Somewhere in the compression of space and distance within the Elemental Plane of Earth sat the origin of the D?kkálfar, the fabled city of Deepholm.

  In the old tongue of the Deep-Dark, the city was called Dehurorhim, with the origins of its etymology in the bardic ballads of Byllelynn, one of the seven founders of the city.

  In the schematics provided to Gwen’s Rat-kin expedition force, Deepholm existed as a sphere, creating what Gwen recognised as a quasi-magical Dyson Sphere. However, unlike the theoretical engineering fantasy of an astral civilisation, Deepholm was real and underfoot. According to Hilda, the Ancestors first created the city by building a ring of workshops that harnessed the heat and energy of an Elemental Breach into the Para-Plane of Magma. From that humble beginning, the Ancestors created the first Heart Furnace. This invention allowed them to tirelessly convert the surrounding precious metals into materials for the Dwarven forge capital, thusly catalysing the humble beginnings of a planar empire.

  Over a passage of aeons, each month meticulously mapped in the Hall of Ancestors, the decedents of the Seven expanded the city, exponentially growing its wealth and size. Deepholm was, therefore, a living, growing construct, where, at its heart, great additions to the original Heart Furnace magnified and transported its near-infinite energies to the surface. Meanwhile, with each generation, the outer shell of Deepholm would expand and contract, consigning the older generation’s work to a place of study and worship. At the same time, the crust of the spherical city took on the job of converting new mineral veins into workshops, living spaces, and barracks.

  The core issue the Dwarves encountered, many millenniums into their prosperity, was the lack of caverns suitable for producing fungi and livestock. For this reason, Deepholm exercised a necessary but deeply dividing policy of colonisation, finding in time that the best places for the mass production of food were near the lidless world of Himmsegg.

  After that, the rest of history was rune-bricks in a yellow Low-way that led both Dwarves and Humans to the gates of Vrithr avor Il-Jrogor in the present earth-cycle.

  “Sister Kül-Hildenbrandt, if yer would do the honours?” Gwen watched as Axehoff held off the impatience of their fellow Dwarves in their Golem suits, each one eager to finally set foot onto the holy cobblestones of Deepholm.

  With an air of ceremony, Hilda Kül-Hildenbrandt, scion of Varekan-Kül, Ancestor of the Lumen, crunched the broken gravel underfoot and made her way toward the towering gate. In her lumbering Golem plate, she should have been a triumphant prodigal daughter returning to the embrace of a roaring city—only now, the only fanfare to her arrival was the deep growls of Golem Engines, chorused by the serpentine hiss of gaskets from Gwen’s Rat-kin militia.

  Hilda stepped onto what remained of a great dais, gently elevated so that the diagnostic magic of the gate guards could inspect the arrivals.

  There were no guards now, of course, no watch tower, no Golem suits, and no Balefire Golems with their flaming eyes to scrutinise the visitor.

  “I am Hilda Kül-Hildenbrandt of House Varekan-Kül!” the Deepdowner projected her voice across the empty courtyard. “AS CLAN HEAD, I BESEECH THE COMMUNDRUM TO OPEN THE GATES.”

  Together with the others, Gwen held her breath.

  This was the moment. A moment in which everything she had worked toward in the last few years culminated—a moment for which the Dwarves had laboured since the day the Dyar Morkk collapsed.

  And a moment of disappointment answered only by Hilda’s echos.

  “At this rate, I have no idea if something or someone is in there, watching, or if things are worse,” Gwen remarked to her Rat-kin commander.

  “The scouts reported a lack of stench along the city walls,” Strun replied through a Silent Message.

  Gwen nodded to herself. Having experienced Shalkar’s city-building, she understood well the implications of an industrial city without the usual scents of burning fuel, onion and animal fat and the unmistakable offence of old urine. Though the Dwarves were industrious, their love of booze and bread made any Dwarven habitation unmistakable to those with a sensitive sense of smell. For the Murk Dwarves especially, introducing cheese and onions to their diet had made that smell ever more unique.

  Shaking off the silence like a haggard old coat, Hilda coaxed something from the dais with secret words known only to the Deepdowners. With gentle gestures, she activated a series of runes, then retracted the glowing rod into the interlocked plates of the Glyphed flooring.

