Drakehaven’s first day without Aurelia had apparently been chaotic, but productive. Inage’i had hatched and claimed a stretch of forest north of the settlement. Bellhaven had been informed of the disaster involving Velkaryn. Aegis had apparently decided that being an enormous reservoir of magical power was no longer sufficiently interesting and begun studying formal magic with Lilly.
Eventful, but controlled and moving in the right direction. Aurelia’s first day without Drakehaven had been chaotic in an entirely different way.
“There,” Selene pointed toward a broad patch of open ground below them. “ Zephyr can land there. We can walk the final mile.”
Aurelia leaned slightly to look past her. The foothills beneath them had grown increasingly rugged during the last several minutes, with dense woods giving way to stretches of exposed gray stone and steep slopes. Somewhere beyond the next grouping of trees waited Ironvale, but the settlement itself remained hidden from view.
“We’re close enough to fly the rest,” Aurelia said.
“That is exactly why we should not. Landing a large unknown drake directly in the middle of a settlement famous for producing armed people seems unnecessarily provocative.”
Zephyr chirped beneath them.
Aurelia patted her back. “She says she’s extremely nonthreatening.”
“I do not believe she said that.”
Zephyr descended. The air supporting Aurelia and Selene softened as the Gale Drake angled toward the clearing, touched down with barely enough impact to disturb the grass, and folded her wings comfortably against her sides.
Garrick arrived several seconds later. The air pocket carrying him slowed rapidly above the clearing before dropping him the final few feet. Garrick caught himself with two steps and immediately adopted the expression of someone who wanted to look intentional. Storm-blue light faded from around him, and the wind surrounding his body dispersed a moment later.
“See?” Garrick said. “Told you I could make it in one piece.”
Aurelia climbed down from Zephyr and looked him over. His breathing was heavier than normal, and sweat had gathered along his forehead despite the cool mountain air. The Status hovering in Aurelia’s vision confirmed that his Weave Reserve had taken a noteworthy hit during the journey. He was perfectly healthy, but he looked like someone who had decided a five-mile run required no preparation.
“If that’s what makes you feel best,” Aurelia said, “then well done, Garrick.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I sense sarcasm in your tone.”
Selene dismounted and adjusted the traveling bag across her shoulder. “Save the banter until after we establish ourselves. We are supposed to be arriving as representatives of Drakehaven, not as children who escaped supervision.”
Garrick glanced toward Aurelia. “She’s been practicing that line for the entire flight.”
Aurelia smiled and took Zephyr’s reins loosely, though the drake had no real need for them. The path narrowed through dense mountain woodland, climbing gradually enough that Aurelia barely noticed the elevation until the trees began thinning. Exposed stone appeared more frequently beneath their feet, and the distant sound of metal began reaching them through the branches.
At first, it sounded like scattered hammering, then several rhythms layered over one another. Hammer against anvil, the metallic shriek of something heavy moving along a rail, and a deeper mechanical groan that came several seconds later.
Garrick looked toward the sound. “That’s a lot of work for a settlement with fifty to one-hundred people.”
The forest opened as they rounded the next rise. For several seconds after Aurelia chose to stop, she forgot they were supposed to keep walking.
Ironvale did not sit beneath the mountain - it climbed it. The settlement rose across the opposite slope in a series of immense carved terraces, each layer pressed into the natural ridges as though generations of builders had gradually convinced the mountain to make room for them. Buildings clung to retaining walls. Narrow bridges crossed gaps where the earth fell away beneath them. Stairs and switchback paths zigzagged between levels alongside iron-railed walkways and channels where water glinted in the afternoon light.
The entire settlement seemed to move downward. At the highest visible workings, a massive dark opening had been carved directly into the mountain. Even from this distance, Aurelia could see timber bracing around its entrance, cranes extending from nearby platforms, and carts moving between ore yards cut into the rock.
“The Deepmouth,” Selene said.
Aurelia barely heard her. Tracks descended from the upper opening through the settlement, crossing wooden trestles and stone bridges before disappearing beneath roofs farther down. Hoists hung between terraces. Workers moved along catwalks while loaded carts rolled toward the levels below.
