Luke walked past rows of cargo. The ones from Kalibutan on the left and from Earth on the right. Just past them were a collection of wooden structures, four posts holding up a sloped roof. There were no walls so he could see that these were probably the shrines he was looking for.

  There were six of them lined up on the right side of the road, each one with a life sized stone statue in the middle. They were standing on an obsidian platform with elvish words scribed across the front.

  The first statue was an elf with a scimitar in each hand. He looked furious. The next one was a female elf in billowy clothes, and looked like she was afraid of the first one. Then there was a happy fat guy, a sad and emaciated guy, a woman with her arms outstretched, and a guy with nails in his face and arms. Each icon was incredibly realistic and had an ineffable presence about them.

  They unnerved Luke slightly, and he was only too happy to go to the other side of the road and sit on one of the benches there. At least that’s what he thought they were. They were huge slabs of solid wood, sanded down but not polished. They were just the right size to comfortably sit.

  “Who’s this asshole? You better not be replacing Rooster. I like him,” a voice behind him loudly said.

  Luke turned to the road to see three humans walking up to him. They each wore blue coveralls with thick padding stitched in. It was the same kind of overalls that power loader operators wore so that they wouldn’t chafe.

  Luke said, “I’m probably not replacing Rooster since it looks like you guys are loader jockeys. I’m here to do something with runes. Repair suits of armor or something. The letter was in Galaxian so I’m not exactly sure.”

  The blond guy’s eyes went wide and he slapped his chubby neighbor and said, “That’s the guy!”

  The black guy on the end leaned over and asked, “What guy?”

  “Cormac hired another mechanic. We’re gonna have all the power armor suits up and working,” the blond guy happily said.

  Luke stepped forward and said, “Mechs? I’m not sure I’m going to be working on power loaders. The letter said I would be fixing runes on a suit of armor.”

  “Nah, man. You are gonna be our mechanic, not some jockey’s bitch. We don’t use power loaders, they got us some bonafide magic mechs. The orcs and naga just call them suits of armor because they don’t have a word for them. This is great. We’ve been working at half power forever, if you can get us back up to a full unit, we are going to be so badass.”

  “Badassatron!” the black guy said with a deep robot voice.

  The blond guy shoved him and said, “I told you to quit it with that kids stuff. It’s power armor, like Iron Man, not transformers.”

  The black guy ignored him and repeated, “Badassatron!” in the same weird voice.

  Luke was starting to sense a lack of professionalism. But if these guys were right, he would be working with them. He held out his hand and said, “Hi, I’m Luke Moore.”

  The blond guy shook his hand and said, “I’m Mike Jones, but everyone calls me Sandwich. The fat guy here is Cuddles and the black guy doesn’t respond to anything but Bumblebee.”

  “Or Badassatron!” he said happily, “Bumblebee or Badassatron.”

  “Come on dude, you don’t get to pick your own nicknames. You know that. Rooster is still Rooster no matter how much he wants us to call him Chef,” Sandwich said. He glanced up the road. “Speak of the devil.”

  A tall and portly black guy walked up to the group with a smile on his face. “Bumblebee, Sandwich, who’s the new guy? We finally get rid of Ellen Degenerate?”

  Sandwich shook his head and said, “Nah, that bitch will outlive us all. Degenerate has the week off.”

  “So who’s this guy?” Rooster said and scratched his portly backside.

  Sandwich nodded and said, “Cormac called him in. This is ... Skywalker. He says he knows some runes. I bet twenty to ten that he’s going to be our mechanic. The newbie isn’t so sure, but I am.”

  Luke nodded at the summary and name. He actually liked the nickname Sandwich gave him. If he ended up working with the group, at least it would be easy to remember everyone’s name. Luke usually forgot the regular names like Michael or James as soon as he heard them. But he was definitely going to remember Sandwich and Bumblebee.

  “I bet there is a story behind everyone’s nickname,” Luke said.

  Rooster nodded. “Sandwich’s is the best. The second week we were here-” He cut himself off and looked behind Luke. “Seneschal's here. Tell you later. Stand at attention, he likes that shit.”

  Luke turned to see an orc striding down the dirt path towards them. His long legs ate up the ground, coming up on them quickly. Luke recognized the white leather armor and red tie. He couldn’t really recognize specific orcs, but Luke was pretty sure this was the same guy that got him fired.

  The four people waiting with Luke had arranged themselves in a line and were standing at attention with their hands behind their backs. Luke belatedly realized they had left him on his own in the middle of the stone paved road.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  The greenskin walked right up to Luke, looming above him. His skin ridges were deeper than the guards he had seen before, giving him the impression that Cormac was older than most. Luke couldn't help but notice that the orc’s hands were as big as his head. His stump started throbbing.

  “Are you Luke?” the orc asked in strangely accented English.

  “Uh. Yes,” Luke managed to squeak out.

  “Good. I am Seneschal Cormac Gobnait. I'm glad I don't have to look for you today,” Cormac said. “Come. It is time for you to prove your worth.”

  Luke looked up at Cormac and said, “The others mentioned magic mech suits. Is the job repairing them?”

  “Yes. There are six of them, but my runewright has overflowing workings. Some are always broken. You will be her aide. You will make things faster,” Cormac said without looking down at him.

  Cormac turned to leave. Luke decided he wasn’t just going to follow him into the unknown like that. He said, “Wait a moment, Seneschal Cormac. I haven’t agreed to work for you yet. We need to discuss a few things first.”