  All around Gwen, Golems switched gears and opened fuel lines.

  The hair on her neck grew erected from the thrums of Spellswords warming up to deliver their deadly payloads.

  CRUNK—

  KANG—ANG—ANG—

  A chunk of the gate collapsed, revealing the moving mechanisms within. Bars of iron as thick as her thighs began to twist and retract, refitting themselves into hidden slots and nooks. The ground trembled and hummed as forces unseen began to pull at the great spiral opening of Vrithr avor Il-Jrogor. Blades of steel, together forming the likeness of a lumen-recorder’s iris shutter, slowly retracted, grating and groaning as decades-old lubricants leaked from the sidewalls.

  The entrance, Gwen guessed, was almost thirty meters in height, sinking a meter or so into the ground and eating some five or six meters into the ceiling. Now that she could see inside the gate, its commendable thickness was the length of a double-segmented bus.

  Willing the mana circuits of her eyes to flood with Almudj’s blessing, she refocused her ocular efforts to discern more of this strange city in a Plane far from the Prime Material.

  Each by each, sector by sector, the power inside the city’s gate ignited lumen-globe after lumen-globe with its dusky, eerie glow.

  “—Oh Gods…” Gwen saw—and likewise, her entourage had seen what her enchanted meniscus now captured within their arched domes. “Hilda…”

  The interior of the gate was filled with Dwarves.

  Not angry, boisterous Dwarves demanding why they were defiling the holy land.

  Nor reserved, coldly watching Dwarves waiting for the intruders to explain themselves.

  But Dwarves trapped in time, hundreds of them, thousands of them, ten thousand statues, row on row. There were a dozen Dwarves, all in armour, still in the poses of someone fighting something unseen. Over yonder were a group of hundreds in the clothes of workmen and civilians, scampering and fleeing, some clearly women and some in the short-fashioned beards worn by Dwarven children. Piles of them had been pressed up against the gate, perhaps beating it in desperation, perhaps trapped by its cold, unmoving apathy.

  “Are those statues?” Gwen blurted, then realised she couldn’t be more wrong.

  She was looking at Madam Tussaud's The Raft of the Medusa; only the subjects were numberless.

  “Petrification,” Petra’s welcomed arrival managed to shed some light on what they saw, “not from a spell either.”

  “Dragon Breath.” Axehoff lifted a mechanised gauntlet to point from one side of the gate to the other. “You can see the conic shape of the attack, first as a blast, then fanning out from left to right…”

  “It should be a Wyrm, a very old, very large Earthen Wyrm,” Hilda’s voice came through the vox-casters. “Dhànthárian the Hungerer, we called him. The Zana-ulpen, he who devours the stone. I grew up under its shadow, though the Clan Head only spoke of it as a myth to frighten naughty Dwarven girls who wandered away from the Foreman’s supervision.”

  Gwen and company waited for the Deepdowner to carefully backtrack to the group. “There exists no possibility in the Deepholm I know that Dhànthárian could have penetrated the rune-etched walls of our city. Evidently, it pursued the citizens from deeper within the iron crust, and it finished them here when the Shield Guards failed to open the mechanism—not that they would have without the command from a Deepdowner.”

  “So the city fell from within?” Gwen observed darkly, thinking of her precious home a world away. “Someone… let that thing in?”

  “We don’t know that,” Hilda hardened her expression, visibly packing the trauma away. “We don’t know anything.”

  “Can Petrification be reversed?” Gwen thought immediately of the old Medusa’s tale. “Maybe…”

  “Reversal is possible within an hour, and permanent damage is unavoidable once the golden period has passed,” Petra reminded her of lessons Gwen had neglected from Peter House. “Those souls have been trapped there for three decades, assuming the usual time dilation this deep in the Plane of Earth.”

  “Holy…” Gwen felt her stomach shrivel. “All these people would have been alive? For days?”

  “For weeks, months…” Axehoff brushed off a fistful of granite he had crushed into dust. “We Dwarves are a hardy people, and predators capable of petrification in the Deep Dark are plentiful…”

  Gwen felt her chest constrict from the empathy striking her nerves with numbing jolts of painful lightning. Around her, the life link between herself and her Rat-kin made them all shift and whine about their friends’ unfortunate discovery.

