The Place
Anvil Caves is the inside of a dead mountain, and the mountain died long before the kobolds came, which is why the stone is quiet. The tunnels run for nine kilometers through the dead rock, and the deepest chamber drops two hundred meters below the last living tree. The forges light the chambers orange, and the gems light them white, red, and a blue that is not quite blue, and the two lights meet in the middle and argue. The air is furnace-heat and it carries the ring of the anvil, which is the heartbeat of the cave, and every kobold knows the time by the ring. The gems are cut in the deep and priced in the bright, and the price is carved into the stone of the tunnel so the mountain can read it. The ceiling of the great hall is a single piece of black stone, and the hall is one hundred meters long, and the anvil in the middle of it is older than the mountain's death. The water runs in a channel on the floor of the lowest tunnel, and the channel is black with cold, and the cold keeps the forge honest. The mountain does not have a surface worth talking about: a dead slope, a ring of bare rock, one honest door. The door is low, and the door is guarded by the price, and the price is the anvil. What makes the Anvil Caves themselves is the respect: the dragon is respected, the stone is respected, the ring is respected, and the thing that is respected is kept.
How They Live
The Kobolds keep this place in shifts of the ring, and the ring is the forge, and the forge is the day. They dig one meter per year into the dead rock, and the dead rock gives, because the dead rock is already finished. Light is the forge and the gem, and the forge is kept at a heat that turns the air to glass at the edges of the hall. Food is the mine-ration: the small game of the surface, the root of the dead slope, and the gem-dust, which is not food and is kept as a promise. Water is the channel in the lowest tunnel, and the channel is cold enough to keep the forge honest, and the kobolds drink the cold before they drink the heat. The defense is the dragon, and the dragon is not in the cave, and that is exactly why the dragon is the defense, because a dragon who is not there is a dragon who can be. The price is posted at the door, and the price is in gems, and the gem is the only currency the cave accepts, and the gem is cut by the cave. The day is measured by the anvil, which is also the calendar, because the cave is the only clock the gem needs. Every kobold who leaves the cave carries one gem that is not his, and the gem is the welcome, and the carrying is the debt.
People
Home of the Kobolds, whose caves are counted by forge. Three hundred and twelve forges at last count, and the count is kept by the ring, and the ring does not lie. The forge-masters lead, and rank is decided by the cut, because the cut is the only thing the dead mountain can grade. No thief is welcome, and the thief is not needed, because the cave has a price, and the price has a ledger, and the ledger has a dragon. A dwarf who has worked the surface door calls it the only honest mine he has ever met, which is to say the only mine that tells you what it costs before you ask.
In Stories
The place where the gem is the only honest price, and the price is the deal, and the deal is the find, and the find is the end. When The Forgotten need something made that will outlive them, the Anvil Caves are the only address. Uaellaen pays in gems, because Uaellaen is the only one of the six who can afford to be honest.