"Welcome to Baltil travelers!" A loud booming voice echoed through the stone walls as she entered with the group through the tunnels walking into the famed Hall of Gears. She held her breath as she looked down through the floor which was made from glass. Beneath were hundreds upon hundreds of metal mechanisms moving and turning all in unison. Her amazement didn't stop there; they soon came before the massive metal gates leading into the dwarven city. The gears powering the doors' mechanisms cranked and ground as they turned, the gates unveiling the grand place before them. Stepping inside the view was breathtaking–all sorts of machines and contraptions moving and working in rhythm as the sounds they made created a chorus of metal and stone. A tinny whistle signaled the arrival of the carriage, and she lined up with the others to enter. During the ride across the gap, she couldn't resist looking down. Below them was a deep gorge, cut into the mountainside and lined with moving specks which she assumed to be workers.

Upon reaching the other side she alighted with the rest of the passengers and found herself in a mechanical wonderland. Unlike Adeluna or Egjora, the city of Baltil felt like everything was alive with pulleys and gears moving materials and people from one point to another. Walking to the next carriage station, she strained her eyes to see where they were coming from. Everything here was interconnected via pulley system, which made traveling to specific locations easier than trying to find it on your own. Today her assignment was waiting for her at the Old Forge Tavern, a main attraction of visitors and locals alike. While waiting, the strange metallic golems standing guard caught her attention. She approached one, and it turned its head to face her. They stared at each other for a few minutes, before she waved at it. When it failed to give a reaction, she returned to waiting. What exactly was that humanoid contraption? She had heard of golems and magical constructs before, but never metal ones. In a way they reminded her of a time when she saw a travelling entertainer in town back before she was hunted down by the Council of the Magi. He had a curious little wooden box, that when he turned a key on the bottom made the jointed figures move and dance to music.Normally magic-related things didn't interest her, but this was different. It was more like a marionette, except made from gold and silver with the ability to move on its own.

It was a short trip up to the higher levels of the city, and the carriage bell rang twice to alert passengers of their arrival to the destination. The name of the establishment was carved into the stone foundation it was built upon; an impressive feat to behold. Inside she was met with more surprises. For one, there were no chairs. Or rather, that was what it looked like at a first glance. Apparently the barrels were the chairs and the barrels with the tops built in were the tables. Weaving her way through the packed tavern, she spotted her client a few seats away. The black-bearded dwarf waved their flagon of ale and she made her way over. "Good to see you sir–or ma'am. Sorry, I'm not very good at distinguishing genders." Gulping down the last of the ale with a single swig, Shiloh's client set the tankard down. "Nah, 'tis a'right. Never been good with that either. Can't for the life of me tell if I'm talking with an elven lad or lass for the past thirty years. Name's Braugr Greystone. How old are ye anyway if ya don't mind me askin'?" "About twenty years, give or take." She spoke loudly, compensating for the indoor volume level inside the tavern. "Ah you're just a wee little beastie aren'tcha? How 'bout a drink?" The dwarf asked, preparing to order a refill for their vessel.

"Sure, but just water. I can't drink alcohol." The dwarf raised their thick bushy eyebrows and knitted them, forming a large fuzzy caterpillar. "You're not one of them with a vow of temperance are ye? I know I'm clueless 'bout other races but I swear that twenty's plenty old enough to have a drink." Shiloh leaned across the table speaking loudly again. "No it's that–I literally can't ingest it. As soon as it goes down I just throw it back up. Trust me, I've even tried taking it with food. Same result. My body completely rejects it for some reason." "Well when you put it that way, I guess I can't blame you." Braugr replied, still finding it incredulous. Though he didn't want to run the chance of her actually vomiting right after having a drink, so water it was. They worked out the details of what he wanted her to deliver to a colleague in Arri. There was a thriving gem market there, and he needed to have a message sent expressly to his cousin's nephew on when the next shipment of raw ores would be ready. Business was concluded quickly, but neither of them were in any rush to finish their tankards. With the metal drinking vessels, it almost looked as if she weren't drinking flavored water.

"So, how're you liking Baltil so far? You a first-timer?" Braugr asked. "It's great! I've never seen so many moving parts on such a scale in my entire life. Everything runs like clockwork, and it's like refrain being repeated in a song." Even if she hadn't raised her voice, it was obvious she was excited. Her client laughed, throwing his head back and pounding a hand onto the tabletop. "Haha–looks like you've got machine-fever! You're the first human I've met to say they heard the sounds of cogs and whistles as music." Shrugging the comment off, she continued. "I saw some golems out there made from gold and silver. What are they? Where do you make them?" "Oh those? They're not golems, they're automatons. They're a lot like golems, except you don't need to use magic to make 'em. Those old metal walkers were made by our old god of the forge–Zujiuchu. They're miles smarter than the average mud dolls those mages make in their towers. Though I can't say how he made them, they've been around almost forever." So those mechanical beings were made by the hands of the divine? No wonder they were so well-crafted and capable. "Automatons huh…I'd love to know what they're like on the inside." She mused to herself. 

