Chapter 306 - Earning a Spot (Patreon)

“You are weak,” said the dwarf, looking Zeke up and down. The dwarf had yet to introduce himself, but he wore a black robe that reminded Zeke of Dáinn, the ancient dwarven king’s backstabbing brother. More importantly, he could sense the demonic atmosphere wafting off the dwarf like some sort of unholy perfume.  “Too weak.”

“Tell me how you really feel,” Zeke growled, his arms pinned to his sides by some unseen force. A pair of other dwarves – warriors both, judging by their heavy armor and the battleaxes at their wastes – flanked him, but they were not the source of his restraints. Instead, the robed dwarf had used some sort of restrictive skill.

The moment the words left Zeke’s mouth, a spike of agony lanced through his body. He ignored it, courtesy of the pain tolerance that had come with his cambion race. That resulted in the first real show of emotion from the dwarf with the demonic aura, but he quickly suppressed his reaction. Instead, he tapped his bearded chin, muttering, “Interesting.”

“What do you want from me?” Zeke demanded. “I’ve played by your rules. I’ve done my part. I killed that half-ogre yesterday. What else do you want?”

“Impudent,” said the dwarf, his gaze still miles away as he lost himself in thought. Then, suddenly, he focused on Zeke and said, “Very well. I brought you here because I wish to offer you an opportunity. You have heard of the expeditions, have you not?”

“I have,” Zeke answered, though he had to force himself not to react further. It was precisely the chance he’d been waiting for. “But details have been pretty light.”

“By design,” stated the dwarf. Then, the force pinning Zeke’s arms to his side vanished as if it had never existed. “The rabble need not know more than they have been told.”

Zeke clenched his fists, wishing he could take the opportunity to break through the restrictions on his bindings and attack the dwarf. Not only was he tired of the farce of his captivity, but the dwarf in front of him just rubbed him the wrong way. Pounding him into submission would be more than a little cathartic, even if it wouldn’t serve any other purpose. Besides, Zeke wasn’t certain that he could pull it off. After all, the dwarf was clearly someone reasonably important, and that meant he was probably powerful enough to keep the other dwarves in line.

And then there were the guards, though Zeke sensed they wouldn’t be nearly so difficult to dispatch. More of an issue was the fact that he was still stranded beneath an entire dwarven city, and attacking a seemingly important figure was a good way to bring the fury of the entire population down on his head. Finally, it wouldn’t get him any closer to his goals. So, he restrained his aggressive impulses and focused on the dwarf.

Like most of the other dwarves, his complexion was pale and sallow to the point where it looked gray. His hair and forked beard were both predominantly black, but the facial hair bore stark white streaks that gave the robed dwarf a distinctly evil appearance. Sure, Zeke knew that wasn’t a great gauge of a person’s nature, but in this instance, he felt it was appropriate.

“These expeditions, what’s involved?” he asked.

“You go in, find what we need, and return,” said the dwarf. “It is much like mining the depths, though perhaps more dangerous.”

“Which is why you don’t go yourself,” Zeke said, guessing that the expeditions ventured into the demon realm where they were expected to gather something the dwarves deemed important. Perhaps it was a natural resource, like ore, but he suspected it would be something far less mundane.

And it was almost assuredly rare.

The dwarf didn’t deign to respond to Zeke’s guess. However, he did explain a little more about the assignment. What he didn’t say was that there was a significant mortality rate for those chosen for the expeditions. When Zeke had first learned that, he’d been a bit confused as to why the dwarves continued to send the slaves in. However, after a bit of thought, he came to realize that it served a dual purpose. First, the slaves were expendable by their very nature, and so, sending them into such a dangerous situation didn’t present any issues.

But perhaps more importantly, it provided an easy way to cull the ranks of the most powerful slaves.

It was easy to think of the dwarves as all-powerful, especially considering they held Zeke’s life – as well as the lives of all the other slaves – in their collective grip. However, Zeke knew enough of their history to recognize stagnation when he saw it. Whatever other effects the demon realm had wrought upon them, it had robbed them of their purpose. Perhaps when Dáinn had first made contact, he’d done so with the best of intentions. But the demon realm had a way of corrupting everything it touched.

Back in the mortal realm, prolonged exposure to that corruption had seemed to present itself as decay and disease, but upon further introspection, Zeke had realized that he was mistaken. The old hermit who was the source of most of his information hadn’t even been human. Instead, she had been a disguised night hag. For all Zeke knew, the effects of the corrupting atmosphere were a complete fabrication on her part.

