Play 2 Wage: Linked

The voice in my head was right about the cost of the raw gems. While True gem prices were decent, and cut gem prices of both were quite a bit higher, Holo gems of any state sold for a much lower price across the board.

I tried asking around about the skill book thing at a few of the specialty dealer shops that I walked into in my quest to sell off the gems, but after the third guy laughed me out of the store, I stopped bringing it up.

Selling the gold was easy enough, it was a listed Commodity on the market exchange. I was able to sell it at the terminal after paying the service fees and Core taxes, which were pretty minimal for the transfer of Holo items.

After it was all said and done, I glanced at my Bank balance.

Fifty-Six-Thousand-Two-Hundred-Twenty-Nine-Point-Five-One-Five

I grinned at the total, wondering if I would ever get tired of seeing the number go up and hearing the Bank's voice read it out in confirmation. I then transferred 1500 Cr over to Tev and shooed him away to go splurge on all of the ingredients that he had pined after for years. I was determined to find a way to make these gems more profitable, I couldn't bear to sell them for such a low percentage of their cut value.

He was reluctant to leave my side, but I was able to convince him to go, with a promise that I wouldn't go back into the Factions server and would meet him back at the Link in an hour or so.

I watched Tevin’s bulky armored form practically skip down the avenue in excitement in the direction of the nearest food market, and turned instead to head to the border of the human neighborhood and the Zk’Aek, pronounced “Zick-ack”, the Parent species to the Masked dwarven faction.

The bugs were creepy as hell, but I figured my best chance at getting either cheap cutting services or equipment was with the small faction of dwarves that had emigrated to our digital world as Masked Ambassadors.

I walked up to a plain building with a big open garage door that rang with the song of hammer and chisel. A small rotating holo-sign reading “Fine Edge Finishing” hovered over the walk way just outside, with a number of simple graphics of stone-cutting related items orbiting around the text. It was subtle, but an oval-cut outline of a gem and a ring were both included in the cloud of objects. I thought I might have better luck dealing with someone who mostly knew stone-cutting and did a bit of jewelry on the side.

I peeked inside the big open doorway and looked into the darkened interior of the shop. The walls were lined with tools and polished slabs of various types of stones, to the right were a dozen finished works laid out on pallets, ranging from large granite urns, to marble countertops, and carved sections of pillar.

The center of the workshop was filled with a 10 foot tall and heavily veined marble obelisk, surrounded by sturdy scaffolding that creaked under the weight of a thickly built dwarv with a wavy mane of salt and pepper hair that melded with his massive bushy beard, as he carefully tapped a fine-edged chisel along outlined text in a language I didn’t recognize.

I approached, taking a couple of steps into the interior of the shop before stopping and coughing lightly before calling to him. He must have paid to have his name-tag hidden, because it refused to pop up when I highlighted him. “Excuse me, I uh-”.

My introduction was cut short by the glare he cast at me over his shoulder. He turned away again and screamed into the back of the shop instead of answering me, “Ay! Kazzad! Got a walk-in!” before going back to his tapping.

I stood there awkwardly and waited, watching the craftsman work.

“If you stand here watching for another few hours, you’ll hit Stone-carving 6 just from watching this guy, he must be a master.”

I nearly jumped out of my skin when Max began talking to me in my head again, but managed to turn it into a step, which I let lead me over to the big carved granite urn sitting to the side, and I leaned forward pretending to examine it closely.

I mumbled under my breath, “Fuck, Max. Are you going to make a habit of that? A text box or something would work better”.

“Naa, screw that. Watching you jump is way too much fun. Are you really gonna complain about tips like that too? C’mon, consider it my version of a reach-around.”

I made a disgusted face and started to reply again, but a new voice interrupted me before I could say anything.

They spoke in a similarly gruff voice, though not as deep, “Welcome, Kaninak. You better be sniffin’ one of yer own farts and not inspecting the goods, all bent over with dat' face on ye.” The dwarv crossed their arms over their broad chest, and looked at me expectantly.

They had a similar mane of wild black hair that melded with their beard, wore a heavy leather apron with overstuffed pockets, and looked a bit younger and less brawny than the first. They did not look happy to see me. I highlighted them in my UI and checked their tag.

Kazzad Galidurn

Clan Theedrite

“I, uh. No no, neither. I just got…” I floundered for a moment, reaching for a better cover story than ‘just a little argument with the extra voice in my head’. “Um, a bad message from someone.”

I quickly changed the subject. “I was hoping to ask about your sign, do you do gem cutting here?”

“Hmm,” they looked skeptical, but seemed to take me at face value, ”one a ta' boys plays around with it a bit. What's yer' trace on it? Yer' angle?”

