' = Internal dialogue

¨= Normal speech

* = Sounds / Etc

-Chapter 55 Start-

As Gelbin's voice stated those previous words as facts, I realized the box and the monocle within belonged to someone quite close to the High Tinker.

But I avoided asking as he was clearly distressed, and the dwarves between us had become silent as they also noticed the somber tone of the gnome who controlled the scary-looking metallic golem.

Eric, the dwarf who previously had mustered up the courage to speak as he had been looking for ways to escape if any signs of combat ensued, now decided it would be a good time to ask the question again, but this time way more carefully than before, "Can I ask what led you here to our humble camp?"

I replied in Gelbin's stead as he was carefully packing the small box within a compartment of his Sky Golem, "We're looking for troggs that had made their way through the area as they are currently invading Gnomeregan and taking women and children with them through the tunnels." I said as I pointed toward the hole in the wall we had just come through and the trogg who stood trembling in the opening.

"What did ye say?! oor pals ur under attack by subterranean troggs!?" Baelog shouted in alarm. As Eric put a hand on his shoulder, Gelbin stared at the dwarf with annoyance, "Let me dae th' talking, brother."

The dwarf Eric now bowed slightly and continued, "I apologize. I am the only dwarf among us who has been educated properly regarding language. My brothers... skipped every lecture our mother gave us before she passed." Eric said as he held his brother's shoulder. The brother in question looked at him quizzically until he shrugged.

"If I may ask, who are the two of you?" Eric asked with a hint of hidden fear as he gazed at the scary-looking golem.

Gelbin, now calmed down slightly, heaved a sigh and spoke, "My name is Gelbin Mekkatorque, High Tinkerer of Gnomeregan." This made the dwarven brother almost jump as Eric bowed while pushing his brothers' heads down.

"I apologize for me and my brothers' behavior, High Tinkerer. As an apology, would you like our help on your quest... to do... what you came here to accomplish? I am confident in our ability to handle whatever comes our way." Eric said, it would have been slightly more convincing if he wasn't looking for a path of escape as he said those words.

The High Tinker looked to be considering the offer as he looked at me and asked, "What do you say?" I just shrugged and replied, "Sure." Then, added with some mischief, "If they are ready to eventually butcher some distant relatives in cold blood." This made all three of the dwarves freeze up.

Gelbin just sat silently inside his golem as the three dwarves looked distressed. Then, after a moment, Eric asked carefully, "What... do you mean by that?"

Gelbin calmly explained, "According to the trogg, the ones dealing with them have glowing red eyes, and I have no other valid guess on whoever it is except them, based on the traits the trogg described."

This made all three dwarves sigh in relief for some reason. Soon though, their eyes became resolute, and Eric spoke, "If it is as you say, then we will be happy to assist you."

The two other dwarves nodded as Gelbin made his way through them again and, placed his mech at the opening of the tunnel in front of the trogg, and asked in a tone filled with barely contained anger, "Kozrol Kav thamar Nadra da Karaad eyeth?"

The trogg, however, grew frantic at the question before shouting in panic, "Me lare sirk knoweth!"

Gelbin turned to me and nodded, realizing what he meant. I nodded and calmly walked in front of the trogg, who seemed to understand what was going to happen as I held my palm outward toward its face as it cried in alarm and pleaded with Gelbin in old dwarven tongue, in one quick motion, a thin layer of earth lifted itself into my palm and seemed to twist around until it resembled a thin needle, and before it knew what happened next, it instantly pierced its tiny brain as all signs of life faded from its eyes without understanding what just happened as it fell to the ground which opened up and swallowed the body, leaving no signs of the trogg ever being there.

Gelbin now walked his mech through the dwarves and said, "He no longer knew anything of importance. The reason for my ruthlessness regarding the trogg was that he was one of two known leaders attacking my city for the last several months."

