The deeper inside the mountain the party descended, the more of the odd skeletons they discovered. Whoever these dead warriors and mages were, they paid for every meter they had managed to push with at least five lives. Gilbert noted that no one had even tried to move the bodies out of the way and much less made an attempt to recover any of them, which generally suggested that they were on the losing side of the fight. Despite that, none of them appeared to have been slain while fleeing the battle either – a sign of either devotion or desperation.

Every fifty steps, the stairs reached a small plateau and turned ninety degrees to the right to create a helical staircase that led directly down. The steps themselves were broad and shallow, so despite passing hundreds of them, the journey downwards was relatively slow, though it covered a large volume of space at every depth, almost like whoever made them was looking for something buried there.

At some point, remains with more specialized gear started to appear here and there, until almost every single skeleton the party passed was wearing a full suit of rusted armor or carried some kind of intricate magical-looking trinket. None of this seemed to have helped them though, the heavily armored knights had been impaled and pinned into the walls of the staircase just has easily as the previous warriors and nowhere among the remains were there any suggestion of casualties from the other side.

“This is starting to look good for the baron, if these are the intruders he was talking about.” Anastacia said and kicked a skull, hoping it would roll down the stairs, but was disappointed when it shattered a mere few steps later. She had shared what she had learned from the voice diary with Gilbert and Emilia, and they had guessed that this baron of iron was indeed the ‘friend’ they were looking for, and the skeletons lining the staircase were the aftermath of where his diary ended.

Gilbert stopped to inspect one of the iron lances that had been jabbed into the stone stairs through the chestplate of one of the soldiers. The lance itself was entirely made from iron and was more of a spike with a rough handle than anything. The whole thing was as tall as him and must have weighed at least half a ton, so imagining anyone strong enough to effectively wield one wasn’t exactly the most welcoming thought and certainly wasn’t helped by the fact that they seemed to have access to an endless supply of them. “We might be better off not meeting him regardless.” He commented and caught up with Emilia and Anastacia.

“Don’t be like that. If Lady Sylvia says there’s a friend here, we have no reason to believe otherwise. I’m sure we’ll get a warm welcome as soon as I explain who I am.” Emilia said and smiled brightly while lighting the way with her lantern.

“I suppose he didn’t seem too bad on the recordings.” Anastacia shrugged. “But don’t get your hopes too far up, this place is a grave if I’ve ever seen one – and boy have I seen many.”

As they kept descending, the staircase slowly lost its shape and began to look more and more like a mine. The first thing to go were the stone brick walls and soon after that the stairs turned into a slope. The shape of the tunnel became more irregular as well and the angle seemed even shallower than before, but each stretch between two turns became longer. It was clear that the baron had figured he was close to whatever he was looking for.

A bit later, the dull stone walls began to get some color from the ores trapped in it as the tunnel passed through a vein of something red, which hopefully wasn’t just dried blood. Not long after, along with a few other colors of ores, the tunnel’s walls even had some colorful gemstones embedded in them.

After one more turn, Anastacia felt like she was seeing something in the other end of the stretch of tunnel in front of them. She asked Emilia to kill the light for a bit to make sure she wasn’t seeing things; without it, she was able to see for sure that the other end of the tunnel was lit by something that was hidden just around the corner. “Hello, anyone there?!” She shouted to make sure they weren’t surprising anyone.

When there was no answer, Gilbert took the lead and the party carefully approached the end of the tunnel. “Hello?” He said and peeked around it. “What the...”

Gilbert was rendered speechless by what he saw, so out of curiosity Anastacia took a peek as well. Behind the corner was a stone wall with a large hole breached into it, and on the other side, a lit corridor that flooded light blue light to the tunnel. It took her a few seconds, but the necromancer recognized the light patterns in the corridor. “A machine fortress?” She said and hopped through the hole.

Inside the corridor, to her left was a barricade that hadn’t been made by the people who built the ancient machine forts. Made from pieces of simulacra that had been stuck together by molten iron, it was fairly safe to assume that it had been added by the baron once his tunnel had reached the corridor – possibly to seal a portion of the fort and the simulacra in it. The core of the mass seemed to be some kind of a larger automaton that blocked most of the way and the smaller gaps had been filled with various smaller simulacra that had all been deactivated. The corridor to her right was open and littered with more skeletons that hadn’t been treated any better than the ones in the tunnel.

“The trail of horrible, horrible murder goes that way.” Anastacia said and pointed to the right.

“You know what this place is?” Gilbert asked and hopped through the breach as well.

“Yeah. Months ago, when I fell into the machine fort, this is pretty much what it was like – more goblins and less skeletons though.” The necromancer reminisced.

