The Homunculus Knight

Chapter 40: The Deeps

“This world’s mountains are too tall. I know, I know, that doesn’t make sense to you, but let me explain. I’ve traveled far in my time, visiting other celestial spheres and observing their wonders. So I have a broader perspective than you natives and know what is ‘typical’ for a world, even one grown from the same seed as Vardis. Your world is ever so slightly exaggerated; its mountains are taller, its oceans deeper. At first, I thought this was simply a long-term side-effect of when the Sidhe tried to subsume the planet; they tend to turn their property into parodies of itself. But, my closer inspection shows that while that is the case in some situations, the mountains are different. I know this sounds mad, but I think something is pressing your mountains up, pushing them higher than they should be.” - World Walker Billiam of Valalon.

Natalie stared down the tunnel, eyes fixed on the dancing glow. The more she watched the faint flickers, the harder it was to say what color they were. At first, the light was blue, but hints of purple and green now crept into her vision. The look of nervous confusion painting Natalie’s face was apparently amusing as the dwarf ranger laughed. “Oh, youa in for a treat, sangraki.”

Before Natalie could respond, Bonekeeper Masga snapped something in harsh dwerick. Bowing to the thin dwarf, the ranger walked away, having clearly been rebuked. Watching her go with coal-dark eyes, Masga then glared at Natalie. Speaking in stilting western, he said. “Do not speak with my people. I know what your kind can do with just eye contact.”

Cole said something then in dwerick, his tone calm but stern; Masga turned his wrathful eyes upon him, and a few short phrases were exchanged like arrow volleys. Eventually, Masga pointed at Cole’s neck, and then Yara before spitting some final words Natalie could just tell weren’t very diplomatic. With a dismissive gesture, the bonekeeper stalked away, muttering under his breath. Watching him go, Natalie couldn’t help but be torn between annoyance and understanding. While she objected to her rude treatment, Natalie knew it was born of both logic and fear. If their places were reversed, she wouldn’t want to escort a mysterious mutant vampire through shadowy monster-infested tunnels with only the assurances of pagan gods to go on.

Letting out a tired sigh, Natalie looked at Cole. “How long are we going to be down here?”

Staring down the tunnel, Cole weighed his words. “About a week. But that's not counting if we run into any of the less hospitable denizens of the Deep.”

Grunting in annoyance, Natalie asked. “So, do you know what’s creating the glow I see?”

Cole shrugged. “I can guess, but… well, there isn’t a good way to describe it; better for you just to see.”

Even more annoyed, Natalie muttered. “I’m starting to come around to your view of the underground.”

A small laugh escaped Cole. “That might change in a few kilometers and then revert again in a few more.”

Glaring up at her unusually obtuse boyfriend, Natalie grumbled. “If you say so.”

As they kept walking, the distant light grew and grew; soon, Cole and the others could see it. Both he and Mina seemed apprehensive, while Alia and Kit were excited, Natalie vacillated between both reactions, and Yara just didn't seem to care. After half an hour of hiking, the glow’s source became clear; the tunnel they were in exited into a wider cavern, one brimming with illumination. Glancing behind them, Natalie couldn’t see the light of Turul’s Tomb. They’d traveled at least five kilometers down the slightly sloping path and finally reached the ‘proper Deeps.’

The tunnel’s end was roughly square-shaped, a natural feature clearly sculpted by dwarven hands into something more convenient. Reaching the tunnel mouth, Natalie had to squint against the radiance, her vampire eyes taking a moment to adapt to what lay beyond. As the scene became clear, Natalie stopped and let a quiet oath escape her. “Fixed stars…”

They were atop a cliff overlooking an impossible valley. The rockface they stood upon stretched out left and right for kilometers, its sharp slope extending down into an alien jungle upon the valley floor and… up into the vaulted heights of the cavern ceiling. From where she stood, Natalie guessed the cave had to be a kilometer from top to bottom and at least twice that wide. The opposite side of the valley was barely visible; thick clouds of uncertain origin filled the sky, twisting around stalactites the size of castle towers dripping from the ceiling. Streams of faintly shimmering water flowed down the dripping spears, forming bizarre waterfalls that dissolved into banks of iridescent fog. Bats with glowing bones swooped through the air in great caldrons, dancing between the rising jungle and falling stalactites.

