The tunnel buzzes with the last electrical gasps of the defeated dwarf-mechs. Their little arms and legs continue to twitch, even those which have come detached from their metallic torsos. Darby drops to his knees to dig through the mess, desperate for clues.

“Help me,” he pleads, “we gotta find out who they were working for.”

The other three join his search. Javors holds up the head of Dwarf.3—the one Uri punched clean off its shoulders—and inspects it by the light of the mobile furnace. Ava turns one of the pick-axes over in her hands, scouring it for any markings, and finally she finds the strangely shimmering label:

The pick-axe is smaller than most and lighter – perfect for Ava to wield aside from the fact its attacks are based on Strength, her worst attribute. Still, she decides to take it for the time being. It's a better option for self-defense than her feeble punches and unloaded gun.

“Gottem!” Darby cheers. He holds up a piece of sheet metal which was once a chest-plate. Turning it over, it is stamped with a symbol: two vertical bars standing parallel, connected in middle horizontally by a lightning bolt.

“What is it?” Uri asks.

“This,” Darby says, nodding slowly, “is the emblem of that sumbitch Horst.”

“So Horst has still been working the mine all along,” Ava surmises, “while letting Cripple Creek believe it was too dangerous to set foot inside. You think this will be enough to convince Remmick?”

“It'll have to,” Darby says, “let's get out of here.”

They backtrack, Ava again leading the way by the light of her hand. But this time when they reach the place where the tunnel splits Javors stops them.

“Check it out,” says the ratman, “the ceiling is sooty from that rolling furnace.”

Sure enough, when Ava shines a light upward the party can see how the rocks above their heads are stained black. The dwarf-mechs' cart has passed this way before – possibly many times over many weeks and months, leaving behind a sooty trail of breadcrumbs on the ceiling. Metaphoric dwarven breadcrumbs.

“Where does this lead?” Ava wonders.

“I don't know,” Darby says, “but maybe we should find out.”

They creep along slower then. Ava is cautious, judiciously dimming her light. They don't have to travel far before they begin receiving signs of life.

“It's getting hotter.” Uri wipes his forehead.

“I hear something,” Javors cocks his ear. “And I have to admit it's got a great beat.”

They hold their collective breath and listen. The ratman is right – the sound they hear is rhythmic, not so unlike the cave-busk they'd interrupted earlier. Ava looks to Darby and he just nods.

She dims her hand and they press on, the sound and heat intensifying. And then up ahead the tunnel ends as it enters a great chamber, an earthen ramp leading to the ground floor many meters below. They stop there at the top of the ramp and peer down at the cause of the heat and noise.

There are dozens more mechs laboring here in a huge foundry. The crew they defeated before was just a small cog in the overall operation. Down below the dwarves are forging slashing and bashing weapons of every kind. Long silver lances fit for knights at a joust.

They mix the melted iron with coke coal to make steel. Suits of gleaming plate armor and tower shields stand in rows, waiting for an army to equip them. And other huge and oddly-shaped slabs of steel are stacked together, numbering in scores. The slabs strike Ava as familiar – but how? Then it comes to her all-at-once:

“The scales of a dragon,” she mutters.

“He wanted all the steel for himself.” Darby grits his teeth. “That iron vein might be the richest in the entire world – and he terrorized my town just so he could keep it all.”

“And maybe just as importantly,” Uri notes, “he has deprived you of the means by which you could defend yourself.”

Darby doesn't say another word while the party makes their way out of the mine. He just seethes and cradles his ribs. Ava leads them out into the night.

“If I could ask one favor,” Javors says, “it would be to never return to the Underground. It smells. And out here the stars do glitter like so many mirror-balls suspended in the Heavens.”

Uri and Darby exchange confused glances, and then they turn to include Ava. For a moment she's at a loss, but then she realizes what strikes them as odd. The ratman doesn't seem to know those aren't stars up above—like Ava didn't, on account of her memory-loss—but what's his excuse?

“Stars, huh?” Uri teases.

