The old dwarf who got dented in the leg was lying there and said, “I know this is gonna sound really weird, but I swear, at the far end of that tunnel, I saw a square pillar. I know it sounds stupid—it was only about two feet tall—but it wasn’t normal, wasn’t natural. It looked carved.
Now, you know, it was over 70, 80 feet away in a ****-lit tunnel, and then it got really bright. So… yeah, I swear it was there. But maybe I’m wrong. Whoever goes down there, be very careful. Maybe bring a spyglass so you can see down the hallway. Any light, and you're toast.”
Larry had an idea—if there was magic in there, maybe they could turn out the lights, and he could go in and smooth everything out. Instead of refracting light into microbeams or a focused point, he could shape it concave, not convex, turning it into a lens for digging. It could be a great way to tunnel up to the surface if they wanted to bring in light. But did they want to? Probably not. Did they want to protect the whole area? Probably. So, for now, they should just cover it up so they could pass over it safely—without harming it or getting killed by it.
Oh, what another little mess.
Everybody stayed in the cabin for the rest of the night. By morning, One was dead tired from healing two people but had supposedly leveled up twice. In this world, magic was more about feeling—no big blue boxes.
Still, everyone just seemed to know their level. It was just something they instinctively understood.
The next day, they received a small report: some dwarves who had been searching the mountain for nearly three days found an old settlement. It was only five buildings, but the way they were positioned suggested there may have been a tower in the middle, with four buildings around it at the corners—possibly a keep or a wizard’s tower. They weren’t sure yet.
They planned to check it out carefully and report back. If it turned out to be something important, they’d send word. They might even ask Larry to come take a look—especially if they needed to open a door without a “boom boom” or a “bang bang.”
Everyone had been told that the three older dwarves were the official contacts for the dwarven side of things, but Larry was the one responsible for the town. The kids always said that if anything involved the town’s protection, Larry had to be involved. That made it clear: Larry was the one deciding what they wanted to deal with and what they didn’t. So that’s exactly what he told them—figure out what it was, and if they needed help, they’d come down.
The dwarves asked for a couple of days to clear the brush around the site, which made sense. They needed to see what they were dealing with, maybe find some writing or markings. Larry had no problem with that and thanked them for checking in. Everyone was getting along well. Some people had even brought more than one gold coin and were using it to buy food. As long as there was money and food in town, everything was covered.
Before the elf general even arrived in town, he had arranged for information about his destination to be sent ahead. That information reached other people, who were then instructed—by the elf king and queen—to travel to the town as well. These included merchants, investigators, geomancers, wood-mancers, and specialists in 3D drawings, schematics, and documentation. There were also tradespeople needed to set up a wood-processing facility.
These groups arrived with wagons of food, per the Queen’s decree.
So, food was constantly coming and going, and a caravan was set up to make regular deliveries. In truth, the elf groups were establishing small bases along the road, supplying them with fresh fruits, vegetables, and other goods.
While traveling, they also hunted, which improved the balance of both the monster and wild animal populations along the roads—making travel and trade safer.
Since they were traveling such long distances, they also crossed into other territories, making trades along the way. As a result, materials and money were flowing, and everyone was in a good mood. Goods were cheaper than usual.
The town stores benefited as well—since merchants kept bringing in fresh supplies, most items were no more than three or four days old by the time they hit the shelves. Fruits and vegetables, in particular, were remarkably fresh.
*****************************
So later on that night, I guess the word had gotten out that the Kings were gonna be going into town at early morning for sunrise. And not a lot of people knew why so. They just thought it was like something they're doing as a group. No one said that. No, everybody couldn't show up so. About an hour before sunrise. Larry and the older dwarfs got up and woke up the kids. When they were kids, they were out cold.
Larry made some tea. Very strong and black. Lots of sugar. Had it set up so as everybody got up they used the bathroom. They grabbed themselves something to drink. Within about 30 minutes everybody was dressed, cleaned up and ready to go. They made it to town about 20 minutes before sunrise even started, so. They they just weren't expecting what they found because every spot around town except on the main street, there was just worms hanging out. It was like there was a path from their place to the centre of town. Other than that, every other spot there was just people loitering. It was quite. A different site.
Holy **** even the mayor and the mayor's assistant was there, and they were at City Hall on the steps having a cup of coffee or tea or something.
As Larry and the boys pass people, the passageway of no people behind them disappeared as the people followed them into the city. And the mayor had been told about what Larry had done and had found in the morning, and they were coming to check it out. Well, in the middle of the night the fog had already come in, so they already knew it was there and people have been watching it. So that just made everything a little bit more on edge. So to have the Kings come see this well. It wasn't until they got to the fountain did something kind of cool happen because the water from the fountain which comes from underground. Well, it didn't happen last time, but the fog started coming out of the fountain as they reached it. So everybody started to understand that this is connected somehow, but no one understood how, because as they walked up to the fountain, it was almost like the creatures that were drawn in the fountain started to come alive. And it wasn't that they were. It was that there were shadows playing tricks, and then fog would come out of the nose and spurts. Not just coming out, it was it was really weird
And when Larry saw this? His mind power kind of kicked in, so he sensed everybody around there having an excitement level, but a little bit of not fear, but also not acceptance a. We're going to show up to find out what's going on feeling from the whole town.
So as. The king and Larry and the mayor and all of them are noticing what's going on. The people all around them aren't oblivious at all. They're watching all this like watching a movie. You're just enthralled.
And it must have been one of the older dwarfs knowing a lot of the songs, because there was a tone from like 20 different songs that was just an underlying beat. And the guys just started tapping on his knee. Someone else heard it and it started. It was like the wave it was as it grew, it grew louder and there was a beat. After about a minute you could hear. An in. Harmony clapping. From a lot of different people all over making a sound that kind of was, it was coming from everywhere. You could kind of hear where everybody was, but it was so many people all over doing it that everybody could hear everybody else. And it was just a little bit of like an infectious sound. As it started up, Larry, the kids and the mayor all turned right around to look at everybody and they heard the music and Larry. Being kind of the tuning fork for this right now. Started thinking of a music tune that he knew and it was an old sea shanty.
Some thing ;like this.
After a while, Larry just put up his hand and it was about after a minute and a half, two minutes of this, 'cause he didn't want it to get any stronger, so he put up his hand and took a minute or so. But everybody calmed down and stopped tapping along with everybody else.
Larry looked over at the mayor and then over at the kids and said come here. And he brought him into the gather and he said I'm going to try something. I'm going to use my ability to see if I can feel a mind behind this magic or if this is just a magical field coming from the mountain. Are you guys OK with me trying this?
Larry had kind of brought the subject up earlier and everybody was like, of course Larry, whatever you want, but he wanted to make sure the mayor and everybody were still on board for this. Because if this went wrong, he didn't know what would happen. He didn't really think anything really bad could go wrong, but there was always a possibility.
The mayor wasn't even phased and just yeah, go for it, nephew. And the Three Kings just looked up at Larry and said, we trust you. If something goes wrong, we're here for you. Go tell us what we're dealing with here. Be awesome.
This actually put a little smirk on Larry, so he kind of put on a bit of a show. And if you had noticed Larry before, a lot of times he was wearing a jacket over whatever he was wearing. Well, tonight he had a jacket and you could see he didn't have a shirt on underneath. So when the kid said that and he smiled, he just turned around and they were in the middle of the. Plaza with the fountain in the middle and he just went and pointed himself towards where the harbour was took off. His jacket sat cross legged and shirtless on the stones with his back against the fountain looking at the ocean.
