“We have to go after it!” Deacon bellowed.

“Can we take a second to breathe?” asked Amanda who was still down on one knee.

“Hell of a way to make an entrance. What is this place?” questioned Hani as he stood up and looked around.

“I don’t know but have one of the bad feelings. We need to find that damn hat quickly. I have no idea why the lighting strike didn’t fry the bastard, but this chamber is huge and the longer we wait the harder it’ll be to find it,” Deacon explained seeming to get more frustrated as he went.

“We need to get the mage down here. I think we’ll need magical support… to corral that hat,” Typhus said between groaning.

No sooner did Typhus mention it than Tantus float his way down the hole on a hastily constructed enchanted contraption. It looked like he took Deacon’s idea from the inverted tower and modified it for single use. The Ambulator now had an umbrella canopy with leather straps connected to the original device. Tantus effectively was sitting on a hanging swing strapped to an umbrella. The part that really stuck out was the rainbow pattern on the umbrella’s canvas.

“Now that’s an entrance,” quipped Hani.

“Quiet you. Tantus, do you know if you hit the hat? I think I saw it scuttle it’s way down below,” Deacon asked turning his head back to looking down into the cavern.

“I might have missed. I had to cancel a spell I was preparing when you called out. That always has a draw back,” Tantus replied while packing away his ride.

“Well now that he’s down here, who’s going to throw a rope down for us? Now we have to find another way out,” Amanda complained.

“The only way out is through. Just like always,” Deacon huffed out as he clambered up onto the railing preparing to jump.

“Wait. I might have a better solution,” Typhus called out from twenty feet away. He was standing over two curved bars leading below the metal grating. Typhus gave it a stiff kick and there was the sound of something unlatching. Shortly thereafter a segmented ladder chunked repeatedly into the space below.

“Yeah, I guess that’s a better idea,” Deacon said climbing back down.

“He was really going to jump. That’s just insane,” Hani said in hushed tones to Amanda as they walked over.

“Welcome to the team Hani. He’ll do something stupid every day,” Amanda replied.

Climbing down the ladder they could see the rock walls giving way to smooth steel. It was abundantly clear this made by sapient beings. Tantus started a conversation suggesting it might be an ancient gnomish workshop. Considering it was under one of the oldest graveyards in the region. A region that was heavily populated by Gnomes before the creation of the ravine.

Deacon just drank in all the lore he could on the long climb down. Internally, Deacon asked himself if the creation of the ravine was part of the calamity that ruined the Gnomish landscape and Sun Wu’s fight with The Unsatiated created the ravine, then it could be said that bringing Sun Wu to what’s left of the Gnomes is a bad idea.

‘Give me an opportunity to set things right,’ said Sun Wu in Deacon’s head.

“That’s a tall order bud. I don’t see how,” Deacon thought back.

‘That’s because you think like a mortal. God’s think fourth dimensionally. You let me worry about the details. Just keep climbing down. I’m going to take a nap. On a side note, you should really figure out who that other voice was you heard just before waking,” Sun Wu commented.

Deacon had completely ignored it. He knew that voice wasn’t Sun Wu’s, but it was familiar. He’d heard it before. Every time in a graveyard. This time he was semiconscious. Perhaps he had to meditate in a cemetery and really center himself to make the connection. If it was a ghost, he would just see it. There was some form of barrier he had to dissolve to make contact.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

“Keep going. I’m running out of stamina,” Typhus called down as Tantus slowly floated past him in the Ambulator.

Deacon realized he’d stopped on the ladder to think and converse with Sun Wu. He looked down noting he was only twenty some-odd feet from the bottom and just jumped. He landed safely with Cat’s Grace and was pleased with effects of the passive ability. Deacon wondered how many passive abilities one person could have. That would be a question for when he reached the next guild hall.

