They were underground, which divided opinions immediately. They had known that they were going to be below the earth, entering a place like this, but some found it more pleasant than others. Though Alf and Gialli's home city of Hæd was above ground, they were nonetheless dwarves. Alf was frequently below ground in the temple crypts, and Gialli, who would spend days on end in cramped workshops was also no stranger to tight spaces. Reg and Teclis had both lived blameless surface level lives themselves. Talani had spent his entire life until now up in the mountains, and had nothing but distaste for this cramped, dark, and musty environment. This was only compounded by the fact that most places were too small for him anyway, so he was practically hunched over in here.

For Tove, describing it as a "mixture of feelings" would be truthful, but not accurate. The first feeling was familiarity, but the second was a deep, abiding hatred. She had lived most of her life underground. Her society leveraged the physical limitations of living under a mountain into social limitations. From birth, her path in life had been planned out. Expectations were placed on her by family and clan elders, and there would be no room for deviation. The fact that she had spent the last few years living on top of a mountain instead of underneath one spoke to what she had thought of that. Even though they were on the far side of the continent from her old home of Dwarden, and on a mission that couldn't be more different from her old life, it still brought memories back. And those memories, such as her slowly re-emerging claustrophobia, sucked.

"It's a bit cramped in here" spoke the muffled voice of Alf. "Can we please get moving?"

"I still can't see where I'm going" replied Talani. He was still at the front, there being no room to move around his massive form. "Reg," said Tove "can you try the light again please?"

There was a sudden bright flare, and they all had to shield their eyes as the light, as bright as ever now, ricocheted off the walls and dispelled the darkness. The air in the tunnel was dry, stale, and tasting of dust. They all tried to look around, but none of them could really see past Talani. He was not forthcoming on the details, but even if he had been, then all he would have described was the stone corridor that stretched out in front of them as far as the light reached. "I'm not a bloody lamp you know" moaned Reg.

"And yet, here you are with the light" said Teclis.

"Here, Talani, pass me your axe" said Reg. Teclis flinched reflexively.

Talani obliged, unslinging the large axe and manoeuvring it over to Reg. Reg placed his glowing hand against the flat of the blade, transferring the light onto the axe. "There," he said "now I don't have to keep holding my arm up."

"Getting tired already?" sniped Alf.

"At least I don't need a cane old man."

"Alright" interrupted Tove. "Talani, shall we get moving?"

The hulking form of Talani obliged, and began to set off down the tunnel. There was some jostling behind him as everyone cramped together tried to figure out the order in which they would move down the tunnel. Eventually they ended up with Tove following directly behind Talani, and then Reg, Alf, Teclis, Gialli, and Mersingmergr.

Even though they had limited vision forwards, they were all fairly glad to have Talani at the front. It was reassuring to have a large wall of muscle with a large axe leading you, mostly since it made it difficult for anything coming from the front to hit them.

They walked on down the corridor-tunnel in silence. After days of the mist deadening all their noises, it sounded uncannily loud in here. There was no wind in the tunnel, no sounds of the outdoors. Instead there was only each footfall, each creak of straps, each cough in the dusty air, all of which echoed off the walls. Each sound they made seemed amplified, and yet they could each still hear their own heart beating. They were all too tense to break the tension. All of them had heard stories of what kinds of things inhabited places like this, and if half of them were true, they didn't want to wake them up.

"The corridor widens out up ahead". Talani spoke out in a half-whisper that was easily audible. "Should we just keep going?"

"I don't see why not" came Tove's reply. "Unless you can see anything spooky up there."

"Just columns. We're not far at all." They walked for roughly another half a minute down the path before, as Talani reported, it opened out. They found themselves now in what felt distinctly like a temple of sorts.

The room was much wider than the corridor, although still much longer than it was wide. It was supported by numerous pillars spaced evenly throughout the room, and the overall design trended much more to function than form. There were some notable points though. At the far end of the room, opposite where they had entered, was an altar. It didn't seem devoted to any particular god, or at least none that they knew. Four braziers, each unlit, sat atop them.

Alongside this, there were four simple doors, two on each side of the chamber. Scattered along the walls were carved slots stacked on top of each other and numbering in the dozens. They were dug into the walls, about a foot deep, a foot high, and six feet long. And each of them contained a body.

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On the topic of bodies, their eyes finally alighted on the final feature of the room, which was the carpet of bones that littered the floor. Some heaped against the walls, some just by themselves, some whole skeletons, and some that were entirely unidentifiable. Here and there a scrap of armour or the rusted hilt of a weapon. None of them seemed to be any less than decades old, if not centuries. The scent of decay was not present, just that of dust.

