Beers and Beards: A Cozy Dwarf Tale

I walked in silence while Copperpot ordered his grad students around. I found out from Lillyweather that most of them were staying on as research assistants because Copperpot was the biggest genius this side of Nikola Tesla. There were a lot of boxes and barrels to be moved, along with what looked like a giant drill. They were setting the drill up on the minecart tracks, and there was nothing for me to really do at the moment. I had grabbed Balin and pulled him along but he wasn’t much good for conversation right now either.

That meant I had a moment to digest the news about my mind being attacked, and I was realizing that I had a lot of internalized prejudices about dwarves I needed to unpack. I blamed Tolkien, but a lot of the fault laid with me too. Doc Opal had said I was being standoffish, and I thought I had gotten over it, but I was just now realizing the real root of the issue. It wasn’t because I was judging their society, and it wasn’t the bad beer; it had been a problem with me, and it wasn’t the first time.

Back when I was in college I had a lot of buddies, especially as my mead side hustle swung into gear. They ranged from good friends to hangers on to those just trying to get free alcohol off of me. There were two people that really stood out though: Michael from London, and Jebediah from Texas. In a sea of west-coasters they were the only two with really heavy accents. Well, there were numerous Japanese, Chinese and Korean students, but Jeb and Michael each had an accent all their own.

Michael had the thickest British accent you could imagine, of the deep and husky David Attenborough variety. You could have put him in a miniseries about the royal family and he’d have made a believable King of England. Michael milked that accent to the nines, and was incredibly popular with a certain subset of the girls on campus. Everyone talked about how smart and cultured Michael was.

On the other hand, Jeb had the most stereotypical, hillbilly, southern US accent that I’d ever heard. It made him almost impossible to understand and people judged him horribly over it. The incest jokes and chainsaw massacre cracks followed Jeb around for the entire four years that he was in college with us. People always assumed Jeb was dumb, and nobody ever wanted to work with him on group projects.

The worst part was that it was in fact the exact opposite. Michael was dumb as rocks, and nearly failed every course. On the other hand, Jeb was a business whiz, and when I figured that out in second year, I took advantage of it to get his help whenever I was struggling. He was happy to trade some tutoring for a bottle or two of whiskey mead. Jeb leveraged the prejudice that people treated him with by playing up the ‘dumb hillbilly’ act until he pulled the rug out at the last moment. People were so blinded by their prejudices that they didn’t see the person behind the accent.

Last I’d heard Michael was a used car salesman in Bradbury and Jeb had actually become my accountant along with half of the vineyards in the Okanogan. I figured I’d learned my lesson about accentism then, but it was rearing its ugly head again.

I’d been severely underestimating the dwarves. Their accents and demeanours and my own prejudices about dwarves from years of dwarven pop culture had been making me judge them as a race rather than as people. Whether it was treating Balin like he wasn’t smart enough to keep up, or bossing Bran around in his own kitchen, or thinking Tim was a simpletim, it was clear I had fallen into bad habits.

Right here and now some gnomes and dwarves that were obviously way smarter than I’d ever be were setting up a massive science experiment. It was humbling, and it was a humble pie I needed to eat right now.

See? Even the Gods thought I’d been a dumbass and it was time to make some changes. I turned to Balin, who was riveted to the proceedings.

“Hey Balin? Balin? Baaaalin?” I waved my hand in front of him.

“Yeah Pete?”

“I have something to tell you when we get out of here. It’s about my past.”

“Uh, ok. You remember something?”

I nodded. “I'll tell you when we're free.”

Balin nodded back, and as he turned away I pulled out a comb and brushed my beard. Yes, life as a dwarf was just... perfect.

---

“Well, what do you think, Peter?” Copperpot had approached while I was talking to Balin and broken into our conversation with the practiced ease of someone in upper management. He pointed at the drill his students had assembled. "Isn't it glorious?"

“Pete is fine. It’s a nice piece o’ machinery. Does it run on magic?” I looked it up and down. It was as shiny and fancy looking as a ‘67 Mustang. I had some basic tinkering knowledge from my work with stills, but this was beyond me.

“That’s correct and incorrect.” Copperpot pointed at some stones set in a container at the base of the drill. “The drill runs off of the raw mana contained in cores taken from monsters within the dungeon.”

“So why do we use picks instead of drills like this when we mine?” Gods, it would make this work a lot easier.

