“My knights and I will handle it,” Calliope unexpectedly interjected. Conversation between the mercenaries couldn’t have been stopped more effectively if she had produced a pistol and shot Kayden through the heart. Everyone simultaneously reacted with some version of ‘no’ or ‘you cant’ but Calliope paid them no mind.

“My Lady,” Mesmer said in his odd cultured voice. “Sir Otto and the rest of the knights are scouring the hills for spies.” It was by far the longest sentence Kayden had ever heard Mesmer speak and he seemed to sense it, shrugging his shoulders defensively. Calliope’s eyes flashed with irritation.

“And who told him to do that?” she asked. Mesmer, apparently seeking to regain his speech economy, shrugged his shoulders. Calliope shook her head dismissing the matter.

“Johan, fetch my things,” she instructed the manservant, then turned to Kayden.

“I will need an escort, perhaps a half dozen men,” she ordered. Kayden made a face as though he had bitten into a lemon. Clearly the idea of his employer putting herself in danger did not appeal.

“We could send more men, no need for you to put yourself at risk,” he temporized.

“Done much tunnel fightin’ ave ye?” Morek demanded, “got some secret weapon that’ll send the grobbi scarperin’?”
“There are many kinds of combat master dwarf, and since I am paying for all this, let us not waste further time in debate. Mesmer was returning from Calliope’s horse across each shoulder he had a silk wrapped bundle, one bulky one slender.


“This is madness,” Kayden muttered under his breath. Two ravens who had been perched on the limb of a twisted apple tree cawed and began to croak. Maaaadnss Madddnns. Calliope arched an eyebrow and Kayden threw up his hands.

“Fine, I will come with you. Morek, pick a couple of…”

“Francesca and the dwarf should be sufficient,” Calliope cut in. “If it proves as perilous as the girl claims, we will fall back and wait for my men.” Calliope glared at the hills as if willing Otto and the rest of her knights to return, but while concerning, her ire wasn’t quite enough to force the hills to produce the errant men at arms.
The inside of the mines were an eerie place as the small group moved down the shafts. Francesca trembled violently until Calliope laid a hand on her shoulder. For some reason that seemed to calm the girl and she led them down through several chambers where the working had been done. Rusted rails and dilapidated equipment lay strewn about and the walls were covered with orcish glyphs and graffiti or an indecipherable but obviously crude nature.


“Manling miners are fools but I doubt even they could draw more ore from this rock,” Morek observed as they passed through a gutted chamber with an ancient pump house smashed half to kindling. Calliope ignored the observation, her eyes scanning the area.


“Not much further,” Francesca announced in a deathly calm, her eyes seeming almost to spark with amethyst light in the flickering illumination of the hurricane lamps. Mesmer paused and passed the thinner of the silk wrapped bundles to Calliope then drew the covering back from his own. It was a massive zweihander, a large two handed sword meant to dismember men and horses alike. The steel was blackened by some process of forging making it seem like he held a blade wrought of shadows in the lantern light.

“Great a sword tae big tae even swing in a mine,” Morek scoffed. Calliope pulled her own silk away, revealing a slender staff of dark ebony. A rough crystal had been set at its top, like the inside of a geode turned outwards, glistening purple. Odd runes had been carved into the wood and Calliope ran her fingers along them.

“And now we have a stick as well,” Morke grumped, though he sounded a little uncertain. Mesmer led the way down into the next chamber, a large cavern in which the destroyed pump station had allowed water to accumulate until it created a black lake split by a causeway of uncarved rock. The smell of blood and death announced that this was the chamber where it had happened even before they found the bodies, the bits of bodies anyway.

“Magic,” Kayden hissed and was answered with a demented cackle as an enormous goblin stepped out from behind a stalagmite. He held a staff in his hand, a twisted gnarled thing topped with a carved representation of a grinning moon, beside him two massive orcs lumbered, their eyes filmed as though blind from cataracts or some other condition. Despite this they held massive cleavers and wore armor that seemed to have been cobbled together from a variety of humans and dwarves.

“Gork and Mork, Mork and Gork, feast on their bones for they not orcs!” the goblin cackled. Almost faster than the eye could follow he leveled his staff and a burst of greenish light lashed out. Calliope raised her staff and a barrier of bright amethyst energy exploded into being, the green light crackled over it like static discharge then winked out. Both orcs charged, their movements eerily synchronized and lacking the usual war cries of their kind. Mesmer stepped to meet one, his black blade whirling in a figure eight which deflected the orcs attack and struck sparks from its chest plate. Morek stumped in, shouting in Kazilid and hammering his axe at the brute knee. The orc twisted and kicked, the blow pitching the dwarf into the water with a splash. Kayden was obliged to face the second alone, his sidesword weaving a series of desperate parries, any attempt to block the massive cleaver would shatter his blade in an instant. Calliope whirled her staff around and hundred of what seemed to be fireflies pulled themselves from the cavern walls and whirled down onto the goblin like locusts. Screaming vile imprecations the Goblin crossed his arms and a thunderous green gold detonation blew the fireflies away like dandelion fluff. Raising its arms its face began to glow, then seemed to detach from its face for all the world like a wax death mask being peeled away. It expanded until it was ten feet across, learning and spewing energy. It lunged forward, spewing green fire but Calliope was chanting and whirling her staff, the very darkness seemed to twist and the face distended as though being sucked into a whirlpool, the goblin howling and clawing at its real face as the phantasm met a disc of crackling amethyst darkness.  Light was howling across the chamber, reflecting and refracting off the water and bathing the walls in unhealthy hues. The air smelled of camphor and fire damp mixed with something floral and astringent.  Mesmer cut at his attacker, taking its arm off at the elbow and fetching a blow that sent him spinning across the causeway. Somehow he held onto his blade, its passage marked in the sparks it drew from the flint of the causeway. Kayden backed away, giving ground to the oddly silent, orc and worrying it with quick precise thrusts that already had blood soaking its lower chest and legs. The darkness lit with a pistol discharge as Francesca fired, not at the orcs but at the shaman herself. The ball streaked across the room in a fraction of a heartbeat then seemed to freeze a few feet from the capering goblin, the ball beginning to glow and smoke in the abused light.

“Die! Die! Die!” the little monster screeched, spittle flyinging. It’s massive faux face drew back, snarling wide enough to devour a wagon, a wall of green flame belching forth. It raced towards the combat, the water on either side boiling at its passage. Mesmer amputated the orcs foot with a one handed cut, then leaped backwards, sword raised to protect his mistress. Kayden thrust his side sword into his opponent’s belly, then leaped into his arms like a child clasping its mother. Calliope spoke a single word and flicked her finger. Twisting waterspouts of black lake water leaped from the darkness and crashed over the goblin from both sides. It let out a petulant cry that was silenced a moment later when Francesca’s pistol shot, now glowing red hot from the spell that until a moment ago finished its flight, punched through the creature's right eyeball, steam screaming away as super heated metal hit cold mountain water, casting its ruddy glow like a meteor. Everything went silent save for the agitated sloshing of water. Then Mesmer produced a lantern which he had somehow kept dry enough to light.

“A curse on all Manling mercenaries and their hare-brained ideas,” Morek spluttered as he pulled himself from the water, nothing wounded but his dignity. Kayden, miraculously, had survived, having used his attacker's body as a shield against the onrushing flames. The orc’s back was a flayed ruin, but other than a slight smell of singed hair, Kayden was unscathed. Mesmer looked like he had aged a decade but was calmly wiping the great zweihander clean with a rag. 
“I believe your men… and women will be able to take it from here,” Calliope said calmly, lowering her faintly glowing staff with an air of satisfaction.