She lay on her back, phone held above her face, scrolling slowly and thinking, the blankets warm and faintly weighted in a way that felt protective rather than restrictive. Every so often the mattress seemed to subtly adjust, like it knew exactly how she preferred to be supported. She’d stopped finding that strange sometime yesterday.
Make a list, Charles had said.
Right.
She opened her notes app and stared at the blank screen.
Clothes?
Her eyes drifted to the wardrobe across the room. Fully stocked. Not just stocked—curated. Everything in her exact sizes. Casual jeans and tees. Proper work clothes. Swimwear. Sleepwear. Even… her face warmed slightly at the thought of that daring little number she hadn’t had the courage to try on yet. And then there was the ball gown—midnight blue and silver, impossibly elegant, the sort of thing worn by people who arrived places in limousines and belonged there.
She snorted softly.
“When would I ever—”
The wardrobe, naturally, offered no answer.
Food?
Her kitchenette was already a wonderland of comfort: childhood favorites, fresh staples, snacks she hadn’t realized she missed until she saw them again. And the breakroom meals—five-star, globally sourced, endlessly varied. She’d eaten better in the last few days than she had in years.
Books?
She glanced at the small stack by her bedside—dog-eared, beloved, irreplaceable. Those stayed. Everything else? The station library existed. Thousands of volumes, every subject imaginable, some of them clearly not published anywhere mundane.
She sighed, smiling faintly.
“I’m spoiled,” she murmured to the ceiling.
Her phone buzzed softly—low battery warning.
That made her pause.
Phone.
Yeah. That was real. This phone had been with her through moves, temp jobs, bad apartments, worse roommates. It was scratched, temperamental, and needed charging three times a day just to survive. It was her lifeline to the outside world… but it was tired.
“Okay,” she said quietly, typing.
? New phone
She hesitated, then added another line.
Laptop?
There was a computer at the front desk, technically. Ancient beige plastic. A CRT monitor that hummed ominously. She hadn’t dared turn it on yet—she was genuinely afraid it might catch fire or summon something hostile.
A laptop might be nice. For writing. For keeping notes. For… whatever came next.
She added it to the list.
And then she stared at it.
Two items.
That was it.
She set the phone down on her chest and laughed softly, a little incredulous. For the first time in her life, she couldn’t think of a single urgent need. No scrambling. No mental tally of what she was missing or couldn’t afford.
Just… comfort.
The bed responded by hugging her a little tighter.
“Oh no you don’t,” she told it fondly. “I appreciate you, but biology is calling.”
The bed reluctantly loosened its hold.
She swung her legs over the side, padding into the bathroom to take care of necessities, then dressed simply—jeans, a soft tee, ears adjusted, tail clipped into place. Comfortable. Herself.
As she headed toward the door, she glanced once more at her phone, still open to the list.
- New phone
? Laptop
“…and maybe a charger that doesn’t suck,” she added, smirking.
She slipped the phone into her pocket and headed downstairs, stomach rumbling, fully expecting breakfast to be waiting—and half-expecting Charles to be standing there, newspaper in hand, ready to whisk her off to some extra-dimensional shopping district the moment she finished her tea.
After all.
This was OtherWorlds.
And Sundays, apparently, were for indulgence.
Breakfast, once again, was an event.
The breakroom was alive with motion and sound—plates clinking, tea being poured, low overlapping conversations that felt more like friendly static than noise. The buffet stretched along the counter, impossibly abundant, steam rising from covered dishes as Hosts gathered around the long table. At the far end, Charles occupied his recliner as if it were a throne he’d never officially claimed, teacup in hand, newspaper folded neatly at his side.
Miss LaDonna, notably, was nowhere to be seen.
Olivia entered with a cheerful, “Morning!” and barely had time to take two steps before Mistress Malicious intercepted her, flame-red curls practically glowing.
“Oh honey,” she purred loudly enough for half the room to hear, “I heard you gave the maintenance crew a free show yesterday. Good on you!”
The reaction was immediate and explosive.
Laughter rippled around the table—deep, cackling, wheezing laughter. Olivia herself burst out laughing, cheeks warming only slightly this time as she lifted her hands in mock surrender.
“Careful,” she shot back, eyes sparkling, “or I might do the same to you during your next live broadcast.”
