Jack let out the breath he had been holding as they finally reached the docks at the mountain mines, the height of the Pyrepeak Mountains looming over them imposingly. Not one hundred metres upstream, the somewhat calm river they had followed to the mountain turned into a seething mass of impassable rapids as it disappeared up into the mountains proper.

Four days had passed after the start of his first Quest and it was nearly complete. After the bandit attack on the second night, emotions had been high on the three barges. Some had become more carefree, believing the strife to be done with, while others had begun to expect another attack, certain that the gold in the strongbox would prove too great a lure. Thankfully, the attempt led by Birch and Rosie had proved to be the only one.

“We should get the money off before all else,” Trader Thornbull said anxiously at Jack's side. Ever since the attack and the Heroes' rescue of his family, he had lost all pretence of snobbish superiority, instead driven by an intense state of (justifiable) paranoia.

Jack agreed silently, looking over to where Duran stood next to Mistress Ivory, hammer slung across his back. It hadn't left his side since the attack. Catching his friend's eye, Jack raised his hand and rubbed his thumb and forefinger together; it was the universal sign for money. The big man nodded and tapped Ivory on the shoulder, explaining the situation. She reached up into her sleeve and produced the key to her cabin, handing it to Duran before returning her attention to the organised chaos around her.

As he waited for his friend, Jack adjusted the iron bracers he had bought in Bowerstone. The knife he had taken through the arm had taught him a valuable lesson about the difference between merely owning armour and wearing it. At his hip was the iron blade he had worn at the beginning of the Quest, deciding to continue with it rather than take up the better quality axe he had liberated from a bandit corpse.

Duran approached, bearing the strongbox they were tasked to protect, heavy with gold. He handed it to Thornbull and a gangplank was laid out, the Trader leading the way towards the mining operation.

The mine owners were not lacking in means. Visible at the end of the road leading away from the docks, a well built wooden palisade wall surrounded the entrance to the mine. The road itself was well maintained, the trees on either side of it having been cleared for several wagon lengths in each direction. As they passed through the defensive wall, the entirety of the compound was revealed to the two Heroes. Several large loghouses were arranged orderly around what must be the entrance to the mine itself, a gaping hole set into the side of the lowest reaches of the mountains.

The traffic coming in and out of the mine entrance suggested further development beyond the usual mining operations underground, but Thornbull led the Heroes discreetly towards the largest of the loghouses.

The haphazard bustle of the mining operation fell into quiet organisation as they entered the loghouse. A dozen odd people sat at rows of neatly arranged desks, each focused on some task or another. Some pored over page after page of tiny writing, others tallied up figures and sums on large abacus', while others still exhaustively examined small samples of various ores.

At the head of the room, overseeing it all was a slim man dressed well in finely made clothes. He seemed uncaring of the ink splattering his sleeves as he worked, focused intently as he was. The three newcomers approached him, ignored by the room at large as they worked.

“Trevor,” the slim man greeted Thornbull as they reached him, not looking up from his work. “Good to see you made it here in one piece.”

“Thanks to the Heroes,” Trader Trevor Thornbull replied, setting the strongbox down on the large desk before him.

“Yes, I read your missive,” the slim man gestured to a hastily written report, borne upstream on a messenger pigeon the morning after the attack. “It would see I owe you great thanks for protecting my family.”

Duran nodded acceptance while Jack shrugged, both remaining silent.

Thornbull spoke up to break the silence. “Jack, Duran, this is my brother-in-law, Ian Ducal.”

“No titles?” Ian, the man who could only be the owner of the mines asked with faint surprise.

“Not yet,” Jack told him evenly.

“I see,” Ian said easily in return. “Trevor, I'll leave the men's pay with you. Heroes, see my wife for your rewards,” he directed, already returning to his work. He paused after a moment to look back up at Jack. “I read of how you saved my youngest, Olivia. I won't forget it,” he said sincerely.

X x X

The Heroes sat in a plain office and watched as Mistress Ivory counted out two pouches of gold, placing the heavy brown pouches onto a set of scales to show their balance. She then passed them over the money counting table she sat at, watching their reactions. Sun shone in through a high window.

Jack hefted his pouch, appreciating its weight. “The Quest Card said the reward was only ten gold pieces between us,” he observed.

Ivory nodded. “My husband and I wish to show our gratitude,” she answered. “Fifty gold coins apiece is a pittance compared to the lives of our daughters.

“It is rather more than a pittance to us,” Duran admitted, tucking his pouch into his leather jerkin.

Ivory gave a pleased smile before asking, “this is your first Quest, yes? I was under the impression that the next class of Heroes would not finish for another month?”

“We were promoted early,” Jack said with a touch of pride.

Ivory processed the information. “I must admit, your ages made me dubious when we first met, but I am glad it was you who took our Quest Card,” she told them. “I shall be sure to tell of your skills the next time a Bard visits us.”

Jack grinned at the news, Duran answering with a a light smile of his own. Bards were the story tellers and saga spinners that helped a Hero's renown grow. They were wanders, mostly, travelling in search of a tale that would earn them a bed and a meal at whatever inn or tavern they chose to ply their trade. It was every Bards' dream to discover a legendary Hero in the making and follow them to fame and fortune, just as it was many young Hero's desire to gain the attention of a skilled Bard who would help them get there.

Bards were of particular interest to new Heroes—it was they who were responsible for giving them their Names. A Name could change throughout a Hero's career, but not easily, and it was always an evolution of their first, growing as they grew.

“We'd appreciate that,” Duran told Ivory.

The mine owner's wife inclined her head. “Where do you intend to journey now? Have you another Quest waiting?” she inquired politely.

“We travel north,” Duran said, “to meet with my clan.”

Ivory frowned slightly. “Which clan might that be?”

“Badger,” Duran answered after a moment.

“Ah,” Ivory replied, relaxing. “I ask only because there were several misunderstandings between ourselves and the Otter clan when my husband first opened the mine.”

Watching his friend from the corner of his eye, Jack could see no change in his pleasant expression, despite the tension that was suddenly present in his frame. Ivory, never trained to read people beyond watching their expressions, was oblivious.

“I am sure we can provide copies of the few maps we have of the mountain trails to help you on your way,” Ivory continued on.

“Thank you,” Jack said. “We mean to leave as soon as we can, if possible.” He smiled. “We wouldn't want to waste a day of travel.”

“Or presume upon your hospitality,” Duran added, rising to his feet.

“Not at all,” Ivory demurred, also rising out of her chair. “I shall have a man gather the maps; he will meet you at the compound gates. Heroes,” she said by way of farewell with a curtsy and an incline of her head, before departing.

X x X

The mountain trail was a rough one, but far from the worst the Heroes had even been subjected to. Weaving through the roots of the Pyrepeaks, it would lead them north until they reached the area Duran identified as belonging to the Badger clan.

Jack scowled at the dark clouds gathering overhead. Already the temperature was dropping and the threat of rain looming larger. He rubbed his arms in an attempt to regain some warmth; the simple white shirt and brown trousers he wore provided little protection from the elements.

He glanced over to Duran at his side. The big man seemed unbothered by the cooler mountain air as they trudged along the rocky path. A particularly cold gust of wind soared along the trail they followed, sending a ripple of gooseflesh along his arms. When the first few droplets of rain fell on him seconds later, he was decided. He held his hand out palm up before himself, and concentrated.

It was just a brief flicker of light at first, barely there. Jack fed it more of his Will, coaxing the spell with the gentleness one might use with a newborn foal. The strand of light grew into a tongue of flame, before bursting into into a tall blaze, shooting several feet into the air. The sudden conflagration startled Jack and Duran both, the Will user nearly allowing the spell to flare from existence. Closing his eyes, Jack focused on the feel of the spell in his palm, taming it, bending it to his Will. Moments later, he opened his eyes to see the thin streamer of fire circling harmlessly around his hand.

Duran shook his head ruefully, saying nothing—at least verbally.

“What?” Jack defended weakly. “I was cold.”

Duran rolled his eyes. “Haven't seen that expression of Will before,” he observed. “Maze's book?”

