After two days of grueling travel, Fa and her party finally reached Blazemelt City at the foot of the Morsh Mountains. The city lay in the shadow of the range, a sprawling industrial metropolis jointly governed by beastmen and dwarves. Its towering walls were built of hardened metal and stone; upon them, the wolf-head emblem of the beastmen and the crossed hammers of the dwarves shimmered together in the heat haze, symbols of the two races' hard-won alliance. The beastman sentries at the gate had reddish-bronze fur and nose-rings linked by iron chains; the dwarf guards wore braids threaded with steel rings, their axe blades still glowing with flecks of fresh sparks. All of them stood in heavy plate, spears and axes in hand, eyes sharp with suspicion.
Fa led the group forward, Arya, TISK, Salsa, and Rex close behind. They walked their Swiftwind mounts, dusty and weary yet still alert. The guards eyed the newcomers with open curiosity. Fa stepped up, presented the documents and passes they had taken from the sand bandits back in Shadfort—now officially endorsed by the townsfolk as proof of safe passage. After a thorough inspection, the beastman captain grunted approval. The massive iron portcullis groaned upward on burning chains, and a blast of furnace heat rolled out, carrying the endless clang of hammers on steel, as though the entire city were one vast forge.
Inside, the party stood stunned by the sheer scale of it all. Blazemelt City thrummed with industry. Streets bustled with carts and workers; dwarf smiths hammered red-hot metal while sparks rained like golden snow; beastmen hauled massive ingots and raised new walls, sweat gleaming on striped and spotted hides. Merchants of every race bartered beneath banners of steam and magic. The air tasted of hot iron, arcane residue, and burning coal—an intoxicating blend of machinery and sorcery.
"Wooaaah…" TISK's eyes were wide as saucers, throat working as he stared at the rivers of sparks cascading from the great foundries. "A hundred times bigger than Silvercrimson's smithy!" His warhammer strap creaked as his shoulders tensed with excitement; his fingers traced the runes on the haft as though the metal itself were singing to him. This was the first time he had ever seen so many dwarves in one place. He could not wait to speak with them, to learn, to touch their forges.
Fa smiled softly. "TISK, go meet your kin. We'll find lodgings and ask about entering the Morsh range."
TISK nodded so hard his beard bounced. "I'll be quick!" He jogged off toward the nearest forge, boots clanging on the stone. Salsa's mechanical cat ears twitched with amusement. "Try not to blow anything up," she called after him, shaking her head with a grin.
Moments later TISK stood bathed in forge-heat, face glowing orange, staring at a curtain of half-quenched warblades hanging in the steam like a wall of molten tears.
Lodging and Intelligence
Fa, Arya, Salsa, and Rex found rooms at the Iron Heart, a sturdy dwarf-run inn decorated with masterwork metalwork. The proprietor, an old dwarf named Durus, welcomed them warmly and gave them the best rooms he had.
Over ale and black bread, Durus spoke in a low rumble. "To enter the Morsh Mountains proper, you need permission from both commanders: General Stealthclaw Grum of the Fierceclaw Empire—second of the five beastman generals—and Vice-General Blasthammer Durin of the Steelmelt Alliance, third of the seven dwarf generals. They run the mines and the defenses together."
Fa leaned forward. "Where can we find them?"
Durus scratched his iron-gray beard. "Grum stays holed up in the General's Keep. Durin is usually out in the forges. But ever since the convoy vanished three months ago, Grum has barred all outsiders from the military district."
"The vanished convoy?" Arya asked.
Durus dropped his voice. "Twenty wagons of raw crystal ore, headed for the deep veins. Gone. Men, beasts, cargo—swallowed by the mountain mist. Grum sealed every record."
TISK's Adventure
Meanwhile, in the largest forge, a blue-bearded dwarf tossed TISK a pair of nano-weave heat gloves. "Don't burn your soft village hands, lad!"
The moment TISK's gloved fingers touched an unfinished dagger blank, the metal shivered. Oxide scales flaked away like dead skin, revealing flowing silver runes beneath. Every hammer in the shop froze mid-swing.