Then Aurelia noticed the furnace. Near the center of Ironvale stood an enormous industrial complex surrounded by chimneys, forge structures, and broad stone yards. Orange light glowed even in daylight through several open sections, while smoke rose from stacks tall enough to be visible from almost anywhere in town.
“That’s the Ironheart,” Selene explained. “Most communal smelting passes through there.”
Below it stretched another dense terrace where workshops crowded shoulder-to-shoulder along retaining walls. Chimneys rose at irregular angles. Sparks occasionally burst from open forge doors, and the steady hammering they had heard through the forest became an almost continuous rhythm.
“Forge Row,” Selene continued.
Garrick had become unusually quiet. His attention moved across the visible workshops, then toward several armed figures crossing one of the higher bridges. He said nothing, but Aurelia could see him cataloging details.
Farther down the mountain, the terraces widened. One held a large stone structure whose roofline stood out from the workshops around it. Another contained open yards, training rings, and structures that looked suspiciously like armories.
Selene pointed. “The Threefold Hall is there. That is where the triumvirate usually meets. And the Shield Terrace is their version of a guardhouse and barracks.”
The lowest terraces appeared less impressive than the ones above. Warehouses and freight yards spread near the road, alongside stacks of timber and blackened charcoal pits. Beyond them rose enormous ridges of dark material that initially resembled natural hills until Aurelia noticed their unnatural shapes.
“The Black Hills,” Selene said. “Slag, failed smelts, rejected ore. Centuries of it.”
Aurelia blinked. “All of that is waste?”
“Yes.”
Some portions had grown large enough for structures to stand beside or even upon them. Beyond the settlement, the mountain bore other scars. Whole stretches of woodland had been cut back. Empty terraces remained where workshops had once stood, and more than one chimney rose above a building whose doors appeared permanently shut.
Yet none of that diminished Aurelia’s first impression - Ironvale was extraordinary. Drakehaven had been built quickly because Roy possessed abilities that turned construction into miracles. Bellhaven had developed slowly around the lake because fishing, trade, and water defined everything about it.
Ironvale looked like a settlement built around gravity itself. Stone came from the mountain, and everything else existed to move it downward. From mine, to forge, to workshop, to trade, and then to waste.
Aurelia finally exhaled. “Roy is going to lose his mind when he sees this.”
“That might make it worse,” Selene resumed walking. “You can admire the town while moving.”
Aurelia followed. This time, she did not argue.
─── 🐲🐲🐲 ───
The entry road crossed between two low stone retaining walls before reaching Ironvale’s first proper checkpoint. Two guards waited beneath a covered post built directly into the hillside - both wore armor unlike anything Aurelia had seen Bellhaven’s Watch use.
The first had layered dark-steel plates protecting his chest and shoulders, each piece shaped carefully enough that the armor moved with him rather than forcing him into stiffness. His companion wore lighter segmented protection over chainmail, with reinforced sections around the forearms, thighs, and throat.
Neither set appeared decorative - they were simply extremely well made. Garrick’ eyes lingered a fraction too long on the joints around the first guard’s shoulder before returning to the man’s face.
“Lady Selene.”
Selene inclined her head. “Good afternoon.”
The second guard looked toward Aurelia and Garrick, then toward Zephyr.
“You would be the Drakehaven ambassadors.”
Aurelia found the word strange.
Ambassadors.
Technically correct; still strange.
“We are,” Selene said. “Aurelia, Garrick, and myself.”
The guard nodded. “We were told to expect three. The triumvirate has already been informed that you may arrive today, although I doubt you’ll have a formal audience before morning.”
“That is acceptable.”
The first guard looked toward Zephyr again. His posture had not become hostile, but Aurelia noticed his hand shift slightly nearer the weapon at his side.
“Your drake will need to stay at the stables.”
Aurelia frowned. “She can stay with us.”
The guard gave her an apologetic look. “I’m sure she can, but most people here have never seen anything like her, and we’ve already had half the freight workers stop what they’re doing to stare.”
Aurelia looked back. Several people farther along the terrace were indeed staring.
