Fara climbed the stairs to the third floor of the watchtower. According to the dwarf named Dunc, Jran had his workshop, his storage room, and his own bedroom on the third floor. His door was the third down the hall, the one layered in a thick layer of clocksteel. Apparently, clocksteel was a luxury, but they made do with an alloy between normal steel and another, rarer, metal that was said to be able to resist bullets, even in thin sheets. The fact that the door was made of clocksteel meant that the man beyond it was rich according to dwarven society.

Taking a breath, she knocked on the door. The room beyond the door was silent for a few moments before it was opened by an elderly dwarven man. In contrast to the Keeper, however, he was not lacking in muscle. His beard was short, but cut thick enough to make up for it. He had a pair of annoyed eyes, adorned with red irises, “Surface dweller,” he said, “Whaddaya want?”

Fara was, in truth, quite intimidated. She had not expected such an annoyed response, so could only lower her head, “I… I wanted to learn about the technology that the dwarves have developed. Is that… is that possible?”

The dwarf grunted, gesturing into his workshop and retreating into it. Fara hesitated for a moment before venturing into the room. The first thing that caught Fara’s eyes as she entered the room was the large machine in the corner of the room. It was made mostly of glass, with a ring slowly rising and falling along its height while spraying a mist of mana around a central pillar as tall as she was. Along the pillar, little clumps of mana were crystalizing, forming something close to quartz. “What do you think that is?” the dwarf asked, stepping to stand beside her.

She whipped her head to the side, then back to the machine, “Maybe… a device that creates structures out of the crystalized mana? Like mechanical components of your advanced firearms?” she guessed.

The dwarf looked into her eyes for a long while before smiling, “Close, just a bit off on the details. That, young miss, is a light crystal condenser. It’s a vital piece of technology for our weapons.” He walked towards a workbench, one that was at Fara’s knees, and pushed the vaguely gun-shaped device on it to the side, hopping atop it to sit, “Let me ask you something. Why do you think you deserve to be taught by me? I have been one of the greatest engineers, mechanics, and manatech scientists in the dwarven world for hundreds of years. I am pushing two hundred and fifty. In that time, I never took on an apprentice. Not from the greatest minds of the capital of the dwarven world. Not from the deepest clans of engineers. And not from anyone who simply asked me nicely. So, again, why should I take you on as an apprentice?”

Fara stood still for a few moments, thinking. She had not achieved much in her time traveling with Mori. Sure, she had designed the first warcasket prototype and had a major hand in its development. Sure, she had rebuilt a skiff from a barely-working mess into a moving defensive fortification on the sand. Sure, she had built a set of armor that could contend with anything anyone of Granulous could throw at it in the span of an afternoon. But those were hardly her magnum opi. In realizing that, she decided to take a different approach, “Why did you not take an apprentice, then?” she asked.

Jran raised an eyebrow, giving her a questioning look before nodding, “I didn’t take an apprentice because none of them understood my philosophy,” he replied, “None thought about the world in a way that I could teach them through.”

“Then you didn’t see eye to eye with them? Isn’t that a bit… presumptuous? Or at least close minded? Why do they have to agree with how you think to learn from you? And why do you not want to learn from them?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.

Jran gave her a glare, “You walk into my workshop, ask me to be your teacher, and when I ask why I should take you on as an apprentice, you lecture me on my methods?” he asked. He suddenly broke out into a broad smile, “That’s exactly what I wanted to see, young miss,” he laughed to Fara’s confusion.

She stood still for a moment before sighing, “I kind of banked on you being much more agreeable, but what do you mean by that?” she asked, “I did just walk in here, demand something, and then tell you off for your beliefs, so…”

“And that’s what a dwarf is supposed to be,” Jran answered, “But that is what is lacking in our society today. Let me tell you a tale. Go on, sit,” he said, gesturing to the stone workbench. Fara took a seat and found it quite comfortable, “You see, young miss, I wasn’t lying when I told you my age. I was a first generation undergrounder. My parents lived beneath the sun, in the rocky mountain passes, and they taught me the old ways. They taught me how to be brash, to be rude, to be proud, and to be stubborn. That, to them and I, is what a dwarf is supposed to be. A being that uses its flaws to become strong. A being who refuses to be limited by those flaws. A being who turns their cage into a fortress.