That did it.
The Hosts howled, some pounding the table, others clutching at nonexistent pearls. Mistress Malicious placed a dramatic hand over her chest, feigning shock. Even Charles failed to maintain his usual composure, chuckling quietly into his teacup as he shook his head.
“Threats before breakfast,” he murmured. “Bold strategy.”
Satisfied—and feeling oddly triumphant—Olivia slid into the seat beside Charles and loaded her plate. Eggs that tasted like sunshine. Bread still warm from the oven. Fruit so ripe it practically melted. She took her first bite and actually sighed.
“Oh wow.”
Charles watched her with open amusement. “It’s good to see you eating so well, Olivia. You look much better being properly fed than subsisting on ramen noodles and soggy cornflakes.”
She nodded emphatically between bites. “You’re not wrong. At this rate though, I’m going to need to start exercising just to keep up.”
Without missing a beat, Charles said, “You do know we have a gym on the third floor, across from the towel closet, right?”
She froze mid-chew. “…We do?”
Arachna leaned in smoothly from across the table. “Oh yes. Several of us use it weekly. Quite well outfitted, actually.”
Deadly, seated beside her, tapped her arm gently to get her attention. He slid a sticky note across the table.
Olivia looked down.
It was a sketch—crude but expressive—of Deadly himself, drawn with exaggeratedly round, bulky bones, labeled neatly underneath with the word Before.
She blinked. Looked up at Deadly.
Deadly struck a proud, exaggerated pose.
She lost it.
Laughter spilled out of her, bright and unrestrained. “Okay,” she managed, wiping her eyes, “if the gym gave Deadly that kind of result, I’m absolutely working out there.”
The table erupted again—approval, applause, Mistress Malicious fanning herself dramatically. Deadly bowed deeply, clearly pleased.
Charles smiled into his tea, watching Olivia laugh with a room full of monsters, spirits, and impossible beings as if she’d always belonged there.
And for the first time, she realized she wasn’t just fitting in.
She was home.
After breakfast, Charles folded his newspaper with ceremonial precision and rose from his recliner, offering Olivia his arm as they left the breakroom together. The station was quieter now—Sunday quiet, the kind that felt intentional rather than empty.
They descended the stairs to the lobby at an unhurried pace. The front desk sat patiently where Olivia had left it on Friday night, papers neatly aligned as if nothing ever dared shift without permission.
As they walked, Olivia glanced around, then frowned slightly.
“Hey… where’s Miss LaDonna?”
Charles paused just long enough for the question to matter, then continued walking, his cane tapping softly against the floor.
“Sundays are… special for her,” he said, choosing the word carefully. “She has her own rhythms, her own obligations. She’ll be back by dinner, as always.”
That answer felt complete in the way OtherWorlds answers often did—clearly not the whole truth, but enough of one.
“Oh,” Olivia said, accepting it without pushing. She trusted that whatever Miss LaDonna was doing, it was exactly where she needed to be.
They reached the lobby proper, sunlight filtering in through the dusty windows, catching motes in the air. Charles turned to face her fully now, expression brightening in a way that suggested mischief just beneath the surface.
“Until then,” he said, clapping his hands together once, “we have some shopping to do.”
He arched a brow. “Did you prepare your shopping list, Miss Harrison? Or shall we improvise?”
Olivia nodded and reached into the pocket of her jeans, unfolding a neatly creased scrap of paper.
“I did,” she said, a little sheepish. “It’s… not very long.”
Charles accepted it with exaggerated seriousness, adjusting his glasses as he read aloud.
“One: new phone.
Two: charger that actually works.
Three: laptop.”
He looked up at her slowly, then back down at the list, then back up again.
“…That’s it?”
She shrugged. “That’s it.”
He stopped walking.
“Olivia,” Charles said gently, “are you sure this is all you want? If you need an advance, we can arrange that. Or a stipend adjustment. Or—”
She shook her head, smiling but firm. “No. Really. You’ve already given me more than I ever expected. A place to live, good food, a job I actually love. I don’t need anything else.”
She hesitated, then added, half-joking but half-serious, “Unless you’re planning to fire me any time soon.”
Charles looked genuinely scandalized.
