AUTHORS NOTE

Thanks for the favourite/follow GiantPsychoGecko and Scott Simeroth!

Archer1Eye - Oooh, yeah. I love Helm's Deep! The last thing we want is for anybody to think that Sharein is some sort of evil cultist... She's the nicest little cultist EVER! Hahaha! there might be options for angry mobs in The Darkness and Light Inside Us... we'll see ;-)

Chapter 83

? Day of High Summer? 768 n.c?

I woke up with a start and the realisation that Karalin had referred to Shard as 'she'. Anxiety crept through me. What had I said in my sleep? Would she report me to the inquisition?

It took a few moments to calm down, but I did in the end; It was a problem for later and hopefully not something that would affect me now but I resolved to pay attention to the way Karalin behaved around me to determine how she felt.

Gorgrim was still awake on the last watch when I woke and made my way over to the fire to warm up. I asked him about the Hammer of Austri while I boiled some water in a small tin on the coals; I had a bag of Malkarov's herbs in my pack and was intent upon taking advantage of the fire to have a hot drink.

"Austri is the Dwarven Sun God, what you call Celestine, and it is said that his hammer was forged by Thrud out of Surdri's finest diamond," the dwarf explained eagerly, happy to have a new audience for his favourite tales, "Austri wanted a method by which the Dwarves could take his light into the deepest darkness of the mountains. You see Austri was in constant battle with his dark twin Vestri."

The mention of Vestri triggered a memory given to me by Tenebrae, one of her implanted pieces of knowledge. Vestri was an aspect of Tenebrae just as Austri was an aspect of Celestine.

"Once Thrud had created the hammer out of the strongest and finest diamond, Austri took it up to the sun and let it soak inside the sun's light for one hundred years. When he brought it out again, it was glowing with the light of the sun," the dwarf explained.

I interrupted him to ask, "what do you mean by sun?"

"The sun, the light in the sky that you call Celestine," the dwarf explained.

"Do you mean that Austri is separate to Celestine, not Celestine himself?" I asked, curious.

"Yes. The sun is the sun, Austri is merely the God of the Sun," he continued.

The concept was interesting to me, because I knew that Tenebrae wasn't just the Goddess of Darkness, somehow separate from the darkness; she was the darkness. Celestine was the burning light in the sky. What did the dwarves think they were if they weren't the gods themselves? Did they think that Celestine was just some big ball of fire? What did they think darkness was then, if it was not Tenebrae? What did they think Mithras was, if not Mithras?

"Ah… that makes sense," I lied, "sorry, please continue."

"Where was I," Gorgrim wondered, "ah, yes. When Austri brought out his hammer from inside the sun it glowed with the sun's own light! Austri presented that hammer to his champion: Urbon Lightbringer, who used it to help the Irongrap Dwarves to dig tunnels deeper than they ever had before. With the Hammer of Austri lighting the way and enabling them to find the first veins of Mithrael."

"How was the hammer lost?" I asked.

"It was lost when Aldro Lightbringer; the great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandson of Urbon Lightbringer, fell in the great war with the Black Elves of the underworld," he explained, "It hasn't been seen since. It could be in some Black Elf treasure horde in one of their great underworld cities, or it could be buried on that battlefield. But the light will only shine in the hands of a Dwarf, in any other hands it will appear to be only a normal metal hammer."

"Well, for your sake I hope you find it," I said, leaving out the fact that generally speaking my whole being hoped that he didn't, "there are many artefacts of the gods that are lost aren't there?" I said, thinking of the Banner of Gruumsh, Tenebrae's Cloak of Darkness and Shadow Daggers.

"Aye," Gorgrim replied, "It's not just the Hammer of Austri that is gone from the dwarves but there are many other artefacts and relics that are lost from us."

The water was boiling, so I lifted the pot from the coals by its handle using a stick and set it to one side. I sprinkled some of the herbs into the water and gave it a stir before I poured some into my cup.

"Would you like some?" I offered and the dwarf replied with a nod and a gruff, "thanks."

"Please," I heard behind me and turned to see that the others were awake and up, Damon continued, "I'd appreciate a hot drink if you have enough left."

"I've made enough for a cup each," I said, "if everybody wants some."

Damon produced a small clay jar of honey that we were able to sweeten our drinks with and then proceeded to produce a frying pan to heat up some of the leftover venison.