He then reached for a little box that he added in his jacket next to him, pulled out the box. He then opened it and everybody was looking what he was doing, so they looked in the box. It was his uncle who basically said you son of A and he wouldn't finish the last little bit because he realized the three kids were there.
The kids had no idea what it was, but the secretary, the assistant for the mayor, well, yeah, she just kind of raised the rock eyebrow, if you know what I mean.
Larry took out the biggest joint you've ever seen, placed in the end of a hollow tube and lit it. The moment he did that, the tube started to glow with runes on it.
The mayor, his assistant, some of the older dwarfs, all were like, really? You pay to have someone put runes on a pipe for smoking **** Oh my God. Where are your priorities, Larry?
But as he started to smoke, the smoke didn't go out and away from him. It's Jerry to pull in his lap so as he would breathe and people were like, hold on, what's he doing? And it took. About two minutes of this until he was covered in this layer of liquid fog. It was. Amazingly interesting what he was doing and everybody was well, it was captivating.
When he was ready, he just took the metal tube with the. Cigarish joint in it and just put it ash down. And the tube kept on glowing and now that he wasn't sucking on it at the end that he had his lips on was pointing up. Smoke was starting to come out of that alone and the tube would still have the runes lit up.
Without moving his bottom of his body he uses two arms and he did some sort of motion. All of a sudden the smoke ended up in the middle of his palm. Really dense ball and he threw it in front of him and the ball of fog or smoke rolled down the hill. At high speeds until it ran Over the fall cloud and instead of going into it, it ran on top of it as it got. Has to break point where the waves break. It dips off and it landed in the ocean. The moment it landed in the ocean, it expanded so much, that little ball that Larry had made, and it pushed some of the fog up. So now there was fog everywhere. Like it was covering Larry with his smoke and the fog coming out of the fountain. It was everywhere. And he just closed his eyes and he said, OK guys, I'm going to make some symbols above my head and I have no idea what they are, so write them down. Couple people understood and they came forward, especially the mayor's assistance. She had her 2. Dwarf assistants, all three of them were ready to go. They had their pens and ready. It was beautiful.
As Larry moved his hands around, a circle appeared above him in fog and smoke.
Within this circle and this circle's gotta be three feet in diameter of one foot above his head. These very three dimensional symbol started appearing and by three dimensional I mean you could see where one line didn't go just down but it went down and backwards towards the ocean and it connected with another line and another one would come up and it would wrap around 3 times and then touch back to the original line. So these were complicated symbols that it took people to write each one down, and if one person was writing it and they they failed, they would look over and if someone else had it, they didn't feel so bad. I don't think they lost any of the symbols, but it took multiple people trying their hardest to write them out as fast as they could to figure out what was being said here, 'cause this was a type of magic everybody was very aware of, but to see it being done like this. It was normally, if it was done, was done behind closed doors. This is Big Magic, and it was secret of what this was. This is basically like tuning your radio station to what's around you. He was using the fog to see what it was tuned to, because if it was tuned to something that they didn't want, they'd have to figure out what it is. But this wasn't an it or they or a thing. It was an emotion and a feeling in this case. So that was great. But the words coming out were definitely language.
So first and foremost, this took about a minute and a half to finish up. And then when Larry was done, he just put his hands down. The symbols all disappeared, the fog went normal, and the sun had already started rising by this point. So people were actually looking at these symbols through the fog and seeing the sun behind them. So very cool effects
The Baker had been up all night long. Everybody was buying food and was hanging out now. And they were having a blast because if they looked around they could see these little jets of fog being spurted up in the air. And they knew that this is coming from the mountain. Like the mountain and the ocean were pulling oxygen into the mountain and then pushing with the waves magic back into it, which is then putting magic into the oxygen which would push down and you get these. Blasts of energy. That looked like little fog spouts. It was beautiful all around town and especially when the light hit it. So everybody was not having a party. But it was a very beautiful sight and no one was getting sick and everybody was expecting that everybody would be getting sick. But that was the thing is that there was no one showing any signs of taking in too much manna. So this is very thin mana, which is good for everybody. It means that they can convert and transfer over or get more dense manilator without having to be sick getting. It too quickly. So this is an immunity for everybody around the mountain, almost. That turned out to be a great boon.
People had been talking, and this is one of those things that as they heard it, Larry and the kids and the mayor looked up and waved those people over and they explained it and everyone was like, oh, that makes more sense. So everybody's happy with this. At this time, Larry also gave the mayor the update about finding the odd structure about 23 days away from town and asked that probably down the road to see if there's a path to get there so that they we had maybe an outpost if we rebuilt it. The kids overheard this and were like, yeah, we want an outpost. There's no offence. They're kids. They still might act tough, but they still want to be kids and well, a fortune is a Fort if you will. Hey dwarfs, can you maybe fix a Fort? You have known many people were watching this. Great. Yeah, we can fix a Fort They'd had no idea those simple words out of the children's mouth would start something so amazing.
The mayor said he'd pass it on and said go have yourself a great day. This is going to be like this every day from now on. We'll just keep an eye on it. And we felt the music. We know it's part of it. So maybe you're not supposed to be around in the morning unless we want to have a very musical morning. Larry, are you turning this down into a musical town
This literally reminded Larry of when he was younger in a pub at night time and someone was doing this really cool music he had never heard anywhere else, and the beat was in his head. And as he's like OK guys, bye, I'm leaving and he's leaving. You could see around him the fog showing vibrations as he walked, but also as he moved his hips to the tune in his head and the beat in his head would actually start coming out, you'd see ripples. Like throwing a stone in a pond coming from him.
He just looked back and said let's go get some work done.
The kids falling in behind Larry because, well, they had a lot of people around them that they didn't know any of them very much. Like they were A. Little freaked out that so many people watching them that once it was time they were like, yeah Larry, let's go. So they fall behind. Well, almost every single one of the other dwarfs that had overheard about that little forge of theirs started to go directly to the end and there was an entire line to get in the end, plus all the people. So after the pat place was packed. One of the old dwarfs that had stayed in town because it was his day today, said OK. Everybody get your stuff together, go for a walk. That's all we can offer. If you're interested, you can go out there and you can take a look at yourself and start cleaning up, bring tools, bring yourself a backpack. You go live out in the Bush for a couple days and take a look at this thing.
Took like 4 whole minutes for someone to figure out where it was on a map. And they said Kate, we're on our way. And there was even a 2nd crew that once the 1st one left, they stood back and they talked with the foreman and they said hey dwarf foreman, how about we start making a path there and he's like that would be great, you want to cut down some trees that we said we'd love to cut down some trees. So there was at least 30 of the dwarfs that were just going to make a path to this Fort.
Larry and the kids kept on going back into The Cave, but when they were in town they had gotten a request for another. Couple pieces of mana glass and the mayor had gotten some heavy cloth in a box, and they had grabbed those when the mayor had seen them. So there's the kids with a roll of cloth on one of their shoulders, 1 on each side of a metal box, taking it with them as they walk back to the mine.
And for the next two days, Larry and the kids went through all the normal main tunnels down to 25 and 26, tied off, and they walked around the giant crack Tavern. They could hear movement down below, but they didn't have any lights. So they literally did this in the dark, blind on their hands and knees just so they could make sure there was no little shards that they could easily grab because they didn't want to start making too much noise up there. And they still didn't want to go down too many the other pathways because, well after the laser tunnel. They were a little weary to go down and bring torches into places.