“Fire you?” He pressed a hand to his chest. “My dear girl, you’ve done absolutely nothing to get fired. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
She visibly relaxed.
“Good,” she said. “Because I was starting to think this place might be too good to be temporary.”
Charles smiled at that—softly, but with something ancient and approving behind it.
“Now then,” he said briskly, tucking the list away into a pocket that absolutely did not look large enough to hold it, “a proper phone with a charger that won’t betray you, and a top-notch laptop. I know exactly the place for both.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Let me guess. Some kind of alien mall?”
He laughed, delighted, and offered her his arm.
“Alien mall? Hardly.” His eyes glittered as she took it. “It’s in Svartálfheim—ancestral home of the Dwarves. Finest craftspeople in any reality. Their electronics are legendary.”
Olivia’s grin widened as she obediently closed her eyes.
“Of course it is,” she said. “Why wouldn’t it be.”
Charles planted his cane firmly on the linoleum.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
“Step forward.”
The world lurched violently sideways—an instant of biting, impossible cold, like plunging through winter itself—and then reality folded, stretched, and gave way.
They were off shopping.
“…You can open your eyes now,” Charles murmured.
Olivia did.
The first thing she noticed was the cold—sharp, clean, and bracing—then the faint crunch beneath her feet. She looked down and saw a perfect circle of frost radiating out from where they stood, crystalline veins already creeping back toward nothingness as the air reclaimed itself.
“One of these days,” she said, blinking and rubbing her arms, “you have to tell me how you do that. And why it’s always so bloody cold.”
Charles smiled but didn’t answer.
Instead, he was looking past her.
She followed his gaze.
“Oh,” she breathed.
They were standing near the peak of a mountain, the land falling away on every side into vast, jagged distance. The sky above was a hard, brilliant blue, thin and sharp in a way she had only ever seen in photographs—nothing like the wide, forgiving skies of Perth, or even the softer gray dome of New Jersey.
And set directly into the mountain’s sheer stone face before them were doors.
Not doors in any human sense.
Two colossal slabs of blackened iron, tall enough that she had to crane her neck just to see the tops. They were fused seamlessly into the rock, as though the mountain itself had grown around them. Their surfaces were carved in exquisite, impossibly precise relief—rows of dwarves at work in deep tunnels, hammers raised mid-strike, molten metal pouring like frozen fire. Other panels showed battle scenes: shield walls, axes mid-swing, banners snapping in some unseen wind.
Every line felt intentional. Permanent. Ancient.
Olivia swallowed.
“This is…” She trailed off, because there wasn’t really a word for it.
Charles nodded, satisfied. “Yes. That tends to be the reaction.”
He stepped forward, boots crunching softly on frost-dusted stone, and raised his cane.
Then he rapped it against the iron.
Once.
Twice.
Thrice.
The sound did not echo.
It boomed—a deep, resonant thunder that rolled through the mountain itself, vibrating through Olivia’s chest and down into her bones. She staggered slightly, instinctively grabbing Charles’s arm to steady herself.
For a long moment, nothing happened.
Then, from deep within the stone, there came a grinding sound—slow, deliberate, and unimaginably heavy.
The mountain was waking up.
The great iron doors groaned as they began to part, stone dust sifting down in lazy curtains.
A head emerged first—short, broad, and unmistakably furry—followed by a thick, round torso packed with muscle like a barrel wrapped in sinew. The figure squinted out into the mountain light, one eye then the other, bulbous nose twitching. His hair and beard were braided with metal rings and charms, the beard itself hanging nearly to his boots. Leather straps crossed his chest, iron plates layered beneath, and in one hand he casually held a hammer nearly as large as Olivia’s torso.
He stared at them.
And stared.
Then he leaned back inside the mountain and shouted, his voice booming with cheer and suspicion in equal measure.
“The Jester’s back! And he’s got some skinny thing with him—might be an elf!”
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
Charles burst out laughing.
“Dramir!” he called, stepping forward. “I knew you wouldn’t forget me!”
Before Olivia could even process what was happening, Charles bent nearly double and the dwarf lunged forward. They collided in a thunderous embrace, both of them laughing like old conspirators, pounding each other’s backs with enough force that Olivia was vaguely impressed neither of them shattered something vital.
“Still standing, are you?” Dramir barked.