“She won’t cause any problems.”
“I believe you,” the guard remained polite. “That doesn’t mean everyone else will. We have pack animals, draft beasts, and mine stock in town. An unfamiliar flying creature nesting beside an inn would cause more agitation than necessary.”
Aurelia opened her mouth, but Selene spoke first.
“The request is reasonable.”
Aurelia looked toward her. Selene’s expression remained composed.
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“We are their guests. Zephyr will be safe in the stables.”
Aurelia looked toward the Gale Drake. “You’re all right with that?”
Zephyr chirped, then nudged her shoulder hard enough to move Aurelia half a step.
Garrick smiled. “She appears devastated.”
Aurelia gave him a look, but Zephyr nudged her again.
“Fine,” she rubbed the drake’s neck. “But if anyone tries putting an actual saddle on you, bite their shirt.”
Selene closed her eyes. “Please do not instruct our transportation to attack the stable staff.”
“I said shirt.”
“That distinction will not improve the diplomatic report.”
The guards were trying very hard not to laugh. One eventually gestured toward a side path.
“Stable is down that way. We’ll have someone show you.”
Zephyr wandered off happily enough with the stable worker that Aurelia felt faintly betrayed. She didn’t have much time to wallow, however, as they entered Ironvale.
The first thing Aurelia noticed was the noise and movement. Ironvale did not possess Bellhaven’s slow mixture of fishermen, merchants, children, and townsfolk moving between unrelated errands. Nearly everyone here seemed to be going somewhere with purpose. A dwarven man passed carrying a bundle of metal stock across one shoulder, two humans pushed a cart loaded with charcoal toward an inclined track, and a woman in leather protection descended the terrace steps with several repaired tools hanging from a wooden frame across her back.
“Do they ever stop?” Garrick asked.
“At night,” Selene replied. “Mostly.”
They followed the lower terrace toward the inn. Every few dozen yards revealed another part of the town as Aurelia kept looking upward. A narrow bridge stretched overhead with ore carts rolling across it. Water flowed down a carved channel beside the street before disappearing beneath a grate. An open smithy farther ahead sent showers of sparks into the air each time a large dwarven woman struck glowing steel with a hammer.
Then Aurelia began noticing the Status effects.
The first barely registered: A man unloading crates possessed a strained lower back and minor exhaustion.
Then she saw another that had an old fracture in his left wrist that had healed poorly. Next, a woman passed with chronic inflammation in one knee.
Aurelia frowned. Lung irritation from smoke, partial hearing loss, persistent shoulder strain and tendon damage. After seeing something for almost everyone they passed, Aurelia began to slow.
Selene noticed. “What is it?”
“Nothing major, but…” Aurelia kept walking. “Are people here always injured?”
Selene followed her gaze. “Ironvale works hard.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Selene considered it. “They have always been somewhat like this.”
Aurelia’s brow furrowed. “There isn’t a dedicated healer?”
“Not in the way Bellhaven has Mira,” Selene stepped aside to allow a loaded cart past. “They have people who know basic medicine. Splints. Wound care. Herbal treatments.”
“But no healer.”
“No.”
Aurelia looked around again. A smith walked past with burns on two fingers that had been bandaged badly enough that she could see irritation beneath them.
“Nobody thinks this is a problem?”
Selene shrugged lightly. “Ironvale’s culture values endurance. If someone can still work, they generally do.”
“That sounds stupid.”
Garrick glanced toward her, though Selene did not appear offended.
“You may tell the triumvirate that tomorrow.”
Aurelia frowned. “Maybe I will.”
For the next several minutes, she decided to try and ignore it as best she could.
The inn occupied a broad lower terrace not far above the freight yards. It was larger than Aurelia expected, built from dark stone with timber framing and enough reinforced balconies that it looked capable of surviving a small landslide.
The common room inside was busy but not crowded. Several miners occupied a long table near the wall. Two smiths were eating near the hearth, while an older dwarf sat alone drinking something that smelled strong enough to strip paint.
Selene approached the innkeeper. “We need three rooms.”
Garrick leaned closer. “Two would work.”
