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The Heartwood
Loch Faast Keep
To the Mines
Attaday, the Eighth Day of Yrick


Lyric and One Fang

Down. There was only one direction in the world, in the Heartwood at this one, loud heartbeat of time. And it was down, down into the darkness. Stairs and ladders and a hop from one level to another, a chaos of stone, metal and wood. How many lives had been traded, for so much wood, here in the middle of the Dirkwood Forest? It reminded Lyric of the harsh economies of her own small village, now farther away than a dream.

Perhaps this was another lesson her Mentor wished her to learn. The value of things measured not in coins, words or sparklies.

The stairs and ladders were uncomfortable, dangerous – they had been made for legs far shorter than any minstrels. And then the string of crystal lamps broke. Not for a natural or purposeful reason, not was there lack of light. The wooden stairs ended in ruin, broken and shorn as if some heavy weight had hammered down from above, as if someone or something had taken a mighty flail to the ladders and stairs and gear works. There were dark streaks here and there, in wide swaths and drops that had splattered like rain. The light came from dull flames flickering – portions of broken wood must have been splashed with oil when the hanging lamps had been shattered.

Bits and pieces of crystal sparkled like stars stolen from the skies.

Down, there was only one direction in the world.

Clambering down was not easy – the ruined scaffolding was loose and treacherous. But her goal was down. Getting back up was not even something to be yet considered.

She saw the Weasel first, in a circle of light much farther below. It didn’t move, it was bent in many ways that did not seem natural. It had been torn at, it must have been, because it was in a pool of blood, though it was probably the fall that had killed it.

Which somehow made sense. When the Howl ripped up through the gate tower the first thing, the natural thing, the instinctive act her Weasel did was recoil backwards in fear. Perhaps this Weasel had done the same thing, only to discover it was no longer standing on anything.

And then there was the fur and more blood, and when she found the Archer it was where he had tumbled too. Above the weasel, he was at the base of a broken ladder.

His armor was like Lryic’s – he was the Pack’s bowman, he was never supposed to end up face to face with his opponents, so he was not wearing the black metal of Wrath, Broke or Wuff-Wuff. His bow was nowhere to be seen, somehow a couple of arrows had not been tossed from his quarrel and he held a dagger in a death-like grip in his left hand. His entire upper half was completely blood soaked, so much of it couldn’t all be his and if Lyric were to sing of it no one would believe. They would think it was just a story teller’s embellishment.

The wuff’s massive jaw was open, black tongue lolled out, and Lyric knew the fight had gone very bad, very wrong, because he once again deserved his name.

One Fang.

Then Lyric heard it. It was a sickening soft sound.

In some ways, though, it was like beautiful music.

It was bubbling. It was blood, bubbling.

It meant he still breathed.

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Lyric, the reluctant warrior

Staggeringly slow, she climbed down, hopped across, followed short stride step treads, ever down and down. Her injuries were no longer as severe but the bite wound had been painful and the sharp reminders came with each step. She ground her teeth together between clenched jaws and staved off the 'wrench' of it at her side as much as she could. Focus. She had one goal right now and it wasn't the mission.

Where she came to a place that she could look down into that pool of light from above she saw the broken body of the other weasel. She had no sympathy for the creature as it was, but maybe for what it had once been, before the evil Dwarves and the twisted Lords forged them into something else. That moment of sadness gave her pause to regard the beast with some pity, albeit mixed with satisfaction that it wasn't alive to trouble them further.

But this wasn't part of her goal either.

One Fang.

Only One Fang.

Had Lyric heard him? Possibly, maybe. But whatever it was, it drew her attention to the shadows at the base of a shattered ladder. She saw him, broken and battered. Limp and unmoving. She abandoned caution and moved to him quickly and without hesitation, near sliding to his side as she dropped to her knees next to him.

So much blood. It was everywhere

"Ooh... Please be alive..."

Her voice was a whisper, plaintive and soulful. Hope wrapped in tense anxiety. She leaned over him, trying to look into his eyes, trying to hear his breath, trying to see any movement. So close, her blood spattered face, cheek turned, hovered above his.

"Please don't die..."

She heard the gurgle of blood and air in his throat and her heart skipped a beat.

"Shhhh... You're not alone... I'm here... I won't leave you."

Lyric didn't even know where to begin to look. Battle trauma was not her specialty. She had talents and skills, even the kind of something that could get her into serious trouble if it was openly revealed. It was enough to stay alive. But she never shared it with anyone before. It just wasn't something her people did outside very small groups...

But here, right now, leaning over her friend... someone she cared about, she felt so helpless. He was dying. Painfully, slowly and yet too fast, if that made sense outside her anxiety addled mind.

Her eyes darted from his face to his feet and back again. She still hovered over him. He would not survive without help and she couldn't abandon him. Not to the Dwarves who might do unspeakable things if there was even the barest breath of life left in him. Maybe they could hide until the Dwarves passed. But even if she tried to hide him he still wouldn't live much longer and the time spent waiting was too valuable to squander in fear and doubt.

"Shhh... Please don't be afraid," she said as she accepted the potential consequences of a decision she had already made the moment she saw him in a heap in the shadows. Maybe she made the decision the first time she actually saw him at Home... the first time he saw her. May she was trying to reassure herself, or maybe she was preparing him for a truth that could destroy a friendship.

Lyric shifted herself and straddled One Fang as if, to some imaginary voyeur, she were enticing him to make love to her. She placed her hands on either side of his muzzle and settled her weight as lightly upon him and mostly upon herself as she could.

The Dwarves would be coming... The Pack was already gone, below, down... Kadri missing or lost... Lyric wished she had someone else she trusted with her right now, to bolster her resolve and ease her fears and doubts.

Moments and minutes really never meant that much to Lyric, until now that is. And in that Now she realized she didn't have enough of them. She needed clarity. Focus. She tried to imagine what Keiko would say at a span of moments like this.

'Don't be silly Friend Lyric. You know what you need to do. It's what you want to do. In your heart. It's what you know to be the right thing. Trust your heart. That's all that matters and let what comes after take care of itself when that moment comes.'

...or something like that. Keiko would probably find a way to use waves and currents in there somewhere, somehow. She smiled at the image that conjured. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She really wished it was Keiko's voice saying those words and not her own.