“Spite alone keeps me upright,” Charles replied cheerfully.
They finally separated, still grinning, and Charles turned with a flourish toward Olivia.
“Dramir Ironbraid,” he said, gesturing with his cane. “Allow me to introduce Miss Olivia Harrison. Despite appearances, she is from the Mundane Realm—my latest employee. Born in Australia,” he added, lowering his voice conspiratorially, as if sharing a state secret.
The effect was immediate.
Dramir’s bushy brows shot up. His gaze snapped back to Olivia, sharp and appraising in a way that felt less judgmental and more… geological. Like he was reassessing a promising vein of ore.
“Australia, eh?” he said, stepping aside and motioning them in. “Well then, get yourselves inside before the wind steals the heat from your bones.”
The doors began to close behind them with another grinding rumble as they entered the mountain’s vast interior, the air inside warm and metallic, humming faintly with distant industry.
As they walked, Dramir glanced down at Olivia. “Ever been to Uluru?”
Olivia stopped short, surprise written plainly across her face.
“Yes,” she said, a little stunned. “Many summers growing up. I love that place—though it’s far too touristy now.”
Dramir nodded gravely, as if this confirmed something important.
“Good minerals there,” he said. “Good mining. Good forging. Old stone. But of course the Mundanes have to ruin it, as usual.” He paused, then added, glancing sideways at her, “No offense meant.”
Olivia smiled, finding her footing again in this impossible conversation.
“None taken,” she said. “They do that to most good things.”
Dramir grunted approvingly.
Charles shot her a sideways look, clearly pleased.
And somewhere deep within the mountain, hammers rang out in steady rhythm—metal on metal—welcoming them home.
The tunnels opened gradually as they walked—branching passages lit by steady amber light, walls veined with glowing minerals, the air alive with heat and rhythm. Dwarves worked everywhere: hammering blades into shape, pouring molten metal into molds, grinding gemstones until they sang under the wheel. The sound was thunderous but not chaotic, each strike part of a larger cadence.
As Charles passed, heads turned.
“Jester!”
“Back again, you slippery bastard!”
“Still owe me a drink, Winthrop!”
Charles answered each greeting with a bow, a wave of his cane, or a theatrical clutch at his heart, clearly known and liked here. Olivia noticed that none of the dwarves stared at her oddly—not her ears, not her tail, not even her height. A few nodded politely. One gave her a thumbs-up with a hand the size of a ham.
Dramir led them into a smaller side cavern, quieter, the walls polished smooth. It had been fitted out as an office in the dwarven sense of the word: a massive granite desk carved from a single slab, shelves inset directly into the stone holding ledgers bound in leather and metal, a rack of weapons on one wall that Olivia suspected were not decorative.
“Sit,” Dramir said, gesturing to two chairs that looked like they could survive a siege. He settled himself behind the desk, folding thick arms atop it.
“So, Jester,” he went on, eyeing Charles with a crooked grin, “what brings you and your well-traveled employee to our humble smithy? Don’t tell me Matilda finally got sick of your gallivanting and seized the engine.”
Charles laughed softly.
“No, no. Matilda is doing quite fine, thank you. Beautiful piece of your best work, that one—which is precisely why, when this particular pressing need arose, I knew exactly where to come.” He turned slightly toward Olivia. “Miss Olivia here is in need of a cellular phone. With a—how did she put it?—‘quote charger that works, unquote.’”
Dramir steepled his fingers beneath his beard, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. Then he looked directly at Olivia.
“Is this your first cellphone, young lady?”
Olivia swallowed. “N-no sir. But my old one has… seen better days.” She fished it out of her pocket and handed it across the desk.
Dramir took it delicately between two fingers, squinting at it. He turned it over once. Then twice.
Then he recoiled as if she’d handed him a dead rat.
“Bah!” he barked. “Mundane trash! More plastic and glue in this thing than good, strong metal and stone. Shoddy workmanship all around. Why, I bet it can’t even crack oak with a direct hit.”
He glared at the phone accusingly.
“They used to make good phones, once. Proper ones. Let’s see… Nokia 3310, I think it was called.” He nodded to himself. “Watched a satyr take out a wyvern with one of those from thirty paces. Left a dent in the beast’s skull—and the phone still worked afterwards!”