Aurelia looked at him, and he immediately reconsidered.
“Three is excellent.”
Selene ignored both of them, while Aurelia’s attention had already shifted elsewhere. A young man of about twenty-five sat near the hearth. His shoulders were broad enough to suggest years of physical work, but the way he sat made one side of his body appear lower than the other. He rubbed absently at his right shoulder between bites of food, then coughed into his sleeve.
Aurelia’s Caretaker senses reacted immediately. The shoulder had been injured years ago, and the original damage had never healed correctly. His lungs were worse after years of smoke, dust, and poor ventilation had left them chronically irritated. Not dying, but uncomfortable enough that Aurelia could suddenly imagine what every workday felt like.
As she stared, the young man noticed.
“Something wrong?”
Aurelia walked over. “Your shoulder.”
He glanced toward it. “What about it?”
“It hurts.”
He laughed. “So does everything else.”
Aurelia did not. The man’s smile faded slightly.
“You injured it a few years ago.”
His expression changed. “How’d you know that?”
“You never let it heal properly.”
He rubbed the shoulder again. “Couldn’t afford to sit around for two months.”
Aurelia looked toward his chest. “And your breathing?”
He shrugged. “Mine dust.”
“That doesn’t bother you?”
“Of course it bothers me,” he looked genuinely confused. “That doesn’t mean I can stop working.”
Aurelia stared. Behind her, she could hear Selene finishing arrangements with the innkeeper. Aurelia knew that the plan was to observe for tonight and meet with the Triumvirate tomorrow. Selene would not be thrilled for them to immediately interject themselves into the settlement’s affairs…
Then the man coughed again.
She sighed. “Give me your arm.”
He blinked. “Why?”
“I’m a healer.”
That caught attention from the nearest table. Aurelia held out her hand.
“Arm.”
The man hesitated, then offered it. Aurelia placed one hand against his forearm, and Weave moved. His eyes widened with the immediate reaction. Aurelia’s healing flowed through old tissue first, breaking down scar formation that had accumulated around the shoulder and encouraging proper reconstruction beneath it. Chronic inflammation faded, and compressed nerves relaxed.
The man inhaled sharply as Aurelia felt for the damage in his lungs - thousands of tiny irritations accumulated over years. She restored what she safely could, and the whole process lasted less than a minute.
Then Aurelia removed her hand. “There, try moving your shoulder.”
He did - slowly at first. Above his head, then backward… then his mouth opened.
“That doesn’t hurt.”
Aurelia smiled. “That’s generally the goal.”
He then inhaled - deeply. Aurelia watched his entire expression change from shock into surprise and then into laughter.
“I can breathe.”
“You could breathe before.”
“Not like this.”
He stood so quickly that the chair scraped backward.
Aurelia flinched. “Easy.”
“I feel incredible.”
“That does not mean—”
The man bounced once on his heels, then stretched both arms overhead.
“I haven’t felt this good since I was apprenticed.”
Aurelia’s smile became uncertain. “You should still rest the shoulder for—”
“This is perfect!”
He grabbed his coat. Aurelia frowned.
“Where are you going?”
“Back to work.”
Her expression dropped. “No.”
The man stopped. “What?”
“I did not repair four years of accumulated damage so you could immediately injure it again,” Aurelia pointed toward the chair. “Sit.”
Garrick looked delighted. The man slowly sat as Aurelia folded her arms.
“You still need to take care of yourself.”
“But it doesn’t hurt anymore.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“It feels fine.”
“That is because I healed it.”
He nodded enthusiastically. “Exactly.”
Aurelia closed her eyes. She suddenly understood why Ironvale did not have a healer, or perhaps why any healer who had lived here had eventually gone insane.
Someone at the neighboring table spoke.
“Can you do knees?”
Aurelia opened her eyes. An older dwarf was staring at her.
“My left knee,” he tapped it. “Been bad for twelve years.”
A woman beside him raised one hand. “What about burns?”
Another voice came from farther away. “Back injuries?”
Aurelia slowly turned - half the common room was now looking at her. Selene had stopped speaking with the innkeeper, and Garrick was grinning from ear to ear.