I tried a smile, “Well, I work at the quarry for Rosso, if you’ve heard of him. This granite here looks like it might have come from his mountain.” I waved at the oven-sized and beautifully carved urn I had been pretending to inspect. “I also hunt bounties, and… have built up a decent haul of raw gems that I believe are of high quality and clarity.”

I pulled one of the mid-sized vivid light-blue sapphires from my inventory and held it up, but did not hand it over. “I have… I don't know, 50 to 75 thousand carats of stuff like this? Mostly sapphire, a bit of ruby and amethyst. I hate to part with it for the raw gem prices, and wonder what it would cost to get cut, or if you could teach me or even just sell me the equipment.”

The dwarv was impossible to read as they stepped a bit closer, leaning in to peer closely at the stone, then leaning back to reply. “Yah, we could do the cut’ n’ polish for you. Fer’ 150 an hour, plus material cost and we get to keep the scraps.”

I couldn't help but notice when they leaned in, that the dwarv smelled of something sweet, almost perfumed. “That’s a little steep, isn't it? How long does it take to cut something like this down to usable crafting mats?”

Kazzad snorted, their mustache twitching from side to side. “It takes as long as it takes, depends on the cut, n’ each individual stone. Corundum is pretty hard, n’ we use our traditional methods, no heat treats or fancy laser scans and cuttin’ bots.”

I nodded, pretending like I understood. “Okay, and what of training, or equipment?”

“If’n ya want equipment, ye’d be best served going elsewhere, call it a quirk of the Mask, but ye’ probly 'aint capable of our methods.”

I frowned at the dwarv, and decided to keep pushing, growing frustrated with how difficult it was turning out to deal with what I had assumed was a straightforward industry. “What about… skill books? Can your clan make those?”

The larger older dwarv still tapping away in the background laughed loudly, and then cursed, before his tapping resume.

“Hah, is the proper response to that boy’o. Dusted skill books, he says.” Kazzad turned away from me, waving me away and chuckling to themselves.

Desperate to get them to work with me, and really wanting the skill for long-term use, I made one last plea. “Wait! What if… I could trade you a Heart of Stone for it.”

The tapping from the older dwarv turned into a single ringing clang, and the marble obelisk cracked clear through, the top half of it tumbling off to the side and bouncing off of the sturdy scaffolding and smashing into pieces on the metallic floor. Both of the dwarves turned to stare at me, forgotten tools clattering to the ground.

This time, the elder of the pair spoke, his voice deep and rumbling. “Now why would you lie to us like that, Human? We may be a small clan, but we keep an ear on the ground.”

They both stared at me with hard looks, and I could feel a sense of hostility building in the workshop.

“I am not lying to you, uh, Master Theedrite.” I answered, my nerve barely holding under their stares. “I have the heart, but it’s in my bank. I could retrieve it and show you if you do not believe me.”

“Then go!” The older dwarv yelled, swiping through his UI manually and forcefully pushing an invisible button.

I blinked at the sulfurous heat in his words and found myself standing back outside of the shop on the street, and was immediately walked into by a guy who was leading some cat sized lizard-looking pet on a leash.

“Gah, F’n troll.” He cursed at me and pushed me again, hard on my shoulder, before continuing his walk. “Don't mind that asshole, Lily. Let’s go get you a treat.”

I shook my head, glancing from the open shop door to the passerby with the lizard. The dwarves had already turned their backs on me, making quick work of breaking the ruined obelisk down into rubble and clearing the way to start again.

I considered yelling at them from outside, realizing that they had used the shopkeeper's boot function to unceremoniously kick me from the store. Instead, I tamped my anger down and stomped off down the walkway towards the nearest bank.

Even if they would not sell me what I wanted, antagonizing them and turning them into enemies was a terrible idea. I bitterly laughed to myself at the ass-chewing I would get from Rin if I made a play like that again, shaking off the memories of the targeted string of muggings during my early days.

There was a brand new marble blank in the center of the workshop when I returned, the same older dwarv was flaking off large chunks of the stone with powerful blows.

I called out, “Master Theedrite! I’ve come to prove the quality of my word!” raising my voice to carry over the sound of the crowded street and the ringing of his chisel.

The younger dwarv Kazzad stepped into the open garage door from behind the wall on the left side of the shop, their face slightly reddened with anger, and they simply glared at me. They held a simple pull rope that was connected to the roll-up door, threatening to close it in my face.

I stepped a bit closer and lowered my voice. “I’ll show you the stone, but… I don’t want to just whip it out on the street.”

They grunted and their eyes flitted around from side to side for a moment, before a trade request opened in my HUD.

