"Gloin!" The shout echoed loudly through the great chamber where the miners had led the two "guests."
The imposing rocky walls and almost labyrinthine corridors of the place had ended up frightening Celestia, the elf who had never strayed far beyond the palace surroundings since she was a child.
However, a dwarf who looked considerably older than those in the initial group soon poked his head out from one of the side tunnels.
He had an extremely tired expression and wore gigantic glasses that accentuated his eyes, which seemed to bulge out from the lenses.
"Thrain? What's going on? I was organizing some writings," grumbled the old dwarf.
"I need a map of the nearest human settlement," the miners' leader went straight to the point, without beating around the bush.
"Maps… Why would you want…?"
Before he could finish his complaint, Gloin stopped abruptly.
He finally noticed the presence of the two women, who stood out completely from the rustic atmosphere of the mountain.
His eyes widened with curiosity, and as if he were examining two specimens under study, he approached them to observe them closely.
Celestia shifted uncomfortably under that inquisitive gaze, while Xingyue remained motionless and silent beside her.
Gloin stopped especially in front of the latter. He narrowed his eyes and frowned for a moment, as if trying to see beyond her facade.
After a few seconds, as if he had found the answer he was looking for or had simply given up, the old dwarf flashed a friendly smile and turned to Thrain.
"Jojo! Of course, a map. Anything for two such beautiful ladies."
Thrain's serious expression crumbled upon hearing his words. Old pervert… he thought to himself with annoyance.
Meanwhile, the old dwarf scratched his beard thoughtfully, trying to remember in which of all the corridors of that chaotic storage room — packed to the ceiling with books, scrolls, ancient weapons, and strange mechanical inventions — the map they needed was located.
Three hours later…
"If you can't find it, you can always just give us an approximate direction…"
Xingyue was tapping her foot on the floor, filled with anxiety and irritation.
"No!" shouted the old dwarf from the ground, buried under dozens of papers he had thrown in his desperation. "It was definitely here! I should have found it already!"
However, Gloin didn't seem to be paying real attention to the search.
Instead, his gaze kept drifting toward the two women with poorly disguised lust.
Xingyue's expression, who clearly had no patience left, darkened.
Unlike Celestia, who didn't notice anything, she perfectly understood the old man's intentions. For a moment, she was about to erase Mount Skardos from the map using her power.
But something caught her attention.
Among all the relics piled up around her, a scroll that looked like a colorless portrait stood out.
She picked it up and unrolled it to examine it better, intrigued by the strange feeling of familiarity it gave her.
The illustration showed the face of a woman dressed in the typical robes of the cultivation sects she was used to. Although her face wasn't easily recognizable, her beauty was clear.
Perhaps it was the traditional type of paper that first caught her attention, but once she looked at it properly, she frowned, trying to remember where she had seen her before or why her clothing felt so familiar.
The old dwarf, however, quickly snatched the portrait from her hands. He held it with extreme care and looked at Xingyue in panic.
"This is my treasure! I understand why it might interest you, but you have to be extremely careful with it."
She raised an eyebrow, conveying with a single look that nothing in that horribly messy room reflected the word "careful."
Without giving the matter much importance, she fixed her eyes seriously on the old dwarf.
The dwarf froze in place, not understanding why she was looking at him with such intensity.
"Did you find it?" Xingyue asked, on the verge of exploding. Her voice sounded dry, direct, and implacable.
"Ah! Yes, yes…" Gloin glanced at the floor for a moment. "Well, not yet… Why don't you go look for Thrain for a moment? I think this is going to take longer than I thought."
The woman took a deep breath, making a superhuman effort to contain herself.
She took the stupid elf by the hand and left the room, as if she knew exactly where she was going just to get away from that old man.
…
In Demor, things were about to change soon.
Cassian had been gone for a whole day already, and the people he knew were already noticing his absence.
Adela had been staying with Elizabeth these days. Although she returned to clean and make sure her master's resting place remained perfect, she always preferred company, especially when Cassian wasn't around.
"Did Caelia say anything?"
The woman sitting in the chair of her office, looking out the large window, shook her head.
"Did the master really decide to leave at this moment? I thought he wanted to see Leonardo's fall himself."
"He'll be back in time. I don't think he wants to miss it," the maid replied immediately.
Elizabeth sighed.
"The crown prince has already returned to the land of the sane. He seems sharper than ever these days," a cunning smile appeared on her face. "I suppose he must have enjoyed his mother's gifts."
Both of them burst out laughing at those words. Elizabeth wiped away a tear that fell from laughing so hard.
"Someone like him, who has been used his whole life without realizing it, is probably still blind even if what's happening is obvious."
"I wouldn't be so sure. And although Leonardo's relationship with Caelia seems extremely close, maybe the master is wrong about what would hurt him the most."
"Oh?" Elizabeth raised an eyebrow, surprised that Adela thought Cassian could be mistaken.
"Don't look at me like that. You know my family is the last thing that matters to me."
"I suppose you have a point…"
However, with a hesitant glance toward Elizabeth and a growing blush, Adela added in a softer tone, "Though… I do consider you two to be my real family."
Unable to help herself, the maid quickly turned her head away to hide her face, which was now completely red.
Elizabeth, hearing those words, couldn't help but smile with genuine warmth and happiness at her display of affection and shyness.
…
In one of the corridors of Skardos, leading to a room with a large rock table carved with special patterns, two of the dwarves we knew — Thrain and Gimli — were receiving guests wearing suspicious hoods.
These guests quickly sat down as if they expected to be served immediately.
However, there was no drink or appetizer to offer them.
Thrain looked at them seriously and informed them:
"The batch is not ready yet. You didn't give us enough time."
One of the hooded figures didn't even bother to look at him or show interest in his words. He simply replied lazily:
"There's no time, dwarf. We warned you."
Gimli frowned furiously and took a step forward, only to be stopped by the other dwarf.
A choked grunt escaped him as he stepped back with his fist clenched.
"Three more days. Just three will be enough."
If we could see the expression of the person covered by the robe, we would see them raise their eyebrows as if considering it.
But before they could respond, two figures who clearly stood out entered the room without paying attention to the new presences.
The man who had previously shown general laziness and disinterest stood up abruptly and fixed his gaze on one of them with disbelief.