“A pertinent question. It’s due to expense. There is a limited supply of cores, but a somewhat ready supply of inmates with picks.” Copperpot’s eyes glittered with his not-so-subtle jab.

“Sometimes an inmate can have a ‘higher perspective’ that an academic might lack.” I retorted as I stood at my full height. Copperpot was fairly short, even for a gnome, and only came up to my chest.

“They make up for it with a poor prospective”. Copperpot shot back.

"I disagree," I countered, "When you're in a mine, you learn some of the best prospecting."

“Hah, well played sir, I tip my beanie to the superior wordsmith.” He made a small bow and Grim stifled a groan from behind us.

“How in Yearns yams are you two gettin’ along so well?”

Copperpot and I looked at each other and grinned.

“You’re just not twisty enough to understand, Administrator Grim.” Copperpot said.

“Thank the Gods for that.” Grim muttered.

We went back to ignoring him.

“Excuse me Professor, and Alchemist.” A bright voice interrupted.

“Yes, Lillyweather?” Copperpot nodded at the young gnomess who had appeared beside us.

“Could you step aside, please? We are going to move the drill now.”

“Of course. This way Pete.”

We moved over as the gaggle of grads began to push the drill down the minetrack. I could see some little wheels spinning underneath it. Neat.

We let the drill cart get far ahead of us before we followed after. The long straight nature of the main mineshaft meant that sound echoed terribly up and down the tunnel. It had been impossible to concentrate, let alone chat, with the rumble of the cart traveling down the track. The walls down here were strung with solstones and a slight orange glow outlined everything. It smelled of damp stone and future dreams.

“What’s the plan?” I asked, curious to see how the engineer had solved the mining problem.

"I'll explain later, I need to do some due diligence."

As we made our way down, Copperpot stayed busy by checking the walls and the rafters. He pulled out a notepad and took notes in it every few meters. By the time we reached the end of the tunnel the grad students already had the drill up against the mine wall and were getting ready to power it up. Copperpot gave it a once over and then declared it ready.

“Excellent! It is time to sup from the bounty of Tiara’s teat! Start up the drill!”

Ew. The drill started up with a whine and soon dust was pouring into the tunnel. Everyone had masks on except Copperpot. The beanie on his head began to whirl and the dust eddied around and away from him. I stood beside him to take advantage of his personal protective equipment; the boss always has the best PPE.

“Can you tell me the plan, now!?” I shouted over the roar of the drill.

“Boomdust shows the greatest power when it is fully contained!” Copperpot shouted back. “We are going to drill some deep holes and then pour boomdust in! If our calculations are correct, that should provide enough force to blast the rock apart!”

“I thought the drill was expensive! How is this better than using the mining picks!?”

“While it won’t replace picks for dives, the main tunnel is always the most expensive part of any mining operation! If this method can significantly reduce the time for carving the main tunnel, it offsets the cost of the drill!” Copperpot smiled wolfishly. “Also, Fireash charcoal and sparkvine are primarily Minnovan exports, so if this gets adopted everywhere it means a lot of gold for the city!”

“Don’t forget Balin and I!”

“Yes, but it’ll take a while!” Copperpot chuckled.

I could live with that. I had hundreds of years to wait!

Soon the mineshaft was filled with dust as well as some fluid they were using to keep the drill cooled and lubricated. Copperpot checked and double-checked each step. Eventually the drilling stopped and the grad students took some red barrels and began to pour their contents into the holes. I subconsciously backed up a bit. “Want me to use [Stabilize Mixture] on those?”

“If it will make you feel better. It’s not really necessary though.” Copperpot said offhandedly. I did, it made me feel better.

Eventually the barrels were all emptied and the holes were capped. Everything was cleared away and a long string of sparkvine was wheeled up the mineshaft. We followed behind while Copperpot ordered cleanup and the last few safety procedures. Soon enough we were standing back under the light of the stars.

“Alright! We should be safe here!” Copperpot handed me the end of the sparkvine. “Would you care to do the honours, Pete?”

It was do or die. Copperpot handed me a small red stone he called a ‘flame infused aetherstone, or firestone’ and I held it up to the sparkvine. It sparked, and began hissing down the line. We all waited with baited breath. Just as I was beginning to worry that the whole thing had misfired –

*BOOM*

I felt my ears pop, and while no dust poured out of the tunnel, the ground did feel like it shivered. That may have been my imagination though.

“Good work everyone! Shall we go see the results?” Copperpot pointed into the tunnel and we all descended back into the earth.