Such were Hannah’s reserves of childish petulance that for a moment she was tempted to answer no. A few moments of  reflection, made infinitely more difficult by the fact she felt like the had been beaten with a sack of hammers, informed her that maybe she shouldn’t piss of the wizard anymore than was necessary. Sigmar save her the situation must be dire.


“Owww,” she said instead. A simple response that artfully understated her feelings on the whole afternoon's events. She sneezed violently, expelling about a hundred tons of dust and dirt from her nose and then sat up. It was pitch dark, not just dark, but literally black nothingness.

“We aren’t in hell are we?” she asked, figuring that she hurt too much and not enough to be dead.
“Hell, Ostermark, who can tell,” Malcador responded. Hannah really wished he hadn’t because laughing made her entire body hurt, and made her sneeze again. She heard a weird sound that might have been a word, then a pale blue flame appeared, casting a soft radiance that spread out into the dark. They were against the wall of a chamber, behind them was a shaft that must have led up to the fallen tree. Judging by the stonework it must have once been a mine head or perhaps an air shaft for the deeper workings. Tunnels, propped up with large timber braces and large enough for a wagon to pass through, branched off in both directions.
Hannah pushed herself to her feet and half walked, half crawled out of the rubble that sank her to the waist. Perversely she still gripped the remains of the stick she had used to stab the wolf in the eye. With an irritated hiss she dropped it. The opposite wall of the cavern had been hollowed out into what might have once been a barrack area. Ancient bunks, too short and broad for men lay in splintered disarray and crates and barrels were scattered against a wall. She rooted through the trash for a moment and found an old cracked lamp. For a wonder there was still oil in the reservoir and she sparked it alight with the flint of her pistol, adding the warm fire glow to Malcador’s pale illumination.


“We must be careful,” Malcador cautioned, cocking an ear, but they could hear neither the howl of wolves nor the scrabbling of claws as the goblins tried to dig them out. Most likely, and with a little bloody well overdue luck, the greenskins assumed they were dead.


“Why?” Hannah asked, as she began rifling through the ruins of what must have once been a dwarven mining cache.

“There are older and fouler things than orcs in the deep places of the earth,” he said cryptically.

“Oh yeah? Like what?” Hannah asked as she pried open a crate with what might have once been the blade of a pickaxe.

“Damned if I know, just something people say,” Malcador admitted as he forced himself to his feet. “What have you got there?” By way of answer, Hannah threw a parchment wrapped bundle at Malcador. The wizard caught it with his free hand and let the spell flame go out, He peeled open the paper to reveal a hard clay like tablet inside.

“A bar of mud? You shouldn’t have,” Malcador replied snarkily. Hannah had opened her own package, there were several crates full of them, and began gnawing on one corner. It took some effort but she managed to break off a chunk and began to masticate it with obvious effort.

“ dwarven way bread,” she managed before taking another bite. It was dense and hard but it tasted of wheat and something vaguely beefy.

“Must have been rations for the miners,” she explained. Malcador watched her for a minute, presumably to make sure she wasn't about to drop dead, then began gnawing at his own bar.

“How do you know that?” he asked.

“I had dwarf friends in Altdorf, gunsmiths mostly,” she explained, continuing to rifle through the debris.

“What are you looking for?” Malcador asked, noticing how furiously the woman was searching. Hannah blew a lock of dusty hair out of her face.

“Where there is waybread…” she began, then let out a whoop of triumph and hoisted up a keg which she dropped onto one of the mostly surviving bunks. It blew a puff of dust out of the ancient mattress but Hannah had no care for anything but the keg.

“... there is dwarven ale,” she moaned.