They moved through the tunnels, Robin glad to leave the coppery scent of blood behind. Once or twice he tried to again engage Grathilde in conversation, but the dwarf was intent on following the elusive breath of fresh air. Robin assumed Ora-Jean had led them close enough that Grathilde was able to forge some kind of mystic connection.

She stepped lightly and quickly, moved faster than she had before. Robin fell behind, bit by bit, until he was walking nearer to Fiamah than to the others.

The woman had a few pieces of armour strapped in place, and a large pendant engraved with a stylised sun hanging from a chain around her neck. The whole thing screamed ‘cleric’ and ‘holy symbol’ to Robin, but he couldn’t say for sure, and he couldn’t ask without prompting uncomfortable questions about why he didn’t know.

As he was searching for a way to break the ice, he nearly broke his foot. The thin burlap protecting him was no match for the stone impacting his foot. He’d missed it in his surreptitious study of Fiamah.

‘Frelling thing,’ he bit out, remembering almost too late to keep his voice down.

He glared down at the rock, a strangely square bit of stone. ‘Huh. That’s odd.’ It looked almost like a brick. Well, one end did. The other was ragged, broken stone.

‘What is it?’ Fiamah asked. Her voice was surprisingly smooth and cool for someone who tended to burn with her touch.

‘Looks like worked stone.’ He glanced around their surroundings, seeing if there was any more.

Proficiency Unlocked: Perception.

That would have been more useful about 45 seconds ago.

‘Are you certain?’ Fiamah’s normally placid facade cracked a little. ‘Let me see.’

Robin hefted up the stone and offered it to her. Fiamah took it. It sat much lighter in her grip than it had in Robin’s. He suddenly had even less desire to be on the business end of the mace she carried. The woman was strong.

‘Lantha!’ she called out, voice soft yet carrying.

The bobbing magelight up ahead paused, then reversed direction. Lantha appeared.

‘What is it?’

‘Look.’ Fiamah held out the stone. ‘I think we’re closer than we thought.’

So they had come here looking for something. Something, or someplace made by human—humanoid? sapient?—hands. Well, hands or agency. Even snakes could probably carve stone if they had the right magic.

‘That was only ever the secondary mission,’ Lantha replied, though she did not take her eyes off the edges of the stone. Her whole body was tense, like she was standing too close to something venomous. ‘And neither matters if we don’t get out of here and back to—’ She shot a glance at Robin. ‘If we don’t get back.’

Lantha shot the stone one more look and returned to trying to suss out the exit with Ora-Jean and Grathilde. Robin waited until she was safely gone and Fiamah had reluctantly returned the stone to the floor.

‘I’ll remember the way,’ he said. ‘I’ve been keeping a mental map in my head. I’m probably not as good at it as Ora-Jean, but—’ he shrugged.

Fiamah simply nodded and resumed walking.

‘What do you think it was from?’ he asked after a moment.

The woman was quiet for a moment. Robin was wondering if he’d have to try another tack, but she spoke before he could formulate one.

‘Historically, this region has always been contested. As far back as records go, various peoples have clashed over the wealth of riches in the mountains, the natural treasures that grow in the forests that blanket the slopes, and the pass that is the region’s sole overland route across the mountains. That,’ she jerked her head back in the direction of the mystery stone, ‘could be from any number of subterranean cultures that have settled the area.’

‘Now you’ve done it,’ Grathilde called back over her shoulder. ‘You’ve gotten the scholar lecturing. I hope you didn’t have anything else for your ears to do anytime soon.’

Robin hadn’t realised they’d drawn so close to the rest of the party. Fiamah ignored the dwarf and continued speaking.

‘There are maps in the Athenaeum of Elaxendrie going back several millennia that show several kingdoms claiming these lands. The elves and dragonkin have oral histories that theoretically stretch back even further that speak of ancient empires also battling over these very lands. Though it is unclear to modern scholars if those conflicts were specifically over these lands, or if they were merely the site of great conflicts.’ Fiamah was definitely in full-on lecture mode.

Proficiency Unlocked: Learning.

‘I’m guessing those peoples don’t include kobolds or goblins,’ Robin said, thinking back to the cave he’d found the kobolds and their prisoners in.

‘That’s debatable.’ Fiamah was the most animated he’d ever seen her. ‘Just as there are many nations of the world at different stages of development, with the so-called ‘civilisation’ of cities and the so-called ‘primitives’ of the wild tribes in the icy reaches of Tar’Kata or the Burning Lands of the Ever-Sun, there is a lot of evidence of what you could call civil actions of goblinoids in the past—’

‘Unsubstantiated nonsense!’ Grathilde took the time to shoot back over her shoulder. ‘Monsters, all of them.’

‘Don’t be close-minded,’ Fiamah chided gently, ‘or do you want to try debating the status of the Dvimmerdveld with me again?’

‘We’re not here looking for mythical fallen dwarves,’ Grathilde grumbled, ‘we’re here looking for evidence of the Ssathessti—’

‘Grathilde,’ Lantha’s voice drifted back, carrying a note of warning with it.

The dwarf shut her mouth with a snap. Interesting. And he wasn’t the only one that seemed to think so.

New Quest: [Below Ground and Between the Shadows]

Investigate the possible presence of the Ssathessti, ruins of their settlements, or artefacts of their civilisation in the caverns beneath the Dragonspine Mountains.

