“A toy?” Edwin asked with a grin, moving the glaive through a slow whirl. “This is a revelation in bladed weaponry, masterfully crafted through methods long forgotten!”

“A fancy toy, got it.” Bordan said, mostly managing to sound uninterested. “Let’s secure the area, then you can show off your stick.”

“Sounds good.” Edwin said, then turned towards the mage. “Salissa, mind powering up the lights?”

She looked surprised, then shrugged.

“Sure, if you want. Give me your mace and I can put some more power in.”

Edwin shook his head.

“Not those lights. The ones in the ceiling.”

The general confusion on the faces of his companions made Edwin chuckle.

“As I said, this is a Pioneer ruin. They didn’t bother with lanterns or torches, they built lights right into the walls and ceilings of their underground structures. We just need to find a relay…”

Edwin walked to the wall and shone the light of his mace along the artificial trees and vines. After a few seconds, he let out a satisfied huff.

“Found one. Salissa, just come over here and put your hand there... No, a little higher and to the right. One of the roots feels a little different, more metallic. Just push mana in there.”

And she did. Where before, the cold, bluish white light of her magelights had barely lit the room, suddenly it felt as if the sun was slowly rising. Even Edwin could do nothing but stare in wonder as all the lights in the ruin came to life as one.

The walls that had seemed like a dark mass of roots of different thickness were actually made of brown trees sprouting from the floor and green vines ‘hanging’ from the ceiling. The magic lights in the ceiling were artfully hidden behind artificial branches and leaves, so the warm, indirect light that flooded the room made the adventurers feel like they were standing in a dense forest on a sunny day. Looking up, Edwin almost felt like the stone leaves were slowly moving in a nonexistent breeze.

“Wow.” Leodin breathed, and the others could only nod.

Once they had recovered from their surprise, the adventurers looked around. The large room they were in looked like a very messy slaughterhouse, but even without the plentiful bodies it was clearly disordered. Dirt, gnawed bones, pieces of pelts and other refuse from centuries of animal inhabitation were scattered about and accumulating at the edges. In one corner, benches and tables built in the same false-wood theme were roughly piled up.

“Maybe this used to be a common room, or a mess.” Edwin said, pointing them out.

“It’s certainly a mess now.” Leodin grumbled, cautiously stepping over a tangle of disemboweled goblins.

Each wall held at least one doorway. The left one led into a room filled with strange stone-root constructs that they couldn’t place immediately.

“Bunk beds?” Bordan finally asked.

“Could be.” Edwin said, crouching down to look beneath one. “Small ones though.”

Where most of the ruin had clearly been built for creatures larger than humans, these bedframes certainly weren’t.

Opposite of the corridor were three separate doorways, each leading into a smaller room with a much larger bed and a small table. Completing the ensemble was a bench of sorts that seemed to flow straight out of the wall, as false roots simply curved inwards to form the seat.

The middle room had been inhabited by the hobgoblin, which showed. Aside from the usual dirt and droppings, all three of the single rooms were empty.

The last doorway, to the right of the corridor, led into a large, empty room that the goblins had used as a toilet. The adventurers only stayed long enough to make sure that nothing was hiding there, then they quickly turned their back on it.

“Storage, I think.” Bordan said once they were back in the main room. “There were shelves built into the walls.

Edwin sneezed. Walter was a genius, but even geniuses made mistakes. Improving Edwin’s sense of smell had, in hindsight, definitely been a mistake. Not that the main room was much better than the last one, mind you. Roasted goblin was quickly becoming one of Edwin’s least favorite things.

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They quickly checked down the corridor, and Edwin saw another ten dead goblins that had apparently attacked from the rear while he had been busy.

“A lot of them.” He said thoughtfully. “Weren’t hunting parties supposed to be around twenty? This looks more like forty to me.”

“Maybe some of the ones that fled from the valley came here.” Bordan suggested. “The ones that came from the other side weren’t armed. Maybe they knew where this group was and sought shelter with them.”

“Might be.” Edwin said, idly tapping the back of the glaive against his shoulder.

“Let’s take a quick break before we explore further.” Bordan said. “Everyone grab a drink. Leodin, keep an eye down that hallway.”

Edwin took a swig from his waterskin, realized how thirsty he was, and took another, longer one. His body suppressed the feelings of thirst and hunger except for when he actually ate or drank.

“Alright, so what is that and where did you get it?” Bordan asked.

“The hob had it.” Edwin grinned. “Salissa was nice enough to procure it for me.”

“I had to do something; you were getting thrashed.” Salissa said mockingly.