She leaned leaned over One Fang until her forehead touched his, the tip of her small delicate nose brushing the fine short fur along the bridge of his man-wolf snout. She opened her eyes to look into his, letting her hands slip from his muzzle to bring her mandolin around so that it was in the hollow between their abdomens. Just enough room to play the instrument as quietly as she could. She needed the extra 'magic' push because One fang was so close to death.

She let him see her eyes, truly see them. If he could see into them, the glittering blue depths of an endless ocean refracting a ten-fold thousand motes of moonlight, like rain drops hung in a moment frozen in time perhaps, or maybe as vast as the twinkling stars in the nightime sky that refused to yield it's enchantment to the next day ... all of that, within her eyes, shared only with One-Fang, only for him to see into her heart and soul. Her forehead to his, her nose against his, her lips grazing the cold wuffish nose with each syllable like a lover might. And she sang a song, soft and haunting, something so old that even time itself had probably forgotten it. She sang in a language that was just as old...

And she wove those words into magic, healing magic, as much as she could weave... in musical, lyrical thread, through loop, over loom, with weft and warp, as much minstrel as warrior, but all friend.


Over us, a bright star in the night
The sea is quiet, and the wind is peaceful
The quiet sea asleep in the wind

Below in the glen, the misty glen
The kingdom of the sun in the Golden Castle
The sea is quiet, and the wind is peaceful
The quiet sea asleep in the wind

Magic charms the people there
Bright lights in the Golden Castle
The sea is quiet, and the wind is peaceful
The quiet sea asleep in the wind



Caisleáin Óir

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I close my eyes and I keep seeing things
Rainbow waterfalls
Sunny liquid dreams

Confusion creeps inside me raining doubt
Gotta get to you
But I don't know how

Call me, Call me
Let me know it's alright
Call me, Call me
Don't you think it's 'bout time
Please won't you call and …


It was a like tossing a rock into a still pond, it was like calling out a chord in an empty great hall, to hear the music dance out from her. She had never had a chance to try this before, to mix her magic. In her little village few got hurt, or at the least, few got hurt where it was neither a minor scratch nor a fatal ending. Fatal endings were things minstrels sang of, for how else should a Hero die but gloriously in combat, having given his all for some proud reason soon to become legend.

Yet here, in these darkened broken stairs, death seemed somehow overrated. It was different, so different, to know it could come so fast, so swift and so very soon. How could the heartbeats they have known each other somehow seem so long?

If this was one of those things her Mentor thought she should learn, her Mentor definitely had a cruel streak.

Like a ring of soft green stars, her healing magic pulsed outwards and then, reaching its limits, caromed back inwards, just like that pond ripple hitting the shore or her melody echoing off the great hall walls. Inwards they darted back, until at their focus – a battered Forest Kin – they combined and like a nova burst outwards again and then, then it was Lyric’s eyes once more trying to adjust to the dark.

The wolf in her arms convulsed, hard, almost tearing him from her grip. He head certainly did arch backwards and then forward with a horrid wracking cough, one that was certainly not reassuring, considering the gout of blood he suddenly choked up.

All was still.

Too still.

Until the wuff’s eyes slowly opened, dark brown orbs.

“Hey.”

One Fang leaned forward, so once again their foreheads touched. His head bopped forward, then, and noses bounced against each other. To which his eyes went wide and the wuff shuddered and actually winced

“Ow. We try that again for a while.”

It was true. One Fang had been badly hurt, far more than her simple healings could suffice. Hurt bad enough that to make him whole again may have even taxed Lady Yurisdotter. Even so, magical healing had certain benefits. That even the smallest could close a wound, stitch a person back together, get them on their feet and moving once more.

It just wasn’t very wise to get hurt again.

“I ‘ope I dinnae scare you …”

It was hard to tell what One Fang exactly meant. That he had gotten hurt or that he had howled?

“It was like after the longest Storm Season hunt, caught in the winter rain, when its so cold it is hard to breath and all you could think about was going to sleep … “

He smiled.

“Then I heard music.

“It didn’t seem like it was the time for sleeping any more.”

Slowly he pulled himself up, needing to lean upon Lyric until he could remember how to balance himself. While that seemed to come natural to him but in some ways new to the minstrel. It made sense. He was a member of a Pack and that was what a Pack was for, leaning on each other when things went bad. In her small Village the only time this happened was if you were immediate kin or bound by an Oath.

“We got to get to the others.”

He looked to the dagger he had in his hand.

“Cause I’m going to have a hard time looking after you with just this.”

That and, while he could stand and traverse stairs and ladders, he was in no condition to protect anybody. Being hurt certainly didn’t cure him of being a bit silly.

“Let’s go …”

They shared a first step.

“So that’s what being healed is like …”

That stopped her. Stopped her for just a single heartbeat. He was right. Three days before, most probably, her magic would not have worked.

“Danks. Never had anyone ever want to do that for me before ...”

He shook his head then, grinning, his one remaining fang peeking out from his curved lips.

“You know, this means Brrrrroke is gonna make you an ah’onorary wuff, rrrright?”

… ease my mind
Reasons for me to find you
Peace of mind

Reasons for living my life
Ease my mind
Reasons for me to know you
Peace of mind
What can I do
To get me to you

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Lyric, the Wuff Healer

One Fang had a lot to say with his renewed life, from the threshold of the long Storm Season's rest to his return to the living task of freeing slaves from the Mines of Twisted Lords and Evil Dwarves. Lyric let him say it. He needed to process this. She had used some of her magic as much as she could use at any one time to heal him, as much as he could be healed. Lyric was no healer, not a true one anyway. Not Like the Lady of Attera, Bekkah. But what she had in the way of ability, she realized, she wanted to share with others. There was a genuine gratefulness in One-Fang in being helped in a way he didn't think he deserved. That 'experience' of helping and feeling the gratitude in return was an intoxication all it's own.

"Maybe" she replied softly, "But maybe Broke will be upset that I didn't follow the rules.... always down... Maybe you got hurt because you were taking care of me. Don't get my words wrong, I am grateful you did because Kadri and I were not keeping up... But maybe I put you at risk."

The petite woman reached up with a blood spattered, hand and brushed her companion's muzzle.

"And maybe I have to take care of you now. I have my own one of those, you know," she added with a nod to his dagger.

But, you're right... We have to get moving you silly Wuff."

