Seamus followed Dirk down the stone spiral staircase.
Despite only walking on one leg and crutches, Dirk made decent time with his
descent.
“This,” Dirk pointed to the door on the right of the stairs, “is the door to my office.”
“The doorway to the left is access to the service elevator,” Dirk added.
Seamus looked at the “doorway” opposite Dirk’s office. The door to Dirk’s office was made of wood and banded with iron. Access to the service elevator was an empty stone arch way. Seamus poked his head in.
The elevator shaft was twenty feet across, the walls were lined with stone. Circumnavigating the wall inside the shaft was a stone ledge that wrapped all the way around. Seamus looked up the shaft and saw several similar ledges with access-ways constructed for each ledge. The ledges all appeared as concentric circles. The very center of which Seamus thought he could see stars. The sky. Seamus could see a small patch of stars at the top of the elevator shaft. He could probably blot them out if he closed one eye and put his thumb over the hole.
Seamus looked down the elevator shaft and saw even more concentric circles, down to the bottom floor which was alight with fire and clanging with the echoing sound of metalwork.
“We’re going underground?” Seamus asked as he resumed following.
“We are underground,” Dirk said, “My office, your old jail cell, well, most of that jail cell, is underground.”
“When I’m not in my office, I’ll likely be overlooking the work down in the shop. Ah, this door is for the fermentarium,” Dirk said.
The fermentarium’s door appeared no different from the door to Dirk’s office. It, too, had an access to the service shaft. The two kept walking.
“And this door is for the distillery,” Dirk added. The distillery also had access to the service shaft.
Fermentarium? Distillery? Seamus became intrigued. Are the vampires running a massive whiskey operation? Suddenly the undead didn’t seem quite so evil.
“No, Master Bennigan,” Dirk replied to Seamus’s thoughts, “Whiskey is not the primary end.”
Dirk and Seamus continued walking down the stairs.
“Why aren’t the fermentarium and the distillery on the same level?” Seamus asked.
“Space. Volume. Safety. Mostly space,” Dirk said.
Dirk and Seamus passed two more doors after the distillery, near which Dirk’s mind became suddenly obscured. Dirk wouldn’t say what they were for and Seamus decided not to ask.
Seamus figured that the vampires probably slept in those rooms during the d-
“Those are not our concern, Master Bennigan,” Dirk said quickly.
Seamus was unnerved at having his thoughts intruded upon.
“You should remember to obscure your own thoughts,” Dirk said. Mentis meum Obscuratim, Seamus heard Dirk say in his head, as if to privately remind him of the spell.
“This,” Dirk said as they reached the bottom of the spiral stairs, “is the primary ends of our work.”
Dirk opened the door that marked the termination of the stairway and hobbled through. Seamus followed.
What Seamus saw was not what he expected. He’d expected another cramped room like Dirk’s office or his old jail cell.
Instead he saw a wide and tall room lit with a multitude of torches, swarming with workers and strange machinery. Most of the bodies milling about were dwarves. At a glance he could have mistook them for decrepit leprechauns who had forgotten the meaning of hygiene. Seamus made no mistake, however, because the dwarves had a clearly distinct soul. Most of the souls at this level were in fact dwarves, but Seamus had detected a minority of elves, as well.
“Aye, Master Bennigan, there are indeed elves down here,” Dirk said.
“The dwarves perform the more labor intensive functions, we elves handle the finer side of the craft. While the dwarves do most of the work in the general shaping of the metal down here, we elves check the quality of the work against specific dimensions, then we verify that the proper portions of the job is done in the order that is prescribed by the overall plan,” Dirk said.
Seamus looked behind him to see the door that they had come through. He saw that the spiral staircase was in the middle of this vast room. Though, while up the spire the stairs had wrapped around the entire circumference of the elevator shaft, down in this level the termination of the stairs only wrapped around half of the shaft’s circumference, from floor to ceiling.
