glance.

  “Hopefully we’ll have a solid ally in your homeland,” Kikkelin said as she looked at me. “If the rest of them are half as useful as you are, the moot will surely seek to make something happen there.”

  I frowned, and debated with myself for a short moment about how much I should tell them. Sallis caught my eyes for a moment, giving me a small frown as if she understood what was going through my head.

  Before I could answer, she spoke up. “It’s not my story to tell, but when we dragged him out of the first wave of scolovian he said something about his home getting attacked.” She held my gaze and switched to speaking to me directly instead of at the whole group. “You said things got complicated, whatever that means.”

  She didn’t form it as a question, which I was grateful for, but I felt the pressure from the rest of the group's gazes as I debated on what to say. While I waffled over my words and hesitated, Kikkelin spoke up. “Whatever it is, you’re one of us now, Nick. Even if the King decides to not pursue an alliance with your home, we take care of our own.”

  All of them nodded, and I looked between them half expecting Kikkelin to lead the group in chanting “one of us” after the whole movie quoting thing earlier. I tried to smile and looked down, distracting myself by pulling my gauntlets off and storing them in my inventory.

  “Complicated is right. My home was attacked, but not by outsiders. I don’t think it means outright war. It’s more like an insurgency. I, uhm—” I hesitated, wondering how much I should say. It would be a risk to tell them everything. Letting them know about Max was out of the question, but maybe telling them about having to flee from my homeland and government might actually be for the best. It would come out soon enough anyway, as I’m sure the council had already warned and possibly demanded my return from Clan Theedrite. I needed their help, and these young dwarves were the closest things to friends that I had to back me up on this side of reality.

  The group remained quiet while I thought, giving me the space to think and waiting to see if I would continue. So I did. “I had a falling out with my previous… leadership, in the real world I mean. I managed to escape, and acquire a portable link to make it back for the last day. I’m a hunted exile back home now though, you all are my only faction.”

  The group remained quiet after my admission. I fiddled with my fingers, picking some of the dried tar out from under and around my fingernails as I avoided eye contact.

  “Doesn't matter,” Jozoic said from behind me, having returned from whatever he had wanted to talk to Kazek about. “Once the timer is finished, you will be a Brother of House Galidurn. You did well, and are likely responsible for all of us making it through this trial.”

  I jumped, slightly startled by his sudden reappearance, and turned to look at him over my shoulder where I sat. He sat down on one of the stones to join the circle, and I saw that the whole group was nodding in agreement with him.

  “Just means you’re stuck with us now. Your old faction leaders are idiots if they couldn’t see your value,” Sallis said.

  “Their loss,” Bomilik added.

  “We wouldn’t want allies who are so quick to turn on their own, anyway,” Kikkelin said, while Lokralda gave me a sad but heartfelt smile.

  I looked back down, entirely overcome with gratitude at their comforting displays of loyalty. I managed to get out a “thank you” through a surge of relief so strong it was almost painful. They must have sensed my discomfort, because Sallis quickly refocused the conversation onto Jozoic.

  “So, Jo. What program are you signing up for once we’re outta here?”

  The conversation went on, but I let it wash around me as I held onto my thoughts. This group, this strange collection of alien bugs pretending to be dwarves, had taken me in and accepted me more readily than any group I’d ever dipped my toe into. They valued me, and despite the mountain of differences between us, seemed ready to take my side against a whole country. The very same country that I was supposed to be a political tie to.

  I spent a few moments sifting through my thoughts, overwhelmed by their promised support. But something nagged at me, a sourness hiding behind the sweet relief. I felt like I was using them, putting them in danger by hiding behind them while I had Max pushing me through his machinations. What other choice did I have though? I needed friends, and these were my friends now, for better or for worse. I would just have to do my best to make sure none of my bullshit blew back on them.

  With my thoughts a little more ordered and the flood of emotion having run its course, I rejoined the conversation about the future. We learned that Jozoic was planning to enlist in the military, and was determined to earn his place as an officer and achieve the coveted Tak title. Sallis promised to take us up into orbit as soon as she got her full pilot's license and a chance for a free-fly. Kikkelin began to carve into the floor, drawing us all as a group with exaggerated facial features and traits almost like a tourist's trap caricature artist.

  Lokralda remained mostly quiet while the rest of us hung out, taking the copper pipes from the broken contraption in the center of the circle and twisting and bending them into small shapes. Eventually, she coughed once and got everyone's attention before passing out bits of the twisted copper around the group.

  “Something to help remember,” was all she said as she handed me my own little scrap of copper.

  I looked down at the thing, which might have started out as a small tube but now looked more like jewelry. She had twisted and braided the copper pipes into a ‘C’ shape before capping off each end with a round and polished white stone of some kind. Woven through the braid were thin strands of some other darker material that I couldn’t make out in the tinted blue lighting, and there was a shard of something pointy embedded between the strands in the center of the thing.

  I grinned and thanked her, and looked around at the others for a clue as to what the thing was. Everyone was too busy oohing and awing over the gift, but Jozoic saved me by actually putting it on after thanking her and inspecting it for only a moment. He bent the thing a little wider, slipped it onto his wrist, and then bent it back into place.

  I followed suit, putting the thing on and checking its description.

  Row Torc

  (Holo jewelry, special grade)

  A twisted copper bracelet made as a keepsake by Lokralda of Clan Theedrite to commemorate her row’s passage into adulthood. Made from copper, strands of her own hair, polished quartz, and the shards of a scolovian mandible, this limited edition cosmetic was gifted to Kaninak in the depths of Mount Teurniting in the final hours of the 14th Trial of Change.

  I thanked her again while looking at the window, and again noticed the highlighted ‘Character report available’ button blinking under my equipment array. Now seemed like as good a time as any to finally check it, so I set my intent on the button and was met with a new mess of windows. I flipped through a few filters, eliminating all of the unnecessary information and massive lists of grayed out unlearned or unused skills that cluttered the thing.

  There was something messy about the information, despite my meddling with the filters. It also didn’t list any of the alleged perks that higher levels were supposed to grant. Still, it was more information than I was used to and I needed every bit of insight I could get.