Jack raised his free hand, palm down, and tilted it side to side. “To a point. The expression the book described was a fireball that could be thrown, but it was wrong.”

“Wrong?” Duran asked, amusedly. “Showing Maze up already, are we?”

Jack muttered an uncharacteristically unfavourable comment about Maze under his breath. “Not hardly. The book the old bastard gave me is deliberately wrong. I have to find all the errors in it and work it out for myself.”

“So...this is the fire spell done right?” Duran asked curiously. He might have held a greater interest into the physical aspects of their Hero training, but he could still appreciate purely Will based exercises.

“Kind of. The book did detail a viable expression, only it tried to trick you into blowing yourself up—it skipped a step in the moulding and looped back around on itself. This is the expression streamlined, I guess,” Jack explained. “It doesn't have the same explosive potential, but if I was struck by the fancy to cut a bandit's head off...”

Duran attempted to follow his friend's simplified line of through and succeeded, for the most part. All through their Apprenticeships, Jack had had an uncanny ability to see and comprehend Will expressions on a level that his friends could only reach for, and now here he was playing with an improved version of an expression that he had first glimpsed less than a week before. It was times like these that Duran found it easy to forget that Jack was two years his junior, before inevitably remembering and contemplating how he would have managed with a similar Will exercise when he was two years younger. It was a reminder that his friend well deserved the shared distinction of youngest Hero in recent memory.

The Heroes paused on the trail, Duran watching as Jack focused on a small sapling protruding from a crag of rocks only a few metres away. The streamer of fire that twisted around his hand broke into a single length of fire, twisting loosely in his grip. It sputtered, thickening at one end while nearly fading out at the other, and Jack was forced to spend several long moments bringing it back under control. At length, he had a long, thin strand of flame held by one end in his palm, the heat it gave off apparently having no affect on him.

In a slow, careful motion, Jack brought his arm back, and then whipped if forward in a slashing motion. The rope of fire cracked through the air, trails of sparks in its wake, to slice through the sapling with ease; it was akin to iron cutting through water. The upper half of the sapling fell to the ground, revealing blackened wood where the fire whip had passed through.

Jack flexed his hand, the flame having burnt out after destroying the sapling. “I think it has potential, yeah?” he asked with a grin.

“I think you have too much fun burning things,” Duran replied, setting off again. “Come on. If we stop to kill every killer tree on the trail, we'll never reach clan grounds.”

“Mage's favourite indeed,” Jack said to himself as he followed after his friend. He was already eager to show Maze.

“Pity you can't just Will away these storm clouds,” Duran remarked.

Jack eyed the dark sky speculatively for a moment before shaking his head. “I'm nowhere near that level yet, and if you want to stop a storm you really need to catch if before it starts. Then there's the consequences elsewhere from altering the weather here...”

“You're serious,” Duran said, startled. “I thought those spells were only stories.”

“Maze can do it,” Jack revealed. “I found a Guild record of a Quest he took to end a drought in the North. I don't know of anyone else who can though.”

Duran was silent as they continued on, pondering the thought of manipulating the weather.

“Hey, Duran,” Jack spoke up suddenly, “what was that business with the Otter clan back at the mines?”

Duran frowned, but was unsurprised that his friend had picked up on his tension when Ivory had brought up their dealings with the Otter. “The mine is in what used to be Otter clan territory,” he explained. “Otter didn't want the mine to happen, but there was too much money to be made.”

“So the mine owner's just forced the clan out?” Jack asked, looking back on his interactions with Ivory and Ian Ducal in a new light.

“It wasn't quite that simple, but yes,” Duran answered grimly. “Badger sent warriors to help Otter take back their land, but the mine was too rich. My uncle was killed by a a mercenary band they hired. If I'd known that that was the mine involved, I never would have touched that Quest.”

“We could always go back and kill them all,” Jack offered lightly.

Duran smiled and shook his head, well aware that Jack was only mostly joking. “The clans won't forget what happened,” he said. “No call for a killing spree just yet.”

Above them, the heavens flashed and roared, and rain began to come down in sheets. The Heroes broke out into a run, heading for the shelter offered by a crag of rocks jutting out from a nearby cliff face. They brushed what water they could off themselves and set about making their sleeping arrangements as comfortable as they could. With no fire wood to be had, they had an early dinner of cold meat and cheese before setting out their bedrolls and doing what they could to ignore the storm raging about them, seeking sleep.

X x X

Jack woke abruptly some hours later, blinking sleep from his eyes. The sky was still dark, but not from clouds—the storm had moved on to reveal a starless sky. He blinked again, trying to divine the cause of his waking. Then the sky blinked back and a full litre of adrenaline flooded his system.

“Duran!” Jack bellowed, leaping to his feet. “Rock troll!”

The crag of rocks they had made their camp under loomed high above them as the rock behemoth drew back an enormous fist, intending to smash the puny creatures beneath it.

Jack let loose a bolt of lightning born of panic and fear, striking the troll in its right eye. There was the sound of shattering glass, quickly drowned out by an enraged roar as the troll reared back in pain. Shards of something pelted Jack's face, leaving hundreds of tiny angry red scratches in their wake.

Duran was on his feet now, hammer clasped in his hands and clad in only his smallclothes. He delivered a mighty blow to the rock troll's knee as it recovered from jack's attack. The blow was shrugged off by the huge creature, and it fixed its remaining eye on the two Heroes with a wrathful stare.

A thick spire of rock burst from the ground before Jack, catching him squarely in the gut. The breath driven from him, Jack's vision began to grey as he was launched through the air to land heavily on the ground some distance away. He tried to suck in a gasp of air, only to nearly lose consciousness entirely as a number of broken ribs painfully made themselves known.

At the rock troll's feet, Duran was doing his best to avoid being squashed like a bug. Repeated hammer blows to the creature's knees seemed to have little effect beyond aggravating it further. The troll roared its fury at the irritance dancing around its feet; just too swift to crush. With a roar of his own, Duran suddenly swelled in size, his arms and torso bulging with muscle. His hammer drawn back with both hands, Duran delivered a mighty blow to the creature's left knee. A great crack resounded through the nigh and the troll bellowed in pain, dropping down to one knee.

The mountain man smashed another heavy blow into the damaged joint, again and again. The knee was in danger of shattering entirely, and Jack, hand suffused by white light as he clasped it to his damaged ribs, thought his friend capable of finishing the ferocious creature all on his own. Then the rock troll lashing out with startling suddenness, a closed fist catching Duran square in the shoulder. His increase in size was lost immediately as he was hurled across the rocky landscape like a rag doll.

The troll turned on Jack next, still in arms reach, its remaining red eye glowing malevolently. It reached for him, and the young Hero snarled, the white light around his hand turning to flame. The concentrated Will was released, flying out to strike the rocky limb. It exploded with a dull thump and the troll drew back, cradling its now cracked and blackened hand against itself. Jack drew in his Will once more, crafting another explosive fireball, pouring in his rage at the troll, fear for his friend and bitterness that he now might never catch up with the ones to destroy his childhood.

The beast reached for him once more, determined to squash the fleshy irritant that had caused it such pain, and Jack unleashed his Will. The dense ball of red tinted fire, emotions and will rocketed out faster than the eye could follow, slamming into the rock troll's body with a monstrous explosion. The creature reared back, wreathed in flame and smoke. It screeched in agony, forcing Jack to clasp his hands over his ears at the unnatural sound. Attempting to regain his feet despite his injuries, the young Hero staggered and fell, the world tilting sideways and his vision going grey once more as he found himself unable to move.

From his perspective, Jack watched at the corner of his eye as the troll flailed and beat at the flames licking at its body, ignoring all previous injuries as it attempted to smother the flame that refused to go out, feeding on the rock flesh of its victim.

Jack struggled to stay conscious as all sound deserted him, leaving the world hanging in an eerie silence. He fought the grasp of darkness as long as he could, the struggle of seconds seeming to take hours. Finally, the beast lifted its head to the heavens and appeared to give a great roar, before freezing in place and crumbling swiftly into dust and gravel. The strange flames winked out immediately after, and Jack found himself with no more fight to give. His pain mercifully faded away and there was a roaring in his ears...