I accepted the request. “Okay, that works. But don’t expect me to just hand the thing over.” I added the Heart of Stone directly from my inventory to the trade window.

Kazzad just stared at the window, their mouth hanging open wide enough for me to actually see their famously metallic teeth amongst the frizzy beard that hid their entire face and most of their torso from the nose down.

I prodded, still indigent from the earlier kick. “See? I’m not a liar, my word is good.” I crossed my arms over my chest and closed the trade box. “Can we make a deal?”

The dwarv just gaped at me for a moment more, and then closed their mouth and their eyes began to dart around, doing something with their own UI again. After a moment, they finally replied.

“Aye, Kaninak. Still…” they let the words hang, scrutinizing me again for a moment before turning and walking back into the shop and waving for me to follow. Kazzad led me past the older dwarv, who wordlessly laid their tools down and hopped down from the scaffolding to follow.

We entered a small hallway and walked past a pair of doors, taking the second on the right and stepping into a cramped office. Around the room, piles of messy folders, drawings, and diagrams of all sorts lay scattered around three desks that were crammed against the back wall in a ‘U’ shape, under a set of shelves heavy with boxes of small interesting looking off-cuts and metal scraps and hand-tools. Kazzad took off their leather apron and tossed it into a clanking pile on one of the chairs.

Kazzad hopped up into one of the other chairs and spun to face me, while the older dwarv crowded in behind me, nudging me into the center of the room and closing the door behind us.

“So, I take it that I have your attention now. Willing to deal with me?” I said, now feeling slightly nervous about this whole thing.

The younger dwarv stared for a moment longer, before leaning forward in their chair and finally saying something. “We can’t sell you a skill book, our equipment, or training. It’s… complicated. Then again, we also cannae’ pass up an opportunity fer another Heart.”

They leaned back again, scratching their beard in thought for a moment, I saw their eyes flick over my shoulder. I took a step to my side and turned, finding it uncomfortable to have the powerful looking dwarv standing directly behind me, even if I knew I was entirely safe from actual harm here in the Hub. I caught a nod from the larger of the two and it seemed as if an unspoken message passed between them.

Kazzad spoke again. “So, Kaninak. Tell us why ye’ would trade away such a treasure? To us, of all the peoples scramblin’ for em?”

I looked back, holding their gaze as I spoke, not wanting to seem weak. “Because,” I took a breath and collected my thoughts, not wanting to outright lie or tell the full truth. “it turns out I’m good at finding stuff like this. Real good. If I can keep finding gems and rarities like this, it seems smarter to learn to work them myself, rather than sell them for fractions of their true value. Your people seemed like the best choice, the human market is heavily controlled and the guilds squeeze out any non-members.”

They both listened to me, while I spoke the elder took a step across the small room and leaned against the desk opposite of me. Their dynamic was starting to get to me, it was clear the elder was the master of the shop, yet the younger Kazzad did all of the talking, and spoke up once more.

“A worthy pursuit. Now, ye say ya’v worked the quarry for Rosso. Why not take it to him?”

They caught me off guard with that question, although in hindsight it should have been obvious. I could tell that I must have shown some kind of reaction, because their eyes narrowed slightly and I scrambled to answer before they spoke again.

“I did, I found two, deep in some caves I exposed with a sort of, uh, accidental avalanche. I turned one in to him for the Accord and a pile of credits.”

Another look passed between the two dwarves, and again, Kazzad did the speaking. Leaning all the way back in their chair, they crossed one knee over the other, and scratched at their beard some more while replying.

“Well, as long as he wont be angered with it. That's the first pitfall.” As they scratched their beard, the fringe of thick black hair parted and I was surprised to see some major cleavage squished into a low-cut shirt, hidden underneath the big bushy beard.

She continued, “Second, ye say ya want training, be it skill books or apprenticeship. Our laws prevent us from offering such things, but…” she glanced back over to the elder dwarv, who nodded. “There may’a way around that, but I dunno if’n ye’ll take ‘ta it”.

I nodded for her to continue, too distracted with the simultaneous high-stakes negotiation and newfound confusion about Kazzad to form much of a coherent sentence in the moment. I’d heard some rumors about the dwarven sexes being hard to tell apart, but never thought much into it until this exact moment.

“We can’t sell the books to outsiders off market, pard‘a ta’ deal with our parent-clan. Our homeworld. N’ we can’t train ‘em either, it wouldn’t be proper. So, if you want either from us. Ye’ll have to petition to join the clan, and pass the trials.”

My eyes widened, shocked out of my distraction, and I found my voice. “I think you’re right, I don’t think I like that. That’s your Faction, right? Would lead to problems with my own.”