Olivia blinked. Charles pressed his lips together, valiantly suppressing laughter.
“But!” Dramir slammed a fist lightly on the desk. “Enough of my blathering. We’ll get you a proper phone—one worthy of an employee of the Jester.”
He drew in a breath that seemed far too large for his body and bellowed down the tunnel:
“TIGVI! Get in here and bring the cellphone catalogue! The good one!”
Somewhere deep in the mountain, a voice yelled back, “Which good one?!”
“The one that doesn’t insult my ancestors!” Dramir roared.
Charles leaned toward Olivia, eyes sparkling.
“I told you,” he murmured, “I knew the right place.”
Moments later, the sound of quick footsteps echoed in the tunnel outside the office.
A young dwarf appeared in the doorway—barely old enough to have his beard properly committed to its braids. His intricate plaits only reached a bit past his waist, and several of the rings woven through them were clearly “new,” still too bright, not yet dulled by decades of wear. He carried a thick binder in both hands as if it were sacred scripture.
The cover was made of deep slate, etched with clean silver runes that shimmered faintly when Olivia blinked too hard.
Without a word, he stepped forward and placed it gently on Dramir’s granite desk.
Dramir didn’t even look up.
He simply lifted the back of his hand and gave the young dwarf a light cuff—more of a dismissive flick than a strike.
It was, unfortunately, applied with the casual force of someone built like a stone pillar.
The young dwarf went head-over-heels with a little whoop, landed neatly at Olivia’s feet, and looked up at her with a bright, cheerful grin as if this were a completely normal part of office procedure.
“Catalog delivered!” he announced, as though proud.
Olivia stared, half horrified, half impressed.
“…Are you—”
“I’m fine!” the dwarf chirped, hopping up in one smooth motion and dusting off his hands. He gave Olivia a quick, friendly nod, then shuffled out of the room like nothing had happened.
Dramir snorted, finally glancing toward the doorway.
“Boy’s a good worker,” he muttered, already thumbing open the slate binder, “but too clever by half. Give him a few more centuries and he might be foreman.”
Charles leaned in toward Olivia, murmuring with a smile, “If I ever cuffed anyone like that, LaDonna would have me nailed to the wall.”
Olivia whispered back, “Is that… normal?”
Charles’s eyes twinkled. “For dwarves? Uncomfortably so.”
Dramir had the catalog open now.
The pages weren’t paper. They were sheets of impossibly thin hammered metal—silvery and flexible, turning with a soft, musical shhhk as he flipped them. Each page was hand-painted with lifelike images of devices: hundreds of makes and models, rendered so realistically Olivia swore she could see light reflecting off their surfaces.
Dramir flipped with purpose, then stopped with a satisfied grunt.
He turned the binder around so Charles and Olivia could see.
“Now,” he said, settling his thick forearms on the desk, “if it were me, I’d stick with lungs and hands, shouting from mountain to mountain. Worked fine in the old days. But I know how it is with you younger Realms nowadays.” He made a face. “You want instant communication everywhere at once.”
He tapped the image of a phone with one blunt fingertip.
“Well. We can do that.”
The device pictured looked almost like a mundane flagship phone—sleek, rectangular, thin—but the “glass” wasn’t glass. It was some kind of bluish crystal, faintly luminous at the edges, with a subtle internal pattern like frost trapped in stone.
“This model,” Dramir said, voice turning proud, “is good for seventeen different communication bands across the Realms. Instant translation built in for three hundred and eighty-three languages. Holographic screen. Battery life of eight hundred thousand hours.”
Olivia’s jaw fell open.
Dramir continued, warming to his subject.
“Rated to withstand reentry from space caseless. Can double as a shiv if you find yourself in a brawl.” He glanced up at Olivia as if this were a practical daily feature. “Say the word and I’ll throw in the charger for free.”
Olivia made a small, strangled sound.
“You need to supply your own plutonium source, though,” Dramir added, as if mentioning a mild inconvenience like needing AA batteries. “First charge is on the house. Warranty’s only good for two and a half centuries of normal use.”
He leaned back slightly, satisfied, and looked between Olivia and Charles.
“Well?” he asked. “Worthy enough for the Jester’s employee?”
Olivia’s eyes were huge. She looked at Charles like she needed someone to confirm she was still alive in her own body.
