"Tad, you might want to think about this more. She doesn't even know how to live in any society, let alone yours. Everything she does is awkward, like she doesn't know what is expected of her. " said Nico while the two of them were walking towards the council chamber. They had been summoned.

"I know. She is learning though, she doesn't just drink out of the bowls anymore. She observes and copies. She is very good at that, " said Tad.

"Well, just so you know, I don't dislike her. I don't think I'd want her angry at me, though. It is nice that you have found a woman that catches your eye, at least. I was getting worried, since that one, what was her name? Phaedra? She was a cute one too. " said Nico.

Tad thought about Phaedra. She had been pretty. That was a couple of years ago, though, and it lasted only a few weeks before the Carnival had moved again. Her father had come to the Carnival and told Beothorn about the two, and suddenly Tad had more work, more practice, and then the Carnival was moving to its next stop. Tad did get to say goodby to her. But it was a long-ago for him in his mind.

"I've said this before, Nico. It is very hard to like someone when you can sense their feelings," said Tad.

Nico paused before the large door to the chamber, "You said you can't sense Zanna's feelings, Tad. Do you think that is better or worse? " then his friend pushed the large door open, and the two stepped inside.

This chamber was much smaller than the auditorium. It had a large Octagon shaped table, and the five dwarven councilmembers sat around it. Tad looked at the new member. He had never seen the woman before this. Several dwarven guards were posted around the room and standing on both sides of the door when the two entered. Beothorn was also at the table.

"Ararmut stood. Ah, there he is, the man of the hour. Come in, Thaddius, take a seat. You also Nicoloa. " said the dwarf.

Tad took the seat next to Beothorn.

Ararmut waited for the two to get seated. "First, let me start by thanking you for your help. Many more soldiers would have been lost after the battle if you had not helped. They are still being treated in the infirmary, but we believe they will all make it. " He paused for a few seconds then continued.

"I'd like to introduce Partheenia, who will be leading the sodality of growers and stocks until the next election of councilors later this month. " Partheenia nodded towards Tad and Nico. Tad could see an odd-shaped pitchfork leaning against her chair.

"Thaddius, the council believes there are changes coming that we can't control. Dwarfs do not like change. They are slow to change. We recognize this, so we have decided it's time to Change the council that has been five members since the great curse." He paused for a moment and looked at Beothorn, who nodded for him to continue.

"We are going to add two more seats to the council. These are not going to be elected positions like before, they will be advisory roles, but they will be able to vote on all things involving their areas. The first will be an advisor to foreign courts. We have lived here in this mountain for so long most every person here has not seen a live human or elf before this week. That needs to change. We have voted to have Beothorn fill the position, and he has accepted the role. Congratulations, Beothorn, " said Ararmut. The other four councilors smiled and nodded.

Dhugnath of the smiths said, "Welcome brother, there will always be a home for ye here."

Ararmut waved to get all their attention again, "Second, we are creating an advisory role for magical studies. We are going to offer this role to your mother, Marena, once she is done in the infirmary. She has been there working for the last day. We have no living dwarven citizens that have experience with the use of magic. Even our forges only turn out mundane weapons and armor. We want to change this also. It's been too long since we have created proper weapons and armor."

Again the other four councilors smiled and nodded in agreement.

"The void changeling has forced our hand, we must change and adapt, or we might not survive as a Hold. Tad, did anyone inform you of what our investigation turned up with Yoroula? " asked Ararmut.

Tad looked at Nico, then back to the dwarf, "No, did you find the creature? "

"Not exactly. We believe it has escaped back across the desert. It used the form of one of the guards it had slain at the infirmary, then convinced the sentry at the lift to let him go down. We have changed the protocol now for all returning dwarves because of this incident. All returning dwarves will be required to enter the infirmary before being allowed into the Hold from now on. The artifact will tell us if they are who they say they are. We used the caged Lasso spider earlier, and it is not a reliable method, " said Ararmut.

"Beothorn has told us that you can sense the creatures with magic. We believe this is the best way to discover if any more live among us. With the number of dwarves that will need to be tested, it would be impossible to take them one at a time into the infirmary without letting any that might still exist here know we are searching. " said Ararmut.

"I will help. If you can gather them into large groups, I should be able to check them quickly," said Tad. He had already been checking on his own around the fountains area, at least. He hadn't found anything.