  “We’ll need to provision Stone to Flesh potions and De-cursing scrolls,” the ever-professional Petra informed her Regent. “If there’s an Ancient in there that can do this, it’s bound to have taken this place as its domain.”

  “I agree. Go to. Will you manage?” Gwen asked. “You have my treasury token.”

  “I’ll make a trip back through the Teleportation Mandala,” her cousin nodded. “I’ll gather whatever is available now and put in an additional order through the Grey Faction interchange. Be careful while you’re exploring.”

  “I will, I shall,” Gwen answered, fully aware that she had something akin to ten thousand Rat-kin willing to put themselves between a Petrification-spewing Dragon and herself. Her only solace was that her Rat-kin should be far more resistant to the Dragon’s breath, for they were not Earthen beings with Earthen Cores, that and Almudj’s blessed Essence would wholeheartedly reject the transmutational qualities of Dhànthárian’s attack.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Of course, there was one more complication.

  By her agreement with the Dwarves and the Deepdowners, her troops would scout ahead for the whereabouts of Deepholm, but Deepholm had to be first mapped by Hilda’s folk. As helpful as her Rat-kin were, the Dwarves grew squeamish at the prospect that the Shadow Scouts may infiltrate the Hall of the Ancestors or that they would barge into the Grand Forge. With the gates now open, it was the Dwarves who had skin in the game and, therefore, had to risk their skin.

  Beside her, the engines of the Scout Striders whinnied like frightened horses.

  The Hammer Guards formed into two lanes, led by an imposing Siege Dreadnaught capable of withstanding immense damage from whatever lurked in the crust of Deepholm and beyond.

  Rows of miners and excavators formed makeshift labour chains, clearing the debris within the gate, together with the brittle bodies of their distant cousins.

  Behind Gwen, the Fabricators had already begun the gruesome labour of consigning the recovered bodies into the Elemental Plane of Earth, producing cubes of compressed ash that all hoped could be placed in the catacombs of the Ancestor’s Hall.

  “Strun, ready the men for a break,” Gwen gave the command as she gave Axehoff a firm pat on the shoulder to assure the Deepdowner of her support. “Once the Dwarves have secured the main points of interested, fan out, and find me where that damned Dragon’s gone.”

  Surrounded by her Dwarves, Hilda Kül-Hildenbrandt, scion of Varekan-Kül, daughter of the Lumen, felt utterly, indescribably alone.

  Of all the volunteers in her expedition, only Hilda had her childhood here in the heart of Deepholm. In her retinue, even the Engineseers who had spent their journeymen days at the Grand Forge did not call the city home but saw it as a site of pilgrimage. Though a century had passed since the stern lecturers from her girlhood had castigated her ignorance, she felt the dimensions of Deepholm’s streets as intimately as her blood and flesh.

  The petrified citizens of the city had been a hammer blow to her head—but what made her brain rock in its cranial pod was the quietness of the industrial urban sprawl cascading outwards from where she stood.

  Here was the watch house where boisterous Dwarves moaned about the boredom of guard duty while dreaming of the pub. There was the alehouse belonging to Clan Dhukhatum, Son of Clan Namrar, master brewers for nine generations. Over yonder was the best bakery north of the Inner Gate. Its owners, Gabbi Dohl and Vozzou Amberstone, were married only a century prior and had built the stone bread business from the ground up. Worse still, she could see the familiar faces of the patrol and its Captain, Gazmok One Eye, grumpily chewing tobacco as he unscrewed his helm and made his men bow their heads in front of their Daughter of the Lumen. “Yer shortness—“The Captain would spit between teeth stained by dark stouts, grinning lopsidedly. “If it pleases yer, guide yer kin to see in the dark…”

  What made her hermetically sealed armour infinitely more isolating was its internal matrices that kept her body unsoiled by the outside world. A part of her wanted to tear herself from its tubings and emerge, naked and slippery as a newborn, to embrace the grime and dust of her petrified subjects, to cry and shout and apologise, swearing the foulest Dwarven known to the D?kkálfar.

  But she was their leader now, and like the Regent who brought them here, she had to be collected, calm, calculating and cold.

