Three factions ran Zamora’s undercity. The kobolds mined the ore used for weapons and building the skeleton of the ever-growing city. Gnomes dug out stone blocks used primarily to replace rickety structures erected before the city started to ascend and to create a firm foundation for Zamora’s growth. The diminutive masons also mixed mortar and plaster and were the critical advisers on building the city walls. This general mining and quarrying occupied the upper levels of the underground city. The dwarves were deeper. Once the limestone turned to granite, the bearded excavators were called in to extract precious gems, gold, and, most importantly, water.
The underground lake was the life source of this desert city. The dwarves kept it clean and operated the pumping system to bring it to the people above.
The gnomes and kobolds hated each other, and the first few layers underground were embroiled in constant conflict and aggression. The ore deposits weren’t evenly distributed, and when the gnomes found a rich vein in their quarry, they were required to vacate and let the kobolds come in and clean it out. The gnomes then went to one of their previous dig sites, where the draconian miners had just finished. The two races were constantly working on top of each other with no clear division, and fights broke out continually. Humans tried to manage the process, but the underground races interpreted any effort to crack down on the chaos as an effort to turn the workers into slaves. At such times, the gnomes and kobolds finally saw eye to eye and united against a common foe.
Gracie had explained all this to Esther during her trek through the desert from the public travel node over a mile outside the city, but now the rogue got to see it up close. The chaos aided her movement through the mines, giving her bonuses to sneak past distracted workers. Still, the gnomes had perfect night vision, and several times, she needed to activate the darkness of her hat and stand perfectly still, hoping no one paid attention to a column of absolute shadow. Managing this work environment was the responsibility of the city magistrate, and Esther understood it was a coveted position with several influential players vying for the spot. After spending 20 minutes observing the chaos and conflict between the miners, she was glad Jace wasn’t one of those players. His stronghold ran much smoother.
Soon, Esther left that behind and found the transition point, where limestone changed to granite, and the mine shafts were more like chiseled hallways without the sandy texture covering everything. She moved along the cleaner path for only a short while before running into a problem. Four dwarves stood at attention, guarding the entrance to the lowest level. They each held a spear and shield, their eyes glowing with the tell-tale signs of a True Sight spell.
Esther slunk back around the corner, out of sight of the dwarves, confident she hadn’t been seen. “Gracie,” she whispered. “I have a problem. I can’t go any further.”
{What is it?}
“Guards. Four of them. Their eyes are glowing. I can’t sneak past.”
Gracie was silent for a while, thinking it through. {Is there an inscription on the floor beneath them?}
Esther crept back to the corner of the hall and peered toward the dwarves. “Yes,” she confirmed after she pulled back. “They are standing on a ward that looks like an eye.”
{It’s a permanent True Sight spell. It probably gives them a few other bonuses too. They will see you in the shadows and will see through any illusion you might produce with the necklace.}
Esther reached up to her neck. She wore her Athletic charm now, having stored Jace's necklace in her inventory. “That seems really powerful. Is there no way to defeat it?”
{It is powerful,} Gracie agreed, {but it has its weaknesses. It only works while the dwarves stand still at attention. You need to draw them away, get them moving, or have them change their posture. They will still be formidable guards, but you should be able to sneak past them then.}
“What kind of distraction?” Esther asked. The only distractions she typically employed were sexual in nature. That didn’t work too well on dwarves, and besides, that would alert them to her presence.
{I don’t know,} Gracie said. {You are going to have to play the role of Jace here. I can’t see your environment and don’t know what you have to work with.}
“I don’t have anything,” Esther said, her exasperated whisper almost loud enough to alert the guards. “There is nothing down here except sand, rock, and two factions that hate each other.” Esther paused in thought. “Hold on,” she said. “I think I have an idea.”
----------------------------------------
After backtracking about 100 feet, Esther hid in the shadows and watched the morning chaos within the limestone mine. Neither the kobolds nor the gnomes cared about the sun, but the schedule operated off global time since humans ran the operation. Breakfast was being served, and the work shifts changed. The two underground races lived in very different quarters, separated by as much security and privacy as they could muster. However, the paths leading to the various work sites intersected in multiple locations, and this conjunction at the lowest portion of their operation was the busiest Esther had seen.
