Their mingled steps pounding a staccato rhythm Ramal ran, Dnoeth right on his heels. Each stride collecting data, expanding his sight into the cavern he had hoped to use against the Baltaris. Rapidly, his concern grew that would not be the case. The rendering revealed in his transparent overlay, with its god eye perspective, only confounded him.

The large rectangular space, promising for its corners could be used against the creature, just ended, right in the middle, and in a clean line as if his map was snipped off there. His skill wasn’t malfunctioning, he was picking up peripheral data, there was just nothing beyond that point, nothing to detect. “Something’s strange in this next cavern, stay sharp!”

Dnoeth grunted acknowledgment. Barreling in moments later, Ramal understood. His ability couldn’t map that which didn’t exist.

“What the…” Dnoeth said, his voice disbelieving, and Ramal echoed the sentiment silently.

They ran to the edge of the stone, heads twisting about and mouths ajar at the seemingly endless black. Peering over the edge revealed more darkness.

“We’re fucked.” Dnoeth whispered.

Ramal looked left and noticed a slight inward curve to the sheer wall of rock at the furthest reach of his dark vision. Looking first right and then up, he saw the same effect.

Ramal ran to the right while monitoring his rendering overlay.

Reaching the end, he turned and ran back in the other direction. “What the hell are you doing?” Dnoeth asked.

“Gathering data.” Ramal called over his shoulder. Moments later he returned to Dnoeth’s side.

“We need to a place to put her down,” Dnoeth said, shifting Roxanna on his shoulder. “Preferably one where she’ll be safe.”

Ramal shook his head. “There’s nowhere safe up here. But I’ve got another opening about thirty feet down. Over there.” He pointed back where he’d just come from. “But, with Roxy out cold, and without her rock manipulation”–his lips thinned, and head shook–“we have no way to get you both down there. And that’s assuming you can climb using your Daedrium.”

His gaze met Dnoeth’s. Dnoeth nodded, his face creased in thought. “I can,” he said, tone distracted. Then walked to the edge.

Ramal spread his arms out, indicating the enormous void. “I think this may be a sphere.”

Dnoeth looked into the nothing. “What?” He scowled. “How the hell…”

Ramal nodded slowly. “Don’t know and it doesn’t matter. We need a plan.”

For a couple heartbeats they were quiet. Ramal raised the enormous c-shaped horn in contemplation. As if prompted, the Baltaris screeched.

The warbling spewed forth from the passage. The sound clashed with itself, multiple echoes overlapping and creating a dissonant storm that sounded of many demons. They both shivered.

“That sounds like we’ve still got a little bit of time,” said Dnoeth.

“Yeah, but not enough to back track,” Ramal grunted. “Can’t face it in those tunnels, not without a tactical advantage, we’d be dead in a minute.”

He turned to the void. “If we could knock it in there, that’d give us time to get back to armory. Probably won’t kill it. But with Roxy unconcious, that’s not likely anyhow.”

“Ohh.” Dnoeth realized something. His expression brightened, then he started grinning.

“What the hell you smiling at?” Ramal double checked his rendering for something he may have missed. There was nothing new. Ramal didn’t like this game, he glowered. “D, stop it. Just tell me.”

Dnoeth was not even this slightest bit intimidated and he waited a second longer to respond. When he did, his voice had a mocking tone. “Your hundred-pound capacity only applies to flying, right?”

----------------------------------------

Fifty pounds lighter, Ramal landed back on the lip of the platform not far from Dnoeth. Roxy’s unconscious form was on the ground, while Dnoeth stood, his glaivis equipped and face coated in Daedrium, guarding her. Jet black hair fell around his metallic features and silver eyes.

Kid cuts an imposing figure, Ramal realized, taking in the young warrior. Dnoeth’s giddy, boyish energy when splashing through the river was nothing but a memory.

“It’s clear.” Ramal reported in a bare whisper. “Leads back into another series of tunnels, although I didn’t check very far.”

Dnoeth looked down at his thick cotton skivvies. “You took off your pants?" Then at his torso. "But kept on your tunic?”

“Fuck yeah.” Ramal replied. “Weapons all attach to the tunic, except for the hammer.” It, his large belt pouch, shoes, and pants were all down in the lower passage. He’d considered doffing the tunic as well, but years of training made it basically impossible for Ramal to willingly leave all his weapons behind unguarded.

He lifted Roxy in a princess carry, which wasn’t ideal as it required both hands, but his wings prevented him using any other method. Ramal didn’t like this part of their plan. Roxy was not small, plus she was wearing all of her Varden gear. Even though she felt light in his arms, he estimated she was at least two hundred pounds.

It’ll work, it’s just gliding, he reassured himself. He just couldn’t fly carrying more than a hundred pounds. Gliding was a different animal completely. At least he hoped so.

Dnoeth had stowed his cyff and tied his shoes together, draping them around his neck. Eyes shut, he focused and his Daedrium liquified. Ramal watched with interest.

The metal slid down his face, disappearing under his armor before emerging from his sleeves and pant cuffs to gather around his hands and feet. It organized, extended, and formed into spikes on all four appendages.