At this time the. Glowing crystals were all there, but they were almost getting a dull colour, like they had started to cool down if you will. The light became. The less bright and a little more dim, but still a beautiful colour.
They all had thoughts on. If they wanted to add more oxygen into the system or let it just die out so it didn't add in more magic to The Cave for safety. And right now I think everybody was going a little bit more for the safety.
They got word the next day. That the lawyers were all finished and they were going to be sending representatives from the dwarf human and elves into town with the proper paperwork to officially end the war. That would happen in about five days from now.
Funny thing is, when there's a horde of dwarves and they're told to cut down trees as they walk through the forest, one dwarf will take a whack at a tree with an axe and it'll get a good dent in it. He'll take his axe and walk on and keep on doing that. All the doors behind see the axe marks, so they take a whack too. After a while, the guys at the back are all taking the final wax, so they're like timber, timber, timber, timber and this horde of dwarfs instead of making it three days to get to this. Weird structure. It took them like two and the group that was staying behind was literally rolling the logs onto the side. And it was really weird. They had a chemical that could put on a stump. And what this would do is it would turn the stump not into fire but into a liquid. And then the bugs could eat it. And it was great. They loved it. It was like a rot. But it wasn't a fire, it was something else. And it wasn't chemicals that they understood it. So maybe magic?
So it's the 5th day. Larry tells the kids that we're gonna all have to go into town, so might as well be there just after sunrise and see what's going on. And if we have to stick in town for the most of the day, you guys can hang out and go to the different stores. And we'll take that box into the mayor with all the stones we found and let them look over it and see what kind of bills we can pay with it.
What they weren't expecting was a group. Of 6 people. Three men, three women. Sitting on the fountain, having an early morning. Danish. Not eating one or two, but a feast where they are literally taking one or two by each hand and shoving them in their face like they had never eaten a day in their life and if you hadn't looked at them they thought they were had starved themselves or something.
It wasn't till Larry looked around the square and started to laugh because in every shadow there was a guard and he's like, oh hold on. And he said boys come here. And he brought the boys clothes to him and he'd lean down and he just whispered in their ear, those are very high up people right there. Be really respectful and when you see them be polite OK
Larry was using, I'm thinking to cause trouble, voice with a smile on his face and that twinkle in his eye. So the boys knew, uh, we're about to have some fun. So they just smiled and went uh-huh. Larry, we understand almost in unison and their their smile they couldn't hire. They were trying so hard to hide a smile, but there was just the little edges of their lips were coming up so hopefully no one notices that. So Larry didn't want to spoil anything so he just stomped his foot down once. And that snapped them out of it and they just went hard faced real quick because they were dwarves and the older dwarves had been teaching them how to give those their stern look at night time. It was really cute.
Larry walked up to the six and he said hello there. I'm Larry. How can we help you?
One of the men came over to Larry and took the hood down around his head. And he said, Larry, you're still a **** **** **** How you been?
The kids were a little taken back by this person speaking to Lara like that, but Larry just grabbed out for his arm and the other guy put out his arm and the two of them shook arms by grabbing the forearm of each one. So Larry knew this guy and he said, kids, I'd like to introduce you to the king and queens of the dwarf, the human and the elf countries.
This was the moment where Larry's little magical ability kind of kicked in, and he did it on purpose, too. He thought of one of those songs when he was younger and he was a little more of the rougher part of the neighborhood. You got him a selfie. A song they called Get Up.
The kids noticed immediately because they were looking in the fog and they could see it. So they just started backing up. And the moment the three kids started backing up and Larry didn't, and these two men were holding arms looking each other,'s eyes looking each other down the other. Two couples that were there were one on each side of that man and his wife behind him, and it was almost like a line in the sand and had been drawn and they were going to let go of each other. But it wasn't until the man, the king of the humans, looked down and noticed. What was going on in the ground? Did he realize that Larry was tuning him right then and there on the spot?
After about 30 seconds of this, Larry took his other arm and put it over and across his own. And the King did the same thing and they shook hands and double shake, hands twist and they let go. And it was an old sign from the old days. But now that they're on the same page, Larry just looked back at the kids and said you don't have to worry. They're not here to hurt you.
The dwarf King and queen literally looked at Larry and said Larry, you idiot, you think we'd really come here to do that? We're coming here to initiate them into royalty properly. This is now their horde. What do you have to say about that? The war is over now. We're here to find out what type of munches you have down there. We came because we're going to get our swords wet. And he said this and he pulled out his giant hammer. It was bigger than he was. He had it on his back, but it extended the handle like he could swing this thing he would strong. When he let it hit the ground, it flooded. You felt it through the ground. The fog even moved.
The elf King and Queen just looked at all of them, said you guys have no class when doing this. This is how it's done.
The Elf Queen and her husband looked at each other and using magic he pulled out a cane out of absolutely nowhere, started using the pound of rhythm, and actually was meeting Larry's beat that he was giving off. But as he started to ramp it up, the fog around the Elf King started to pound harder than Larry's was, and then the Elf's Queen put their hand on their Elf King's shoulder. And she just started to bob her head up and down to a song that the only the two elf people could hear all. Then, all of a sudden, she started to sing.
This is a secret song that was left in the care of the elves from one of the dimensional travellers. They were a race of people that came from another world after they died. Normally they lost all their memories, but every once in a while when they got reincarnated on this planet, they had keep some memories and sometimes they would remember songs. This was a song for almost 10,000 years ago.
As the Queen starts singing, she. Starts walking away from the group, but she can still hear in the background. She does a lap around the whole square, then comes back to her husband and trails off and now she's got everybody's attention. She goes quiet and the king jumps on top of the fountain and says the following words. In the most regal, kingly version of being a pompous **** but with a smile on his face.
We, the three kings, have agreed to end the war to do so, the three kings, known as 1, 2 and 3 of the Dwarven Clan fire and Coal. Are hereby granted the land known as Mint Mountain. In all its pituitary in return for being the friend to all three nations for 1000 years. Do you accept?
The kids just said we accept. And the loudest voice they could so everybody could hear them.
And with that, the Elf King said. And that's all it is, guys, go back to work, do what you're doing. You're all welcome to do whatever the hell you want. The war is now over. Please talk to your local people about what we're going to fight down there, because hopefully by tomorrow we'll have a better understanding. Now get the hell out of my site, one and all, and have a great day
Some of the dwarfs called him a pompous **** to his face as they walked away from him, and he just smiled and said, Yep, that's me. You could see some of the dwarves that were leaving. As they were leaving, you could see the fog around their feet still had those ripples, and they were still in harmonics with what the queen was seeing. So they were basically singing it in their head still.
As she was doing her last lap. She had gone to her. Guards that just in one of the shadows and made a comment about getting food to go.
As she left to go stand by the king, you could see half the entire guards, like literally the line up outside the bakery and the Baker looked at the line instantly and he just said, came out and said OK, all of you just come in. I need to know what I gotta get you. Let's do this quick.
Put it very bluntly that he was sold out within 5 minutes.
When those all came back with their prizes, the other half literally went to the other stores to get all the other things that they were going to need for the next little bit because, well, they just made it into town and found the bakery and that was about it. So they all got told by the different dwarves where to go and what to get and the whole 9 yards what was going on. So they all had the information that you take you probably a day to collect, collected in 20 minutes from all like 40 or 50 guards that were hiding.
You really can't hide when you're standing in the shadows and there's 16 dwarfs just all around you. sorry man, I didn't mean to bump into you.
The Kings and Queens all looked at Larry and the kids and said we'd like to see your home and inspect it for ourselves so that we know that you're in a good environment. Then we can relax. Would you be willing to show us your home?