Humans stood guard over the proceedings, and gnomes and kobolds milled about, some returning from a long night’s work looking for food, while others had just woken and grabbed a meal before the start of their day. Tunnels left in every direction from this major intersection, with workers moving in both directions down each. The humans looked twitchy as minor scuffles erupted when a gnome didn’t yield and let a group of kobolds pass. A pickaxe was knocked out of someone’s hand, while a gnome hammer “accidentally” dropped on a kobold’s foot.
Esther crept up to one of the men, standing with his back to her, just outside the shadows. His agitated and distracted posture made it easy for her to pickpocket a knife from a sheath strapped to his leg. Then she crept along a tunnel and swiped a similar knife from a kobold who was too busy thinking up racial slurs to yell at the gnome who had just brushed up against him. The rogue slunk back to her position just outside the intersection toward the dwarven zone and waited.
It didn’t take long.
She didn’t see how it started, but a significant altercation erupted a few feet down the largest corridor when a gnome swung his hammer into the gut of a kobold. Esther was ready, hoisted the kobold knife up for a throw, and performed a sneak attack on the gnome. The blade wasn’t sharp enough, and her skill with a thrown weapon wasn’t good enough to kill the stone worker, but he dropped to the ground anyway and cried out in pain.
Other gnomes looked down at their injured comrade and saw the handle of the unique weapon sticking from his back. They erupted and charged toward two kobolds nearby, smashing their heads in with hammers. Four Kobolds reacted, raising their pickaxes in retaliation, and Esther let fly with the human’s knife. It took one of the kobolds in the back of the neck and was strong enough to send him into a death spiral.
The alert crowd followed the knife throw back to its source, and they could only see the human guard reflexively clutching at his empty sheath. Esther safely hid in a pillar of darkness.
“We was just defending us!” A kobold yelled at the guards. “We should has known you favored the rock rats!”
Instantly, the kobolds turned on the humans while the gnomes still attacked the kobolds. As magic started to fly, Esther retreated toward the dwarves. No one pursued her, but the sound traveled after her, echoing off the stone halls like thunder in the mountains. She hadn’t returned to her previous position before two dwarves raced up the hall, abandoning their post below. Esther flattened herself into the shadows until they passed and then continued down the hall to find the remaining dwarves on high alert, clutching desperately to their weapons, their heads on a swivel. Their eyes no longer glowed.
Esther pulled one of the two invisibility potions the game let her carry at once and drank it to bolster her already impressive stealth skills. The dwarves looked everywhere but straight ahead of them, and Esther strolled quietly and confidently between them, less than an arm's length from either guard. She didn’t dare quicken her pace until she ventured far enough into the long corridor that the dwarves wouldn’t hear her run. With the noise coming from the mines above, she doubted they could hear their own nervous chatter, but she didn’t want to take chances.
Regardless, the light ahead kept her cautious, and Esther clung to the walls as she neared the exit. Soon, she stood on a narrow ledge and found breathing difficult when she took in the sight below her. The massive cavern stretched out before and beneath her, easily 500 feet across on the top level where she stood. The perfectly circular room sunk into the ground like a funnel, with walkways ringing the circumference every ten feet down, ending at a giant lake, 300 feet across and crystal clear. The pool looked bottomless, lit with magical lights all over the cavern.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
On each descending level, dwarves moved about, walking along the ledges and disappearing into the tunnels like workers entering an inverted ant hill. Esther saw gold and gems embedded into the walls, and while she heard the ring of hammers and the sharp percussive sound of picks, no one worked on the exterior. She wondered why and had her curiosity answered when a wheelbarrow-pushing dwarf exiting a tunnel in one of the middle levels stumbled and then cursed as a rock bounced from his cart and fell over the ledge.
The whole cavern ceased activity as everyone reacted to the exclamation and watched as the stone gained speed, ricocheting off each successive level until it bounced far enough out to head directly into the water. A dome of energy crackled into view as the stone struck it, and Esther could feel the crowd collectively holding their breath. The barrier held, vaporizing the rock into powder that slid down the magical shield and into a collection trough around the lake's perimeter.
As if rehearsed, all the dwarves returned to work instantly once the threat was over. Esther stayed transfixed, staring at the lake almost 100 feet below her. In the center of the pool, no more than 20 feet in diameter, an island sat with only one inhabitant. A man wearing nothing but a loin cloth trod in an endless circle, turning a giant, 8-spoked wheel. A chain secured him to the center post, and a copper pipe over a foot in diameter rose over a hundred feet straight up, penetrating the cavern’s slightly domed ceiling.
