Areana and the Mountain of Blood: Daughter of Deceit Adventures, #3

By Helga R Paxton

Areana, having recovered from a disastrous caravan trip, tries to spend a relaxing winter deep in the Dwarven mountain. Interrupted by a merder, with her as a chief suspect.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Helga R Paxton
• Release date: Apr 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201865283

Helga R Paxton

Helga R Paxton is a tech nerd who spent his youth on the playground pacing the perimeter imagining strange worlds. It has taken decades to learn how to write in a manner readable by others, and to finally publish stories for others to enjoy. Rather than tell them to his dog Tessa.

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Contributors

Author: Helga R Paxton

Copy Editor: Kim Ross

Assistant editor: Cheese

Bata readers: N.I.N.E.

Cover Design: SelfPubBookCovers.com/Yana908

Series Notes

These Adventure tales are told at the whim of the Daughter of Deceit and are in the order she wishes to tell them.

Shift 9-20 Ascent Inside the Mountain

Iconcluded my meditation when I felt the vibration of the deep drums reverberate through the mountain. I opened my eyes to the light blue glow that suffused the room, emanating from the ley-line that threaded the cave, and reflected by the fungus along the walls that fed on the magical energy. 

I slid over on the bed of soft glowing moss, to give the sleeping druid a kiss on the forehead. They would sleep till two bongs past first boom of the drums. 

All my things packed up and secured, I made my way along the ley-line bore, up and around the old mines now being used as fungus farms. The Ironhorde dwarves had spent much of the last decade working on expanding this new section of farm. I took the overlook trail, above the aqueduct to the lake. Unlike the old mining tunnels it was dwarf sized. As such it might have made a bad short cut, however, before leaving the ley-line, I used its power to activate a running enhancement, and ran at high speed nearly on all-fours through the tunnel. It was almost too long of a trip to do the whole thing like that, but there were enough offshoot tunnels to be able to stop and stretch. I made it out through the entrance to the aqueduct, past the sluice gate and onto the edge of the lake. It was really an extra-large cave, with the bottom third filled with water; on the east end, water fell from near the top of the subterranean chasm. The falls fell in a near shower from that height, and as a result, the lake rolled with a fine mist most of the time.

I headed from the aqueduct on the north end of the lake around to the floating docks, where the fishing fleet from the twentieth shift was in and unloading, as the twenty first shift showed up. A bunch of them waved happily at me as I passed. 

I made my way along the edge of the lake, up to a shelf carved along the edge, well above the maximum water level, with entrances to caves with services for the food production staff. The noise of people hurrying along between shift changes echoed up the tunnels. I leaped up the wall to the upper service level, and headed over to the lift system powered by the falls. One side of the chain drive had buckets, the other platforms. I waved at all the people as I ascended from the lake tunnels, past the mid mines, to the sub city, then the top city. 

Drums greet you, Areana. Bronze-opal waved to me, as their Bronze robes of Brokkr and beard shook with enthusiasm, as they went on their way to the central temple on this side of the river.

The misty water resulted in the walls being covered in fungus of green, orange, and red. The green ones emitted a low level glow that pervaded the upper end of the cavern. It was not enough to see, unless one had light enhancement. Like the resident dwarves, and their three times human-sized eyes. 

Across the sculpted ancient stone bridge over the river, above the falls, I looked over the main city, carved into the wall of the upper cavern. There was a mix of styles, the city having been built in seven phases. The oldest of which was from the ancient ones, who had shaped and molded the rock like water, and left protrusions that took on the appearance of giant fungi which clung to the walls of the cavern. The rest ranged from carved to built out, in many styles of architecture, and varied between mortarless, mortared, or riveted. The new lower tiers down in the cavern resembled the sides of concrete apartment blocks built into the side of the cliff wall. 

I took a side detour to the room that V and I shared. One of six of the ancient, organically shaped rooms, which were normally reserved as very expensive rooms for rent in the summer months, and sometimes rented for the winter for quite a sum. We were granted one for the winter courtesy of the temple of Brokkr, even though we belonged to a different branch, in part as visiting members of the temple, in part due to our aid to them, solving a bandit and deserter problem, along with returning the supplies. 

Of course, V was not in. I ruffled the blankets, then made the bed, with proper square corners. 

Shift 9-21 Curiosity in the Curio Shop

Imade my way through the back corridors, to the maintenance corridors of the market square. I entered through the back entrance of the Horn brother’s curio shop, into the workshop. A mess of work benches, the room hummed with the clank of gears and springs. Drom sat tall at his workbench, with magno-goggles etched with tiny runes, peering into a flask. His foot steadily pumped the foot pedal to run the spinning tool head. 

I passed him, the air movement sending his short brown hair to sway, and went forward to the shop, a cave carved with thousands of niches, which were filled with many curiosities. A riotous sense of colours and sounds filled the room, from the hum and colors of the magic. 

I found the tall and slender Gren in a corner, re-sorting shelves while twirling a ring in his hand. His small brown eyes seeing and not seeing at the same time as he examined the enchantment. He stopped at my approach, turned, and smiled, a glint in his eye. Morning, Areana. His pupils dilated. You look radiant. The edge of his mouth quirked up. 

I smiled back at him with an eyebrow raised. 

Your trips down to the line do you good. Gren had a wistful look writ across his face, quickly gone. 

I stretched from my head to my toes, with a slight tremble at the power that rolled through me. Yes, it does.

He swept me up and took me to the storage closet off the workshop in the back of the shop. He did his normal fervent job, getting me to make all the right noises to taunt his brother in the workshop.

I LEFT THE STORAGE room making cat-like stretches. Times like this reminded me why the cleansing spell was so amazing, a magic shower and laundry all rolled into one.

Drom just shook his head at us, as he had done these last nine weeks I had been in the Ironhorde under-city.

Gren, and Drom