“We didn’t think that Sonny had made it out,” The woman leaned on her tower shield hard, her features drawn and tense. Looking around the small space, Bert saw several people lying in corners, some sleeping, others just unconscious.

Everyone was covered in blood, with the remains of a small fire in the center of the room. Only two others were still on their feet beside the tank they were talking to.

A rogue that looked a bit like he had copied Mandy’s look, but male, and a walking corpse of a woman in pale robes. She wavered on her feet, looking distant and unfocused.

“That’s what’s left of our healer,” The tank said quietly. “She wouldn’t stop healing, even when she was out of mana. She just kept drinking down potions, even when they made her scream in pain.”

“I’ll get some carcasses from the next room,” Wendy said, darting out to collect them.

“You can heal?” The tank asked, surprised. “Where is the rest of your group?”

“Yes, and it’s just us,” Bert said. He took the first carcass from Wendy and started casting Reclaim Flesh on the worst off.

The healer mutely followed him around, watching with dead eyes while he and Wendy worked to heal everyone. She let him heal her only after they were done with everyone else.

Her body reinflated as Bert healed her, but her eyes remained unfocused and distant. Before they moved out, Scruff sealed the stairway with thick, vigorous vines. It wouldn’t hold for long, but it would give them enough time to walk the others out.

And they were headed out.

None of the Delver’s Guild argued. They were more than happy to see the last of the ruins for now.

“What in the Gods’ eyes is all this?” The tank stared over the edge of the walkway at the veritable garden growing in the ditches below them.

Scruff just smiled when Bert raised an eyebrow at her in question.

“I didn’t want to waste the good soil,” She said eventually. “I always carry some good seeds with me, just in case.”

“Pretty,” The healer was staring at the flowers on a vine that was slowly growing up toward the walkway.

It was the first time she had said a word.

Wendy gently took her hand and kept leading her along with the others. The way was clear, although it looked like several somethings had tried their luck against the various vines blocking off the side passages.

All that remained were pools of blood and some very healthy-looking vines. It only took them twenty minutes to reach the stairs again. The direct route was always best when it came to evacuations. The glow from above was immediately apparent.

They emerged into bright daylight from the archway above them. It was made of twined vines and bits of rubble. The rest of the roof on one corner had been transformed into a set of broad, strong stairs. Glowing blooms lined the stairs.

Bert had to admit the smug look on Scruff’s face as everyone stared in wonder was well deserved.

“Up you go, Ladies and Gentlemen,” Bud waved them up the stairs. “Head straight for the Waystation, please.”

Bert sat down on a piece of rubble, marveling at his people. He really needed to get some more levels. He was starting to think he was lagging behind.

Bud was able to fire arrows fast enough to compete with a machine gun. Wendy was dancing death with an army of creepy crawlies to back her up, and Scruff… she may well be the strongest of them all. Well, except Bell.

Once everyone had evacuated, Bert led the team back down. They moved quickly through the level and back to the stairs. They still had no idea how many more levels down they would have to go before they found whatever was spawning those Security Drones.

From the look of the light coming through the arch, they were past noon already. He just had to hope the next levels were smaller than those they had already searched.

Bert waited, weapons raised, as Scruff pulled back the vines over the stairs.

A metal fist slammed through the gap, making his shield ring. Bert countered, slamming his axe down, hearing a loud ringing as his whole Prosthetic vibrated with the impact.

“Light!” He called, and the Fae-Lights reappeared.

A metal statue glowered at him from behind the vines. As soon as the last one pulled back, it stepped out. The hardened metal of a kind he had never seen before sheathed the figure; it almost looked like a suit of armor but without the room on the inside of it. A blast of mana from his shield flowed over the thing as if it was a light breeze.

The figure bowed once, and he finally realized what it reminded him of. It was an artist’s dummy but with hands and a face. Two more blows rained on his shield as it advanced.

Striking out with his shield, Bert watched it easily sidestep the blow and launch a kick at him. The metal foot dented his chest piece as he was forced back a step.

An arrow lodged in one arm joint, which slowed the creature slightly.

Bert took the opportunity to change his prosthetic into a hammer, a glowing heat rune engraved on the head.

Scruff sent her vines at the thing, but it simply ripped itself clear of them and kept coming.

Bert did something he had not had to do in a long time. He cycled the tides as fast as he could, the mana coursing through his muscles and bones to strengthen them. The dummy came again; his hammer struck it in the chest, his full power behind it, leaving a faint impression on the dark metal. Grinning, the Garbage Man went to work.

He may not be a strategic genius or even much of a fighter, but he knew what to do in a brawl.

The two traded blows, with the dummy slowing more and more as it became dented and dimpled with the impact of hammer and shield. It began to shake as he slammed his hammer into one joint after another. It fell to one knee, then to the floor as he rained blows down, all attempts at control gone as the mana flowing through his veins sang to him of battle.

