Battle Hymn of the Republic

What belief the quarrids had in their cause faded in the face of Willow’s temerity. A couple of the smaller rock-eaters looked at each other before looking for some assurance from their boss. A brief confusion began to spread among all those present, as they began to whisper among themselves.

“... an agent of the artisans…”

A few of the smallkin at one corner of the hall stretched themselves over the table to speak.

“... word-bearers of their kind… aren’t they unwelcome here…?”

A few sparkling wisps, constructs, bounced and gossiped.

“... she says she represents the Father…”

Some odinkine spoke approvingly with a few quarrids.

“... the Patron would send no less…”

The air of respect was interrupted by the rambunctious rattling of Willow’s quarry.

“Don’t listen to her!” roared the Spriggan, flailing his arms wildly, “She’s some Tallkin from Jotungard! She’s no one!”

“This is so exciting!” chittered Curie, joining in on the display. She crowded the Spriggan, flying into his face, “Does this mean you’re an enemy of the Father himself!? I’ve never met an enemy of creation before!”

“What!? No!” sputtered the spriggan, whipping his head back and forth, “I’m not–... This– She’s not–... This–”

A cacophonous shudder of the massive doors past the open feasting area brought the hall’s din to a dead silence. Heads, all looking Willow, turned to the open threshold to see another tallkin, this one a full head shorter than Willow, almost as short as Drysi. He looked to be about Willow’s age, but his face was drawn with weariness. Arms of brutish strength were pressed at the heavy stone doors, before dropping to his side as he carried on into the hall.

The quarrids present stiffened as the young man stepped over to one of the tables and snatched up a couple of crusted stones with flecks of metal in it. With a snap of his grey teeth, he snapped off a chunk and began to chew.

“Ah– ah– Diligence!” one of the smaller quarrids piped up, with a small amount of confidence.

Responding to the name, the new arrival lazily whirled his eyes in the smallkin’s direction, turning the rock with his metal-looking hands to take another bite, “Yeah...”

He squinted with thought, a force of remembrance trying to burn from his mind through his face.

“...Yvette?”

The quarrid nodded furiously, before pointing at Willow, “A messenger from the Father is here to see you.”

Willow could see the artisan slowly look over at her, before tossinf the rest of his earthen snack in his mouth. His gaze lingered, searching her, piecing her apart with every movement of his eyes. Then, he turned and began to walk back to the doors he had entered from.

“Busy. Come back later.”

“Tsk,” Willow made an annoyed sound. Quickly, she retrieved the manilla folder from the spriggan’s pack before unceremoniously dropping the smallfolk. With her hands free she stowed the parcel in her satchel. Looking over towards its beast, she burned Brass again but specifically targeting the gordalisk and Soothed its will and boldness before staring it down hard before saying, “Go lay down, now.”

“Watch the thief,” Willow said to Phyllis before she began to saunter after Diligence. Reaching into one of her pouches, she withdrew a nugget of Mithril and after a brief showcase that it was shiny and metal, popped it into her mouth and swallowed. Immediately using the new reserve, Willow floated up and over the crowd before adjusting the burn to turn the motion into a graceful arc.

“He only rises to work, and he only rests to work, so is his name, but in sickness,” Willow quoted from behind the Artisan. This might be questionable on a couple levels, but Willow directed her Brass at Diligence and Soothed his apathy and depression. “So it seems you are always busy these days, and this is a matter that cannot wait. Please hear me out.”

Few except Bjorn knew what to expect as Willow set these events in motion. Phyllis dutifully set the spriggan at her feet as his gordalisk refused repeated commands, seemingly bowing to a different master now. Ghyslain could only giggle constantly at some unseen distance. Helen took shelter in the wagon, not feeling safe anywhere in particular, and Curie was carefully gauging a safe distance. The rest of the patrons of the hall were beginning to stand up and clear away from the tables under the trajectory of Willow’s ascent, and the exchange was beginning to draw in more attention from the rest of the lighted cavern.

The patrons that remained in their spots were the quarrids, watching in awe of this odd stranger or eying their foreman for a response.

Diligence stood with his back to the floating Allomancer, his shoulders slumping as his fingers dragged down the edges of the doors. Unlike the other artisans, there was no glow to him, or otherworldly aura. He looked to be a broad young-man, distinctly muscular and rugged, adorned in nothing but worn pants, boots and a worn belt of tools.

When the artisan turned around, the annoyance was evident, but it washed away under a stolid squint.

