I woke to a few fierce pats to my face, “Wake up smoothskin, time to render death upon our enemies.” Korma was grinning smugly as she stared down at me.

“Don't be jealous that even a human can grow a beard better than you!” I mumbled at her as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. The dwarves around us chuckled at my retort, I got a poke in the stomach in return. I flashed her a grin, she flashed me one back and pulled me to my feet. I hopped up so suddenly I only just managed to catch the egg before I threw it through the room.

Korma eyed the egg, “Been meaning to ask, what is it?”

I smiled and tapped the egg, “This right here is probably the egg from the biggest deepstalker I have ever seen. The fucker almost did me in.”

“So you decided to eggnap its child?” Thorik muttered as he stepped closer to take a look at the dark grey shell of the egg.

I chuckled and swung an arm over his shoulders. “Well if its mom was strong enough to almost snap my head off, I figured junior over here could be usefull to have around!”

“Well stalkers have been tamed before, the karta tamed quite a few of them. The legion doesn't really use them as much. We spend most of our time taming bronto's, they work better for the legion.” Kardol joined the conversation stroking his beard. “We rarely use ambush tactics, we hole up, make noise and let them come to us. Life is made somewhat easier when your enemy cares little about defense.”

He straightened his armour, put on his helmet and grabbed his shield. “Leave the egg here human, I will ask someone to watch over it. It would be dangerous to bring an egg with us. If it hatches at an inopportune moment it could do us in.”

“You got it boss!” I answered as I put the egg and the helmet near our campsite, sure enough, I could already see a younger dwarven girl head over. She looked suspiciously like Kardol, her orange hair making her stand out. The girl gave me a quick nod and took the egg with her, Kardol and the girl glanced at each other. Kardol gave her a curt nod and turned around, I gave the girl a small bow and a much larger smile, then turned on my heels and followed after him.

Kardol led the way. Thorik and I followed behind him. Korma was dead in the middle, Kormik and Dromgar held the rear. I really missed my gun, I felt awfully underarmer and armoured compared to my new traveling companions. All of them clad in black heavy plate armour, the dark grey or white traditional mark of a dwarven skull painted onto their armour. Marking them as one of the Legion. As soon as we left the camps perimiter Kardol drew his weapon, the rest of the group did the same. I followed their lead and unsheathed my knife.

“Is that pinpricker the only weapon you have?” Korma whispered at me.

I nodded, “Only one that wasn't destroyed, I'd have asked for a weapon to borrow but I am not very familiar with any you wield. It would have done more harm than good.”

Korma hesitated for a moment then nodded, I returned a nod of my own and focused my gaze back towards the front.

Kordal carefully made his way forward, their carefully prepared armour lined with cloth to prevent the clang of metal. The sools of their boots lined with softened leather to silence their footsteps. They were silent, as silent as anyone in heavy metal armour could be. We made our way down one of the many side paths that the main roads had to offer. Some were mere cracks in the wall that only led us a few hundred meters before reaching a dead end. Some led towards caverns that Kardol examined then discarded as a possible campsite. We had spent a few hours walking without anything having attacked us. The tension was near palpable, we were far from reinforcments. Because we had met so little opposition the simmering superstion in grew that what waited for us futher down could only become worse with each passing moment.

Kardol raised an armored fist, calling for a halt. “I smell death further down this cavern.” His whisper barely reaching our ears.

“I thought it was Thorik that farted..” I muttered, recieving a chuckle from Korma, Thorik and even Kormik. Dromgar kept his silence as he had the entire journey, he was not a dwarf of many words. Not a dwarf of any word in fact.

Kardol ignored my attempt at levity and motioned for us to form up and make our way forward. I held my knife in a white-knuckled grip. The hilt feelig damp from the continious hold, I walked forward staying closely behind Kardol, we walked further down the tunnel untill it spread out into a cavern. I released a sigh of relief, countered by a sharp inhale of breath from the others. I was back from where I had started, Our last stand. The piles of dead darkspawn and stalkers littering the cavern. The still fresh stench of death penetrating our nostrils.

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“What in the holy ancestors happened here?” Kardol murmered as he gripped his axe.

“Actually this right here is partly my fault.” I said as I relaxed my stance.

Five pair of eyes twisted around to stair at me, I could almost see their eyebrows trying to dig their way out of their helmets despite their lowered visors. I shrugged at the looks, “Well I did tell you we ran into darkspawn and fought and killed a few of them.”

“There is a large difference between killing a few of them and this human. How large of a force ventured into the deep-roads with you?” The dwarf said stepping closer as he examined my expressions, I held up both hands and thought for a second.

I opened my mouth, then hesitated. “The truth please!” The small armoured warrior insisted, his voice low as his statement darkened the atmosophere with its untold threat.

I sighed, “Myself and four others.”

Kardol choked, “Five humans did this? How!” He grabbed me by the scruff of my uniform, I kept my palms open to show the others I meant no harm. “We had weapons that others do not, it is a long story and I am not sure it would be wise to share it with you. You gain nothing from it, if you do find one of our weapons however you are free to examine it as much as you wish.”

