Queen's Tent

She nodded and then smiled at him. From that point, she would simply go back to sleep. The gashes on her arm seemed to be healing just fine by now. She rested.

Around thirty minutes after Jun and Asadrack returned to the camp Düen stomped in. As expected he easily managed to talk a team of men and a sled into following him into the woods. The promise of about a tonne of meat was more than enough to spur them on. Especially when the bear that had carried the injured Uma back to camp confirmed that Düen was the one who'd saved her.

It took another few hours to get back to the body, load it on the sled, and pull the corpse back to camp Düen overseeing the whole thing since he was the only who could locate the body. Once the Moss Auroch is dropped he asks for and receives directions to Tana's tent the old dwarf grumbling as he walks right into her tent.

"Where are ye, ye blasted queen?"

The old Dwarf grumbles looking around for her.

"I dun want yer thanks. The lot of ya are just going around getting yerselves hurt."

Düen says looking at her scars and snorting in disapproval. Even their queen couldn't keep herself safe from harm.

"Thanks ain't going ta help me none and iffin ye all get yerselves killed then I ain't going ta get ta collect my payment. And ye owe me payment lass, I saved one of yer own and I brought in nearly a tonne of meat fer yer camp. Naw only that, is clear that too few o' yer number have actually gone anywhere the wildlife is out right hostile."
Where as Düen had once made his living acting as a guide to the underbelly of the Usque.

"So ye owe me and ye clearly need my services. Its time ta start talking about payment."

"Priority." Düen says folding his arms. "Once ye've got the essentials ye promise me the first thing ya build is a distillery and two barrels oh the first batch, then I'll lead yer lot into the woods. Teach them what I think their missing and ye can keep the Moss Auroch I felled. I'll take yer word that ye'll uphold yer end of the bargain so ye'd best counter yerself lucky I am feeling generous." Because, all things being even, the only thing he was actually getting in exchange was two barrels of whisky which was a pretty dirt-cheap price for his help by his reckoning. He was even willing to let them finish the essentials first, he just wanted her promise that once they got to building non-essential structures and services the distillery would be first on the list.

"Naw, there ain't much that interests me that I cannae make myself. Perhaps once ye've a mine and a forge I'll take some time with it."

Because he'd be damned if he trusted a human smith to make him equipment and he doubted they have any dwarven ones. He wasn't the best smith in the world but he'd served about twenty years in one, by human measure he'd have been close to a master. By dwarven he was barely more than an apprentice. The difference in their life times was the reason that dwarves were so good at such work. They had the time and patience to learn their forge and materials in ways a human didn't have time to.

That gets a snort of wry amusement as the dwarf says. "Ye talking about the gloomy one.?" The dwarf shakes his head. "Lad acts like the world rests on his shoulder. Way he looked was like he thought he was personally responsible fer what happened ta the lass." Which was the kind of mellow-drama Düen tried to avoid. Once you were an adult you were responsible for your own damn self, so unless you were the actual one doing it you couldn't be held responsible for what happened to another. Doubtless Uma would have told him the same. The lass had likely knew what she was getting into when she agreed to go. If she was smart.