'Oh, that's information I would have liked to know beforehand...' I thought as I considered the fact that Gelbin probably did not deem it an essential factor in keeping it alive, even if he had informed me.

The dwarves nodded grimly as the execution had been relatively painless. They still were not used to this kind of brutality.

"So... shall we get moving then?" I questioned out loud. Gelbin nodded, turned his mech around, and started heading toward the tunnel where he had found the small box from before.

The three dwarves followed in silence as we started descending the shabby-looking hallway. We soon arrived at an opening into utterly different scenery; a beautifully carved stone hall awaited on the other side.

It would have been quite a fantastic sight without all the sand, stones, and feces littering the place.

Just as the dwarf named Eric was going to speak, we all felt the hallway quake for a moment before returning to normal. Just as Eric was going to talk again, shouts and grunts could be heard from around the corner to our left.

This made Gelbin and the three dwarves halt in their tracks. I frowned as I smelled the scent going through the narrow tunnel ahead. It was something vile waiting for us, and I had an inkling of telling Gelbin to let me go in alone.

Instead, I continued walking, making the gnome and dwarves look at me weirdly as my face turned cold. As I walked in front of them and started making my way around the corner, I felt my nose burn as the smell worsened.

—

[BRUTAL SCENE AHEAD]

—

As I finally rounded the corner, I froze, and my fist clenched so hard I could feel the blood drip from my hand. Dozens of troggs danced and jeered before poorly constructed bone cages spread around the entire hall. Children hid behind the female adults while watching in horror at the situation in front of them.

Several troggs were gnawing on a female gnome's arms as she hung limp above the crotch of one of them. She no longer had any legs, which seemed to have been eaten all the way up to her thigh, somehow alive and blood pooling underneath her. She weakly moaned in pain while they slowly ate her alive while relieving themselves by using her limp body that quivered each time they bit into her.

Apparently, she was not the first victim. Many half-eaten bodies were placed all around the large hall, several troggs apparently still using them for sexual relief. Even several children that had neared maturity had been similarly used like the adults.

Many tiny corpses lay disregarded in a heap in front of the cages where children from five to twelve held each other and cried in silence as if they were afraid of the trogg's attention if they were caught crying.

Several adult female gnome women leaned toward a few cages as their eyes lifelessly stared off the ceiling, with glazed-over eyes explaining horrors beyond the wildest imagination before death finally arrived to claim them. Their limbs were gnawed off only to reveal white bone, as all that remained was a torso and a head.

—

[BRUTAL SCENE OVER, THIS IS A THING I WILL RARELY ADD THROUGHOUT THE FIC.]

{If you think this scene is terrible, read up on the undead abominations patrolling Undercity or the paved road from between Hellfire Citadel and all the way to the Dark Portal. Spoiler alert: it's way darker than the scene I just wrote.}

—

All my compassion regarding the Trogg race died at that exact moment as I imbued myself with an ungodly amount of lightning. Within a second, I held the half-eaten female gnome in my arms. She was still awake and could barely keep her eyes open as she was rapidly enveloped in a soothing embrace of my ice ability.

I could see her tears pooling in her eyes at the realization that this was the end of her suffering at the hands of the troggs and that either death or salvation was possible in the arms of the giant that held her gently while flickered with volatile lightning that seemed to be avoiding her intentionally.

Within a moment, her eyes closed, and she became unconscious within the comforting embrace of the ice hugging her tightly.

Before I could start slaughtering the troggs, however, Gelbin had peaked through the corner. I heard him cry in pure anguish over the sight of what had happened to the people he had come to save.

The mech charged toward the frozen-in-place troggs that had no idea what had just happened. Only that their plaything had disappeared from their grasp, and their mouths no longer filled with the flesh of the tasty meat they had been enjoying so.

Gelbin roared and made his mech smash one unsuspecting trogg into a meaty pulp, unrecognizable beyond measure. He grabbed two of them by the throat and made the sky golem clench its cold metal hands, making the pale troggs go purple as they frantically clawed at the hand which held them with a steel grip. Gelbin made the hand clench itself harder. Their heads exploded from the pressure, leaving gray and white matter all over his mech and himself.