{Were you successful?} Gracie asked. {What did you find?}
Esther took a step back into the protection of the tunnel before answering. “I found the dwarven mine,” she said. “Complete with the underground lake and that guy we are supposed to free; what did you say his name was? Sonar?”
{Sonan,} Gracie corrected. {And you aren’t supposed to free him.}
“Good,” Esther said. She saw no bridge to the central island, and each ramp that descended to the next level down had guards posted with magical blue lights illuminating the path. There must be a magical way to get to the slave man pushing the wheel, but she would never make it there before being swarmed by dozens of powerful dwarves. Who knew how many more were working inside the countless tunnels branching deeper into the cavern’s perimeter. Plus, a protective shield surrounded the lake.
{Your job is to find the prison cells and locate Delly.}
“Right,” Esther said, nodding her head. “Where are those?”
{I have no idea,} Gracie said. {We only had information about where the dwarven complex was. Only players ascending to the top of the Zamora module are escorted past the security. Even Damon hasn’t made it as far as you.}
Esther never realized how much she relied on Jace to solve problems until she had to do it herself. She shook her head free from doubts and focused on what she knew about this place. Dwarves worked all over the circular mine, pushing carts and wheelbarrows along the narrow ledges and up and down ramps to move between the levels. Occasionally, a dwarf would approach her position, a level or two down, but they never ascended to the top and disappeared into a tunnel that must run under her feet. Perhaps a smelting room sat deeper in, and only finished material made it out. Maybe an elevator system carried gems and gold out of the mine without carting it back through the chaos behind her. That made sense.
After several minutes of observation, Esther noticed that activity bustled on every level of the mine but one: hers. No dwarves moved about on this top ring. Her ledge was about eight feet wide and ran the entire circumference of the massive cavern, with almost a dozen tunnels burrowing into the wall, but nothing moved.
Esther crept out of the tunnel and looked left and right along her level to ensure no one stood just around the corner. It was empty. Her invisibility spell had expired, but she could still hide in the shadows. Esther moved as silently as death along the top ledge in a counterclockwise direction, advancing a hundred feet before she found her first obstacle. A blue light hung twelve feet up the wall and bathed a large section of the walkway in magical brightness. She tried to Shadow Step through it but couldn’t. She knew if she stepped into it, she would be visible to anyone looking her way. Was anyone looking up at her?
A quick examination of the workers below showed all of them focused on their tasks. Holding her breath, she ran across the fifteen-foot spotlight. No alarms went off. No cry of intruder rose from the lower levels. Esther released a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding and continued. She traversed a second blue light before finding the first tunnel deep into the stone. After reastablishing her stealth ability, Esther ventured down the narrow corridor.
Within seconds, she knew this was the right spot. On either side of her, spaced so no alcove could see into another, rough-cut rooms had been carved from the stone with domed prison cells partitioned with adamantium bars. The cells looked terribly uncomfortable, with no furniture and curved walls that prevented the occupants from resting against them. Not all the cells were occupied, and those that were held bedraggled men and monsters that were too weak recognized Esther’s presence even if she wasn’t slinking about in the shadows. Eight cells filled this relatively short tunnel, four on either side. Only five were occupied: two men, two half-orcs, and what looked like a druid half-shape-shifted into a wolf. None of them were Delly. Esther hastily backtracked and continued along the top ledge.
The next group of cells held a similar collection of prisoners. It wasn’t until she got to the fourth one, directly opposite the entrance to the cavern, that she found her. The first two cells held kobolds, snoring loudly. The following five cages were empty, and the last held an obviously feminine figure curled into a fetal position on the floor, her mostly exposed dark skin covered with scrapes and bruises from the unforgiving floor.
Esther’s heart hurt for her friend, as, according to Jace, Delly had been held captive like this for over a week. She wore a leather halter top that exposed her muscled abdomen and paired it with a knee-length paneled leather skirt that gave her more range of movement than the ankle-length skirt she had usually worn at the Gilded Swan. Esther was also used to seeing her with copious amounts of gold jewelry on her arms, wrists, and ears, but now she only had her ruby choker. The rogue guessed her other adornments had been too magical to allow a prisoner to wear, though why they had let her keep the choker puzzled her.
