System of the Beast Slayer [litrpg Adventure]
Copyright© 1999 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 55
Kelvin took their orders, then led them from the gilded hall toward the guest chambers above.
“Letho, you planning to leave me here as a glorified innkeeper again?” Roy tried one more plea. “Don’t you see fighting that kind of monster would be priceless experience? Even if I stay out of the fray, watching up close will teach me. I swear I won’t slow you down.”
“We already refused once back in Spansol, yet fate shoved us back into it,” Roy added when Letho kept silent, tugging at the notion of destiny, the Witcher’s taste for portent. “Maybe this is fate calling us to face it together.”
“Spare me,” Letho said without turning, eyes fixed on the white-haired dwarf who led the way. “Fate does not care about a country bumpkin. The hunting ground lies deep in the wood. The forest is its home, the plants and animals its eyes and ears. Once you step inside, there is no hiding.”
He raised his voice on purpose. “So quit dreaming. You stay put in Mount Carbon, enjoy the sights. Not everyone has the chance to see this miracle of a fortress.”
“You’ve been training your crossbow all this time. The Mount Carbon dwarven marksmen are the masters there; you can learn from them. If you get bored, read the notes I left you.”
Roy stopped arguing. The Witcher’s tone was final. Still, the dwarfmen sounded worth meeting; Roy was itching to test his new crossbow.
They climbed the spiral stairs at the far end of the forge hall to the second level. Kelvin had been chastened by the High Elder; now he was all proper duty, guiding them through a carved interior of the mountain.
They pushed open the second-floor door. Oil-soaked torches lit tidy display rooms and storerooms on each side. Far ahead a row of iron doors with rectangular peepholes cut into them marked the corridor’s end. Cold wind and a knife of air breathed through those peepholes and stung Roy; he shivered.
“Windows cut into the mountain?” he muttered.
He peered through a peephole and felt his jaw drop.
The room behind the iron gate was the size of a normal bedroom, empty and bare. Its rear wall was not a wall at all but an opening; biting wind and snow blew straight through, frosting ceiling, floor and walls with a rim of glittering ice.
A half-open snowroom, then.
Step a few paces forward and you could stand at the lip of Mount Carbon itself, drink in the towering vista, taste the raw charisma of ice and wind, watch pines straggle like sentries across a white plain and the sun hanging like a coin toward the horizon. Of course the catch was simple: if you were not built of fur and thick hide, you would freeze to death. No rugs, no braziers; only the hardiest, hairiest races could sleep in such a chamber.
Step a little further and the world would swallow you.
Kelvin sidled up to Roy with an unpleasant grin. “kid, screw up in Mahakam and you can have a week inside. Shall I arrange it?”
Roy spun and looked down on the dwarf with a sly tilt. “Kelvin, you mean me by ‘kid’?”
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