As he kept up his slaughter of the primitive troggs, I focused on the captives. Tiny, defenseless gnome children lay unconscious due to malnutrition. Adults had started tearing up in relief when they saw their king appear with his mech when all hope had been lost.

From there, I focused on the injured and let the gnome king have his vengeance by himself, as I rapidly went from gnome to gnome and checked their conditions.

Most of them had survived on scraps and some kind of gruel that lay in a small bowl inside their cages. Still, they were malnourished to the extreme even so, as the troggs apparently ate most of the gruel before giving it to the weakened gnome captives.

After going through the cages and tearing them open, I started carrying the unconscious gnomes toward the middle of the room after I buried most of the unrecognizable corpses as they had started rotting, leaving behind a very foul stench.

While I had been doing all this, however, Gelbin had single-handedly executed every trogg in the area, very, very brutally, with his mech's saw-like arm." His goggles had been removed at one point, and his bloodshot eyes were wide open as he butchered himself through the masses of troggs without pause.

The tree dwarves, however, had paled at the sight of the treatment the gnomes had gotten by the troggs. Both Baelog and Eric had puked their guts out after seeing the torn-apart corpses of the gnomes that had been brutally maimed and eaten alive. At the same time, their eyes were still wide open in terror, even in death.

Olaf stood still, his face conflicted and full of complex emotions, his hand clenched into his buckler, and he grit his teeth with his helmet now covering his eyes. He had apparently realized that their little group had been just in the hall nearby as all this had happened.

But one thing was certain: everyone inside this hall now hated the troggs to the point of never showing them mercy when being reminded of this brutality.

In my case, I knew that this outlook on things was terrible. However, the ones truly to blame for this... are those who can make the troggs follow orders and make cognizant decisions on their behalf, AND those buying the gnomes of their hands.

Just as the hall had finally turned silent as Gelbin had brutalized the remaining troggs, I realized footsteps were coming from further down the excavated tunnel, and they were rapidly approaching while shouting. The trogg cavalry had arrived, not caring of any form of subtlety as warcries resonated throughout the halls.

Apparently, the slaughter of the troggs had been heard from further down, which probably made a fledging trogg warn the rest, as they now just came around the corner, riding green basilisks that were frothing at the mouth as their eyes caught the sight of the bodies that were drenched in blood beside where Gelbin stood with his golem covered with blood and brain matter all over.

As dozens of troggs riding small green basilisks came around the corner from down the hallway in what seemed like unending numbers, Gelbin charged toward the incoming enemies with reckless abandon.

At the same time, both of the golem's arms rapidly changed into serrated saws that looked very similar to a highly advanced chainsaw and started to whine as electricity coursed through the sky golem's arms, making them suddenly start buzzing as a thick layer of smoke exited out the elbow of the golem's arms that extended forward.

As Gelbin continued brutally cutting into the wave of enemies with no end in sight, I noticed that he couldn't cover the broad hallway as hordes of mounted enemies came rushing past him.

Only to be met by a sharp earthen palisade. Their basilisk mounts wailed in agony as the troggs now flew face-first into the hard stone floor. Many of them broke their necks upon impact as they had accumulated a lot of momentum as they charged forward.

Those who did not die upon crashing brutally into the ground were swiftly dispatched by the three dwarves, who jumped into the fray. Olaf was ruthless by using his shield to repeatedly slam it down into their throats, even decapitating some while doing so.

The battle going in full swing, I decided to take a position behind Gelbin and the dwarves while killing the troggs that seemed to be a threat to any of them, to defend the defenseless gnomes that had huddled themselves in a pile, crying and yelling in fear and anger toward the horde of troggs that kept crashing into the palisade and the ones trying to reach Gelbin on his golem.