We sat, ate and then prepared to venture into the darkness beyond the wedged open door. Garth would sneak ahead, sticking to the shadows and giving early warning to everybody else of anything up ahead. Damon usually went next, holding a torch or lantern and then Karalin and finally Gorgrim. We had some discussion on where I should fall, with most wanting to protect me in the middle with Karalin able to cast my spells past Damon in the same manner that Karalin would fire her bow.

I suggested an alternative, "I should be up the front behind Garth," I told them, "darkness doesn't bother me."

"You have some sort of spell for darkvision?" Gorgrim asked.

"Similar to that," I said, "I doubt I'm as quiet as him, but I will be able to see anything before it sees me."

"Well," Damon said, "we'll try that then, but if anything attacks from the front you had better move back to behind us."

I nodded and we got to work packing up our things and hobbling the horses outside. Our extra packs were left in the cave so that we only took in what we needed. I kept my pack on, with some food, a waterskin and my parchment, ink and quills and moved most of everything else into my saddlebags. I kept my sword at my hip and carried my staff, it at least still had the light spell enchanted upon it, even if I didn't need it for anything else.

Once we were all ready, we gathered at the door. It was a stout wooden door with iron bands across it and Gorgrim used a small pry-bar to lever out the wedges that he had used to keep it closed.

"Be ready," Damon said and Karalin and I moved back so that we could both see inside once the door was opened.

Gorgrim depressed the latch on the door and slowly opened it towards himself. Beyond, I could see no signs of current life but the corridor that the doorway revealed had been dug out and built. Garth slipped through the doorway and began walking ahead, short sword drawn. I walked through behind him into the long corridor. I stayed about twenty feet behind Garth and when Damon walked through carrying a lantern, he was about thirty feet behind me. The walls of the corridor were made of stone blocks and mortar, but the ground was simply solid rock stained in places from splashes of… something. The air was musty and stale.

"It's sloping down," the dwarf's voice echoed forwards.

I couldn't tell, but I trusted the dwarf's likely long experience underground in mines and tunnels. It seemed to stretch on forever until suddenly the decline became more obvious and then it still continued on. Eventually though the corridor seemed to open up into a chamber and Garth ahead of me held his hand up in a 'stop' sign. I stopped where I was and tried to see what he was looking at. He was fiddling with something on the ground. The floor of the room ahead was stone slab instead of plain rock and he was fiddling with one of the stones.

I crept forward and asked, "do you need light?"

"No," he whispered back, "I think I've got it."

He was using a pry bar to lift up the slab, which did indeed lift up. Underneath was some sort of metal pad and metal gears and cogs.

"It's very clever," he said, "I'm not yet sure what it sets off, but whatever it is it must be re-setting as the troglodytes would have set it off by now."

He pulled a few small blocks of wood out of his bag and placed them under the metal panel, then experimentally tapped on the panel to ensure that it wouldn't go down. Once that was done, he placed the stone slab back onto the panel and stood up to dust off his hands.

"That's a good sign," he said with a smile, "if there are traps, that generally means treasure. Although this whole thing has me curious, this isn't the entrance to a cave or even a mine. This was used for something else," he gestured into the room.

There were brackets on the walls that would have once held torches and there were three doors, one on each wall. We walked into the room and everybody else followed.

"Which one?" Damon asked and Karalin, Garth and Gorgrim each went to a different door.

"This is the one the troglodytes came through," the dwarf announced from the door opposite the corridor, "the dirt is disturbed and the splashes of ichor lead into there."

"This one is locked," Garth said from the left side door and Karalin returned, "this one isn't," from the right.

"What do we want to do?" Damon asked once we gathered back in the middle of the room.

"We're being paid to get rid of the troglodytes," Karalin said, "but there's no reason not to explore a little bit."

"We don't want them sneaking up behind us though," Garth added, "we could wedge shut the troglodyte door and explore the other two?"

The others agreed with this suggestion and I was surprised that they then all looked at me to see if I agreed as well, I nodded and Damon said, "well that's decided then. Gorgrim, you wedge shut the troglodytes door and we'll leave the locked door locked while we explore the other one."

