Dividing the Spoils

Adamantine was one of the hardest metals known to the world. It withstood high temperatures and corrosion, resisted disintegration, could be inscribed with runes, and absorbed magical energy. Aside from its few drawbacks—it was extremely heavy, difficult to work, and hard to find—it could be called the finest magical metal. Adamantine was five times as dense as steel, as tough as pure gold, and highly resistant to heat. It could not melt even in lava, though it would float on the surface after absorbing enough heat.

Adamantine ore found in Faerun's natural world did not need to be smelted or refined. This purple-gold treasure came out of the ground as an exceptionally pure metal. The real challenge was working it into a finished product. According to ancient legends, there were only two ways to work adamantine. One involved the stomach acid of the Earth-boring Beast, a gigantic subterranean monster. This creature fed on metal and rock and looked like a cross between a giant slug and a sea turtle. Combined with a special spell, its stomach acid could soften adamantine's surface enough to engrave or stretch it. But turning a fist-sized piece of adamantine into a longsword required an astonishing amount of materials.

The Dark Elves, who used adamantine more extensively than anyone else today, relied mainly on this method. The extent to which a Drow family used adamantine products also reflected its strength. In Menzoberranzan, the most famous city in the Underdark, some of the mightiest families even made the fences around their estates out of adamantine. (Naturally, some of them were just trying to look richer than they were.) This showed just how deep their resources ran.

The other method was nothing but a legend. It was said that a god's divine fire could be used to reshape adamantine at will, but no one could verify this claim except the gods themselves.

People's ability to work and use adamantine changed during the age of the Netherese Empire, when a brilliant wizard invented a potion. With this special flux, people could heat adamantine and reshape it just as they would lead or tin. Once it cooled, it regained its original properties. The invention of flux broadened humanity's use of adamantine and helped make flying cities possible, since many of their essential components could only be supported by adamantine. Sadly, when the flying cities fell, the recipe for making flux was lost as well. Later adventurers found incomplete recipes in Netheril's ruins, but the inferior flux made from them was far less effective than the original and extremely expensive.

In the years that followed, a new method of using adamantine emerged. By combining it with special magical materials, people could blend its strengths with those of other metals to produce alloys that retained most of adamantine's excellent properties without being so heavy or difficult to work. But this technique stirred up hostility between two races: Dwarves and Gnomes. Most Dwarves believed it was the Soul Forger Moradin's invention, a precious gift taught to their race by Dumathoin, the secret guardian beneath the mountains. The first known Dwarf to master the technique had been a Cleric of Dumathoin, and the Dwarves claimed to be the first race to make adamantine alloys. (In fact, adamantine alloys had already been widely used in Netheril thousands of years earlier.)

The Gnomes, on the other hand, believed that alloying was the ingenious invention of Spark of Wisdom, Garl Glittergold, the leader of the Gnomish gods. Unlike Dwarves, who worked alloys at the forge, Gnomes preferred to do it in their alchemy laboratories. They were the first race to bring the technique to the human world, after Netheril's fall, so some people believed that Gnomish alchemists had invented it.

And so conflict arose. The Dwarves and Gnomes, who had once lived together like brothers, became enemies. Though both races showed restraint and avoided any major battles, they had truly become strangers to one another, with no dealings for the rest of their lives. There were surely other reasons for their falling-out, but people preferred—or deliberately chose—to believe that a single recipe had caused their feud.

Weapons made of adamantine naturally pierced armor and absorbed magic. Almost no armor could withstand an adamantine weapon's strike, except armor made of adamantine itself. Even a dragon's thick hide could be pierced with ease. If not for adamantine's high density and tremendous weight, it would be the best material for making armor.

Because of the excessive mining during the age of the Netherese Empire, adamantine deposits had become exceedingly rare on the surface. A little could still be found now and then in remote underground regions, making adamantine astonishingly scarce and expensive in the human world. It was worth about two thousand gold coins per pound, but turning it into a finished product required an equal value of auxiliary reagents. Add in the labor costs, and the price could easily exceed five thousand gold coins. Most importantly, adamantine was so scarce that supply could not meet demand, no matter how much someone was willing to pay.

Finding adamantine in a Kobold cave was an absolutely thrilling discovery. Old Singers and Torg eagerly rummaged through the Kobolds' ore piles, hoping to find more. Unfortunately, their hopes were dashed. They searched every pile but found no second piece. The Dwarf sat dejectedly on the ore, staring blankly at the fist-sized chunk of adamantine. Sunderland and Aelf sighed in frustration, their faces equally crestfallen. Only little Mishaer, who had no idea what adamantine was worth, squatted nearby, looking from one to another with keen interest. She imitated their gloomy expressions and sighed dramatically. She tried to touch the purple-black ore, but the one-eyed Dwarf shoved her away roughly. Her little mouth drooped, and she crouched on the ground with tears in her eyes.