"By the Anvil…" someone whispered. "Metal Affinity?"
TISK scratched his head with his trademark sheepish grin. "Back home they called me a freak…"
His gaze fell on a pile of charred cooling pipes. "Failed magi-cannon parts?"
"Aye. Overloaded last week. Military techs scrapped the whole batch."
TISK crouched, ran a finger along the twisted metal, and closed his eyes. In his mind he saw the energy surge like a flood smashing against too-narrow banks. "Not the alloy—wrong deflection angle."
He asked for a spare manganese ingot. When it was brought, he pressed his gold-affinity crystal to it. The ingot melted into liquid silver in his palm, then spiraled into a perfect helical cooling ring etched with microscopic runes. The dwarves stared as if a god had stepped down from the ceiling.
A heavy hand landed on TISK's shoulder. Blasthammer Durin himself stood there, white beard braided with three master-forged rings—the mark of a vice-general. The warhammer he planted on the floor cracked the stone.
"Name, lad."
"TISK of Silvercrimson Village, sir."
Durin seized TISK's calloused hand, studied it, then laughed so hard the steel rings in his beard chimed. "You just fixed in minutes what my best smiths couldn't in months. Name your reward—forge rights, mithril quota, or…" he lowered his voice, "…the Heartfire Badge itself."
TISK's eyes shone brighter than the furnace. "The badge. So I can show my friends I'm not just some village bumpkin."
Durin barked another laugh and pinned the glowing badge—miniature furnace and all—onto TISK's chest. "Come find me any time, lad."
Rejection and Suspicion
At the General's Keep, Fa's party was turned away coldly. "General Stealthclaw sees no outsiders," the beastman guard growled.
Back at the Iron Heart, Rex sent nano-drones into the Keep's network. Within minutes he had the proof: hundreds of tons of crystal core ore moved off the books, routed to an unmarked location labeled only "Special Assignment."
Fa's expression darkened. "Grum is smuggling. And hiding it from his own allies."
TISK burst into the room just as Rex projected a holographic map of the Morsh range. The dwarf was practically vibrating. "You won't believe—Blasthammer Durin gave me the Heartfire Badge!" He proudly displayed the glowing emblem. "I fixed their magi-cannon in one afternoon!"
Fa stood. "Then take us to him. Now."
Forge-room Negotiations
Durin was hammering a mithril when they arrived, bare-chested, sparks dying harmlessly against rune-tattooed arms.
Rex threw up the stolen ledger holograms. "Five hundred tons of crystal core, routed through Shadowclaw Pass—your blind mining zone."
Durin's hammer froze mid-swing. His beard bristled like an angry cat. "That mangy wolf…" He slammed the hammer down, denting the anvil. "Those twenty missing wagons were mine! My dwarves found crystallized armor fragments—Grum called it 'beast attack' and buried the report!"
He led them to a hidden basement armory lined with crystallized, ruined equipment. "I've suspected for months but had no proof. Until now."
Salsa's spectral form flickered. "There's a death-magic vortex above the old Primordial Forge ruins. Something ancient is feeding on the crystal veins."
Durin's eyes narrowed, then gleamed with grim delight. "Tomorrow I take a 'drilling rig test convoy' into the mountains. Ten crates of 'waste slag.' You lot hide inside the slag. Grum won't dare search a vice-general's personal waste convoy."
Night Preparations
That night TISK and Durin worked in the deepest forge, masking the party's magical signatures with false radiation signatures. On the inn rooftop, Rex's drones watched Grum's elite loading crates marked CRYSTAL CORE—URGENT onto mechanical spider-walkers headed for the same pass.
Fa's sand-blade coalesced and dissolved in her grip. "He's moving the evidence tonight. Whatever he's feeding in those ruins… it's bigger than greed. He may be raising the same kind of undead legion that destroyed Shadfort."
She looked at her team—dwarf, elf, ghost, machine, and herself—then at the glowing Heartfire Badge on TISK's chest.
"Tomorrow we follow the slag convoy. We end this."