But even if that wasn’t the case and her symptoms were genuine, what was true back in the Radiant Isles wasn’t necessarily the reality in the Eternal Realm. For one, the residents of this new plane were far more powerful, which meant that they were likely significantly more resistant to the atmosphere’s detrimental effects.

Even so, the dwarves’ apathy that had been so apparent from the very moment Zeke had been captured hadn’t been present during the battle he’d witnessed. That led him to believe that it was a result of Dáinn meddling with power he neither understood nor could resist. At any rate, the dwarves’ progress had come to a standstill, and Zeke suspected that they had regressed as a people. Which meant that there were limits to their power, and given that, it was easy to see that they had no interest in raising an army of powerful slaves they had no hope of controlling.

So, they sent them into a dangerous situation from which most would not return, and the balance of power was maintained while the dwarves benefited from whatever rare resources the survivors managed to gather.

It really was a nice system, so long as you ignored the cost. Clearly, the dwarves had no issues with killing their slaves, so for them, it was a perfect fit.

“What do I call you?” asked Zeke after the dwarf’s explanations had been exhausted.

“Mikhail,” he said. Then, to the two guards, he added, “Take him to the staging grounds.”

“Just like that? I can’t tell –”

“No.”

Then, without another word, Mikhail turned and left. One of the guards grunted at Zeke, saying, “Come.”

Zeke had no choice but to comply. As the trio traversed the chamber containing the pit fighters’ barracks, he tried to get Eta’s attention, but she was busy sparring and didn’t see him. Like that, he was forced to leave familiarity behind and head into the unknown.

Over the next hour, Zeke and his dwarven guards passed through miles of descending tunnels, and along the way, he couldn’t help but notice that the stench of the demonic atmosphere grew every stronger. In the upper levels, it was barely even detectable, but the deeper they went, the more obvious it became – and not just the feel. Rather, the caves themselves seemed to change.

So far, the caves had been fairly standard fare that reminded Zeke of his time in the troll caves. However, with the increasingly stronger demonic atmosphere, his surroundings became more jagged. Spikier. More dangerous. The color shifted as well, with the rock gradually growing darker with every step. Before long, it was completely black, putting Zeke in mind of the tunnels beneath the desert where he’d fought the warlock.

For Zeke, the tingle of the atmosphere felt almost comfortable, but he knew that was due to his cambion nature. However, the dwarves – even having been inoculated to the corruption for untold years – were clearly negatively affected. It wasn’t immediately noticeable, but Zeke saw their discomfort presented in a form that could have been mistaken for stress.

It was a good reminder that, while the atmosphere made him stronger, it would do the opposite for the dwarves.

Even as the environment changed, they continued to descend until, at last, they reached another space that closely resembled the one they had left behind. It contained a barracks, a fighting pit meant for sparring, and a few support chambers carved into the walls. However, any similarities ended with the setting, because the inhabitants were very, very different.

For one, they were all powerful. Zeke could feel their collective strength the moment he stepped into the massive cave. But even more noticeable was the fact that they were armed and armored in high-quality equipment. Zeke was no blacksmith, but after his collaboration with Taggert back in Jariq, he was no novice either. While he couldn’t create his own armor or weapons, he could at least recognize quality.

And that’s precisely what he saw.

Dozens of different races were represented among the group, just like in the other slave quarters, and Zeke saw hulking lizardmen, sturdy ogres, a couple of orcs, and even a trio of black-scaled trolls. There were elves, a single human, and a group of dwarves that didn’t look like they’d had the color drained out of them.

Not for the first time, Zeke felt a bit overwhelmed by the sheer variety on display, but he didn’t have time to gawk, because his two dwarven guards shoved him toward one of the rooms that had been carved into the wall. Once inside, Zeke found himself facing a small, surly dwarf who looked positively ancient. His white beard brushed the ground, and his face was wizened to the point where some of his features were lost among the creases.

But his eyes were sharp, which set him apart from all the other dwarves. More importantly, he had a collar around his neck and a thick pair of shackles on his wrists.

“Fresh meat for the grinder, eh?” croaked the old dwarf. “You’ll be dead in a week. Wish they’d send me in there…”

“Uh…”

“Armor. Weapon. Provisions. Nothing more,” one of the guards said.

“Whatever,” the dwarf rasped, and the pair of uncomfortable guards left.

