A new player has entered our story and that is the dwarves. Gate doesn't give the dwarves a lot of love so I will. Enjoy a Dwarven song I also have up there for you all to listen to.

Falmart. Dwarven kingdom. 665 imperial calendar.

Information is key as the phrase goes. Uriel believed this phrase to be true in many ways. Her kind were metal workers, masters of mining, the pinnacle of the master of technology in Falmart.

The empire could brag about their mages and dragons. The warrior bunnies and Demi humans could brag about their physical prowess. But her kind the dwarves were above all them in intelligence, stubbornness, and of course wealth.

Then came this great force that had knocked out the warrior bunnies in just 10 days. Takes of black rods that shot out death itself, flying metal birds, horseless carriages had spread. Oh and she was gonan eat that all up.

New knowledge equals new ways to make weapons for the forge. Such creations were not through the use of superior magic as those other races said as an excuse for their defeats. No she knew it was superior intelligence. Those people had a treasury trove of secrets and hidden knowledge ripe for research and for the taking.

Uriel had already sprung into action when she heard about these blacks rods. They must be replicated to ensure the dwarves have another edge against the ever growing Saderan empire. Of course she couldn't do this alone.

She had lost her arm after trying to gather the scales of dragons when they shed. It was a fair price to gather just 5 of those scales. Perfect for armor and such. Sadly the amount of large dragons had been going extinct as magic found a way to penetrate those thick scales so by the time she was born the great red dragon was the only one left.

Still worth getting her arm bitten off by it to get some scales. Then came dwarven kinds greatest discovery. Aurelian. Aurelian was a type of metal that was immune to all magic attacks through some unknown properly. Maybe those people of the unknown force have Aurelian of their own and have unlocked its secrets. Either way it was the very sample of dwarven armor.

Another testimony to Dwarven superiorty to the Saderans. Did she have a thing against humans in general. No. As long as you weren't one of those legionaries or a nobility from Sadera you were fine.

The Saderans had long ago forgotten about the value of steel, iron, and the creation of superior weapons. All they thought about when they turned to her homeland was gold. It pissed her off deeply.

If you were going to invade. Invade to expand your knowledge not to get rich like those greedy fats pigs of the nobility. Her kind was greedy even she was but at least they made food use of their gold. Dwarven nobility was built of the back of hard workers.

When in battle the king leads from the front. When sadera fights she sees their nobles acting all brave while sitting in their tents eating chicken and all that other shit they eat. What's the point of being a leader if you lead from the back.

While she could ramble on about her opinions on sadera she wanted to get back trying to replicate those black rods. The her kind had discovered an explosive powder and had been using it for mining. Now what if it could be implement into weapons.

She may be able to crack the secrets of the blacks rods that way. She had worked day and night after hearing about the blacks rods. Whether those rumors were true or not she didn't care she would replicate its effects.

Working with one arm was hard that why she had pulled some strings as she was Dwarven kinds best engineer to assemble a team to try to gain as much info on these black rods to then replicate them. The forges burned day and night as she tried to craft something like those black rods. She burned her hands several times trying to work with the explosive powderStill it would be worth it once she at least a prototype up.

Falmart. Paradise city. 1 AEE.

I had gotten up at around 5 am after another shitty night of sleep. I made myself some coffee and drink it while keeping an eye on the time. At 11 we were going to pay the dwarves a visit for an alliance as planned.

I took off my Shiite pajama shirt and shorts and put on black jeans and tuxedo. This would be hell. It was still summer and I would be boiling in this. Still I had to look presentable since I would be taking apart of diplomatic endeavors. I also got my beret with the GOC logo on it. It even had our motto on it.

I nearly forgot to put on my eyepatch before I headed out. I walked along the nice street of paradise city and towards the Starbucks to get my breakfast. I order a tomato mozzarella as always and a latte. I decide to switch off from drinking coffee constantly. I didn't regret it one bit. The latte tasted better in every way.