Emilia followed her friends and dimmed her lantern. “Yeah, I remember that one. Can you please not fall in any trapdoors this time.”

The party followed the trail of remains deeper into the fort. Even the incredibly sturdy walls made from some mysterious type of stone weren’t enough to stop the iron lances, and the baron had kept pinning his enemies to the walls just as happily as in the tunnel.

A few hundred meters down the hallway, the party came across a skeleton that differed from the others. About as big as Gilbert, if not even a bit larger, the soldier was clad in armor crafted from thick black metal with a strange red sheen to it. On its breastplate was the same emblem the other knights had carried on their shields and the decayed cloth under it was still as dyed violet, brightly as ever. What was especially odd about the remains, were the four large horns that sprouted from the skull. Neither Gilbert or Anastacia could even begin to guess what kind of odd creature the knight had been. What was apparent however, was the gruesome death he had suffered. Both of the knight’s arms had been torn off and his skull had been caved in by something hitting him in the face.

Perhaps even more curious than that, was the weapon this knight had carried; next to the remains was a massive war hammer – or what was left of one at least. Looking almost like solid quicksilver, the shattered head of the hammer didn’t have the slightest hint of rust on it and the engravings on it were still perfectly preserved almost like they had been made the day before. The handle had been snapped into two, but even it seemed somehow otherworldly, the wood had a curious green tint and the runes burned into it were no doubt some kind of a spell.

“There’s more here. I’ll take a shard with me, maybe someone in Valor knows what it was made of.” Gilbert said and kneeled a few meters away from the remains. Next to the fragments was a piece of something that at first appeared to be just another hunk of armor, but upon closer inspection it was more like a piece of metallic shell – or even skin. It had been welded into the floor by what could only be described to be a puddle of iron, and from there a steady trail of drips continued down the corridor, as if someone had gotten injured and bled liquid metal. “I think this guy managed to get a shot in on the baron.”

“About time someone did. Didn’t seem to help him much though.” Anastacia shrugged and led the party onwards.

Every now and then they passed something that could have well been a door but didn’t have an obvious way to be opened. Anastacia still had the simulacrum core she had used on the keep’s gate with her, but the doors didn’t seem to have anywhere to slot one in either. They could have just as well been some kind of decorations and neither the iron blood trail or the invading army led into any of them, so the party very quickly decided to not bother with them.

Soon enough they found their first proof that Anastacia had indeed gotten into the keep via the tunnel, as they found a puddle of fresh vomit with chewed up coffee beans in it. Neither Emilia or Gilbert felt like questioning why she had eaten them and figured that it would only lead to more questions they probably didn’t want answers to.

Eventually the corridor opened up to a chamber that had hosted a larger fight between the invaders and the baron, as the bodies in it had piled up along the walls and covered the floor almost entirely. Anastacia tossed aside a skeleton and sat down for some rest on what seemed to be a bench but could have just as well been a piece of ancient technology.

“The air here is pretty fresh for a tomb.” She commented and leaned against the cool stone wall.

Emilia sat down next to her and stretched her legs. “The lights are on as well, so maybe this place is still doing whatever machine fortresses do?”

While they rested, Gilbert cleared some bits of skeletons from a table next to the bench and took a better look at the details on it. In the middle of the table was an oddly shaped piece of metal with seemingly random grooves drawn on it. Something about the shape was extremely familiar but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it – until he tilted his head to the left. “It’s a map.” He realized.

Anastacia scooted over to see it. “Of what?”

“The whole continent. The rivers are a bit off, but who knows when this was made.” Gilbert explained and looked around for a marker of any kind, but other than the rivers, the metal plate was completely smooth.

Joining in on the fun, Anastacia fiddled with the etchings on the edge of the table until she found what she as looking for. “There’s always a hole.” She smiled and slid the simulacrum core into a round gap by the map.

The light blue lines of light spread along the edges of the map and the rivers carved into it. Eventually small lights appeared all over the metal plate, including the rough area Gilbert had figured they were in.

“Hmm… Well that’s interesting.” He muttered and tried pressing one of the lights. It flickered briefly and then spread into a few runes or characters for a few seconds before returning to a single point. Gilbert repeated it a few times but couldn’t recognize the runes.

Anastacia tried once as well but couldn’t read it either. “What’s weird about that one?” She asked and slid her hand across a few more lights to activate all of them.

“That’s Valor. People have always wondered if it was built on one of these ruins, but I guess that proves it.” Gilbert explained and tapped the light near it. “This one’s where we are, I think. Having King here would have helped to figure out what to do with this.”