She pushed open the door and walked inside the tavern, a bag of meat over her shoulder. Someone close to the entrance glanced up when she walked past, quick on her feet and with a look of determination over her face. Heading back towards the kitchen, she escaped the crowd that every night seemed to have nothing better to do than to drink themselves to sleep, laugh at jokes no living soul could ever understand - unless you were a dwarf from Baltil - and talk with an accent you had to learn to decipher. Thrastror looked up from the stew when she entered the smaller room hidden behind the counter at the far corner and she immediately wanted to punch that smirk off his face. It had not been a good day, despite the amount of meat she'd managed to gather from her recent hunt. That was how she survived, she sold meat, sometimes traded it for a place to stay, something to drink. It depended on what she currently needed. She threw the bag down onto the table in front of the dwarf. "Here's your order" she said, a fake smile on her lips. She turned around to leave the room that was hot and sweaty with a strong smell of food and alcohol because the chef insisted on drinking on the job, when a hand shot out to grab her wrist. She jerked it free before turning around, annoyance shining from her eyes. "What?" She waited. "Thank you. I'll be in touch." Thrastror's smile wasn't fake.Danni had been on the road for at least a couple months now, and for some reason she'd ended up in Baltil. Here, she could have everything she needed to survive, from shelter to food. She had never been social, not the kind to walk into a tavern just to drink and find people to chat with anyway. She asked for work, and if she found any, she went through with it and moved on from there. She had been in Baltil for two weeks now, and she liked it better than most places she'd passed on her journey. She came from a small camp where she'd known only her family, although she hadn't been very close to any of them, not even her mother that had given birth to her. Growing up, she had only had one friend, a boy named Eldar, and he had died shortly before she'd left the camp. They had always dreamed of adventures, to see the world and they had decided to set off together when both came of age. That obviously didn't happen, so what she did now wasn't just for her. It was for him as well, to honor the memory of him, and even though she lingered in Baltil, she didn't plan to stay for much longer. She nodded, a shy smile flutter across her lips for a second before vanishing completely, and she left the kitchen.Taking in the sight of people, her gaze finally found a familar face not far from where she stood. Even though she had blood from her kills on both her skin and clothes, she walked over to him and sank down on a free seat. She merely glanced at the non-dwarf sitting there, a drinking vessel in front of… her? Danni raised her arms with a yawn and leaned over the barrel that had been transformed into some kind of table. "Oh man, I've been out hunting. I smell like you" she said and this time the smile that grew on her lips wasn't fake. She liked Braugr, one of few she actually got along with. He could take her introvert personality, even drag her out of her shell at times. She ordered ale, something she'd grown to love since coming here. Another thing that Braugr was responsible for. The dwarf laughed. It sounded more like a grunt, but it made her feel warm. "Ye, I notice." Braugr held up a hand, covering his nose with two fingers before laughing even harder, leaning his head back and clapping his stomach. The ale arrived and Danni gulped it down.It wasn't until then her focus shifted from the drink to the one sitting opposite her. It was definitely not a dwarf, maybe a hunter as well? It looked like a young woman, but it was hard to tell sometimes, especially around these parts. She raised an eyebrow, glanced quickly over at Braugr, but he didn't say anything. Danni was no good at this, and shrugged. "Hello, stranger" she said, pulling her red, dirty hair back with her fingers. "Have you been here long, are you staying?" The questions shot from her mouth before she could stop them. She hated this, new people always made her blurt out words that never made any sense. And when it came down to it, the questions were mostly just a friendly thing, not something she really wanted to know. "Going down to the gem market" the dwarf said, noticing Danni's change of mood. "Ya should go too, would do ya good." At that, Danni stared at him. "Ye 'tis is Danni, don't let her bad temper scare ya." He bellowed a laugh and Danni raised a hand quietly towards the stranger, not uttering another word.

Shiloh saw a woman with clothes still stained from hunting sit down on an empty barrel at their table. By the smell and look of her clothing, she had been on the road for a long time away from the comforts of major cities. Giving a nod at a stiff 45 degree angle, she responded to the questions directed to her. "I just arrived three hours ago, from the Hall of Gears. I'll be leaving to carry out Sir Greystone's message to Arri early tomorrow." She had hair that was a tinge of crimson red, almost like the color of dried blood. Her client and the woman were well-acquainted, seeing them get along. They chatted for a while, then Braugr Greystone introduced the new arrival to her. At the hint he gave to not be put off by Danni's rough demeanor, Shiloh nodded again. "…Understood." If there was something both women had in common, they both weren't good with first impressions.

Eventually Braugr was back to ordering another round of drinks, leaving an awkward silence. In attempt to drum up a conversation, Shiloh asked. "…So I see you are a hunter. Do you travel between cities often?" Not her best work, but it was worth a try. She herself moved around from place to place as a courier and occasionally an escort back in Canelux. This was the first time she had taken a job in Parvpora ever since she began work. Her occupation left her with little time to socialize with others in her profession, and otherwise. Bounty hunters and more ambitious odd-jobbers weren't typically friendly with their competition. The most she had for acquaintances were the regular group of errand runners in the Winking Mermaid. Anyone else who took requests from the local job boards with their sights on bigger prospects weren't very pleasant to talk with.

Lyra made her way into the tavern. She wasn't one for crowds, most of the time they tended to end badly for her ilk. However, she was not yet old and jaded enough to not want interaction human or otherwise outside of the cult. This was one of those days. She weaved in and out of the crowd as best she could to avoid running into anyone who might have issues with personal space and might not take kindly to having their toes stepped on. Spotting an empty space not far from the door and a few tables already taken by people or by smaller groups of people. Settling in, she placed an order when one of the staff finally made their way over to her.As she waited for her order she listened into the conversations around her, or as much as she could. Any information would turn out to be useful in one way or the other if not right now, then at some point in the future.

In this case the table closest to her caught her attention, and hearing a mention of hunters and travel, she leaned forward some what, so that she could better catch their voices, in the general back ground noise it was hard to pick out certain sounds after all. But, regardless this could be something worth paying attention to.