  Beyond the perimeter of her Golem guards, her kin from the Murk was carefully collecting the bodies of their deep-dwelling cousins for cremation. Thanks to the passage of time, transporting the figures with limbs still attached was no longer an option, and so the volunteer miners set to work, excavating boots and feet where possible, breaking apart old Golem Plates and War Engines where necessary. The sound of grinders, Spellswords, grunting Dwarves and humming engines brought new life to the entrance of Deepholm—but its actions were so deeply rooted in despairing death that no Dwarf spoke as they worked.

  “Follow the waypoints on the battle map,” Hilda’s vox caster informed the commander of the newly formed Iron Legion, instructing them to form into their pre-planned battle groups. With the Regent’s Rat-kin having taken the brunt of the losses in penetrating the Low-way, it was now the Dwarves who must rise to the occasion.

  Their goal, insofar as Hilda had planned, was to affirm the status of locations central to the operation of her old home.

  Presently, the expedition was spreading out in the sector marked as Braeth Helgot, the Central Hall. Here, the urban sprawl of markets, bars, trade stations and tram stops for the city’s internal Low-ways swirled around the entrance, then split six ways as a broad fan into the crust-zone of Deepholm.

  The second most important district was the Krikjabl Helgot, the Hall of Temples, a sprawling catacomb that stretched horizontally and vertically downward into the heart of Deepholm. Within its recesses, the Ancestor’s Hal, the Mechanium Library, the Engineseer’s Repository, and the Hall of Artefacts were housed, each a priceless link that forged an unending chain connecting present Dwarves to their predecessors.

  The next district was equally important, for the Stojora Hrounvor, the Grand Smithy, was a district unto itself, marking a region almost a third of the entire crust-space of Deepholm, with tunnels and networks, lifts and Low-way tracks that spiralled into the Heart Forge itself. Within its region, the Golem Foundries were a chief point of recovery. Below that, below warded stratums of iron, lay the Soul Forge—the single most important manufactorium of the city, one that could never be rebuilt or replaced.

  There were yet more to Deepholm than the three major districts, such as the miner’s districts, the grower’s district, and the innumerable sprawl that is the residential districts—but all of those would have to wait, for at worst, they could be left to the foreign army of Rat-kin who were even now nervously inhaling the stale, alien air of Hilda’s home.

  “Bring up Fabricator No.3 and No.6. We’ll set up a forward operating base,” she clarified her intent for the Foremen in the rear. “Take materials from the surrounding structures. Set up a multi-layered barrier fortress. The logistical units will remain outside the city, close to the Regent’s forces. We can’t afford to lose their Teleportation Circle.”

  “By the Ancestor’s Will!” Her vox caster affirmed her desire.

  What was left was to wait. Wait—and endure the haunting sound of Spellswords jackhammering bodies for the crematorium.

  Deepholm.

  Central Hall FoB.

  Unlike Hilda, who stood beside an enormous disc displaying a to-scale fog of war map of Deepholm and her troops’ locations, Gwen Song, the Regent of Shalkar, meditated on a soft carpet of ??pter wool hand-woven by mares from the Khan’s Saraī.

  She sat in the lotus pose, the silhouette of her svelte body covered by the relaxed plates of Da-peng feathers interlocking into a second skin.

  Within her mind’s eyes, a sprawling vision of Essence stretched out across a darkling plain, appearing to the mortal mind like the topographical view of a modern metropolis at night. Closest to her and manifesting as an enormous bulb of rainbow-tinged sundew was the elongated shape of Garp, the reason why the expedition was possible in the first place. Two additional pin-points rested beside her Black Hole self, representing Ariel and Caliban.

  Strun was another point of interest, burning bright in the darkness, while all around him, glimmering nimbus akin to fairy dust represented her Rat-kin.

  Curiously, if she focused her self-titled third eye—really focused—she could see pin-pricks of constellations in the deep dark, likely the Sparrow Hawks who now carried her parasitic Essence.

  Beyond that, across space and distance, she could not see—but could feel—the spiral galaxy that was her Mermen, riding atop the great seafaring vessel Aristotle.