Looking around, Deacon could see numbered doors inset with small glass panes. On the level below him he could see the rows and rows of unmoving humanoid forms. They all gave off a slight glint of metal to his eyes. Further down the hallway the ground seemed to slope up into a yawning circular door about one hundred yards wide. The metal shapes were lined up in rows of thirty abreast. On the opposite side of the installation were three more doors as equally spaced as the ones on this side. As Tantus got closer, the light from his lantern clarified shapes below.

“Are those all racks of armor?” Tantus asked as the others made their way down the ladder.

“I think it’s much worse than that. We should be careful what we touch. Looks like some tracks lead back into that big door at the far end. I haven’t seen anything that would be a way out of here, but I haven’t gone exploring either. No sign of the hat,” Deacon explained while everyone got settled.

“I doubt their main entrance was the ladder we just came down. Seems more like an emergency escape measure. That makes me very cautious. What would they need to escape from in their own facility?” Typhus asked.

“Perhaps we should just report this to the local authorities? Again our quest was just to investigate. I think, in true Deactastrophe fashion, we are stumbling onto a bigger problem we don’t have time for,” Amanda scoffed.

“It’s not a full blown Deacsaster… yet. I think we can, at the very least, prevent that hat from causing trouble before we leave,” Typhus replied with an ear to ear grin.

“Stop. Just stop. You tried that before and everyone went with Deactastrophe. Let’s just keep it to one thing and just make fun of me for that. Fuckin, Typhus and his wordplay,” Deacon said stomping forward.

“You know, for a man who wears no shirt, he does get into a lot of trouble. Tell me again how these Deactastrophes work?” Hani asked Typhus.

Deacon of course heard that and chose to ignore it. All except the part about no shirt. He had those robes he picked up in the dungeon, but Deacon had plans for those. They gave out stat bonuses and were just clothing. If he could get Mentalba to figure out how, maybe he get some hoodies made that gave him bonuses. Then he remembered the scroll he found. Deacon stopped in his tracks and called Tantus over.

“Can you make something out of this? I think it’s a one time use scroll but that seems like a waste to me,” Deacon explained as he pulled the scroll from his bag to hand to Tantus.

“Scroll spell huh? Yes, yes, I see. You were correct in assuming it was a one time use. I would need a safe space to decipher it. I may be able to learn it myself. That or I can use it as the primary component in an enchantment. Earth magic based. Hmm… you couldn’t learn this spell with your condition. Let me see what I can do,” Tantus said as he stuffed it into his bag.

Deacon then came upon the first door marked with the number four. It had a metal plate where the unhinged side met the wall. He pushed on it, and it stayed firmly in place. While looking through the windowpane he could see tools and benches littering the room. That solidified in his mind that this place was some kind of engineers wet dream. He explained what he could see to the others, and they moved on to the next door.

This door was marked with the number five. Once again Deacon pushed on the handle less door to no avail. Then he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned to see Amanda pointing at him and then the wall. Deacon face palmed and ghosted his way into the room. There were racks and racks of various mechanical parts in this room. Deacon noticed this worlds equivalent of blueprints on the wall. They were even labeled in stages like they came with an Alan wench or something. Then a chill ran down Deacon’s spine as he found the last step. It depicted four limbs being set into a torso of cogs and gears. Then a head unit was inserted on top. A head wearing a top hat. He went to remove the first of the instructions but as he reached for the pins holding them to the wall a red light began flashing throughout the facility. So much so the main cavern was bathed in an eerie strobing red light. Deacon quickly shoved a basket full of parts into his bag and several hanging pieces from the racks began to float over to him as he ripped the instructions off the wall.

“Get ready for a fight. I think they were using Grave Hats to control their clockwork soldiers. Do you remember the exact wording of the description? The hat commands all like objects or entities in its vicinity. Objects, not corpses,” Deacon shouted as he was halfway through the wall.

They all turned to the rows of metal automatons below as a strange green light reminiscent of Deacon’s powers began to glow in the eyes of the clockwork men. One row after the other.

“So this qualifies as a Deactastrophe, I take it?” asked Hani.