Chapter 18 - Part 1

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN – OPERATIONAL PAUSES
The 14th of Sypheros, 993 Y.K., after midnight, somewhere in the Demon Wastes

It was the third junction that Orphan’s fingers had found in the darkness, but it was the first one with any meaningful sounds that he could track. A tapping sound came from the right tunnel, one that sloped upwards and around. It was light, faint, and not a single tap, but rather an almost perfectly synchronized series of taps. Orphan recalled that Delegado had once said something about a Tharashk outpost, and wondered if someone was mining for Khyber dragonshards.

To do that, they’d either need to be very, very secretive, or aligned with the fiends, Orphan thought. Orphan’s knowledge of religious studies didn’t seem to allow for the fiends allying with anyone, but he also didn’t think House Tharashk could keep their presence here a secret. Likely it was someone else, perhaps kobold slaves. The warforged monk had never seen a kobold, but he had heard they were industrious miners. No use asking Delegado about this, assuming I ever see him again, Orphan mused. Bringing notice to him of Dragon Below cult activity in his House nearly destroyed our friendship.

That thought was interesting, the half-orc and he as friends. He hadn’t really ever thought of Delegado that way. Friendly, yes. Allies, certainly. Companions even. But perhaps they were friends if Orphan was concerned about how to tell the cantankerous half-orc bad news.

The warforged saw a dim light up ahead, and he felt hot air. He crept forward on his hands and knees, moving as quietly as a master student of the Balanced Palm was expected to, and peered over a ledge as the tunnel suddenly dropped away.

It was definitely a mining operation, but it was not a Tharashk one. Not unless half-orcs had suddenly become squat and hairless creatures barely four feet in height. There were over a hundred of the blubbery, hunched over, barely humanoid-looking things. They had pale, sickly flesh, and slack mouths that seemed to do nothing but gibber and squeal. Nonetheless the sickly flesh had muscle, and the mouths were packed with small fangs.

Some two-thirds of the creatures were involved in smithing. They were carrying raw slabs of metal to a smelter that sat above a pool of lava and working bellows that sent sparks flying high up a natural chimney. The liquid metal that formed was sent down a series of four troughs. Three went straight back into the lava pit as waste, and the other rounded around the smelter to cool before running towards the shore of the vast cavern next to the lava pool. Iron Orphan assumed that the troughs somehow separated various elements in the metal by weight, and the hunched fiends were only interested in one element.

The trough that went to the cavern actually passed through the body of a chained humanoid shape made out of rock and dirt. Orphan recognized it as an earth elemental, similar to the ones that Pienna was able to summon. It seemed to be slightly shorter than he, but thicker and wider in body, almost like an oversized dwarf. It even had a bristling beard made of fibrous quartz. Its eyes were bright, gem-like rocks that bulged as it screamed in pain. The chains around its neck, arms, and legs with covered in binding runes of some kind. The metal changed color as it passed through the elemental’s shrieking body, and the hunched demonlings collected it in silvery buckets, bringing the processed material to a series of anvils. More of the demonlings were hammering the metal into crossbow bolt heads, and beyond them the finished heads were being attached to crossbow bolts.

Orphan watched the hunched demonlings carefully. They seemed to be resistant to the fire, handling hot tongs easily while they worked in close proximity to raw lava, but not immune to it, as they showed apprehension about falling into it. They also worked quickly, and were preparing an enormous stockpile of these specialized crossbow bolts.

The other third of the squat demonlings were assembled by a tunnel entrance that showed signs of recent excavation. Unlike the round tubes that Orphan had been traveling through, this was a squarish thing of twenty feet on a side, roughly hewn, with many timbers shoring up the fresh earth. The warforged was no miner, but he had spent almost a month assisting in the excavation in the Valenar desert. His best guess was that the tunnel had first been dug about six months ago, and its unearthing had been more or less constant since then. Whatever was down there, the demonlings feared it. They all had long pikes tipped with the same metal being used to create the crossbow bolts, and were displaying nervous and skittish behavioral tics like shuffling in place and relieving themselves openly.

Their nervousness was perfectly understandable. Standing over the entire thing was a creature that could have been human, if a human wore shrouds of clinking chains. Chains ending in blades, chains with hooks, chains with heavy, bludgeoning balls of metal, all decorated the thing’s form. Very little of the creature’s reddish-tan skin poked through the mass of chains, and what’s more, the chains seemed alive. They slithered and crawled over the demon’s skin like pet snakes fancying the shoulders of a druid. They swerved and pointed, tracking the progress of the hunched demonlings. Beneath these chains – for their fiendish master stood on some kind of podium, were more masses of metal links, apparently awaiting a mental command to rise. The chain mass shifted its weight every half-minute or so, its ponderous clinking a sinister counterpart to the pained screams of the elemental.

Orphan considered the scene for a few more minutes, making sure that he knew where everything was. The light from the lava and the bellows was not much, so he had to take his time and be sure of things. The fiends had no problem with the light, they seemed to operate with the same darkvision that Delegado and Thomas had.

There seemed to be no way to get past this cavern unnoticed. In fact, Orphan was lucky that the chain-thing seemed to be staring in the other direction, and that all the demonlings were so afraid of it and focused on their work that none of them spared a glance upwards. Further, his ledge seemed to be the only point of egress from this chamber that was not guarded. Orphan thought it likely that the tunnels he had come from were the hunting ground for the demon that had teleported at them, and as such they were considered secure.