“…Is—” she managed. “Is there… one that doesn’t require… plutonium?”
Charles’s mouth twitched, halfway to laughter.
Dramir blinked, genuinely surprised, then huffed.
“Aye,” he said, already flipping the metal pages again. “Mundane realm folk and their fear of useful materials. Fine. We’ll get you something sensible… by your standards.”
A short, intense round of bickering followed—Olivia protesting that she didn’t need something that could stab a god, Charles insisting the station had a compatible power feed, and Dramir scoffing that he knew the “boys” who installed it and they did passable work for non-dwarves.
Eventually, Olivia sighed.
“…Okay. That one.”
Dramir nodded, satisfied, and scratched a note into a stone slab on his desk with a stylus.
“Done. Now—” he looked up sharply, eyes gleaming, “you mentioned a laptop.”
Charles snorted. “She did. I maintain that paper is perfectly adequate.”
Olivia jumped in quickly. “It’s just for me. Writing. Browsing. Maybe watching cat videos.”
Dramir burst out laughing, a booming sound that echoed off the stone walls.
“Oh, I know exactly what kind of cat videos you mean!”
Olivia froze, then flushed bright red as realization dawned.
Charles cleared his throat loudly. “What she means is something mundane-adjacent. Contained. No reality breaches from mistyping a URL.”
Dramir wiped his eyes, still chuckling.
“Ahhh. Below-budget model, then.”
He reached under the desk and pulled out a closed laptop, its surface gleaming like polished steel shot through with subtle veins of darker metal. He handed it to Olivia.
She instinctively braced for weight that never came.
“Oh—!” she said, tightening her grip. “This is… lighter than my old phone.”
“Dwarven alloy frame,” Dramir said proudly. “Stone-thin, strength-thick. Drop it off a tower, pick it up later, it’ll still boot faster than whatever glue-and-plastic nonsense the Mundanes are selling.”
Charles leaned in, inspecting it.
“That’s not a ForgeNet core, is it?”
“Don’t insult me,” Dramir said. “Contained system. Mundane internet by default. No gods, no demons, no corporations in the firmware. It’ll stream, write, browse, and waste your time admirably.”
He flipped it open and tapped a faint rune on the palm rest. The screen lit instantly.
“Battery lasts a week under heavy use. Month if you forget it exists. Charges off mundane power, station feed, or ambient ley drift. Charger included.”
Olivia smiled, genuinely relieved.
“This is perfect. Thank you.”
“And no,” Dramir added, anticipating the question, “it won’t spy on you. If I wanted your secrets, I’d ask.”
He made another mark on the stone slab and slid it aside.
“Phone. Charger. Laptop. Sorted.”
He leaned back, studying Olivia with a craftsman’s eye.
“You didn’t overreach. Didn’t panic. Didn’t try to impress. That’ll serve you well.”
Charles’s smile didn’t change, but something in his posture did—subtle, attentive, all business beneath the velvet and humor.
“Good,” he said lightly. “Now let’s get down to brass tacks. How much is this going to cost her?”
Dramir’s expression soured instantly, like he’d just bitten into something spoiled.
“You would ask that,” he grumbled. “You always do.” He leaned back in his chair and folded his thick arms. “We don’t trade in Mundane currency here, and you know that perfectly well, Jester. Gold spends poorly across the Realms, silver worse, and paper?” He snorted. “Might as well wipe with it.”
He glanced at Olivia, appraising her again, this time not as a curiosity or a guest, but as a ledger problem.
“And before you say anything—no,” he went on. “She’s not built for labor exchange. Fine hands, good spine, decent instincts, but she’s not a smith, not a runner, not a delver. Wouldn’t last a week in the tunnels without snapping something important.” He waved a hand. “No offense, lass.”
“None taken,” Olivia said quickly, though her stomach had begun to knot.
Dramir turned back to the stone slab on his desk, muttering as he scratched figures into it with the stylus. The marks glowed faintly, rearranging themselves as he worked. Olivia watched them shift, numbers folding into symbols she didn’t recognize, symbols collapsing back into numbers again.
She swallowed.
Her mind raced despite herself. I should’ve asked about the cost first. The number on that bank receipt replayed itself in her head. It had seemed enormous yesterday. Now it felt… fragile. Like it might evaporate the moment someone important frowned at it.