“Nah. If he was here, I’d still be shagging him in the keep.” The necromancer mumbled and tapped the lights.

Gilbert laughed. “Adult Anastacia is pretty raunchy, I like her.”

Anastacia sighed and twirled her finger around the map. “Adult Anastacia only has so much time before she turns back into an emotionally stunted idiot that has no idea what she’s doing, so adult Anastacia would have wanted to get the most out of this curse.”

“I get what you mean.” Gilbert said and patted the necromancer on the back. “I wanted to fight something huge, like back in the day too. Old me is so slow and burly… I hate the idea of having to go back to that.”

“Serves you right, meat. Despite the hurty knees and stiff back, old you is still a vast improvement over this nonsense.” Anastacia grinned and leaned back against the wall to avoid having to look at Gilbert flexing just to annoy her, though because of her powers weren’t perfectly under control, she still had to suffer through it anyway.

Emilia looked at her party disapprovingly and sighed. “I for one can’t wait for both of you to turn back, but we should get going to find the baron.” She suggested to distract the two from each other before their bickering turned into a fight.

“Fair enough.” Gilbert said, pulled the simulacrum core from the table and handed it back to Anastacia. “Maybe we’ll run into some simulacra and both of us get what we want, eh?” He laughed and offered a fist bump to the necromancer, who responded to it, though extremely begrudgingly.

On the other side of the chamber was a doorway to another corridor that led towards the surface in a somewhat steep angle, and because of that, many of the skeletons in it had tumbled down over time and Gilbert had to clear the way by moving them aside for the first hundred or so meters.

Though walking uphill was certainly taxing, the party pressed on for what had to have been a few kilometers before reaching a plateau to rest on. While it still contained far more corpses than one would hope, their numbers were definitely dwindling. Whether it was the invader’s forces finally getting depleted or the baron finally getting overrun was anyone’s guess.

Smeared against the wall of the corridor was another set of remains that differed from the rest. Much like the previous one, the knight had been outfired with the black armor and stood far taller than average human. However, while the previous knight was bulky, this one was unnaturally lean and almost frail looking. Some of the oddities about the bones themselves were the wings sprouting from the skeleton’s back and the sharp talons in both its hands and feet. Yet once again, none of that had helped the knight survive the fight with the baron. Almost snapped in half and smashed against the wall until both the knight’s bones that the wall had given up, they had met a violent end. Next to the remains was another weapon crafted from the strange quicksilvery metal: a javelin that had been snapped like a twig.

Almost the entire floor around the corpse was covered in the iron blood they had been following, suggesting that the javelin had hit its mark and further wounded the baron.

“If this was blood, there’s enough here to bleed a moose dry, and probably get started on a second one as well.” Gilbert estimated and glanced at Emilia, who was starting to look worried. “But we can’t be far from the surface, so maybe the baron escaped?” He said to make her feel better.

As they kept following the iron blood trail, it became more and more apparent that the baron had been slowing down. A hundred meters after the plateau, the last skeleton had been crushed against the floor, marking the end of the fight. After a hundred more meters, the baron had stopped to rest and left behind a large puddle of iron, or he may well have lost consciousness for a while before clawing his way towards the surface. Finally, after dragging himself up the corridor for almost half a kilometer while grievously injured, the baron of iron had slumped against the wall and stopped for good.

The creature that had called itself the baron of iron was almost five meters tall, roughly human-shaped though with some reptile-like parts. He was almost entirely covered in plates of armor that appeared to grow directly on him and metal scales that protected his unarmored parts. It was unclear if he was wearing a helmet that covered his face or if the helmet was his face, but it hid his expression regardless. Leaning against the wall with his legs crossed and his long, scaly tail on his lap, the baron looked peaceful, like he was only sleeping. Oddly, his entire body was made of iron, almost as if he had been a living statue that had only turned into a regular one upon death. In the middle of his chest was a single unarmored spot where the plate had been fractured and the rest of the javelin had been plunged into, eventually killing him.

“Hmh, shame.” Gilbert said and kneeled to sort of pay his respects despite not knowing the creature.

“You okay? You seemed awfully excited to meet the guy.” Anastacia worriedly asked from the priestess.

Emilia stared at the body and seemed to be zoning out again. “What?... Ah, yeah, it’s not like I knew the guy… It’s just that Lady Sylvia is-“ She mumbled until suddenly tears of molten metal began pouring out of her eyes. The priestess’s red hair began glowing red hot and her normally shiny armor rusted and became dented in seconds. The pure white robes got more of an ashen shade while embers spread on their hem. She then fell on her knees and screamed in a voice that wasn’t hers before clinging on to the dead baron and weeping helplessly.

