"What the hell is that?" he whispered.

"Don't know. Careful," Anya responded with her breath held tight.

The two could hear voices echoing toward them through the tunnels but they could see no movement.

They crept silently, with their short blades drawn. Ready to strike at a moments notice.

Suddenly, the sound of footsteps reached them.

"Shit, hide!" Erend wheezed at Anya.

It was a tall order for two people who were moving through a tunnel with flat walls. The two pressed themselves behind a beam, trying their best to appear flat.

A figure passed by the opening of the tunnel, only its silhouette was visible to them. It didn't deign to look down the dark tunnel.

"Fuck, that was close..." Erend breathed out.

"Yeah... Let's just have a peek to see what we're dealing with before we turn back."

Erend shielded his eyes from the light as they got closer to the exit. He'd grown used to the dimly lit tunnels after their strenuous crawl.

He peeked his head outside. There was no sun shining in this place, only the light of torches lit the cobbled corridors. The tunnel exit was placed about a goblins height above the ground. Footsteps and rumbling voices echoed in the hallways.

"Looks like a fort of some kind..." Anya mumbled behind him.

Erend nodded along with her sentiment, but kept quiet. They climbed out the tunnel and snuck along the walls, looking for anything to let them know where they were.

"Look, over there," Anya whispered and pointed down the corridor. The people of the fort had hung a large cloth of some kind against the wall. "It looks like a map... Let's just have a quick look."

The two snuck down the corridor with cushioned steps. As they got closer, they could see the cloth clearer. It was old and worn, with a beautiful map embroidered onto it, strange letters and symbols littered the embroidery.

"I assume this is a map of the continent. No idea what it says though. Let's grab it. Maybe Bernard can decipher it."

"I don't thi..."

"Shh!" she hissed and covered his mouth with her hand. Echoing steps filled the hallway once again. Each one sounded closer than the one before, "Shit, this way!"

They had no time to run back to the tunnels. Anyas eyes darted around wildly and landed on a wooden door, it had an open window covered with metal bars. Without hesitating she felt the handle, it gave way. She turned to Erend and pushed him inside, making sure to close the door as silently as she could behind her.

Erend could feel his heart stuck in his throat. It couldn't end like this, not after they'd made it all the way here. He pressed himself up against the wall and had a look inside the room. A large table stood in its center, surrounded by well-made chairs. Chests and racks lined the walls. He felt compelled to rummage through the contents of the chest closest to him, but quickly disregarded the emotion.

He threw Anya a glance, she sat with her back pressed against the shut door, one hand covering her mouth, the other resting on the hilt of her blade.

Outside, the creatures walking toward them had stopped. They spoke the same language as the goblins, but their voices were a great bit deeper.

They snarled and rumbled, seemingly fighting. After one of them let out a yell, Erend heard a crack. A second later the door that Anya pressed herself against quaked, the hinges screamed in resistance.

Slowly, Erend snuck toward the door with Johann's dagger held in a backhanded grip. The creature outside said something again, and spat a glob of phlegm at the door.

The door handle began to twist. Anya's eyes bulged, she scrambled away from the door, letting the one outside enter without resistance.

As the door opened, the upper half of a grotesque body fell inside the room. It had the same color as the goblins, but it was a great deal larger, muscular, and had long tusks sticking out of its jaw. Its eyes stared lifelessly at Erend. Blood pooled out under its head.

The other creature stepped over the body. That was when Erend decided to strike. He stabbed out with the dagger using the backhanded grip, his body still pressed against the wall. He had a decent understanding of the creature's position just by judging where its leading foot was placed.

Erend felt almost no resistance from the knife. If he didn't feel something warm splashing against his hand, he would have thought he'd missed the attack. He pulled his hand back, it was covered in a dark, thick liquid.

The creature fell into the room just a moment after he'd retrieved his arm.

It looked much the same as the first, except it had a head of unruly hair.

Deciding against his better judgement, Erend threw a quick glance outside the door. It was empty, and the only sounds he could hear came from far away.

"Let's get these guys inside," Anya whispered.

Erend grabbed a hold of the one he'd stabbed. The creature was heavy, almost unfathomably so. It must have weighed several hundreds of kilos. He didn't even get it to budge until Anya moved in to help him.

With great effort and a lot of grunting, they pulled to two heaps of muscle inside the room and closed the door. There was some blood smeared on it and the floor below, but it wasn't anything they deigned more important than gathering themselves before heading back.

"Good job. I'm not sure how good these guys would have been at fighting, but I'm pretty sure they've got us beat when it comes to muscle mass," Anya said in a breath of relief.

Erend nodded at her, "Thanks. What do we do?"

"The smartest thing would probably be to get the fuck out of here. But seeing as we've already done quite a lot of damage we might as well have a look inside the chests."