Natalie was so stunned by this sight she forgot to breathe for a few seconds; when she restarted the old habit, her lungs filled with hot, damp air. Only then did she realize the sweltering heat of the cave and its cloying humidity. Thankful she wouldn’t stink up her leathers with sweat, Natalie glanced at her comrades and guides. She saw expressions of wonder, tired resignation, and forced boredom; the dwarves seemed unwilling to appreciate the sight in the presence of outsiders.

Speaking slowly, afraid to trip over her own tongue, Natalie whispered. “This is the Deeps?”

Cole smiled at her. “I told you it wasn’t easy to describe.”

Looking down at the jungle seeing strange tubular plants reaching up from a canopy of mushroom caps, Natalie whispered. “How is this possible?”

The younger dwarven ranger, the one who’d told Natalie to look for the glow, pointed at the cliff wall. Following the gesture, Natalie realized the jungle below wasn’t the true source of the light she’d seen. Running along the sides of the cavern were monoliths of curved crystal shining with arcane radiance. Spaced apart and arching with the cave walls, the crystal structures reminded Natalie of ribs, furthering the metaphor that they’d journeyed into some beast’s belly. Each ‘rib’ pulsed with rich colors, shifting as Natalie watched between green, blue, indigo, and violet hues. Wisps of white light occasionally flowed from one of the ribs, questing out for a time before fading away into a shower of rainbow sparks.

Feeding blood into her eyes, Natalie caught sight of those sparks drifting down like dandelion seeds, falling onto the fungal canopy, or snapped up by strange shining insects. Understanding bloomed as to why everything living in this impossible landscape glowed. The rule ‘you are what you eat’ applied here in some very unique ways.

The older ranger spoke then. “Nuff gawking, let's move.”

Pulled from her inspection of the cavern, Natalie started walking again, trying not to think about the dizzying drop they skirted. Falling off the walls of Vindabon had been a painful educational experience, and just as Cole disliked being underground, Natalie had no love for high places. Continuing along the cliff, the caravan approached a watch tower carved into the cavern wall; it overlooked the tunnel towards Turul’s Tomb and a horribly long switchback leading down towards the valley floor. Reaching the tower’s base and the start of the switchback, the caravan started to descend.

Soon, the jungle canopy became clearer, and Natalie tried to study the bizarre plants that stretched out in a nearly unbroken sea of rich color. Spires of green-blue fungus stuck out above the spongy ‘tree tops’ of the towering mushrooms. Bulbous growths jutted between interlocking fungal plates, their porous structures leaking a cloud of spores. Large jewel-shelled insects flitted between grasping bronchial tubers while beady-eyed rodents with coiling whip tails chased after them. Shelves of layered growths clustered upon stems thick as tree trunks, their flickering bioluminescence luring hapless gnats into hungry gill slits.

Descending the switchback, the caravan soon passed beneath the tree line, the two rangers taking a moment to hack away at questing mycelia, seeking anchorage on the dwarf-cut path. Nearer the jungle floor, the air was cooler but no less damp, every breath flavored by strange spores. At Cole’s prodding, the group covered their faces with treated cloth pulled from the aardig’s saddlebags. The three dwarves merely adjusted their facial hair, the lone woman among them wrapping her sidelocks over her face like a scarf.

Fidgeting with his cloth mask, Kit spoke, his voice muffled but understandable. “I’m assuming these won’t be needed once we reach the jungle floor?”

Cole shrugged. “They probably aren’t even necessary, but I’d rather we avoid infection or poison. You never know what is floating around just below the canopy.”

Natalie wasn’t certain how much Cole’s concerns applied to her, but the idea of some enterprising fungus growing inside her cold flesh wasn’t appealing. Trying not to think of that disturbing notion, she asked her partner: “How many times have you been to the Deeps?”

Glancing up at the cliff wall, they descended, Cole replied. “This will be my second time in a vault.” Seeing Natalie’s raised eyebrow he gestured at the vaulting ceiling far above them. “It's what they call these huge caves.”

Enjoying that she didn’t need to breathe unless she wanted to speak, Natalie adjusted her face covering and said. “This is incredible; I knew there were tunnels all beneath the world but… but nothing like this.”

Kit was panting a little, clearly having difficulty getting enough air, but still managed to say. “This is an unusually shallow vault; from what I’ve read, they are supposed to be much deeper.”

Cole nodded his agreement. “The other vault I visited required multiple days' worth of travel through lock caverns to reach.”

Natalie made a noise of tired annoyance. Here she was, thinking she’d managed to scrape together a proper education from the temple archive. But of course, her unlife was nothing but surprises, and now Natalie was neck-deep in topics she’d not even known enough about to start researching.