The hand spikes were thinner and longer, protruding from the meaty outside bit, opposite his thumbs, and extending back up his forearm several inches for stability. On his feet, they were short, broad and grown from his first two toes which were merged into one. Like his hands, a stabilizing ridge ran up the top of his feet. His remaining Daedrium was spread evenly into metallic gloves and socks.

Dnoeth opened his eyes. “Okay, I’m going,” he whispered, then crouched backward on the edge and jabbed his hand spikes into the floor before dropping his legs over and kicking them into the vertical rock. In short order Dnoeth was descending toward the opening.

Ramal turned to check the tunnel just as six red eyes and several tons of black demon stepped from the tunnel, immediately bearing done on him.

Ramal’s battle sense surged. He turned right back around and leapt, wings unfurling. The enraged chittering bellow that followed told Dnoeth all he needed to know.

Erramir sat, turned about thirty degrees to the left, in what he could only describe as the second coolest machine he’d ever seen–his NexU being the first. Said simply, it was a magical gun turret with steel steam-punk controls.

They’d gone as far down the line as they dared. Or really as far as blockbot dared since he was the one actually driving. Fortunately, the nose cone was beyond the left tunnel wall and he had a clear view out into the black gulf. So, it was far enough.

His True Vision’s range wasn’t nearly sufficient to pierce the distance, but somewhere over there was the party of Und Varden.

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Once the train car had stopped, they’d opened the door and Carson had managed to weave a stabilizing spell for the stone under the final portion of the track. While he was doing that, Erramir had settled into the gunner’s seat and, with blockbot’s help, activate the weapon.

Before activation, the gunner seat had direct access to the passenger area of the car, if with a lower overhead because of the sloping front end. That changed dramatically after activation.

First, the nosecone’s upper half melted away. As it did this, several other things happened almost simultaneously: A wall of metal rose up behind the seat, isolating him from the main cabin. The seat slid forward, coming to rest directly above the gun. And, the curved clear window expanded to a complete spherical bubble, with Erramir sitting in its center.

All of these changes occurred in no more than a handful of seconds while he watched, initial surprise transforming to devilish glee.

Before him, there were levers, peddles, and the center mounted stick, reminiscent of fighter-jet joystick. Instead of buttons, there were glowing glyphs on a plate of metal mounted on his right.

Through experimentation, he’d discovered the peddles rotated the turret from side-to-side while the joystick controlled its orientation on the vertical axis.

There was a levered grip on the joystick with a concave, hollow back. When squeezed, its fit around the control stick and caused a rune to glow red on top, right under his thumb. “Hehe. So cool.”

There was, unfortunately, no targeting.

The bubble was somehow connected to the main cabin in a way that allowed them to talk. “Val, I’m just looking into darkness here. Can blockbot turn on the targeting.”

“You know this has to go through Virg, right?”

“I can’t see anything like this. I’m just as likely to hit the Varden as I am to hit the monster. Odds are I won’t hit anything. Please Just try.”

“I’m trying.” She sounded slightly annoyed. “How would you explain the concept of a targeting system to the mind of a three-year-old?”

Erramir didn’t have an answer for that. “Fuck. Good point. Ok, I’m going to just try pressing buttons, let me know if anything bad happens back there.”

“We’re so going to die.” Carson muttered.

“Shut up Car, you’re not helping.” Val scolded.

On the side panel, Erramir pressed a silvery glyph. Below him, gears whirred, and he leaned forward, looking down. A section on the back right of the barrel melted. A foot long, handspan wide, pointed projectile was loaded into the barrel by an arm of liquid metal. The barrel then resealed, and the whirring stopped. “Well that’s good anyhow.”

“What’s good? What happened?” Carson’s voice was tinged with panic.

“The gun is loaded!” Erramir said, smiling.

He pressed another glyph with an orange-brown glow and looked out into the blackness. At first nothing happened. He looked down and saw thick tendrils of liquid metal extending from the bottom of the train car and bracing against the ground and base of the tunnel wall. “Ok the stabilizers are deployed!”

“Stabilizers? What stabilizers!?” called Carson.

Erramir ignored him and reached for another glyph that was one of an isolated pair at the top of the panel and glowed blue. He pressed it. The gruff voice from the armory spoke. “Warning, Daedrium Cannon pod one separating from main fuselage. Stand clear.”

“What the fuck!” Carson yelled.

Erramir quickly pressed the button again. The gruff voice spoke. “Daedrium Cannon pod one separation cancelled.”

“Sorry. I’m just guessing up here. I won’t push that one again.”

Carson cursed, loudly. Then dejectedly added, “We are so going to fucking die.”

Val didn’t tell him to shut up this time, which spoke volumes about her mental state. Instead she added to Erramir’s stress. “Don’t kill us Err. But ahh, you need to hurry up, that monster is almost right on top of them.”

“Hurry up? No, don’t do that!” Carson’s almost screamed. “Isn’t there a fucking manual up there or something?”