Ararmut took a deep breath, looked at the other council members, and spoke, "Ok, that was the good news. The bad news is you and all the remaining Carnival members need to be out of the Hold in no less than a month. Before you ask, we discussed it at length, and we would like you to take the metal artifact which your pet seems to call home now and the spider with you. This wasn't an easy decision, but the council believes it is best for the Hold. We know that you are fleeing something, and we also discussed the fact that the orcs and, by association, the void changelings know of the artifact. We will give you all the assistance within reason we can, but this decision is final. "

Tad looked at Ararmut, then Beothorn. He could sense there was no malice or fear in the council members. He already knew this was coming because Kettle had said this quest thing wasn't fulfilled with the dwarven Hold.

Tad nodded. "I understand, and we will be gone within the month. To that, though, I will explain what you will need to do so I can check your people. First, I can't work with over a thousand dwarves." Tad knew this from the battle. He had lost track of many of the dwarves on the field near the orcs. The magic of empathy is directed just like everything else using energia. He thought of it as a view. If he directs it one way, he can see that way, but he loses track of the things not in that view. Then, if he concentrated on a particular person, he could better understand their feelings at that moment, but he didn't just know what they were all feeling from the view.

"Second, I'll need a time when they are distracted, not thinking of me or trying to hide their feelings," said Tad.

"We will organize small wakes and make the showings one thousand at a time. We will post guards between the caverns to keep the moving between down to a minimum. We will start with the guards. I'll call muster as soon as the Hold is sealed. " said Ararmut.

"Alright, now that we have covered what you need. Let's discuss what I'll need along with my friends. Starting with two maps, one before the war and one after the war. Also, I'll need a guide who can train us as we travel in the desert, so we do not die in the sand. We will need mounts," Tad continued discussing what he thought he might need with input from everyone in the room.

Ararmut paused him when a guard came into the room and spoke to him, "We are about to seal the Hold. You all might want to see this. It is wise you respect the sand, Tad. This meeting is adjourned."

They followed him out to the great lift to watch as the platform the lift had been landing on below was attached to the lift and pulled up to a slot and latched into place. Tad looked down. There was only sand down there now.

Tad heard a loud clang and then the sound of metal rubbing on metal. He looked up to see large thick slabs of metal being brought down like the wooden shades of a window. There were great grooved tracks on both ends of the cliff face.

"We are late closing up, but if you look out across there, you will see those dark brown clouds. That is the curse, and it's a storm that sweeps the sand and rock bare. Nothing can survive that on the surface. It can tear the flesh from bone in a minute or less. We have replaced these slats dozens of times over the years. " said Ararmut.

Tad could see the metal slats he was referring to were at least a foot thick iron. Hardly a speck of rust on them.

Tad looked out across the dunes, and he could see the clouds now. They looked like a wall of sand spanning from the dune to the sky. High up into the clouds.

Ararmut pointed, "You see that rock edge there? We have lost three feet in the last hundred years. At one time, this top area was hundreds of yards wide. Now it is barely fifty as the sand carves more of the stone every year. "

"Have those slats ever failed? " asked Tad now wondering.

"Yes, in my father's time, one failed. It caused havoc inside. No dwarves could come out for days, and when they did, they had to dig out ten feet of sand and fix all the fountains and waterways. We should be good, though. We have whole teams of smiths dedicated to making sure those are repaired or replaced when needed. It is, unfortunately, the primary use of our Iron now. The quantity is staggering even with the stone centers in the slats. We have to clean any vents up top the mountain that clogs also, but those are specially built to let much of the sand fall out."

Tad watched until the metal slats were all brought down and under the lift platform itself. Soon he could hear the raging storm outside and feel the cliff tremble slightly. The closed slats held.

***

Maps

Tad, Lamruil, Nico, and Beothorn were in the large dwarven archives. The room was set up like a library, but everything was built with the shape of an octagon. The books sat recessed in bookcases carved into the stone around the outside of the large chamber. Stone tables with stone seats were sprinkled around the room.

The four were at a table with Ararmut looking at two maps. The first one was a world map carved into the floor of the chamber. It showed rivers, castles, forests, and oceans, the world before the curse. The second one was on the table. It showed a smaller continent-sized island with a large mountain range running east to west, with the dwarven Hold directly in the center of the mountain range on the south side. To the east on the range was a larger mountain marked giants. In between the Hold and the giants on the north side of the range was a mountain named orc warrens.

Ararmut told them it was called this because the orcs used the giant rats to dig out the tunnels they lived in, and it was a maze of tunnels like a rat warren.