She lent him whatever support he needed and they started back down again. Always down.

"We can talk about being a Wuff later, like, after we actually survive this crazy plan. Whoever thought of this idea should probably be tossed out a window at Home..."

After a bit of walking she quietly added, "You didn't scare me when you howled..." It was a bit of a lie. She heard it, she felt it, but it didn't affect her quite as profoundly as it did the weasel.

"I can't say the same for the weasel though... Scared him bad. It also gave Kadri and me a chance."

Her voice had that resonant quality, even at a whisper, as if it were pitch and tone perfect. But it was laced with emotion as well.

"You know what scared me though? When you went over the edge... that scared me. You also scared me when I saw you lying on that ledge or whatever, broken, maybe dead... so don't scare me like that ever again... got it?"

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The Heartwood
Loch Faast Keep
To the Mines
Attaday, the Eighth Day of Yrick


Lyric and One Fang

Down they went, following after the Pack.

At the least, once past the dead Weasel, the stairs and ladders were whole again. One Fang was slow, but he didn’t complain, because things could have gone much worse, much worse.

“The prrroblem with prrrotecting someone, is that, well, who you are protecting them from tend to mean and nasty with sharp teeth.

“But as Brrrroke says, it ain’t an excuse to stop stickin’ togetherr.”

Missing teeth made the Wuff’s accent even more blurred,

“Tcha … its not like I can stop a weasel from pouncing me out of nowhere …

“So I can’t promise that.

“But I can …

“But I can promise that no matter what happens I’ll bloody well come back, even if I have to bite Krysta on the nose and tumble outta the sky.

“I bet She tastes better than Weasel.”


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Lyric, on the way down

Down and down, as best this bloodied pair could move. Lyric knew that if they were confronted again One Fang might not survive. She needed him to survive, not just for his ability to keep her alive, but also because, well, dammit... she just needed him to live through this mess.

Lyric was useful in a fight, but she was no master. Among the people of her village, and the varying things that were known and taught, you might say she opted to straddle the disciplines... And, in the long run, she had spent more of her focus on music anyway.

"Shhh."

Lyric paused to listen around them. She didn't have the Wuff's ears but sound was her specialty.

But time was not an ally.

If that moment's pause didn't reveal anything immediate, Lyric turned to face the Wuff again, at very close range and she stepped in even closer as her hand pushed up under his damaged leather hauberk. Without a song this time, for she worried she didn't have the time to focus and amplify her magic, she drew strength from within the arcane nature of her 'self' and wove it into more healing magics for her friend.

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The Heartwood
Loch Faast Keep
To the Mines
Attaday, the Eighth Day of Yrick


Lyric and One Fang

“Harrruffff?!?”

There was a look of surprise on One Fang’s face as his hauberk was rustled and Lyric’s paw sifted through his thick fur. His ears perked u and his eyes went wide, but then his paw wrapped about her wrist and gently pulled it away.

She had healed him more but …

“Enough …”

He smiled.

“Last thing we want is both of us dragging our paws.”

One Fang hadn’t stopped Lyric completely. He now was able to stand on his own without wobbling and thus their descent went faster. They were once again where there were crystal lamps and by now, now they were deep into the keep. So natural was that Lyric barely noticed at first. One Fang let her lead the way down with him following.

Once again watching over her.

Finally they reached a low point, a place where the ladders ended and the central shaft rested on a massive bearing. Axles struck out horizontally, passing through the gate towers walls. The path seemed to be at an end, except for a strange rectangular passage leading off on one direction, perhaps two wolves wide side by side and two wolves tall, one standing on the other’s head. With all the twists and turns it was impossible to discern exactly which way. A stiff breeze pushed out of the passage and standing up next to the entrance was a black metal gate. The gate’s bars were close enough together to keep even the smallest of the Forest Folk from passing through. The top and bottoms of the bars looked melted – which was probably how they were removed.

One Fang tilted his head and pointed into the strange passage.

It wasn’t long, but it had a set of precise ninety-degree turns. Exactly halfway through there was a square hole in the ceiling. The ceiling hole was large and there were slots cut in its side, like rungs of a ladder. Lyric could only see a few feet up into the opening before all was dark. This opening was the source of the wind, as if something was pulling air deep down into these lowest levels of the keep – indeed the air was cool and very fresh.

The other end of the passage opened into the top of a stair landing. It too had a metal gate that had been removed.

It was impossible to describe sensibly. It was so strange and so much was going on. Everything was happening all at once.

The landing itself was large, large enough to hold all those who had climbed down with them. It was tall and grandly carved, and every wall was inlaid in green. A green something – whether it was metal or wood or something else that was unknown, but what was important was that it glowed a sickly green. It traced patterns both intricate and probably arcane and was the illumination for this strange place.

To the left there were stairs leading down to a great curved hall, a hall filled with barely recognizable devices crafted of stone and darksteel. There were cages, there were anvils, there were vats set in series with stone tables between upon which massive, bone breaking hammers rested. Green globes floated here and there like cursed chandeliers. There were racks of tools which looked like they were a macabre crossbreed of those found at a normal smithy and those used for torture.

They had reached the flesh forges.

To the right was a huge door of stone and darksteel. There was no sign of hinges It was a sturdy looking door, made not to be opened very easily.

The Forest Folk were broken into three groups.

On the stirs they clustered together – they were the ones hurt, makeshift bandages and simple pragmatic non-magical methods of healings being set to desperate use.

To the right a handful – mostly deer and a rare horse – were trying their best to open the door, but for the moment it wasn’t working. If its workings were darksteel and magical, highly magical, that would be a definite problem for the non magical Forest Folk.

And to the left … the Pack was at war.

The forge was a chaos of wuffs and dwarves, darksteel against darksteel, woven rage against steadfast stone. It was like looking into a cyclone; the dwarves fought like Heroes of Song, each an individual, each an island in the melee, armed with dark axes and the tools of flesh forging. This made it hard for the Pack, for they had to worry the individuals and keep them separated, but then there were few left to share a combined attack.

Wrath was a black terror and the only wuff strong enough to lift a dwarf off the floor –which seemed to be an important tactic. He was aided by Wuff-Wuff or Broke, when one of the two could break free to double team one of the dreaded smiths.