Erramir didn’t respond. There was no manual and he still had glyph buttons to try. Avoiding the second in the isolated, blue pair, which he would only try as a last resort, he instead looked at the silver one that had loaded the cannon. There were two others, and from their arrangement, it seemed likely the other two were different types of ammo.

Just to make sure he pressed the third of the three. The whirring noise resulted, and he watched as the projectile was swapped out for another one with a ring of glowing silver and green runes around the point.

Activating True Vision, the round shone like a star. It didn’t look like something he should use anywhere near allies. “Umm, that looks...” The cannon sealed around the rune marked round. “Dangerous.”

“Dangerous?! What’s fucking dangerous? Don’t press the dangerous shit!” Erramir didn’t respond. Seconds later, a hollow thud resounded from the dividing barrier. Carson’s voice was slightly muffled when he spoke again. “Seriously bro, did you find a manual?”

Erramir pressed the silver glowing rune to reload the projectile that wasn’t marked with runes. “It’s fine. I just swapped out the plain ammo for a round with glowing runes. I’m swapping it back. And, there’s no manual, bud.” He replied, forgoing a retort, and opting to focus.

He patted the sides of the seat, checked its underside, then inspected the full length of the joystick, finding nothing new. The only other control on the side panel was a knob that looked like a rheostat. That was probably power, not targeting and it was set really low. He turned it to a middle setting.

“Guys, I’m not sure I can turn on the targeting from up here. I’ve pushed everything that makes sense. Any luck with blockbot, Val?”

“No. Virg is confused. The only thing he’s said that makes any sense is ‘special shield people.’ And he says that to refer to the Und Varden.”

For some reason that struck a note for Erramir. “Hey, wasn’t that what blockbot said at the door to the station? It only entered after I pressed my tattoo against one of its blocks.”

“Yeah, that’s the first time he said it. You thought it had something to do with security protocols. Verification redundancy, or something?” She paused then asked, “You think that’s what this is?”

That was exactly what Erramir thought this was. What was more important to protect with redundancy that a massive cannon? He started looking for an Und Varden activation sigil. “Look for an Und Varden sigil around the separation wall!”

“Right!” Val said, then a second later, “Shit. If we don’t find this like right now, we’re gonna be too late. That monster is right on top of them.”

The scuff of frantic hands searching sounded from within the car while Erramir looked everywhere in the pod. Leaning back, he checked over both shoulders, and finally found something. On his right, a wide, narrow slot, almost like a pouch, tilted out from the back of the glyph-panel.

Reaching his left hand under his right arm he pulled a thin, palm sized token out of the slot. On it was the rooted hammer sigil. This has to be it.

He tugged violently on the vambrace straps, only loosening them before jerking it off, exposing his tattoo, and slapping the token over it. The metal softened, molded around the curve of his forearm, then liquified and melted into his skin.

An instant later, Erramir’s vision came alive with information.

Copies of each panel glyph were organized in a column down the left side. The symbol representing the chambered ammo type glowed brighter as did the rune that activated the stabilizer legs.

At the top, a horizontal bar was half full, which was about where he’d set the rheostat.

Free floating in his field of view there was a set of concentric circles surrounding crosshairs. It moved when his head shifted, maintaining their position relative to the cannon. No matter where he looked, the targeting interface was locked on where the weapon was aimed.

Best of all, the blackness was illuminated like it was high noon in August.

Almost directly across from them, Erramir could make out two tiny figures and one massive shadow. “I got it! Targeting online!”

“You better hurry up!” Val called back.

“Please, don’t let us die.” Carson added.

Erramir centered the cross hair on the big, fat, black beast. He squinted, there was an Und Varden in his line of sight. “Shit, where’s the zoom?”

His eyes went to a pair of runes, stacked one above the other, beside the targeting circles. Mentally, he activated the top one, and the image zoomed in. “Yes!” He pressed it several more times until his perspective was inside the fight. Erramir winced at the sight.

The monster gripped a Varden by one leg, dangling him above its mouth like a bunch of grapes. The man was still fighting with long metal claws, but his movements were weak and sloppy. A second, winged Varden was swooping back and forth unloading arrows at an incredible pace, drilling them into any opening the vile creature offered.

As he watched, the clawed Varden suddenly lashed out with focused intent, as if he’d been playing possum, and sliced clean though a mandible. With a bellow, the beast threw him violently into the ground.

The Varden’s body careened toward the platform edge and Erramir cringed. His legs tipped over the brink and Erramir resigned himself to saving just the winged man.

The Varden abruptly jerked to a stop with his lower half hanging over the void and his claws jammed into the rock. Erramir released a tense breath. Refocusing on the beast, he witnessed a metal arrow shaft slam into one of six eyes.

The creature roared and, even across the expanse, Erramir’s chest reverberated. Behind him, cursing was followed by muted arguing. He ignored them and set the cross hairs on creature’s bulbus center mass.

Above his targeting circle, a tic on the elevation scale glowed green. Erramir nudged the stick back, raising his aim to the indicated mark, squeezed the grip and dropped his thumb on the glowing rune.

The cannon thumped, the whole car shuddered, and a grey streak screamed into the void.