X x X

As the world slowly began to return to him, Jack was aware of a cool cloth gently wiping across his cheek. He focused on the sensation as he attempted to gauge his surroundings. He lay on a thick rug and was covered from the waist down by what felt like a heavy blanket, his torso a mass of stiffness. The damp cloth was wiped across his cheek once more, leaving a path of stinging skin in its wake. Jack winced and tried to force his eyes open, feeling as though he'd been asleep for days.

Through blurry eyes he could make out a pale face and a short mass of dark hair. He blinked rapidly and his vision cleared. His carer was clearly a young woman, the wolf skin cloak she wore doing little to obscure her figure, tied loosely across her chest as it was and she wore a long animal hide skirt past her knees. Her dark hair was a tangled mass cut haphazardly; likely by a knife. The paleness of her face stood in contrast to dark red lips, the bottom of which was marred by a thin white scar.

The woman frowned as she set aside the wet cloth, eyes fixed on his face. She caressed his cheek gently—then she pulled at something quickly and viciously. There was a lance of pain and jack did his best to grimace, noting absently that his face was feeling almost numb. The woman returned the cloth to his face and the stinging pain faded away.

“What?” Jack croaked out, forcing his voice to work.

“You have shards of troll eye in your face,” the woman told him, smirking, and Jack got the feeling she found this to be amusing. “Keep still so I can finish pulling them out. Shiny rubies are still valuable even if they're only shards.”

Jack ceased his attempts to move as he processed the woman's words. There were shards of troll eye in his face. The lightning he had conjured must have hit the troll directly in the eye and shattered it, he realised. He tried to recall the fight, only to find it a frenzied blur in his mind.

“Troll eyes are formed by precious gems. Troll hunting was once considered profitable for this reason,” Jack found himself reciting thickly. He blinked, puzzled. He knew that exact passage from somewhere.

“Silly lowlanders thought it was easier to take shinies from trolls than pull them from the ground,” the woman said scornfully. “Pity they learned their lesson.”

“This belief was brought to an end when a swarm of trolls followed a fleeing hunting party all the way back to Bowerstone,” Jack continued almost unwillingly. “A number of Heroes working with the local Guard were able to drive the swarm away with some loss of life.”

The Hero's dark haired carer flicked him on the nose. “Don't worry about the chattering,” she told him. “The balm I'm using for the pain has a habit of loosening tongues.”

Jack followed the cloth in her hand as she dipped it in a wooden bowl next to the rug he lay on. She squeezed the cloth out before returning it to his face, and he could feel the stinging pain fading away even further.

“At least you had something interesting to say,” she continued. “Duran could only ramble on about owing someone a sword.”

“He's ok? He survived?” Jack asked. True to his carer's words, he had an urge to speak his mind. He suppressed it as he felt more questions bubbling at his lips.

“Shoulder was ruined, but he fixed it. My name's Kel,” she introduced herself.

“Jack,” he said in reply. He winced as she pulled a particularly long red shard from his cheek, admiring it by the light shining in through a flap in the tent. “Where am I?”

“Badger territory,” Kel told him, rinsing her hands in a bowl of water. “We were hunting the troll you and Duran stumbled across. Lucky for you that we were.”

“I can't remember anything after killing the troll,” Jack said. “I think we actually made camp under it to stay dry...” He tried to rise, but was weighed down by the animal skin blanket covering him. Kicking it off, he found his torso wrapped in bandages, the reason for his stiffness.

“Duran healed the worst injuries you had between yourselves, but said he had to recover his Will before finishing the job. He's eating with the hunters in the food tent,” Kel said, less interested in him now that he didn't have shards of troll eye in his face. She watched him roll to his knees and slowly get to his feet.

Jack winced at the angry throb of his ribs that came with the effort of standing. He stumbled towards the exit and pushed through the heavy flaps of the tent, grimacing at the tightness of the bandages wrapped around his torso. The frigid morning air of the mountains hit him with an almost physical force after the warmth of the tent, and he sucked in a deep breath, stretching his bandages. The young Hero drew on his Will to warm himself, relaxing as the unused force circulated around his body. He frowned as he got a feel for it—it felt thinner, more fragile than what he was accustomed to. After the Will he had expended against the rock troll, it probably was.

The tent he had exited was part of a circle of similar dwellings arranged in an earthen clearing. Smoke rose from the roof of one of them to disappear through the boughs of overarching trees, and through a gap in its entrance Jack could see a wooden table with food being passed across it. Suddenly ravenous, he made his way over to it, Kel following behind without comment.

As he ducked through the entrance to the food tent, he was hit by a wave of smells, roating meat the most prominent among them. Several figures were seated in the tent and he caught sight of Duran ripping into a leg of meat and washing it down with a long draught from a stein.

“Jack!” the white haired man called across the tent. “You're back amongst the living?”

“Mostly,” Jack said, greeting his friend with a wry smile. He rolled his shoulders experimentally, babying his ribs.

Duran frowned at the bandages. “Kel wasn't supposed to let you out until I had healed those.”

“He's awake,” Kel said with an uncaring shrug.

“And hungry,” Jack agreed. “Share some of that meat, you glutton.”

Duran laughed, apparently in high spirits. “Take a seat at the stump!” he said, gesturing his friend forward, indicating the table they sat around. It was not a proper table, but a fallen tree that had been cut down, trimmed back and smoothed flat; the tent erected around it.

Jack sat at one of the empty spaces at the tree, taking care with his ribs. Kel sat next to him, having speared a chunk of meat from the still roasting pig carcass on a knife. She tore a piece from it in an animalistic fashion, gulping it down.

One of the few other women in the tent rose and grabbed a carved wooden plate from a pack of supplies, slicing more meat from the roast to load onto it, along with a handful of greens. She lay the plate down before Jack, accepting his thanks with a nod as he began to eat, hunger accepting no delays. As he did so, he missed the borderline contemptuous look the woman gave Kel, which was coolly ignored, before returning to her seat.

“Jack,” Duran began seriously, finishing the last of his meal. “This is my father, the Badger. Father, this is Jack, a fellow Hero. He saved my life in battle.”

A man to Duran's left seemed to examine Jack, measuring him with a look. He was not old, but his short hair was flecked with grey and his face was lined. Despite this, his figure was that of a hunter's, lean and lithe.

“Your battle against the rock troll has absolved you of this debt,” Badger spoke, and Jack was struck by the impression that the man didn't much care for him.

“Neither of us would have survived the troll without the other,” Duran said, shaking his head. “I owe him.”

“The last of our learning metal was used to forge your hammer,” Badger said, not looking at his son. “If you truly want to forge this boy a weapon, you will have to gather more.”

The other clansmen and woman at the table were silent, eating their meals or just watching the discussion between father and son. At Jack's side, Kel was tense, as if waiting for an opportunity, and the young Hero started to suspect that more was going on than was readily apparent.

“Then we shall visit the deeps and gather more,” Duran said firmly.

“I have seen bandit leavings along the trails to the deeps recently,” Kel spoke up.

Badger shot a glance at Kel, his gaze unreadable. “I cannot order my hunters to aid you in this task,” he told his sun. “Fox has tested us recently, and we must be ready for them.”

“I will go with them,” Kel interjected again. “Duran doesn't know the area, and they will need a guide,” she said.

There was some shifting and muttering around the table. “Women cannot go into the deeps to gather the learning metal,” one burly clansman told the wild looking woman. “You know this.”

“And I will not,” Kel told the man evenly. “I will only go so far as to aid my brother against the trespassers in our territory. Heroes or not, they are still recovering from their fight against the rock troll that plagued us.”

Jack shot Duran a surprised look, but the dreadlocked man paid him no mind as he looked between the three speakers intently. Several in the tent did not looked pleased at the implication that they might owe the Heroes, or at least Jack, for ridding them of the troll.

“I find that agreeable,” Duran spoke up suddenly in the wake of Kel's statement. “Jack, Kel and I will gather the learning metal for his weapon and meet you at the village for its forging.” The mountain man took a deep breath, looking Badger in the eye. “Father, will you guide me in the creation of this living weapon?”

