Taking another slow deeeep breath of the sweltering hot and dry air, Jakon Dawdora did his best not to gasp, scratch his beard (as short and stubby as his black beard was), or even give his best dwarven hurrumpf at the sight in that far, far and all too blue distance.

Nope.

But on that towering high and amazingly craggy mountain known as Razorspine Peak … it couldn’t be … but …

A massive castle.

Like the mountain was just a thick stone stem and the castle a massive huge rose. A blood-red rose blighted with blotches of black. There were even sleek and spiny gatehouses around it. Like the gatehouses were thorns and the stairways were tendrils.

It just … couldn’t be. The castle wasn’t there yesterday.

Just the mountain was there yesterday. An unexplored mountain. The rocks were too razor sharp to travel up it, but Jakon would find a way. One day, when he was allowed a closer look. Eventually. When he was allowed to leave Dirlop on his own.

One day.

His bedroom window was round and wide despite the wall being sleek gray stone, so he could easily see the thick craggy forest of pine and oaks below. From here the forest was like a carpet along the vast valley full of moors and cliffs. It only hinted at the vast distance between Dirlop and Razorspine Peak.

Yet still … this sweltering heat meant his dad and his apprentices were already working hard in the family smithery since before sunrise, so they probably missed this sight, and … ha!

Jakon barked a laugh so hard he could taste last night’s dinner of mutton stew. He grinned so wide, he stroked his stubble once again. He was twenty and yet only had stubble. Not a true dwarf’s beard, but no matter. It was finally growing in. Finally.

And now this castle …

His eyes, he couldn’t stop them. They glanced to the side, at his bookshelf, chiseled into the sleek gray wall. Five shelves and each shelf was modeled after the gears Jakon used to love forging in his dad’s smithy, until his human half kicked in and sigh. Dwarven smithery techniques were too different from human smith techniques, too incompatible with humans, so … sigh.

Being half-human, half-dwarf ...not always a blessing but … like any dwarf would say, regrets are for fools and elves.

Just make tomorrow count even more!

Or in his case, today!

Still, Jakon tried to glance over at the four upper shelves packed full of leatherbacks more befitting of a well-read dwarf. Books about minerals and rocks. About histories and clans. Explorations and wars against orcs and worse, but no.

His eyes were glued once again to the bottom shelf, the shelf his mom, his human mom insisted his dad let him have. It grabbed his eyes and never let go since he started collecting and reading them ten years ago, when his human side ended his future as a dwarven smith forever. That very shelf was full of cheap flimsy paperbacks known as dime dreadfuls, but the stories in them … so wild and crazy, yet only the most drunken dwarf could manage to tell them so well.

And one dime dreadful in particular … called the Blood Rose of Doom.

Face out, because he hadn’t had the chance to start it yet, but right on the cover, the exact same castle!

What were the chances … that … wha … where did the castle go?!

It couldn’t be … but … a dwarf trusted his eyes.

He saw what he saw.

Jakon threw on dark blue jerkin and navy slacks, and with his thick leather boot thunking the stone floor, he headed out proudly and eager for a hearty dwarven breakfast.

Ready to spread the news far and wide.