Both Gilbert and Anastacia respectfully backed off a few meters to give Emilia her space.

“Reckon that’s Sylvia in there?” Gilbert whispered.

“Has to be, right?” The necromancer shrugged.

There seemed to be no calming the goddess of joy and she kept weeping for what felt like hours, but neither of the adventurers dared to interrupt her, so they couldn’t do much besides waiting and munching on what little rations Gilbert and Emilia had packed before leaving to find Anastacia.

“They must have been great friends for her to be that sad.” Anastacia wondered while hollowing out a bread. Her habit of never eating the crust hadn’t changed regardless of her age.

All of a sudden, the goddess fell quiet for a second. “Necromancer… Gilbert…” She uttered with Emilia’s mouth. “It is not lightly I intrude upon the body of my chosen, so understand my despair and that I am not here as a goddess, but as a mother who has lost her child. I plead, beg and pray for you to find out who is responsible for slaughtering my dear Ferruya, so that I can… see to them.”

Gilbert rubbed his beard. “Well I’m not the one to deny a request from a lady, even if that lady is a god.” He said and smiled with as much charm as he could muster after being caught off guard by the goddess addressing him directly.

“I assume Emilia won’t be in on this?” Anastacia guessed.

Sylvia fell quiet again. “No, she need not know, for this has naught to do with joy.” The goddess finally admitted. “But no adventurer goes without reward.” She continued, snapped off a large chunk of the baron’s tail and carefully placed it on the floor. “Forge that as you will. I am not foolish enough to expect results overnight, as even I do not recognize these villains, so there is no need for haste on this matter. Until we meet again, necromancer, Gilbert…” With those words, Emilia’s appearance returned to normal and she fell unconscious.

The body of the baron began heating up as well, and in only a few seconds it melted into a puddle that cooled down and solidified just as quickly, before it had the chance to start flowing down the corridor.

“Sooo… we just spoke to a god. A real god.” Gilbert pointed out, mostly to himself as Anastacia didn’t seem too fazed by Sylvia’s appearance.

Anastacia frowned and went to make sure Emilia wasn’t going to start rolling downhill. “Necromancer my ass… Do you have any idea how hurtful it is when you get called by name but I’m just a necromancer?” She complained.

“Maybe she’s into me?” Gilbert smiled and posed quickly before hurrying to help Emilia as well.

“She’s not. Literally no one is into you. They probably wouldn’t even let you into a brothel now.” The necromancer snarled.

As they leaned the priestess against a wall to secure her, Anastacia noticed that in the molten remains of the baron, there was another cloudy crystal ball. Presumably the baron had kept it with him as it was considerably smaller and more portable than the one in the keep. She tried to pry it off, but the orb was firmly embedded into the metal. So, since she wasn’t able to take it with her, she figured that they might as well listen to it while waiting for Emilia to wake up.

Just like before, the orb lit up when Anastacia sang a tone for a few seconds and began to repeat what was recorded on it.

“I have failed…” The baron said with the same singsongy tone as before, but this time Anastacia knew where she had heard it as well: the baron spoke exactly like Sylvia. “It was arrogant of me to face them alone… Though I was victorious in the end, these pesky invaders have found a way to wound me, and I fear there is not much time left… The red one is no doubt en route here, but even if she makes it in time, there is very little she can do.” He continued, obviously in great agony over every word. “There was so much research left to do… I only found this grand stronghold a year ago and have only explored so little of it. Though I can only barely decipher the map I have found, there is so much to learn from it… Is it perverse that my final thoughts are laments over something so… plain as failed research? Should there be more meaning to them? Perhaps, if these are to be my final words, I should make them count.”

“Oh, maybe he’s got something that’ll help us find out more about the invaders?” Gilbert theorized as the first recording ended.

The orb flickered again to signal the beginning of the next recording. “I am sorry, Lady Pyria, mother… I am so sorry… A pathetic death in a tunnel is not something you deserved from me… So sorry…” The second recording ended with the baron clearly starting to lose consciousness. When the crystal ball flickered once more, he had collected what was left of him to leave one final message. “To anyone who hears this, I am Ferruya, the baron of iron, and I beg of you to rid the world of these pests that fell me. Their presence offends everything in existence and insults us all, from the lowest leech to the divine. I cannot tell you who or even what they are, but the red one knows. Seek out the red one, seek out Amaranth.” The glass ball repeated until it finally dimmed down for good.

Anastacia stared at the orb and took a deep breath. “Oh shit.”