Reward: +1 Arcane Lore; 1 undetermined minor magical item.

Bonus Objective: Uncover what interest the Sisters Sharp adventuring party has in the matter.

Bonus Reward: Power. In the sense that knowledge is power. Good luck! Proficiency Unlocked: Arcane Lore.

Robin filed the name away for later, along with the oddity of unlocking a proficiency merely from hearing about it from a quest prompt. Fiamah was still lecturing, though she’d pushed the conversation in another direction.

‘As I was saying, there have been any number of civilisations throughout the world’s history, and it would be foolish to discount a whole people on the evidence of a small fragment of the whole.’ She looked at the walls.

She had been studying the wall the whole time they’d been walking, Robin realised. Ever since he found that stone. And she’d peered closely at every adjoining tunnel they’d passed. That told Robin two things: there was more riding on finding evidence of these Ssathessti than the group was letting on, and Fiamah was at least partially distracted.

‘Did these ancient peoples have magics that have been lost to time, or gods that have since been forgotten or fallen from active worship?’ That should be oblique enough to get him some information, at least.

‘Oh no,’ Grathilde groaned. ‘Stop encouraging her!’

Lantha must have been preoccupied because no rebuke came from the shadows ahead.

‘Lost knowledge, almost certainly. We lose knowledge all the time. Well, we mortals do. There is debate as to whether the gods actually ever allow any knowledge to be lost.’

‘I don’t imagine that’s something to easily prove, from a practical standpoint.’ Robin said drily, suspecting that was the humour Fiamah might respond best to.

He was rewarded with a tinkling laugh. Yes! Empathy and Expression were paying off!

[Laughter is the Best Medicine] Progress: 2/4! Bonus: 2/4!

‘No,’ Fiamah said, ‘though many have claimed otherwise.’

‘Luminaries.’ Grathilde snorted. ‘Can’t trust half of what they say. And you can trust even less of the tripe the bards sing of. No offence.’

‘None taken?’ Robin said. ‘Still not a bard.’ He pushed away his annoyance at the interruption. ‘You were saying about lost gods?’

‘Hmm?’ Fiamah was eyeing a perpendicular tunnel that had a more-than-usual amount of regularity to its shape. ‘Oh yes. Lost gods. There are multiple schools of thought on the matter.’

‘There always are,’ Grathilde mumbled, but Fiamah didn’t appear to notice.

Robin resisted the urge to ask her how tracking the air flow was going. There were already enough distractions coming from that direction, and he was on the verge of collecting some more information.

‘One school of thought holds that the gods can never be lost, only the outward faces they present to certain peoples in certain times and places.’ A hand went to the symbol around her neck. ‘Those that hold that position would consider my goddess, Serenya, to be the same entity as the elvish god Úrin, who also holds dominion over the sun.’

‘Nonsense.’ This time the exclamation came from Lantha. It seemed even their leader was getting bored with the winding tunnels, if she was tolerating the discussion behind her.

‘This position tends to ignore or minimise slight differences. For example, Serenya is also considered a goddess of healing, whereas Úrin does not concern himself much with that art.’ Fiamah didn’t respond to Lantha’s interruption.

‘So in the first case, lost gods are similar to someone adopting a new name and persona. It’s not that the god is gone, per se.’ Robin frowned. That did not sound like it fit with the quest he’d been given.

‘Correct. Though many scholars do believe that gods are unique, and that they can and do move on, sometimes forcibly or against their will.’

‘Deicide?’

‘There are plenty of stories in the oral traditions of the elves and dragonkin of gods slaying gods, and gods slaying even older primordial beings and being slain in return. So yes, some do believe that the gods can die.’

‘They say Mnimvor vanished after delving too deep into the void beneath the world,’ Grathilde offered, ‘and she is considered lost. Her son took up her mantle as the deity of the forge. At least that is how it is told in Dweomerdeep. The arcane and theological schools there agree on that much, and they agree on precious little else. It’s supposedly the reason—well, one reason—a forge fire is never supposed to completely go out, to help her find her way back.’

‘Has a lost god ever returned?’ Robin thought he might as well draw as much from the well as he could while the water was flowing.

‘Debatable.’ Fiamah looked thoughtful. ‘There are many deities who have returned from death, if you would count that. It’s a common feature of those who end up ruling over the dead.’

‘Makes sense,’ Robin said. ‘It always helps to have first-hand knowledge of a product.’

Fiamah did not laugh at that. She frowned, but after a moment continued.

‘There is some historical evidence—all circumstantial—that certain gods have been known to wax and wane in power. If that is true, it’s possible that a deity might return from being lost, called back to the world by the tie of faith, but this is not really an area I’ve studied in depth. I wouldn’t be able to tell you more without consulting—’

‘Wait!’ Grathilde interrupted, ‘the airflow is stronger coming from the right fork up ahead. I think we’re nearly to the exit.’

Ora-Jean appeared moments later, her face grim.

‘There’s a big cavern up ahead, and I think I see the tunnel out, but you’re not going to like it. The place is occupied.’ She shook her head. ‘And you’re never going to believe what is roosting in there.’

Roosting? To Robin the word brought to mind chickens, but that was far from comforting. He’d grown up regularly visiting his grandmother’s farm. Chickens were vicious, bloodthirsty creatures, not to underestimated.

‘What’s roosting up ahead?’ Lantha’s voice was grim.

‘Goblins. With wings.’