To get out of this giant area with all these people, the kids had no problem and said let's go. They basically bailed in front of Larry running a home very quietly and politely, but they were speed walking pretty hard. Larry just laughed and let him go and he just walked with his old friend the king. Who knew that Larry knew the king.
The King had a whole lot of questions for Larry, and he just tried to answer all of them as honestly as he could. And the other kings and queens listened on their way to the kids place
When Larry got to the part how the kids blew up the mountain, they. All the guys were like radon kids. All the ladies were like, oh really?
But when they got to the most recent things that they found and they were told about the weird building about two days away on foot. And the weird tunnel with the carved pedestal this. Intrigued. Not just the dwarves, but the elves and the humans. Kings, all three of them. Like we're going adventuring, aren't we? They already were told about the secret tunnel in the back, so as soon as. They got chew the kids cabin and now it could hold probably 40 people now. It was a big hole in the world if you will. The kids and Larry and everybody had been working their magic to make it bigger and have more fun with it. They even had a big pool. But no one was allowed to swim in it yet. If it's simple fact, they were running an experiment to see if they left water, if it would get magical by accident, if they just left it. So they actually sealed up the room so no moisture would get out and they were going to check on it in a week or two
The kings and queens gazed at the hidden dwelling before them—a wall of green against the gray mountainside, with only a small round wooden door breaking the illusion. At first glance, it seemed unremarkable, but stepping inside revealed its true brilliance. The greenery was moss, draped over open windows, filtering the light and fresh air while shielding the interior from the harsh elements. Every detail was cleverly designed, blending nature and craftsmanship seamlessly.
Inside, the warmth and comfort were undeniable. A massive circular fireplace dominated the space, with a sunken bench carved around it, inviting all to gather. The atmosphere buzzed with excitement as everyone experimented with their magic, finding it flowed more easily here than anywhere else. Even dwarves who had been told they would never wield magic discovered new abilities. One such dwarf, who had long worn an eyepatch over a lost eye, accidentally realized he could see through walls—an unexpected gift, or perhaps a curse. He joked that some things were best left unseen and found solace in the mines, where staring at plain old rock was far preferable to seeing through rock heads.
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They spent the rest of the day talking and enjoying each other’s company—not quite a party, but something close. The atmosphere was lively yet relaxed, with enough people to make the place feel full of energy and warmth.
*
Larry and the boys had only just taken the metal box into town the other day, but something still lingered in his mind. While the others were busy getting to know each other, he slipped away, making his way down into the mine. He headed toward the 17th or 18th cave entrance, where he had previously seen small traces of something unusual. With a torch in hand, he knew he was about to activate whatever it was, but he didn’t care—he just wanted a piece of mana glass.
He was only gone for about 30 minutes, but when he returned, he carried a cloth-wrapped object. An old conversation echoed in his mind—mana glass wasn’t supposed to be dangerous, but he was curious to see how it would affect the group, especially with him holding it and absorbing the mana.
Larry grabbed a spare miner’s headlamp, securing the glass to it with a mix of glue and tape—without turning it on. His absence hadn’t gone unnoticed, but when he returned, the kids immediately swarmed him with questions. “What were you doing in the mine, Larry?” they asked, their excitement barely contained.
With a grin, he held up the modified headlamp. “Decided to try something. It’s a little crude, but imagine this—” He handed it to the Three Kings.
The adults examined it curiously, but the kids recognized it instantly. Their eyes widened as they realized what he had made. “If we ever get stuck, we can use this,” Larry explained. “Turn it on, wait a few minutes, and we should be able to push through any rock that magic alone can’t break. Want to try it?”
The kids buzzed with excitement, but the kings and queens were stunned. This kind of magic existed, but it was rare—something that normally cost a fortune in platinum, not something a group of miners cobbled together in a cave.
The realization hit them hard. This wasn’t just a different place—it was a different world. The Dwarf King stood up, stepping forward with a solemn expression. He raised his hand. “May I see that for a moment?”
Larry didn’t stop him but offered a warning. “Your Majesty, you haven’t been in town long. People who come here—well, the mana difference makes them sick. Be careful with how much magic you use over the next few days. You don’t burn through your magic here—you push against the magic in the stone itself. It’s not the same.”
The kings and queens exchanged uneasy glances. They had heard about the strange occurrences in town, but this was different. The magic here wasn’t just powerful—it was infectious. Back home, they had been running on fumes. Here, it was like sitting inside a fully charged battery.
The Dwarf King turned the device over in his hands, staring at it without activating it. He exhaled sharply. “If this is what a handful of fools in a cave can make—no offense, I love you guys, but this is ridiculous—then what happens when we get our machines working? We have ancient machines buried in our mountains, and we don’t even know what they do anymore. If this is possible, what were our ancestors truly capable of? How far have we fallen?”
Shame hung heavy in the air as the kings and queens lowered their heads—until Number Three, the wildest of the kids, broke the silence with a grin. “Well then—welcome to the new world. Let’s have some fun.”
For a moment, everyone turned to Larry, expecting him to take credit for the boy’s words. He just smiled, pulled the kid into a hug, and said, “I didn’t teach him that.”
The next morning, as everyone was waking up, they gathered for their morning meeting. During the discussion, a runner arrived and handed Larry a note. He read it aloud: "Pack up. We have a trip to make to that fort. They've found something special." There were no details—only a promise that it would be a surprise when they arrived.
Under normal circumstances, the journey would take two to two and a half days on foot. However, thanks to the path they had cleared and the removal of debris, horses could now make the trip in about six hours. The town was informed of their destination, and soon, a group set out on horseback, carrying supplies packed in saddlebags. Halfway there, they stopped for lunch, ensuring they brought extra food for the people at the fort.
Upon arrival, they found a large, flat area that had been cleared. Initially, there seemed to be nothing remarkable about it—until they noticed workers vanishing into the ground as they walked. Laughter erupted when they realized there must be stairs leading underground.
The site was once a fort, with a guard tower at each corner. Though the walls were gone, the outlines were still visible. The workers had already rebuilt the perimeter and excavated the four corners and central structure. In the middle, they discovered a small obelisk—once six feet tall but now broken, standing only about four feet. Made of black stone, it had faint carvings and a missing top piece. Upon removing the obelisk, they uncovered a grave. That was why they had been summoned.
The Dwarven site foreman explained, "Since we sent the message, we've found something more—you need to see this. There are stairs under the grave."
When they removed the body and coffin, one of the workers set down a pickaxe, and a hollow sound echoed beneath the rock. Clearing it further, they found a stone slab with lifting holes, deliberately placed. Upon removing it, a powerful, foul-smelling gust of air rushed out, filling the area. The stench was overwhelming, and over time, the airflow seemed to pulse, inhaling and exhaling as though something deep below was breathing.
Two miners were sent down with lamps, and they found another stone door. Just twenty minutes before the group's arrival, they had made this discovery and were deciding their next steps.
Larry, the kings, and the children examined the grave first. One of the dwarves recognized the family crest but couldn't place it. The Dwarven King, however, immediately identified it. "Damn. I know which clan this is. They're coming here. This was the Clan of Glass. That means they've been here before."
The king turned to the children. "What do you want to do?"
The children conferred briefly before answering. "This is now Clan of Glass property. They will have to pay taxes like everyone else. But let's find out what they left behind. If they don’t want it, we’ll take it. Out of respect, we should also bury the body properly and have a priest bless the grave."
The rulers were impressed by the children's maturity and agreed to their terms.