Everyone at the table looked to the Badger for his response. The burly man who had spoken against Kel seemed to be the most invested beyond Kel and Duran themselves, almost leaning forward with anticipation.

At length, Badger gave his son a curt not and returned to his meal, paying no heed to the quiet conversations that broke out between the others in the wake of his decision. The burly man looked like he had tasted something bitter, while Duran seemed well pleased. Kel appeared almost indifferent, and Jack resolved to ask Duran about the situation when the opportunity arose.

“Come on Jack,” Duran said, getting to his feet. “Let's see what we can do to finish healing your ribs.”

Eager to remove the bandages wrapped about himself, Jack wolfed down the last of his food and followed his friend from the tent. A moment later, Kel trailed in their wake.

“You're in a good mood,” Jack observed of Duran as they entered the tent he had first woken in.

“It's been a long time since I've seen my family,” Duran said with a shrug.

“A sister among them,” Jack added with a raised brow as he sat back down on the animal skin bed.

“Ashamed of me, brother?” Kel asked without any real heat.

Duran scratched his head awkwardly. “We never really talked about families and it would have been a bit weird to just announce that I had a sister out of the blue one day,” he said.

“If you say so, Durandal,” Kel said, shrugging easily.

Jack's head turned to Duran as if on a rocket powered swivel. 'Durandal', he mouthed in surprise.

“Keladry!” Duran almost whined. “No one calls me that anymore.”

“Don't call me Keladry,” Kel scowled, and in that moment Jack had no problem believing the two to be siblings. “I'm still your elder.”

The face of a fire haired child who always had time for her younger brother and was easily bribed with chocolate flashed through Jack's mind and he forced it down, keeping the smile he wore at Duran's argument with his sister firmly on his face. Family discussions between his group of friends were uncommon for a reason.

“Let's see your ribs,” Duran said, rubbing his hands together. “Give me a hand, Kel.”

Kel found the end of the bandage and began to unwrap it from around his torso. Jack flinched several times as her cold hands brushed his skin, but in short order he was unwrapped and free to inspect his injuries.

His side was a mass of mottled purples and blues, and it seemed to throb in time with his heartbeat now that it was free of the bandages. Duran's hands began to glow with white light, and he held them over the injury. Immediately, Jack felt his friend’s Will at work, soothing the damaged muscles and sinking in to fragile bones.

There was a different between healing mid-battle and taking your time with it. Willing wounds to heal swiftly enough to be effective during a fight required a large amount of Will to be gathered and dumped in the injured area. That method was clumsy and horribly inefficient, especially for Duran, who had only modest reserves of Will.

Much more effective was the method Duran was using now, taking his time and saturating the injury with a smaller amount of Will. The details of the healing expression varied from person to person but at its core, the technique remained the same—and Duran was particularly skilled with it. Before Jack's eyes, the bruising faded slightly, and his ribs began to feel less tender. He was breathing easier already.

“What was this about bandits?” Jack asked Kel as Duran worked.

“Just a small group, probably hiding out while they wait for things to cool down after some job or another,” Kel said dismissively. “They might have even left already.”

“We should find them if they have. Might be fun,” Jack suggested, perhaps a bit too eagerly.

Kel shot Duran a questioning look, but he shook his head.

“If they're not too far gone, I suppose we can have a crack at them,” Duran said flippantly. “The deeps are the real challenge though, don't forget.”

“What are the deeps?” Jack questioned, content in the knowledge that they would be able to track down and kill the bandits. “And why can't women go there?”

“They were originally a cave system,” Duran explained. “Then some lowlander found precious gems there and got it in their head to mine for more. More people found out, and an expedition was made. They picked the place clean and then they started digging. What they didn't know was that the gems weren't naturally occurring—the entire cave system was a troll breeding ground,” Duran revealed with a wry grin. “The lowlanders started digging, the trolls started killing, and there isn't any mining done there anymore.”

“So how are you able to gather this learning metal from there now?” Jack asked, intrigued.

“We don't actually dig for it,” Duran said. “It forms on the stalactites and stalagmites and we take it from there.”

“Metal forming in a troll breeding ground,” Jack began thoughtfully. “You don't suppose...?”

Duran frowned, thinking, then his brows rose abruptly. “Platinum trolls?” he questioned sharply, latching on to the idea. “I don't know. I'd never thought about that, they've been said to be extinct for so long I didn't think they were more than a story.” He grinned. “Imagine how many living weapons you could make from one of their corpses if it were true.”

“Why can't women go to the deeps though?” Jack repeated his question as Duran slipped into a daydream about what he could do with such an abundance of learning metal.

“Because only a man is permitted to forge a living blade,” Kel answered.

“Why is that?” Jack asked.

“Tradition,” Kel said with a shrug. “Badger was never the most traditional clan, but then Duran ran off to be a Hero, so suddenly tradition is much more important to certain people.”

“They don't like Heroes?” Jack asked, frowning.

“No, they like Heroes, especially when they're still technically a warrior of the clan. They like it even more when the new heir is a woman, because you can only be clan head if you wield a living weapon,” Duran said, still working at Jack's ribs.

“And women aren't allowed to enter the deeps for learning metal,” Jack said in realisation. “”Why can't someone else get it for her? That hammer of yours is a living weapon, isn't it?”

“Special exemption on account of being a mighty Hero,” Kel said without rancour. “Women have become the Badger in the past, but that was only by taking a living weapon by force, and I am in no hurry to kill my father. Duran maybe, but he hasn't been that annoying yet.”

“You couldn't lift my hammer if you tried,” Duran said, apparently indifferent to his sister's fratricidal musings.

“What is stopping you from just...taking some extra learning metal?” Jack asked.

“I can't do that to my father,” Duran said, grimacing.

“And if I take the metal myself, the hunters who think they would be a better Badger than my father will use that against him,” Kel said.

“So...what if I helped myself to some learning metal while we're there?” Jack asked, unsure of how his suggestion would be received.

The two siblings looked at each other for a long moment.

“You wouldn't be making any friends among the clan,” Duran said at length.

“Do it, give me the metal, and I'll repay you,” Kel told him bluntly. Duran looked pained at his sister's blatant disregard for the clan's traditions, biting back a comment. “Don't give me that Duran,” Kel said waspishly. “You haven't been here these past years. I don't live away from the clan for the joy of it.”

Duran grimaced, making no comment. The rest of Jack's healing passed in silence.

X x X

Jack was woken the next morning by a nudge to his shoulder. Dawn's early light filtered into the tent, illuminating Kel as she stood over him, waiting for him to rise. The wolf skin pelt she wore over her shoulders and his vantage point afforded him an interesting view, and Jack blushed, looking away.

Kel made no comment at his actions, but there was a hint of amusement around her eyes. “Gather your things. We are leaving,” she said quietly, before walking from the tent. She wore another animal pelt around her waist, one that reached mid thigh. Jack's gaze followed her as she left.

The young Hero rose from his bed, intent on his belongings. His enhanced rucksack and what he had been wearing when the rock troll ambushed them were piled at the side of the tent. He made his way over and began to dress. The old rumpled trousers he wore were shucked in exchange for a new, clean pair and the hardy white tunic that all Heroes were given when they first started out was wrestled on. His iron bracers were strapped on securely, and his soon to be replaced short sword was slung over his back. Rucksack at his hip, he stepped out into the morning to join Duran and Kel.

Duran was again wearing his leather jerkin, but this time had donned his own tunic beneath it in allowance to the growing cold. His travelling pack was already secured around his shoulders and he leaned on his hammer as he waited next to his sister, who apparently had little concept of cold. Still clad in the animal skins that left much of her limbs bare, she was armed with a long, thin dagger on one hip and a shorter, squat dagger on the other.

“Come,” the wild woman said, beckoning the Heroes forward. “It will take most of the day to reach the deeps.”

Kel led, and Jack and Duran followed, leaving the temporary dwellings behind as the sun continued to rise.

X

The sun was halfway through its descent when Duran pulled up shot as he led the way up a narrow trail. He pointed, drawing his companions' attention to several clods of earth that had been kicked loose from the side of the mountain path, and the half print of a sandal left on one of them.

“Bandits?” Jack asked, almost hopefully.