This was a fruitless endeavor for the troggs as the hatch closed every time they threw a projectile or attempted to climb and strike the gnome king from behind. Every time one had managed to climb on the mech's back, lighting lit up through a wire that periodically rose out of its back and flailed wildly, frying the creatures as they closed in on the cockpit.

The enemies kept coming, and I counted around four hundred mounted enemies and several hundred un-mounted troggs.

They showed no sign of slowing as the hall refilled itself with enemies as their fellow troggs were slain en-masse.

Then I noticed a trogg enter my sight who had just come around the corner, this one was mounted as well, but he was wearing a fancy bucket helmet, a pair of metal padded shoulders with pointy spikes coming out of them, large wristbands having the same look, and a colossal mace in his hand as he eagerly charged toward Gelbin, this trogg was the same height as I am and towered above his fellow brethren.

"This has gone on for long enough... Gelbin! Dwarves! Retreat to me!" I shouted over the noise of the troggs dying. Gelbin looked back after tearing a trogg apart and would continue slaughtering them after looking back and telling me off in his frenzy.

But that countenance changed when he saw the purple-red flame expanding around my arms. He punched one last trogg to smithereens and pressed a button on his panel, making the sky golem fly forward as it's two legs hovered slightly over the ground and threw itself toward where I stood.

The dwarves did not have to be told twice, as Eric was the first to run behind me. However, his two brothers had to finish off a trogg or two before they could come, but that was fine as I rose another palisade by stomping my foot into the ground, halting the troggs temporarily.

Another notable trogg had now come around the corner and had made his way quickly toward us as I waited for Gelbin and the three gnomes to get behind me.

This one had white hair a long beard, and held a staff in one hand. A wooden object in his offhand with feathers around the shaft, a necklace with a large purple gem inside, with many small gemstones spread around the middle, it also seemed that he knew some kind of lightning magic as his arms holding the two items lit up in blue lightning as he stared at me with glee on his ugly face.

Before the rest of the troggs could break down the palisade and get closer, the lightning-casting trogg pointed his arm toward me and let loose a crackling arc of lightning directly at my face. I only smiled while Gelbin and one of the dwarves shouted, "Watch out! / Shift oot o' th' wey ye dimwit!"

As the lightning hit my cheek with a *BOOM*, stunning the trogg as the dust around me cleared, it would be the last spell the creature ever cast. I kept smiling as I pointed my palms toward the incoming enemies and pushed around [20,000] Mana into the fire, but not before freezing the trogg's limbs from a distance and isolating the items he wore.

*WHOOOOOOOOSH*

As if hell released potent lava into the world, the troggs melted away before they knew what hit them as the wave continued down the hall rapidly.

As it almost reached the next room, it turned out the air there was much less dense making the wave of flame break down before reaching it completely. The distance all the way there was entirely clear, leaving absolutely nothing behind except molten pools of steel and metal while also solidifying the walls in a layer of hardened earth as a result.

Except for a pair of trogg hands and a portion of its neck where the necklace hung around, it was quite a grotesque sight, but after what we had just seen? This was nothing compared to what the gnomes behind us had been experiencing for what would seem like weeks, according to the stench.

As I turned, I stepped toward the limbs covered in murky red ice through the dark and soot-filled hall. I felt some familiar magic come from the three items. Turns out they were supposed to be combined together as I leaned down after releasing the ice's hold on the limbs and took the items.

As I took the necklace into my hand, it cracked open, revealing many small gemstones that levitated into the air; then, in a moment, they attached themselves to the beautiful white pristine staff's shaft. The wooden part also broke apart and became flexible as it coiled around the pristine staff from the bottom and all the way to the top, where the gemstones resided.

'That's... a weird thing to happen. Why hadn't it occured when the trogg wore the three items?' I thought as I stared at the white staff interwoven with a healthy brown-colored wood spiral.