The Rats and Mice were the only one that allowed the fight to be evenly matched. A Dwarf would set his hand to stone and a wall of spikes would rise in an attempt to the wuff into the ceiling. The Rats would smash the summoned stone with smith tools or huge blocks of broken stone. A Mouse would pop into existence, to bite or otherwise interrupt the dwarven magic, appear and push or pull the Smith’s target out of dange or simply drop something from a high.

That was when, with a sudden pop, a Mouse appeared next to Lyric.

Miss Emerald was suddenly standing next to Lyric.

“What help do you need?”

Another ally.

And too many things that needed to be done.


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Lyric (going awry is what she does!)

Tae a Moose, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough

Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle!

I'm truly sorry man's dominion,
Has broken nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An' fellow-mortal!

I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen icker in a thrave
'S a sma' request;
I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,
An' never miss't!

Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!
It's silly wa's the win's are strewin!
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
O' foggage green!
An' bleak December's winds ensuin,
Baith snell an' keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,
An' weary winter comin fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell-
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro' thy cell.

Thy wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!
Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the winter's sleety dribble,
An' cranreuch cauld!

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

Still thou art blest, compar'd wi' me
The present only toucheth thee:
But, Och! I backward cast my e'e.
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I canna see,
I guess an' fear!

-Robert Burns, 1785, Kilmarnock Volume
--from whence John Steinbeck drew inspiration for 'Of Mice and Men'


~~~~~

Lyric's small brain tried to fathom and process the scene at the landing. Oh, how she wished now that she were a better student of battle and conflict and war and all those things of war. Or maybe even a better student of arcane studies, and then she would have greater hope of wielding enough power to do more than amusing tricks to accent her stories. But No, she was of the sort to be contrary... Chaos within a strangely 'out of place' curse of Order, and she chose to be everything she could be, both, or all of it, but mastering neither and none in favor of a journey down her own path. To be something that others might see as less, but hoping to be something more.

But there was no time for the regrets and recriminations of past choices and their consequences. Right now, right here, this was where a plan had met the impact of resistance. It was where reality clashed with hopes and dreams and desires. No plan would endure conflict with an opposing plan designed to thwart the very thing that was being attempted.

Lyric tried to account for that as well, and also account for the contingencies would have been designed to check her own contingencies... and on and on, a spiral of plan and counter-plan. But all of that meant nothing because Order and Chaos twisted and turned against each other and neither could exist without the other for all their fierce incongruent friction and incompatibility. that had been planned to counter It was a plan built on hearing and envisioning the very place she now saw. In that moment...

'If being the warrior you were meant to be will give more souls a chance to live, can you be that warrior? Will you be that warrior?'

Seeing it all before her, in the cold hard reality where Life's Blood mattered, and flaws and mistakes in her plan could prove fatal, was overwhelming to the minstrel.

The wounded on the stairs trying to regroup, or maybe in despair that they are already lost and fearing this more as the numbers of wounded increase.

All of the deer and a horse trying desperately to open the door, and failing for a reason beyond their abilities. What hopelessness this could bring with the storm of battle so close.

And the Pack, fighting to buy time for the others to affect something, anything, before their strength weakened. All the while sacrificing themselves because this was what they did. This was who they were.

She felt so very small and helpless at that very moment she took in the whole of this conflagration of good and evil, of right and wrong, and even of Order and Chaos, all of it twisting and turning and roiling in a cacophonous fury. In that moment...

Lyric is Lyric is Lyric.

Lyric felt frozen, eyes wide, trying to see it all, bend it all to her own mind's eye, understand it all, make sense of it all. Upon her shoulders the consequences of her actions in taking charge of the planning now rested and if she thought she felt the weight of that earlier, back at Home, or even in the boats on the journey to the keep, then this moment engulfed all of that ten by one hundred fold, crushing down upon her. In that moment...

'No path is ever perfect. Standing at the crossroads can be dangerous.'

But there was no time for the regrets and recriminations that came with second-guessing her plan. Plans go awry, and that was a gifting of her people... You simply could not account for Chaos and so you adapt and adjust in that moment.

Lyric is Lyric is Lyric.

"Don't you even think of it," she hissed to One Fang. "You are neither armed nor armored in any way sufficient to do anything but get yourself hurt worse... and I will not lose you to foolishness when there is another path... So, describe for me what lies beyond the huge door, tell me of the walls, the walls just beyond the door... everything you can think of..."

****

That sudden appearance of Emerald the Assassin Mouse felt oddly fortuitous and strangely like an act of both Order and Chaos. Lyric had been reaching behind her to draw her blades. With talk of there being another Vixen like The Lady in the keep, it occurred to Lyric their might be another Mouse charged with taking lives. It was a thought she chose not to share with others.

Those green eyes and the familiar voice she had listened to in the alcove in the upper levels of the Home tree allowed her to exhale in a relief.

She reached out to Emerald, her bloodied and gore covered hand cupping the Mouse to draw her into a sense of privacy and nearness.

"We are all tools, for one purpose or another. We strive to find our way and make our lives have meaning, beyond the intent of those that created us. My people were made for war, and I am a tool, like my swords. I may want be something different, but today I must be what I was created to be."

"Your time and ability is precious to us, and there are others who may need you more than us... Others whose situations are more dire. But if this effort here fails, then all is lost. If we can not open those doors, free that magicked mechanism, then... then..."

Lyric changed topics. At least she did in spoken word, but her thoughts had finished that sentence. This might be the only chance she had to adapt and adjust her plan. Now that she she was seeing the dwarven construct for herself, and fight to succeed, she realized that she might have to try something she had never attempted before.

Didn't I just do that with One Fang?

Yes, but also No... This would be something very different... something more... Something so much bigger for someone so much smaller.

Might as well ask 'How can a mouse eat a weasel?'

One bite at a time


The point being was that she would have to do what she knew how to do, just make it bigger. Do what she knew how to do, and dream larger.