Every day new restaurants, businesses, and buildings would open up. We got a library up just a week ago. Then a new fast food place called Foundies opened up. I found it strange and almost insulted that it was named after the little nickname we used to call those fucking asshole from the foundation.

Why would we even want a place named after the fuckers who ended the earth. Terrible nake either way.

My current schedule was as followed.

Finish eating breakfast.

Go on a walk until 6.

Check on the dipolmatic team at 6:30

Meet with the 2 other leaders at 8:00

Make sure security for our diplomatic convoy was in place at 9:00

Have some free time from 10-11 am

Head out with the diplomats at 11:00

Since roads are ass in this part of the continent we should arrive at the Dwarven border at 3:00 pm.

Then deal with diplomatic bullshit and establish an allaince hopefully.

Depending on how long this takes I might be back home until tomorrow late at night once again killing off my sleep. I suggested we go their on helicopters but the Engineer said our helicopters would scare the dwarves and I smell some serious bullshit from that.

His reason and Robert's for voting on denying me from using a helicopter for heading to the dwarven kingdom I don't know.

Well maybe. The longer am away I would be able to keep them from doing all the bullshit. Robert had been expanding the church rapidly and trying with some success to convert the bunnies. The Engineer was trying to expand the chaos insurgency by manipulating former slaves into joining it.

I put a stop to that very quickly since they don't need to be guilt tripped into joining what is pretty much a former terrorist group.

Those two ever since the warrior bunny war felt that now that humanity wasn't in serious danger they could fuck around with the locals. Fuck them. The Global Occult Coalition doesn't fucking manipulate people into joining them.

Sure we have our fuck ups like with the damn chair and the two boats but those two groups have done way worse and the foundation as well.

Ugh I ruined any peace I had on my walk by having another serious of internal ramblings. Whatever I had to head to the meeting anyways since I had overdid my walk and finished at 6:10 instead of 6:00.

I got on my car and drove to our HQ.

Falmart. GOIs HQ. 1 AEE.

Clark had gotten a bit later than usual he was usually the first to arrive but it seems this time it was Robert. Clark arrived at 6:28. The Engineer didn't care much as long as Clark got to meetings early or on time.

"Still keeping your face hidden with the gas mask." Mused Robert as he gesture as the gas mask the Engineer was wearing. "It's standard insurgent gear." Said The engineer waving off Robert's teases.

"Well anyways I see you look presentable for your diplomatic ventures." Said the engineer addressing Clark. "Yes I am." Clark flatly.

"So for our current topics first of course we will have to discuss Clark and our diplomats little venture into Dwarven lands." The Engineer said. "You will of course I trust you have made sure to ensure proper protection for yourselves." The Engineer said to Clark.

"Yes. Some of my men will guard the diplomats. I don't need a guard myself I'm perfectly fine at protecting myself." Clark said.

"Lovely to hear now can we talk about reforming the UIU." Said Robert bored. "The Unusual Incidents Unit will be reformed as plan but will deal in safe guarding warrior bunny villages and act as a rapid response force to guerrilla attacks." Said the Engineer.

"This sounds good and all but... They will act as an independent force and get representation in these meetings. I non of us should try to pull the strings and control them. That would be corrupt." Clark said calmly. "Of course why would we do that. We'd be just as bad as the foundation if we did that." Said the engineer calmly and slyly.

"Also it's not like the church of the broken could pull off controlling the FBI." Said the Engineer taking a jab at Robert. As long as the Engineer kept just a slight bit of power over the others he would be fine. Robert shot him a glare before sighing metallically.

The Engineer while he viewed the survival of humanity as important it was no longer truly threatened any more so now he had to expand the influence of the chaos insurgency. The first step was of course exerting as much power as he could grasp in these meetings. He had already become kinda of the De facto leader of humanity with the Clark really only having control of military matters.