"And the map?"

"Let's take this one step at a time why don't we?"

"Yeah, okay."

Erend looked at the two bodies one last time, they both wore armor that didn't look like anything Erend had seen before. The metal was dark, black almost, its edges were jagged and sharp. Everything about the armor looked as if it could be used as a weapon, should the wielder be left with no choice. He didn't doubt the creature would be able to hug him to death if he gave it the chance.

Inside the first chest he found pieces of armor that looked like the ones the creatures wore.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

He felt a little tempted to bring the chest back to camp. His father could surely make something useable with the pieces, and they looked real damn cool if he was being quite honest with himself. He grabbed hold of the chest, and instantly decided it was way too heavy to bring.

He moved onto the next, it was filled of much the same. The one after that was filled with bars of dark metal.

*Maybe I should bring one to dad, have him see if he knows the metal... A shame I didn't bring a bag.*

That's when it hit him.

*I'm fucking stupid! Pocket!*

He grabbed hold of the metal bar and willed his source into motion. Before long the rippling spread out in front of him. Without further ado he tossed the metal bar inside, along with a few pieces of armor.

"Hey, take this too!" Anya said way too loudly as she came running with her arms cradling weapons of all kinds. She looked like a child who'd been given enough money to try every piece of pastry at the local bakery.

She wasted no time in stuffing his Pocket full of steel. Erend had never had the time to test the limits of the spell, now he knew clearly where the line was drawn. Anya looked grumpily at him as the ripple flickered out of existence.

"That's it?

"That's it."

"... Okay. Carry this on your back then, I'll take one too," she said as she forced a bow around his shoulders.

"Are you done?" he asked, more than ready to go back.

"Yeah, follow me," she ordered with a smile that reached her eyes.

Erend hadn't thought about it until now, but Anya was quite the beauty in her own way. Her hair was cut short by a blade, she had a small nose and dim freckles, and she was more muscular than most women he'd met. She obviously didn't put much thought into her looks, but her smile and this otherwise hidden mischievous attitude perfectly complemented her outward appearance.

"What?" she asked.

"Oh, no-nothing," Erend stammered, embarassed he'd zoned out.

"Okay good. Stay sharp, please."

Anya carefully opened the door and peeked her head outside. She waved at Erend to follow, then snuck outside.

"I'll go get the map. You go to the tunnel. Extinguish all the torches on the way. It's going to be dark as night, so make sure to stand by the entrance and use the lighter, so I can see you," Anya whispered at him, then darted away before he could respond.

Erend sighed and did as he was told. One after the other, he extinguished the torches, making his way to the tunnel. When there was only one torch remaining, he heard muffled shouts in the distance, from where Anya had run off to. He quickly snuffed out the last light source and scrambled over to the tunnels entrance, climbed inside, and lit the lighter.

An almighty storm of footsteps and shouts filled the halls. In the distance, Erend could see Anya rush past a corner with more momentum than she could control. She held the embroidered cloth folded under her arm and crashed into the wall before continuing toward Erend in a sprint. Just seconds after she set off running again, the hallway was filled with hulking, muscular figures, who chased her amidst feral screams and grunts.

"Help me up!" Anya screamed as she got close.

Erend reached his arm toward her, and grabbed hold of her collar. With all his might he pulled her inside, she landed on top of him and wasted no time in crawling away through the tunnel. Erend felt her knee crush his nose.

"Shit," he mumbled and scrambled away behind her.

"Sorry! Just run!"

She didn't have to tell him twice. The hulking figures reached into the tunnel, clawing after him. Erend felt one's fingers graze against the sole of his boot. He threw a look over his shoulder. The creatures fought against each other to be the first inside the tunnel, but none of them were slender enough to fit through.

The two moved through the snaking tunnels in a frantic rush until they reached the crawlspace, they took a few greedy breaths of the musty air.

"That was way too close," she wheezed.

"Did you really have to do that?"

"At least now we know the lay of the land... And we have more armor and weapons."

"We lack the men to use them, and now they'll know where we came from."

"Question is if they'll act on it."

"And if they do?"

"Then we'll have to be ready. And we'll need more men."

"Where do you intend to find that?"

"Not sure yet. Let's head back first. We'll speak more there," she said and began crawling. "And please don't stare at my backside."

Erend felt his cheeks heat up at the joke.

"I wouldn't!" he protested.

Anya let out a giggle at his innocent response.

When they returned to the camp Johann was waiting at them by the hatch.

"How'd it go?" he inquired and offered them a hand.

"Very well – with all things considered," Anya returned and dusted off her body.

"All things considered?"

"There's a fort at the end of the tunnel. Huge, muscular creatures occupy it. Gray and green with large tusks," Erend interjected with a sigh. He made an effort to protrude his jaw in an underbite and used his hands to mimic the tusks.