Esther approached the adamantium bars and whispered to her friend, who lay just out of reach. “Delly, Delly. Wake up. I’ve come to . . .” Esther hesitated. She wasn’t here to rescue her, not really. She had exerted her stealth ability to the maximum to make it this far, something Delly had no skill in. They would likely be seen or heard before they left the dwarven cavern. The gnomes or humans would definitely spot them, and Delly was bigger and broader than Esther and would have no chance of fitting through Damon’s narrow escape shute. And before she could think of any way to overcome those issues, she would have to find a way to get through these thick metal bars. Even Jace’s sword, Diamond Cutter, would have difficulty with them, and Ester was terrible at picking locks.
No, she wasn’t there to rescue Delly, at least not yet. “I’ve come to help you,” she settled on as the woman’s dark form stirred slightly in the shadows. Lighting was minimal in the cell area. The rough-hewn alcove off the main hallway was 30 feet in diameter, with a bench and a few hooks in the wall. Delly’s cell was only 8 feet in diameter and four feet high in the center, creating a perfect quarter sphere with the only flat wall being the metal bars. Neither area had lights, and the magical sconces in the hall outside were positioned so they never shone directly into a cell, giving the prisoners only indirect illumination.
It was enough light for Esther to see clearly, but she didn’t know how Delly would fare. The barbarian woman was a succubus-human hybrid, which Esther didn’t fully understand. Of course, the rogue was a warm-blooded vampire, so she didn’t dwell long on Delly’s unique nature.
The captive woman slowly pushed herself off the floor until she rested on her elbows, her filthy black hair cascading past her light ebony skin. She squinted into the darkness and had to lift a hand from the floor to brush her hair away. “Who’s there?” Her voice was pitifully weak.
Speaking had pulled Esther from the shadows, but she still wore all black. Delly likely suffered from multiple banes preventing her from fully utilizing whatever dark vision her demonic nature provided.
“It’s me, Esther. I’ve come to help you.”
Delly contorted her body into an uncomfortable sitting position. “You shouldn’t have come,” she croaked, hunching over from the domed ceiling and peering at her friend through tired eyes. “There is no escape for me.”
The ceiling height was the greatest right next to the bars, but Esther saw Delly stayed at least an arm’s reach from the adamantium. The dwarves were unlikely to molest her, but dwarves hadn’t put her here. Esther wondered how often men from above came down to check on Delly and if they would bring her breakfast. The chaos she had initiated in the mines above should slow any potential visitors, but she understood she should get straight to the point.
“You are right,” she said. “I can’t rescue you, but I’m not here alone.”
Delly perked up at this and peered into the darkness on either side of Esther.
“No,” the rogue corrected. “That’s not what I meant. I am here alone, in your cell, but Jace, the leader of my group, is coming too. He will find a way to rescue you. He always does.”
“Is that the orc you were with in the Swan?” Delly asked, no small amount of disgust in her voice.
“Yes, but he isn’t really an orc. He only looks that way. He is a human from another realm and the smartest person I know.” Esther paused as she realized that qualification was a relatively low bar. “Everyone else says he’s the best too. He will find a way to get you out of here. We’ve already rescued Leah and Tami. But we need to know more about you. At the Swan, you never wanted to talk about your past. But I need to hear your story now.”
Delly chuckled, and the laughter in her dry throat quickly turned to body-wrenching coughs. “Esther, dear,” she said, her voice sounding like nails across slate. “I appreciate the effort, but I can barely stay awake, much less talk. I don’t have the strength . . .”
“Oh, right,” Esther said absentmindedly. “I forgot.” She dug into a pouch at her waist and removed two potions. “Here.” She slipped them through the bars and rolled them to her friend. “Drink these.”
Delly recognized the health potion easily and didn’t need encouragement to drink it. Moments later, she sat up straighter until her head rested against the low ceiling. She scooted closer to the bars so she didn’t have to hunch. The second potion glowed blue, and the barbarian didn’t recognize it. Still, she trusted her friend and drank fully. It restored her mana, and Delly felt like a new woman. She still suffered from banes that wouldn’t dissipate until she had personal attention from a priest or a whole night’s rest in a bed not made of stone, but she looked much better.
“My memories don’t go as far back as I think they should,” Delly said. “I can tell you what I remember, and it explains how I ended up at the Gilded Swan, why I am still wearing this,” she tugged at her choker, “and what brought me here.”
“Gracie,” Esther whispered as she sat on the cool stone, “get ready to pay attention.”