In a testament to their time together, Cole could understand what Natalie’s huff meant and elaborated. “The Deeps have roughly three types of cave. Keys, which connect to the surface and can be dwarven delves or natural tunnels. Locks, are generally larger and stretch beneath the surface, linking the other two categories. Then, of course, there are vaults, which are the ‘true Deeps’ and each a unique world of sorts.”

Masga spat something then, his voice low and barely audible. Cole nodded in response and whispered. “We’ll talk later; conversation isn’t wise right now.”

They’d reached the switchback’s end, and yet again, Natalie was mired in both awe and confusion. The jungle floor was not a verdant carpet of strange underbrush as she’d expected, but instead akin to a miniature badland. Instead of arriving among the trunks of the mushroom forest, they stood in the interlocking chasms cutting between islands of alien growth. Natalie’s mind struggled to make sense of the bizarre geology. It was like the jungle floor was a gigantic stone slab shattered into pieces and poorly reassembled. Life grew atop each piece of the slab, stretching up into the impossibly thick canopy, but little grew in the cracks between each section, which is where they now walked.

The tiny canyon they entered was wide enough for two aardigs to walk abreast, so their caravan could move without issue. Glancing at the walls of the crack, Natalie used Cole as a measuring stick to guess they were two and a half meters tall. That top half meter was a spongy mass of moss, fungus, mycelium, ⁸roots, and rot, which Natalie guessed was what passed for soil around here. Beneath that were layers of porous rock riddled with holes ranging from barely visible to fist-sized, the stone eventually melding into the claw-scratched floor beneath them.

Natalie was forced to reassess her opinion; the canyon they walked through wasn’t a crack in the slab but a gouge. Some force she couldn’t imagine carved these paths through the jungle floor, creating winding passages of bare stone where naturally life should grow. Thinking about all the monsters Cole listed as inhabitants of the Deeps, Natalie decided she didn’t want to encounter whatever was responsible for these gouges.

After maybe fifteen minutes of walking, Cole took off the protective cloth he wore, and the rest followed him. Sucking in a breath of rot-sweet air, Natalie started to ask questions, but Cole’s gesture for silence stopped her. His and Masga’s insistence on not speaking bothered Natalie. The aardigs made plenty of noise, and so did the rest of the caravan. Stealth didn’t seem to be the goal, but whatever the reason for the enforced silence was, Natalie couldn’t guess.

The path was winding and branched constantly, but dwerick runes marked each intersection and were the only reason Natalie didn’t fear getting lost. They were in an alien labyrinth so far outside her realm of understanding it might as well be a different cosmic sphere. While the experience was fascinating beyond words, the sheer otherworldliness and her own ignorance kept Natalie on edge. The constant noise from the surrounding jungle and its overwhelming bouquet of scents weren’t helping. It got so bad Natalie actually borrowed one of Isabelle’s techniques and dulled her sense of smell down to mere human levels. Cole seemed unbothered, but he seemed immune to stink, no matter how horrid; but Alia was still wearing the spore mask and violently rubbing her face every minute or so.

Two hours after they entered the jungle proper, the rangers called the caravan to a halt. They’d arrived at a small grotto carved into the rock and dominated by a pool of clear water. Greedily, the aardigs drank their fill, while canteens were refilled and beards washed of spores. Tentatively, Natalie dipped a hand into the cold water. She missed being able to drink things other than blood, and the idea of sharp, clean mountain flow suddenly sounded wonderful.

A sound caught her attention then, pulling Natalie from staring at the pool. It was unlike the clicks, chirps, creeks, and worbles Natalie now knew to expect from the jungle; this was a voice. Grabbing Cole’s arm, Natalie said. “I hear someone.”

Cole forced a hand over Natalie’s mouth and sucked in a deep, steadying breath. With his free hand, he pointed at the rangers and then his ear. All three dwarves exchanged glances and drew weapons. Confused and frightened, Natalie tried to understand the distant but growing voice. Her sensitive hearing soon caught the pain and ragged desperation conveyed by the speaker. A word of dwerick, one of the few she knew, was being repeated over and over.

“Help”

The older ranger gripped his axe tight and called out into the jungle something in dwerick. For a moment, the voice stopped, then it restarted, this time with company. Half a dozen or more people were calling out for help in the dwarvish tongue. Moving quickly, the old ranger took out a carving knife and etched a pictogram onto the grotto wall. Turning from his crude marking, the ranger grabbed the lead aardig’s guide rope and started moving the caravan back in the direction they came.

