Never before had Tali ever met someone as steel-smart as Bar. The deep dwarf sat with rapt attention as she explained the notes she had found in her fumbling best efforts. They were more elaborations and helpful hints than some grand, staggering insight. His brow furrowed intently, but he asked no questions. Then he put himself to the task, applying trial and error with a speed that made her head spin. It was amazing to listen to him at work, sculpting and tending to different beds of coals within makeshift stone forges. He controlled the flow of air to them by a rough bellows that he leaned on with one foot, scarred body in motion that seemed effortless. Despite the blows he had suffered, he was no less a smith.

In Dhuldarim, Tali was certain he would have been considered a master. He already knew iron better than anyone and had been experimenting extensively with steel-making. The gleaned hints of ancient knowledge recovered from the ruins had only stirred the fires of his innovation and now he worked away with the tireless energy of a fiend. 

"We have to make him eat," Yari said, taking a seat beside the young dwarf. She smiled at her brother's back as she offered Tali a bowl of fired clay. They were a few days from Kuldath now, the City of the Wheel. "He gets so carried away."

Kuldath earned its name for the giant gear that had fallen into the middle of the city, now used to prominently display the examples of those who rose up. Perhaps once it had created martyrs, but over the centuries, such displays ground down the will of all the forsaken around them.

"He's a master." Tali took the bowl as she clicked and listened in awe. Bar could move more metal more quickly than anyone she'd ever met, every strike powered by muscles stronger than the strongest dwarf she knew. His grip strength from hammering alone could inflict crushing pain on the fellow deep dwarves who earned his ire. Usually he just had to grab them by the forearm and grind the two bones together in his hand. "I think he knows enough to build a golem easily, with a little help from a sculptor." 

Her friend laughed. "If anyone could do it, it'd be Bar." 

Bar was so engrossed in his manipulation of ingots that he paid them no mind. He could take iron from ore or sand and work it into a blade within a day. He started to work the bellows again. As he did, his rough breathing steadied and became a song, deep and resonant from the depths of his barrel chest. The gruff bass of his voice seemed utterly grounded in his work, but Tali didn't understand the words. It hummed in her bones in a way only one thing could produce: the God-Tongue. 

Tali almost dropped her bowl. Bar's voice was hypnotic, rising and falling in opposition to the bellows. Together, they made a strange harmony. "What is he singing?" 

"He is praying to the Glimmers," Yari explained through mouthfuls of stew. She caught an escaping chunk of mushroom with her claws, popping it back into her mouth. For creatures who feared fire religiously, she and the others were learning quickly to appreciate the benefits. 

"The Glimmers? Are they like the elder ones?" Tali treaded more carefully around the word 'demons' now, as even Yari seemed certain that direct mention of them could bring their attention at any moment.

"No." Yari finished her bowl before she finished her thoughts aloud. "The Glimmers are...dwarves follow the guiding of the ones who came before, yes?" 

Tali nodded curiously. "We honor our ancestors and their wisdom." 

"Because you have a heartforge, that keeps the memory, yes?" 

The young dwarf nodded again, stew almost forgotten as anything other than a warmth in one hand. "I suppose." 

Yari gestured towards the furnace. "Our fire devours, it does not hold. Why should we honor those who came before, the wretched flesh cast into flames with no name or memory? The Glimmers are those who may come, more brilliant and strong than we ever were, standing on our shoulders."

Tali was fascinated, dwarven curiosity at full attention. "The ones who may come?"

"Not all will be born. Most will never be, better smiths than Bar could ever dream, better warriors than I could hope to be, maybe even a better Hero Gem Dwarf than you." Yari grinned when she threw in Prideep's nickname for Tali, the humor sincere and not biting. "They are...glimmers." 

The young dwarf had never considered venerating the potential descendants of all the dwarves she knew. "What prayers do you say to them?" 

"We ask for their wisdom, further reaching than our fingertips. We ask for their strength, more than those who toil for all of life. We ask for their forgiveness." 