“That’s why I didn’t take an apprentice. The gods struck us down for the arrogance, the pride, the brashness, and the rudeness of our kin. Many of us saw the things that lead that stupid bastard to challenge the gods as the weaknesses that they were, and sought to erradicate them. Humility. Calm demeanors. Kindness. All of it was meant to erase what we once were, to ensure that the greatest sin of our people never happened again. But, in doing so, they let go of one of our strengths. We turned our flaws into sources of strength and they discarded them. But I kept the course. And you, young miss, are a greater dwarf than many I’ve met across my lifetime. I’ll teach you, especially since the gods were so adamant about it, and you’ll know the strength of the dwarves,” he declared, standing tall and walking over to the light crystal condenser.

Fara stood and walked after him, “I’m not that stubborn, am I?” she asked.

Jran chuckled, shaking his head, “No, but you used stubbornness to get your way. That’s a dwarven skill. Now then, what do you want to make?” he asked. Fara tilted her head for a moment, but Jran held up his hand, “The first step of any great mechanic or what have you is your goal. A mechanic with a goal is a deadly force of nature. So, what do you want to do?” Fara pulled her notebook from her pouch, flipped it to the latest warcasket prototype, and handed it to Jran. He looked it over for a long while, squinting his eyes at it, before pursing his lips, “What’s with the candle at the bottom?” he asked.

Fara looked at the rune he was talking about and saw the flame rune, “Oh, that’s for the undead in the armor. Mori and I were designing an undead that fused with the armor and could regenerate it. To do that, the last iteration of the spell fed on flames to repair. It was kind of jury rigged, but it worked well.”

Jran worked his jaw for a minute, obviously thinking about something, before he nodded, “Right, lich. Got it. No risk of homicidal mechs walking around. Hrm… I can already see a few glaring weaknesses from here… do you have any built?” he asked.

“We do,” she replied, “They’re in the skiff, though, so it will take a bit to get them down.”

Jran nodded, shrugging, “Well, can’t be helped, then. The first thing to teach you, though, is mana beam guns. They are the most important things to teach, since every marvel of dwarven technology goes into making them. Such as, for example, the light crystals. What does this light crystal look like to you?” he asked, gesturing to the machine once more.

Fara stared at the mechanism and tilted her head, “They’re collections of mana attuned to a light-based element, but they aren’t mana gems. They don’t reproduce their mana types, after all. They are also…” a vision, ones that she could usually only invoke at will, struck her. It was the scene of a blast of some unknowable mana striking the crystal. The crystal immediately burst, letting out hundreds of times more energy than the other mana struck it with, burning everything around it. Her vision ended and she stepped back, “They’re also explosive…”

Jran whistled, “Neat trick, there. Your eyes glazed over and… well, you understood it. I won’t ask. Anyway, the reason why it’s reactive is due to the other mana type put into the crystals. It’s what gives the guns their kick.” He stepped to the side, picking up another disassembled gun. He gestured for her to come over and pointed at an open-topped chamber above the trigger, “This right here is where the crystal is slotted into. This rune here releases the effects of mana, something we can talk about later, that triggers the crystal. Mana is released and is channeled into the barrel. Right here,” he said, pointing to a rune beneath the place where the crystal was supposed to sit, “Is where the mana needed for the trigger rune is collected. Some of the mana is siphoned off from the main reaction.

“Next, the beam travels down the barrel, being channeled by the barrel. From here is where the innovation of mana tinting becomes relevant, which is when someone imbues a mana type into a glass or other transparent object, runs mana through it, and adds the effect to that mana without affecting the mana.” He showed her small plates of clear tinted glass that could be slotted into the gun, “Because, well, the beam itself is quite powerful. It can burn many things and people to a crisp. It is the versatility that mana tinting adds which makes us put so much effort into these. For example, I could add a ‘Fire’ mana lens, then a ‘Burst’ mana lens,” he explained, pointing to the two slots where the small plates could be inserted, “And I could make the beam explode when it collides with something solid. Or I could remove the ‘Burst’ mana lens and replace it with an ‘Air’ mana lens. It lets non-mages use some degree of magic and customization, which gives our guards a great deal of versatility and specialization.”

Fara nodded throughout the whole explanation, committing every detail to memory. With the trigger mana type, the light crystals, and the machine that produced the light crystals, she thought she could replicate the gun by memory, though without the mana tinted glass. “Alright… I can somewhat remember this,” she said.

Jran looked in her direction, then laughed and laughed, “Oh, we’re not done until you can build this by hand, without any premade components,” he said with a gleeful smile. Fara sighed, nodding. She was going to make the most of learning from a dwarf master engineer, even if it killed her.