“Say what you want about those dwarves, but I’ll never agree to a request to storm one of their underground bastions. Nuh-uh. Do it yourself.” - Reiner Wolfgang Drachary, Captain of the Rampaging Doom mercenary company circa 419 VA.

Within moments, the twenty former Warforged that Reinhardt brought with him had surrounded the warehouse, ten of them guarding the outside while keeping watch over the flustered and nervous pair of guards, the other ten inside with the rest. Alvaro and Njeri were both inside as they kept watch on Reinhardt and Elfriede’s side, while Erycea found herself a perch on the second floor above them and guarded from there.

Gorev had left to summon a group of engineers and quickly returned before ten minutes had passed, a full squad of a dozen dwarven engineers following behind him. The group of engineers looked no different to most dwarven light infantry at a glance, clad in chainmail over gambeson with hefty gauntlets, other than the weapons they carried with them.

Most dwarven troops who were part of the infantry were outfitted with large shields and a one-handed melee weapon, a setup intended to make use of their greater upper body strength to dominate their opponents in close combat. The shield helped them close the distance against opponents with longer weapons, which when combined to the generally heavier armor worn by the dwarves, was a very effective fighting method.

In contrast, the combat engineer squad carried something most people did not consider as an actual weapon. Each of them carried a spade with a particularly straight and thick blade that was sharpened at the edges. As such, those spades served both their original purpose as a construction tool and as a weapon in the hands of the skilled engineers.

Given that the tasks of said engineers involved constructing various sorts of structures under battlefield conditions, it made sense for them to be armed, and making their weapons and tools one and the same was a way to solve the issue efficiently. Of course, they were never meant for actual combat deployment, but the spades still served as a deadly weapon should they be attacked by the enemy while busy at work.

The squad of engineers fanned out to form a square around the area where Elfriede detected the unusual airflow and immediately went to work. Their hefty spades broke through the wooden flooring of the warehouse with ease, digging deep into the compacted soil beneath. It had not taken long before one of the engineers found something.

“Sir!” reported the engineer as he raised his hand to signal the others. Both Reinhardt and Gorev approached to take a closer look, only to see that the engineer in question had dug deep enough to discover a small tunnel liberally lined with magic-dampening sheets of parchment beneath the soil of the warehouse.

Sheets like those were semi-commonly used to “hide” valuables from magical means of detection. It was most often used by nobles and rich merchants to hide things of small size and high value, as each sheet used represented a sizable investment. They worked by basically giving a false return to most magical senses, making whatever they were covered with “blend” with their surroundings.

It worked fine and not even Elfriede’s senses had detected the small tunnel, but they could not line the tunnel’s exit completely with the sheets as that would have made the ventilation tunnel useless for its purpose. In the end, that slight flow of exhaust from the ventilation tunnel, despite how it was already dispersed by the construction, was what Elfriede caught on to.

Once they found the ventilation tunnel, it was easy for the engineers to track it to its source. Before too long, they followed it to the opposite corner of the warehouse, where they found a well-hidden hideout under the floor, similarly lined with magic dampeners all over. At that point, most of the engineers were told to withdraw, as Reinhardt brought his men forward and encircled the hideout’s sole entrance.

Four of the engineers stood to the sides of the entrance, their spades wedged just beneath the trap door that led to it. All around them, the mercenaries pointed their weapons towards the same trap door, with Reinhardt taking some distance since he was worried about Elfriede on his back. They all knew that the noise they made while they turned the warehouse inside out couldn’t have escaped the notice of whoever was in the hidden room.

With a nod from Gorev, the four engineers pushed their spades until it dug into the wood of the trap door and heaved. The trap door was ripped off its hinges by the combined force of the four dwarves working together, and almost at the same time that happened, a figure leapt out from the hidden room below and turned around as he sprayed the gathered mercenaries with bolts from a pair of hand-crossbows.

The engineers covered their faces with their armored arms, though some were caught in surprise and grunted in pain as a couple bolts found flesh. The mercenaries were better prepared and raised their shields in unison, covering themselves and their nearest comrades using their large shields. Some like Alvaro and Njeri actually swatted the bolts headed their way in mid-air using their respective weapons.

Before the cloaked figure that burst out from the hiding spot even landed from his leap, Erycea leapt down from her perch above and directly tackled them to the ground. As a dwarf, the cloaked figure was obviously stronger than Erycea, but she had some trick of her own and was on their back. Before they could meaningfully resist she had pinned one of their arms under his own body and twisted the other painfully behind their back.

The array of spearheads and blades that were pressed against the cloaked figure the next moment killed off any thought of resistance they had. Several of the mercenaries quickly rushed up and tied the cloaked figure's limbs with some sturdy rope