Clark was different from Al Fine as a leader. While Al Fine was quite fine with playful banter in meetings and he and her enjoyed poking fun of Robert. Clark on the other hand liked to get straight to the point and get meetings over with. He likes to get things done in a quick and methodical way. He had planned operation blackout presented it to him and Robert during one of their meetings and forced their hands into following the GOCs lead in the war against the bunnies.

If he disliked what you said he would openly call you out for it or tell you to stop. He did this on multiple occasions on meetings. He repeatedly questioned Robert's morals which was reasonable since he had made some questionable suggestions during meetings. When it came to the Engineer himself Clark would make his absolute mission to limit the engineers power in meetings and to try to keep things equal among the leaders.

Clark was stunting the insurgences growth and the Engineer didn't like it one bit. Clark would have to be dealt with in the future at some point but not now.

Falmart. Dwarven kingdom. 665 imperial calendar.

Uriel had fallen asleep out of exhaustion after hours of non stop working on what was another one of her passion projects for her people. She and her team had however gotten a prototype up after a series of trial an errors. The musket had been born.

She would have kept sleeping had she not been informed that the people of the unknown force had come to seek and allaince with her people.

She had jolted up at this revelation. She hoped to get a closer look at those black rods to see if her prototype had come anywhere close to their power. While she did admit she was tired as the memeber of her team they knew that history would be made today.

She hoped that the king would accept the allaince these unknowns held the very pinnacle of technology and weapons around their fingers. Such power was worth the cost of an arm, a leg, or anything her view.

She made her way along the many halls under the mountains that her kind made their homes in. Her people lives both in mountains and outside them. She got out of the halls in the mountains and was briefly blinded by the sunlight. She and spent 2 weeks under the mountains and in the forges.

She saw the many small houses that dotted the outside of the mountain and the capitals first line of defense the outer walls. The last line of defense was the mountain itself of course.

It was the afternoon based on how bright the sun was shining. The horns of city sounded as she saw from a bit of a distance the horseless carriages enter the city. They were flanked by her people's cavalry. Boar riders. The boars of her people were breed to be man eating so when in times of war they unlike horses could fight back if one were to try to target them.

While the Dwarves never fought many wars when they did it wasn't an uncommon sight to see a poor lad being eaten alive by a boar.

The horseless carriages seemed to be entirely made of some tan metal thought its original color was probably not black and it had been painted over. The one horseless carriage that wasn't tan was painted blue and had a strange symbol on it.

The symbol was a pentagram with some words in between the corners of said pentagram being written in some never seen before language.

Was is possible those words were a war chant of sorts. "Uriel good to see you've gotten out of the forge." A voice behind her said. She turned around and saw the Dwarven king. King Duran behind her and moving towards the men disembarking from their horseless carriages.

The king of course was as curious as her about those strangers weapons and technology. "We must have the utmost manners around these people. "They prove the very argument that technology is stronger than magic. Show them some of our creations as well. I want to exchange some of our weapons and works for theirs." He said calmly and gruffly as he gestured for her to run back to the forge to bring out the prototype.

Uriel rapidly ran back into the mountain and to the forge as fast as her legs could carry her. The prototype of the new weapon was heavy and hard to carry, but she succeed in brining it up non the less.

She then once out of mountian tried to catch up with the king who was already meeting with the men.

The men who had come out of the horseless carriages had a blue uniform with a black vest. They also when she got closer had a patch with the same symbol and words on the blue horseless carriage. The king was greeting 5 men in particular and a 6th who she assumed was their leader since his attire was different.

The man she assumed was their leader had an eye patch stood at around possibly 5'9 maybe 5'10. He also wore some kind of uniform with something on his neck like the 5 men the king was greeting. Now that I was closer I could see the black rods the men carried. They didn't look similar to my prototype at all but still I hoped it could match them in power.

I went up to men's leader hoping to get more info on the black rods and to get a basic idea of if my prototype is close to them in power.