Is it too late to ask for an advance? she wondered. Or a payment plan? Or to just… give the laptop back and keep my old phone?
Dramir let out a low, dissatisfied grunt.
“Well,” he said at last, setting the stylus down. He looked up at her, eyes sharp but not unkind. “I’ve worked out a deal for you, young lady. Special terms. Because I like you. And because I owe your boss far too many favors to count, in this lifetime and at least one before it.”
Charles gave an exaggerated cough and stared intently at the ceiling.
Dramir ignored him.
“The total,” he continued, “comes to one thousand seven hundred and eighty-five platinum coins.”
Olivia’s breath caught.
Platinum.
Before she could even begin to panic properly, Dramir raised a finger.
“Or,” he added, “if you prefer the Mundane equivalent—one hundred and thirty-seven Chicago deep dish meat lover pizzas.”
She blinked.
“…Pizzas,” she repeated weakly.
“Aye,” Dramir said firmly. “And not that tourist nonsense you lot call ‘Chicago style.’ The real thing. Thick crust, proper cheese, grease you can feel in your soul.”
The silence stretched.
Olivia looked at Charles. Charles looked back at her, eyes twinkling, mouth carefully neutral.
“I—” she started, then stopped. Her brain scrambled, recalculating reality around this new unit of measurement. “I… I don’t actually have a hundred and thirty-seven pizzas.”
Dramir barked a laugh. “Nobody ever does.”
Charles cleared his throat. “Out of curiosity, Dramir—what’s the exchange rate on half a pizza?”
Dramir fixed him with a glare. “Don’t start.”
Olivia hesitated, then ventured, “Is… is that payable all at once?”
Dramir studied her for a moment, then shrugged. “Normally? Yes. In this case?” He waved a hand. “Call it… deferred.”
She felt a rush of relief so strong it made her dizzy. “Deferred?”
“Aye,” he said. “No interest. No penalties. No deadlines breathing down your neck. One pizza at a time, if you like. Or the coin equivalent, should you ever stumble into a dragon’s hoard or marry well.”
Charles coughed again. “She’s already employed.”
“Pity,” Dramir said, deadpan. “She’s got good bones.”
Olivia laughed despite herself, tension bleeding away at last. “So… yes,” she said, managing a smile. “That… that suits me just fine.”
Dramir nodded once, satisfied, and reached for the stone slab again, making a final mark that glowed briefly before sinking into the surface and vanishing.
“Then it’s settled,” he said. “Welcome to dwarven credit. Don’t miss a payment for more than three centuries, don’t insult the forge, and don’t ever bring pineapple pizza in here. Those are the terms.”
Charles extended his cane, tapping it once against the floor. “Perfectly reasonable.”
Olivia exhaled, clutching the laptop a little tighter—not in fear now, but in something like gratitude.
She hadn’t just bought a phone and a computer.
She’d entered into a story.
A few minutes later, Tigvi returned, carrying Olivia’s old phone with the careful reverence one might reserve for a worn but loyal tool. He worked quickly, fingers dancing over runes and interfaces alike, murmuring under his breath as streams of light flowed from the battered screen into the crystalline one resting in Olivia’s hands.
“And… there,” Tigvi said at last, stepping back. “All your data, memories, and mundane nonsense safely transferred. No ghosts, no echoes, no residual ads. Clean.”
Olivia let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Thank you.”
Tigvi gave her a quick, earnest nod and vanished again down the corridor, leaving them alone with Dramir and the quiet hum of the mountain.
“Well then,” Dramir said, clapping his hands together once. “That’s that.”
They began the walk back toward the great iron doors, the forge tunnels glowing warmly around them. As they passed a branching passage, Dramir slowed and glanced sideways at Olivia.
“Tell me, lass,” he said, “would you like to give your old phone a proper dwarven burial?”
She blinked. “A… burial?”
“Aye,” he said gravely. “It served you well, didn’t it? Even when it faltered. Tools deserve respect. Ending matters.”
She looked down at the empty space in her hands where the old phone had been only moments ago, then nodded slowly. “Yes. I’d like that.”
