The subterranean depths are not to be trifled with, for they are home to a multitude of creatures that would make even the bravest of men tremble. The darkness down there is eternal, and those that dwell within it have evolved to navigate it with senses beyond our understanding. Some are pallid and sightless, while others possess an array of heightened senses that make them deadly predators.

  There are whispers of a creature that surpasses all others in its power and ferocity - the Great Crawler. Though its existence is little more than rumor, its supposed presence has been felt through the quakes it causes as it tunnels through the rock and earth. It is said that the monster is the stuff of nightmares, a beast so terrifying that even the hardiest of adventurers dare not venture into its domain.

  Many believe that the tales of Earth Dragons are nothing more than the ramblings of ignorant peasants, but perhaps there is some truth to their words. For who can say what beasts lie in the depths of the earth, waiting to unleash their fury upon the surface world?

  - Monsters of the Mortal Realms by K. D. Fidditch.

  I was awoken by the rough shaking of my shoulders.

  "It's alright, d," I heard a familiar gravelly voice say as a solid hand shook my shoulders, pulling me from the depths of my bad dream.

  Groggily, I rubbed my face awake and saw Durhit's ash-gray eyes looking intently at me, cold in the Zajasite's blue light. Turning to my left and right, I could see Kidu standing with his arms crossed, hulking and taciturn in the gloom. Elwin Tucker, the rogue, practically jumped up when he saw that I was awake.

  "Can you do it?" he asked, almost childishly, his desire glowing in his eyes and written in the dark lines of his face.

  I checked the bottom left of my vision, confirming that my Mana had risen, but not to full.

  Health: 147/147

  Stamina: 49/49

  Mana: 9/12

  Answering Elwin's question with one of my own, I croaked, my voice dry, "How long did I rest for?"

  "About an hour, I would say," Durhit answered. "Even for us, it's hard to keep track of time when you're in the earth's embrace."

  "Hrmm... nothing reted, but I always wondered, why do they call you little dwarves stone-eaters?" Elwin asked offhandedly.

  Even in the gloom, Durhit's scowl could be clearly seen. "Because you manlings believe that such is a dwarf's greed that he would rather eat stone than pay for food!" he harrumphed at the Rogue's question, clearly a little annoyed.

  "Your colr, I can… I can… do something to it. Break its mechanisms, I think," I all but blurted to change the subject, unwilling to let the situation escate.

  All attention suddenly turned to me, and I felt the full onsught of their gazes. Kidu uncrossed his arms and tried to speak quietly but his voice ended up booming and echoing in the darkness. "You have a way? This is the truth of it?"

  I nodded in response and replied pcatingly, "Try touching your colr, please trust me. Not you, Elwin!" I quickly snapped as Elwin made to touch his colr, stopping just before making contact. Gingerly, Kidu touched his own colr. I knew for a fact that I had cast Rust on his colr once before, albeit at level one. Hiding my panic as best I could, I realized that I should have cast Identify on his colr before urging him to touch it. I breathed a mental sigh of relief when he suffered no ill effects.

  "Now, many of the Tides will die, thanks to you Gilgamesh the god-touched. I swear it to be so. For this gift of freedom, I do also swear from this day forth we are brothers. My spear and bow will be yours, always," he vowed solemnly, looking me steadily in the eyes.

  "Alright, now how about me?" Elwin chimed in, raw eagerness cing his voice.

  "This might hurt a little... well, actually, to be honest with you, this may hurt a lot. You will want to be seated for this," I cautioned, worry echoing in my voice.

  Elwin acknowledged my instructions and sat down on the rocky floor. Anticipating the potential pain, he ripped some fabric from the short sleeve of his tunic, rolled it up, and bit on it before nodding to me. Looking to Kidu to restrain him, I looked at the Rogue once more in the eyes.

  "You sure of this?" I asked, knowing his answer before I had even finished. He nodded emphatically, his eyes steady with resolve. Casting my magic, I heard the familiar dark whispers as an oily feeling of wrongness pervaded my body. The energy felt almost gleeful now, as if wishing to be released. Holding my dominant left hand forward, I unleashed the pent-up energy into Elwin's sve colr.

  Bck energy, visible only to me, danced across the metal and swirled ever faster in a crescendo of movement. At first, Elwin looked as if nothing was wrong, until his eyes opened in what must have been great pain. A muffled scream reached his lips as he bit down. He closed his mouth tight against the rising heat of the colr as energy was released by the oxidation.

  A slight tinge of ozone ced the air as esoteric energies devoured the metal, releasing stored energies within. This continued for long moments. The energy released from weeks of oxidation, compressed into such a short time frame, was hurting Elwin.

  Eventually, the roiling energies subsided to a soft thrumming, and the Rogue’s head lolled, his mental and physical endurance at its limits. The smell of lightly charred flesh filled the small space. Durhit, in his wisdom, spshed some precious water from a scavenged canteen where metal met the skin of the man. It hissed as it hit the hot, now inert metal and caused Elwin to wake up with a resounding scream that could be heard even through his gag.

  I moved quickly to his side, pcing both hands around his neck to cast Heal. At first, it seemed reluctant to follow my will. Nonetheless, after a tense few moments, I was ultimately able to channel the positive energies into the struggling man. The warm power ameliorated his pain and suffering, and the cuts and bruises along his face visibly healed before our very eyes, even in the dark gloom.

  Finally, as the spell ended, he spat out the wad of cloth and took deep breaths, like a man who had come too close to dying on a distant shore. The hulking Kidu looked at me and nodded, affirming his own wisdom.

  "By the ancestor spirits, you truly are god-touched. Now I know that I was right to join my spear to yours," the proud wildman Kidu procimed.