Lyric answered Emerald, because there was so much to do and every ally was a precious resource not to be wasted nor abused.

"One Fang will need a bow and many arrows... for a Wuff with no way to help his Pack does not feel he is a proper Wuff. And I need less Dwarves in this chamber, wounded or dead, if you follow what I mean. This is so the Pack can group together better and do what Wuffs in a Pack can do. Can you help with these things? Will you?"

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The Heartwood
Loch Faast Keep
To the Mines
Attaday, the Eighth Day of Yrick


Lyric and One Fang, Miss Emerald Mouse, The Littlest One, Snow, the Pack and a whole lot of Dwarves

Deep green eyes looked back up to Lyric. Dominic Domine Korie might just be right. They could very well be the prettiest green eyes in all the worlds. As Lyric spoke she could see that the Mouse understood, perhaps even more than the minstrel did. For those eyes darkened, so cold a green they almost became black.

Miss Emmi simply turned her head. She was not the only Mouse here; she sought the gaze of the smallest one, the one that would be in the most danger if the melee broke loose and turned up the stairs.

“Can you?”

With a nod that second Mouse, one in a travel cloak three times larger than would properly fit – obviously a hand-me-down – vanished. It was an odd thing, to be there and then gone save for a pop of air moving to fill a void. It was the first time Lyric had actually seen it happen right before her.

When she looked back she saw that Emmi was now different – she held a sable dagger in each paw, exquisitely crafted, with blades wide and curved and hooked. In some ways they were more akin to Dominic’s cloak; completely black, with a sheen as if they had been dipped in some thick dark liquid.

And then she vanished.

“This is not a good day to be a Dwarf …”

One Fang took a single step down the stairs, between Lyric and the melee.

“Behind the door … is a square room. It is like a lock itself; this door and its mate cannot be opened at the same time, so that if a tool’s mind breaks they cannot run into the Forges when they are put away.

The second door is to the side and that leads into the mines itself. There are long halls, there is the darksteel sluice – a carven stone creek that is built in sections so it can be extended to where the ore is. The blood flows down that sluice until it reaches the second door and disappears down a small flooded tunnel to wherever the Old Masters wish it.”

It may have been chance, it may have been happenstance, but it was probably fate. Lyric saw the consequences of her words.

The green-eyed Mouse had suddenly reappeared. She could appear at anyone she knew. And she must have known the Forgers, the ones who made her. Because there was a sudden pomf of air behind one of the smiths and before he could even react the Mouse had made her small bite.

Not one at a time.

“I am sorry ...”

The two not-darksteel-anymore black daggers slammed home, each one biting into opposite sides of the Dwarf’s throat, driven to the very hilt before twisting and slashing back out in a neck severing criss-cross.

She had appeared at the proper height to strike her blow and the smith’s head was shorn before her feet had even touched the floor. It tumbled backwards and for a moment, one dark moment, a fountain of blood just like in stories told to scare children around a campfire erupted, soaking the Mouse and turning Snow’s white fur into a horrid speckling of white and red. The fierce wuff jumped backwards and yelped – there was a difference between rumors heard and then seeing it happen right before you.

“ … but my Lady calls you.”

Executioner.

There really was a reason that was her tool-name.

Strong hands reached out and set themselves on Lyric’s hips. Biting his lower lip One Fang turned the minstrel around to face the problematic door. Which turned her away from the carnage.

“… through … through … through this door and straight ahead are the cells; the living places, the toolboxes. They are arranged on either side of the corridor. Big’uns get their own rooms, like deer and horses. Littl’uns are roomed together by kind. They tend not to mix kinds because the results can be un-predictable. The rooms are tall, at least four deer tall and topped with a darksteel grate. That is so the Old Masters can watch us and give us instructions. Food and water down from above, through gates in the grate. They usually have at least one Weasel there. I have been told if the Weasel figured out how to undo the gate latch things got bad. It didn’t happen too often, because the Old Masters didn’t like their tools getting broke for no good reason.

“We believe there must be a passage from above the grates into the keep itself and thus to one of the gate tower stairs, but we haven’t been able to get up there yet.

“The problem …”

Lyric didn’t know to be worried, disturbed or complimented by the fact that One Fang hadn’t taken his hands away.

“The latch needs throwing. The Lockpick usually handles the door. She actually got a look at the mechanism when she worked here, before Broke and Wrath rescued her. Something must have happened.

“On the other paw …

“There’s usually a pair of really ugly statues here, of dwarves twice the size of dwarves. But I see no sign of them, either.”

Whumf.

It was the sound of a Mouse arriving.

From beneath her oversized travel cloak the Littlest One took out a sturdy, well crafted bow of wood and two full quivers.

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Lyric, a desperate Minstrel

It might have been spellbinding in the same way that you feel compelled to gawk at a hay wagon and vegetable cart that crashed together in a tangle of reins, leaders, halters, horses and donkeys, with squabbling farmers and merchants trying to assign blame for the vehicular carnage. Yes, Emmi could elicit such a moment in even those who knew better and knew what was coming. For the Minstrel though, one not unaccustomed to the harsh reality of battle, this was almost poetic rapture.

That is, until One Fang gripped her at her hips, lifted, and turned her to face the more pressing matter. Seeing an artist work was as equally pointless as watching the Pack work like a practiced team following honed instincts if the large door to the mines was not opened.

Okay, so it wasn't really the door to the mines. It was the door to the room that also had the door to them mines. It was those two doors that were the crux of the problem. Well, that and the fact that the person assigned to getting the door opened was not here.

The large Forest Kin... Wait, those at the door, and those on the stairs waiting were not Forest Kin. They were slaves. Slaves with souls but little understanding what this entire effort sought to give to them. A chance at freedom. Yeah, what was freedom to someone who had no such experience to compare? They might know their own existence was sorrowful, and maybe even knowing this without having a soul. But doubly, maybe triply, so now that they did. Was that even a word? Triply?

It didn't matter. What mattered was these kin, these forged beings, understood enough to rally every ounce of energy to help those trapped on the other side. And help themselves as this was the only path to that freedom now.

Where was Lockpick?

Lyric tried to take in the whole off the room, without dwelling on the horror that the executioner was inflicting. Lyric had asked her to assume that role. Lyric knew it was necessary. The Pack needed help, and the kin at the door needed more time.

Although, Lyric knew in her heart that there was no amount of strength that was going to move those doors. The Dwarves had created a magical locking system to keep whatever was on the other side, dragon or kin, from getting back up into the keep should a disaster strike.

And so it seemed the doors worked equally well in either direction.

