“Peace, brothers,” Rockbrain called out, but he didn’t release the rock armor covering his body. Three men in heavy armor approached him, all wielding heavy monstrosities they called weapons.

“What are the Stone Breakers doing here?” Inquisitor Fitz, the leader of the three, growled hostilely. He hated dealing with tribal clans because they all worshipped feeble gods, and it was always best to purge them.

“Shouldn’t I ask you that?” Rockbrain asked. “Look around you, this is sacred ground to our people, and you are trampling over it without regard to us or our traditions. So I’ll ask you, why are you here? Why are you traipsing across our holy land?”

The three looked around and saw the ancient scrawling on the walls and the smooth, unnaturally hardened stone reminiscent of the Stone Breakers. However, the two paladins beside Fitz stared at the army behind Rockbrain. Especially the large piles they were forming with the Shadowmen they’d just killed. Based on the black blood coating everything, it was apparent they’d just finished fighting an epic battle, but none of them appeared tired or weak. If anything, they looked more ferocious than before and were ready to fight.

“We are from the Order of the Minnustern. Our job is to investigate where these things had gone.”

“Now you know, so leave.”

“I suggest you speak to me respectfully,” Fitz spat out angrily. “An idolatrous race such as yours is ripe for corruption. I suspect you are in league with those black-hearted Shadowmen. If you don’t believe I won’t cleanse your filth from this world, you are mistaken.”

Rockbrain stared at the metal man before him with his mouth hanging open. He’d heard of the Paladins of Absence, the sacred warriors of the Minnustern, but he never thought their zealotry had turned them stupid.

“Carrot?” Rockbrain finally shouted out.

“Yes, boss?”

“What happens if I kill a paladin?” Rockbrain was past caring if the ignorant fools heard him.

“It triggers a beacon. It’s temporary, but it’ll draw any nearby paladins to this location.”

“Hahaha!” The paladin laughed so hard that the metal armor on his body rattled together as he shook. “You think you can harm me?”

“You know why you are a fool?” Rockbrain asked, his hands already moving.

“Why?”

“In this place, I am a fucking god,” Rockbrain roared, angry beyond all reason. The paladin didn’t even have time to react as a massive stone block fell from the cavern ceiling. It kept coming down, so it became more of a column than a block. It was only a large piece of stone, about three meters squared. Even as it smashed the paladin under it and blood gushed out, splattering the surroundings, the paladin hadn’t stopped laughing. Only his death shut him up. “Fucking self-righteous prick.”

“Boss?”

Rockbrain snapped out of it but didn’t regret what he’d done.

“Yeah?”

“What about the other two?”

The remaining two paladins were covered in the blood of their comrade. By the shaking of their armor, it was easy to tell Rockbrain’s actions frightened them to the point the fear nearly rendered them unconscious. Rockbrain stared at them and felt a headache coming on.

“What do you suggest?” He asked while staring at the new pillar in the chamber. He hadn’t thought much about his actions and reacted. He didn’t expect the spell he used on the ceiling to be strong enough to cut that far into the stone. He wasn’t even sure how tall the pillar was because the top end was still inside the hole he had cut.

“Hold them hostage. We can use them to explain what happened when more of these metal men show up.”

“Good plan. Do that.” Rockbrain nodded. “What do you two think? Will you tell the truth or create a crimson puddle like your friend? Also, you better not profane our people or gods because I have no mercy for zealots like you.”

“We’ll talk. It was Inquisitor Fitz’s fault. We never liked him anyway.”

“Haha,” Rockbrain laughed. “See, we can be friends when you act like this. Why piss on our traditions? We are a gentle people, but we are not weak.”

Gentle? My ass! The paladin cursed internally. He wasn’t sure, but there was a chance he pissed in his suit of armor.

“Let me ask you something.” Carrot stepped forward, and Rockbrain glanced at him but didn’t stop the man. They respected hierarchy in a conflict, but they were of equal standing outside of it. “These Scath… are they related to you?”

“Scath? The Shadowmen?” The paladin asked.

“Yes. Our leaders told us they are called Scath and have quite a history.”

“We don’t know, sir. As a lowly Paladin of Absence, we aren’t allowed to ask questions. Only Inquisitors or those of higher rank know things like that. The man you killed was an Inquisitor, but I doubt he knew. He is what lowly beings like us call a true believer. He’d have killed us if we even jested about our god.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Well… we were following those things.”

“Why?” Carrot asked again. Urging them for an answer.

“I really don’t know. There was a lot of movement, and we were told to discover where they were going and why.”

Rockbrain stared at Carrot, and the two used Tremor Sense to communicate. It appeared the paladins and Shadowmen were linked somehow. Even a child could see the nervousness of the paladins, not to mention they made it all the way here without being accosted by the evil beings.

They didn’t wait long before all the Stone Breakers felt the vibrations in the ground. The paladins had ways to silence their heavy armor, but they couldn’t prevent the pounding the ground took from their heavily armored bodies. From the sound of it, at least a dozen of them were coming.

The Stone Breakers came forward, and fortifications rose out of the ground as they activated their stone magic. A group raised the barricades, and the other reinforced them until the cavern’s entrance only had a small gap in the center. It was only wide enough for one person to pass through at a time. Rockbrain could have held off an entire army, provided the men behind him kept repairing and reinforcing the wall.

Rockbrain pushed the two paladins through the entry and blocked it with his body covered in rock armor. As the leader of this bunch, he took his responsibilities seriously. Leading the paladins was a man in dark purple robes, and he held a staff in his hands, which he’d raised high. Light radiated from the gnarled top, which pushed back the darkness of the area.

“I am Bishop Norberto. May I ask who you are and what happened to Paladin Fitz?” Norberto asked, and while his words sounded pleasant, he had the same disdainful attitude as the paladin that was now a blood puddle.

Rockbrain rolled his eyes in exasperation but gave the man his award-winning smile.