“Probably,” Duran agreed, kneeling for a better look at the signs. “No clansman would wear sandals along these trails.”

“They're closer to the deeps than they were last time I caught their sign,” Kel added, tugging idly at an errant lock of black hair.

“Does that matter? We're going to kill them all, anyway,” Jack said with a shrug.

“You don't like bandits, do you?” Kel observed with a glance at Duran, who shook his head.

“Not at all,” Jack replied, smiling thinly.

“Earth hasn't dried out yet,” Duran said, rolling one of the loose clods between his fingers. “Two hours, maybe three?”

“Only one decent place to make camp at that isn't hidden along this trail,” Kel told the Heroes.

“Where's that?” Jack asked.

“Small cave an hour's trek before the deeps,” Kel answered. “If they're there, we'll reach them this side of dusk.”

Jack reached into his Will and shook it loose, anticipating a fight. It seemed to hum back at him, eager to be unleashed. The young Hero grinned.

It took only another hour to reach the bandits as Jack took the lead and pushed the pace. He enjoyed killing bandits, he had come to discover in the short time since he had become a Hero. Each one he killed felt like a small piece of revenge for Oakvale.

The bandits they were following had reached the cave Kel spoke of not half an hour before them, it seemed. It was only a small cave, set in the side of a middling slope. A small stack of wood had been gathered at the mouth of the cave in preparation for a fire, but it had yet to be lit.

Jack, Duran and Kel watched the small group of bandits from inside a mass of stranglethorn, a type of bush common to the lower slopes of the Pyrepeaks. Usually claimed as a den by boars and the like, now it served to give them a relatively close view of their quarry without fear of detection. It had hardly been an effort to sneak as close as they were in the first place – the bandits had not even bothered to post a guard.

“Definitely bandits,” Duran confirmed, sighting the usual trappings bandits tended to wear like badges of honour. “How do you want to do this?”

“Lure them out, pick them off,” Kel suggested. “Even the odds.”

“They're only bandits,” Duran said dismissively. “Probably only farmers before they turned to killing.”

The afternoon sun emerged from behind a mass of clouds, painting the mountain slope orange, and Jack had an idea. A small corona of fire flared into being in the palm of his hand, drawing the arguing siblings' attention.

“Let's try my way,” Just said, most of his attention on the small fireball in his palm. Maze had warned him about using new expressions in battle without practising them first, but he wasn't facing an enemy Hero now, and Maze never had to know.

Jack stepped clear of the stranglethorn bush and let fly with the fireball. It arced up the slope, almost invisible in the afternoon glare, and then it impacted. A dull roar echoed off the mountain and a gout of flame shot out from the cave, shattering the quiet of the mountainside. A flock of birds erupted into the sky and a trio of goats fled up the mountain in the ringing silence that was left in the wake of the fireball. As Duran and Kel rushed up the slope to press the advantage, Jack reached into his rucksack to retrieve Maze's book. Taking a slender piece of charcoal wrapped in cloth he'd left within its pages, he made a small mark next to the misleading description of the fireball with a satisfied grin.

X

None of the bandits had survived. By luck or design, they had all been gathered around the unlit fire at the mouth of the cave. When the fireball had hit, those it hadn't killed instantly had been hurled back by the force of the explosion to collide with the rocky cave walls.

“Are all Heroes capable of such destruction?” Kel asked, almost uneasily.

“Most of us, with a bit of talent and a lot of practise,” Duran answered. “Give me a month and I could probably throw fire too, but I know for a fact that Jack came up with that on the spot, and he only conjured fire for the first time a few hours before the rock troll hit us,” he finished, disgruntled.

Jack pretended to buff his nails on his shirt, and Duran rolled his eyes at him. Kel, for her part, was looking at the young Hero with a considering gaze. She watched the way he looked at the smouldering bandit corpses with a sense of satisfaction and made a decision.

“Any valuables?” Jack asked, hand held over his nose as the scent of cooked human flesh started to become overwhelming.

“Some coin, a bit of food,” Duran said, having wandered over to the back of the cave. He threw the small pouch he had recovered to Jack. “Hardly worth splitting, and you did all the work,” he said by way of explanation.

Kel knelt next to one of the corpses, apparently unaffected by the smell. She tugged at the hilt of a blade fixed to its belt, pulling free a shiny obsidian dagger. It had a cruel curve to it, and a downwards pointing hook near its tip. The wild woman spent a moment admiring it, before adding it to her belt.

“No point lingering,” Jack said, eager to push on to the deeps now that the bandits had been dealt with.

Duran and Kel nodded, and they set out again, making for the deeps. They left the bandits where they fell, fair game for the many meat eating creatures that called the mountain home.

X

The path that let to the entrance of the deeps was an unassuming one, and had Kel not been there to guide them, Jack and Duran may well have walked right past it in the fading dusk light. A small winding path left the main trail and disappeared into a thick copse of trees that sat in the cradle between two of the mountain's grasping fingers. The trees were sterner, more foreboding than the ones populating the Guild Woods that Jack and his friends had often played amongst when they were younger.

The trio made their way up the path, birdsong filtering through the trees, and if Kel walked the path with more familiarity than she should, Duran made no comment. In time, they came to a small hillock of earth and stone. A gaping black hole at its base seemed to swallow the path they walked, the rotting, sagging remains of timber supports at the disused mine entrance bringing to mind a crone's crooked, rotting teeth.

Night had all but fallen as they took in the entrance to the deeps. Jack eyed it suspiciously, mentally questioning the wisdom of entering an old, abandoned mine now that they had arrived.

“That can't be safe,” Jack said dubiously.

“It was a cave system long before it was a mine,” Duran answered, shrugging. “Do we push on now, or set up camp for the evening?”

“Rest now, enter the deeps fresh,” Kel said reluctantly. The day's travel had left her tired and in need of sleep, and she found herself envious of the stamina the two Heroes possessed. She did not quite appreciate being outdone by a boy a few years her junior. “Now or tomorrow, they'll still be dark.”

The Heroes took her words to heart, and began to set up a rough camp a short distance from the cave entrance. Jack and Duran set out their bedrolls as Kel gathered firewood, and in short order they had what comforts they could while camped on the edge of the Pyrepeak mountains.

Eager for rest, Jack retired quickly after a simple meal. His last sight before falling into slumber was of Kel making a bed of her animal skin cloak and curling up on it, her features illuminated by dancing flames.

X

The deeps began the same way you could expect any abandoned mine to: a rusty set of rails disappearing into the darkness through rotting remains of timber supports.

With only the glowing fae lights conjured by the Heroes to provide illumination, the trio followed the sloping mine cart tracks, the darkness of the tunnel pressing in around them. The only sounds were those of their footsteps, disquieting silence making them seem impossibly loud. The very air of the shaft, undisturbed for so long, grasped at them, stuffy and stale.

After nearly an hour, or perhaps only half of that, they came across the mine cart whose tracks they had been following. It sat upon a wooden platform, held in place by rope and pulley over a gaping black shaft. The platform itself appeared to be surprisingly well preserved, even usable, but for the rope system that was dangerously frayed in places.

“Tell me we're not using that,” Jack said, turning to his companions.

“We could, if you don't mind a quick drop and a sudden stop,” Duran joked. He raised his arm, directing the bobbing fae light he had conjured to follow the side wall of the tunnel over to the far side of the shaft. A narrow ledge on the side wall was revealed, leading to what could charitably be called stairs carved from the bedrock of the far shaft wall. “That's the safest way down,” the mountain man revealed.

Jack favoured his friend with a look that clearly said, 'You've got to be fucking kidding me'. Apparently misinterpreting the look as one that said, 'What a great idea!', Duran dropped his pack to the ground and leaned his hammer against the wall beside it. The big man began to stretch, loosening up in preparation for the descent.

“This is a terrible idea,” Jack said flatly.

“I know you're not scared of heights,” Duran said teasingly. “You won that race across the Guild rooftops easily enough that time.”

“That was under a full moon with plenty of time to catch yourself if you slipped,” Jack retorted.

“It was also naked,” Duran said smugly as he checked his boots. “Think you'd have an easier time of things if you stripped down?”

