As they walked through the tunnels TehLulz asked Ambigious: "Any special plans?"

Ambigious replied: "Nope, we'll see what we find. Not going to drink though, I doubt that we'll ever come back here and I don't want my memory clouded."

TehLulz nodded. "Good idea."

They kept on walking, taking turns at random. Ambigious made sure to at least construct a crude mental map of the tunnels they had been through, which got increasingly harder as they moved through the various layers. They stumbled upon a small shop selling various kinds of honey at surprisingly affordable prices, not just according to Rockhaven standards. Each of them bought a small flask-like jar and continued exploring. After half an hour of walking they found another of the three entrances to the lower districts, the amount of people here was accordingly higher. Ambigious believed to remember that this was the one close to the palace and the Guard. Sure enough, most of the people here wore the Guard's off-duty uniform. The people didn't pay the two of them too much mind as they walked past. That was until one started talking to them.

He didn't have any features out of the ordinary, brown hair, cut short as was preferred in the Guard, brown eyes. He was tall and overall had a muscular build, which was no surprise.

He said: "You two, weren't you the ones who trained with Captain Bedrock yesterday?"

Ambigious replied: "Sure are. Why do you ask?"

The guardsman said: "You held your own pretty well, can't say that about every outsider. I can show you around a bit if want. I'm Daron by the way."

Ambigious looked at TehLulz, who nodded.

He said: "Sure, can't hurt. I'm Ambigious and that's TehLulz."

Daron told them that he knew a relatively hidden bar that usually had very few patrons but excellent food. He took the lead and they followed. After a few turns it was easy to see why this specific bar was only known to few, one of the corridors was unusually narrow, Ambigious would have walked past it without a second thought had Daron not shown him the way. After the narrow passage the corridors expanded to their usual width again, a few more minutes later they arrived.

Bar's name was "Little Drandin", much to their surprise, the last thing they would have guessed to find in the depths of Rockhaven was something referencing the mining town that most people on the server thought was only a myth. As they passed through the entrance, Ambigious instantly recognized the style, it was built almost exactly like a miniaturized version of the meal hall in the actual Drandin.

As Daron had promised, only a few other people were seated at the single long table in the middle of the room. They sat down a few seats away from the others to be able to talk undisturbed.

Daron said: "I'll get you a serving of today's meal."

He soon returned and handed them their plates, the meal very much resembled what they had eaten in Drandin in appearance and in taste, they couldn't complain.

As they ate, Daron asked: "So, how did you end up as apprentices to a former Guard captain?"

As Ambigious was currently too busy chowing down on his meal, TehLulz answered: "We started off as farmers near the Deepsand Desert, were captured into slavery and then freed by Fire and since he needed apprentices we decided to stay."

Ambigious nodded. A slightly different version of the story they had told to Aurone was best suited here since everything but the farmer origin was true, it just neglected to talk about their mission.

At the mention of Fire's name Daron seemed surprised for a split second but didn't say anything about it, instead he asked: "For how long have you been his apprentices now?"

This time Ambigious answered. "For a couple of months."

Over the next half hour Daron kept talking to them, occasionally asking about their past but also sharing his own stories about his life in the Guard. The talking had made them thirsty so Daron got up to get them all some water, it seemed that he was friends with the owner of the bar because Ambigious never saw him actually pay for what he got.

When Daron came back he handed Ambigious his glass. In the short moment where their hands touched, a rush of information flooded Ambigious' brain. At first he didn't know what it was but then he recognized the pattern, it was a resonance he had first felt in Fire's base, then numerous times again in Drandin, it seemed like Daron had an Eye-and-Claws mark as well. As Ambigious focused on it, the information manifested as a branching hierarchical tree before his mental eye, one node was highlighted. According to that node, Daron was somewhere in the middle of the ranks, he was trusted but not involved in any of the more sensitive Mencur-Besh affairs, his role was listed as recruiter.

