By the time the scouts returned to report they were finished and ready to move on. They had poked through the rest of the area they were in, only finding more of what they had already found, except for a large stairwell that headed upwards to what everyone hoped would eventually be an exit. Instead, what they found was another floor like the one they had just left. There was considerably less dust though, and the rooms were cleared of everything, even the decayed crates of dirt and garbage that they had found on the last level. It did, however, have a disturbing amount of bloody smears along the walls and floor. Reddish-brown smears that Sebastian assumed were from the dwarves, and some rather foul smelling greenish black smears that came from what Sebastian assumed had to be their yet-to-be-seen monster.

Sarah was looking around nervously, “It’s bleeding, whatever it is, maybe the dwarves killed it?” Her hopeful question just got a few muttered curses and quiet groans from the guards around them.

When she glanced at one of the closest ones in confusion he quietly told her, “You just jinxed us. Never say anything like ‘maybe it’s already dead,’ or ‘don’t worry, it’s just the wind,’ or ‘how bad could it be?’ It’s bad luck. Don’t matter none if it’s just superstition, and shouldn’t change what we find. Now when we find the critter, or critters, that is dicing up these dwarves, it’s gonna be alive and kickin’ and probably looking for some nice human bones to pick its teeth with.”

Sebastian saw that Sarah was about to start arguing about how stupid it was to make assumptions just because she was hoping for the thing to be dead, and he stopped her with an elbow nudge. “Shh, let the nice men with their nice weapons do their job. I would rather you not start an argument about superstitions while there is still a chance of us getting disemboweled. I am rather keen on keeping my bowels where they are, and would appreciate it if you didn’t distract the people helping us with that.” He said it jokingly, and a few of the guards chuckled softly, but there was no hiding the tension in his voice. Traipsing through dark, musty tunnels with no way out was stressful enough before they found some dark musty tunnels covered in blood smears.

They came across a few more fallen dwarves, and Sebastian noticed something he hadn’t realized at first. So far every dwarf they had found only had at most a single one-handed weapon and a knife or two, with the majority actually being unarmed. “I think they were living down here. Well, that’s actually pretty obvious of course, but what I mean is that they thought they were safe in here, a lot don’t have a weapon on them at all, and the ones that do don’t have anything large or heavy. Short swords, maces, and axes, but no shields or two handed weapons.”

Suddenly one of the men in front threw up a clenched fist in warning and everyone froze. For a minute all anyone could hear was the breath of the people nearest them. Then Sebastian heard a faint clack from behind them, then another, then one of the rearguard roared, “From behind!” and the guards around them Sarah, Sebastian, and Owdel dropped back, spun about nearly as one and fell into a impromptu phalanx. The clacking that Sebastian had heard erupted into a full blown skittering as something charged at them.

“What the fuck is that?!” Sebastian heard his exclamation echoed by several of the guards. The thing was big and greyish brown, looked like it was covered in armored plates, and the lower half of its front limbs looked like scythe shaped bones. It crashed into the guards shields with enough force to bowl them over and trampled a few of them in the process, its spiked claws shredding through armor and flesh with terrifying ease. It followed up with a vicious swipe of one of its scythe-like arms that bisected another guard. As its latest victim crumpled to the ground, Sebastian noticed some greenish black fluid streaming down its left side. He heard Sarah starting to chant a spell and shouted out, “It’s hurt already! Aim for its left side!”

An instant after he shouted one of the guards that had managed to survive the brutal exchange smashed a mace into the thing’s injured side with a sickening cracking noise as it broke through the things shell and sank into its flesh. The guard was forced to roll backwards in an attempt to dodge the enraged monster’s return blow, he was still hit and sent sprawling, but he managed to turn what would have been a fatal blow into what looked like a nasty broken arm. The monster issued a chittering roar of outrage that sent chills down their spines, and moved to crush the guard that had dared to hurt it, but before it made it more than two steps towards the fallen man Sarah finished her spell and a blast of fire burrowed into its wounded side.

The ball of molten fire drilled through the gap the soldier had made in its armor and it screamed again as its flesh charred and boiled from the extreme heat. It took a shuddering step towards them before collapsing, foul smelling smoke pouring from the gap in its shell. They all stared at the giant corpse for a moment as the shock of the brutal encounter hit them. It took Sebastian a moment to realize that the sounds of battle hadn’t stopped yet. He turned back to face the front, just in time to see Kyle charging another of the monsters that had done just as much, if not more, damage to the other half of their contingent of guards. Kyle ducked under a swipe from one of those arm blades, and launched a brutal upward slash with the axe Sebastian had handed over to him, sinking the blade to the haft in the thing’s horrible face.