“Yes, quite lovely,” the ratman reiterates, “but I do wonder where the moons have gone.”

“Moons?” Darby asks, putting extra emphasis on the last letter. Ava would squirm if they weren't walking along down the wagon ruts. The whole awkward exchange rubs her wrong.

But before the boys can question Javors any further they arrive at the camp where Ellie and Bach should be waiting—

“Be on guard,” Uri warns, “something isn't right here.”

Javors stoops beside the fire-pit. The coals are cold. A large portion of his forest casserole has been spilled, left to congeal in the dirt.

“They said they liked it,” he whimpers.

"Bach?" calls Ava.

"Ellie?" whispers Uri.

But there's no answer from either – and then suddenly there is movement in the darkness and something like a huge spider's web falls upon them.

"Darby!" shouts Ostby Channing. Ava winces. Deep down she knew he'd track them down – after all she's seen his character sheet.

And he's come with a posse of four other men and they've thrown a thick-roped net over the companions. The posse is armed with simple clubs and they close in on the three children and the ratman whom they've caught in their trap.

Darby doesn't hesitate. He pulls out his blowtorch and starts trying to burn the ropes. Ava attempts to cut at the net using the [Dwarven Toothpick] but it's a less than ideal tool for the job. It quickly becomes entangled and she has to abandon it entirely.

The posse will be upon them in only a few more moments, approaching in a crescent formation, cordoning the party in a half-moon. And Javors goes to work. Suddenly he's gnawing on the ropes with wondrous rapidity, his buckteeth scissoring almost too fast to see. And the net is coming apart! Then he begins to sing:

“On the road again,

Fleeing frowning faces that I'll never see again,

'Cause I am gettin' back on the road again.”

>>>>YOUR feet tingle with restless energy.

Ava gasps. It's almost like she's suddenly levitating – her feet feel that light on the rocky ground. The posse can only fumble with the ropes as their prey slips out. Ostby cusses and nocks an arrow but right away he lowers his bow. He's not going to murder a child.

“Take this and run!” Darby shoves the sheet of metal stamped with Horst's insignia at Ava turns up the flame on his torch and waves it back-and-forth, keeping the posse at bay.

"And just leave you?" Ava hesitates even as Javors and Uri begin to flee.

"They won't hang me." He turns to Ostby and shouts, “come and get it, Old Man!”

"We aren't done," Ava promises, taking the sheet metal. "We'll be back for our friends – and I count you among them."

With Javors still singing, quickening their feet, he and Uri and Ava leave the ambush behind and make haste to escape. The only choice is to flee into the forest. It's either that or run back into the mine. And as they crash into the woods the posse stays in pursuit but only for a moment. These grown men were told they'd be hunting children. They want no part of the wild things known to inhabit the woods.

"What a brave young man," Javors mourns.

"They all are," Ava says, "those Slaps have more guts than any of the adults."

"We can't let Darby rot in that jail," insists Uri.

"We won't. He broke us out – we're gonna return the favor.”

Javors' traveling song keeps them from being eaten by the forest's many mouths. Now they have only stopped running because they've come to a river. The riverbank is muddy, thick with reeds, but the soil is too wet and soft for bigger trees to take root – so the woods recede and the trio can breathe a little easier. What lurks in the forest stays in the forest. The air is humid and fishy. The far bank too distant to see in the dark. Ava's stomach grumbles.

"Still don't like the way that forest looks at us." Uri shivers.

"If we make a fire,” Ava suggests, “it might keep back any of the more curious critters.”

"Maybe I can snag us a fish or two," Javors imagines, stroking his chin.

Ava summons kindling and digs out a shallow pit using her metal hand like a shovel. Uri drags over a load of branches from the edge of the forest. And Javors crouches at the river bank, completely motionless, studying the water. Suddenly he punches his fist through the surface without so much as a splash and he yanks out a trout.

"I've still got it," he smiles at the wriggling fish in his fist, calling it, "my precious."

He uses his fancy, futuristic stiletto to gut and clean it, then sets the fillets to cook on a stone on the edge of the fire.