Larry asked the foreman, "Have you tried magic on the door?"
The foreman nodded. "It won’t make a difference."
King Three wanted to inspect the door, claiming he had begun to recognize materials by scent. "Also, where's that obelisk? I want to give it a lick."
The group laughed, thinking he was joking. He wasn’t.
The obelisk, it turned out, was solid obsidian. When held in the light, it showed no magical properties—perhaps it once had, but no longer.
Before Three could reach the door, Two halted in his tracks. "That door is definitely magical. I’m not even going near it. It’s glowing like the sun to me."
Larry smirked. "Sounds like either I need to pick this lock, or we find another way around. If it's still active, that means the mountain is feeding it. Could be important. What do you all think?"
The Dwarven King and Larry approached the door together. The dwarf confirmed it was radiating strong magic but saw no keyholes. Larry ran a metal rod along the surface, feeling for mechanisms. "Ah, found something."
They called for an old dwarf who could see through rock. He arrived, snatched the rod from Larry, and immediately started probing the door. "Try pushing now," he instructed.
Larry and the king pushed, and with each movement of the rod, the door inched open. Once they got it far enough to wedge a bar inside, they pried it further—until a stench unlike anything they had ever encountered poured out.
The force of the expelled air was ten times stronger than before. As the first wave hit, everyone gagged and scrambled outside. Even the boys, unfamiliar with such an overpowering smell, retched uncontrollably. It was the unmistakable stench of burned bat guano.
The sickened group was ordered to rest while fresh teams took over. The dwarf with rock-sight ventured deeper and described what he saw: a circular chamber lined with burial niches. In the back, he spotted false tiles—either a trap or another stairway leading down. He was certain it was the latter.
Three hours later, after multiple crews took turns braving the noxious air, the fourth team identified the false tiles and the fifth team disabled the trap. By the time the sixth team was ready, the kings, queens, and Larry returned.
With magic and brute force, they cleared the way. The Dwarven King even used his hammer to obliterate part of the mechanism. Frustration over the vomiting had made them less delicate.
When the final barrier was removed, an even stronger current of air surged through. This passage led directly into the cave system below.
After they had opened that and they had to bail because the smell was getting really bad. What they didn't realize was because this was now open, other places in the mountain were having air coming and going that wasn't moving before. Now. You would think that's not a big deal, but to the creatures that were below, all of a sudden they got more fresh air. They loved that they were so angry about the smell lately. Fresh air was it was golden to them. So it made them happy, but it also made them going where's the fresh air?
When the next group went down, they made it to the stairs that they had just found and went on down farther. When they came back and reported what they explained was it was normal case, but it had been worked, looked like dwarves had been there. There were supports, some of them were rotted. So the woman, he said that some other doors took off to go cut down some trees and get some. Logs made up into lumber.
They asked so far it went and they said it goes quite a distance. But the weird part is there is no dirt on the floor. It looks like it's been swept up. Even Duster isn't any. So people have been down this area recently from the other side, whatever, it's there.
Well, that threw everybody into a little bit of a panic, but. What they weren't expecting was to hear a shout from someone over by the stairs, as I wanna call it an Ant. But it wasn't an Ant and it wasn't a beetle, and it wasn't a spider, and it wasn't any bug that they knew what it was. This thing had two legs in its back. And then two very long arms like almost like they were mantis arms, but they looked more guerrilla like and they were sharp blades, not fingers so. They came out of The Cave and just put its head out and its head was. It was weird. It was like it was wearing a helmet and as it moved around to look, it moved its whole head. It didn't have the ability to look, it had to move itself. So once it saw all the people, it just backed up and it kept its eyes level with the ground. This thing started to be. I think we thought it was about like 3 foot, 4 foot, but that was just a part we could see. So we realized it's got to be a lot bigger and it was coming through the tunnel, so it wasn't wider than two or three feet. So it was a very different creature.
Everybody was on guard and the Kings just said. Can you understand us?
The insect snapped his head. To one of the kids who had said that. And then just looked at the kid.
Larry was behind the boys and looking at the. Creature when? The boy king two. Said. This thing is glowing stronger than the sun. It is all magic. This is when something they weren't expecting happened.
The insect went back into The Cave it down the stairs, but. As they were going to go down after it, they could hear it coming back.
What it brought was a gooey green orb about a foot in diameter every. Body was like what the hell is that and why is it just it came out, put it on the ground and just put its head down on the ground with its body in the staircase going down? They hadn't really seen its full size yet so they didn't really know how big it was. But Larry was the 1st one to say everybody get back, I'll go see what it is. And as Larry got close, the insect kinda almost looked like it was a dog that had been beaten too many times or something strange like that. Larry realized this and realized the emotion coming off of it was a long time ago. Something happened and this thing was remembering that something and it was waiting for us to finish our side of the deal. What the hell? So Larry said that exactly to the group and they all said OK so. A trade?
Everybody's like OK, So what do we trade? And they thought about it wasn't until one the kid said food.
Larry said good enough to try. So he went over to one of the packs that they brought extra food. He grabbed some fruits and vegetables and some meat.
He put them down in front of the bug, the insect, and it sniffed or it used its little feelers on its face to touch them as it touched the meat. It was like. And it ate it and it was like Larry could feel. It was like I've had meat before, but that's not what I'm looking for. When it's feelers went over the fruits and vegetables, one of the fruits, it looked at it, it was staring at it. And it looked back and forth, and then it ate it, and it just let out this sound of pure. It was a whistle and a howl at the same time.
It then took the little gooey orb that I brought up and it rolled it to Larry and. Then it went to the last item. Some vegetables and it ate it, but it was like it wanted the sweet fruit, it wanted sweets.
And with that, it bailed and took off and it went back down into The Cave system.
Everybody was talking with later and they all made a circle and they were like hey what the hell just happened? Everybody was looking at this little green orbit. No one wanted to touch it. It was still on the ground. One of the miners brought his pickaxe over and he started using it and scraping at it. He started scraping and two set stop as he did 2 was looking at it and he said get me a box and some cloth now and I mean this is very important, that might be mana glass. Do not let it see the sunlight.
With those words, everybody freaked out and started to move around. But Larry stood perfectly still and he said, I get it.
The kings and queens and the kids all looked at Larry and said it. Explain what's going on here
This is just a guess, Larry said. But I think. The Clan of Glass had an outpost here where it treated glass from these creatures. Maybe they even trained them. So these things are intelligent enough that we're not going to start a battle with them, I think, but maybe we start trading.
This kind of put a whole new twist on it. So the Kings all looked at the kids and said K kids. Would it be OK if we give you some advice here?
The kids all looked up to the human king and said sure, please do. We definitely want to know what the heck we should be doing here
This becomes a national secret. This becomes a fortress. And you trade with them, you make good friends with them and that's it. Just go from there. That's going to be hard enough as it is for you to do think you guys can all do this.
The human king was more or less looking at all the dwarves around them that were paying attention and pretending like they weren't. And yeah, all you heard was a couple people chuff out. Yep.
The three Kings, the kids, they. Knew that they were going to have to have food. Stored here. So he said by turning around to the other dwarves and said, can you please make a pantry so that we can keep food for them here?
And then he said when we go back to town, we'll make a permanent order to have some vegetables delivered here once a week so we can trade with them at least once a week.
The queens were all very, very impressed and the Dwarven Queen got the looks from the other two queens, which went basically the look was you have three young bachelors here, you better find them good wives
And the look of pride on the dwarf kings and queens faces with these three kids was that of happy parents. They may not be their kids, but damn it, they were going to treat them as good kids and. Kings in the proper way, with all the dwarves and everybody around to help, they were going to hopefully turn up very good.