“We don't talk about that. Never happened,” Jack denied as he reluctantly began to unlace his bracers and remove his sword and bag.

Duran laughed at him and began to slide his way across the narrow ledge towards the staircase. Jack prepared to follow, and in that moment was blindsided by a blur from behind that raced over the elevator platform and launched itself across the shaft. Kel seemed to hang in mid air for an impossibly long moment, before gravity re-exerted its hold and she fell—directly on to the steep staircase that led down into the deeps. She turned and grinned at the Heroes as she clung to the wall. The animal pelt cloak she had worn was absent, and a coarse cloth wrapped around her chest to give her greater freedom of movement.

“Hurry up slowpokes!” Kel said, her voice echoing around up the shaft.

Jack shook his head and began to inch out over the ledge. The dark emptiness before him seemed to pull at him, and he swallowed. He was not looking forward to this.

X

In the end, the climb downwards was perhaps only fifty metres, despite how much further it felt in the dark of the shaft, clinging to the wall. The trio emerged into a near pitch black expanse, caution keeping them near the staircase. Vague outlines were visible in the gloom, and the Heroes poured a little more energy into their fae lights, guiding them to rise upwards. A cavern roughly the size of the Chamber of Fate back in the Guild was revealed, stumps of what were once likely age old stone formations revealed as the gloom retreated.

The cavern bore evidence of the ill fated mining operation that had stripped it of precious gems, in the form of rusted hunks of metal and broken, scattered skeletons here and there.

“This was where the lowlanders started their digging,” Duran explained in hushed tones. “Learning metal doesn't form here anymore, or in any of the other caverns that they levelled,” he said, gesturing to the stumps of rock at the edges of the cavern.

“We should split up, explore,” Kel decided for them. “Jack can come with me, while you look for the caves father told you about,” she said to Duran.

Duran's gaze flicked from Kel to Jack in the gloom of the cave system, clearly curious about his sister's decision. “Jack will have to come with me if you want your learning metal,” he said with a frown.

“We're not on a time limit here. We have time to look around,” Kel said, shrugging.

“If you say so...” Duran shrugged, looking around the cavern for something before apparently finding it. He took off for one of the tunnels that led from the main chamber, light bobbing at his shoulder. “We'll meet back here. Don't wander off the paths cleared by the miners.”

Jack and Kel watched as Duran disappeared down the tunnel he walked, his conjured light swallowed by the darkness.

“C'mon. Last time I was here I found a crevice that looks like it might lead somewhere,” Kel said, tugging at Jack's arm.

Jack allowed himself to be pulled along, Kel leading the way down a smaller, less cleanly hewn tunnel. “You're not much one for rules, are you?” he observed, feeling very aware of the way Kel hooked her arm around his and held it close to her side.

“I've yet to touch a piece of learning metal,” Kel said virtuously. “It would truly pain me to disobey my elders.”

“I'm sure,” Jack replied. He ducked his head to avoid a low outcropping of rock as the tunnel began to slope. “Really though, why did you want me to come with you? I'll have to go with Duran at some point anyway if you want that learning metal.”

“Duran hasn't lived with the clan since he was a child,” Kel said. “He respects the traditions in a general way, but they don't matter to him like they do to the older hunters, and I haven't given a shred of a hobbes' mercy for them since one of the Badger's advisors tried to force me into a handsfasting with their son. You don't owe the clan a thing—as it stands, the Badger owes you. Do you think there's any chance the old men suspect anything less than me coming back from these caves with what I need to forge a living weapon?”

Jack blinked at Kel's response, not expecting his question to trigger such an anger tinged tirade. “If you care so little for the clan's traditions, why haven't you taken what you need yourself already?”

“I have to break the rules while still following them to the letter if I ever want to be the Badger,” Kel told him shortly. “Otherwise I might as well just kill those who oppose me, and if I did that I would not be worthy in the first place.”

“You still didn't answer my question,” Jack said.

There was a bare moment of hesitation, and a flicker of something crossed Kel's face. “These tunnels haven't been explored in years. I'm hoping we can find some learning metal in one of them so Duran can truthfully tell the elders we didn't even lay eyes on any.”

Jack heard the lie in her words immediately, but held his tongue. She wanted something from him, but didn't want to come out and say it. He merely nodded, and they continued down the tunnel.

“That light of yours makes this much easier,” Kel commented as they stepped over a small pile of rubble on the path. “Nearly broke my foot on that my first time along here.”

“A fae light is a useful spell,” Jack agreed. If Kel didn't want to dwell on their previous conversation, he was fine with that, for the time being. “You'd be surprised how many people don't bother to learn it.”

“Why is it called a fae light?” Kel asked.

“Because it resembles faeries in their true form, mostly. When they fly around, all you can see of them is a glowing ball of light.”

“I've never seen a faerie before,” Kel admitted.

“Actually, you might have,” Jack said with a teasing grin. “Faeries have been known to masquerade in human form to seduce mortal men and steal away young children.”

Kel frowned in confusion as Jack spoke before her face wrinkled in revulsion. “That's horrid. Coupling with a faerie....ugh. And why do they steal children?” A queasy expression took over her face. “They don't eat them, do they?”

Jack laughed, the sound echoing along the tunnel. He quieted himself, replying, “where do you think the hobbes they summon come from?”

Kel whipped around to stare at Jack in horror, mouth open, before shaking her head in disbelief. “That's just an old wives tale.”

“That's what I thought, but then I read this study by this old Hero called Prictus, and some of his findings just make too much sense,” Jack said.

“Seems like you know a lot about this sort of thing,” Kel observed.

Jack shrugged. “I spent a lot of time in the Guild library during my Apprenticeship. I'd start out researching one thing, then a throwaway line would catch my attention and before I knew it, I'd spent a week looking into it. You know what it's li—oh,” Jack broke off embarrassedly.

Kel smile good naturedly, not taking any offence. “Badger doesn't exactly have a library hidden away in one of our tents. Father arranged for me to be taught whatever I could learn whenever we visited a town or village to trade, and the clan wisewomen passed on what they knew. I might not have been chosen by the Guild, but I'm no highland yokel, either.”

Jack nodded silently, not knowing what to say. He'd never been in the position of being more privileged than someone he was on good terms with.

“Here, this is it,” Kel said, stopping suddenly. She pointed at what was seemingly a dark rock wall.

Jack moved around Kel to look back at the wall she pointed at, only then seeing what they were looking for. A tiny, narrow passage, not quite a shoulders width across, was hidden behind a sheaf of outjutting rock, rendering it almost invisible from the way they had come.

“How did you find this?” Jack asked, directing the fae light a short way down the crevice.

“Chance, mostly. I was making my way by touch, and found it on my way back. Nearly had a heart attack when I did, thought I'd lost my way somewhere.”

“What makes you think there's anything down there?” Jack asked.

“Here, have a look at this,” Kel said, crouching down.

Jack leaned forward, squinting under the light of his conjuration. In the dust of the narrow passage, a series of strange small footprints could be made out, first leading towards the mine tunnel, but heading away before leaving the crevice.

“I lit up my torch to make sure I hadn't lost my way and saw these,” Kel said enthusiastically. “So? What do you say?”

The young Hero ran a hand over the smooth grey stone that made up the walls of the crevice. “I say it's going to be a tight fit. Let's get started.”

Kel's answering grin almost lit up the passageway on its own.

X

It was a tight fit. Forced to shuffle sideways down the narrow passage, Jack led the way, thankful that he didn't have his sword and pack to worry about. If not for the light cast by his conjuration, he suspected the claustrophobia would have been nigh on crippling.

“This thing goes on forever,” Jack grumbled, some distance into the passage. Behind him, Kel made a muffled noise of agreement.

Their progress was slow, but steady. Every now and then, Jack would pause to check the tracks in the sloped floor of the crevice, half formed suspicions mulling over in the back of his mind. The crevice grew taller and more twisted, the ceiling rising up and out of sight while the walls protruded into the passage in places, forcing the pair to crawl under or climb over in order to continue.