Seamus stood in the center of the elevator shaft next to the door and looked up again. He noticed four or five ropes dangling from a pulley system that must have spanned the entire height of the tower. Seamus recognized the concentric circles in the tower as servicing ledges, but he couldn’t see the sky. The top of the tower was too distant.
“There,” Dirk said as he pointed with one of his crutches, “is where we begin the process of our metal working.”
Seamus looked to where Dirk had pointed. A particularly burly and soot covered dwarf had tipped a cauldron of gold coins into a crucible. The dwarf was wearing black, reflective spectacles to protect his eyes from the intense heat and light from the fire beneath the crucible. The solid gold coins splashed and sizzled in an already molten pool of gold.
“You see, Brok is melting down the gold in the crucible,” Dirk said, “so we can turn it into something more useful than coins and jewelry.”
“Like what?” Seamus asked.
“Sometimes we need sheets, sometimes we need long, thin strips of gold,” Dirk said.
After the dwarf, Brok, had emptied the coins into the crucible, he set the empty cauldron aside and walked a few paces around the crucible to where an array of already formed gold strips lay in their pouring mold. Brok quickly snapped the tarnished gold strips free of the mold and stacked them into a cart that had been waiting to receive them. Another dwarf came and wheeled away the cart full of the long gold strips. Brok returned to the crucible in order to mind the melting of the new batch of gold.
“Eitri, that other dwarf that just took the gold strips from Brok, is going to brush the impurities off of the gold strips before taking them to be extruded,” Dirk said.
“Extruded?” Seamus asked.
“Yes, Master Bennigan, we extrude the gold strips into long gold tubes. Have you ever been to Italy?”
Seamus nodded his head in affirmation.
“We extrude gold strips into gold tubes the same way the Italians make their tubular pasta noodles. Only on a different scale…” Dirk explained.
“When Eitri finishes brushing the gold strips you saw, he’ll feed them into this machine,” Dirk pointed out a long, rectangular iron box that had a heavy, iron wheel atop one end of it, and a long wooden tray at the other end.
“He’ll feed the strips into that end,” Dirk said, pointing to where the wheel was, “the strips then pass through the machine while being formed into tubes, which are ejected into that tray there on the other side.”
Seamus noted that there were more machines than just the extruder in the shop. Among them were also erected temporary walls, constructed of a wooden frame, and an animal hide drawn taught in the middle of it.
“Once the tubes are extruded, they may need to be formed into some other shape, usually an ‘L’ shape if they have to be formed at all. Nine out of ten tubes, though, need to be straight. Once the tubes are in their proper dimensions, they’re brought over to those booths there for engraving.”
“Why do they need to be engraved?” Seamus asked.
“Master Lugosi demands it. The elves engrave a series of runes along the length of the tubes. Each tube is unique. When they are fitted together, the runes spell out a long sentence that runs from one tube to the next, all the way around the entire circuit,” Dirk explained.
“Sentence? You mean a spell?” Seamus asked.
Dirk said nothing.
“What does all this have to do with me? I don’t see any other leprechauns down here,” Seamus said.
“You will see,” Dirk replied, “We also work with copper down here, if we must. Plus, what you’ll be producing finds its way down here in some manner or another.”
Seamus searched Dirk’s mind for some clue as to what that meant, but his soul searching was met with an intense dissatisfaction from Dirk when he blurted out
“That’s a PRESSURE VESSEL!” Dirk barked and a handful of dwarves that were in the middle of constructing a large, gold vat.
“Those seam welds need to be staggered! Do it over!” Dirk ordered.
Dwarves… Seamus could hear Dirk thinking in the back of his mind.
Dirk refocused his attention to Seamus.
“You wanted to know what you’ll be working on? Follow me back up the stairs,” Dirk said as he walked toward the staircase in the center of the shop.
Dirk and Seamus ascended passed the two doors that must not be mentioned along the stairway. Dirk stopped at then opened the fourth or fifth door up from the shop. Seamus’s hair stood on end as he watched the door swing open. Before taking in the sight of row upon row of wooden barrels, Seamus recognized five familiar forms, the souls of other leprechauns.