As I stared further down the hall where the small-scale armageddon had swept everything into nothingness, I spoke calmly, "I'm going ahead, Gelbin... watch over your people for a while as you calm yourself. We are far from done with this place..."

Gelbin choked on his words when he laid his eyes on the female within the thin layer of ice, sleeping peacefully with frozen tears coming down her face as she smiled. She seemed to be frozen in time where she rested, her body slowly healing as the ice bent outward like a flexible material to make place for the newly regrowing limbs.

"Oh... dear Elgin... what have they done to you..." Gelbin whispered with a sob, as I could hear his sky golem power down and him jumping down to the ground to kneel beside the female gnome encased in ice as he cried silently.

The three dwarves stood in silence as they bowed their heads in shame. Apparently, Olaf had told them about his discovery.

Before I walked down the hall, I released the ice from the female gnome, which had healed her entirely, leaving her in deep slumber due to the exhaustion of what had happened to her.

I left and continued walking down the hall, leaving the crying gnome and three ashamed dwarves to themselves and the rescued gnomes while thinking, 'I hope that I won't encounter that same scene further down this rabbit hole of a dungeon...'

As I kept walking down the hallway that had darkened considerably after the wave of flames cleansing it, I finally saw the end of the area it covered. Still, when I saw what was at the end, I couldn't help but smile slightly.

What lay at the end was a large trogg. His entire right body had been scorched, and half his face had turned into a puddle of flesh on the ground beside him. The downed trogg moaned in agony and promptly coughed out a large amount of blood.

I recognized this room. There is a small miniature city on the floor behind the downed trogg.

And as I walked into the room, my was was turned toward four large stone pillars covered in black soot. I could adequately see two passages, one behind a door and one leading further down into a makeshift mine entrance. It looked to have been excavated by kindergartners.

The trogg, still awake, had seen my casual walk into the chamber as it coughed and tried his best to speak, "W-w-why hu- *COUGH* hu-hurt tro-trogg..?" It said weakly as if surprised at its injury at an enemy's hand.

Surprised for a moment at the trogg's ability to speak common, I just stood there for a moment as I processed its words, then I laughed, yes, I fucking laughed, and then I lost all emotion on my face as I stared at the downed trogg and replied, "Don't you dare put up that act of innocence with me, I butchered my way through your kin, all the way here, what I saw mere moments ago is still stuck inside my mind." Then I walked around the trogg for a moment, gazing at its current state and what would seem like half a club incinerated into small pieces of coal at his side.

"... you are the trogg leading the others, aren't you?" I calmly asked. The trogg, realizing that the innocent charade wasn't working, snorted derisively and ended up coughing violently again.

"G-Grimlok n-n-not af-afraid of y-you.." The trogg replied indignantly, even if he seemed absolutely terrified of me, when my palm lit up into the same colored flame that seared half his body to the point it no longer functioned as a body.

I couldn't help but chuckle as I replied "If you were any smarter than this, you should know... you should be very, afraid of me." I told the leader of the troggs on the ground, who did not seem to care about my words.

He stared directly into the purple-red fire above my finger as it slowly descended toward him. The little flame was merely the size of a small marble. Still, it seemed to awaken primal fear in the creature under it as the trogg wiggled desperately to get out of the path of the small marble-sized flame.

But it was to no avail as it gently landed on the trogg. For a brief moment, nothing happened, making the trogg snort as it turned its white eyes toward me as if asking, "Is this all you have?"

Then, it exploded around the creature. The trogg could only gasp as the pain struck, and within moments, all sounds from the trogg ceased as he turned to ash.

I simply stared at the remains of the trogg for a moment before I made my way toward the miniature city behind him. There was a small stand that I knew the staff would fit into, and it would open the ancient-looking door ahead.

I then walked over to the flat area where I could put the staff and placed it above as it was pulled violently into the stone stand with a dull *Clang*

The entire room shook momentarily. I simply waited for what to happen next.

-Chapter 55 End-