The steps are steep, not at all meant for dwarven legs. Ascent is a great effort, more a climb than a walk. Some of the shorter members of the party have no choice but to put away their weapons and use both hands to pull themselves up.

From some way above, I hear excited voices. I can just make out the words over the clattering of armor:

"Shine that torch around! Look at all this!"

"I don't believe it!"

"The Runethane will be pleased at this! The access rights—"

I curse under my breath. Not only the voices, but the shapes they make tell me of the discovery Rostok has made: the echoes are disappearing out into some large space. A cavern? A city? Whatever it is, Rostok has gotten here first, which means he's going to get the reward for its discovery.

But this is no reason to turn back. We might luck out, find something precious. Just because he's discovered the place doesn't mean he has a right to everything it contains. I say nothing and continue to clamber up slowly.

I listen as Rostok barks orders to his dwarves, telling them to spread out and search through the ruins. It seems to be a city they've found, then. Marching follows, then the grinding of stone as rubble-piles are pulled apart.

A few minutes later, I hear excited shouting:

"A weapon! And it's barely rusted!"

"Are there runes on it?"

"Yes. I don't know the script—it might be unknown."

"I hope so. We can put that Zathar to shame."

"Let's keep going through this pile, see if there's anything more."

I glance back at my dwarves. "Let's hurry. We can't let them get everything."

I increase my pace, clambering up the great steps with fury. So they think they can shame me, can they? Think the runes they find will prove superior to mine, do they? My ruby is growing warmer. How I would love to stick some of those dwarves through with Life-Ripper!

But I must resist that urge. I cannot become the aggressor here.

We enter the cavern about half an hour after Rostok. The red glow from the Iron Shields' torches, and the thin smoke they emit, makes the place look like how it must have all those many years ago when it was in the throes of destruction.

And there is no mistaking that this place was destroyed: it is similar in appearance to the city below, a great grid of stone houses, yet where those streets were intact, perfectly preserved, the dwellings here have been shattered. There is more rubble than structure.

What treasures might the piles contain? Judging from the houses in the forest, probably very little. Yet there is one place that might hold promise: the center.

It draws my ears. Over the racket of grunting and rubble-shifting, I can hear the outline of a massive building that's collapsed in on itself. There is the impression of delicate carvings on its fallen walls.

If there's anything truly precious, it'll be there.

"We stay together," I order. "Spreading out would only put us in danger. We stay as we are and make our way to the center. Be on the watch for any magic. This place is awfully similar to where the darkness dwelled."

"What if Rostok's dwarves try to stop us?" someone asks.

"Do not draw weapons unless they draw theirs first. Don't strike unless they strike first—trust in your armor to deflect that blow. But I don't expect them to attack. Surely they are not that foolish."

I lead my fourteen onward through the broken city. Thin veils of dust are descending from the ceiling, pouring from long thin cracks. These buildings, just like those in the city below, were carved directly from the stone. With them gone, the ceiling is unsupported, and now that the cave is being shaken by our violent excavations, it's likely growing unstable. I quicken our pace. We might not have so much time to explore.

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We climb over low piles of stone, ignoring the pairs of dwarves frantically digging through them. Reddish firelight and white weapon-light glints on their armor. They don't pay us any mind—are too concentrated on the task at hand to realize we aren't from their guild. They don't even seem to notice our weapons of light.

Greedy fools! Haven't they considered that there still might be monsters lurking here? Magic-wielders from a forgotten age? But then again, they have no way of knowing how similar this city is to its larger twin. To them, these are just empty ruins, no more frightening than any other dryly lifeless cave.

Before long, the collapsed castle or palace at the center of the city comes into eye-view. Rostok himself and two of his seniors are lifting great chunks of wall away. Each time one shatters on the ground, the cavern floor shivers. They understand they might not have much time here either and are trying to get through as fast as they can.

They haven't noticed us yet either. My hands become oddly warm. If I charged now, I could run him through the back. His shield is on the ground. It will be no defense. He's at a complete disadvantage.

I shake my head. No! We are not here to fight!