“You’re…you’re not like the others,” Zeke said, narrowing his eyes.

“Was it the slave collar what gave me away?” the old dwarf spat. Then, he looked Zeke up and down before a leather cuirass appeared in his hands. He tossed it to Zeke, saying, “That’ll do ya. What kinda weapon do you favor? Ain’t got no bows left, though you don’t look like much of an archer. I been surprised before, though. Go on now, spit it out. Ain’t got all day here, ya know.”

“Um…I don’t even know exactly what’s going on here,” Zeke admitted.

“Well, that there goes on your chest,” the dwarf said. “I’ll get you some greaves, too. Best I can do, really. Other than that, you’ll just have to rely on your own endurance. Hope it’s up to the task. Probably ain’t. Lucky son of a cragreacher.”

“You’re not affected by the corruption.”

The dwarf squinted at Zeke, then said, “More perceptive than you look. Or maybe you’re just a good guesser. Don’t matter. Ain’t a secret. I got a skill early on what shielded me from the corruption. At first, they was happy to use it. Kept sendin’ me into hell. Course, then I started askin’ all the wrong questions. Like, ‘How come none of you idjits got any ambition, eh? We been diggin’ into this mountain for centuries, and we ain’t got nothin’ to show for it. Shoulda branched out a long time ago.’ They didn’t like that none, so they slapped a collar on me and shoved me down here where I couldn’t corrupt the impressionable or some such. Been here ever since. Won’t even let me go back into hell ‘cause I’m too valuable. It’s cragshit if I’ve ever heard it. They just want me to suffer. Won’t even give me the opportunity to go get eaten, the hornswillin’ bastards.”

It took Zeke a bit to get a handle on the dwarf’s dialect, but once he did, he followed along fairly well. And it made sense. The Framework was nothing if not opportunistic, and a race of dwarfs flooded with demonic corruption would almost inevitably be offered some means of protecting themselves. The only thing surprising was that there weren’t more of them.

Or perhaps there had been, and they’d been given death like the ancient dwarf clearly wanted.

“So – what’s it gonna be, stretch?” he asked.

“Mace or a hammer, the bigger the better,” Zeke said. Once he got into the demon realm, he fully intended to bypass his bindings’ restrictions and summon Voromir, but until then, he’d feel better if he had a weapon.

“Keepin’ it simple, huh?”

“Something like that,” Zeke answered.

“Stupid. But who’m I to get in the way of a warrior’s noble death?” the dwarf croaked. “Be nice if’n I could join ya.”

Then, a brutal club appeared in his hand. To Zeke, it looked like an oversized baseball bat, but with a series knobby protrusions along the barrel. The dwarf tossed the club in Zeke’s direction, and he snatched it out of the air.

Or at least he tried to. However, he was unprepared for the thing’s massive weight, and he couldn’t help but stumble.  The weapon fell to the ground with a thud.

“Sure you can handle that? You don’t feel strong ‘nuff to be here, honestly…”

“I’ll be fine,” Zeke said, reaching down and grabbing the club’s handle. He lifted it; it wasn’t so much that it was too heavy. Rather, it was just a bit awkward. “Just surprised me is all.”

Seeing Zeke give the club a couple of quick practice swings, the dwarf nodded and said, “Fair ‘nuff. Don’t matter none anyway. You’re a dead man walkin’, sure as cragshit. Might not happen today or tomorrow. Might even be a month from now. But nobody comes back from here. ‘Cept me, course.”

Zeke shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll surprise you,” he said.

The dwarf cocked his head to the side, then his stark white beard split into a wide grin that revealed a distinct lack of teeth. A cackle soon followed. After a few seconds filled with wheezing laughter, the dwarf regained his composure. “Oh, that’s a good’un. Hadn’t laughed like that in twenty years!” he crowed.

Zeke frowned. “So happy I could amuse you,” he said. “So, what now?”

The dwarf shooed him away, saying, “Go out there. Next expedition is tomorrow mornin’. Get some food in ya, ‘cause the rations are absolute cragshit. It’s the texture, ya see. Soft where it oughta be firm and hard where ya expect it to be soft, ya know? Taste ain’t too bad, though, so long as you don’t think ‘bout where it came from.”

“Uh, where does it come from?”

“Best you not know, lad,” the dwarf stated.

“Oh…okay,” Zeke responded. “What’s your name?”

“Used ta be called Brandt. Nowadays, folks just call me the Armory.”