“The fermentarium. Master Bennigan, you and your leprechaun cohort shall produce alcohol.”
“This,” Dirk pointed to the door on the right of the stairs, “is the door to my office.”
“The doorway to the left is access to the service elevator,” Dirk added.
Seamus looked at the “doorway” opposite Dirk’s office. The door to Dirk’s office was made of wood and banded with iron. Access to the service elevator was an empty stone arch way. Seamus poked his head in.
The elevator shaft was twenty feet across, the walls were lined with stone. Circumnavigating the wall inside the shaft was a stone ledge that wrapped all the way around. Seamus looked up the shaft and saw several similar ledges with access-ways constructed for each ledge. The ledges all appeared as concentric circles. The very center of which Seamus thought he could see stars. The sky. Seamus could see a small patch of stars at the top of the elevator shaft. He could probably blot them out if he closed one eye and put his thumb over the hole.
Seamus looked down the elevator shaft and saw even more concentric circles, down to the bottom floor which was alight with fire and clanging with the echoing sound of metalwork.
“We’re going underground?” Seamus asked as he resumed following.
“We are underground,” Dirk said, “My office, your old jail cell, well, most of that jail cell, is underground.”
“When I’m not in my office, I’ll likely be overlooking the work down in the shop. Ah, this door is for the fermentarium,” Dirk said.
The fermentarium’s door appeared no different from the door to Dirk’s office. It, too, had an access to the service shaft. The two kept walking.
“And this door is for the distillery,” Dirk added. The distillery also had access to the service shaft.
Fermentarium? Distillery? Seamus became intrigued. Are the vampires running a massive whiskey operation? Suddenly the undead didn’t seem quite so evil.
“No, Master Bennigan,” Dirk replied to Seamus’s thoughts, “Whiskey is not the primary end.”
Dirk and Seamus continued walking down the stairs.
“Why aren’t the fermentarium and the distillery on the same level?” Seamus asked.
“Space. Volume. Safety. Mostly space,” Dirk said.
Dirk and Seamus passed two more doors after the distillery, near which Dirk’s mind became suddenly obscured. Dirk wouldn’t say what they were for and Seamus decided not to ask.
Seamus figured that the vampires probably slept in those rooms during the d-
“Those are not our concern, Master Bennigan,” Dirk said quickly.
Seamus was unnerved at having his thoughts intruded upon.
“You should remember to obscure your own thoughts,” Dirk said. Mentis meum Obscuratim, Seamus heard Dirk say in his head, as if to privately remind him of the spell.
“This,” Dirk said as they reached the bottom of the spiral stairs, “is the primary ends of our work.”
Dirk opened the door that marked the termination of the stairway and hobbled through. Seamus followed.
What Seamus saw was not what he expected. He’d expected another cramped room like Dirk’s office or his old jail cell.
Instead he saw a wide and tall room lit with a multitude of torches, swarming with workers and strange machinery. Most of the bodies milling about were dwarves. At a glance he could have mistook them for decrepit leprechauns who had forgotten the meaning of hygiene. Seamus made no mistake, however, because the dwarves had a clearly distinct soul. Most of the souls at this level were in fact dwarves, but Seamus had detected a minority of elves, as well.
“Aye, Master Bennigan, there are indeed elves down here,” Dirk said.
“The dwarves perform the more labor intensive functions, we elves handle the finer side of the craft. While the dwarves do most of the work in the general shaping of the metal down here, we elves check the quality of the work against specific dimensions, then we verify that the proper portions of the job is done in the order that is prescribed by the overall plan,” Dirk said.
Seamus looked behind him to see the door that they had come through. He saw that the spiral staircase was in the middle of this vast room. Though, while up the spire the stairs had wrapped around the entire circumference of the elevator shaft, down in this level the termination of the stairs only wrapped around half of the shaft’s circumference, from floor to ceiling.
Seamus stood in the center of the elevator shaft next to the door and looked up again. He noticed four or five ropes dangling from a pulley system that must have spanned the entire height of the tower. Seamus recognized the concentric circles in the tower as servicing ledges, but he couldn’t see the sky. The top of the tower was too distant.
