Wrack and Ruin

by Dave Willmarth

  Dylan thrust his shield forward, pushing the stonetalon back. This one was even larger than the first, and based on her physical features, was clearly female. She stood maybe eight feet tall, with a narrower waist than the male, and small but obvious breasts. She raised her head and let out a long howl, which surprised Max. The previous stonetalons they’d fought before the orcs attacked the mine hadn’t made a sound louder than a growl.

  “She be callin’ fer help.” Dalia called out. “Must be mating season. It be rare to find more than one or two together at a time.”

  Checking to make sure the first monster was still down, Max roared at the female and sprinted toward her. His instincts to rend and tear a competing stonetalon left him no room to think of drawing his sword, or any weapon. His fingers curled slightly, claws out and already reaching for the female as he moved forward.

  Hearing Max’s roar, the female straightened her posture and turned toward him. Blinking as if confused by what she saw, her arms dropped slightly, and her head tilted to one side as she sniffed the air. She heard a stonetalon male, but her eyes and nose told her the creature rushing toward her was not a stonetalon.

  The confusion cost her, as Max reached out and grabbed hold of her neck, spinning to his left, using his bulk and momentum to pull her off balance even as his claws dug into her flesh. She gagged and whined for a moment before the sound was cut off by Max’s sharp thumbnail penetrating her throat. A moment later her head and shoulder were slammed into the tunnel wall.

  The impact would have snapped the neck of a lesser creature, but stonetalons had extremely strong bones. Still, the blow stunned the monster, causing her legs to go limp, forcing Max to either support her full weight, or let her drop. He chose the latter, letting her body fall to the tunnel floor. Right next to him, Dylan stepped forward and stomped on her neck, his blow sufficient to snap the spine and finish her.

  Smitty, meanwhile, was back on his feet and approaching the first stonetalon with his sword drawn. The monster was on its hands and knees, retching and desperately gasping for air. The orc scout wasted no time, raising his sword overhead and bringing it down to cleanly sever the stonetalon’s neck.

  “Friggin thing jumped me from behind!” Smitty kicked the head hard enough to make it bounce off the tunnel wall and roll a distance away. “Thanks for the save, boss.”

  Dylan, bending down to loot the female, cleared his throat. “Uh, as rear guard, ain’t it kinda your one job to watch behind us for ambushes just like that?” He grinned at his friend.

  “Kiss my sexy green ass.” Dylan shot him a finger before kicking the headless corpse to loot it.

  “Speaking of sexy…” Dylan turned to Max. “That female looked like she was diggin’ your vibe for a second there. Right before you went all rage-monster on her, I mean. That was brutal, boss.”

  Max, his blood just beginning to cool, nodded his head. “Yeah. Not sure what happened there. I literally wanted to eat their faces. Must be a racial thing. Competition for food or mates, or something. I didn’t even have time to think about it.”

  “Probably a good thing.” Smitty injected. “If you had given her a chance to get warm for your form, boss, she might have gone all praying mantis on you. Bitten your head off during the nookie dance.”

  Dylan laughed as Max rolled his eyes, and Red and Dalia asked in unison. “What’s a praying mantis?”

  Smitty shook his head. “Damn. What I wouldn’t give for a smartphone and a web connection. There’s so much I could teach you two.” Both the dwarfess and the leprechaun just looked more confused.

  “Explain later.” Max shook his head. “She called for reinforcements, remember? We might have more of these things incoming. Form up, let’s move.” He paused, grinning at Smitty. “Head on a swivel, yes?”

  “Aaargh! I got our six, boss.” Smitty retrieved his bow, watching the tunnel behind him as he did so. They got back into formation, and began moving forward, Smitty grumbling quietly in the back. “Ya let one lil stealth monster sneak up on ya…”

  They followed that tunnel for another five minutes before reaching an intersection. Not having seen or heard more of the monsters didn’t reassure them any. The creatures were, as Smitty had pointed out, built for stealth.