But the first thing you guys should get done is put up a gate on the lower level so that they can't just come out unless you let them out. And I just, if they well, what I do if they go into the land, I don't know, they probably can get out somewhere. But I would have seen these things before like they're I've never seen anything like this. Have any of you seen anything like this before
Everybody agreed they had never seen this before, but. The Alf King had already pulled out his. Risk communicator while the bug was still above ground and allowed people on the other side to start drawing what they looked like, and he asked them to also go into the library and see if there's any record of this from like Ten thousand years ago
It was about an hour and a half after the bug had gone back down that the. Elf King got a response and he got a message and then all it said when the person talked to him was Your Highness. We have found a record of those. They were dwarven pack mules for the under. Hives. You might have just found access to the underworld.
The communication ended and the Elf King was kind of blown away because they hadn't found a good entrance to the Underworld since Mount Doom went away because. When Mount Doom went away, the ocean filled in and it started filling in all the old tunnels to get to the underworld. So they thought not that it was gone, but their passages were gone and they may have just found a new passage to an entire world down below.
With that, they may camp for the night. And then the next day they all rode back to town to make their orders and let everybody know what was going on and the dwarves were going to stay behind and start making a fortress.
After this the kings and queens all had to get back to their own country, so they wished everybody a farewell and they basically them and their entourage took off back to their countries, knowing that everybody was in good hands here, but also knowing that they had agreed to send some army because if the underworld was there when. Others down there found out they may not be as nice as the bugs, so they were going to man the fortress.
Before they left larry told the kings and queens to drop by the city hall they might have some tax to give to them ready, larry and the boys found 300 pounds of broken glass the other day!!!!
The kings and queens where super happy but also worried about traveling with mana glass.
The big day
The big day actually started at night. It was about two days after the Kings and Queens left. What no one in town knew was the Guardians had been traveling as a pack. Along with. The Clan of Glass. The unclaned And the clan House of Harmonics.
While they were on the road, the king and queen met up with a small group and at first they thought, oh OK, it's just a small group, 30 or 40 of them. That was the scouts for the Army. Who were leading the caravans of people?
When the Dwarf King saw the people coming early, he asked how the hell they were there and they were told that. Messengers from the Elf Kingdom were in the Dwarven kingdom, keeping everybody in touch after they realized there was no more war. And that you, the Kings and Queens were going to go deal with it so. Everybody was kind of following you.
This was at dusk when they met up with this group. What happened was they saw the group and they went, oh great. And they met him and they talked to them when they realized that there was more people behind them. The son had just sat. And the road behind them started to light up with torches and lanterns. It was like a snake that just snaked its way in a path For miles long.
The Dwarven. King grabbed the scouts and informed them of what had gone on and that most of them should be going to the outpost or talk to the boys about going into the mountain. They had some housing outside, but not enough for all these people and. One of the scouts who is the leader of the group understood and sent one of his scouts back to tell the rest of them to make count for the night and they were going to get more information from the kings and Queens.
They all agreed had the night to talk and in the morning. They left well. It took the large group of people till about midnight to get anywhere near Port Town.
And let's put this way. When you have people that have been walking for days to get someplace, they are happy. At midnight, the town felt a heartbeat, and it had felt before that that heartbeat amplified a little bit more. And every time someone started to walk into town in the dead of night, absolutely quiet, not saying a word. They just came in and they sat down someplace, and they lay down and had it now. Well, when everybody woke up in the morning, they could feel the whole town, just thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump. And as people looked out, all they saw was hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dwarfs. They all came.
They didn't really have guards, like it wasn't that type of town, but as the first people waking up noticed the people when the light was on up for them to see because they came in without lights. They started to ring the bells.
Within a minute and a half all the people were up, the mayor was up, the town was alive and. Because the fog was coming in, the heartbeat could be seen. And people were just amazed that they were in the middle of this fog, that they could see their heartbeat. And it was the same with everybody. They were almost synchronizing their heartbeats.
The mayor. Jess went to the stairs, the City Hall, and it's yelled over everybody.
You must be the chosen ones that were sent to help. The children are in their cabin at the mountain. We will ask. All the representatives meet at the end and that will be where the leaders will decide where everybody goes. For the family. Plan and House of Harmonics. Please take a large consistent of guards and Craftsman and women and head to your new Fort.
The rest of you talk. With the dwarves that have been in town, find the caves and claim them. E. Everybody can claim one. Everybody go to a cave and start exploring it and realize we now have sentient insects down there that are willing to trade. Pieces of the glass.
Do not harm them. Everybody has to understand what's going on before you're allowed to go in. To the mountain. We do not want a recurrence of mountain doom.
That took the absolute wind out of everybody when they heard this.
The mayor. Finished his speech to everybody with this set of words that reinvigorated everybody and. Made what they had come for mean something.
“ Dwarves of clan fire and coal, it is time for you to go claim your mountain. Now get out of my town and have fun.
Everybody roared. Up on the mountain, they heard it. This was over 40,000 people had just slung into town and half of them are already leaving.
Over the next two days, everybody floated to town. Along the roads, people had just stopped and started building homes. It was amazing. Instead of just having a couple of buildings, there was hundreds and hundreds of little buildings going up. Chunks of the forest that have never been cut down were being cut down and there was already people coming along wherever there was cutdowns and putting in baby trees like there was wood. Magic users coming along and replanting it was amazing. This had been thought out very well and. Within a week. There would be so much change you wouldn't be able to tell it is the same place.
Larry had bailed from the house in the Hill. As soon as he felt the disturbance in the force, if you will.
And he was one of the first to come back, but he was also followed by a very large amount. Of dwarves who all wanted into the mountain.
They pulled the map for the area out and they showed them where they could all go if they wanted to go and make their own cave entrances and take them over.
So a large amount of them just took off to the left around the mountain and started just trucking it. They were going to go down that path all the way to the Fort and along there just get places to stay and live.
Around 300 of them didn't move and they said we're going in.
The rejects were rate, front and centre of this group. So Larry brought out the other map, and the three old dwarves came out at this point, and the other dwarves knew these three, and they all just kind of didn't say anything. They weren't going to bow their head to this man, but they showed respect. They brought a little table, they put down the map and they explained about the insects. And also. About the laser room, the different ways of glass, about the 4th floor light battery, how light is going to maybe get them all killed, they. Understood. Right outside The Cave entrance for the next 500 yards in any direction, there was just dwarves cutting down trees. And making campsites. When they were showed where the old entrance was, the doors just started hand bombing the rocks out of the way. Within an hour and 1/2 they were back in.
This group of dwarves had been talking with the clan of glass and they found that they put a certain type of coloured lens over. Lamps that it shouldn't affect them too much, or they use the dimming sensation as in a piece of cloth over it so that only a little bit of light comes through. So they had prepared a couple of lamps that might work. So with one of the members of the Clan of Glass actually there in the group, they went in. They left the Kings outside.
It wasn't more than 10 minutes before the whole group that tried to go in came barreling back out.
They had gotten down to around 18th or 19th cave and there's so many people that they could hear the whole rooms cracking and giving way. So they're like, hell no, we're getting out. So it's very few amount of people and yeah, only the lightest ones were going the deepest, but in doing so they had gotten far enough that one person had found a wall that looked like glass. So they actually broke it with their pickaxe. Which might have actually been one of the things that started the sound of cracking. Well, they had about 1/4 of a pound in small shivers. Of slivers.