“Must be important,” gritted flames through Diligence’s teeth, “for you to be speakin’ poetic like an old battle-brotha’ of mine and wearin’ the face of Tha’ Forgotten. I don’ normally take orders from some large stranger barging in on my house and hospitality, but for some reason…”

The small artisan’s eyes narrowed pointedly with a sneer, “... I’m feelin’ charitable. So you got ten words. If you go over, you’re gunna’ pay in lumps. Got it?”

“Or!” Yvette raised her hand sharply, “we could wait for the next break time, boss!”

Diligence’s eyes rolled back as he took a deep breath, and exhaled, “Or you could wait for my next break. In twelve hours. Yeah. Thanks, Yvette.”

Yvette saluted sharply before turning around to high five with three other quarrids that were sitting with her.

Ah beans, one of these scenarios. This would probably have been up Drysi’s alley, but to be honest Willow was somewhat gravitating towards trading lumps at the moment. No, she was in diplomat mode, and needed to try and do this properly. Taking a deep breath, she thought through word counts as she grit her teeth. Finally, she killed the burn on Mithril and let her boots hit the ground with a clack.

“Artisans fighting Vengeance. Want you. I need metal snacks please,” certain she sounded like a moron, she doubled down and held up ten fingers to show her count. From here, it took a lot of self-control for her to not keep talking. Almost as much self-control as it took to not include a snarky remark in her ten word allotment. Now it was just a matter of Diligence agreeing. From a pouch she pulled another nugget of Pewter, along with a nut of the Clever alloy, and popped them both in her mouth and swallowed. She also shifted the burn on her Brass to target Diligence’s feelings of animosity, but still targeting the Artisan’s depressive feelings.

The quarrids still present all had their hands up, counting along with Willow in their heads. Even Diligence seemed to be replaying the sentence in his head, bouncing it left and right up to ten times as he mouthed the words. On the tenth time, his mouth flattened, realizing that Willow had effectively conveyed her message within the constraints.

“So they sent you,” surmised Diligence, as even within Willow’s influence, his shoulders slumped, “tha’ world’s safer without me until it needs me. That’s what you’re sayin’. That’s what they’re sayin’.”

A bubbling, noxious laughter grew out of the artisan’s throat, “Well. I don’t need them. Vengeance has been a way of life for me an’ my people since we settled the mountains. Her wraiths start showin’ up on their land and suddenly it’s our problem?”

Diligence flattened his hands over his face and dragged them down with pained sigh.

“No. I told you. I told Noble. I tell everyone. I’m busy. This world’s heart beats in time with the Guide’s, but the world’s cities is built on metal and stone from–...”

“--THE GREAT TASK!” howled all the quarrids present, “THE MOUNTAINS BLEED ETERNAL BOUNTY FOR THOSE WHO WORK!”

The artisan raised his hands up as if the rippling echos ringing in the cavern were evidence enough, and said, “And, if you’re hungry, just pick somethin’ off the table. Take as much as ya can eat. Let it be known our hospitality doesn't involve a gun to ya head.”

At that, Diligence waved, and made his way back into the open doorway.

“Eeeeee!” Willow made the resonating sound of a buzzer. “Wrong answer half-pint!”

Swallowing back her trepidation, Willow tensed to make herself seem larger as she stalked after the Artisan. She was gambling, but hopefully in a win-win manner. She’d been told smallfolk emulated their Artisan, and it seemed like the quarrids responded to strength and assertiveness. So, Willow reasoned that Diligence would follow suit. Ergo, act tough and maybe he’d relent, and if not, it would probably end up with her egging him into a fight which was one of the plans anyway. It felt like going zero to sixty, but if she dallied to long on niceties, he’d just shut himself inside. She needed to capture his attention.

“By all means, run off back to yu’r workshop and hide. I was led to believe I was coming to speak with a proud warrior, but instead all I find is a petulant child who doesn’t want to go outside because the other kids were mean to him. So, if this is all there is to ya, then yeah, maybe we really are better off without you. Sit inside, play with your toys, but don’t be surprised when your Great Task becomes as irrelevant as you are because there are no more cities to supply. Or you can come with me and prove the other Artisans wrong about you by showing just how adept you are at handling Vengeance,” the words just kept coming, and Willow winced inwardly at some of the things she said. This needed to be done. This realm was more or less hard-headed as a literal character trait, there’s no way Diligence would respond to her if she was trying to play nice and mend fences with honeyed words. This required punching, physically or verbally. Just in case, she brought Pewter up to a normal burn, and used Brass to Soothe Diligence’s stubbornness and anger.

Words held gravity, they were like magic that even the mundane could use. By just speaking, a person could inspire silence and awe, or incite an emotional response. Sometimes the right words at the right time can make all the difference in the world.