That desperation felt by those at the door, masked by the exertion of brute force to defy the impossible, was infectious though. Lyric wanted it to succeed. She needed it to succeed. This was her plan. She knew the odds were long and that so much had to work together or so many would be lost. But it was hard to keep an optimistic view as the odds grew longer than the shadows cast by She Who Crosses the Sky at her setting.

Or was it the helplessness that emanated from the wounded and waiting. Those too small to help at the door or to face the Dwarves. Those too scared because they knew only fear as taught them at the end of a proverbial spear of cruelty from the Dwarves and their Imperial Masters. Lyric looked from place to place, trying to think of an alternative...

But without the Lockpick to blink to the other side and throw the latch, the door would not open. The Dwarves would be reinforced and cut the Pack down.... More Dwarves and Weasels would come from above, following the route Lyric had descended herself and seal their fate.

There would be no escape.

No... That will not happen!

One Fang tried to explain the workings of the latch as best he could, probably learned from Lockpick.

Where was Lockpick?

Statues? Wait... what? She looked to that place, but she and One-Fang were newcomers to this scene and did not know what had transpired before their arrival. One Fang had said so much already but the mention of the statues broke her fugue of chaotic thoughts and focused her. Oh, her old mentor would be so amused... Chaos stilled by order and it was a good thing. That was another place and another time called Not Now.


She turned to ask a question of One Fang but that distinctive sound of air being displaced by a physical form, the Littlest Mouse, interrupted Lyric. And it was another sight that threatened to distract her. That lasted a brief moment and when the Littlest Mouse withdrew the bow, a very fine one indeed, and the arrows Lyric couldn't help but smile.

The littlest mouse could have escaped. She could have accepted the orders given, ignored them, and sought a safer haven. But she didn't. Even in this most wretched pit of horror the Littlest Mouse conquered fear and proved that the Dwarves could not keep their tools from becoming people.

Lyric leaned down, face to face with the Littlest Mouse, and cupped the Forest Kin's cheeks in her hands.

"You are so Brave, Littlest One. I will call you Cróga... Because you are the Bravest."

She glanced sidelong and up at One Fang and nodded for him to accept the bow and arrows.

"The Pack needs you," she told her friend. "But keep a distance. You are not strong enough yet to face those foul monsters in the close... Aye?"

Only after he agreed to the Minstrel's 'rules of engagement' did Lyric look back to the Littlest Mouse, Cróga.

"Luch Cróga, tell me if Lockpick was here? And what happened to the big ugly statues?"

The answer was not a comforting one though... Not on any level. Lyric could feel that knot in the pit of her stomach tighten another turn. She had to fight the desire to panic. She had to focus. An alternative had to be found.

Lockpick was not here now, and might not return. Lockpick might now be in a fight for her own life. A chase at the very least. But Lockpick made a choice. The Door or the statues. Once animated, those statues were a 'need' more immediate than opening the door. Maybe Lockpick felt there would be a chance to get the door opened later, but if those unstoppable statues killed everyone, then there would be no one to open the door even if an alternative could be found.

That choice had been made.

"Oh Cróga, I need you to keep being brave. Go to the others. Rally them. Keep them strong. Show them how brave you are... We will not fail today... Make them believe it."

Lyric was trying hard to bolster her own courage as well. If the Littlest Mouse could be brave, then how could she do any less? How could Lyric expect courage and sacrifice from others if she didn't set the example herself.

In courage she might find the answer she sought. That was enough hope to take a step, then another. Lyric ran for the door, speaking to herself as she did so. The words might have been said to herself but it was as though she were having a conversation with someone unseen.

"I have tried to honor your words. But every step I take along this path you set before me pulls harder and harder at my own soul... tearing at it even. If who I am means what it has always meant, and doing what we have always done... then I don't want to be me. I want to be who these poor slaves need. I want to be the spark that ignites a fire of hope. Yes, even if I have to sacrifice all that I had before this began, and all that I have gained on this journey... laughter and friends and joy and sadness... even love... all of it. I would sacrifice my life for this... For them. For none of those things would be worth anything of value to me if I am not a person worthy of having them in the first place."

She reached the big heavy door, pushing her way to the stone and metal. The large Ones were weary, exhausted. But they refused to give in. Hope and desperation were mixing. It was a battle that pushed them forward for now. But the Dwarves were coming. The Pack would grow tired.

Lyric looked back at those on the stairs. She looked to the Pack and to Emmi... but it was One Fang who stood alone with his new bow. And once again she could hear Keiko's words giving her courage to risk everything.

'If being the warrior you were meant to be will give more souls a chance to live, can you be that warrior? Will you be that warrior?'

Lyric is Lyric is Lyric.

"For you," she whispered as she looked at One Fang who fired arrow after arrow into the melee.

The Minstrel put her hands on the coarse stone , sliding them across the rough surface until she reached the dark metal bindings. She had never attempted anything like this. She had never done a lot of things it seemed, but this journey had changed her so much, in so many ways, and in such a short blink of an eye. She was beginning to understand what being truly alive meant. She had something to believe in, something to die for, and most importantly she had something to live for...

She leaned into the metal until her face was very near the cold, dark, magical metal. She closed her eyes and summoned a weaving of magic, like pulling threads, or sounds, all together, layering them as her words focused her soul and heart and magic. Dark Metal was drawn from a magical being and magic was as much a part of it as the tangible substance that gave it shape itself. But that also meant it could be affected by magic.

Lyric had only one option, one idea. Without the door being opened the lives of everyone down here hung in a precarious balance where only the passage of time determined the outcome now. Lockpick made a choice to stave off the weight of time for a little longer. Lyric knew only the one option and it was something she wasn't sure she was strong enough to do. Oh, she had seen such a thing done... but never considered herself capable or even talented enough.

But she had no choice...

And so she sang...




Her voice grew in strength as she sang into the metal. Her voice echoing in the chamber, the ethereal nature of the song and what she was actually doing was all the more haunting in the deep stone chamber.

You must go where I can not...

She let the magic be her sense as she reached into the metal, through the metal, following the metal. Lyric would be at her most vulnerable now, entranced by the magical undertaking. The metal that was used to build this locking box, hidden and secured, became the only thing she 'saw' and 'felt'.

When the melody of her song, carried by a voice trained to weave magic through music, had found what was needed to be found, Lyric focused on that.