They had wrapped it up at one of the dwarfs that had picked them up. Actually had little pieces in his skin, so. They knew they were going to have a problem with that
Before they brought any of those pieces out or the dwarf that had it in his fingers, they went out other ones that were safe and grabbed some cloth and then wrapped his hands in the rock so that they wouldn't see light. They then went to see the kids and asked if they could use their cabin for this one dwarf so they could check them out and maybe remove the crystals from his fingertips.
It was kind of interesting because they did actually take the time and they moved it all, but he could feel one or two little ones still in there, so small that they couldn't even grab them. He had tried like with a knife cutting them out, but they were just somehow they were just really embedded in two of his fingers. But. One healed his fingers up after they used a knife on it and he says he could feel them in there, but they wasn't hurting so they just said we'll see what it is. If it causes you to get sick, then we'll yeah, we'll. We'll take them out if we have to cut off your fingers sorry
The old dwarf was like, Nah, don't worry about that. What's the worst that can happen? And he was smiling.
They asked if they could have some of the pieces of crystal and they had explained that while they were traveling the glass at harmonics and glass clans had come up with some neat old school new toys that would allow them to do logging and mining a little bit faster. And they wanted to try it out. And it was simply enough. Just putting one of these crystals in a piece of clan, sticking that piece of clay to a piece of metal on the melting that metal as high as you could get it. And these are the magic would go into the metal or the crystal would just die and explode.
So Larry definitely wanted to know this, and the three kids did too. So they said sure, but go a little bits away and make sure you don't try to fire. So dwarves were told to go get water and they set up themselves at crude furnace and within an hour they were getting ready. They had. One axe and this axe head. They removed the shaft from it. They put the axe head in the fire, they got the crystal, they put a piece of clay around it, and then they put it on the boiling hot axe head. And within three seconds it exploded and left a dent. I'm talking to you something so small it's as thin as a needle. A little Shard of this. So they cool off that accent. This time they put the clay on the axe head with the shark and then warmed it up.
The Clan of Glass had told stories of their past and they had lost some of the information. So all the stories kind of came together and they realized that they had to not give the crystal bright coloured metal, it had to be non giving off of heat to start off with and that would protect everybody. But then the gradual heat increase gradually allowed a little bit of mana to be. Dumped into the axe head before it got too hot and then it basically shattered the crystal. So with this knowledge the dwarves actually figured out a new method where they could put multiple crystals on the accent but only get to a certain temperature and then keep it in a little bit of a heated box. As it cooled down it actually was still giving magic into the crystals which was then going back into the accent because of the heat that it was giving off. And this was able to be done for hours to let it cool down in a tempering. This was amazing.
When they were done, they pulled off the clay and the crystals and they were still there and they were still active. One person turned it over and started to make the clay active and magical and then he had to stop that really quickly. So they threw him in a box and they realized OK. So we didn't blow up the crystals.
They then wanted to understand what would be magical and how the magic would interact when they made it back into a normal act. So they added the handle back to it and. They just gave one of the dwarves the accident. Said cut down the tree. He's like OK. The 3 kings were watching and the 2nd king said hey that thing is glowing, be careful. The third king was like, I can smell it from here. And the first king was like, I think I'm going to be healing someone shortly, aren't I?
The other two Kings looked at one and then looked over at the guy and said good luck. Smiles, thumbs up, all that jazz. This guy felt like a Guinea pig, and he knew it. But he was smiling as he's playing with a magical act he always wanted to do that
So the dwarf took a swing at the tree and it dug in. It didn't do anything special, so he pulled it out and they inspected the accident. It looked fine so someone said here, hand it over and he had a sharpening stone so he started sharpening it. Oh that did it. Friction of that stone on the metal made the edge start turning a black colour so he stopped and he's like II. Don't know what I did. And he was about to go put his finger on it, and the second king just shouted to stop. Do not touch that edge. So he didn't.
Larry grabbed the axe by the handle, walked over to the tree and says swing in the tree. He just put the the blade against the tree and pull it actually cut into the tree about an inch and 1/2 deep. He handed it back to the door. If it said Kate, take a swing. But you might have a difference in effect this time, so be careful. The dwarf is like OK. I'm ready, i'm ready. And the door fell in his **** with the axe, actually went right through the tree. And he spun around and fell down.
The tree was multiple feet thick, so taking a half foot thick chunk out of it was a big deal, but wasn't like going to make it fall over. But to say everybody was blown away literally by the amount of debris that got blown out as an axe had hit that and it just said no, you're going that direction to all the dust and debris and it just blew it out. They took that with. They put it that way in the King's cabin and they said OK, we're gonna make a room for **** like this because this is nuts. So they went into the King's cabin and into the back safety room and they carved out literally a perfect spot for it. And they used the axe itself and as they use it like a knife, it was carving into stone. It was very freaky to see a an axe, to be able to just cut stone. So they made AA, perfect little spot for it and they put it there. In the case of an emergency, use this. In case of nothing else, don't use this. They would figure out what to do later on and they now had a process of making more tools. So chisels would be great for this. And I had already, maybe a couple dozen had been already made. They had basically started going through the material they brought out and started using it, a lot of it up. Everybody was kind of like a kid in the candy store. It was kind of cool to see. So to make a Long story short, one. Everybody calmed down and they gave themselves a day. There was a small cap in. Group of. Houses now around the King's cabin in the mountain. The mine was open and being sheared up as we spoke and it was one or two people in that entrance at a time.
When the first new dwarf to go down to 26 and then peer over the edge, what he saw, he came out right away and he reported to everybody, he said. There's hundreds of bugs down there.
The only dumb thing they did was someone got into the chandelier fishbowl and they put a light in there like they just dropped it in and they let it go for a couple minutes. They did that while someone had their head over the opening at 26. And then they stopped the light. It was still good and glowing in there for a couple of minutes and the amount of glass, the whole place is just wall to wall glass, volcanic glass everywhere.
The joke. Everybody realized at that moment that everybody was told how much class was there. They owed the Kings each ￡100 a glass of the year. ￡100 a glass in a year was going to be worth a buck. Maybe there was so much here. Like absolutely so much so. Everybody realized the first thing they had to do is get that wood processing so they could make wooden boxes for shipping.
And with that, the door started to work on clearing out the mountain. They knew not to go past 26, and they knew. They could get to the new friends, but they also didn't want to give a bad insect magical powers just yet, so they weren't just going to flood the place with magic.
Within three days. The actual proper maps all the way down to the laser cave and Larry was called and he was told to leave the boys behind because they were going to investigate the laser cave.
When? The dwarves had gotten down to The Cave. The hallway had not been blocked off yet and someone tried just walking through it in the dark. The sound caused enough of a reverberation in that tube. Because it wasn't over solid ground. They realized the area outside the glass tube they're walking on was a giant prism or a geode, and as light went into the tube it got defracted throughout the geode, which then refracted it through, and when it came backwards through the same crystal, it then turned into pinpoint little lasers of different colours.
Larry and the dwarves work for the next couple hours to literally just make a bridge that was supported by the walls and everything, but allow them to walk along it without putting too much pressure in bad spots. They thought they probably could hold, but they really didn't want to screw around. When they got one of them across to. The other side, they bolted a bolt into the ceiling and made a rope so they could literally just shimmy across this thing in the dark. That's how they got Larry across.
Larry wasn't their first choice, but after the first dwarf went across and he explained that there was some dwarven writing on the pedestal, but it was definitely a keyhole and some other stuff they knew they needed to get the dwarf they could see. Through walls. But he was still at the new Fort so they got Larry instead and hope Larry could unlock it.