Suddenly everything made sense, the real reason why they were in this very drandinian bar was that Daron thought that they would make a good addition to the Eye-and-Claws, not knowing that they were already a part. Daron seemed to realize this as well since he suddenly was at a loss for words.

"Oh." Was all he said for now.

He handed TehLulz his glass as well and seemed to draw the same conclusion.

Daron sat back down and took a deep breath, then quietly said: "We can speak openly here, this bar is only known to Eye-and-Claws. I know it's against protocol but I'm curious, why did Fire return here?"

Before Ambigious said anything he had to carefully choose his words so that they would not go against the list of things he wasn't allowed to tell that had started burning in his mind after he had looked at Daron's mark.

He said in a low voice: "We're here to retrieve the Axe for safekeeping, the king already agreed and now it is only a matter of days until it leaves the city."

Daron said: "Huh. I thought it had something to do with something else entirely. You must know, I have been in Rockhaven for a very long time and I also served back when Fire was Guard captain. One day we got word that a lich lord had ascended from the expansive caverns under Threepeak Mountain and started reanimating powerful creatures. The undead army then started marching in one direction, too powerful to be burned by the sun and too numerous to be stopped by anything else. Of course, this is usually not a concern of Rockhaven since the army would miss the city by a large margin but Fire insisted on dispatching the entire Royal Guard in order to stop that army."

TehLulz nodded. "He mentioned something like that once but never told us any details."

Daron continued: "It took some convincing but the king agreed with him that if left alone such an army could wipe out an entire continent if not more. In the end not only the Guard but about a third of Rockhaven's total population left, many citizens are well versed in the art of battle and having mages and alchemists with you is useful when going to war. We managed to first ambush the undead army in a canyon and wiped out about half of their forces. After that, it got difficult. When backed by a necromancer, an undead army is much more resilient than a living one, they don't need provisions, they don't tire, they don't break and if they aren't turned to dust they just rise as newly formed abominations given enough time. That and they just add any fallen opponents to their ranks."

Daron paused to take a drink of water. "We more or less had them under siege in that canyon but that also meant we couldn't just crush them with one decisive push. After a few days we surprisingly got reinforcements in the form thousands of Mencur-Besh, I had never seen so many of them in one place. They were what finally turned the tide but of course as in any war many of our people died as well, a few came back but the large part stayed dead. After we returned to Rockhaven, Fire announced his retirement, not because he had done badly but because at that point he had been captain for a few hundred years and thought that the Guard and Rockhaven as a whole might be a bit too reliant on him and losing him in dire times would have a much worse impact than him leaving and making way for a successor. That was also the day me and some of the other Guard members joined the Eye-and-Claws."

Ambigious said: "Ah, I see. So you thought that his return may mean that there is something big ahead?"

Daron said: "In essence, yes. Now, I do not doubt Bedrock by any means but having someone as experienced as Fire in town might be good if that is true."

TehLulz said: "So, I know that you came down here to recruit us but we are also here for the first time and we may need a bit of guidance."

Daron asked: "You're asking me to go party with you?" A grin came to his face. "That. Is something I'm more than happy to do."

The three of them got up from the table and left Little Drandin. On the way out Ambigious noticed a small engraving above the doorframe, it was the Eye-and-Claws, unsurprising in hindsight. They made their way back through the narrow corridor and then started walking.

Daron asked: "Has anyone ever told you about the lowest point of the lower districts? It's worth seeing."

With those words Daron took the lead once again, leading them through the tunnels with a certainty that they only had observed in Fire when he had guided them through the Nether Fortress. Ambigious tried his best to keep his mental map in a relatively orderly condition and as he was just about to stop trying to expand it, they were there.

They stood in a populated corridor that was wider than usual, the corridors branching off of it only went up. In the middle of it there was an entrance to an establishment that was very fittingly named "Rock Bottom", Ambigious could faintly hear music of probably magical origin coming from within.

Daron said: "Here it is, the best place to satisfy your dancing needs in all of the lower districts."

Daron went through the entrance first, followed by Ambigious and TehLulz. This promised to be a very interesting time.