“There,” Dirk said as he pointed with one of his crutches, “is where we begin the process of our metal working.”
Seamus looked to where Dirk had pointed. A particularly burly and soot covered dwarf had tipped a cauldron of gold coins into a crucible. The dwarf was wearing black, reflective spectacles to protect his eyes from the intense heat and light from the fire beneath the crucible. The solid gold coins splashed and sizzled in an already molten pool of gold.
“You see, Brok is melting down the gold in the crucible,” Dirk said, “so we can turn it into something more useful than coins and jewelry.”
“Like what?” Seamus asked.
“Sometimes we need sheets, sometimes we need long, thin strips of gold,” Dirk said.
After the dwarf, Brok, had emptied the coins into the crucible, he set the empty cauldron aside and walked a few paces around the crucible to where an array of already formed gold strips lay in their pouring mold. Brok quickly snapped the tarnished gold strips free of the mold and stacked them into a cart that had been waiting to receive them. Another dwarf came and wheeled away the cart full of the long gold strips. Brok returned to the crucible in order to mind the melting of the new batch of gold.
“Eitri, that other dwarf that just took the gold strips from Brok, is going to brush the impurities off of the gold strips before taking them to be extruded,” Dirk said.
“Extruded?” Seamus asked.
“Yes, Master Bennigan, we extrude the gold strips into long gold tubes. Have you ever been to Italy?”
Seamus nodded his head in affirmation.
“We extrude gold strips into gold tubes the same way the Italians make their tubular pasta noodles. Only on a different scale…” Dirk explained.
“When Eitri finishes brushing the gold strips you saw, he’ll feed them into this machine,” Dirk pointed out a long, rectangular iron box that had a heavy, iron wheel atop one end of it, and a long wooden tray at the other end.
“He’ll feed the strips into that end,” Dirk said, pointing to where the wheel was, “the strips then pass through the machine while being formed into tubes, which are ejected into that tray there on the other side.”
Seamus noted that there were more machines than just the extruder in the shop. Among them were also erected temporary walls, constructed of a wooden frame, and an animal hide drawn taught in the middle of it.
“Once the tubes are extruded, they may need to be formed into some other shape, usually an ‘L’ shape if they have to be formed at all. Nine out of ten tubes, though, need to be straight. Once the tubes are in their proper dimensions, they’re brought over to those booths there for engraving.”
“Why do they need to be engraved?” Seamus asked.
“Master Lugosi demands it. The elves engrave a series of runes along the length of the tubes. Each tube is unique. When they are fitted together, the runes spell out a long sentence that runs from one tube to the next, all the way around the entire circuit,” Dirk explained.
“Sentence? You mean a spell?” Seamus asked.
Dirk said nothing.
“What does all this have to do with me? I don’t see any other leprechauns down here,” Seamus said.
“You will see,” Dirk replied, “We also work with copper down here, if we must. Plus, what you’ll be producing finds its way down here in some manner or another.”
Seamus searched Dirk’s mind for some clue as to what that meant, but his soul searching was met with an intense dissatisfaction from Dirk when he blurted out
“That’s a PRESSURE VESSEL!” Dirk barked and a handful of dwarves that were in the middle of constructing a large, gold vat.
“Those seam welds need to be staggered! Do it over!” Dirk ordered.
Dwarves… Seamus could hear Dirk thinking in the back of his mind.
Dirk refocused his attention to Seamus.
“You wanted to know what you’ll be working on? Follow me back up the stairs,” Dirk said as he walked toward the staircase in the center of the shop.
Dirk and Seamus ascended passed the two doors that must not be mentioned along the stairway. Dirk stopped at then opened the fourth or fifth door up from the shop. Seamus’s hair stood on end as he watched the door swing open. Before taking in the sight of row upon row of wooden barrels, Seamus recognized five familiar forms, the souls of other leprechauns.
“The fermentarium. Master Bennigan, you and your leprechaun cohort shall produce alcohol.”
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