  Dylan paused at the branching of two tunnels. The one they were in continued on straight ahead, sloping slightly downward. The other veered off to the right and upward. “Uh, I know the rule is ‘always go left’… but what do you do when there’s only straight, or right?”

  Max looked at Dalia, one eyebrow raised.

  “We’re about six miles north n slightly west o’ the city, and a hundred paces deeper. This tunnel heads roughly northwest, that one northeast. So basically north either way. Question is, do ye wanna go up, or down?”

  “If we’ve been going roughly north all this time, then we’re deeper under the mountain range, right?” Max pulled up his map to confirm. Unfortunately, it didn’t show the surface map that he expected. Instead it showed a mostly blank area with just the series of tunnels they’d advanced through clearly marked. All it showed of the two branches ahead of him were the few hundred feet that he could see from where he stood.

  Looking at Dylan, he asked, “How far into the mountains was your ogre village?”

  Dylan shook his head. “Not sure, boss. I can’t access that part of my map right now. It was a lot of up and down, then a lot of searching in random directions until I found the dwarves’ city. If I had to guess… maybe thirty miles as the crow flies?”

  Max sighed. “No point in trying to get there from down here then. Without knowing where we’re going, or whether these tunnels could even take us in that direction, we might be down here for weeks and not find a route there. When the time comes to visit them, it’d be faster to get you back to the surface and retrace your steps.”

  “We’re already pretty deep below ground, even without the mountain peaks above us.” Dalia added. “Remember, Stormhaven be well below the level o’ Darkholm to begin with. All the tunnels we took while fightin’ the greys went deeper under the mountain.” She nodded her head toward the straight branch that sloped downward. “The deeper we go, the bigger and badder the beasties will be.”

  Max nodded, thinking aloud. “Those last two monsters were level twenty five. That’s probably as nasty as we want to see on this trip. Dylan, what level are you now?”

  “Nineteen, boss. Maybe a dozen kills or so away from twenty.”

  Max, Smitty, and Dalia were all over level twenty, and Dylan was catching up. And while they pretty easily handled two higher level stonetalons, if they were to encounter a larger group of monsters, like they did with the trolls and snails in the ruins, he wasn’t confident in their ability to survive without losses.

  “Alright, let’s head upward. Maybe we’ll find another route to the surface.” He pointed toward the rightward branch, and Dylan set out, shield and axe at the ready.

  *****

  An uneventful hour later, the group paused for a short break. They’d reached a mid-sized natural cavern, which spread out below the ledge they sat upon. Though the tunnel they’d chosen had steadily, if slowly, climbed upward, Dalia informed them that they were still well below the surface. In unfamiliar territory, she had no way to tell if they would emerge in a valley, or partway up the face of a mountain. As they’d walked, she explained to them what she knew of the geography in their area.

  “First, ye should know that Stormhaven sits below a mountain, but not the same mountain that Darkholm occupies. In fact, there be a wide valley between ‘em. That valley be where Darkholm’s few farmers grow their crops, on farms established a thousand years ago, when it were vital to protect our crops from the orcs. There be forts and smaller outposts ringing the valley, and a network o’ traps set at each o’ the passes. Any army that tried to break through would get buried under thousands o’ tons o’ falling stone.”

  “Good to know.” Max tried to picture the valley, thinking back t
o his few minutes atop the ridge of the outpost. “And the mountain above Stormhaven?”

  “One of those in the second ridge, as ye move north. Among the smallest o’ the mountains in that ridge.” Dalia replied.

  “Don’t worry, boss.” Smitty piped up from behind. “You know what they say. It ain’t the size of the mountain, it’s the… uhh… motion of the… yeah. Sorry. I got nothin.” The orc shrugged as Dylan chuckled up front. Max couldn’t help a small grin himself.

  Shaking her head, Dalia continued. “The legends of my people say that each mountain has a heart. Opinions vary on its form, some claiming each heart is a gem, others a chamber, still others that the heart be a living form, like an earth elemental. The heart gives the mountain its power, causes it to grow taller, resisting the outside elements that wear it down. At the same time, the heart generates the life’s blood of the mountain, in the form of veins.” She paused, watching Max’s face. When his eyes widened a bit, she smiled. “Ye guessed it. Veins o’ stone, or metal ore. Younger, weaker mountains be filled with simple copper, agates, or quartz, while older more powerful mountains grow gold, diamonds, even mithril.”

