The wind off the eastern mountains grew increasingly chill as they trudged, in what Hannah judged, was a southerly direction. She had an uneasy sense that the wizard was assuming she knew something about what she was doing. Periodically they heard the howl of wolves, sometimes near, sometimes far off. They tried to keep concealed as best then can as they moved through the mass of low hills, following the rain choked stream. Hannah resisted the urge to curse the rain as she realized it was probably the only reason they hadn’t been caught and killed yet. That seemed like less of a bonus when you were freezing and starving of course. Night was also closing in quickly and Hannah was offput by the blackness. She had never left Altdorf before, save for a few day trips to various hamlets, and the idea that there were no torches or street lanterns for miles and miles was deeply unsettling.


“Shelter,” she said as the light died away almost completely. She extended a finger towards the base of a hill, where a great tree had partially toppled, its root bole ripping up out of the rocky earth. Exhausted the pair of them stumbled towards it and, as Hannah had hoped, the cavity beneath it provided some shelter from the rain. The inside was like a miniature cathedral built by a mad man, where the roots served as uneven buttresses. 


“We need a fire,” she began, then her face fell as she realized that the light would certainly give them away to any prowling orcs.

“I think I can shield the light,” the wizard responded. Hannah nodded and gathered up a handful of leaf trash and small twigs. She opened her cartridge box sighed as she realized that the powder she had planned to use was sodden from the river and the rain. Unscrewing the flint from one of her pistols, she struck it along the barrel until sparks fell onto the dry leaves. The began to smoke, then, for a miracle, caught fire. Inexpertly she piled a few twigs on it and got a small blaze going while the wizard chanted in a weird language that made Hannah’s stomach turn. She turned away as though to avert her eyes and gasped.

The wizard looked over his shoulder to see what had caused the outburst. The back wall of the grotto was not dirt but ancient stonework. Stone lintels formed a door large enough for a man to walk through without bending and half again as wide. Odd runes had been carved into the stone.

“I think it is dwarven,” Hannah said, having spent enough time in old Hamek Hammercrow’s gun foundry to recognize the style.

“Oh and I’m Hannah, thank you so much for asking,” she added, a touch acidly.