Aaron spent more than a month recuperating. During that time, he did almost nothing, spending most days at home eating and sleeping, with the occasional workout with the cleric to keep himself fit. It was a comfortable, leisurely life.
He also finished all the books Elminster had brought him. With Elminster's explanations and annotations to guide him, Aaron gained a deeper understanding of the Realms, especially Avernus and the Abyss.
This continued for over a month. When July of 1361 arrived and scorching summer descended on Suzail, Aaron still had a month and a half of the leave Alusair had granted him left, but he had no choice but to get moving again.
The reason was simple: the Dwarf Engineering Corps promised by the dwarven God-King Moradin had arrived.
During their negotiations over serpent-pattern steel, Moradin had promised Aaron a dwarven construction team and two rune smiths. But dwarves and humans had rather different notions of time. Nearly a full year had passed since their agreement before Moradin's construction team finally reached Suzail.
The leader of the Dwarf Engineering Corps was a white-bearded dwarf named Kimgon Firepattern, a high-ranking cleric of Moradin who also worked as a rune smith. A Master-level expert, he wore a standard pointed dwarven hat and carried a hammer blessed by Moradin. He led over a hundred dwarves into Suzail, where Alusair gave them a warm welcome.
The humans knew quality when they saw it. The two decorative teeth on the white-bearded dwarf's pointed hat were dragon teeth! And the constantly glowing runes on his hammer certainly weren't a Light spell.
Unfortunately, Jimgong seemed unimpressed by the reception. The old dwarf couldn't be bothered to exchange even a single pleasantry. He asked for Aaron by name.
First, however, Jimgong tracked down Fojal Wilhelm.
The Master-level smith