Prodded by the ranger, the aardigs moved quickly, waddling forward fast enough the dwarves needed to jog and humans trot to keep up. Profoundly unsettled but unwilling to break the taboo of silence, Natalie stayed next to Cole, both of them holding their weapons ready. The caravan doubled back two junctions in the canyons and continued on a different path. As they moved, the distant voices grew louder and louder before slowly fading. When they finally stopped, Natalie did her best to communicate this to Cole.

A look of cautious relief passed over the Paladin’s face, and he relayed the message in slightly better pantomime. The caravan’s pace slowed then, but they didn’t stop again, even when they encountered another grotto. Eventually, after enough time walking that Kit could barely stand, they reached the jungle’s edge. Staring up at the looming valley wall, Natalie tried to get her bearings. She thought they’d simply crossed the jungle, reaching the vault’s eastern edge, but that was about all her navigational accum could decipher.

Hugging the space where jungle and cliff met, the caravan continued in what Natalie hoped was a southern direction. Checking over her companions, Natalie noted they all seemed tired but intact. Kit was walking easier, his gait almost skipping, which, after a moment, Natalie realized was due to him altering his own gravity. Alia wore her mask and scowl, while Mina seemed to be regretting the layers of armor and cloth she bundled herself in. Yara merely walked silently, showing no signs of distress or wonder at the surroundings. Cole was still tense from the encounter at the grotto but seemed calmer now that they were out of the proper jungle.

Soon, the travelers found a tunnel carved into the valley wall, its mouth lined with runes and pictograms. A large piece of quartz sat at the entrance’s peak, glowing with pale yellow light. Natalie noted the ever-present jungle creep didn’t touch where the light shone, mycelium feelers and mossy patches stopping abruptly as if cut by an invisible blade. The caravan filed into the tunnel, and its nature became apparent; they’d entered the dwarf equivalent of a rest stop.

Centered around a bubbling artesian well, the small cave contained a few sleeping alcoves, a crate of what Natalie guessed were emergency supplies, and, most curiously, a defaced statue. Taking up much of the cave’s back wall, the statue relief depicted a strange creature with dwarven proportions but the claws and tail of an aardig. The face was destroyed, carved away with a maniac intensity, but hints of a beard and floating crown of gemstones were still visible. A pictogram at the statue’s base was also smashed, the edges of it only betraying the identity. Sitting before the statue’s clawed feet was a large offering basin, now containing a pile of gravel and what Natalie thought must be a very old chamberpot.

Masga walked towards the tunnel's entrance and ran fingers along the runes carved there, then said something in dwerick. The final bit of tension escaped Cole then. “We’ll be safe here.”

Taking that as her sign it was alright to speak, Natalie asked. “What the hells was that back at the grotto?”

The younger ranger just chuckled, the mirthless sound of a soldier finding humor in a junior's ignorance. “Youa not ta only monster tat pretends to be its prey, sangraki.”

As if that was answer enough, the ranger started unlinking the aardigs and leading them towards a mossy burrow in one wall of the cave. Natalie watched as her companions sat down where they could and rested tired legs. She alone was unbothered by the trip, or at least mostly unbothered; some blood would be nice, but feeding around the dwarves felt like a bad idea. Deciding to curl up next to Cole, Natalie let her face rest on the cool metal of his armor. A snort of incredulity escaped her then; they’d been trekking through a sweltering jungle for hours, and the only way his armor would still be cold was if he’d been using his powers.

“What would Master Time think of you using his gifts like a glass of water on a hot summer day?” Natalie said, putting a little teasing humor into her voice.

Finding her hand, Cole chuckled. “I think he’d prefer me not to pass out from heat stroke while performing my duties.”

A noise of utter exhaustion escaped Mina, who sat nearby. “You’re telling me that was an option?”

Cole just shrugged. “Keeping ourselves functional isn’t a waste of our God’s blessings. Learning how to use miracles in unorthodox ways is a valuable skill.”

Hanging her head, Mina let out a low, tired sigh, her breath frosting as she worked magic. Reaching out, she placed a hand on Alia and earned a groan of satisfaction from her girlfriend. Seeing this, Kit looked at Yara and said. “I feel rather left out; what about you?”