“That deputy will find us,” Ava worries, “if he comes looking. I'm sure of it.”

“Our enhanced speed should have given us significant head start,” says Uri.

“And for most men it is very troublesome to track prey in the dark,” Javors adds, “ for most men. Not all.” He winks.

They sup on the fish. The portions are small but they eat moreso to pass the time than to sate their appetites.

“Do we need to set traps?” Uri asks, “do we intend to camp here until morning?”

“I don't know that we should stay that long,” Ava says, “but I admit I don't wanna go back into those woods before sunrise.”

They sit in silence. It has been a whirlwind twenty-four hours and Ava is raw with emotion. They all are. Uri holds his face in his hands.

“First Uma, now Ellie. I should stop forming attachments.”

“That's foolish,” Javors says, “life is about the connections we make.”

“We can still save her,” Ava reminds, “and how do you think I feel? Apparently I've orchestrated some crazy weird plan to track Bach so I can protect him from something but since he met me he's been mutilated, lost all his skills, and now his freedom, too.”

“And his life is probably next,” Uri adds, “unless we can rescue them.”

They sit around the fire, trying to decide what to do next. The conversation commences under a cloud of despair, but before long the fire warms their souls. It burns bright and orange and wholesome.

Suddenly it seems the spacetrash is sparkling just a little bit brighter, too. Ava looks at the others, sees their eyes droopy and subtle sleepy smiles on their lips. And she feels it, too – a sublime sense of peace and contentment. A gentle, soft, intoxicated sensation.

“Damn, Javors,” she laughs, “what was in that fish?”

In the next moment a butterfly comes dancing out of the forest and circles in the air above the fire. Is it glowing? Is it trailing gold dust?

“Oh no.” Javors yawns. “They've found me.”

“Who?”

“Them,” he rambles, suddenly half-asleep, “the Order. Always haunting us.”

“Wait,” Ava says, “so in addition to everything else – you're haunted?”

But he can't answer. He's already snoring. Uri struggles to his feet, heavy with sleep, and just manages to shoo the butterfly away. That seems to break whatever spell it had over them. The fire returns to normal – still warm but less wholesome out here in the dark forest. The spacetrash shining down is just junk again. And Javors groggily rouses.

“We can't leave now,” he says, “not until the sun rises. They'll be waiting in the woods.”

“Who are they?” Ava asks.

“I don't want to talk about it.” He turns away and faces the river. “They are always listening. And they are dangerous. And I didn't think they could follow me here. For now, let's leave it at that. To speak of the Order further is to invite their return.”

And Ava and Uri exchange a skeptical look.

Since when does the ratman and his tongue with its mind of its own ever practice discretion?

They crush down reeds right there on the riverbank to cushion the ground and Ava and Javors lay down to try and steal some sleep while Uri takes the first watch. Keeping his eyes open is a struggle. His heart and mind are exhausted. He begins to nod off while sitting cross-legged by the dwindling fire—his chin just comes to rest upon his chest—and then a rustling in the underbrush startles him fully awake.

Is someone there? Or did he simply fall asleep for one second and then suddenly lurch back to the real world the way everyone does sometimes? He wakes Ava – it's her watch next, anyway.

“I'm not sure,” he says, “but I may have heard something just now.”

“Where?”

“Over there someplace, in the brush. Should we wake the rat?”

“Leave him be for now. But let's have a look ourselves.”

They creep toward the forest's edge. Ava wills her hand to glow as bright as it can. The trees and bushes are etched in a light that is nearly silver and every detail presents in black-and-white. It's almost like viewing the scene through night-vision goggles. They search for the source of the sound and—there—Uri points, drawing Ava's attention toward a large, man-sized shadow. A shadow hanging from a branch by its feet.

“What the hell is that?” Uri wonders aloud.

“I don't know.” Ava slinks back a step. “And I don't want to find out.”

And then the creature suddenly rotates its head 180° and its eyes flash open and they glow pure white – reflecting Ava's light right back at her.