"Dad!?"
I turn and saw the patriarch of the family fade into view, seemingly melting out of a shadow cast by the blazing coals of the forge. For a moment he looked almost sinister, the ruby glow of the hot forge casting odd shadows on his face and making his glasses shine with a malevolent red light that made him seem almost demonic. But then he lifted his head a bit and smile and suddenly he was just Torby, concerned father. That didn't stop me from considering, if only for a moment, just how effective this little man could probably be as a thief or assassin. No one would see him coming.
"I don't rightly know what you are all arguing about exactly, but I can guess, and I can tell you from personal experience that anything dealing with goblin should be approached with care." The half-elf said kindly as he walked up to his daughter and laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. "And more importantly, patience. They are not to be taken lightly, honey."
"I know that, dad." Lys insisted. "I'm being careful. And Del is good people, you know that."
"Of course she is," Torby said placatingly while giving Del a friendly smile. "But as Drew said, she has a temper, and she sometimes loses her head when the anger gets the better of her."
Del crossed her arms and looked mulish. "I never spilled no secrets though."
"I will grant you that, but I can see where Drew would be concerned. While Del can keep her wits about her, others, that you might assume think are like her, might not," Torby said reasonably. "The goblins don't need much to get suspicious, honey. While I don't think there is much risk as long as we keep things within the village, sooner or later we will need to reach out into the outside world, and then things will become a lot more dangerous. Taking some care as to who we tell, that is good advice." He told his daughter seriously.
"Here, here," I said.
Torby gave me a look. "Rampant paranoia is not, however, a good thing to engage in."
Lys looked at me smugly. I made a face.
"It's not paranoia when people are actually out to get you." I retorted, sticking my tongue out at the smug hybrid where her Dad couldn't see it.
"No, but you need to trust in people at some point, or you won't get anywhere. You have to take a chance. No matter how dangerous that might seem. And you will need that if Lys is ever to realize her little ambition." He said and ruffled his daughter's hair affectionately.
"Little?" Lys protested while batting her father's hand away from her hair.
"Ambition? What ambition?" Del wondered curiously.
"Oh ho!" I said, suddenly gleefully. "You didn't tell her about that, did you?"
Lys looked uncomfortable and embarrassed, shrinking in on herself. Oh, that was just grand, I'd never seen her do that before. Even when she told me there was a sort of defiant pride to her. Not now though, not amongst friends and family. "Shut up."
I chuckled sinisterly.
"What? What's going on?" Del demanded.
"Your dear friend wants to be the savior of the dwarven race," I told her despite Lys glaring balefully at me. "She wants to unite all the scattered dwarves, take back all that you lost from the goblins and make them pay, and then become queen!"
Del looked at Lys in surprised wonder before laughing uproariously, making Lys shrink down in embarrassment. "You don't aim low, do ya, sister! And here I thought you just wanted to get even richer than your da! Didn't think you'd want to start a war with the damn goblins!" She said between bouts of laughter.
Anger quickly replaced embarrassment and she glared at me. "Did you have to say it like that?!"
"It's true, isn't it? I thought you wanted to be truthful." I told mock-innocently.
"Drew, please don't bully my daughter." Torby reprimanded me lightly before patting his embarrassed daughter on the back comfortingly. "It's a fine thing to want, dear. It's nothing to be ashamed of."
"Dad, you are making it worse!" Lys complained before hauling back and punishing her laughing friend in the shoulder. Hard. "Stop laughing!"
"Ow!" Del winced and rubbed at her shoulder. "Damn girl, don't take my arm off, I didn't say it was a bad idea, did I? With that fancy wizard magic I bet you could make a big 'ol dent in them rotten little buggers."
Lys crossed her arms seeming somewhat mollified by that response. "You better believe it."
"Not sure about the whole queen thing, though." Del mused out loud. "All that bowing and scraping, can't see myself doing that to you." She said before she gave Lys a sly look. "Your Majesty."
Lys gave her friend a flat look before hauling back and taking a swipe at her. Del was ready this time though and nimbly avoided her friend's attack with a loud laugh. Lys wasn't satisfied with that though and started to chase her friend around the forge, trying to exact her vengeance.
"You still need to watch what you say." I reminded her loudly.
Lys stopped and rounded on me, letting her friend escape her for the moment. "Will you get off my back!? Fine! I won't! But if this goes bad, I'm beating your ass like a drum!"
I shrugged. "It probably will. No secret like this remains a secret forever. The gobs will catch on sooner or later. The goal is to make sure that they don't for as long as possible; ideally, until you have an ambush set up and ready to go in for the kill."
"Highly unlikely you manage that," Torby noted amusedly. "While we are fairly isolated out here the goblins do try to send their pawns in here occasionally. They haven't had any luck thus far because we are a tight-knit bunch and I've been particularly careful when allowing any human to settle here, but I'm under no illusion that they won't eventually realize that something is up."
I nodded absently. "You might think about taking a lesson from the old dwarves and dig down, hide all the tasty stuff underground and out of sight. That should slow them down."
"The mines would be ideal, there are several shafts that are played out that could be expanded to house whatever we would need." Dis' voice came from the backdoor. I hadn't heard her come in, but the feisty mother of Lys was leaning lazily against the doorframe, observing our little group.
"Mines?" I asked curiously.
Torby smirked at me. "Well, we are dwarves after all. Dwarves mine." He told me lazily. "And it just so happens that Billingr is sitting on a large deposit of copper."
"Just so happens." I echoed dubiously.
"I might, or might not, have been informed about the copper before I choose to build a house here," Torby informed me smugly. "It always pays to have a secondary source of income and muggles pay good money for copper."
"You have a copper mine?" I asked incredulously, and a bit amused.
"A big copper mine." Torby conformed. "Well, big for us. It honeycombs this whole place and I'm not even sure how deep it goes now. We have been digging down for almost fifteen years at this point and the tunnel network has become quite extensive."
"We would need to expand some of the chambers, get better ventilation if we were to build forges down there or the heat and fumes would likely kill someone." Dis mused to herself.
"If we build them in chambers close to the ocean we can punch a hole through there and then create shafts up to chimneys in the town, that should get us some flow through. If I add some air-freshening charms to that we should have a working system that would not need much in the way of maintenance." Lys suggested.
"If you pipe it into radiators you can use it as central heating," I added absently. I didn't know if it was really feasible, but I felt like I needed to contribute something. "Also, you might want to make room for some sort of school for the kiddies to learn the beginner stuff. I can stay and help out a bit with that, there are a couple of weeks left of the summer vacation, enough to get some work done."
"We'd appreciate that," Dis said as she came up beside me and gave my arm an affectionate squeeze. I felt my face heating up and I cleared my throat uncomfortably. I had no idea how this woman could get me to feel like I was five again and getting praised for going on the toilet by myself.
A quiet whine sounded through the air followed by a gurgling growl. I felt my face heat up again in embarrassment. I reached up and scratched the back of my head and gave the group, who were staring at me, amused, a weak grin.
"I don't suppose I could get some food before we begin?"