The battle is over, and Cain doesn't want awkward questions, so he follows the map that the chief made for him and darts off into the trees, headed for the hills and the location where the modern city of Hygar is.
The villagers and army patrol will surely be talking about the incident for some time to come, but that's fine, just a bit of amusement for Cain should be need to come back this way.
Once he gets twenty or so Kilometers from the village, where nobody should be able to see him or have followed him, Cain transforms into the Golden Proto Dragon and takes to the sky.
The cliff faces below him are steep and treacherous, and the road leads many hundreds of Kilometers off route, past every significant city in the Empire. Crossing even one of these peaks every few days would be a difficult task on foot, but here, a thousand meters above the valleys and between the peaks, Cain could soar without worries.
Though he mostly kept hidden among the clouds, Cain kept track of the villages below him, comparing them to the memory of the map he was given.
Hygar is supposed to be in an enclosed valley, accessible only where the road runs through the mountain. If he can find the road, that should make it reasonably easy to find.
When the sun comes up on the following day, Cain can see a city in the distance. It is built on the side of a mountain, overlooking a river canyon, which doesn't match his admittedly rather rudimentary map, so Cain decides to drop in and see where he is.
He can't do that in Dragon form; everything he sees hides from his mere shadow. If he tried to fly into the city, they would likely shoot siege weapons at him and attack if he landed.
Instead, Cain lands ways out of town, hidden between two cliff faces and out of sight of the city.
There doesn't seem to be anyone but dwarves here either, which isn't a surprise so far into the mountains. But it did limit his options. Cain isn't sure what dwarves would call handsome, so he picks the appearance of Ragnar, the black-bearded Dark Dwarf he met in Graska. A durable leather outfit with a thick wool sweater, artfully blackened as though he had worn it at the forge too many times to every come clean again, and his disguise is complete.
He pulls the backpack from his inventory and adds a sleeping roll, jerkey, and some smithing tools to complete the image. It still looks too tidy, though, so he hangs some cookware from the sides and breaks apart a bit of a dead tree for firewood to strap at the bottom.
When he makes it to the road, he finds that a cave of merchants has just pulled into the ledge where he will be arriving, unloading their cooking gear to prepare for a late breakfast.
"Greetings," Cain calls, so his sudden appearance doesn't startle them.
"What are you doing back there?" One of the guards asks, hand on his ax.
"I just went to get some wood. There's a deadfall tree just there." Cain points back the way he came.
"Save yours; we've got plenty. What do you have for the pot?"
Cain knows this tradition. Everyone puts something in the stew, adding variety to the meals when each traveler can only carry so much.
Cain sets his gear down and pulls some smoked fish jerky from his inventory, pretending it came from his pack. "Fish is on my menu today."
The merchant nods happily, glad to see a bit of variety in the flavors. "What brought you way out here?"
"The mine ran dry, and I thought I would set out and find a new spot. I heard that there's a likely spot near Hygar for quality ore, but I lost my map while fishing." Caught replies with a shrug.
"A Deep Dwarf out fishing. I'm surprised you didn't drown. But no matter, they will get you all sorted out in Boron. It's the last proper stop if you're turning south to Hygar, so grab everything you will need."
That's precisely the information that Cain needed. His destination is to the south and reasonably close. If he can get a few more hints about the ruins, he will be set.
The man Cain takes as their cook pulls out a copper pot, curses, throws it on the ground then picks out a much smaller version from the wagon. Cain picks up and inspects the discarded implement, finding a large crack in the bottom from years of use.
[A real Deep Dwarf is part elemental, they could fix that with a touch.] The Forest Dragon speaks in Cain's mind for the first time.
That's easy enough. Cain calls a Greater Earth and a Greater Fire Elemental into his Merger. They can both control their element as an Innate Skill without mana, so this should be easy.
[Thanks for the heads up. I appreciate all warnings that I'm about to make mistakes.]
[Except about sharing a bed with Obsession Demons, you know that's a bad idea and do it anyhow.] The Seraphim half jokes.
"I need a bit more copper; the pot is pretty worn," Cain tells the group, rummaging through their gear until one comes up with a cheap copper dagger.
"Will this do then? You must be a full-blooded Deep Dwarf if you reckon you can fix that without a forge." The Dwarf tells him, handing over the knife.
"That should be just fine." Cain agrees, breaking the blade from the wooden hilt and dropping it in the pot.
Once it's in, he recalls just how fussy dwarves are about the items they create, so Cain also brings a copy of Dimnys into the Merger so that he has the skills of a Dark Dwarven Master Smith available.
With her guidance, and the Earth Elemental's Skill, the pot is as good as new in seconds. Then, he reshapes it to what Dimnys insists is the optimal shape for a cooking pot and adds a bit of decoration to the outside.
The pattern is a Dark Dwarven good luck charm Cain has seen on many pots before, and now the formerly battered copper looks fit to grace any smith's shop window.
"There we are then. The right proper vessel for stew. You can't cook right if you don't have a correctly shaped stew pot, so why don't you give it a try?" Cain jokes, making the merchants chuckle and bring out a whiskey jug.
"I always knew that seeing Deep Dwarves on the surface was good luck." The cook declares, adding ingredients to the stew and letting it simmer while everyone tells stories and drinks.