Dramir smiled and turned down a narrow side tunnel. The air grew hotter with every step, heavy and metallic, pressing in on her skin. Sweat beaded at Olivia’s temples as they emerged onto a metal platform overlooking a vast pit that plunged deep into the mountain’s heart.
Far below, lava churned and bubbled, casting an angry orange glow that painted the stone walls in shifting light.
Dramir gestured to the railing.
“Say your words. Whatever prayers you need. Thank it for its service. Then let it go—back to the fire that birthed it.”
Olivia swallowed hard.
She glanced back at Charles. He stood a respectful distance away, hat in his hands, head bowed, his usual irreverent cheer completely absent. Solemn. Present.
That did it.
Her eyes stung as memories rose unbidden—the day she’d first bought the phone, proud and terrified in equal measure; the nights it had been her only connection to anyone who knew her; the calls home she’d paced through, the messages sent at three in the morning when sleep wouldn’t come.
It had failed her more than once. Froze, glitched, died at the worst possible times.
But it had been there.
She took the old phone from Dramir’s broad palm, cradled it gently, and whispered, “Thank you. For everything. You kept me company when I needed it most.”
Her voice broke, but she smiled through the tears.
Then she stepped forward and released it.
The phone tumbled end over end into the depths, striking the molten surface below. For the briefest instant, it floated—outlined in fire—before dissolving completely, consumed and returned to its simplest elements.
Olivia’s tears spilled freely now.
Dramir waited a respectful moment, then wrapped a stout arm around her waist, pulling her into a crushing, heartfelt hug.
“Now that,” he boomed, laughing, “was a proper send-off for a well-trusted device. We’ll make a proper dwarf out of you yet!”
Charles joined in the laughter, gentle and warm, and after a second, so did Olivia—lighter somehow, like she’d set something down she’d been carrying for far too long.
They made their way back to the great iron doors. Olivia thanked Dramir earnestly, promising she’d keep up with her payments.
“I know you will,” he said with a grin, backing into the mountain. “The stone told me so.”
The massive doors closed behind him with a resonant clang, leaving Olivia and Charles alone once more atop the mountain, frost already beginning to form faintly at their feet as she clutched her new laptop and the bag of accessories.
Charles glanced at her. “Ready to head home?”
She nodded, smiling through the last of her tears.
They arrived home in a snap of bitter cold.
For half a heartbeat the world didn’t exist properly—only the sensation of falling sideways through emptiness—then the lobby snapped back into place around them. Ice crystals spun lazily in the air before vanishing, a perfect circle of frost blooming across the floor beneath their feet and already beginning to melt.
Olivia staggered slightly, breath catching, then laughed softly as feeling returned to her fingers.
“Okay,” she said, once her heart stopped trying to escape her chest. She turned to Charles, eyes bright with curiosity rather than fear. “Now I need to know. I understand you won’t tell me how you do that Walking thing—but why is it always so freezing cold?”
Charles chuckled, brushing a few lingering flecks of frost from the sleeve of his coat as though they were no more troublesome than dust.
“Quite simple, my dear,” he said lightly. “When we Walk, we aren’t moving through space so much as… sidestepping reality. For a bare split second, we pass through the Void.”
Olivia frowned slightly. “The Void.”
“Yes,” Charles said cheerfully, as if discussing a mildly inconvenient alleyway. “No matter. The important part is that the Void has no temperature whatsoever. No heat, no cold—nothing at all. Any moisture that comes with you, the air in your lungs, the thin halo of atmosphere that clings to you when you step, freezes instantly in the absence of… well, everything.”
He tapped his cane lightly against the floor, the frost circle now fading to dampness.
“That,” he went on, “is why I ask you to close your eyes before we Walk. Wouldn’t do for you to arrive at your destination with eyes as lovely as yours frozen solid and shattered, now would it?”
Olivia stared at him for a moment.
“…That is deeply unsettling,” she said finally.
Charles grinned, entirely unapologetic.
“But effective,” he added. “And very efficient.”
He gestured with his cane toward the hallway leading to the breakroom. “Now then—shall we retire for dinner? I believe you’ve earned something warm, filling, and entirely free of existential peril.”
Still shaking her head, Olivia smiled and followed him across the lobby, the last traces of frost vanishing behind them as the station settled back into its quiet, humming normalcy.