Since his plan to forge a blade depended on it, William had asked Singers about the metals in this world a few days earlier. He was particularly interested in adamantine, the finest of them all. But he hadn't joined the Dwarves in rummaging through the Kobolds' belongings. His axe strike just now had shattered Phinia's Frost Giant Axe, and William had clearly felt something unusually hard inside the rock wall. He picked up the damaged axe and slowly scraped away the loose stone and dirt around the hard object. Before long, a purple-gold streak appeared in the wall: adamantine.

William excitedly scraped away the stone around it, revealing the purple-gold material at last. A chunk of adamantine ore as big as a man's head crashed to the ground with a rumble, making the earth shudder. The others, startled by the noise, glanced up but didn't come over. They were still lost in their disappointment. Only the little girl came scampering over. Seeing the ore William was handling, she cried in delighted surprise, "Wow! William, this one's so much bigger! That meanie wouldn't let Mishaer touch his little one! Hmph! I'm going to show that stingy man that big brother's is bigger! That'll teach him! Oh! Why won't it move? Ahhh!" The excited little girl tried to lift the adamantine, but couldn't budge it at all.

Of course it was heavy! The fist-sized piece in the Dwarf's hands weighed more than ten pounds, so this chunk, bigger than a head, was bound to weigh a lot more. William watched Mishaer's face turn red as she struggled to move the ore, then smiled and reached out to stop her. "All right, little one! Don't waste your effort! This little thing weighs hundreds of pounds. Let me handle it!"

The little girl gave up with a huff and circled the ore. She watched as her brother clasped his hands around it and lifted it, then strode out of the cave with slightly heavy steps. She ran back into the cave with a grin and boasted to Singers, who was trying to search through the Kobolds' ore again. "Hehe! That's what you get for not letting Mishaer touch it! Hmph! William found one that's even bigger! It's bigger than your head!" She held out her arms to show just how big.

"Go play somewhere else, little squirt! You can't even lie properly! If William found a piece of adamantine that big, I'd have Moradin's Warhammer"—the Artifact—"in my hands!" Torg scoffed at the little girl.

The words had been spoken thoughtlessly, but they caught Sunderland's attention. She abruptly turned to stare at the little girl for a long moment. An Artifact? Wasn't an Artifact already sitting on that little girl's head? William had even found an Artifact out in the wild. What else was impossible? The female governor's gaze met Aelf's. They stared at each other for a moment, then both shrieked and leaped to their feet, racing outside. "William! I get a share of the adamantine too! Don't keep it all for yourself!"

According to the unwritten rules of adventuring parties in Faerun, every member received a share of the spoils, no matter how much they had contributed. The leaders and members worked out the exact division among themselves. Arguments over unfair shares were not uncommon, but once they happened, the party was as good as finished. Monsters ran rampant across the continent, and adventurers died or were lost at a rapid pace. No one wanted to join a party with such a bad reputation, not even members of evil races.

Rubbing their incredibly valuable treasure, the greedy lot drooled and made fools of themselves. Sunderland displayed all the hallmarks of a trade city's governor, arguing over the division of the "spoils" with the two Dwarves who had just come running out. She was anything but ladylike, firing off arguments so fast that spittle flew. Of course, she wasn't fighting for her city's interests; she was fighting for herself. The little Elf shrieked as she listed her own contributions.

William stood to one side, holding the little girl and Phinia, and watched with great interest. The excited little girl even egged on Aelf, who was rather close to her. She was deliberately taking revenge on the Dwarves for their earlier rudeness.

In the end, they argued until their mouths were dry, but still couldn't reach an agreement. Sunderland, thirsty from all the arguing, was about to get a drink when she finally noticed William standing nearby with a cold smile. The shameless female governor had none of the naivety she'd shown earlier. She straightened up and regained her poise, gave William a slight nod, then spoke loudly and elegantly. "That's enough arguing! William found the treasure, so of course Mr. William gets to decide how it's divided. Heh-heh! Mr. William, as your partner, I provided everyone with ample adventuring supplies, and I expect to receive my fair compensation! Besides, I'm the only one who can find enough flux. Hehe!"

Sunderland's eyes were full of warm concern, and William smiled back. What either of them was really thinking, however, was anyone's guess.