The elder finally spoke up, “We might’n be able to polish that down a bit.” Kazzad shot him a look, and he cut himself off, nodding apologetically.

She took back over. “He’s right, we think we might. We are in agreement that it would be worth it, too. Yer kind can’t do a dusted thing with that Stone yet, other than sell it, or use it as a bargainin’ chip. So, we play along wit’ that. We’ll have to take it to the Clan Houses, but Duirtak here thinks it will reach consensus. If’n it does, then we can negotiate with yer faction about ye signin’ up.” She leaned forward again, her beard settling back into place and eyes locked on mine.

“Look, Rosso might’a given you an Accord, but our kind have been playing this game for nearly 300 years, we’ve seen how the Kaldamori operate. They make great business partners, suppliers, buyers. They play the long patient money-game, n’ play it well. What they don't make are good allies in the heat of the moment. Yer kin are splintered and squabbling, n’ clan Theedrite will be a much better ally den’ one lonely Kaldamori halfway across ta’ world.”

I thought over her words, comparing my experience to her claims. Rosso had been generally friendly, and a solid and mostly well intentioned boss, but he was definitely aloof and, well, both solitary and stationary. As far as I knew, almost all of the ambassadors had been ‘playing hard to get’ in the years since the Links landed, only establishing close ties to human factions that were willing to agree to lop-sided agreements born of desperation.

If they were truly offering an alliance, rather than just a trade partnership, I knew the council would hand me over in a heartbeat. What I did not know, was how I felt about that. I’m not the most patriotic person in the world, but I do love my country. Could I abandon it, even if only digitally, and join another?

“Yeah, ye should totally do it. Kaz’s bein’ straight wit’ ya.” Max interjected in my head, mockingly affecting her accent. “Without me, you humans would have even odds of ever building up the industrial and technological base to actually use the Heart to its potential, and it would take decades at best even if you managed to climb the curve. Even with me, it will take a while before we get up to that level. We can just go find another one if we need it later.”

I did my best to suppress my reaction to Max’s interruption, and the room hung silent, both of the dwarves watching me patiently while I continued to think it over.

On one hand, what they said made sense to me. Rosso had been a decent boss, but had been resistant to every request every faction had ever made of him. He had his way of doing things and he would not bend or compromise. We also knew next to nothing of his parent faction. He was a lone entity with ties to a network of his kind that were dotted through the linked-worlds, but from everything we had learned so far, their entire species had agreed that only the local Kaldamori would ever deal with their host planet.

On the other, I personally knew much less about the Dwarven clan that had emigrated to our Link-world. They were our neighbors in the Hub, one ring closer to the core than us, yet their parent-species are so vastly different from our own that we hardly interacted.

I weighed the options, heavy in my mind, and struggled to reach a conclusion, so I decided to stall and seek advice, hoping Rin would have some insight and advice.

“I think… that I will need to take some time to decide. Will the offer hold for a few days? I will say that I am interested, but I think it would be a mistake to rush into something this big.”

Both of the dwarves smiled at that, Kazzad a little more than Duirtak, and again the younger replied.

“Of course, we couldn't give a crystalline offer in the first place, this is something the Houses will have to agree on. We’ll take it before the Moot and see what the consensus is.” Kazzad offered a broad smile, showing off those shining steel-colored teeth again.

I stood away from the desk, bowing my head in turn to both of them. “That works.” I nodded in agreement. “Well, I guess I better get going then. I’m sure we’ll be in touch soon.” I slapped my hands against my legs, reflexively checking my pockets as I prepared to leave.

Duirtak got up as well, and opened the office door, leading me out into the hallway before I could start to waffle over the etiquette of goodbyes. I glanced over my shoulder as I left the room, and saw that Kazzad was already turned back to her desk.

I followed the short and broad dwarv back into the workshop, glancing at the pile of ruined marble rubble that was a nearly completed project when I first arrived, and felt a pang of guilt.

“My bad,” I said as I pointed to the pile, following him through the shop. “That was some fine work, I feel partly to blame.”

He replied, “Nah’ don’t ya worry ‘bout it. All ye did was call me bluster and show me true. We’re square and level, Beardless.” He flashed me a grin over his shoulder as he climbed back up onto the scaffolding.

I laughed a little, moving past him and towards the still open garage door, turning to reply once I reached the threshold.

“Still, I had to say something. I know a thing or two of stone carving, and hate to see so much work go to waste. Especially from a master fuzz-face such as yourself.” I shot a grin right back at him.

We both laughed, and smiling to myself over the mutual banter, I left the workshop, thinking I would probably get along with their kind if we could get our leaders to agree.