Her song grew in intensity, her voice filling the room, but she was focused directly on channeling her magic through the metal to this place. And like the layers in music, the magic took on the role of being her eyes and hands. The dark metal was now her instrument and she began to infuse the magic into it. She would tune the metal, tightening it and making it stretch, as if she were tuning strings on her mandolin. That was the metaphorical concept she used as a mind's eye lens. Tighten the strings, stretch the metal... keep tightening. Dark metal was susceptible to magic because it was magical in it's purest raw form. Even hardened and forged, magic was a part of it's essence. She stretched that metal, tightening and tightening it, pulling at it.

Something would have to give...

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The Heartwood
Loch Faast Keep
To the Mines
Attaday, the Eighth Day of Yrick


Lyric, One Fang, Croga, the Pack, the Forest Folk Vanguard and the Executioner

“The Lockpick took the statues away away. You cannot bite stone. But in turn, the statues cannot hurt us if they are elsewhere.

“Anywhere elsewhere.”

That was The Littlest Mouse’s – Croga’s – answer as to what happened to The Lockpick; why that one had to be somewhere else. It was, indeed, a disturbing thought, except. Except it was her nature. The Lockpick was certainly annoying enough to chase and perhaps being chased was exactly what that Mouse was supposed to be doing.

One Fang didn’t answer. He was still soaked in blood, his and the Weasel's. But he was focused, intent. And it was the one thing she did not have to fear. As long as he had arrows, no Forgemaster was going to get to the bottom of those stairs. He had the high ground.

Which left the melody Lyric sang.

And it was true.

Sound could go where she could not.

It could slip and sneak, it could echo, it could reflect from one surface to the next. It could sneak into a lock, fill the spaces between cylinder and teeth, between bolts and strikes. The lock may have been made of Darksteel, the Prince of metals. The metal that was easiest to magic, easiest to have cast upon itself the strongest of spells.

It was its most valued strength.

Something had to give. Like droplets of water condensing from humid air upon cold metal, something indeed did give. It was Darksteel, it was The Blood of Dragons so it was, indeed, magic forged solid.

Lyric pulled.

And from the Darksteel there was only one thing that could be taken.

Its magic.

Its magic was its greatest strength, but to those who understood, it was also Darksteel greatest weakness.

And what happened when the metal had all it’s magic drawn away?

It was a torrent, a sudden wave, like a beaver’s dam giving way against the thawing snows. From the big door’s jamb and sill was a sudden gushing of what was left when the metal lost its prime cause.

Blood.

Deep, red, hot and thick blood.

But it was just blood, without magic it couldn’t even be called dragon’s blood anymore.

The flood flowed around their feet and then down the stairs, so much like a servant spilling wine from an upper gallery. Once the Deer regained their balance, once the shock wore off they could lean into the massive stone door. Without a latch it now moved, slowly, so slowly, opening inwards.

It was exactly like One Fang described. It opened into a large room. A passage, straight ahead, lead to the Forest Folk’s eating and sleeping quarters. To one side was a similar door to the first, except its black metal latching mechanism was both simpler and exposed on this side. Obviously it was more important keeping the Forest Folk out of the Forges.

Behind the second door should be the mines.

By the time the door was opened enough to pass through Croga was gone. But that too was as it should have been; the littlest mouse had been set to a task and she had gone to do it.

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Lyric, a determined Minstrel

The gore of the magic returned to blood...

For whatever foul purpose and cruel intent, from beginning to end, that had created the devices and Magicks that the Dwarves used in this door, were no more.

Blood was blood and it had great power and used for the darkest hearted ambitions in mind could do terrible things. Blood Magic, by it's very Nature (or lack thereof), was evil. But, like the blood spilled on the battlefield, what swamped around them was was the grief and sorrow and pain caused by the deeds themselves. To be waded through yes, but also to be spared a moment's thought in grief and mourning for the cost that had been wrought in the first place.

With Croga about her task of rallying those on the steps and the Pack staving off the advance of the Dwarves, Lyric tried to assess the next step of a plan that was having to adjust as each new footprint was left in the deep and dark and dank dungeon of Evil.

Oh how she wished she were running or riding through the woods, feeling the fresh air upon her face, and how the the breeze teased the small hairs on her skin. Or better yet, to stand beneath a deep and dense wood, like those of her home, and feel drops of rain falling and splashing on her face, each one splintering into a thousand smaller droplets arcing upwards and outwards from the impact in a tiny impact explosion to fall again. Better yet, far from all things rain, to be wandering that narrow cart path at the edge of the great and terrible, sadly cursed woods, unafraid, and unencumbered by the weight of so much worry and fear and hardship. Back to that day, not so long ago, when she escaped her home and set out in exile on a new journey.

But she was here. This was now.

"Hold the chamber," she commanded of the Pack, as if it were her place to do so. They knew what was at stake. They knew their role. The Dwarves commanded the Rocks, and Emmi had lessened their numbers but more would be coming. The Dwarves had reinforcements, and this was as low as one could go before understanding that all that was left was Up. Dwarves and Weasels were coming.

Lyric looked to that battle and made the decision then and there.

She turned her head to find Croga, the Mouse, the brave one.

"Come, bring them all. This will be our escape now."

It was a decision that might come to haunt her, but Lyric saw only the possibilities and not the hindrances that lie ahead. To try and fight their way back up the shaft would be futile and time consuming. With Dwarves coming down, and weak, wounded, tired and scared huddling to find freedom the advantages would not be in their favor. Dwarves would hold the high ground for every step and slow them at every turn or twist. The weasels would harry them and thin their numbers, but the Dwarves themselves would turn the rock against them and twist the path to defeat them.

Lyric knew that going back was no answer. They could only go forward. One Fang had mentioned the grates above the Kin's sleeping cells and that was a possibilities and an opportunity to be explored. It meant moving forward and keeping the Dwarves behind them.

This would also allow the Pack to survive longer, they had to hold for now, but if they had to face an onslaught as they pushed forward then casualties were a certainty.

This next chamber would be where the slaves in the mines would have to come to find freedom, and then out through the cells, up through the grates. She wasn't sure if she had magic enough left to sing the grates into surrendering to her plan, but that was a step further along than where she stood for the Here and the Now.

"Come new friends... Come now," she called again, hoping Croga would rally them from the steps, across the wedge of battle, behind the defensive line the Pack was holding and get them fixated on the next task.

