A Dwarven Masterpiece

Besides Sambaku, the chef who came from the castle, and Karludon, an expert in magic tools, the dwarves from the city of Sobana had come too.

They were all a strange bunch—but no, they'd traveled all this way to help develop my domain. I'd be asking for trouble if I said something like that.

The dwarves had announced that they wanted to live in the cave where I'd once slain a cave spider.

Apparently, they planned to turn the huge hall where the spider had lived into a dwarf village.

Dwarves normally lived in caves like that, it seemed, and they felt quite at home there.

When I went to see how their construction was coming along, they were building in a way no human craftsman could have imagined.

They weren't just first-rate blacksmiths; they were also master carpenters, stonemasons, and construction workers.

Their lives also seemed to be quite long, so perhaps they had all that time to devote to honing their many skills.

The dwarves had erected scaffolding in the hall. They climbed through holes in the cave ceiling and cut down trees growing on the plateau above.

They carried the trees into the cave and began building their homes...