It took several days, but eventually they began to acclimate to the rhythm of Drakvik. The city did not slow for anyone, and if you wished to exist within it, you learned to move with its pulse. Shifts changed with the ringing of deep iron bells. Carts rolled in steady cycles. Forges flared and dimmed like breathing lungs. Even underground, the place felt more alive than most surface towns.
The dwarves had attempted, at first, to house Bjorn and Anasuya in the communal rest area alongside the drakes, despite Tanisha and his own clear and repeated warnings. It had not gone well.
The lesser drakes were the domesticated sort, bred for hauling and stability rather than war. They were not prone to rampaging through streets or hunting dwarves in blind frenzy. Docile as horses but better in the multilevel towns the dwarves favored. But thirteen-hundred-pound predators did not need murderous intent to cause disaster. They only needed panic and as soon as Bjorn showed up they had fear in spades.
The moment Bjorn stepped within scent range, the stable shifted from uneasy to chaotic. Drakes shrieked, claws scraped against stone, and tails battered against reinforced partitions. Several broke their restraints outright and attempted to bolt toward the tunnelways. Had they reached the main roadway during peak traffic, the injuries would have started piling up.
Fortunately, the stable staff were professionals. They moved with practiced coordination, using calming runes, weighted nets, and trained handlers to settle the animals before real harm could be done. Surprisingly without a single one of them breathing any fire which spoke well to the training of the beasts. The drakes were contained, though the air remained tense for hours afterward.
Bjorn had found the reaction mildly amusing at first. The way the larger drakes flattened themselves against the stone and refused to meet his gaze was almost comical. Tanisha had folded her arms and given the workers a look that said she had predicted this outcome from the beginning.
They both knew he was not the sole cause of the panic. Tanisha's presence carried its own predatory nature thanks to the Queen of Reptiles communed ability, and Anasuya's Majestic Gaze ability only compounded the effect. Three overlapping dominance signatures in a confined stable had been too much.
After that, the dwarves wasted no time relocating them. Bjorn and Anasuya were assigned one of the outer animal paddocks instead, well separated from anything scaled, horned, or vaguely reptilian. The relocation was decisive and firm.
That was when the first practical problem emerged. The communal rest area and drake pens would have been free of charge. The paddock was not and they would have to rent on credit.
Renting it meant spending even more of their already nonexistent funds on basic sleeping arrangements. The irony was not lost on Tanisha. They were being charged extra for not causing a city-wide stampede. In fact they were the responsible ones that tried to prevent it.
Fortunately, Tanisha and Aurelius did not share that burden. Ironbrow had arranged their room and board through the brewery's employee dormitory. The structure sat above one of the secondary fermentation halls, built of stone and reinforced beams, designed to house workers rotating through long shifts.
Bjorn, of course, had not seen it. He was too large to fit comfortably through the interior corridors, and dwarven policy remained firm on one point. No animals inside the brewery.
Failsafe had been completely silent ever since his brief conversation a few days prior. Bjorn hadn't really noticed how much he had grown used to having other people in his head. Not having someone constantly talking, experimenting or in Isin's case, sulking, was odd.
That was only compounded by the paranoia he felt at the fact he couldn't trust the thing that called itself Failsafe. It was because he couldn't trust him that Bjorn tried to think about it as little as possible. He wasn't sure if Failsafe could actually read his mind or not.
When they talked internally he had to focus on projecting his thoughts. Failsafe had never shown the ability to actually read his mind when he didn't prompt it, but he wasn't sure if that was actually true or some kind of long deception to get him to believe it was the case.
"Bjorn, Anasuya food is here." A voice called out to them.
It was the dwarven hostess from the first day, she had become Bjorn and Anasuya's caretaker. She was far more enthusiastic around them then she was at the front entrance. Her name was Jadeleaf and so far the only dwarf Bjorn had seen with green eyes. Two others trailed her, one filled a feeding trough with meats and the other with root vegetables. They were not as composed around Bjorn and quickly left once the food was placed.
Jadeleaf was actually far more competent then she seemed at first. Turns out the entry booth is typically the boring job that is rotated out every few days. Since travellers out in the forge towns are pretty insular the booth normally runs itself. Same faces, same customers repeated every day. Now that she was finally dealing with something she enjoyed she was a lot less bleary eyed and far more excitable.
"Food!" Anasuya hissed as she flew over to her trough.
Bjorn walked over lazily, two of his heads yawned wide. He let one of his heads eat while he gave it no real attention. Splitting his heads into doing separate tasks had become second nature. Ever since he lost Isin and because Failsafe was no longer inhabiting one of his heads, his control over the appendages actually became more instinctual. It would seem offloading the control of parts of his body to others may have been a detriment if he let it continue.