Tali picked a particularly large meat chunk out of her stew and ate it, chewing thoughtfully for a long moment before she asked Yari to explain. The deep dwarf warrior's eyes fluttered almost closed, serenity capturing her expression at even the idea of the Glimmers. It was comforting, to know that there would be something after them, better than they were because of the things that Yari and the others were trying to do. "Why forgiveness?" 

Yari looked down at her clawed hands. "Because to make the world for them, we do much wrong." She drew in a deep breath. "Sometimes, it is better to make a thing that does not fit you." 

"I think the Glimmers will be very proud of you," Tali said with confidence. While she had no idea if she herself was doing the right thing, she was certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that Yari's people struggling to free themselves was a cause worthy of pride. 

"I hope so." The warrior's dialect and accent were easier to understand with every day that passed.

They moved ever closer to Dzverin Ta'al—the Forbidden City. Tali felt it like ice in her blood every time it came up in conversation, filled with a dread very much akin to that of Yari and her people. She'd encountered a single demon once and almost died as a result. How could she hope to contend with many and an archfiend above them?

At least she wasn't alone. 

A sonorous croak shattered the air, audible even over the hammering. "Hero Gem Dwarf!" 

Sometimes, cheeks burning with embarrassment, she almost wished she was on her own again. "I wish he wouldn't call me that," she admitted. It didn't help when Yari started to chuckle behind her hand. "All I did was run away holding him." 

Yari grinned, clicking approvingly as the lanky little goblin sped over to them. "And so he is alive. It is goblin logic, always right."

Prideep launched himself straight at them with a powerful leap, nearly upending Tali and her stew. The goblin perched on the rock behind them, drawing himself up to his full height. The two-and-a-half foot tall frog-like creature was hardly imposing, particularly when he was dancing from foot to foot like a food-starved beetle sensing a meal. The little jig of joy was a welcome distraction from the thoughts of impending danger that always threatened to creep into Tali's thoughts, however. 

Tali carefully righted herself and wiped off the splash onto her sleeve with her thumb, eating the stray piece of mushroom. In the Deep, no amount of waste could be tolerated, particularly of food. "What's got you so excited, Prideep?"

The goblin's dance of excitement only intensified, little rubbery limbs flying in all directions as he rattled his bone spear. It was particularly comical with his lichen mane flapping around him like an old carpet. "Prideep and the Bitey One found a thing!" 

Rhesis appeared, the siren giving no indication that she had even heard Prideeps new nickname for her. She was as elegant as always, though a faint curl of her lip indicated how much she was enjoying Prideep at full energy. Behind it, though, there was a certain air of fondness. "We did, though your current...vivacity seems excessive." 

Prideep bounded off the rocks, landing at Rhesis's side. "Show them, Bitey One!" 

The exasperated siren grabbed Prideep by the shoulder, squeezing meaningfully. She was doing better with only one arm these days and healed enough to manhandle their goblin. "Calm yourself, goblin, or I will sedate you permanently." 

Tali tried so hard to disguise her snort of laughter as a cough, but Rhesis's put-upon sigh told her that the attempt failed miserably. Yari made no such attempt: the warrior cracked up laughing, a reaction only Prideep elicited. 

The tiny warrior seemed to have some sense of self-preservation, because he stilled his mad dance as much as he could, merely shifting from foot to foot with the manic energy of an excited goblin. "Please show?" 

Rhesis sighed again, but produced a bundle from the haversack Yari had made from her. "I believe you were inquiring about the possibility of finding this in a ruin." 

Tali perked up and approached, clambering to her feet and holding out her hands. Unfolding the cloth and exploring the contents with her fingertips brought a beaming smile to her face. "An artificer's knife!" 

The siren relaxed slightly. "I presume you know how they work?" 

The young dwarf ran her hands reverently across the piece of interwoven metal and crystal. One end was a long, coiled tube and the other a pen-like focus point. Various rune-carved silver rings, each one delicate and barely a fingernail wide, could be manipulated to change the shape of the knife. "One end draws water into the blade, the other end pushes it out so fast and hard that it can cut diamond," Tali explained, still beaming. "Usually they're hooked up to whole systems in an artifice, to cut at perfectly straight angles and create complicated designs." 