A faint air of mystery now settled over them. Throughout their travels, with brief moments of terror aside, the main emotion had been mind-numbing boredom. Now they were finally where they felt like they were meant to be, and the only question was what to do next. "We should probably take this methodically" said Reg. "We don't know what might be behind of any of these doors."

"Statement of the bleeding obvious" said Alf.

"Really?" enquired Tove "I think a more obvious statement would be about the bones all over the floor".

"I was honestly just hoping I could ignore those" said Reg.

"Is that really wise?" asked Gialli

"Do you have a better idea?" retorted Reg. Gialli went silent. It was clear he was trying to come up with a solution to the bone problem, but so was everyone else to some extent.

Talani took a step forward into the room, crunching a rib beneath his boot. There was a chorus of quiet reactions from behind him, hissing intakes of air and wincing. Aside from that crunch though, there were no other sounds that came from the room. They all held their breath for a moment longer, but the slow release of tension followed as the silence stretched on.

Eventually, they all felt safe enough to take some tentative steps into the room as well. Some of them were more cautious about where they stepped than others, but even so it was almost impossible to move without either crushing bone or having to move it out of the way. Gingerly, and with no small amount of crunching, they made their way over to the altar.

There followed a silent, studious inspection of the altar by Gialli, who pored over it, muttering faintly to himself in Dwarfish about some of the technical aspects of the construction. "Is there any writing?" asked Reg. He and the others were now stood around Gialli, trying to make out what they could as well. "I think so?" replied Gialli "it's faint though, and I'm not sure if I can read it."

A voice rang out; clear, deep, and authoritative. "It says 'In the darkest places, you must find a beacon's light to guide you'". They all span around at the first word, turning their attention to the dark room behind them where the voice had come from. The light on the axe helped in some ways, but also threw parts of the room into deep shadow behind the pillars. Still, nobody else was visible.

"Who goes there?" challenged Teclis.

"No-one you should yet concern yourselves with" came the reply.

"Why not?" Teclis asked again.

"Because you have yet to pass the first challenge".

There were some concerned looks now exchanged between the six of them. "What challenges?!" cried Alf. "We were sent here by Odin himself!"

"Then perhaps you are the ones I seek, but you must first prove yourself my equal. You will be tested, and know this: many before you have tried, and all have failed. Prepare yourself!"

With that, there was a bright flash, which threw the room into sharp relief, as if it were suddenly open to the daylight. For the briefest of moments, they each caught the image of a figure in the room, a tall man with a downturned sword. And then it was gone, and all they had left was the image seared into the retinas, fading with each blink.

"What the hell was that?" asked Talani.

"Follow-up: who the hell was that?" asked Reg.

"I think it was some kind of king" said Tove. Five pairs of eyes snapped to her, hungry for information. She just shrugged. "Didn't you see the crown?"

The conversation was about to pick up again when another new sound came into the room. Not a voice this time, but a rattle, like a stone being thrown down a mountain. They all turned away from each other and looked out into the room. The solitary rattle was joined by another, and another. From below his boot Reg could feel something shaking. He lifted his foot and a rib shot out from underneath it, skittering away like it was being pulled on a rope.

They each glanced briefly at each other, and then those who didn't already have weapons drawn began unsheathing them. They fanned out, forming a loose semicircle. By now the rattling was deafening, echoing in the room, and the whole floor seemed to be shaking. Pieces of bone were flying hither and thither, forming clusters that were looking more and more whole. Arms were pulling themselves along the floor, legs were standing themselves upright, and skulls were finding vertebrae. It was a horrifically beautiful tapestry being woven in front of them.

As the skeletons lurched to life, so too did their weapons. Shattered bows knitted themselves back together. Arrows sprouted new fletching. Rusted hilts were drawn to skeletal hands, and ghostly green blades flickered from them. They were translucent, but seemed no less real, or deadly, for that. One by one, a legion came to life. Some were missing jaws, some were upright with only one leg, and some were cobbled together with extra parts, but all were armed, and facing them.

The tension had now returned. There was a lull now as each side waited for the other to make the first move. Six faced off against what was many times that number. Talani wished to himself that he had crushed more bones when he had the chance. The others wished much the same.

From the edge of the room,they caught a flicker of quick movement as a skeletal archer nocked, drew, andloosed. The arrow sailed through the air, and before it had even reached a target, all hell had broken loose.