To the far north is an area marked Volcanos, and the map was left unfinished past there. The group was concentrating on the southwest part of the island. There was a large river marked that Tad thought was their best bet to find someplace to start building a home. The primary issue on the whole island was freshwater. The whole island was surrounded by water. There was virtually none.

"So you are saying this whole river is dangerous? " asked Beothorn.

Ararmut placed his finger on the map. He pointed at several locations in the desert before coming back to the top of the river. "These spots are ruins. They contain all manner of undead, scorpions nests, or are buried in the sand."

"Here though, at the top of this river, if you refer to the map on the floor, was the center of a kingdom before the war. It was called the city of statues, and many people would come to see the works of art that the people built there. There are stories that much of the cities economy and wonders were because the statues were performing the labor for the residents. It had a magic school for artificers. It was also the home to the largest temple of the Pantheon of gods that were worshiped here. Now though, it is a cursed place. That storm that rages outside, there is a permanent one that sits on that location. It was also the headwaters for this river. The river comes out of that cursed storm as a sandy sludge that finds its way to the ocean. " he drew with a finger along the path. "That is two hundred miles in total. "

He paused for a few moments, "Aand it is all undead. Every living thing that has ever entered there has been killed and turned. We tried to take over the northern bit there between the cursed storm and the lower part, but we could not. There are grasses and trees near the water. But the undead swarms the place, both in the water, the land, and the air. The stories of the giant undead eels are enough to turn my stomach. Now the water itself is usable, but everyone who goes near it can't stay for long. The undead can sense when someone is touching it or taking it. We believe it's infused with magic from the curse." He moved his finger down about halfway. "There used to be a city here, and this is the largest concentration of undead. Fields and hills full of them. They hide in the fog the river creates along its shores. We could not fight the hordes that came from that fog. The sand storms never touch this river area. "

"What about near the ocean? " asked Tad, still thinking of ships.

"I do not know. There is a delta there. It is dense with plants. We have no boats, and even if we did, going into the delta would be suicide. There might be a place. I will tell you of one tale, though, which makes me think there might be a way to get at the water before it enters that cursed storm. " said the dwarf, pointing at the very top of the area marked Cursed Storm.

"There was an old prospector that said he had seen water up there from a cliff. He said it went into the rock and was a small pool. This was a generation ago. He came back with the knowledge, and we have sent out hundreds of parties trying to find the spot with and without him. We never saw anything. We tried to dig some exploratory tunnels in the area, but the storms wiped them clean, and the magic of that cursed area would expand over anything we had dug. It's almost like it knew we were trying to get at the water. That is about all I can tell you. There are no portals that survived the storms. All of those were exposed to the storm or were destroyed in the war. Perhaps with your magic, you can find water where we could not. "

Tad looked at the map on the floor. He saw hundreds of cities and villages. On the current map, he saw two. He didn't like the idea of trying to fight hordes of the dead. He was curious about what type of mana flows he would find in that area, though. Something is keeping those creatures around.

"Kettle can you see these maps? " projected Tad.

Kettle projected, "Yes, what he is saying makes sense. I was just thinking Tad. Have you tried the portal in Samphire's Wagon? "

"I looked at it. I have no idea how to activate that. It is not a normal portal. Even in the realm of portals, that one I have no idea how to activate. Galadinidú said he could not open it. I'll look at it again tonight. I know the amulet Beothorn uses doesn't work. " said Tad.

Tad looked at Ararmut, "What are these here? " Tad pointed at two spots, one to the far north and one to the far south, on top of a ruins symbol. "

"Those are entrances to the Dark Pathways before the war. You will note they are on the other map also. We have not tried those in a very long time. The one in the south has scorpion nests in it and above it. The one in the north is collapsed and filled with rubble. We tried to excavate it a couple of times, but the orcs will always attack us if we go north into that section of the sands. The one to the south is probably open, but we do not want to lose half our people trying to clear it. " said Ararmut.

Beothorn perked up at the mention of those entrances. "Have you just tried digging down to the Dark Pathways? "

"Yes, as you go down, the earth becomes hot. This whole series of mountains have heat in them. Digging down can boil you alive or, worse, let dangerous gasses into the tunnels. It's one of the reasons we found that artifact. We were out trying to dig tunnels in the prominent stone peaks in the desert, hoping to bypass the heat. " Ararmut said.

The group was quiet for a long time, looking at the maps.

"Breamas was right, " said Tad.

Lamruil looked up, "How so? "

"He said I'd curse him," said Tad looking at the map in frustration.

***