Yari leaned over her shoulder, head cocked as she clicked her teeth to map the shape of the artificer's knife with sound. "Will it still work?" 

Tali gripped it tightly, immensely comforted by the feeling of her favorite tool in her hands again. She'd spent most of her life with an artificer's knife in her hand. "It should, though it needs a lot of water to work and it works better with pure stuff. The minerals can build up and you have to clean it." 

Prideep struck a dramatic pose. "To the river!" Without waiting, the goblin leaped off, moving from rock to rock, pausing only to perch on their stone golem's head and wave for them to follow with a webbed hand.

"I pulled something," Yari managed through her laughter, clutching at her ribs. "I'll find you and the others later. My side can't take Prideep."

Rhesis looked down at the convoluted piece of metal. "Is that pure enough?" 

Tali shrugged. "It'll do. I'll just have to clean it regularly, something you should do anyway." 

A sudden realization hit her as she walked. With this, she could theoretically craft a golem's heart and give it to Bar, to build it a body. Doing so would require her own life force, eating away at her span of days. From what she had learned, golems drew power from the world around them, but something could not happen from nothing. It needed that first spark. The problem was that she had no idea how much it would take: hours, days, years, or decades. The writings from the repository never felt the need to specify.

They didn't have rubies, the traditional stone, but the raw emeralds in her pack could serve the purpose with cleaning and cutting. They had eight, which was both quite a few when compared to just Eiv and far too few when considering the threat that was the Maker and his demons. Tali rubbed the back of her neck in thought, trying to disguise her worry.

Rhesis caught her by the elbow as Yari and Prideep charged ahead towards the river. "Is something wrong, little dwarf?"

"Just thoughtful," Tali said. It was a half-truth more than a lie, given how much of her mind was now devoted to the practical aspects. As much as the cost frightened her, the beauty and challenge of making a golem's heart fascinated her. It was like being a child all over again, her first real gem sitting in front of her, just waiting for the cut. The heart of a golem was entirely up to the creator. They said the more complicated the cuts and carvings, the more sophisticated the golem's thoughts. Tali had a lifetime of practice, even if she hadn't made her mastercraft. Maybe she could make something that would stand up to a real battle.

Rhesis smiled slightly at that. "You are far more qualified than we are, little dwarf. It will be fine."

Tali shrugged and took a deep breath. A golem could take on a demon, even a golem alone. They needed to level the battlefield right now, or Yari and her people would always be in fear of the crushing claws. That was worth more than a little bit of time. "I'll need a quiet space and some time without Prideep crawling all over me. I know he wants to help, but I'll need steady hands to tune it and then to use it. Eiv can stand watch." 

"Very well. I think Jarek and I can keep the little menace busy. Will you need Bar's help?" Rhesis sounded almost preoccupied with her own thoughts, no doubt trying to come up with a ruse that would keep their goblin focused. So far, the only thing they'd found that really kept him busy was hunting carnivorous fish with his bone spear and ridiculous courage.

"After the heart is created." Tali hoped she would be able to manage it. There was no guarantee she understood the words given by her ancestors. 

A golem was a creature of stone and metal meshed like flesh and bone, but at its heart burned the fires of Tek. As Jarek had once said, what outsiders considered the dwarven concept of magic existed solely as theurgy: all such works required the name of the God of Artifice to live.

Tali could not explain it. No language existed that could contain it as dead sounds graven into stone or cast in steel. Not even gems could hold it. All the same, it burned in her thoughts like a beacon, the very thing guiding her to the Golden City. It was an idea, ancient power flowing through her veins whenever she called it into the forefront of her mind. Tek was unfathomable, the well stretching downwards into eternity, and so was his true name. 

How she was supposed to get that out of her head and onto the gem was a mystery. The old adage on the painted silk was not much in the way of help: learn by doing.