Turn back, or do something about this? He pondered the question, and realized that there were two questions before it. Firstly, should he do something about this? Secondly, could he? He tried to be logical about the unearthly scene below him.

The argument against trying anything was simple. He and Delegado and Thomas were part of some prophecy. They needed to do something together in a terrible city called Ashtakala. Theoretically anything that he would be involved in here would be a diversion from his main purpose. On the other hand, there was no guarantee that he would ever find his way back to Delegado. The size of the natural chimney above the smelter told him that he was deep underground, and neither the half-orc nor Thomas had access to any teleportation magic similar to that of the fiend that Orphan had killed. As a result, Orphan realized that he would probably never make it Ashtakala. In fact, when he thought about it, it was Thomas manipulating the staff and Delegado’s experience with the terrain of the outdoors that was going to get them into the demon city. Orphan was not sure what one warforged was supposed to offer to that.

For that matter, this may be why I am here, Orphan reasoned. The fiends had some urgent plan in operation, that much was clear, and it was a recent one, too. Perhaps I am only meant to accompany the others this far, and thwart whatever is occurring here. Another painful scream came from the elemental. Not to mention that it goes against every ingrained belief I have to let that elemental suffer long pain, Orphan concluded.

This left the second question. Could he do anything? The answer to that was not likely. There was no way to get down there without being spotted, not unless he’d be able to create some kind of –

Diversion, he thought, as he spotted the pulsating khyber dragonshard underneath the elemental. It was similar in cut and style to the one he had seen on the airship that had picked up Delegado from Valenar, back in the month of Nymm. Obviously it had the same purpose, to bind the elemental, to somehow keep it from breaking free or sinking into the cavern floor. Unlike a House Lyrandar airship’s dragonshard, however, this one was not protected by hardened glass or other methods of sabotage prevention. There was no need for it here, to the thinking of the fiends. Who would break the shard and set the elemental loose, after all?

He backed up, carefully, silently, until he was about twenty feet from the ledge. Then he ran forward as fast as he could, and leaped over the demons below. The chain-thing had heard his footsteps running forward, and had begun to turn, its chain tips pointing upwards. But it could not react in time to stop the warforged monk who sailed well over fifteen feet over its head. The hunched demonlings did not notice Iron Orphan jumping overhead either, at least until he landed.

The monk landed evenly, but harshly. He felt the cracks in the darkwood of his waist and legs, but they were minor, as he shifted the energy from the landing into an acrobatic roll. He barreled past several startled demonlings, including one that he actually flipped over, and drew his kama as he came within reach of the khyber dragonshard.

The kama’s main magic was in defending others. In fact it had been forged over two centuries previously by an elven monk who had been trying to protect some townsfolk from a hobgoblin sniper. Nonetheless its blade was sharp and true, and it hit the crystal dead on. The khyber dragonshard shattered, and the runes on the chains holding the elemental down suddenly flickered, then dissolving into meaningless blots.

With a roar of pain and fury, the elemental stood, tearing everything around it apart. Iron Orphan barely dodged the splashing molten metal that flew from the unattached trough as the elemental whipped itself around, smashing demonlings with its heavy hands. The ring on the warforged finger hummed, translating the grinding rock sounds that the dwarvish-looking thing was making.

“Thieves of honor!” it spat, its sparkling gem eyes blazing with fury. “Feel my vengeance!” The demonlings were squealing, running in fear. A terrible clinking of chains was heard, and Orphan looked back to see the chain-fiend lift an arm and point. The mass of chains under its pedestal roared forward, smashing through any demonling too slow to get out of the way.

“Dive beneath the earth, brother to Eberron!” Orphan warned it, the ring translating his words. “You are weakened by their pain, and if you take a stand, they will capture you again!” The warforged stood quickly, and punched a demonling that was trying to swing a smith’s hammer. The squat fiend fell backwards, wincing, although not as bruised as it should have been.

“You speak well,” the elemental said, sinking into ground reluctantly as the chains crashed forward. “Be wary of them, for they were forging weapons that can reach the insubstantial with my flesh!” With that he disappeared, swimmingly freely under the ground.

Orphan did not have the time to ponder the meaning of the elemental’s words, instead focusing on the mass of chains that was rolling towards him. He flipped backwards, jumping past more panicking demonlings, only to find that the chains had circled, seeking to prevent him from moving to the exit. He parried with his kama, slapping back vicious hooks and pointed blades, even as he kept moving backwards, looking for a safe spot.

Those were few. Orphan could see the chain-fiend barking out orders, even as he directed the mass of loose chains. The squat demonlings ceased milling about in terror and began to form ranks, breaking out longspears. Some of the hunched things concentrated towards him, and he felt their magic slapping at his mind, trying to turn his careful defense into blind panic. His mental training fending their assaults off, but there were many of them, and if only one should get through…

He suddenly turned and ran towards the new tunnel. Whatever was down there, the fiends were afraid of it. It would keep them off of his back for a while.

Assuming it didn’t kill him.

He plunged into the darkness, and save for a few hasty crossbow bolts that did not touch him, the fiends did not follow.