Aurelia pointed at him. “Do not.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I was about to say this seems like a wonderful diplomatic opportunity.”
Selene’s gaze moved across the room, then toward the front door. Someone had already left, and Aurelia saw the exact moment she realized why.
“No,” Selene walked toward them. “We are not turning the inn into a clinic.”
It was already too late. The front door opened as a man entered.
“I heard there’s a healer here.”
─── 🐲🐲🐲 ───
Selene adapted faster than Aurelia expected.
Within fifteen minutes, the inn had been reorganized. One table became Aurelia’s treatment area, and another held whatever basic supplies the innkeeper possessed. Garrick stationed himself near the front door because Selene correctly predicted that a visible armed figure would discourage people from ignoring the line.
“Single file,” Garrick called. “If you’re actively bleeding, unconscious, or missing something important, tell me.”
A miner near the entrance raised one hand. “How important?”
Garrick stared at him. “If you have to ask, it’s probably not urgent.”
Selene stood beside him with a piece of paper. “Names first. Major condition second. If you are capable of waiting until tomorrow, say so.”
Aurelia looked toward her. “I thought you didn’t want this.”
“I don’t,” Selene continued writing. “That does not mean allowing thirty people to crowd around you is preferable.”
Aurelia smiled. “You’re very good at this.”
The next patient sat - a woman in her forties with two damaged fingers, old burns, and chronic wrist strain. Aurelia placed both hands around hers and allowed the Weave to flow. Aurelia smiled as the woman gasped in surprise.
“Move them.”
The fingers flexed - slowly, then normally.
The woman stared. “Gods.”
“Please don’t go directly back to a forge.”
The woman stood. “I wasn’t planning to.”
Aurelia relaxed.
“I was planning to sleep first.”
“That is only marginally better.”
The woman grinned and left as the next person sat. Aurelia stopped noticing the individual ailments as something unusual. Aching joints, smoke irritation, and minor buns that had become chronic stiffness. One man whose hearing had deteriorated from decades around hammering could not be fully repaired, but Aurelia reduced enough surrounding damage that he could suddenly distinguish voices more clearly.
He cried - that one almost stopped her. He looked at her as though she had returned something he had accepted losing years ago, and Aurelia hugged him before he left.
Outside, word spread as the line reached the terrace beyond the door. Garrick stepped outside periodically and returned with updates.
“Twenty-three.”
Aurelia looked up from a miner’s elbow. “Twenty-three what?”
“People waiting.”
Selene wrote another name. “That is manageable.”
Ten minutes later, Garrick returned.
“Thirty-eight.”
Selene looked toward him. “How?”
“Apparently one of the furnace shifts ended.”
Aurelia sighed. “Send in whoever looks the worst first.”
“We’re already doing that.”
“Good.”
Daylight faded as another hour passed, and Ironvale changed as darkness settled. Forge Row became brighter rather than dimmer, orange furnaces glowing against black stone while sparks rose into the night. Lamps appeared along railings and stairways. The Ironheart burned high above them, its chimneys outlined against the dark mountain.
Aurelia kept healing; her gigantic Weave Reserve barely seemed to care. Her challenge tonight was not whether she possessed enough Weave, however. It was whether there would ever stop being people who needed it.
She finished healing a quarry worker’s damaged shoulder and looked toward the window. Ironvale’s lamps illuminated faces waiting patiently between stone buildings and iron railings. Some leaned on canes. Others stood with arms folded, chatting after long shifts. A few had clearly come directly from the mines, black dust still marking their clothes and faces.
Nobody was pushing, and nobody complained. Selene had somehow turned the entire thing into an orderly queue, and Garrick stood near the entrance with his arms crossed. He spoke quietly with two workers while maintaining enough presence that nobody tried skipping ahead.
The mountain above them continued hammering, and workers continued moving between terraces despite the late hour. Aurelia had arrived in Ironvale expecting diplomacy to begin tomorrow. Instead, Drakehaven’s first introduction had become something else entirely.
She lifted her hands as the next worker sat.
“All right… show me what hurts.”