Rolling her eyes and making a gesture, Mina let a puff of icy vapor waft over the two. Kit actually started to shiver at the surge of cold, but Yara seemed completely unbothered; in fact, she showed little sign of general exhaustion. Staring at her thrall, Natalie thought about what Isabelle had shared about Ancilia. Yara’s body was warped; altered to better serve Natalie’s interests. A good thrall was reliable, durable, loyal, and unnoticeable. It seemed just as Yara could enter a primitive healing coma and slip through the cracks of awareness; she could resist inclemental weather.

The younger ranger plopped down then, looking at them with undisguised interest. “I’m Nokin, ana the old feller is Olkar. We dinna chance to offa ou names beefore.”

As usual, Masga spat something, probably objecting to the starting dialogue. Nokin replied, and the bonekeeper made a noise of disgust but didn’t speak further. Rolling her eyes, Nokin explained. “Ya need to know oura names if ya getta trouble. Canna have yoo calling out like one of them.”

She put an ugly emphasis on the last word, and again, Natalie asked. “What were those things? The mimics.”

Olkar spoke then, his western better than his junior. “Don’t speak of 'em, bad luck. They lure folk away from good paths, can only say one or two words; that's all you need to know.”

Looking at Cole and Kit, Natalie was surprised and annoyed when they didn’t elaborate. Natalie suddenly got a terrible idea that Olkar’s caution and refusal to name the threat was more than simple paranoia. Shuddering, Natalie decided Cole was completely right. She’d started to find the Deeps fascinating, now she just wanted to get out from underneath the mountains.

Planning an ambush in unfamiliar terrain was never a good idea; it left one open to all manner of unforeseen danger, like having said ambush reversed upon the ambushers or the ambushee slipping away through some unnoticed escape path. So naturally, the obvious solution was to only plan a sneak attack in known territory or try very hard to make what started unfamiliar become familiar. Considering the first option wasn’t possible, Wolfgang’s coterie now worked to secure a position of strength within the Deeps.

After much consideration and pouring over maps claimed from Delve Njolk, the death squad selected a lock cavern known as Gurim’s Watch as their point of ambush. The cave connected to three other locks and, more importantly, was part of the route to Azyge. Azyge was the largest dwarf settlement in the Alidonian Mountains outside Turul’s Tomb and sat close to Harmas. The trading village was the most likely destination of the stone carriers; its location and human-occupied gate town made it the best place to prepare for an expedition towards Harmas.

Gurim’s Watch was a well-named cavern, being a large, roughly dome-shaped lock with three points of ingress. Approximately a hundred meters in diameter, the cave’s center was occupied by a hulking column of living rock carved into a guard tower by dwarven generations past. The three-leveled structure provided an almost unobstructed view of the entire cave; it was as close to perfection as Wolfgang could hope for a place to prepare an ambush.

Standing on a balcony clearly carved for quarrelers and a ballista emplacement, Wolfgang thought about his good fortune to find such a place. Gurim’s Watch seemed another casualty of the current dwergaz dark age. Close to a millennium had passed since the dwarf pantheon fell silent, but the deep folk still showed little sign of recovering from that calamity. This cave should have been an important fortification, protecting trade and travelers moving through the Alidoninan mountains; instead, it lacked even a simple garrison and was barely maintained.

Playing with his newly acquired knife, Wolfgang considered Gurim’s Watch a bleak vindication of his views on multiple levels. No matter their origin or nature, the Gods could not be relied upon. One could make deals or arrangements with them, but faith would never be rewarded when it truly mattered. At best, the inhabitants of the Mundane could expect paltry boons and plenty of manipulation. Wolfgang’s ‘luck’ in finding Delve Njolk and now Gurim’s Watch were prime examples of this. His path was being guided by Beyond-born influences, but the aid came with a cost and would probably end at the most inconvenient moment for Wolfgang. No god would be there to save the Black Fly; he needed to take care of himself.

Letting the chisel-like dagger taken from Ordin dance between his fingers, Wolfgang examined the acid-etched runes decorating the blade. Relying on the gods was foolish; relying on his fellow monsters was idiotic. So he’d spent valuable time and less valuable corpses to gain a weapon that might protect him in place of either. Modifying the Gashadokuro ritual to fulfill his current needs hadn’t been easy, but was well within Wolfgang’s abilities. In place of a siege engine, he’d sculpted the dead dwarves of Delve Njolk into a sword and shield for his use. When the battle against the Paladin came, he wouldn’t be at the mercy of his coterie or enemies.