"Where do you all get the meat?" Bjorn asked offhandedly.
"There is a husbandry area between the forge towns that provide the majority of the meat we consume," Jadeleaf said.
"Above ground?" Bjorn asked.
"Oh no, it is several levels all below ground," Jadeleaf corrected with a chuckle. "It is still out in the badlands. The ventilation is good but not enough to mask the smell of thousands of bison shitin'. Used to work out there but got tired of everything smellin' like manure. At least here they paid extra for better vent runes."
Bjorn went back to eating and Jadeleaf went on with her duties cleaning the paddock. Jadeleaf was someone that seemed to respect Bjorn as a person. Most dwarves still treated him like a potentially dangerous animal and curiosity. Hydra were far more known here than in Yuhia. Some dwarves have interacted with his wild lesser brethren.
Since hydra couldn't be tamed and they had a reputation for being highly aggressive and territorial most gave him a wide berth. The fact that his arrival almost caused a stampede of every great lizard in the facility might have also given him a reputation that he would not be able to beat anytime soon. Jadeleaf seemed to be the odd one out. Well, actually there was one other exception to that rule.
"Hey Bjorn, Anasuya, Jadeleaf." Flintbeard called out as he came into view. "Good to see ya all."
Flintbeard pushed open the paddock gate and strode in as though hydras were common barn cats. Jadeleaf rolled her eyes and continued sweeping. Without warning, Flintbeard snatched the broom from her hands and lifted it high over her head, just out of reach.
"Shouldn't ya be at work instead of botherin' me?" she said flatly.
She didn't even look up before driving her elbow sharply into his ribs. The broom dropped back into her grasp. In the same motion, she raised it like a spear and swung for his knees.
Flintbeard hopped back with a bark of laughter, narrowly avoiding the sweep.
"Ah, right, good to see some of ya more than others." Flintbeard said with a chuckle.
The man ran his hand through his salt and pepper beard when he saw she wasn't chasing him. He patted Bjorn's side with the other and thumbed over to the gate.
"Ready to take a look around?" Flintbeard said.
"You can't take out someone else's familiar." Jadeleaf argued.
"I got permission from Tanisha. It was already processed at the front desk." Flintbeard said with a smug grin.
Jadeleaf stopped sweeping long enough to poke him in the chest. "Stones below, you were insufferable at seventeen and still insufferable at one-hundred seventeen."
"You are just upset I get to actually venture around with him while you get to clean pens." Flintbeard said.
"That takes me right back to shouldn't-you-be-at-work." Jadeleaf said flatly.
"Night shift today," Flintbeard said. "Big collaboration project. Folk from Kepik coming in during the Horde." He paused for a moment then added casually. "Oh, and dad said you should come by. You're avoidin' him. You know how he gets."
Jadeleaf's expression darkened instantly. "Is he still trying to marry me off to that asshole Oakenfist?"
Flintbeard winced. "He prefers 'entrepreneurially ambitious.'"
"Then no," she snapped. "I'm perfectly fine out here. Well… I would be. If someone wasn't stealing the most interesting thing to show up in months."
"Successfully invitin', not stealing." Flintbeared corrected.
Bjorn finally finished his meal and gave the bickering duo his full attention.
"Where are we going?" Bjorn asked.
"You said you wanted to make some extra money, right? I got the approval for some work for you. We are going to the forge district. Several people are interested in the poisonous fire you talked about."
"Ah, it is very dangerous. Are they going to try to use it in forging?" Bjorn asked.
"Yes," Flintbeard said easily. "And trust me when I say they're used to unusual flames. Poisoned fire isn't unheard of. But a fire-breathing hydra?" He gestured broadly at Bjorn's immense form. "That's rare. If your flames are truly different, and they sound like they are, you could sell your fire as a proprietary product. Just say they take mana to maintain and snuff out the flames when they are done so they have to hire ya back."
"Oh great," Jadeleaf muttered. "Turnin' a majestic creature like him into an oligarch in training."
"They need money, and he wants to work," Flintbeard replied with a chuckle. "Might as well make him wealthy while we're at it."
Jadeleaf leaned on her broom and looked up at Bjorn.
"If you start buyin' voting shares in half the breweries down here," she said dryly, "I'm tellin' Da it was his idea."
"Are you coming Ana?" Bjorn hissed.
"No," she hissed back between bites of carrots, "To many people, scary. Auntie Jade is nice."
"Be good while I am away." Bjorn said.