Falmart. Dwarven kingdom. 1 AEE.

The Dwarves were far more hospitable than the warrior bunnies. The king had invited us to a banquet and wanted to see our weapons in use. I saw nothing wrong with it so I accepted the invitation to the banquet along with the other diplomats. The diplomats from the church were getting quite the attention for being pretty much uglier versions of cyborgs.

Could they even eat. I'll never know. The dwarves were not as short as I expected and the king was around 5 foot while most dwarves were around 4 to 4'5 in height. I guess I was expecting them to be 3 feet or some bullshit like that.

Another one of my inner ramblings was Interrupted by an "Excuse me sir." I look down as and saw a Dwarf. A female to be exact. She was around 4'6 to 4'8 with hair that would remind one of fire. She was muscular and had several patches of black on her gloves face and arms. Most likely charcoal from working in some dwarven forge. She also had her right arm missing.

"Yes what can I do for you miss?" I said struggling with my dwarvish and trying to remain well mannered. Manners were never my strong suit I was a soldier deep down even if I was now the leader of the GOC. "May I see those black rods of yours" she asked gesturing to our assault rifles and guns.

She said this in Latin and had noticed me struggling in speaking dwarvish. I was glad she switched languages I was better at Latin.

"No you may not those are our guards weapons if you want to look at them you can. Touch them you cannot." I said calmly trying not to sound too firm. They were curious about our weapons which I couldn't blame them for I had just noticed she carried a musket of sorts.

Not wanting really to spoil her fun since I felt bad for her I said. "You can check my side arm" I was sure I was going to regret this but fuck it. She glimmer with excitement before I took out my SIG Pro Swiss pistol.

I had requested this pistol as my side arm in the GOC and it was granted. I always wanted unique guns. So I got this pistol from Switzerland. Another reason I joined the GOC was the fact I could choice my own weapons.

The Dwarf eyed the pistol with an adorable sense of fascination. Reminded me of children when they get their first toy.

"Can I see that gun of yours." I asked gesturing at her musket. "Huh. Oh this." she said handing my her musket with on hand while touching my SIG Pro pistol. Jesus Christ the musket was heavier than it looks.

It had some golden decor to it along with what I assumed was the dwarven coat of arms branded into the wood. I'm glad I had take sever weapons classes in the GOC as I could easily see the muskets resembling a fancier version of the Indian Toradar musket which was primarily used for hunting though was employed greatly by the Mughals(Indias largest empire.) army.

"On a scale of power does your gun have a greater power than mine." She asked curiously while struggling to pronounce gun. "My side arm though small is way more powerful in terms of rate of fire than yours. The weapon you had we created around 600 years ago." I said.

She looked at me wide eyed. I seriously hope I hadn't crushed some dream of hers cause she looked defiantly bummed out. She soon regained her cheerfulness. "Doesn't matter anyways how do you make these. You must have huge amounts of forges. Your tech is on another scale. Just look at these beauties." she said looking at our Humvees while I could see the king trying to restrain his laughter at her obsession with every single piece of tech we had.

"Your Highness. I once again have to thank you for inviting us for the banquet." I said to the king while I saw the diplomats fraternizing with other members of the royal family. "No need for such formalities my friend. Plus with your clear skills in weaposn making and building in general I can sense a great era approaching Falmart." He said.

I had to respect the dwarves being able to value our tech. I hadn't even done a weapons demonstration as planned and the king already saw the power we had. He seemed more than ready to endorse us.

"Hey how do get these things to move." Asked the female dwarf inspecting the Humvee. "I'll show you after the banquet and when things have quieted down. My treat." I said. "Thank you so much." She said shaking my hand vigorously. Jesus that woman had a grip.