He jabbed the rim of his shield into its head next to the blade while tugging on the axe to free it, only to smash it back in again, taking advantage of the fact that the thing couldn’t land a solid hit on him with its bladed arms while he was as close as he was to do as much damage as he could. It took three more blows before it toppled, Kyle leaping back to stay out from under its bulk. His chest was heaving, and he was smeared with blood, both red and the disturbing greenish black of the monster.

He didn’t waste any time though, “Gather the wounded! Get me a headcount! If you aren’t too hurt to hold a weapon you are on guard detail! Do we still have Greg?” When he got an answering grunt he continued, “Do what you can for them, grant the ones you can’t help mercy, you know the drill. Legs! How the devil did you miss those monstrosities? They were the size of a bloody house!” He looked like he would continue, but was interrupted by a distant shout and another of those bone chilling roars. “Shit!” He swore, “Is that one of ours?”

Legs shook his head, “No cap’n, I was furthest to tha front, I reckon that is one of them dwarves we keep findin dead all over tha place.”

Kyle’s expression turned thoughtful for a moment before he cursed again, “Looks like we ain’t done yet boys! Let’s go see if we can earn us some good will from the locals!” He paused before grumbling under his breath, “And hopefully a way out of this bloody hole full of great big bloody insects.”

He pointed to three of the six remaining guards, “Stay and help Greg with the wounded, the rest of us will go see if we can squish another bug.” He gestured at Legs to lead the way, and they cautiously set off towards the sounds of battle.

It was easy to tell when they got to the right spot, there was another of the monsters dead in the middle of the passage with a few dwarves fallen around it, and they heard the telltale sound of metal on chitin from a nearby doorway. The guards started to set up a phalanx to enter the room, but Sebastian stopped them. He moved to the front of the formation and activated his bracer, a shimmering disk of energy appearing in front of his arm and filling the area with a low hum. “Not that I want to be in front like this of course,” he muttered, “it’s just that this shield will actually take the blows from those things without shattering my arm in the process. Don’t stick anything through it you want back though.”

The guards just nodded and formed up behind him. They poured through the doorway in a controlled rush and Sebastian goggled at the sight in front of him. There were a few more fallen dwarves, but he ignored those, his focus was on the dwarf that was fighting off one of the giant beetles with a huge warhammer. The way the dwarf was spinning it around and intercepting blows from the monstrosity’s claws made it seem like it barely weighed anything. It was immediately clear that the dwarf was fading fast, they could see him slowing even as they closed with the monster.

When it heard their charge it spun and launched a vicious blow against Sebastian’s barrier, blasting them with a concussive wave of air as the shield tried to dissipate the force. It made Seb stagger back a bit, but the guards poured out around them and started battering the monster, while the dwarf leapt forward and drove his hammer into the things back. It tried to slash at Sebastian again, possibly drawn by the glow of his bracer, but only managed to batter uselessly at the barrier. Moments later it fell with a crash.

As they all caught their breath, Sebastian noticed the dwarf staring at them with a mixture of suspicion and awe. “By the ancestor’s beards! You all look like… well, ancestors!” The head of the hammer thumped to the floor, “But how? The Cataclysm was said to have destroyed the surface world and shaped us into what we are now. You,” The hammer rose back up to point at them, “shouldn’t exist.” Then he lowered the hammer again and sat with a thump not too dissimilar to the hammer hitting the ground. “But you do, I suppose, and you saved my life from that reaper beetle. If you were here to kill us you woulda just let those vermin do the work, which leaves me to ask what you want.”

The dwarf looked at them expectantly, and when Kyle was about to respond they were interrupted by the arrival of the rest of their group. A depressingly small number of them. Greg and the three guards they had left behind had two stretchers and Sarah, that was it. He saw tears in Sarah’s eyes but her stoic expression told him not to talk about it. At least that was what he was assuming, less stress that way. Now that he was thinking about it he couldn’t help but feel like there might be something wrong with him emotionally. He just lost his home, killed humanoid creatures by the score in truly terrible ways, watched people die in brutal ways, and looted things from dead bodies, but none of it was really bothering him beyond a slightly uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach which might even just be because his lack of a real response was bothering him. He didn’t have the time to bother with an emotional breakdown anyways, so he shrugged it off as something to deal with later.