  With her mental knowledge of the graphical interface of old-world computer games, Gwen had quickly grown accustomed to the unusual Clairvoyance. According to Slylth, this mental ‘mode’ was a hallmark of Dragons who possessed vast domains—and whose Essence had seeped into the landscape and the creatures that inhabited the region—with the Yinglong as a prime exemplar.

  Within the ‘lair’ of such a creature, nothing that interfered with the Essence could escape the gaze of the Master. This was an unhappy realisation for Gwen, who now understood even more readily that the moment she and her uncle poached the Yinglong’s hybridised creatures, the old Dragon had already planned for its and their ascension into their respective narratives.

  Just as her mood began its decline, a jolt of light flared, representing the sudden expenditure of Essence. Just as quickly, streams of gold, each as fine as Elvia’s flaxen hair, rushed through the astral network of her being, drawing from the generous pool that was Garp.

  “What happened?” Gwen sent a mental command to her commander, communicating her intent even if the words did not translate.

  “The Dwarves have run into trouble in the Grand Smithy,” Strun’s voice hissed back through the Message spell. “We’ve got casualties.”

  “It’s not the Dragon, is it?” Gwen asked. Earlier, she had been informed that the Ancient known as Dhànthárian was either absent or has settled in the densest and most isolated part of Deepholm. Either prospect meant they should not expect an encounter with the Wyrm, at least for some time.

  “Worse,” Strung’s reply came with a trauma warning. “They found Dwarves.”

  Any Dwarves familiar with the Grand Smithy knew it needed no secondary lighting systems for its wide avenues and skyscraper cathedral caverns. This was because of the molten pool of magma bubbling at the heart of the Circular Forge, casting a daylight glow against a polished ceiling that refracted gently unto the district, flooding the entirety of its domain with cosy light.

  To human eyes, the dimness was just enough to see the details of the industrial landscape. For a Deep Dwarf, however, their low-light accustomed eyes saw their beloved forge bathed in the glow of resplendent day, with every strike from the Rotary Forge Hammers sending up blinding cascades of violent flares.

  Now, the heart of the Grand Smithy merely flickered, sustained not by industry but by the Elemental pressures feeding the Crucibles through pipes connected to the Heart Forge at the city's deepest centre.

  Crouched on the edge of an enormous, multi-storey hydraulic press, Strun Jildam, Commander of Her Paleness’ expedition, watched with interest as the Dwarven Golems hammered one another with the ferocity of rogue blacksmiths tempering steel.

  On one side, the Hammer Guards in their Rock Smasher shock units took cover to return fire via the Spell-blades attached to their wrists and backs. The largest of them, a multi-manned Dreadnaught Siege Breaker, lay as a smouldering ruin some distance away, being caught first in a runic explosion from a defensive rune, then in the crossfire of a dozen Magma spells while it remained mired.

  For almost a minute, the Dreadnaught held on with the sheer might of its deflective Walls of Force—then an enemy unit emerged from the molten pool of iron reserves and had pummelled its arms until they broke.

  As far as Strun were concerned, their foes were Dwarven in nature.

  Though her Paleness might have a better opinion, there was no denying that a two-storey-tall Balefire Golem leading three additional Deepdowner-sized units could only be the product of Dwarven artifice, combined with Dwarven sacrifice.

  As to why the Balefire Golems were attacking the Regent’s Dwarves, he had an inkling. No matter what Hilda had said, it was obvious that the Deepdowner was banking on the fact that she and Axehoff would parley with the survivors of Deepholm to allow their forces entry into the city. Now, with the city in its sorry state, they were, at best, intruders, at worst, tomb raiders. If, indeed, the Balefires acted on behalf of the city as its undying defender, it made more sense for them to attack Hilda’s contingent than it did to let a group of alien Dwarves with Murk-made war gear pass unmolested.

  With his message delivered, the battle fell into an organised retreat. His Stalkers were in place, but taking down Balefires would require his Exterminators and her direct intervention as her Paleness had indicated. The alternative would be to throw Hilda’s living Golem pilots against the tireless Balefires until their cores and mechanical innards were broken or exhausted, with every inch of ground gained in blood.