Kardol pulled me even closer to his face, I could feel the warm puffs of agitated breath as he stared up at me through his visor. Dwarves were intimidating, holy shit. I kept up my hands in a friendly gesture and he released his hold on me with a grunt.

“Explain to me how these weapons work, if they can do as much damage to darkspawn in a small group like yours then the Legion is in dire need of such a thing. Can you explain to us how these weapons look like and how they work?”

I scratched my head and walked across the field of corpses, I should have dug through the corpses for a weapon the last time I was here. Although I did not want to admit it to myself I had been in emotional turmoil. The revalation of how I might no longer be the true me, the possiblity that I could easily be deleted. The fact that my friends had just been killed, perhaps permenantly only to be copied from information that the system had stored somewhere. I walked over to where the blasted to bits ogre was. The others followed me, questions on the tip of their tongues. My uncharactiristic silence forcing them to unwillingly keep their words to themselves.

I stepped over the darkspawn corpses, my eyes trailing over the devestation me and mine had wrought upon our twisted foe. Blood liter upon liter of black blood had dried and become the cracking surface of a new floor. Organs, pieces of flesh, shards of bones, littered the cavern. I stepped over a couple of spawn who had collapsed on top of each other. Their snarling expressions etched into my memory, the one with half of its head missing leaving a presence. Whas it truly a memory or more simple data that had been stored into whatever storage unit contained what and who I was. I stepped past the ogre, its head blown from its shoulders. Pieces of its skull clinging to nearby spawn. I stepped further to a pile of rotting corpses. I started pulling them off, this was where I saw Ivan go down.

The dwarves silently stepped forward and helped me pull the courpses off, at long last we found the black blood covered corpse of Ivan. Or what was left of him, I dragged him, gently at first, away from the pile. He kept getting stuck so I started pulling harder, eventually I ripped him from the pile and fell backwards. I stood back up and walked towards his corpse, part of his face had been torn off, flesh ripped of by sharp dark-spawn fingernails. A chunk of his throat was missing, his arm had been torn off in the explosion. His eyeballs had been peirced or plucked out, it was hard to tell under all the gore. His expression however caused me to twitch. The manic smile he had when he went down had been frozen in time upon his death. I smirked and patted Ivan on his nearly destroyed head.

“This big hunk of a man is called Ivan. He likes girls and killing things, he is a lot friendlier than his face or fate would have you believe. I had given him a nickname in my head, Ivan the not so Terrible. Not that the monicker would mean much to you.” I let my gaze move to his shoulder, “This contraption that is connected to his shoulder is one of our weapons. It is pretty damaged but your engineers or blacksmiths or whatever might still be able to make use of it.”

I stood up and walked over to the nearby wall, Reg lay there. Body relatively intact, his head however was unrecognizable. It had been crushed to paste, his corpse still clinging to his knife that was darkened by ogre blood. He would be hard to pat on the head, instead I opted to pat his shoulder. “This is Reginald the Twenty-First of his name, a fancy noble of sorts as his name might suggest. Not that his character was anywhere near snobby or arrogant. Fun guy to hang around, had a true death wish. We haven't known each other that long but I am proud to call him a friend.”

I looked around the field to search for his gun, I found it. It was mangled beyond repair, the ogre had crushed it during its fight with Reg. “This was his weapon but it is now useless. I suppose you could still bring it back with you, Might still be usefull.”

I searched around the field for the last pile of dead, the one that churned my stomach as I neared. I hessitated as I stepped towards the reeking mound. “Below this here mound lies Aviva, Beautifull warrior maiden. Fierce, strong, dead...” I stared at the corpses and reached my hand to remove a corpse only to stop and step back. “Not a good way to go, eaten alive by these things..”

I glanced around and found her weapon, it was surprisingly intact. “This one looks like it might still work.” I handed the piece over to Kormik who took it off my hands as he silently put it into his pack.

Kardol walked up to me, “Your friends have died fighting our eternal foe. We could bury them in the Legion way if you would allow us. Few have the courage to fight the creatures in their own homes. Few sell their lives ot the spawn at such heavy a price. Would you let us do them this honor?” The other dwarves stepped up beside him and stared at me. I gazed over at my new found friends and nodded.

It took hours to prepare the graves, the legionaires tore through the stone to create graves. We put their mutilated bodies carefully into the sarcophagi. The three siblings each pushed a slab of stone over a grave and then saluted next to them. I copied their motion, pressing a fist to my heart.

“Rest well unknown friends of the Legion. For an unknown amount of days have you lasted. Now it is time for you to return to the Stone, in the sight of the First Paragon.” Kardol placed a fist over his heart.

“May you find your deserved peace after death.” The others echoed him, I repeated the words and looked down at the graves. Ever wondering if their would be a peace after death for us, I grimaced. For now I would have to live with war.