When he stood over its unmoving form and saw two more marching up the stairs, he didn’t hesitate. He strode forward to meet them as something changed in the mana tides; they shifted slightly, a rhythm forming as he fought harder and harder.

His mana channels began to pulse in time to the beat, turning the dark stairway into a strobe-lit nightmare. The metallic gong of his axe and shield striking the golems faded away as he dropped further and further into the fury of the Fae. Something here called to his blood, demanding he never stop fighting. Never stop fighting.

Never stop fighting.

Never stop.

Never.

He felt himself roar, his manic anger unleashed as he stopped thinking entirely. He reached the bottom of the stairs and leaped into the dark, the ground cracking where he landed, another enemy in his sights; Bert shield charged, sending it flying.

Somehow, he knew this place was an enemy.

Not just his enemy.

An enemy of the Fae had been found.

And they would answer to a Lord of the Fae.

A fire blazed in the deep.

Then another.

Looking around him, Bert saw his Court. Their eyes frenzied; they all burned with the Fury of the Fae.

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More figures strode from the darkness around them. Dark metal lines formed up in the darkness, ready to charge.

Bert threw his arms wide and laughed in joy as a flaming figure faded into place above them. She waved her hands in time with the beat, and the figures stumbled, turning on each other.

Bert Hudson, Lord of the Fae, charged.

And his Court charged with him.

When he could finally think again, Bert was exhausted, his breath coming in ragged gasps through a throat raw from yelling. Around him, the others were doing the same, Scruff and Lily collapsing to the floor, their chests heaving.

The large, open room around them was scattered with broken and smashed automatons.

“What… the… fuck… was… that,” Scruff panted from her spot on the floor.

“Fury of the Fae,” Bud said quietly. “I’ve seen it once before.”

Bert shook his head, clearing the cobwebs from his mind. Flashes of fighting in the dark came to him, everything lit by the Fae fire. Fists coming out of the gloom, then maces and swords. His armor was… wrecked.

He’d need to fix that.

“Dad?” Wendy asked gently.

“Yeah?” He responded dully.

“Are you okay?” She asked, crouching down next to him.

Bert was pleased to see her armor was already repairing itself.

“Good enough,” He looked around. “Everyone made it?”

Bud gave him a tired thumbs up, and so did Scruff, although she did it with a vine so she didn’t have to move.

“Lily?” He called.

She didn’t move.

Bert scrambled over to her, finding she was breathing shallowly with her skin pale and covered in a sheen of cold sweat. He tried to heal her, but other than a few cuts here and there, she didn’t seem hurt.

Just unresponsive, staring at the ceiling with a locked gaze.

“Did anyone see anything hit her?” He asked.

“No,” Bud shook his head. “Not that I can remember.”

“I shouldn’t have brought her here,” Bert chastised himself. “She was supposed to hide!”

He held the little Fae close, her body cooling in the underground room.

She took one breath, then another, then…

Lily caught fire, the Fae fire burning brighter than before as she began to shake and convulse.

Bert held on to her, trying to force Reclaim Flesh to heal whatever was wrong.

Her eyes closed, and the fire consumed her, starting at the arms and legs.

“NO!” Bert screamed, trying desperately to hold onto her as she burned away. “NO!”

The fire continued to burn her away until only a large orb remained in his hands.

Bert wept as Bud put a hand on his shoulder, silent tears of glimmering gold running down his skull.

The orb shivered, and cracks began to spread through it. A vibration passed over the shell, shattering it, and what was inside made Bert freeze in place.

A small body yawned and stretched and yawned again.

“What happened?” Lily asked, looking up at Bert in confusion, “And why are you so big?”

Bert was too stunned to speak.

Lily’s eyes went as wide as saucers as she stared at something only she could see.

Then she screamed in joy.

“I EVOLVED INTO A PIXIE!” Lily screamed, with all of her power behind it. The call rang through the dark room. She launched out of Bert’s hands, zooming in circles around the stunned group.

Bert collapsed onto his back.

“This fucking world is gonna kill me,” Bert laughed.

===========

“What is it?” Abby Hoffstetter asked her assistant, Aldrich.

“How am I supposed to know?” The man asked dumbly before turning back to the sight above them.

High above the Waystation, a pixie floated, burning with blue fire. All up and down the line of the Waystation, the Multi-Bells burned with the same fire. None of that was what people were staring at.

They stared at a Giant Sloth Bear standing on her back legs and roaring as she burned with a bright blue flame.

Every one of the burning ones faced the same direction, their eyes fixed on the ruins.

A half-hour later, it stopped.

The Sloth Bear huffed and went back to sleep while the Multi-Bells turned back to their guard duty.

Bell herself lowered down from the sky, returning to her human form as she touched lightly down in the center of the Waystation’s claimed land.