I make a gesture to my dwarves for us to turn. We skirt around the rubble piles dividing us and Rostok, trying to find another place where the rubble isn't stacked too high for us to pull apart safely. I spot a kind of divide in it, and we begin to push through, shoving the broken stones aside. Dust forms a fog around us, a haze made bright by our glowing maces.

"Who's that!" comes a shout.

"Guildmaster!" Dunthid calls. "Ten of them!"

"Guildmaster?"

"Out the way!" I say, shoving through my dwarves. "I'll handle them."

Ten of the Iron Shields have spotted us and formed a semi-circle before the divide in the great rubble pile. I resist the urge to point Life-Ripper at the face of their leader, a third degree with an insect-like emblem embossed into his shield.

"You!" he says. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"We are here by permission of the Runethane, same as you are. As you well know."

"This is our discovery. You should leave."

"By that logic, since it was we who found the forest in the first place, you lot should never have been allowed in."

"Clear off. That's your final warning."

"Or what?" I scoff. "You'll attack us? You saw what happened to Brezakh. And we humiliated you soon after—or do you not remember our encounter on the main road?"

He scowls. "I am going to inform Guildmaster Rostok of your presence. We will see what he has to say about this."

"Go ahead. He can say what he likes. We have just as much of a right to be here as you do. If you cannot accept that—we will see later what the Runethane has to say."

They march away, muttering curses under their breaths.

I gesture to two of my dwarves. "You two, stay here facing outward. Warn me when they return with Rostok."

They bow and hold up their maces of light crossed over the gap. I return to the front of the formation and continue to dig through the rubble. The center—that's where we want to go. I can sense, from the echoes bouncing around, that beyond the dwarf-high piles of smashed masonry there's a kind of room or pit in the middle of the palace. If there's anything worth finding in this structure, it'll be there.

We plough on, tossing bits of stone up and away. Ithis and I at the front forge the path, while those behind engage in a frantic effort to stop the stones sliding back to bury us. It's hard, heavy work, and reminds me uncomfortably of mining. I cough on the dust. It's just like mining.

Occasionally I'll notice a hideous, horned face on the piece of stone I'm holding, and be so unnerved that I'll toss it away with double-strength. Yet they also fascinate me. What were these creatures? Why did they come down here, into the underworld? I notice that several of the stones depict trees, forested scenes, and circles that might be the surface sun. I don't think these were originally creatures of the underground. Their architecture points to this being the case too—they have made separate houses, instead of rooms carved directly into the stone.

Though, I suppose we dwarves have both styles too. It's impossible to tell how these creatures lived from their architecture and carvings. I'm only sure of one thing—they fought us and we won. Since we've begun digging, there have been several more shouts of celebration. Rostok's dwarves are uncovering more buried dwarven weapons, dropped and lost during the ancient battle here.

We're nearly there now. I can tell from the tone of the grinding that we've nearly breached through to the open section. Rostok still hasn't confronted us—is he nearly through as well?

With a last mighty push I force over a broken pillar. It crashes and splinters. The wall bordering it crumbles apart, the scratched images disintegrating, the mysteries they told of lost beyond recovery.

Beyond is a stepped chamber, worryingly akin to that the dark sorcerer dwelt in. A few shining weapons are half covered by tiles.

"Come on!" I order. "Pick up anything with runes! But keep your wits about you! And get the two at the entrance closer to here as well!"

We hurry down the steps, jumping and crashing, smashing already broken tiles to dust beneath our boots. From the opposite wall, I can hear Rostok cursing. He's close by, and it seems there's a lot of dwarves with him. I take it that when he heard the news we were here, he redoubled his efforts to get in. But they haven't been enough.

Something glints in the center of the chamber, right at the base of the stairs. It's bluish, like sapphire or hytrigite, yet also not quite like either of those.

"Ithis!" I say. "With me!"

"Yes, guildmaster!"

We make our way down to the bottom of the stairs. In the center of the final layer, half covered by broken masonry, sitting in the middle of a pile of thick dust, is a great spherical gem, larger than a dwarf's head. It's the color of a water ocean and marred by a single white crack like long breaking wave.

Dazzled by its beauty and drawn by sudden fascination, I reach for it.

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