Taking this meeting as a favorable sign, I again headed forward, focusing on the clear traces of the multi-ton zug. Half an hour later, I reached a place where the sheer walls of another ravine parted, leaving a rounded area. And on this site now are having an epic battle of cthulhanoids with zugs. The last of them came out of a decent-sized cave in the wall of the ravine. I did not wait to find out who would win, but simply struck all of them with fire and energy of Order, burning out this nest of abomination. After making sure that there were no survivors, I went inside the cave, again focusing on the traces of slime and paws of the zugs.

Here on the way I met several more mutated gnomes, which I incinerated almost without straining. The main thing was just to get used to it. Apart from their size and savage ferocity, the zugs had no special fighting qualities.

The journey through the cave took almost an hour, but at last I came out, finding myself in the middle of a mountain slope near a ravine where countless swarms of flying zugs were fighting with no less countless crowds of cthulhanoids swarming on the ground. As soon as I came out into the sunlight, I immediately felt that these are the same Crystal Mountains that I needed. Apparently, the size mattered.

I did not interfere in the battle of the two armies, but quickly slipped aside. The compass was leading me again, so I had no problem choosing my path. After running through the open area and fending off a dozen flying zugs, I dived into a small passageway in the rock. The walls were decorated with numerous designs and inscriptions from the time of the dwarves. Despite the millions of years that had passed, rune magic still worked.

The passage I had chosen was too narrow for zugs, so that the rest of my way was safe, dark, and silent. Step by step I descended into the depths of the dwarven mines. After a while, the patterned passageways gave way to simple rectangular corridors. And even deeper, they were replaced by barely processed drifts cut through the solid rock of the mountains. An hour later, I was walking through natural caves where only occasional traces of pickaxe or magic were found.

There was a special atmosphere in these dark and confusing years. Even in the days of the dwarves, these passageways were as old as the earth itself. It was not ruled by dwarves, but by the ancient inhabitants of the dungeons, who were always wandering around the intricate caves for purpose which be understood only by them.

In confirmation of my thoughts, a hideous huge carcass of a stone worm crawled around the corner and immediately tried to devour me. A couple of magic strikes left this monster in rapidly decomposing fragments, and then I continued on my way.

The further I went, the more I felt the hopelessness that permeated every stone of these endless dungeons. The compass could no longer show me the way, and I could only wander aimlessly through the natural labyrinth, repeatedly destroying the nightmarish monsters that lived here.

I lost track of the time I spent in this realm of nightmares when luck smiled at me. In one of the passageways where I turned on a hunch, I heard the sounds of a fight and a battle cry. As I hurried forward, I saw a giant slug centipede attacking the dwarf. Yes, a very ordinary bearded dwarf with a pickaxe in his hands. I immediately rushed to his aid and with just a couple of spells turned his opponent to dust, which immediately soaked into the walls, only to be resurrected a moment later by another monster in another part of the maze.

Oddly enough, the dwarf was not happy about the appearance of an unexpected savior and now turned his primitive weapon on me.

"Calm down, I won't eat you." - I tried to calm him.

"Are you sure?" - He asked.

"Well, if you insist, I can bite a piece off you."

"I knew, you were just another nightmare!"

With that, the dwarf shouted a battle cry and charged at me, swinging his pickaxe. Unfortunately, that was the end of the battle. Stone branches grew out of the cave walls and swaddled him so that he could not even move.

"Why are you so impolite?" - I smiled maliciously, looking into his eyes. - "I'm just going to eat your heart."

I no longer spoke the end of my speech, but shouted in a voice that struck terror into those who heard it. This phrase, and the feeling of helplessness, struck such terror into the dwarf's heart that he yelled and... woke up. With him I also woke up and found myself in the material world.

Now the dwarf was lying on a stone bed, and I was looming over him. My victim opened his eyes, saw my face, and screamed loudly, kicking me with her hands and feet. As if to echo this cry, angry and frightened shouts began to be heard everywhere. I sat up and struck my head against the stone ceiling. Now I was in a room where there were many beds on which until that moment the gnomes were quietly sleeping peacefully. But when they heard the screams, they woke up, saw me, and then they start yelling as if they were dreaming about Xenomorph.