When Larry got across, he helped them. Make a rock barrier like on the other end. Now they just had a small tube that could crawl through and it was basically all the glass was now covered in layer of rock. That's the way they could come back and forth well. What they explained to Larry, he started looking at it and it was only about two feet tall. It was a little pedestal with a flat top, 100% man made, so someone must have knew a trick to walking through there. Without getting, well, dead. And then had to be able to unlock this. This looks like a door. So. Larry. Thinking like a dwarf because he's been living with them for so long, grabbed it by the lip and pulled it straight up. The whole thing came up. Underneath was writing, but no language that either the Dwarves or Larry knew. But right in the middle was one of the crystals. He looked back at the tunnel and looked at this. He said, Oh my, God, this isn't the key. This is a focusing lens. I wonder if they were using this to dig tunnels.
Larry realized that. If you look from the tunnel past the pedestal it's you could see where a long time ago it was burnt and they put a rolling door in. So he just went over the door and remembering the trick from before, started looking through that little gear and he started wiggling it on the other dwarf started to move the door and it actually worked. It was just like really cheesy way of doing it, but it worked. Such old locks just had fallen apart. So as long as you could get the the bar to move up and down it was working. They'd have to rebuild all that.
So. When they got the door open just a little bit. They really quickly pushed it back shut. They could hear. Thing is moving on the other side.
Larry was like OK. I'm putting the pedestal back down, but the moment he put it back down, it activated a mechanism. That mechanism actually locked and shut the door they had just opened. And by shutting I mean forcefully shutting it. So something was done in a wrong maneuver and now that door was like hammered shut. But that wasn't it. That wasn't all. The area where they had just put that nice thin piece of rock, yeah, it was already blasted away by light. You could see light coming through it. Another source of light was being activated, probably from the below the pedestal. So Larry said, I'm going to get through before this thing melts me. Can you be right behind me? The door's like yes, and the dwarf is looking at. The pedestal. So he picked it and pulled it straight up, and when he did, the light left the tunnel as Larry was going through, but the light was now in that. Pedestal and it was shooting a light at where the door was and it was bright and it was going to start cutting through quickly. So Larry was like yeah this is a 1 or the other, this is an airlock I'm getting through, run through after you push it down. Get quick, quick, quick.
As soon as Larry was through the other side, he told the dwarf to start and he grabbed onto the rope and Larry, just using the pulleys, pull the dwarf at high speed through as he pushed the pedestal down.
Within three seconds of putting the pistol down and the light. Being pushed back into the chamber, the dwarf was through, and within another three or four seconds after that, the light burnt through the little bit of stone that they put there to protect themselves. And they were already down the tunnel because the light wasn't turning off. The laser beams were going nuts and they were going full bore, but they weren't killing themselves. They were just you couldn't get through right now. So they kind of all asked how do you think Long? Do you think that's going to last? Well, everybody was seeing spots at this point, so they said I don't know, but I'm not doing this anymore today. But the old dwarf that had gotten out last said, I think I recognized one symbol when you lifted it up. When I lifted it up, I was eye height with. The Clan of Harmonics symbol, I think the Clan of Harmonics, and we're here with the Clan of Glass a long time ago.
Now that was interesting. That's something they should have information checked in the archive if there was ever AA team expedition to some place wink wink nudge nudge. So when Larry got out, he sent a messenger pigeon off. For the rest of the day, everybody just let their eyes get better because a lot of people's eyes were bloodshot and not bleeding but painful because it's so much light. Before they had left, they did seal off that area so that no light would go down any other tunnels and start infecting the whole mountain. They knew what was there was bad enough, but if it hadn't blown up before then, hopefully it wouldn't now. Trying to throw sand down there, but the sand was just melting into more to last. So yeah, it was pretty darn bright in that laser room.
That night one of the three Kings made an offhand comment. Why don't they use the obelisk they found to stop the light? If it's that black, it should absorb the light, right? Thinking he was all smart but everybody like, Oh yeah, right, blah blah blah. Well, one of the older dwarfs heard it and mentioned it to another dwarf. They'll a week later that had actually been taken down through the tunnels down into the laser cave that was still going, and with a big long stick and a little bit of. Wood and some wheels. They put this 4 foot long obelisk into the. Laser Cave and hell it was amazing because everything that catch that got sucked in after a while they weren't self feeding itself anymore and it started to dim over the next day in a bit. It took three days for it to die out fully and this time they had the engineers and the guy that I can see through and they were looking at the pedestal before they touched it. They found another plate. When they opened it up, they could reach your hand down and remove the crystal, said. Now when they moved it up and down, it wouldn't activate that crystal anymore. They disabled the booby chop. But realizing what was on the other side before they left, they actually put the crystal back and they said not. We're not going to activate it right now. We're going to put it back in as it's turned off. But if we ever have to, we can just pick it up the pedestal by pulling and then push it back down and we can activate this and then run through the lasers if we needed to the. Mechanical Dwarf actually said no. They have a better one here. You can put AA, little like a sand timer here, and with the weight of it, it'll slowly let this go down. It'll give you about 40 seconds I think. Maybe 30 seconds. To get the hell out, and then it'll automatically just let it go down like a weighted pressure plate.
Everybody was super happy with that. So they spent time with magic and they made a wall so that if anything came through into the laser chamber, they wouldn't be able to get through the next wall unless they could eat through magic rock, which everybody was expecting. They probably could, but at least it was something.
It wasn’t until this was reported to a few different people that an idea began to take shape. Eventually, it was sent back up to Larry and the others:
The Underdark needs light. And if you can supply light—especially by burning something—that's how they make money down there. Light is currency.
So what if you had a laser beam extending all the way into the Underdark? You’d be unimaginably rich. Maybe that’s what they were trying to do long ago—reach the depths with this laser. And perhaps, in the process, they discovered the ants or whatever those creatures were when they first started digging.
Now, before they even think about turning the laser back on, they need to check what's in its path. They don’t want to risk harming whatever life might exist down there.
A few days after their arrival, the clan heads for Harmonics and Glass were summoned for a meeting with the 3 kings. When they arrived, they were told what had been found in the mines—about the symbols on the two different buildings and the possible significance of it all.
Then, one of the two clan heads recalled an old story about an expedition that had vanished without a trace. If this was indeed that lost expedition, it meant they had legal claim to it.
Before anyone could object, the Three Kings declared:
“If we find something, it’s yours. We have enough to share. We've already returned the fort to the Clan of Glass, and if the laser system truly belongs to the Clan of Harmonics, then it’s yours as well.”
Of course, disassembling and removing it would likely be the best course of action. But for now, it seemed like the system served as either a safeguard—preventing something from coming up—or a method for channeling energy deep into the Underdark. If it was a charging system, turning it off might not be a good idea.
Everyone took time to process this.
It wasn’t just about the laser anymore. They might have to deal with another race—possibly multiple races—living underground.
The younger ones reacted with a mix of fear and curiosity. On one hand, they were unnerved. On the other, they now had neighbors. Maybe that was a good thing?
Still, there was caution in the air. Not because the creatures seemed hostile—just big. The glimpses they had gotten so far confirmed that these weren’t small, harmless critters. They were bigger than cows. Bigger than moose. Some were nearly the size of a bus. Long, thin bodies with countless legs.
Centipede-like, perhaps?
The image alone was unsettling. And without a clear understanding of what they were dealing with, no one was ready to make the first move.