While Kyle was talking to the dwarf, Sebastian’s gaze was drawn to the hammer the dwarf had been using, it was covered in a blocky runic script, and the head was covered in interlocking triangular patterns. What was truly captivating though was the fact that not only were all of the designs on it geometrically perfect, the thing showed almost no signs of wear and tear despite him having just seen it collide brutally with the reaper beetle’s scythe arms. Repeatedly.

He tuned back into the ongoing conversation just in time to hear the dwarf say that going to the surface was forbidden and that the first thing they did upon discovering this outpost was to build a plug to seal any exits that led outside. He offered to show them to the nearest one, but refused to help them open it as that would be against the law.

“I only wish you had all gotten here sooner, might have been able to save a few of my men. Now we are going to have to abandon this outpost until we can get another division to run through and clear the tunnels of vermin. Are you sure you cannot return to Understone with me? My king will never believe me if I try to tell him people are thriving on the surface without some sort of proof.”

Kyle shook his head sadly, “As much as we would like to go with you, our kingdom is under siege by a horde of twisted monsters. We must return to the surface and fight to recover our home and protect our kin. How we do that I have no idea though. By now they surely have swarmed across the hills and valleys from here to Clearlake.”

The dwarf seemed to consider Kyle’s words for a moment, stroking his beard, “What sort of monsters? It might be possible to convince the king to send aid to your people, shedding blood together against a common foe is a fine way to start an alliance after all. Particularly if it brings with it an opportunity for trade. I doubt your smiths can compare to ours, and I do not doubt that you possess things we would desire. That man’s glowing shield for instance.” He gestured at Sebastian.

Sebastian was caught off guard by being suddenly dragged into the conversation, “I, uh, I don’t know that you would be able to trade for many of those, I sort of made it myself, and the Mages Guild doesn’t like it when its enchanters sell too many items useful for battle.” He then fumbled through a brief description of the Twisted, which earned him a disgusted expression from the dwarf.

He spat to the side before responding, “We call them mutants, and if they’re what you’re fighting I can guarantee that my king would be more than happy to help. Many a dwarf has lost a loved one to their raids, we thought they were all that was left of the surface.” He cocked his head, “Enchanter?”

Sebastian was confused by the question, “We use magic to make magic items?” He looked closer at the dwarf and suddenly realized something, “You don’t have any mana! It actually looks like you are resistant to mana, that is fascinating, do you think it’s all dwarves or just you?” He paused briefly hoping for an answer from the suddenly bewildered looking dwarf, when it became apparent that he didn’t intend to answer, or didn’t have an answer, Sebastian opened his mouth to ask other questions. Only to be interrupted by Sarah swatting him across the back of the head. “Hey! What was that for?!”

Sarah snorted, “We are trying to figure out a way to get to Clearlake and help, maybe find some new allies that can help with that. Not figure out if all dwarves are resistant to mana. How about you think of a way we can prove our existence without trekking to wherever their home is?”

Sebastian shrugged, “Well if they don’t have magic, I could just enchant something for him to take back. As long as I shape the enchantment right anyone can use it, it would have to sustain itself completely on ambient mana, and have an actual physical activation point, but I can probably do that. The real question is what would the guild do to me if they find out I made something like that for a foreign country that has been literally under our feet for gods know how long. Another good question is what should I enchant, and what should it do?” The surprised expression on Sarah’s face annoyed him a bit, like he can’t think up a solution to a problem? Maybe she expected him to be lost in his own world all the time, and too scatterbrained to look past the shiny new learning opportunity in front of him?

She turned to face the dwarf though, “So what do you want enchanted? What do you want it to be able to do? Sebastian can do a lot of things like his shield, he has a bow that shoots magic arrows, he made our blacksmith’s hammer hold forgefire inside it, lots of things.”

The dwarf latched onto that last one hard, “A hammer that holds fire?” His grip tightened around his own hammer, and even Sebastian knew what he would be enchanting for him.

Sebastian just held out his hand for the hammer, it wasn’t until this moment that he truly realized how big of an affect the invasion had on him. He had started to just react to things instead of preparing for them, ignoring his greatest gift in fear of a shadowy threat he might never live to encounter. His injured hand kept him distracted and focused on all the wrong things. A hammer that holds forgefire? Please. He could do so much better than that when he was consciously enchanting things.