[i]Braving the mountains, I had promised my men a bounty of gold and women on the other side. So far I had managed to provide some of the former, but the latter required us to make it to civilization to spend the gold. The Werholt fiasco notwithstanding, we had procured thrice the payment and had some easy sport. My lieutenants were in high spirits, and I knew I needed one more good contract to get us to pay season. I managed to find it, or it found me, with a black coach and an equally foreboding promise to a Lady Calliope Blackwood. A fair payment and an odd, albeit simple job was given to us. We had a pint of rum in our increasingly depleting stores, and marched the next four days to Silverhill. I had not expected Lady Blackwood to accompany us, but she saw fit to settle on my shoulder like a crow, and I could tell there was far more in store for us than this mundane task of greenskins.[/i]  
[center][i]The Imperial Campaign, Pflugzeit 8, 2508
Prince Kayden Caladwarden[/i]
[/center]

At the pace they set, the journey to Silverhill should have pleasant by all accounts. No poor weather, open roads, scenic areas to camp. The men had started imagine Nuln or Averheim and their intrepid night lives once they could spend all this coin. We were fat and happy after an easy victory. However, while we had forgotten the land was cursed, the land itself had not. During our march, we would find dug up graves and trees sucked of vitality, seemingly at random. Every few miles, stone ruins or the blasted remains of some farmstead were discovered, and lodges that were inhabited held queer, superstitious folk that would sooner shoot us with a crossbow than trade with us. Some never unlatched their doors. On the second day, the sun high in the sky, I saw a hill overlooking a copse of trees we marched passed, a dread feeling on my mind. A pressure in my brow, and a small pain as if fingers pressed against the nerves. Upon the hill was a derelict, crumbled tower not unlike the decimated side of Gallow's End, and I saw a cloaked figure standing still beside the rubble. Somehow I knew it watched us, watched [i]me[/i]. Never in my life I had felt more certain that eyes were on me, but when I blinked again, the figure was gone. 

At night, what Lady Blackwood's Knights would swear on their life were bird calls and stags sounded more like the dead awakening and the lost souls calling to be let loose from this plane of reality. We slept when we could, but our guard was doubled. What we did not realize, was that while we watched for threats from without, the problems came from within. By the time we arrived at Silverhill, twenty men and three women had risen from their cots at night and simply walked out of the camp, and we never saw them again. By all accounts from their comrades, the day before they were their old selves, but something called to them in the woods. Kayden did not know what had led them to do such a thing, he wanted nothing to do with anything outside of the picket lines, but there was a siren's song that permeated the air of old Solland, and it took its toll on his men. 

Luckily, they found the mountains by day four. Usually mountains were not the most welcome sight. They had very little strategic value save if one was to occupy a fortress, and they were often filled with barbarous creatures rather than verdant villas to plunder. Kayden doubted they could have made it there quicker, despite Lady Blackwood's claims. The reputation of the land had preceded it, and the men needed that extra day to rest if they were going to be any effective in the mine. Within the hour, he had called his lieutenants to together. Calliope joined them, lurking in the shadow at the back of the tent like a specter. Everyone was keen to keep their eyes off of her from her aura alone, except sergeant Neil, who needed to be called out twice to pay attention. 

"Fletch, Pike, I need you two to take your men and set up a four kilometer-wide perimeter. Double up squads, keep your eyes peeled. I don't want anything living or dead to enter this camp without my express permission, understood?" 

"Yes Captain," Fletch remarked with a salute.
"Not a problem, Cap." Pike said, saluting right after. Kayden dismissed them, and turned to the rest, who watched expectantly. Kayden unrolled an antiquated piece of parchment, and laid it out on the war table. Everyone leaned in, Morek quirking an eyebrow as Neil placed a monoscope on his eye to examine it more thoroughly. On his shoulders sat Merie, the halfling peering over his head with the telltale curiosity of the mootland people. 

"This is the map the Lady Blackwood has provided us. I've already gone over it with Morek and Sketti. Unfortunately, Sketti ate some bad porridge last night and he currently has the shits, so that means sergeant Edwards is up." Kayden held a hand up before Neil could run his mouth. "Hold your questions until the end." 