The dwarf did as he was asked and soon enough were walking through the right hand side door into what Damon guessed were designed to be living quarters. There were no hints of who occupied or built them, as the stones were not decorated in any way. A long corridor had doors on either side leading into rooms the same size which were likely bedrooms of a sort. The end of the corridor opened up into a larger room that included a large fireplace and stone benches along one side which we guessed were a kitchen and dining room. Gorgrim was fascinated at the way the chimney of the fireplace was a circular tunnel leading straight up to a tiny point of daylight. The large chamber had three doors leading out of it and the first one we checked turned out to be some sort of bath house and out house. A deep bath was carved out of rock and next to it sat a hole leading down. The sound of running water could be heard from below. The next door held a room with a pool of water that was being constantly fed from a hole in the wall and emptied out through a hole in the floor. It was a natural underground stream that we all immediately filled our waterskins from.

Garth opened the last door to reveal a store room. The large room still held barrels and sacks, although a set of wooden shelves seemed to have long since collapsed. Garth gestured at one wall where a hole seemed to have been made. We ventured into the room and began checking through the barrels, the sacks however had been torn apart and grains of different sorts were scattered across the floor. The barrels were sealed with tar with the wooden spigots attached to the tops. Gorgrim cheerfully pulled his small hammer out of his pack and tapped the first barrel, but was disappointed when it proved to contain vinegar. Another contained some sort of scented oil, but the third contained beer.

Gorgrim and Damon both seemed pleased by this and after a taste, were determined to take it back out into the main entrance hall to wait for our return later.

That was, until they found that the last contained a much rarer alcohol.

"This is elvish firewine!" Gorgrim declared, "a barrel of this would easily fetch fifty suns in Castlemere."

"Quiet!" Garth whispered quickly and we all stopped and listened.

A scratching noise could be heard coming from the hole in the wall. We all stepped back away from it and the others all readied their weapons. As soon as the first furry creature showed itself, an arrow released from Karalin's bow thunk'ed into its head and it collapsed down onto its forelegs but was soon pushed out of the way by others coming out behind it. They were rats, but not of the normal sort, these things were as large as dogs! Gorgrim and Damon both set about stabbing and hacking at the creatures as they emerged from the hole and soon enough there were no more appearing but seven of their corpses on the floor near the wall.

Damon carried the barrel back to the main room and set it by the corridor leading up and out, while Garth set to work picking the lock of the other door. He had soon succeeded in that task and we opened the door to reveal another large chamber. Garth let out a whoop of joy when he saw what was contained within. For although the main feature of the room was four stone slabs large enough for a person to lie down upon, there were in fact piles of weapons and armour and two small chests against the wall past those slabs. Garth ran into the room, straight to the chests without any thought as to what the rest of the room might hold.

"Stop!" Damon called out, but the younger man either didn't or didn't want to hear him.

I saw, in the non-darkness of the room, something thin fly out from one corner of the room and stick in Garth's back. He tripped over his feet and collapsed into the pile of treasure with a crash.

"In!" Damon ordered and we moved into the room.

Karalin ran forward and jumped up onto one of the stone slabs, while the two warriors entered before me and immediately turned to the right. I slipped in behind them and cast dancing lights to provide enough illumination for them all to see. Damon had put his lantern down onto the ground and was engaging a…

My eyes widened when I saw a human skeleton swinging a sword at Damon and others moving forward to engage Gorgrim. Karalin was firing arrow after arrow at a skeleton with a bow, but the arrows were mostly just clinking through the empty space between its ribs and doing very little damage. The dwarf's battle axe was doing the most damage, with one swing he managed to cleave through and separate the bones in one of the undead's legs and with another he completely broke apart another skeleton into a scattered pile of bones. I cast magic missile at the skeleton with the bow and watched in satisfaction as each of my magical arrows hit and its bones separated and dropped. Karalin switched to the others and I began to run around the stone slabs when I caught sight of movement out of the corner of my eye. More skeletons were coming into the room from another chamber to the side. These were far enough away that I would be able to use something a bit more powerful and effective. Remembering the way my elemental explosion expanded with each new undead it killed when I cast it on the zombies back in the battle for Easthaven, I had to ensure that they were far enough away from everybody. Thankfully they were.

I cast elemental explosion at the mob of skeletons and watched as the explosion of light expanded rapidly, each skeleton becoming its own explosion inside the main one. I continued running towards Garth and once I reached him I turned him over gently onto his side, careful not to disturb the arrow sticking from his back. I prayed to Tenebrae for Cure Moderate Wounds but it had no effect. I prayed again and once more nothing happened.

Damnation.

He was dead.