Willow would learn what that meant today. She didn’t have a Gideon to sit on her shoulders and whisper just the right things to say, or catch her before she spoke out too boldly. Instead, she had Bjorn, whose taciturn silence sometimes gave the implicit air of approval in audacity. She was free to burn bright and fight for a doomed world that she had only really known for a few days. There were many in the room who could see that in her words, coming around to the appeal she was making to make a difference.

Diligence was not one of them.

He kept walking through the buzzer, the short-joke, and even the claim he was running off to hide. The thing that stopped him was being called a child, which clearly struck a chord. The real difference was in how he took the demeaning way that Willow represented his exile. Even though he had turned away, the tense pull in the fibers of his muscles showed a volatile core of emotion stirring within him.

“This is how they seek forgiveness,” came a voice filtered through clenched teeth. Around his neck was a collar of iron, stamped with inscriptions and embedded into his skin. The metal began to glow with an orange color as flames licked up the sides of his head.

The artisan turned, showing every ounce of emotion that Willow meant to inspire, and then some.

“I GUESS I NEED TA’ SEND’M A RESPONSE–,” snarled Diligence, as the fires from his collar consumed his head in a fierce blast, leaving nothing but an empty, orange void in between shoulders.

Willow’s next sensation was heat, as the headless demi-god came at her like a shot, his fist of iron primed in a life-ending swing, “-- IN A BOX.”

It was remarkable. The adrenaline in her veins, that is. She had been expecting this fight, and deep down almost even eager for it. Right now, with a demi-god trying to kill her, Willow felt alive. Pewter burned with a steady heat in her stomach, filling her with strength and amplifying her perception and focus. Even still, she doubted she’d want to take that punch even while guarding. This would be a matter of timing, like parrying in a way. As Diligence roared in Willow flared Pewter and focused on his fist. As the punch was thrown she juked to the offensive side and brought her knee up into the demi-god’s oblique.

“I grow on people. Give it a minute,” Willow quipped as she dropped the burn on Pewter back to normal, and upped the burn on Mithril to use the force of her attack to send her drifting away to gain a bit of distance should Diligence pivot to make another swing. “Trust me, sending me was calculated.”

Anyone in attendance at that point was making a dash for the door, or into the interiors carved into the walls of the caverns. Quarrids overturned tables and benches alike, and Willow’s entourage was pulling their wooden charge with them out of the hall and back into the open air. Few wanted to find out if Willow was some sort of artisan herself, and what havoc that would wreak upon the world.

The Allomancer’s knee struck what may as well have been a rock wall, her care rewarded with Diligence swinging as she thought he would. His headless visage gave little to the anger he felt, but the stilted movement showed a sense of surprise. It was only a moment of stillness, before the heat rose again and Diligence made a move towards her, his words resonated from the glowing space between his shoulders.

“Big mouth, huh?”

Then he stopped, catching himself, and backpedaled, as if unsure.

“Hope you got a lot saved in the bank…”

Finally, his movement, signaling some sort of vacillating confusion, instead revealed its true intentions. The demi-god snatched up one of the near-by tables and in one motion, batted Willow across the hall into another line of tables.

“CAUSE I’M A’BOUTTA’ ’MAKE YOUR ASS CASH A CHECK!”

To add to the ensemble of pain, Diligence then threw the table after her.

Just as Willow was about to make a quip about having a big mouth she realized what Diligence was doing. Pewter up, Mithril up, and a British girl batted away like a grand slam. She tucked her extremities as best she could and collided with a table shoulder first. Mithril down, Willow down; on the ground, but not out. Rolling, she dropped Pewter back to normal and caught sight of another table chasing from back the way she’d come. Pushing with a braced foot, she rolled once more out of the way of the oncoming piece of furniture and regained her feet. She began scanning the tables around her. Diligence had eaten what looked like ore not long ago. While eating actual rock would wreck her insides, if she found any straight metal she could probably work something; although it’d likely be too much to hope the quarrids would just have steel ball bearings or iron filings sitting on a table, and Pewter cutlery would be a big ask. The scan was momentary, as she did not forget what she was currently knee-deep in.

“So… wait… banks I get, but y’all use checks here? Gonna throw a punch while saying I have an outstanding payment next?” Willow called out, happier with this quip than the one she’d had about having a big mouth. She grabbed up a couple tankards before burning Mithril and leaping high into the air. With a quick pitch she threw the first tankard… and immediately began to spin in the air. Whoops. Zero gravity rules. She dropped Mithril’s burn and landed in a somersault and threw the second tankard as she came out of the tumble. “Have some drinks, they’re on me.”