  “That’s actually pretty interesting.” Dylan commented. “We should look for the heart of your mountain, boss.”

  Dalia coughed, seeming slightly embarrassed. “That be why I brought up this topic, Max. Our people have long thought that your mountain was once much larger and richer than it be now. But long ago, the first grey dwarf king, Nogroz, found and removed the heart o’ that mountain. The greys weren’t always so different than me own folk. We were cousins that lived in peace, traded between our cities across the continent. But Nogroz, he craved power above all things. He stole the heart o’ his mountain and used it in some arcane ritual taught to him by a lich. The ritual was supposed to grant him eternal life, along with great power.”

  “I can see where this is heading.” Smitty mumbled from the back. “Can you say epic quest chain?”

  Dalia ignored him. “He used the heart, performed the ritual. The magic drained some part o’ each of his people, corrupting their souls. And rather than grant eternal life to Nogroz himself, it devoured his soul, granting its power, and all the power stolen from his people, to the lich. The grey dwarves rose up, stormed the keep and killed the lich’s undead body. But they were never able to locate the lich’s phylactery to destroy its soul. Nor did they ever find the stolen heart o’ the mountain. In their shame, Nogroz’s people isolated themselves. The evil influence of the lich’s spell was passed on from generation to generation, some say getting stronger with each new babe. Eventually many o’ the clans left the city to find new homes, murdering or enslaving any that got in their way. Or so the legend goes.”

  Max asked, “How long ago was this?”.

  Dalia’s eyes squinted slightly as she tried to remember. “I’m not rightly sure? At least two hundred generations back, likely more. Ironhand, or maybe Redmane, could tell ye more.”

  Dylan did some quick math. “Two hundred generations, so about four thousand years ago?”

  “What? No, no.” Dalia shook her head. “Ye be thinkin’ in human terms. Few self-respectin’ dwarves would settle down and make babies at the age o’ twenty. They still be considered babes themselves at that age. No… a dwarven generation be fifty years or so. Meanin’ Nogroz lived ten thousand years ago, at least.”

  “And for those ten thousand years, the mountain has been missing its heart. So the weather outside has been wearing it down, while the other mountains continued to grow.” Max guessed. “And… the mines we have are just pulling out whatever was already there before the heart was taken?”

  “Aye, if the legends be true, then that would be accurate.” Dalia nodded.

  Dylan stopped and turned toward the others, holding up his hands in a halting motion. “Please boss, allow me?” When Max just nodded, the ogre turned to Dalia. “And if we were to locate the heart of the mountain and return it to… wherever it belongs? Would that start the mountain growing again?”

  “I dunno. Maybe?” Dalia shrugged, looking thoughtful.

  Instantly they all blinked and unfocused their eyes as a quest notification popped up.

  Epic Quest Received: Hard Hearted, Part I

  Find and retrieve the heart of the mountain stolen by Nogroz.

  Reward: 1,000,000 experience; 1,000 gold; access to quest Hard Hearted Part II

  “I knew it! Epic quest chain!” Smitty pumped a fist in the air, following it up with a couple of hip thrusts for good measure. “This is awesome!”

  Dylan agreed. “A million xp would put me over level twenty. Sweet!”

  Now, sitting on the ledge looking down at the cavern below, Max was considering the best way to pursue that quest.

  “If the heart of the mountain was used in the ritual, and Nogroz was killed during the ritual, and the other dwarves didn’t find the heart…” He looked around, seeing that his mumbling had garnered everyone’s attention. “Then it seems to me the lich must have taken the heart?”

  “Or it was destroyed during the ritual.” Dalia offered.

  Red, sitting atop her left shoulder, shook her tiny head. “Ya wouldn’t be havin’ the quest if there were no heart to find.”

  Dylan ventured, “Maybe the greys lied about not finding the heart?”

