Jo walked around a bit outside the building, rather than calling Kwayes for a teleport, she'd asked for a simple set of co-ordinates to test a teleporter of her own. As a result she ended up a few yards outside of Hriob's new stronghold, so she'd walk towards the entrance and wait for her friend to take notice. "I know you wanted me to head over here and I know I'm SUUUPER late, but I've been majorly busy."
The stronghold, as she called it, was less building than mountain. The only reason it seemed like anything lied beneath, that anything there was different than the surrounding grey rock, was because there was a huge, circle-shaped depression of seamlessly smooth stone with a thirty-meter diameter molded into the side of it, with no apparent way to pry it open whatsoever…
There was also a recent ruin of crude yet effective buildings in a large arc around it, with some signs of a struggle yet evidence that they had simply relocated for the most part.
Their proportions were not human, that was clear, and paired with the smell and symbolisms etched here and there it was likely they were one of the many offshoots of European Goblin.
Regardless of how deserted the neighbors appeared to be, it would only take a minute for a small ‘rift’ to open below the woman and gravitationally deposit her gently in a padded, sturdy stone chair at the end of a long stone table, in a dark stone dining hall lit mostly by a bonfire-sized hearth at the far end and ambient light from the hallway closer to them.
Next to her was Hriob, pouring cups of hot tea for both of them out of the same slate-colored stoneware as everything else, his expression pleasant but unfathomably mixed with other, subtle hints of emotions.
“…I’m glad you could make it, but while its fine you were late, and impressed with you piercing the dimensional wardings on the pocket dimension itself… I’d prefer I handle transit for you next time for your protection. The neighbors have been known to hunt people indiscriminately, you’re lucky the last set of trespassers managed to get them to relocate from my ‘doorstep’ against all odds…”
With his facial expression finally deciding on a small smile, a hot cup of jasmine tea is handed over as a familiar azure shard of light floated in from the hallway to rest above the table.
“…so then, how’s the baby?”
