I invoked my dungeon teleport skill and arrived before the Ether sealed doors that separated the mercantile quarter from the upper floors of the mountain. I placed my palm against the large red gem set within the seam of the closed doors and supplied it with pure fire attributed Ether, this caused the gem to vanish into a puff of smoke as the Ether traveled out through the carving in the doors. Once the Ether reached the door frame it allowed the doors to begin swing towards me with a loud rumbling sound. I stepped through and waved my hand over a nearby pedestal, causing the Ether to begin draining from and closing the doors. I picked up the small red gem the pedestal generated as the large gem in the door reappeared.

I had created these doors for security so only dwarves could pass through and also used them as an Ether gem creation method by funneling any unused Ether into the nearby set of pedestals to form pure Fire Ether gems. These gems could be implanted into weapons or tools to allow other races to use high-level fire Ether spells by increasing the purity of the fire Ether they pass through it, a spell medium as it were. There were fairly rare outside of the mountain, only forming in areas with a high concentration of natural fire Ether. But us dwarves could create them from scratch and even retrieve natural ones from the lava lake of the volcano whenever they form there.

I turned away from the now-closed doors and looked out over the massive cavern before me. The ceiling was held up with multiple massive carved pillars and was just about 500 meters above the floor, this allowed us to have another 500 meters of rock in between the ceiling here and the floor above to work with if my residents wanted work basements in their homes on the level above us. We had carved Ether light spells with pure fire gems embedded in them into the ceiling to brighten the entire town built within the cavern, we even allowed the light levels to adjust according to the time of day and eventually turn off almost entirely at night to recharge Ether.

The town before me had multiple inns that reached nearly halfway up the cavern's height that were built of carved marble, like many other buildings here, and rested on skeletons made of orichalcum and iron alloy to prevent them from collapsing under their own weight or falling in the event of an earthquake. Not too far from the door I had exited sat two guard posts on either side that were placed even with the cavern wall and were staffed with a full knight battalion and 3 mage supporters each. Just down each wall from the posts sat the four guild headquarters, split into the Alchemist's and Commerce guilds to my left and the Smith's and Adventure's guilds to my right.

I started to make my way towards the right as I was interested in seeing how relations were going with human Smiths and Adventurers who were visiting. Before I even reached the entrance I could hear a heated debate coming from the Smith's guildhall, I entered the building without much fuss given that I had told my fellows that they need not bow their heads to anyone in their place of work. I saw a lanky human dressed in fine clothes arguing with the sizable dwarf behind the counter, it looks like Cerdwin got pulled into a mess of some sort. I walked closer to gain some insight over the cause of this debate before making any moves.

"As I have told you, your nobility will gain you nothing here. You will be provided an appointment with the appropriately skilled smith once they are available to work on your commission. No one, not even your King, may force this guild to change the order of work and they will continue to be processed in the order in which they were submitted and funded."

"Filthy commoner! I am Marquis Vortimer Gillam, I demand that you present someone of noble blood to negotiate with as you clearly lack understanding of anything above yourself!"

I signaled to Cerdwin and approached the man from behind, before slightly shouldering the man to the side as I leaned forward onto the counter. He had a terrible sense of balance for a man wearing such a fine sword and easily fell straight onto his face from my nudge, making several dwarves and humans present snicker in amusement.

"Ah, it appears that someone was already here. My apologies sir, might I help you up?"

I said as I glared down at the flustered man and offered him my hand.

"Y-you dare?! You deliberately knocked me down and dare to play it off! I shall see you arrested and beheaded before myself for your violent actions! No one disrespects the Gillam family!!"

I retracted my hand to the handle of my sword as the man's face began to glow red.

"I warn you sir, this is not your home kingdom and even nobility are not above the law here. You shall cease this fuss and your crass threats or you shall be dealt with accordingly."

The dwarves nearby grew restless, tipping off the other humans in the crowd. A few had already noticed the thin yet elegant circlet adorning my head, I had not worn my full crown for this visit, and the sword at my belt and began whispering to their companions. None of the other human nobles in the crowd seemed to have much apathy for the man before me as they looked on with mild interest at how this would be handled.

"A mere commoner dares to threaten me and hide behind laws?! Laws are written by the nobility to be enforced upon the common folk, without our guidance and protection you would be sheep before the wolves of the world!"

The man drew his sword, the wrong choice. I shook my head and glared the man down before invoking the skill with a low yet powerful volume.

"Judgement on High."

"Wha...?!"

The man's sword fell from his hand as chains of silvery Ether forcefully pulled his hands behind his back and bound them together from the wrists to the elbows.

"Cerdwin, call the guards to retrieve this criminal, he shall be charged with disruption of guild activities, threats against the people and lèse-majesté against the crown."

I struck the man in the back of the leg and stood on his calf to prevent him from coming off his knees.

"I believe your King would have warned you against these activities but, unlike your fellows in this room, you were too ignorant to pay attention to who you were interacting with and how you interacted with them."

I raised my voice so the rest would hear as I spoke.

"None in my kingdom shall bow before anyone when it comes to their craft. Their pride in their work is more worthwhile than your pride in your bloodline."

I turned at the noise of clanking armor and found that the guards had arrived. They saluted me before binding the man in mithril shackles and dragging him roughly out the doors and down the stairs, his face a sickly white as he bounced down the marble steps.