Interlude

A few days after the orcs rebuke from the Mines of Lowlo, the travelers found themselves involved in the Republican escape from the oncoming winter. The snow had already reached their waists, making the enterprise that much hard for the little peoples. If not for the help from Raibeart, Ideal and Boris, perhaps the Capital City of the Northern Steadfast Republic would have been buried deep with all of their inhabitants far through the season's stay.

No one knew quite why the white orcs united, nor how some dissented and turned back to their previous loyalties. The fear of winter was not as great as the fear of the black idol, held by a daring leader and now gone from sight. 

Jevalet took off on the same night they passed in the mines, taking the artefact with her and never saying goodbye. After the little miners were freed and safe, they tendered to their wounded and gathered their dead, mourning them briefly before leaving the place. The mines were to be closed and forgotten for a long time. Its gates were broken and would most likely become the shelter for those who fled the winter in the wilderness, be them dire or not. A few believed it would become an ecosystem of its own during the season, and fewer already thought of how long it would take to drive them off - if they ever returned to the Capital's lands.

To Feffa Highleaf, Raibeart returned the body of Faye in silent respect and guilt. The noble councilwoman replied with nothing but tears, blaming the destiny and the ill regard of the gods towards her family and the people. To the dwarf, she heralded the Gigglebread's Point, a silvered blade heirloom of three hundred years. It would not do to carry around more than the necessary, and many of the Capital's riches would remain locked in the vaults of the palaces and manors for many years to come.

It was then that the travelers commenced their mutual departure and followed the little people's, their paths conjoined one last time. The winter was at their backs, like hawks falling closer to their preys under the light of the fairest day.

Chapter Seven: A Dance in the Dark (II)

Hidden beneath an illusion that resembled the surface of the cave, Ideal watched silently as Jevalet showed up close the white-orc leader and pushed her from her high ground with a roaring spell. He saw Raibeart moving, then, sniping through the hordes and coming closer to the duelling orchenkind.

"Gnome! Where are you heading?"

Halting by the sound of his contractor's voice, Boris looked back at where Ideal was supposed to be.

"W-well... Closer, I guess!", as usual the Underground specialist seemed uncertain.

"We should stay here, it's too dangerous. And it's not our fight", said the tiefling. He wanted to see the battle de-escalate so as to get closer to the tall orc. There was something about her that made him uneasy, as he could almost see glimpses of smoke traversing her figure as she moved. In the back of his head, he had the sense his patron was watching, eager to understand what it all meant.

"Look, sir! They're clashing!", pointed an excited Boris.

Jevalet had reached for the orcish leader and plunged into a heated combat. They both wielded magic as deadly weapons, producing thunderous noises and eye-hurting lights out of thin air. The blast peaked from their fingers as stings from a killer wasp, which they bore and faced in the manner of all orcs, no matter their clan or their color. The scars that followed were but a memory of surviving.

Ideal was too caught up in the spectacle to notice that Boris had been hit by a stranded javelin and now sank heavily to the ground.

As the battle around them grew stale, the duel intensified. It came to a point where they clawed and grappled, devolving the fight to a baser sort of violence. Eventually they fell on the hole, and then only the casual lightning bolt could be seen from the outside.

Raibeart had already reached the edges of the pit, hesitant to shoot. The combatants moved too fast, fought too close. He then shot one, two arrows, both which missed the target: Jevalet roared in confusion, but the dwarf seemed cold and distant. Ideal realized that he might not have missed at all.

It was when the tiefling finally noticed Boris laying on a pool of blood that he decided to move away from his neutral standpoint. Dismissing the illusion, he dodged a blow from a nearby orc and run for his guide. But then he felt a vibration that heralded the impact, and he braced for it.

From the giant hole, Jevalet rose, bloodied and marred, holding high in her right red hand a black figure that swarmed with vapid shadows and seemed to move through time: an ebony dancer enchanted and enchanting, a statue of solid subtleness and deceit that echoed the silent choreography of the unforgivable side of darkness.

Once in the air, a wave of shadows imploded from the statue and spread to the far ends of the cave. All those who were hit, orcs and little peoples alike, fell to the ground from the shock. The red orc stood here, as if time had stopped for the briefest moment. And then she collapsed, rolling down to the feet of the ruins' entrance. 

Ideal lifted his head and saw that the remaining orcs were starting to flee. Close to him, he heard Boris gasp and breath with the faintest sign of life. Relieved, the tiefling realized he had lost all contact with the patron.

"That's good", he thought. He could delay the hellion that much longer.

Chapter Six: A Dance in the Dark (I)

"Well", asked Boris to no one specifically. "This is unexpected."