In the end, it took them near on an hour to reach the end of the passage, although it felt like far, far longer. Jack contorted his frame to get around one last particularly troublesome twist, almost falling out into the empty space beyond. When Kel attempted the same manoeuvre, she crashed into Jack's back and nearly sent him sprawling, the Hero having stopped in place at the sight revealed to him.

The cavern they now stood in was enormous, easily dwarfing the Heroes Guild several times over. The nearby walls seemed to glitter under Jack's fae light, twinkling what seemed like every colour of the rainbow back at him. Barely visible far above them, the darkness shrouded ceiling was a mass of stalactites, a testament to the age of the cavern. On the rocky floor, spiralling paths wound around clusters of matching stalagmites. The sound of dripping water filled the enormous space, and Jack flared his light brighter, revealing even more of the wondrous natural formation.

At the only end of the cavern they could see lay a vast, still lake. Its surface was like obsidian, with not a single ripple to disturb it. The water almost appeared to drink in the light, and Jack got a very queer sensation from its depths. That was not a place he would fancy a swim.

“Pretty,” Kel whispered as she took in the view, hesitant to break the quietness. She almost felt like she was in a holy place. “Good thing silly lowlanders never found this place.”

“Look at the walls,” Jack whispered back, running his hand over the closest rocky surface. “Are they what I think they are?”

Kel leaned in close to the wall, squinting. “Skorm strike me,” she said quietly. “The rock is laced with gemstones. If anyone ever found this place, they could buy Albion.” Her gaze flicked to Jack with a new hardness in it; the Hero looked around in wonder.

“Let's explore,” Jack said. “We should be able to follow the gaps between the stalagmites without damaging them.”

“Kel nodded in agreement and followed Jack as he led the way deeper into the cavern, away from the still lake that dominated one end. “Who do you think you'll tell about this place?” she asked, as if the answer didn't much interest her.

“Duran, Klessan and Whisper,” Jack answered immediately. “Probably my mentor, Maze. I think he'd enjoy seeing a place like this.”

Kel frowned, her thoughts drifting to the thin knife bound to the inside of her thigh. “Did you ever hear what happened last time the lowlanders got wind of riches in the mountains?”

Jack turned in surprise at her strange tone, sighting the hard lines her had had settled into and swiftly realising the cause of her concern. “I trust my friends,” he assured her. “You don't have to worry about some fat merchant reopening the mine and deciding Badger should go the way of Otter.”

Kel relaxed minutely. “Duran told you about that, did he?”

“We had to pass by that mine on our way from Bowerstone,” Jack said.

“Just keep in mind what lowlander interest means for the clans,” the dark haired woman said, her tone uncompromising. “There's a reason people say three can keep a secret if two are dead.”

A strange, high pitched chitter broke the natural ambience of the cavern, echoing from nearby. Jack quenched his fae light with a thought, and complete darkness swarmed in. He stepped over to where Kel stood and grasped her arm, before standing stock still and listening.

The chitter sounded again, this time answered by a number of rumbling growls. In the absence of his fae light, Jack could make out a faint glow over the stalagmites, closer to the centre of the cavern.

“Hobbes,” Kel almost hissed. “What are they doing in a place like this?”

“There must be another entrance,” Jack murmured. “Let's get closer, see what they're doing here. This isn't a typical place for a hobbe nest.” He conjured his fae light once more, keeping it close to the ground and just barely bright enough to see their feet.

“How do you know?” Kel asked, quietly. “Have you been in one before?”

“Well, no,” Jack admitted. “I've never seen a hobbe in the flesh before. But there's a lot of works about them in the Guild Library.”

“So you really have no idea what we're walking into down here? Unarmed, at that?”

“A Hero is never unarmed,” Jack said in retort, ignoring the rest of her question.

Kel rolled her eyes, the motion lost on the young Hero in the dark. They skirted around a tall cluster of stalagmites, closing in on the other source of light in the cavern. The ground began to slope, leading them higher the closer to the centre they got. Stalagmites rose irregularly from the floor, forcing the pair to take a circuitous route to reach the hobbes they could hear; the beasts became rowdier with every passing minute.

As they crept through the darkness, a mental image of the cavern formed in Jack's mind. The very edges of the great space were the lowest, with the insidious dark lake occupying the deepest corner, near to their entry point. As one neared the centre, the ground began to rise into a small hill, and it was becoming apparent that it was there that the hobbes were gathered.

High, childlike laughter cut across the bickering of the hobbes and they quietened. Having reached the crest of the hill, Jack and Kel crouched down behind a row of stalagmites, peering out from behind the cover it offered to take in the scene before them.

A messy scrum of hobbes was arrayed around the peak of the hill, mainly before a large boulder that sat at its middle, some of them snarling and fighting with their fellows. They were ugly creatures; their short, squat builds barely reached above Jack's waist, their skin a riot of colours. Some were pale white, others boiling red, and all wore some ill fitting hodge podge of human clothing. One wielded a battered fishing rod officiously, while another wore a Trader's hat with two red feathers sticking from it jauntily. A number of broken stalagmites lay cracked and shattered on the hill, evidence of the rabbles' uncaring roughness. Little better than base animals at the best of times, the brutish creatures had destroyed in minutes what had taken untold years to form.

The high pitched laughter rang out across the hill once more, calming the last of the squabbling hobbes, and the other source of light in the cavern was revealed. A pale, glowing faerie emerged from behind the large rock formation that dominated the top of the hill, casting an ethereal light with beat of its tiny wings. It chittered at the hobbes, seemingly directing them. The hobbes growled and snorted between themselves, and the white hobbe carrying the battered fishing pole stepped forward from its fellows, apparently speaking for them all. It growled an incomprehensible gabble at the faerie, who chattered back and pointed at the large boulder it hovered over.

The lead hobbe growled at the faerie again, apparently not telling the glowing being what it wanted to hear. In the next instant, the hobbe shrieked in pain as it fell writhing to the ground, victim of some manner of spell cast by the faerie. After several moments of agony, the spell ceased, and the hobbe grudgingly got to its feet, grumbling darkly under its breath. A decision must have been made, however, because the lead hobbe turned to growl shortly at the others, before turning back to the faerie. It raised the fishing pole it carried and a ball of white light gathered at its tip. Almost as if it were casting a line, the hobbe brought the pole back and flicked it forward. The orb of light gathered at its tip was launched through the air, towards the boulder that sat embedded in the hill.

It impacted with a blast, sending fragments of rock flying and filling the air with dust. Jack and Kel were protected from the flying shards by the stalagmites they crouched behind for the most part, but the group of hobbes were less lucky. Most of them were knocked off their feet, and all were wounded in some manner or another. This didn't seem to deter them, however—if anything it only riled them up further. The small mob gave a howl and rushed the boulder, hacking at it with their shoddy weapons or just outright attempting to pull at chunks of rock with their bare hands. Overhead, the faerie circled dizzyingly, trilling a gleefully malicious tune as the hobbes did its bidding.

Not every hobbe turned its attention to the boulder, however. Those at the back of the pack, too impatient and lacking the strength to push through the others, turned their attention to the stalagmites on the hilltop. Working in concert, a fat red hobbe and two smaller ones were able to topple one of the taller rock pillars, cackling to each other as it crushed two other stalagmites before shattering on the ground.

The hobbe with the fishing pole lobbed another orb of light at the boulder, sending more shards of rock flying and throwing the three hobbes toppling stalagmites from their feet. They rolled themselves over and picked themselves up, before waddling away from the other hobbes and towards their next target—the stalagmites that Jack and Kel were crouching behind.

The two humans were still as they crouched in the shadow of their cover, the light cast by the faerie doing no favours for the hobbes night vision. As they drew closer, however, the red skinned hobbe began to sniff the air; its squashed nose quested back and forth like a bloodhound's. Very carefully, Kel retrieved the thin blade she had strapped to her thigh, her eyes set on the hobbes as they drew closer.

Jack drew on his Will, feeling its current as it coursed through his body. It pulsed with his heartbeat, strong and rhythmic. It was well and truly recovered from his desperate effort against the rock troll, if anything the well of his power felt deeper than ever. He breathed deeply, a single tongue of flame dancing in the palm of his hand. He nodded to Kel, and the mountain woman struck.