Edwin smiled. Salissa taking part in banter was a recent development, and he enjoyed seeing her open up.

Bordan’s eyes found Edwin’s discarded shield, then flicked to his left arm, where the gambeson sported a bloody rend.

“Just a scratch.” Edwin said, raising his left hand and wiggling his fingers. “The shield sacrificed itself to save me, bless its soul. But it showed me quite impressively that getting hit was a bad idea, so I asked Salissa to help out. Oh Bordan, the look in its eyes when its strike simply stopped in mid-air... Priceless.”

Edwin chuckled evilly, remembering the monster’s dumbfounded expression.

“Right, so give it here then.”

Bordan held out his hands expectantly.

Before handing it over, Edwin took the opportunity to admire the weapon for the first time now that the lights were on. It was, put simply, a piece of art.

Five Magestone “roots” were braided together in a natural-looking pattern to form the shaft. At the bottom they were the thinnest, weaving into a very pointy spike, and gradually grew thicker the higher up they went, although without actually changing the diameter of the shaft. Each of the roots had a different color: Black, green, brown, grey and silver.

At the top, the roots parted, then the black one formed a half-meter long single-edged blade. The silver one combined with it, creating a network of thin silver veins throughout the whole blade. The three other roots twirled around each other, meeting the back of the blade every now and again as if to reinforce it but otherwise leaving the space behind it empty.

In total, the weapon was as tall as Edwin himself.

“Don’t scratch it. I love this stick more than you.” Edwin told Bordan as he held it out to the former soldier, dropping it into his waiting hands.

“It went clean through your shield, how would I scratch great gods this thing is heavy!”

Edwin chuckled as Bordan almost dropped it, barely catching his balance and managing to hold on to the glaive. He recovered, raising the weapon with obvious strain and leading it into a slow swing.

“Edwin, this is ridiculous. Is this thing actually made of stone? How did you fight with this?”

“Almost, but not really.” Edwin said, chuckling. “It’s Magestone. Pioneer Magestone to be exact, which is a fancy way of saying that I have no idea what it’s made of.”

“The hell’s Magestone?” Leodin asked. The marksman was leaning against the doorway, crossbow at the ready, spectating their shenanigans.

“It’s what mages call anything they’ve transmuted. Everything in this place is made of the stuff.” Edwin said. “You’ve probably seen mage-built houses right? The reason they can build things that normal people can’t is because the building materials they use are magically changed to be lighter, heavier, more durable, more flexible or maybe even just another color. They can also fuse them together, giving the bonds much more strength than mortar could. A master materialist can make Magestone do pretty much anything – and won’t hesitate for a second to tell you that the Pioneers did it better.”

Edwin gestured to the structure they were standing in, the false forest that almost made them forget that they were below the earth.

“We know pretty much nothing about Pioneer society, but there are a few things we’ve learned from exploring their ruins. One of those is that they absolutely loved building things. Every ruin we found follows a different theme or design philosophy, the larger ones like the Cavernport or the bridge at Pel Mahavir even several ones in different areas.”

“What about weapons?” Leodin asked.

“They’re rare, but they exist, obviously.” Edwin answered, accepting the glaive back from Bordan. “Each one that is found is unique, they’re really sharp and never go dull. Nobles like hanging them on the wall to seem cultured. Nobody actually fights with them, because as Bordan just found out, they’re very heavy and unwieldy. Historians theorize that the Pioneers were bipedal, like us, but taller and stronger. That’s why almost everything in here seems oversized.”

“Except for the beds.” Bordan said.

“Sure, except for those. Servant races, most likely.”

“Well, thank you for another thrilling history lesson, Edwin.” Bordan said, picking his spear back up and marching into the hallway. “Let’s clear out the rest of this dump.”

“The word you’re looking for is ‘archeological marvel’, my friend.” Edwin said with grin.

As they walked past the stairs, Leodin pointed at the wall across from the landing.

“This part looks different. You think it’s a door?”

Edwin stepped to the side to get a better look and slowed.

“It does look like one…” He said, trailing off as his eyes found the runes half hidden between the curling vines and roots.

“Weird that this one’s closed when everything else is open…” Leodin said, Edwin’s party members reaching the end of the corridor and taking a left at the T-junction.

Walter read runes as easily as he read human letters, but whoever had built the structure had made the writing tastefully blend into the decorations which made them a little harder to decipher. His eyebrows rose and he stilled, reading them a second time. A grin crept onto his face, slowly widening into a full smile.

“…nother empty storeroom. Edwin, you coming?” Bordan called from the junction.

“On my way!” He answered, jogging to catch up to his team.