  Cormac turned and stared down at him but said nothing. His eyes felt like they were boring into Luke’s soul.

  Luke cleared his throat and said, “You got me fired at my last job just so I could work for you. You should have asked me directly. I want an apology.” When the orc said nothing, Luke carried on, “And your letter wasn’t specific on payment. You said a tier three core, but is that every eight Earth days or every eight Kalibutan days? I need to know if I am going to risk my life for this job.”

  Cormac stared at him for a bit longer. Luke refused to look away. Eventually Cormac said, “You are right. Our home is dangerous for paper people. You will be paid one tier three mana core every eight Kalibutan days.” He reached into a small pouch by his side and pulled out a small orb. He pressed it into Luke’s hand and said, “Here is your weekly payment upfront as apology. Are you satisfied?”

  Luke swallowed as he looked at the orb in his hand. It was worth about $22,000. With one every eight Kalibutan days, that would be roughly half a million a year. He tucked away the core in his cargo pants and said, “I am satisfied.”

  Cormac nodded and started walking away. The humans started jogging to keep up and Luke quickly joined them. He didn’t need to be told how bad an idea it would be to get left behind.

  As they walked or jogged through the deep forest, the path quickly grew darker. The trees were as tall as redwoods and they blocked out the sun. Their slowly moving branches were more than a little disturbing. Luke kept an eye out for any wildlife but he didn’t see or hear anything but their group.

  The dirt path was the only place without ground cover. There were mosses and bushes galore. Some had sharp spines and others wide leaves. One even had jiggly balls instead of leaves. He noticed how everyone gave those bushes a wide berth and he made sure to do the same.

  It didn’t take long for his stump to start throbbing. His prosthetic right leg was literally magic, but he had designed it for walking, not running. The gait was all wrong now and he was putting more pressure on his stump than normal. His walking leg just didn’t have enough shock absorption. If he was going to make this run every day he would have to bring along his running blade instead. He was just about to ask how long it would be until they arrived when they crested the hill and saw it.

  A village. It was on the other side of a wide clearing and was breathtakingly beautiful. It was wide and tall with a few hundred houses and apartments. The houses were painted a kaleidoscope of colors but their roofs were a uniform burnished copper. Luke found himself thinking about building styles as they drew closer.

  Earth architecture was dominated by the rectangle. Straight lines, perpendicular to each other in the walls, windows, and doors. Kalibutan tended towards curves instead. The city was constructed of hundreds of towers with oval windows and arch doorways. Their floors were flat, but it was the only straight line in their designs. There was a complete lack of symmetry, which gave the whole city an organic feel.

  The outer edges of the city were constructed of stone and rarely topped two stories. The buildings closer to the city center were constructed of metal and glass. The buildings there were much taller, five and six stories tall. One building stood above all others, at least ten stories tall and wider at the top than its base. The architecture was reminiscent of a tree with branches and leaves, but the building was as artificial as the surrounding city.

  The elves of Kalibutan looked remarkably like Tolkien's elves, but unlike the fictional versions, they abhorred the natural world. Their sensibilities leaned towards artificial and they found growing things dirty and a possible source of disease. The Chinese diplomats at the Guangzhou portal almost caused an interstellar incident when they gave a lotus flowerpot as a gift. The elves assumed it was an insult and only the negotiators from the Brazil portal were able to help them through the misunderstanding.

  Luke followed Cormac past fields of red grain as they neared the city. There were dwarves out in the fields, harvesting with two handed sickles. Sweat gave their skin extra iridescence in the morning light. They gave the procession a glance but mostly ignored the humans.

  There was a low wall on the edge of the city, only waist height to Cormac. Even Luke could see over it. There must have been some significance to it though, because there were no permanent buildings outside the wall.

  Cormac led them past a dozen squat stone buildings. Luke looked into the oval windows and saw wooden furniture and hundreds of decorative plants. The profusion of flora wasn’t a personal choice, every single dwelling had plants throughout. There were only a few dwarves and orcs about, most of the inhabitants were already out at work.

  The houses grew taller as they walked closer to the city center. When they were over fifteen feet tall, a comfortable height even for Cormac, he led them to a single story building just off the main road. It was similar to most other buildings around it, stone construction with a burnished copper roof. Over the mantle was a sign written in the flowing orc script.

  Luke pulled out his phone and held it up for a translation. The camera app revealed that the sign said Outer Runewright of Edobar Falodun. This must be the place. The others stepped up to a huge round door. It was a pocket door, one that rolled away into the wall. He followed the others inside where he saw them climbing into magical mech suits.

  It looked like someone had taken the design of the power loaders and mixed it with medieval armor. Their chest and heads were much better covered and their arms and legs looked much more robust. They had about double the amount of runes. Each one held a five foot long sword that looked like a short sword in the oversized metal hands. Luke’s eyes were drawn to the runes on the swords, each one subtly glowing in a different color.

  Cormac stood at the door and said to the mech suits, “Get your runes checked over by Kruro and head out to the southern finger. The centipedes there are encroaching on the gem flies. Make sure you wear your hearing protection.”

  “Yes, Seneschal,” Sandwich said seriously and stepped up to the runewright.

  Luke’s mind stuttered. The runewright wasn’t an orc, elf, or dwarf. It was a naga.