"More Greenskins then. Orcs, to be precise. Good fighters, short fuse. Dumb, but strong like none other."

"Good thing we didn't have to face one head on then," Erend commented.

"But you did face one?"

"Ambushed one. She was chased by a mob of them," he said and pointed at Anya.

Johann raised his eyebrows at that and looked at her, waiting for an answer.

"It was worth it," she announced and showed him the embroidered cloth with fanfare. "We found a map! And weapons and stuff."

"That does sound useful. Where are the weapons?"

"He's got them," Anya said and nonchalantly waved him off as she studied the cloth.

Johann looked over at Erend, eyed the bow he had strapped over his shoulder, then back at Anya. He did a double take, "Only the bows?"

"Oh, it's a spell. Like a backpack. We could sort through everything in the smithy?" Erend proposed.

Johann looked perplexed for a few seconds, then shrugged it off, "Sure. Anya, you coming?"

"Nah, please send Bernard over here though."

"Will do."

The camp looked much like it had when Erend and Anya had begun their long crawl. The only difference was that the ground wasn't as bloody, and the bodies had been moved. The place stank, the smell of burning bodies was ever present.

Johann shouted at Bernard and sent him to help Anya. Then he beckoned Thomas to join him and Erend in the make-shift smithy.

"Let's see it then," Johann said eagerly.

Erend willed his Pocket to open, then he thought of the items that Anya had shoved inside. He hadn't seen half of them. Hopefully he didn't need to know exactly what was in the Pocket, only that something was there.

Turns out it sufficed, though the order things came out in was a bit random.

After a good few minutes of rummaging around in the thick, soup like space ripple, the contents were laid out on the floor.

Three full sets of the jagged, dark armor. A few of the dark metal bars. Three weirdly curved swords, two pairs of daggers, two bows, an odd crossbow, bolts, arrows and two hand-axes littered the floor.

Johann let out a whistle and snagged up a bow and one pair of daggers.

Erend sent him an accusatory glance.

"What? The bow's for Charles and the daggers are for me. You can keep the one you borrowed. No need to thank me."

Thomas inspected the metal. Erend knew his father well enough to know he was excited by it. His eyes held that amused look that they always did when he was engrossed in work.

"Do you know what it is?"

"Not exactly. But I have my suspicions."

"And those are?"

"Long ago, in an effort to create cheaper metals, a noble from far off lands mixed melted steel with a powdered black stone that was abundant in his territories. As luck would have it for the noble, the stone amplified the metals, creating a dark steel known as orichalcum."

Johanns jaw hung agape, "Is this it?"

"Can't say for sure without melting it down. But it sure looks like it. As far as I know..."

Erend quickly snagged himself a sword. He pulled it out of its scabbard and inspected it.

The sword was beautiful, but odd. The blade was thin and had a slight curve to it, its tip was sharp and made for stabbing. It had one edge, and not much for a cross guard. The hilt was sleek and curved in the opposite direction of the blade, its pommel was sharp and jagged. The blade's surface was covered in beautiful floral engravings. It felt heavy in his hands, heavier than a sword of normal steel would was, but it was well-balanced. He instantly liked it, it fit well in his hands, like it had been made for him.

"Beautiful craftsmanship," Thomas commented as if bewitched. He pulled himself out of his stupor and continued, "I should be able to make some armor with the metal you brought. Don't know how much though."

Johann nodded along, "Good. We can't have half of our fighting force be wearing a leather cuirass and nothing else," he added, "You keep the sword, boy. Take your pick of something else if you want. You earned it fair and square. Oh, and grab another sword for Anya before the others attack the leftovers."

Johann strutted out the smithy with a backhanded wave of his hand.

When they were alone, Thomas complained, "You keep doing dangerous stuff, son."

"Well, it's not like I got much choice."

"I suppose... Just be careful is all I'm asking."

"Always, you know that."

"Sometimes you have me wondering."

Erend smiled at his father, "What do you think, should I grab something else?"

"Your mother was an artist with the bow, most elves are. They typically settle in forests, so one could argue that the bow is suited for this climate. And it would keep you out of harms way."

Erend thought about that. He'd never fired a bow before, but with Charles for a teacher he wagered it wouldn't take long for him to pick up on it. And hiding his sorcery could prove useful should he ever need to surprise a foe.

While inspecting the bow, and in an effort to lighten the mood, he asked, "How's Elle?"

"Not fantastic. This is not a place for children."

"I suppose..." Erend agreed. He hadn't given her much thought the last few days. There had been no time for it. He understood the whole situation must be more taxing and hard to understand for her and the other kids than any of the others.

"Maybe I'll play with her for a bit now that I've got some spare time," he suggested.

"I think she'd like that very much," Thomas returned with a soft smile.