Sheathing the knife, Wolfgang patted the other two blades he held, each another tool for his survival but more specialized. The stargent-coated stiletto was something of an educated guess on Wolfgang’s part. Unless the reports he read were completely mistaken or the homunculus had further mutated, stargent would slow its reanimation. While Wolfgang was counting on the Tall and the Short to kill ‘Paladin Cole, ’ the stiletto would help keep the creature dead until it could be delivered to Epulo. Then, even if the stargent wasn’t sufficient, the other dagger would be, even if it did risk truly damaging the specimen. Aisan thread-cutter knives weren’t weapons people recovered from, even supposed immortals.

The clanking of footsteps pulled Wolfgang’s attention to the approaching Dullahan. Green fire flickered in the creature’s empty helm and trailed behind it in emerald sparks. Wolfgang’s new bodyguard had clearly fed well from the massacre, its flame growing with each kill. In other circumstances, Wolfgang might be more concerned with the Dullahan’s burgeoning strength and unbroken will, but right now, it was still a useful tool.

Noting the speckles of drying blood on the Dullahan’s bone armor, Wolfgang asked. “I take it you were successful?”

In a voice like scraping metal and wet logs burning, the former Pankrator answered. “Yes. Caught four of them.”

Wolfgang took the taciturn words as a good sign. The slow erosion of dignity and sanity from something once mortal took many forms, but interestingly, one of the more common symptoms of an undead minion breaking to their master’s will was a clipped, abrupt speaking pattern. Cracks were starting to show in Marcus, his iron soul beginning to warp under the stress of being. Participating in the slaughter of civilians seemed to have finally broken something in the Dullahan.

Walking towards the stairs, Wolfgang decided he needed every advantage possible, even if that meant sacrificing subtlety. “Tell me everything you know about the Sage’s Stone, and I will release you from your existence when the Homunculus is captured.”

The Dullahan didn’t reply; it simply stared at Wolfgang. “I’m serious; I swear by my blood, and will, I’ll do everything I can to grant you true death once my objective is complete. All you need do is tell me what little you know about the stone and its protections.”

Slowly, the undead priest-paragon reached out to the tower wall next to him and sank his fingers into the stone. Rock cracked and groaned as Marcus gouged a fist of gravel from the column. Letting the pebbles fall onto the ground, the Dullahan spoke. “You are a fool.”

Hiding his displeasure, Wolfgang replied. “You say that while smashing things like an angry child.”

Dragging his fingers along the rockface, tearing into the carved stone, Marcus growled. “Perhaps, but that changes nothing. You are a fool and will die like one.”

Most vampires would let rage at the insult control them, but Wolfgang wasn’t like most vampires. “Why am I a fool?”

Letting another handful of gravel tumble to the ground, Marcus spoke. “Many reasons, most obvious, is your poor offer. You ask me to betray Paladin Cole for a reward he will give without hesitation.”

Wolfgang stared at his bodyguard. “That is assuming he will be victorious over me. Considering we will ambush the homunculus with overwhelming power, that seems a poor assumption.”

Turning away from Wolfgang and descending the stairs, Marcus spoke with grim finality. “Not an assumption. I have faith.”

A scoff escaped Wolfgang. “Faith? I know you aren’t deaf, Dullahan; you know what the Paladin truly is. He’s an abomination, a product of flesh crafting, soul binding, and other fouler things. That is what you trust to rescue you?”

That horrible grinding laugh escaped Marcus. “I’ll trust Master Time’s judgment over yours, leech.”

It seemed the Pankrator was not yet broken, merely warped, but that might change. Wolfgang would just need to find more ways to pressure the Dullahan’s mind until something finally snapped. Descending the staircase, Wolfgang entered the main chamber of the watch tower. The stink of blood, feces, and fungal rot filled the abandoned room. Cleanor, Thorm, Wulfhild, and Ordin waited in the chamber. The two knights seemed unconcerned by the smell, Cleanor was clearly disgusted and their wasn’t enough of Ordin left to care. The source of the reeking odor lay in a pile in the room's center. Four trolls grunted and squealed as they tried to escape their fate.

Hulking and vaguely simian the hairless troglodytes were maimed, their arms and legs cut away by Marcus’s blade. Trying to ignore the wretched odor, Wolfgang stared at the thrashing, panicking creatures. While a poor substitute for human blood, troll ichor was better than animal. Besides, the beast’s regeneration would keep them alive for repeated feedings. Which was exactly why Wolfgang ordered Marcus to find them. After all, he didn’t know how long they’d be waiting to spring the ambush.