The travelers had descended through an ever-going ramp and reached a wide hall that seemed to be the entry point to the mines below. Dozens of rail lines lay side by side, though only a handful of carts were visible. At one point, a Republican lifeless body betrayed the little people's fate.

"Mine's full", said Raibeart.

"Even better", replied Jevalet. "They won't mind us, hopefully."

She approached one of the carts and looked casually at its working contraption. Republicans excelled in such practical devices and, once magic-wielders were available, would fill them with the best manner of improving the utility of any given item in their hands.

And so was the cart. "I think I know how to ride this", Boris said, raising an uncertain hand. "I really do. That's why I'm here, I suppose, to guide you under the ground?"

Ideal assented with a confident smile. "At last some dignity in you, gnome. We must go. Go deep down." He grew restless with each step they took further, interpreting as a sign that they must be on the right path. Deep down the mines, where else would he find whatever he was looking for?

The others seemed to confirm this assumption, no words required. Pair by pair, they climbed in the carts and locked them onto each other. As Boris activated the ignition handle, it sparked with the smallest runes carved on its surface and made the convoy move forward. Slowly at first, the travelers gathered some speed and in a few moments were riding up and down in the relentless, lightning fast railings of the Steadfast Republic.

The trip was quick - too quick for some - and not free of challenges. As the lanes criss-crossed and the carts switched rails, a few white orcs tried to halt them and bust them off the high speed course, but as soon as they got rid of them, they felt the carts subdue and the wind blow meeker on their ears.

"Is it here?", asked Boris. The carts cringed slowly, pulling themselves amid hundreds of other carts gathered together in parallel rails that loomed away into the darkness. 

Jevalet jumped off and raised a finger to her lips. Following her lead, the travelers walked closed to a wall and went along to flickering lights that shone at the end of the tunnel. A few voices and grunts reached them. They recognized the complains of the miners, countless peoples forced into labor by unruly masters.

"Slavery!", Raibeart growled, the first time he spoke since they crossed the inner gates.

"Forward", pushed Jevalet, a strange gleam to her eyes. "It's here."

And as if unveiled by a sudden flash of light, they saw that the tunnels ended abruptly right into a cave which bore ruins that made them all shiver in anticipation.

Columns so great they reached the darkness upon their heads lay ingrained in the rocky walls, holding phantom structures only hinted by the fragments and bones of old days. Torches, carried or poised on sticks in the ground, misguided the perception and made the shadows of the passers-by giants in the figure of the forgotten building.

Ideal saw a vague resemblance to the architecture of Tiefenland, but could not recall any specific reference. Boris ignored entirely the nature of that civilization, though he could put an effort on doing so if only he could distract himself from the moving backs of the white orcs that roamed the place. They moved with plan and purpose, in such a rare display of organization that disturbed the travelers. The miners suffered the most from such enterprise, bearing the whippings on their backs as they strove to find whatever was required of them.

"There's probably some strong leader commanding these clans. Either that, or a threat so dangerous that they can only hope for survival", considered Jevalet, as she waited for an opening. The orcs moved up and down in the cave like bees in a hive concocting some master plan not of their own. Most of all, they seemed to focus on a giant pit at the feet of an entrance marbled and tall that forewarned the ruins' magnificence.

However, as they stepped in the outskirts of the visible light marking the floor, they heard a booming growl and stopped. The voiced challenge reverberated against rocky surfaces and streamed all the way into the cave, immediately interrupting the orcs in their affairs and leading their hands to prepare the oncoming conflict.

In the blink of an eye, masses of white orcs under different banners rushed into the place and thrashed and fought like rabid dogs. They all looked ravaged and weary, either from combat or journey, grunting at each other for reasons unknown, though it could only be assumed it was but a chapter in the annals of orcish politics.

Jevalet wanted to lose no time. Detaching from the group without warning, she lunged into the chaos and vanished from sight behind the dusty clouds of war. Boris looked around in dizziness only to notice Ideal was nowhere in sight; Raibeart, battleborn, had already stretched his bow searching for a likely target. The clash among clans was innocuous: as long as he pierced a dozen white orcs he would feel fine about himself. Also, he owed that to Faye, at least that much.

But then he heard a ravenous battlecry coming from the insides of the giant hole.

Climbing up the access ladder, the tallest white orc he had ever seen made her way to the highest point of advantage in the area. Bearing a bloodied scepter and eyes so sharp they could cut through rock and stone, she scrutinized the newcomers and growled aggressively, to which many hailed and conferred.

Raibeart realized that if a power must be strong enough to harness the loyalty of orcish clans, then it lied in that creature that stood atop that half broken pillar from times long gone.