The teleport platform was large enough to fit eight carriages comfortably.

  While it wasn’t directly connected to other places like a proper portal, the platform amplified teleport abilities and allowed mages to travel further afield for less mana. It could be used by many mages simultaneously, but Bastian had reserved the entire space as an added safety precaution. He was the last to step onto the magical circle, making sure that the royal guards were ready to go and Their Royal Highness was secure.

  “That’s everyone,” Bastian walked over to Master Jasper of Vinecrest. The mage was an elder fae, willowy in stature, with curly brown hair and two short antlers on his forehead. He had no less than three birds living in his hair at any one time, and Bastian thought he’d seen a snake’s head peek out a sleeve under the fae’s long mage’s robes earlier.

  “Good to hear, good to hear,” Jasper leaned on his oaken staff, his milk-white mostly blind eyes remaining unfocused. “Then let us be off.”

  Jasper lifted his staff and brought it down gently, and an unnaturally loud thud echoed out from the point of impact. Lights erupted underfoot, and the elder fae called out his [Quick Cast] spell in a deep voice that carried to everyone present.

  “[Teleport].”

  With a single breath, Bastian closed his eyes and reopened them half-way across the continent. He didn’t suffer from motion sickness, but Carsen did, the fox coughing madly from his carriage seat.

  They had landed in a private merchant bay organized by the Baldorin council.

  “Welcome,” said a dwarf wearing shining golden armor. He wore a purple band on his arm showing that he was a member of border security. “Identification please.”

  Bastian pulled out five cards from his inventory, and added the tea party invitation that Rowen had picked to attend that afternoon. “We will be visiting for one cycle, and leaving on the morrow.”

  “Are you teleporting to your next destination?” The dwarf inquired, using a magical tool to scan each document carefully.

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’d kindly ask you to return here and sign out properly–” The dwarf stopped when he reached the invitation, both eyebrows shooting up so high that they disappeared beneath his helmet. “Well now…”

  “Is there something wrong?” Bastian asked, curious.

  The dwarf hadn’t bat an eyelash at processing Rowen’s documentation, but was completely thrown by a simple tea party invite.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “No, nothing wrong.” The dwarf finished scanning the invite and handed back everything at once. Despite his words, he had an unnaturally large grin on his face. “You have a good trip now, and I’ll see you here next cycle.”

  The dwarf waited until he was walking away from Bastian before chuckling to himself in some inside joke.

  "Thinkin' they'll port a goat, ha. No chance on that prize!"

  Bastian stared at the invite nervously. Pink glittery letters curved in an elegant scrawl, Miss Hammerwinkle’s Tea Party.

  “Are we good to go, Commander?” A soft voice called out. Rowan had stuck their head out of the carriage window and smiled with amusement. Jasper had already joined the fox inside, sitting across from Rowan with his eyes closed and resting.

  “Yes, Your Highness.” With a continued feeling of unease, Bastian stepped up onto the ledge of the horseless carriage and held onto the gilded frame. Checking Nelson and Rebecca were also in place, he signalled to Carsen to drive.

  They pulled out of the merchant bay into the organized city streets of the Dwelling, a large underground city with a dome crystal roof that illuminated the darkness. Small impurities and edges in the crystal slats reflected a soft yellow light, and gave the illusion of daytime.

  The underfolk used cycles to tell time instead of the sun. Every six hours, the city changed the hue of the light overhead until the next cycle. From midnight until six, they cast a gentle orange light over the cities, and then moved to yellow, white and lastly light blue.

  The Dwelling was a massive hub, but the dwarves were meticulous in their construction and there were rarely traffic jams. The carriage moved steadily through the districts until they entered a tunnel connecting to the Golden City.

  There was only one assassination attempt along the way.

  A dwarf rogue had been lying, cloaked against detection, in the road. When the carriage had ambled over him, the dwarf had reached up and hitched himself to the underframe.

  Luckily, Sir Rebecca had sensed the disturbance in the pull of the carriage and signalled the alarm. Bastian had checked the roof, and Rebecca found the assailant about to discharge acid slime onto the bottom of the carriage.

  The assassin had been detained and deposited with the guard at the entrance to the Golden City.

  The rest of their trip through the capital city proved uneventful, though Bastian remained on high alert for a second attack.

  The Golden City of Baldorin was named for exactly as one would expect: gold. The buildings were made of gold, the streets were stabs of gold and even the lamp posts were gold-plated. It was a show of profound opulence, but also the pride of the underfolk.

  It had remained standing against thieves, dragons, and even civil war… because the gold used to make the city had been processed by one of the most famous dwarven blacksmiths of legend: Master Kurtis Cursebreaker.

  The joke was on the world, since no one had managed to break the curse woven into the molten gold used to build the Golden City even thousands of years later. It was pretty - but it couldn’t be moved, broken off, sold, or anything other than appreciated.

  “Bastian.” Rowan stuck their head out of the window and asked, “How are we for time?”

  Bastian answered while glancing at the governance building dome towering over the city. It was a useful point to help determine their progress. “That depends…"

  “On?”

  “On whether we wanted to visit the consulate before going to your planned activities.” He said. While Rowan had only officially selected one tea party… there was no saying how many the fox would actually attend. Their Royal Highness enjoyed surprising people, and delighted in mischief.

  Still, they needed to continue on to the Hammerwinkle estate if they were going to make it. Rowan tapped one long finger on their chin, considering. “Let’s head straight for the tea party.”