Chapter 97 Tail's Depth

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"Is it just me, or is it becoming hotter all of a sudden?" Edelweiss murmured while fanning her face with a fan from her pouch. We finally reached the gate leading to the deep mountain. Unlike the simple metal gate from before, this one looked like a bunker door, and it glowed with red and orange light.

"Yes. We call this gate the gate to hell!" Sig said as he polished his hammer, "From here, it is real. Check your gear, gentlemen. Monsters above forty will come. Even I didn't know this place in full detail."

"Here is your staff Edelweiss." Alistar handed her a box with a gorgeous staff in it back. He also prepped her battle axe with his sword at his waist.

Lily still used her usual saber with her buckler at her back, which could be picked up anytime by me. Meanwhile, Alistar used a relatively light chainmail with leather armor, a battle axe, and a short sword on his waist.

"Alright! Are you guys ready? Rhegar, Rick? Mark?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Good? What about you, Edelweiss?"

"Yes. Hold on a second."

Edelweiss wore a green capelet with elven chain mail and a white dress outside. It was a gorgeous design with a mismatched boot for traveling her arms. She also wore a leather vest, gloves, and leather vambraces with high leather leggings. Her armor sure is very light. Lily frowned at her getup.

"The clothes looked like it was for a ball than for a dungeon…." Sig sighed.

"It's fine, right? At least leather still counts as armor outside." Alistar gave a chuckle. "Besides, She always had low stamina even with her high levels, and if push comes to shove, she may be unable to run away with heavy armor. This is the most efficient getup for her. I have been to the same party as her before! I can guarantee this getup for battling monster dungeons!"

"Well, If Alistar here gave his affirmation, then it's fine. I guess you need to travel as lightly as possible, huh? That staff looks heavier than his axe and my hammer." Sig looked at her staff.

She has a long wizardly staff as tall as her. The staff was adorned with various gold and silver with multiple engravements. The engravement glowed golden and silver as the flow rose to the top of the enthroned feystone. At the staff's top was a massive feystone with over twenty stones surrounding it like a chandelier.

"So that's a wizard staff? It looks expensive." Lily commented.

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"This is a national heirloom. We use Mithale in this staff." Edelweiss replied.

"Only an ounce of it. It is only a plating, and this Mithale isn't perfect. The golderite was still visible and the titan ores are turned into Silverite here." King Sig frowned and yelled. "What a waste! This is why …. never mind..."

"But the performance of this staff is magnificent, don't you think?" Edelweiss tried to brag about their nation's treasure but it fell on deaf ears. Jona sighed and cut off their squabbles with Niece supporting her.

"Well, this staff is certainly remarkable. But we hate this particular engraving. Using Mithaile only as a covering layer means it will not last long if used repeatedly. We hate this engraving because you have to scrape away the ingots used on them. That's why King Sig said it is a waste."

"If we had access to more of these materials, of course, we would prefer to use them fully." Edelweiss pouted.

"Yeah, it was part of our fault too. When we say these metals were precious to us, we mean it was priceless, not simply expensive." Sig replied. "We didn't hate the staff itself. After all, my daughter also used one. And this hammer is made using titan ores."

His equipment didn't look much different from a normal battleaxe to me, but after a second thought, dwarves probably hated wasting things. That's why there was no engravement or fancy embellishment on his hammer.

"I see. Now I get it. Dwarves preferred practical use over arts. I will consider these when trading in the future." Alistar said. Hearing that conclusion, Edelweiss sighed as her anger cooled down and smiles returned back to her face.

"Alright! Quit Yapping. Let us enter the hell's gate." Sig walked to the gate. The gate didn't have door handles, but two levers were on each side. He ordered one of his henchmen on one side and another on the other.

"from my predecessor's words, this small window is to be used to check the inside before opening the gate. The gate can only be opened from the outside so I will leave two dwarves here. They will camp here until we are out."

"Wait! What do you mean the gate can only be opened from the outside!" Mattheus and several elves panicked in an instant. "What if we were to run from a horde of monsters?"

"Then we die! You guys also owned dungeons right? How do you guys prevent monsters from crawling outside?"

"They don't come outside as long as we regularly raid it," Alistar explained but he and Edelweiss were calm. "But we do have a contingency if it does happen. Such as a wall just outside dungeons or traps, moats, and bridges…. is this gate critical?"

"Yes." Sig nodded, and the gate slowly creaked upwards as the soldiers rotated the lever and raised it.

"This gate must be expensive. That's Mithale, right?" Lily muttered as the gate was raised ever so slowly.

"Yes. It was made from Mithale."

"Maybe we can melt this gate, and we don't need to worry about undead anymore!" Mattheus joked around, but nobody was laughing. "I am sorry."

"The truth is. I have been reading my ancestor's notes. And you guys aren't the first to use Mithaile stakes to close Leylines leakages. There was one in the western valley too. We use the stakes, and with our best dwarven blessed mages, we turned the valley green."

"Oh! We would love to see it!"

"Absolutely not. I have been crossing the gray area here by letting you inside one of the three most guarded treasures of dwarves."

"Ah, I got that. Sorry for asking." Edelweiss pulled back at once.

"I see that elves had one too?" Sig smiled

"Of course. Every country has one or two secrets they need to protect, right?" Alistar smiled, and as soon as the gate opened, we came inside.

The gate was shut after the entire party, minus the two dwarves and serfs, came in.

"Now, there is no way out. No stupid movement here. Any wrong moves and this party may as well be wiped out." Sig warned us once again as we headed for the depths.