On the map was all three levels of the Silverhill mine, along with its three entrances all within a two mile stretch. Behind them was a wide, shallow thoroughfare in the rock that fed to each tunnel entrance, and beyond it was a series of sinuous caverns that snaked into the mountain before it dropped off into unexplored cavities in the stone, and to the south was a sheer drop in a chasm that might as well be endless. All in all, the mine covered twenty square kilometers, and they had around two hundred and fifty men, women, and dwarfs to spare.

"We're going to set you into temproary teams." Kayden told them, eyeing them to gauge their attentiveness. "Each team consists of two freebooters or rear guard, five from the bulwark, and two men from the linebreakers. That means they will be a team of nine, sometimes accompanied by one of us. No two dwarfs to a squad, we need as many across the board as we can spare. We go in defensive formation. If we find an area that is clear, we double back and announce it is clear. If we find dangerous area with toxic gas or the like, we come back and report it. There are no heroes underground. We step carefully, touch no wooden beams or parts, if you find greenskins that outnumber you, make a fighting retreat until you're bolstered by another force. On day one, we scout, perhaps even day two. By day three I want a more accurate depiction of this map, and by day four I want the greenskins out or turning tail to run. Neil, after two days, you can use whatever explosives Sketti and Morek allow you to. But not before. I'll leave the safety measures to Morek. Any questions beforehand?" 

"What if we find something worse than an orc?" Cyrdic asked, granting an appreciative nod from the others. 

"Kill it all the same." Morek responded, the first words in over a week. Cyrdic seemed satisfied with that. 

"Speaking of explosives, I'm about to bust out of my pants, Captain." Neil said tightly, letting Merie drop to the floor in a huff. "Can I be excused?" 

Kayden dropped his head, and he took that as permission. Cyrdic placed a palm to his face. "You keep saying that!" He called to him as the engineer walked out. "That's not what you say when you have to piss!" 
[hr] 

The first eight hours of exploration left nothing except empty tunnels, devoid of both life and silver. Tunnel epsilon had been collapsed previously, but tunnels alpha, beta, gamma, delta, zeta, eta, theta, and iota were clear, unless some of Solland's ghosts had found ways to permeate the rock. By hour ten, Kayden wondered if the greenskins were still there. However, midnight that night, there were reports of skirmishes in the deep. Out of the twenty six squads, four came back to report combat with greenskins, mostly goblins. They were different than the gremlins one found in the woods. Some had iron balls hooked to huge chains and others wielded wicked scythes, their mail covered bodies clad in dark and pointed cloaks. However, a full day of fighting and the Wyverns had pushed them back, driving a score over the chasm and another two score had been killed by sword, axe, and pistol shot. Only five Wyverns had been killed, three of their bodies able to be collected for burial. It wasn't until near the end of day two, when nearly two squads were wiped out instantly. One simply had not reported back after four hours, and the squad sent after them came back with just two, a man and a woman. The man, a bulwark man, was in a state of mute shock. He could barely eat or drink. The woman, however, was a mercenary from Estalia. After she pulled the fellow out, she gave Sketti and Kayden an explanation. But Kayden didn't believe it. 

"A moon? Underground?" Kayden repeated incredulously when Francesca had been taken to the medic. He shook his head. Lady Blackwood and the two dwarfs sat in the tent, the other lieutenants too busy keeping order or continuing the operation, albeit keeping the western tunnels free for the time being while the captain decided what to do. Apparently the moon had been in the shape of a goblin's visage, and green energy had spilled out of its mouth to eat his men alive. Maybe Francesca hadn't come out as unscathed as Kayden had thought. 

"Said there was laughter behind the moon, too. In the dark." Morek reminded him.

"Grobi magic," Sketti spat. In fact, the very words did make him spit, as if it left a sour taste in his mouth. "We might need t' collapse that section. Leave it be, as much as I hate t' say it." It was clear he wanted to personally wring the neck of every goblin and orc down there. 

"We can't, that's the central area." The Captain lamented, shaking his head. Magic or no, he needed to find a way to push through it. "If we don't take the western central tunnel, half the mine can't be reached. We need to think of something."