  Durhit looked confused, conflicting emotions warring across his features, before he spoke a single word with the impact of a gunshot.

  "Gunne," he whispered.

  "Gunne, son of Gudug, swore a blood feud against my spear brother. Under what obligation was he to help that brat? Better to die free than to die as a sve," snarled Kidu, fierce in his protectiveness like a mother bear.

  "He was just a child who had fallen in with a..." Durhit stammered, surprised at Kidu's sudden unequivocal defense.

  "Healing... like this... is expensive," wheezed Elwin, slowly recovering from my ministrations. He touched his colr for confirmation and breathed a sigh of relief when no lightning pain paralyzed him. "Gil here was under no responsibility to help the boy. You know that the good brothers at the temples charge a fortune for his kind of healing!"

  "Just... we could have saved him," the dwarf said somberly, looking sad as his shoulders sagged in surrender.

  Seeking to clear up the situation, I decided to speak up and say my piece.

  "Durhit, I truly believed the boy was beyond saving. The healing you think could have saved him, I simply could not do," I said, looking to Elwin for support. "I could not have done it with the energies I had at the time," I added, lying with ease.

  "I have known many liars, and I would stake my life and immortal soul on it that Gil here speaks the truth," Elwin said before taking a breath, which seemed to come a little easier now. "As Kidu says, it's better he died quick and clean than the slow, tortured life of a sve. Besides, what else was he to do?"

  I looked at Durhit, challenging him to disagree, but he said nothing. It must have been some sort of test because I received a notification that I had gained another point in Charisma.

  You have gained 1 Charisma.

  The old dwarf took a sip of water from a canteen before passing it around to the rest of us. We each drank greedily in turn, the stale water having a slightly leathery taste as it cleared our pates.

  The dwarf reached into a wicker basket and produced a single loaf of bread, which he divided into four equal pieces and handed out a chunk to each of us. We ate this humble meal in silence, the recent events on our minds.

  "Well, what do we do now?" Elwin asked tentatively, looking to Durhit for direction.

  With no answer forthcoming, I took the lead and made a suggestion. "First, we need to break these chains," I said, holding up my manacled hands and pointing to the chains at my feet.

  Even Durhit perked up at my proposal, giving us all a clear purpose.

  Pcing my hands on a sharp boulder, I turned to Kidu and asked, "Would you do me the honor of breaking my bondage?" Grinning with almost childish glee, Kidu picked up a heavy pickaxe. Lifting it overhead, he brought it down in a massive swing that crushed through the iron links. His strike caused a mighty cnk to echo down the shaft, and his pickaxe gouged a further few inches into the hard rock.

  The others stared in wonder at his prodigious strength. Smiling down at me, Kidu gestured for me to pce the chains of my legs on the rock, and he struck down again with all of his great Strength. The chains had been weakened by my Rust spell, and they split apart like ripe fruit, freeing me. At long st, freedom.

  Even in the blue gloom, I could have sworn that the eyes of the others brightened a little. Next, Kidu solemnly pced his own chains on the rock, almost reverently gesturing for me to break his chains. I picked up another scavenged pickaxe, and unsure if my unaided Strength would be enough, I raised the mining tool above my head and silently released a Power Strike.

  The results were suitably impressive. I utterly obliterated the chains and shattered the rock beneath them, almost splitting the small boulder in two with a single blow. Wiping my brow and feigning greater fatigue than I truly felt, I smiled at my companions with bravado.

  Kidu thanked me with all the air of a priest at communion. Knuckles facing outwards, he touched the pce between his eyes with an open hand, which I gathered to mean a sign of respect and gratitude.

  "Now, let's see if we can find a way out of here," I said, looking around at the dank, narrow tunnel walls. All I wanted to do at that moment was get as far away from here as possible.

  Elwin and Durhit, however, were more focused on the business of smashing their own chains. Kidu and Elwin searched in the gloom to help Durhit find another suitable piece of rock.

  *****

  After what seemed like an eternity, but was probably less than half an hour, we were all able to break our chains. Elwin’s bonds had proven to be particurly resistant, and the dwarf and the wildman had to take turns smashing at the stubborn links. Finally, we were all free. Although the remains of our manacles still encircled our wrists and ankles, our spirits were much lifted.

  As we rested in the blue gloom, Durhit made sure to gather some fallen Zajasite stones. He asked Kidu to carefully smash one from the ceiling and handed each of us a glowing blue stone, giving us a source of light.

  "I hate to sound annoying, but what do we do now?" Elwin asked the group, although he looked mostly in my direction.

  The dwarf suggested, "We need to find water. The area around here be known for its underground streams and rivers. If we can find one deeper down, we may be able to find a way out of here, but…"

  "There is always a 'but' though, isn't there?" said the Rogue saucily. "By all means, speak on, sir dwarf. I am just delighting in my newfound liberty for a moment."

  "In the deep pces, a few workers were said to have gone missing. Strange tunnels were formed that no Overseer was responsible for digging," the dwarf expined. "I believe the deep pces are dangerous, and we should proceed with caution. But it could be our only way out. Going back the way we came would take almost a lifetime of digging through that mountain of rubble," he finished, looking each of us wearily in the eye.

  "I'd rather try for it than standing around here waiting to die of starvation. I say that we go for it!" chirped Elwin.

  Kidu simply grunted. I nodded to the dwarf, giving him leadership of the group. "Lead on. I bow to your expertise and Wisdom. I have no understanding of these deep pces as your people do."

  "Thank you all. Given this old dwarf a little bit of hope back, you have," Durhit replied, some of his earlier confidence returning to his voice.

  Although I was low on Mana, I thought about asking the group for another rest. But their eagerness to leave was infectious. With that, we gathered up what equipment and scant supplies of water and food we had and ventured deeper into the earth.