  “What for? If they had it, wouldn’t they return it to its proper home, so that their mines would be more productive?” Smitty paused, then seemingly changed his mind. “Unless… were they maybe hoping to use it to reverse the spell that changed them all?”

  Max tapped his chin. “Good points. I was thinking as we’ve been walking that we should try and find the ritual site. But if the heart had been just left laying there, someone obviously would have grabbed it back then.

  Dalia, looking a little self-conscious, raised one hand. “I might have an idea where to start lookin’.” She glanced at Max, who nodded for her to continue. “Remember, back then the greys were not so different than us. Dwarves, I mean.” She blushed slightly. “It be our tradition to bury our kings and heroes with their weapons, armor, and most valuable possessions. So it may be that they buried the heart with Nogroz.”

  “And left it alone all this time?” Red’s tone was doubtful.

  “No dwarf would dare disturb the tomb o’ their king!” Dalia nearly shouted. “Even the dirty greys wouldn’t sink that low!” Realizing what she’d done, she covered her mouth and looked around quickly. Making loud noises in the underground was a foolish move.

  Max reached out and patted her knee gently, a calming gesture. “And if the heart is indeed buried with Nogroz? How will you feel about us raiding his tomb for it?”

  Her eyes widened. Max saw the conflicted look on her face as she considered her answer. Eventually, she replied. “He weren’t me own king. And by all accounts, he was unworthy o’ the title, at least at the end. Even so, I’d not disturb his tomb without grave need.” She sighed, her shoulders drooping. “But I think even King Ironhand would agree that restoring the heart o’ the mountain be a cause worthy of such an intrusion. And clearly, the gods agree, havin’ seen fit to give us this quest. If the heart be entombed with Nogroz, we should take it.”

  “Then it’s settled.” Max got to his feet, stowing away his canteen. “When we get back to Stormhaven city, we’ll start looking for his tomb. As good a place as any to start. In the meantime, I see one exit to this cavern.” He pointed downward and to the left. “Over in that wall. Let’s make our way down and search the place before we leave here.”

  The others made themselves ready, and Max began to pick his way down the cavern wall below the ledge. The tunnel and cavern both being natural, there was no handy ramp or stairway leading down. He got down on his belly and slid his legs over the edge, slowly lowering himself down until his right foot found a small ledge. Putting some weight on it, he was just trying to decide whether to trust it with his full weight when Dylan spoke up.

  “Uhm, boss?”
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  Looking up at the ogre, Max grunted. “What?”

  “You know when we were at the little gnome lady’s shop? And you were talking about spells and stuff?”

  “Little busy right now, corporal.” Max was feeling around with his left foot, looking for another foothold.

  “Right, boss. It’s just that, I’m pretty sure I heard you mention a levitation spell? Seems like that would be a lot easier, and faster, way to get down from here.”

  “Shit.” Max cursed under his breath. He wasn’t the gamer that his corporals both were, and still didn’t have the mindset of using magic in everyday life. Quickly pulling himself back up onto the ledge and dusting himself off, he nodded at the ogre. “You’re absolutely right. Like Dalia said earlier, I’m still thinking in human terms. You guys gotta help me remember when magic might be our best option. At least until I get my shit together.”

  All of the others nodded, and Max looked to Dylan again. “Since it was your idea, you get to go first. I feel I should tell you, I’ve really only used this spell on others as a way to kill them. Fling them way up in the air n let them fall…” As he finished speaking he cast the spell on his corporal, then quickly made a sideways motion with his hand, pushing the now floating ogre out into open air.

  Dylan cussed quietly and struggled a bit, waving his arms and legs wildly, much to Smitty’s amusement. “What do you call those dance moves?”

  Max directed him downward, slowing his descent near the cavern floor and canceling the spell when he was less than a foot off the ground. Dylan stumbled slightly upon landing, but kept his feet. One by one, Max sent the others down, then cast the spell on himself. As he drifted down to the others, he commented, “This is pretty damned handy. Remind me to get this spell for you guys too.”