“What was that?” Abby demanded the moment Bell touched down.

“That was the anger of a Lord of the Fae,” Bell said as she turned to face the explorer. “Pray you never see it again.”

Abby stared at Bell and realized for the first time that the woman in front of her was not even remotely human. She had studied insects as a young researcher. She remembered how she looked down on them as they scurried through their burrows and nests.

Today, Abby Hoffstetter knew what it was like to be one of those insects and look up.

She swallowed and turned away.

Bell walked calmly back into the Waystation, everyone in her way scrambling to avoid her gaze.

“Suddenly, I remember all those stories my grandparents used to tell,” Aldrich said slowly.

“What stories?” Abby asked, desperate to distract herself.

“They boil down to one message,” Aldrich said, “Be afraid of the Fae.”

“Do you tell your children those stories?” Abby asked.

“No,” Aldrich admitted.

“Start,” Abby said firmly and strode away. Perhaps it was time to move into the new buildings.

Or perhaps across the continent.

============

“Why did that happen?” Wendy asked when everyone had recovered from the exhaustion and the following shock of Lily’s transformation.

“And is it going to happen again?” Scruff asked. “Because I don’t think I can do that twice.”

“Whatever this place was, it was run by an enemy of the Fae,” Bert said. “Don’t ask me how I know; I just do.”

“How do you know?” Bud, Scruff, and Wendy asked immediately.

Bert laughed.

“When I cycled the tides, they told me.” Bert winced.

“Me too,” Bud admitted.

“And me,” Wendy said.

“Then why did you ask?” Bert gave her a look.

“What?” She grinned. “Like I was going to be the one who said their magic was talking to them?” She laughed. “No chance. I’d sound nuts.”

Bert raised his eyebrows at her.

“Oh, come on,” She said. “Everyone thinks you’re nuts already.”

Bert laughed.

She wasn’t wrong.

Bert climbed slowly to his feet, and the group spread out, collecting everything they could of the fallen gollems. Training gollems, to be exact. No wonder they were so difficult to put down; they had been designed to be smacked for years. When they started to run out of space, Scruff slammed some vines into the floor to collect and hold all the shattered and broken metal.

The team moved on, leaving the complicated vine work to start processing the metal while they searched.

It didn’t take long to find the barracks. The lines of collapsed bunkbeds were a dead giveaway. Footprints in the dust showed the golems had come through here, so they moved through quickly, seeking the source.

The last thing they wanted was more of those things sneaking up on them.

They found another training hall, complete with the empty storage rooms where the golems had been kept.

The lines of footprints confirmed they had come from there, but even without that, the scattered parts that remained piled in the corners would have been enough to prove it.

“Barracks, Training Hall, all we are missing is the good bit,” Bert said.

“What do you mean?” Bud asked.

“The Armory,” Bert grinned.

They kept searching, coming across the occasional lone golem here and there, finding no sign of an armory at first.

They found the empty kitchens and eating hall at the back of their third barracks room, but there was nothing interesting there either.

Finally, they came to the last couple of rooms. The first was an officer’s barracks, with small offices complete with a bed and a side table of carved stone. The largest office sported a large engraved map on one wall.

“Is this the continent we are on?” Wendy asked.

“Must be,” Bert traced the map until he found what appeared to be where they entered the continent. It looked different in many ways, but he could read a map well enough to know it was the right place. From there, he worked his way until he found where they were. A sigil carved in that spot was repeated in another eleven locations on the map.

The problem was that everything looked a little off. However long ago this map had been drawn, it looked like it was almost useless now.

Still, it was the best they had for now, so he told everyone to do their best to remember it. He even tried Reclaim Knowledge, but the spell fizzled out without result.

Beyond there, they found the armory.

It was empty. Only the metal weapon racks and empty armor dummies were left behind to prove what it had once been.

They were on their way out when Bert’s foot knocked against a bit of detritus in a corner.

Looking down, he stared in shock.

“Is that a bloody gun?” Wendy dashed over for a closer look.

They excitedly cleaned off the lump of metal and paused.

It almost looked like a gun. A pistol, to be precise. Bert had never been much of a gun guy, but there was something about the shape of an automatic pistol that just stuck in the brain.

This was almost that.

The grip was larger, and almost oval in shape, and the barrel had no slide that he could see.

The brittle metal cracked open easily, revealing a series of small mana crystals long drained. Bert stared at it in confusion.

This was some form of magic-powered pistol; he was sure of it. But why? In a world of magic and spells, let alone skills that allow an archer to outpace anything short of a Gatling gun… what was the point? He slipped it into his bracer storage anyway, for study later.

The last tunnel led to a large door, now hanging open. Claw marks marred the floor, and faint burn marks marred the smooth stone.

More stairs, heading down.

“Come on,” Bert said, readying his shield as he led his team deeper still into the ruins, “Let’s see where this goes.”