In Over His Head! [A sexy, Mini Giantess romcom/fantasy adventure in Tamriel]

Chp 13 "The Thickening"

 The unlikely pair headed up the low dirt incline to the higher ground of the inner keep, through another gate and portcullis into a courtyard very unlike the one below where they had just come from. It was not immaculately trimmed shrubs or manicured lawns by any means, but it was definitely better kept than the hard packed dirt and the clutter of the sparring yard below. The grounds were clean and untracked, everything looked very organized, and there were even green shrubs of some tall skinny variety that Edovan had never seen before, planted in strategic locations. But plants in this city were so rare Edovan noticed them right away. Somebody was making an effort to make the place look at least half civilized.

There were several stone buildings against the larger high outer walls with wide stone paths leading back and forth between them. One was an obvious smithy where Edovan could see a large and burly orc, shirtless and sweaty, hammering glowing steel on a giant anvil. So intent was his gaze on his work that Edovan was sure that he hadn't even looked up at the giant commotion below when it happened. If anything, he looked irritated that anything would distract him from his craft. Staan waved as they passed and the Orc just grunted and raised the right corner of his mouth in the barest of possible acknowledgments.

"Hmmm. They must be close..." Edovan thought wryly to himself.

There was a two story building far away from all the others on his left that Edovan quickly deduced as some kind of infirmary given the traffic of wounded in and bandaged out. But Edovan's attention was immediately captured by where they were headed. In the middle was a large bronze colored tower, that stood out starkly against the grey stone everywhere. It was Dwemer for sure but, he noted, also unlike all the Dwemer structures the town itself was built on. Most of those were mechanical, non symmetrical, made for function over form. This, this was made to beautiful. It was graceful, round and concentric in design, with lots of ornamentation on the buttresses.

Edovan could tell two things about it right away. Immediately, he could tell it wasn't mechanical. There were no large visible pipes, no steam coming out, no clanking noises. The second thing was that he knew he wasn't seeing all of it. He could tell by the way the architecture was designed that this was the only the top of a potentially much larger structure. The large burnished doors made of the strange Dwemer metal that they were heading towards were most likely originally opening on to some sort of balcony. How this tower got partially buried and still remained here intact was a mystery Edovan earnestly wanted to unravel. Perhaps it was an ancient volcanIc eruption? Or maybe the ground collapsed under it and it sank.. Or perhaps-..

"You lost in those big thoughts again?" Staan's voice came from directly in front of him. Edovan's eyes refocused on his friend's grinning face, level with his own, and the big hand he was waving back and forth in front of his nose.

"Oh, yes. Sorry." Edovan stammered, blushing a bit. "This... This tower is different from the rest," he told Staanovaar.

Staan had gone down on one knee again in front of Edovan so they could talk easier. "Oh yeah. Its dwarven and the rest of the keep is good solid Nord stone, instead of this weird metal." He banged on the side of the building with his fist to emphasize the point. It reverberated with a low GOOOOOOONNNNGGGGG noise, not unlike some gigantic bell.

"No, I mean it's different from all the Dwe-" Edovan cut himself off because he didn't want to seem pretentious, " --dwarven structures as well. See how there's no pipes or steam? And it's all decorated and inscribed?" he said. Edovan didn't mention that it was also fairly bristling in runes that even he didn't recognize.

"You know, I think you're right. I've lived here all my life and I've never seen any other building in town that's like this one. I guess I just never thought about why..." Staan trailed off thoughtfully. But not nearly as thoughtfully as Edovan had considered the difference.