What followed next was like a blur of sorts. The king showed us around his palace in the mountain. It was certainly beutiful and I saw several pillars made of melted gold. Jesus they were rich. I had to stop the diplomats of the church from trying to go around converting dwarves cause that's not what we were here for. This trip was a nice little distraction in general from me going back to Portland or Ganzir which is why I took it in the first place.

Other than some sight seeing it seems the red head dwarf who I learned her name was Uriel decided I would be the one she would bombard questions to. I spent a good chunk of our little tour around the palace answering her questions. From answering what the church of the broken god diplomats were exactly to teaching her basic fire arm safety.

I couldn't say I hated it. It was another distraction from my crippling PTSD. It also allows me to have a genuine conversation with a person. Something I hadn't had since Marco died.

We were finally shown our quarters for the night and then taken to the banquet.

The dinner table was massive it was 300 feet long and 20 feet wide. Foods, drinks, and other things were lined around the table. It was like an all eat buffet. After some prayers by the dwarves we began to eat. The environment soon turned into a massive party. Dwarves were getting drunk left and right. I did my best not to consume alcohol of any sorts. This was a wise choice.

The diplomats who did consume the alcohols which was literally fucking all of them got drunk in one swig. The dwarven alcohol was clearly not meant for humans. The food was great through.

I saw the king collapse on the table at one point drunk. This went on for hours. I left early and dragged out the drunken diplomats. Uriel had apparently had left the party early than me to go work in her forge. I dumb each of our respective diplomats in their rooms.

I then went to get fresh air. I saw the stars dancing in the night sky. It was a beutiful display. Sometimes we would look out at the stars in Ganzir. It was the only pretty sight of the siege anyways. "Great someone that's not drunk." I heard someone say behind me. It was Uriel of course who had come to bombard me with more questions.

"So what's your name humans. You got mine I deserve yours." She said casually. "Mathew Clark." I responded. "Strang name." She joked. I shrugged. "So do you think I'll be able to see those flying metal birds of yours." She asked going back to her curious and excited tone. "Maybe depends on how things go. I'm sure you'll see our metal birds at some point. We call them Raptors and Warthogs by the way." I said. "Are their names named after something." She asked.

"Yes. The Warthogs are named after an animal similar to your boars. The Raptors are named after a type of reptiles." I said. I knew they didn't know we had corn from another reality and we would keep that hidden until we could fully trust the dwarves. "Makes sense. We name our siege weapons after animals sometimes." She said.

I was curious about how she lost her arm and decide to take the conversation in a different direction to keep things interesting. "How did you lose the arm." I asked. She responded more positively to the question to my question than I expected. "Oh I lost to when I tried to get some scales off the red dragon. And I fucking lived to tell the tale. Worth it in every degree. I got 5 scales off that bastard before he bite my arm off. It every time I look at my missing arm I remember what I accomplishment that day." She seemed more than proud of her achievement.

"Now tell me about how you lost your eye lad." She said eager to hear how I lost it. I wasn't fully comfortable in telling her how I lost it but I had asked about her injury so I was obligated I guess to answer her question about mine. "I lost it when me and my friends were ambushed by the warrior bunnies." I said calmly though also trying not to go back to that day.

"I still bet you whipped those bunnies good." She said. "Plus see that missing eye as a reminder that you surived that day and as a great battle scar in fighting your enemies." She said proudly. It didn't know how to exactly feel about this completment she gave me. It was a reminder that I had survived and my friends had not which felt wrong. At least she had good intentions behind that comment so I wouldn't get worked up over it.

"I'll be turning in for the night I need some proper sleep." I said. This was defiantly true it was the middle of the night by this point and I needed my sleep. "Very well. See you tomorrow my human friend. Also you still got to show me how your damn horseless carriages move!" she reminded me as I walked off. "will tomorrow" I said tired.

I practically kept on my bed when I got to my room. I got into my pajamas I had brought incase we stayed overnight. Of course they were just a simple shirt and shorts.

I took off my eyepatch and went to sleep on my bed.