Kel lunged through a gap between two stalagmites, dagger held low. To the hobbes, it was as if she had simply materialised from the darkness. The two smaller hobbes squawked indignantly as Kel rammed her blade into the soft flesh of their larger companion's neck, driving it in to the hilt before yanking it out with a vicious tear. The red skinned hobbe collapsed with a gurgle, bereft of its throat.

Jack stepped out of the darkness, the single tongue of flame in his palm now a long slender length. It flicked out like a devil's tail, lashing the two smaller hobbes in one swing and burning them terribly. They screeched in agony as they danced away, drawing the attention of every other living being in the cavern to the two humans.

The rabble of creatures that would be only too happy to make a meal of their bones stared at them for a long moment, clustered at the side of the boulder they were dismantling for whatever reason. The lead hobbe growled, an orb of light gathering at the tip of its fishing pole, and Jack exerted his Will almost without thought. The fire whip he held compressed in on itself, forming a ball of swirling flame. He fed his Will into the fireball, just as Maze's misleading journal directed him to and just as he had the previous day against the bandits, only this time he knew exactly what he was doing. The ball of flame turned an angry red, and it began to shake alarmingly. In the moment before it would have exploded, likely taking Jack's arm with it, the Hero hurled it at the cluster of hobbes.

The fireball hit the lead hobbe square in the head, melting its skin and boiling its brain. The point was made moot in the next second as the projectile exploded violently, killing the hobbes closest to it outright and giving horrendous burns to the others. Only the few at the very edge of the pack survived relatively unscathed, yet they were still sent reeling by the force of the blast.

Jack grinned fiercely. This was the aspect of being a Hero that he enjoyed, almost craved, the most—not the skill born from hours of practise that allowed you to hit the bullseye with every shot, nor the strength of arms that allowed one to cleave an enemy in two with a single blow. It was the ability to exert his Will, to bend his power to whatever pursuit he wished and in whatever manner he could imagine that he loved. Fire danced to life in the palm of his hand, and he prepared another fireball to deal with the surviving hobbes. In his fervour, he almost missed Kel's warning shout.

“Jack!”

Jack dove to the side, fire in his hands sputtering from existence as a glowing blue blur darted past his face. The faerie gave a maddened howl as the attack that would have torn out his throat instead left a line of heat and pain over his shoulder and down his arm. The faerie giggled as he gasped in pain, dancing back up into the air and out of reach as Kel sought to skewer it on her dagger.

Blood dripping down his arm, Jack glared up at the laughing faerie. On the ground, the surviving hobbes were on their feet once more, growling menacingly at the humans.

“You take the faerie,” Kel said as she moved to confront the hobbes, a meat cleaver she had liberated from a dead hobbe held in her free hand. “I'll keep the little bastards off you.”

A fireball would be too slow to hit the nimble faerie that was darking around above him. Jack shook his arms out with a slight wince as he gathered his Will once more. Sparks began to fly between his fingers, and a single drop of his blood fell to the floor.

That was the signal. Jack drew his arms up in a rush, lightning blasting forth from his fingertips as he unleashed his second favourite expression of Will. The faerie did its best to avoid the arcs of electricity, but only succeeded in delaying the inevitable. A finger of lightning connected with the small creature, the current coursing through its frame and nearly cooking it from the inside. The faerie tumbled down the side of the boulder it had been so interested in, stopping in a twitching heap on the ground before it.

Jack glanced over at Kel, and saw that she was dealing with the hobbes with little trouble, like a jaguar toying with a pack of jackals. Almost negligently, he raised one arm and sent a blast of lightning at a hobbe that was trying to circle around the wild woman to come at her from behind, before turning back to the faerie. Kel could handle herself.

The wound that faerie had given him was bleeding irritatingly. The shoulder of his simple white shirt was absorbing some of the blood, but just as much was dripping down his arm, leaving his hand wet and dripping with it. His uninjured arm came up, a small ball of fire spinning in his upturned palm. He hefted it, once, twice, and hurled it at the defenceless form of the faerie.

The faerie moved, glowing brighter than ever. Its victorious cackle rang in Jack's ears as it avoided his fireball with ease as it sped towards him, covering the short distance in the blink of an eye. He was able to make out a mouth full of sharp fangs and soulless black eyes before his brain hitched into gear and he reacted.

His form turned insubstantial, glowing almost as brightly as the faerie itself. Lacking a target for his oldest and favourite expression of Will, Jack merely shot forward until he came to the large boulder at the middle of the hill. His fireball had blasted more of the rock away to reveal a curiously smooth side of stone beneath the craggy outer layer, and he instinctively put his hands out to steady himself against it.

The second Jack's bloody hand touched the smooth stone concealed within the boulder, the very atmosphere of the cavern changed. The boulder began to rumble and crack, falling into pieces before Jack's shocked eyes to reveal what lay within. The smooth side of stone Jack had caught himself against was part of a stone dome set into a pedestal. How the faerie knew the structure was hidden under the rocky covering, Jack had no idea, but he knew one thing—it was certainly not a natural formation.

The faerie was hovering in place now, seemingly entranced by the sight of the revealed stone dome; it was crooning softly. Kel, having finished the last remaining hobbe, was watching it warily, but held her ground.

Jack took his hands off the dome, intending to unleash lightning once more, when his attention was grabbed by the bloody hand print he had made. A strange, runic design consisting of a snaking line with a dot on each side of it at either end, was left untouched by blood in the palm of the print. Almost unwillingly, Jack turned his hand over to inspect his palm and found the same design starting back up at him, the blood inside its bounds pulsing rhythmically.

The faerie came to its senses, gimlet eyes narrowing in on its would-be prey. It gave an angry yowl and dove for the Hero, clawing fingers seeking soft flesh. Jack flexed his Will, slipping into the rush that would avoid the attack and leave him facing the faerie's back.

The instant the expression of Will began, a hot, searing pain erupted from his bloody hand, coming from the runic pattern on his palm. Jack clutched his hand as he screamed soundlessly, the pain sinking into his very bones and spreading up his arm to settle in his gut. His wraith-like form glowed brighter than ever, pulsing in time with his heartbeat and the waves of pain travelling along his arm. The faerie flew through his insubstantial body, either not recognising or uncaring that it could not touch him. As the faerie hit him, however, the searing pain issuing from the rune on his hand increased tenfold, driving the Hero to his knees. It was as if the bones in his arm were being used to ferry molten iron to his chest, and he was feeling every torturous second of it.

From his back, a small, smoking skeleton emerged, falling against the stone dome and then to the ground with a clatter. The faerie's flesh and blood had been burned from existence, and the pain coursing through Jack's body retreated from torturous to merely agonising.

Kel stood well clear of the kneeling hero as he moaned in pain. The hobbes were all dead, and she wasn't going to risk having her fleshed burned from her bones with an errant touch. She said a quick prayer to the Mountain-Father for Jack's survival, then added one to Avo as well.

Abruptly, Jack's body returned to its tangible form, leaving the cavern in total darkness once more. The burning pain retreated from his chest, slowly making its way back down his arm and into his hand. For a split second, the pain flared, before slowing fading to nothing. Jack fell forward onto his side, his affected arm twitching. The pain of the wound dealt by the faerie didn't even register after his ordeal. Gingerly, he coaxed open his fist, and a soft blue glow issued forth. Seared into his palm was a pattern he was sure he would now be able to draw in his sleep, the runic marking branded on him by the strange stone dome.

Jack pushed himself to his knees with a grunt of effort. Cool hands grasped his uninjured arm and supported him as he fought his way back to his feet. His vision dimmed and he swayed dizzily, leaning into Kel to stay upright. His arm throbbed with each heartbeat; it was like he been sunburnt down to the bone. Ignoring the physical discomfort he took stock of his Will, drawing on it with great care. The normal pulsing current was but a series of strained threads, like an oak blasted by hot desert sands. The light shining from his palm faded slightly, but remained bright enough to see vague outlines of their immediate surrounds in the dark cavern.

“What the fuck was that?” Kel demanded, her gaze flickering between Jack and the innocent looking stone dome.