The country seat of Sunder-Foot was a town built on pulled out stone and stolen water.
Unlike the modest, whitewashed rubble cottages of Split-Stone, Sunder-Foot boasted wide avenues paved with dressed granite flat stone slabs, three-story mansions of polished pink marble, and gold-trimmed iron street-lamps that burned whale oil imported from the northern coasts. In the center of the Grand Plaza, surrounded by manicured yew hedges and bronze equestrian statues of Duke Morvath, stood the Dragon-Slayers’ Memorial Museum.
It was an imposing eight-sided temple built from pink granite, modeled after the ancient royal basilicas. Above the huge bronze entrance doors, carved in three-foot letters inlaid with gold leaf, was the heroic dedication:
TO THE VALOR OF CAPTAIN BRAND AND THE FIVE COMPANIONS, WHO SLEW THE GREAT KARST DRAKE IN THE BELLY OF SUNDER AND FREED THE REALM FROM FIRE.
Tomas Reed, Nessa Vale, and Captain Sile Rook climbed the twenty-four marble steps of the museum roofed porch.
Tomas wore his standard working livery. Charcoal-gray wool tunic heavy with tarred canvas elbow patches, his cart driver pack frame on his back. His lead-lined ledger case slung across his chest. His left arm rested securely in its buckled calfskin brace, the leather clean and oiled. Beside him, Sile carried his blackened oak tall body-shield. Meanwhile, Nessa held her brass sound transit and a dark wood case containing her chemical test vials.