In just a few seconds, the bravest and most reckless of the dwarves tried to attack me. But in this world, I had real magic under my control, which I didn't hesitate to use to instantly immobilize everyone present and stop their annoying screams.

As soon as the room was quiet, more screams were heard from the entrance, and bearded dwarves dressed in armor and armed with axes broke into the bedroom. They suffered the same fate, after which I intimidated everyone present by casting the appropriate spell on them. Then all I had to do was ask the right questions, and extract answers from the distraught dwarves. After about 24 hours I already knew everything I needed, and the dwarves accepted that they have a nightmare of dreams in their caves, with which they could do absolutely nothing.

The dwarf I met in the dream world ended up in a dungeon with monsters for a reason, but because of the ancient curse of Other God. These dwarves were the distant descendants of the True Dwarves who went to the Crystal Mountains in their dreams. That's only after the desecration of the dream world, the former pleasant dreams turned into deadly nightmares. When a dwarf came to this place, his soul will be consumed by nightmares, and his body will die. Because of this misfortune, the average life expectancy of a dwarves dropped to sixty years and continued to decrease.

Following the problems in the dream, the dwarves were plagued by troubles in real life. They had lost much of their ancient knowledge, and were now simply huddled in the former mines of their ancestors. Their industry was in decline, and food was enough just to make ends meet. In addition, mountain goblins and forest orcs were not averse to eating dwarf meat, gradually driving them to the most distant and dangerous parts of the dungeons. In general, the dwarven civilization was sliding into the abyss, and they could only whine about the injustice of fate and patiently endure the adversity.

Sympathizing to the sufferers, I made them an offer that they could not refuse. On my part, I gave them a magic firearm, plus described how to fabricate an AK-47. In return, I asked them to assign to me a party of dwarves to guide me to the Sheer Rocks, a mountain range a few hundred kilometers east of their current residence. The dwarves themselves had not been there for thousands of years, but they still had knowledge of the geography of the world around them. The most important part of my request was that the very dwarf who had dreamed of me should go on the trip. I came to this world through him, and therefore I could not move away from him for a long time.

Seeing my weapon in action, the dwarves immediately agreed to all conditions. If it was necessary, they would even agree to sacrifice the entire squad to the creatures of Chaos, because I gave them not some kind of swords or crossbows, but real machine guns that can turn into bullets any materials and shoot with them, accelerating to the speed of a kilometer per second. Of course, this weapon was powered by a charge of magic in its storage devices, but it was also possible to sacrifice someone to use its soul as a source of energy.

As a result, a hundred magic assault rifles remained in the dwarves' caves, and with me went a squad of thirty kamikaze, armed not only with machine guns, but also with grenade launchers, pistols, and flamethrowers that hurled charges of thermite mixture. This arsenal of dwarves should have been enough to start fighting back dungeons and gradually master their own production of firearms, just by of using the simplest rune magic, they were able to quickly start the production of smokeless gunpowder based on nitrocellulose.

When our party reached the surface, I found out something unpleasant for myself. My dream body could not walk under sunlight. I was like a vampire in that respect. We had to go back so that I could create a completely sealed armor of blued metal. I didn't even have to invent anything special, because the dwarves already had such an armor in their cache, which had previously been a 'shell' for a magic golem. In exchange for this scrap metal, I told the dwarves the idea of an internal combustion engine and heavy armored vehicles, capable of levelling the whole settlement of orcs with the force of a dozen dwarves on five tanks.

After that, we returned to the surface again, where I conducted a 'field test' of my new clothes. Then, our team moved through the mountains in the right direction, simultaneously destroying all encountered creatures. Orcs, goblins, humans, trolls, werewolves, vampires, centaurs, and other vermin were scattered into bloody mincemeat as soon as they entered into our line of sight. Pretty quickly, all weapons received a constant supply of magic from the enslaved souls of opponents, after which the dwarves could shoot in all directions, without limiting the consumption of ammunition. Lead, tungsten, and vanadium were stored for particularly persistent opponents, and all other trash they shot with steel bullets, which though did not have a great penetration power, but this disadvantage was compensated by high initial speed and barrage fire to suppression.