  Block by block, using the Forge itself as cover, the Dwarven Golems leap-frogged one another’s positions, taking the short moments of rest to replenish and repair their Abjuration arms. With his fellow Stalkers spread out both behind and in front of the Balefires, Strun studied the war potential of these insanity-fuelled living mechanisms.

  The leading Balefire was a siege unit, heavily armoured all around, with the likeness of a large ale barrel stylised to resemble a Dwarven iron maiden. Its limbs, stout and thick as trunks, moved with mechanical precision in place of grace. The adornment of its face, the most important aspect of the “tombing” process of Balefires, showed a gruff, generously bearded Dwarf with coal for eyes and clattering teeth that bellowed spurts of sulphur. Around its body, what had been seals and ornate ceremonial inlays lay in tatters. This creature had been a wizened sage—Strun recognised—not an old warrior seeking immortality, but an Engineseer who wished to dedicate eternity to the defence of his people.

  What was more curious was the small Balefires, which Hilda had said were rare. Considering the agonising process of creating a Balefire, the small units were both a waste of Dwarf and materials, for similar components and compositions were needed for everything from Fabricator Units, Thinking Engines, to the Deepdowner’s hermetic suits.

  Yet, here were five such indolent displays, each standing some three meters tall, eyes aglow with rage and insanity as they summoned eruptions of Magmas as easily as a Forge Master summoned sparks.

  After almost five kilometres of retreat, Strun received the Message that Hilda and Gwen were both about to make contact with the pursuing forces.

  “Ready yourselves,” he informed the Stalkers. “Throw yourselves upon the foe if needed. Fear not for the loss of your life or limbs, for we are but sparks in her Paleness’ light.”

  As his men and women moved into place, an entourage of two enormous Dreadnaughts, flanked by a dozen Rock Smashers with glimmering Spell swords wielding Force Shields, came into view. Behind the roving wall of dust, metal, and debris was Hilda, and behind the Dwarf, her Paleness hovered as an all-seeing deity, flanked by a Kirin and a terrible bird with pale fingers for claws.

  “LORD URMRAK!” Hilda’s vox caster was switched to maximum output. “LORD SEER Urmrak Kül! Cease your anger! Tis I, the Daughter of the Lumen, inheritor of the Bezmadan avor Leorm!”

  A great rune, the complexity and beauty of which impressed even Strun, erupted overhead, briefly turning the Grand Smithy into a ghastly reflection of its heyday.

  Her troops weathered a few blasts that had been pre-emptively launched, then against all of Strun’s expectations, the Balefires ground to a halt.

  “HOLD,” the resounding voice of the Balefire Golem made the dust drift from the buildings. “YOU WHO HALED US? IS IT TRULY THE BLESSED DAUGHTER OF VAREKAN-KüL?”

  “I am—“ Hilda was still a distance away, but Strun’s enhanced visions could see the tear-streaked face of the un-helmed Deepdowner walking past the Dreadnaughts, forsaking their protection.

  “Strun, if that thing attacks—” His mistress’ command drifted through his thoughts.

  “We are ready, mistress.” Strun ensured every muscle fibre in his legs was tensed for action. Hilda’s armour offered a generous pool of shadow, enough for him to tackle the Deepdowner and bring her to safety.

  “… Great Uncle, Son of Glomik, Scion of Clan Kül,” the Deepdowner walked a few more steps, then prostrated herself before the smouldering mass of humanoid despair. “Your grand-niece has come home.”

  All held their breath as the Balefire shifted, its body kneeling slowly until it too lowered itself awkwardly in front of the quivering Deepdowner.

  “Welcome home, Daughter of the Lumen,” the Balefire’s monotonous voice possessed a sadness that its vox units could only transmute through its tortured soul. “Though our home, dear child, is now the possession of another.”

  NOTICE!

  Hi Everyone! Volume 7 (17th of February) and Volume 8 (undetermined) will launch very soon!

  This means that the chapters for those volumes will be stubbed! (No longer on RR)

  Volume 7 - The Burmese Days Arc, with Gwen and Golos as the Dynamic Duo

  Volume 8 - The Peru Arc with everyone's favourite Inti!

  AND INTRODUCING VOL 11 COVER - THE BLOOM IN WHITE! MISTRESS OF TRYFAN, QUEEN of the Elves of Light