"Go, through there, to the cells," she told the Kin who had been working at the door. "Get the door to the Mines open... Do it now... More must be rescued... Then we climb to freedom... We climb to new lives.... Hurry... Be about it now."

Once more she summoned those on the stairs to hurry as well.

Broke and Wrath and others would understand. Fall back only as needed and hold the next choke point, the Dragon Blood door. She watched the Pack fighting and knew how her heart might break. But she also knew that this plan, devised by her when the sanctuary and safety of Home, would have a cost. This was a part of her life and her world she thought never to revisit, but she and her people, like these poor enslaved Kin, had been created for a purpose. Hers was War.

The next step was fast approaching. She waited at the Dragon Blood door, until the Kin were through, readying herself should she need to help the Pack. The next step would mean moving inside and determining if the mine door needed her attention of the Grates to Freedom were next.

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The Heartwood
Loch Faast Keep
To the Mines
Attaday, the Eighth Day of Yrick


Lyric, One Fang, Croga, the Pack, the Forest Folk Vanguard and the Executioner

It was definitely a stalemate.

What could have been an inevitable disaster if the Pack eventually, inevitably, ran out of wuffs was no longer a certainty. The wuffs now had a guardian angel on the stairs by the name of One Fang who made sure that the Dwarves would pay for any temporary advantage. There was the blood covered Mouse, whose whole purpose in life was assisting those crossing from living to death, once as the Dwarves’ executioner and now as the Forest Folk’s High Priestess of Lady Krysta. It was the Mouse that caused the most consternation; in order to save themselves from her the Dwarves had to group together to protect each other’s backs. Grouping together allowed the Pack to fall back on their strength – harrying their prey and culling those that they were able to separate from the others.

Slowly, however, they did pull back towards the stairs, but it was a controlled and tactical maneuver, neither a retreat nor a rout.

Which left Lyric and the strongest of the Forest Folk to enter the anteroom.

The second door, the door to the mines was strong, sturdy and perhaps the second finest crafted in the entire Keep. The first, of course, had just been bled of its locking mechanism.

This one was different.

It opened easily. All one had to do was lift the latch and even a small Rat or a big Mouse could swing the heavy leaf, so well it was balanced.

Because this door was indeed different; it was meant to keep the miners from getting out of the Mines. Getting them into the Mines was supposed to be easy, and it was.

A deep rhythmic clanging accompanied the swing of the door, as if its opening was something that should be announced.

The door opened to a disturbing sight. There was a short length of stone passage, wide enough for two strong horses to pass through. It was blazing hot, because on one side there was a sluice and this sluice carried black blood. Hot dragons blood, hot enough to incinerate steel in a heartbeat. It flowed fast and sure, vanishing into a barrel vaulted tunnel just before it reached this door, obviously bound for unseen magical forges elsewhere in the Keep.

At the hall’s end it opened up, a space perhaps a full hand deep but much larger tall and wide; tall and wide enough so that its bounds were lost in darkness. The hall ended in a shattered wall. Smooth, polished like glass and slightly curved the wall was a tangled net of cracks spider webbing out of a central passage; a hole in the wall per se. The hole looked like it had been bitten open by massive chisels. Perhaps huge darksteel chisels wielded by several Rats.

Beyond that were red, thick tendrils like tree trunks braced apart by metal bars.

Every now and then the moist red tendrils pulsed.

It took a long set of heartbeats for Lyric to understand what she was looking at.

She was looking through a scale, just like a lizards scale, but impossibly larger. A scale that had, in terms of the size of the scale, a tiny hole reamed through it and beyond scale the muscles and sinews of the Dragon had been forced apart so that the miners could enter the Ancient Beast.

The way into the mines had been opened.

As for their escape, Lyric had set that path forward.

She could look up and see the Darksteel grates that separated the overseers from the overseen. They stretched forward and while they ended in the far wall One Fang had said they would be continued on the other side of the wall happily, that part of the keep was not barricaded by a door but by a simple open archway.

That was where the holding cells would be. Where the Forest Kin were kept when they were not in the mines.

It was quiet ahead.

Which meant that the miners, of course, were at work.

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Lyric, a planning Minstrel

Lyric had to trust that Broke and Wrath and Wuff Wuff and Snow and especially One Fang, with his Overwatch position, would know when to back up to the next door, the next choke-point. Right now the Pack held them to a threshold into the large antechamber room that led to the forges, and keeping them in the threshold meant to could harry them at a nearly 180 degree semi-circle and yet limit their reach and swing. She had to trust that when they needed to fall back they would understand that they needed to fall back to the next choke-point threshold, the once magicked door to the mine entrance and arch way to the cells. But there they would have to hold because the slaves would need to escape the mines and turn for the cells through the locking door room.

To the horses at the door, she gave a command. "Make sure all those on the stairs, injured and weak get through here. Choose several of the strongest of you to be ready to hold this opening and allow the the Pack to fall back to you... Back up and reinforce them if needed... No Dwarves must pass this point. Can you do this? Can you fight the fear and be strong? Can you be warriors for the good of those who need you most?"

Having little time to spare, now that the door to the mines had been opened, Lyric had to figure out the path upwards.

She needed a mouse or a racoon, or maybe a rat. Especially a rat... Or maybe all three. Yes, one of each. Everyone had unique gifts, but she would take what she could find.

Pointing out those from among the Kin that might be best6 suited to helping her she motioned for those she could find to join her.

"Is there a place in the overseers grate above where they can open it, for food, water, or for whatever reason? That is a place I must find? Do you know of such? Can you take me there quickly. The moments from Now to What Comes Next are few."

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The Heartwood
Loch Faast Keep
To the Mines
Attaday, the Eighth Day of Yrick


Lyric, One Fang, Croga, the Pack, the Forest Folk Vanguard and the Executioner

The passage through the archway was not long, perhaps ten feet long. Passing through, however, was a bit chilling. There were slots in the ceiling; called murder holes in the language of military construction. There were also the visible hints above of gates on each end that which, in an emergency or for some other reason, be brought down to cage the Forest Folk in the rooms beyond.

Beyond the arched passage was the tool chest.

The place the Forest Folk were kept. It was a large hall, a single space. The stone in the center had been raised to form a set of solid tables and benches. Down a slot cut into one wall water flowed from ceiling to floor, like an imprisoned cascade. Many doors were set into perimeter walls. A fair supposition would be that the doors opened to individual spaces for the various Kin to sleep or rest.

High above the supervisor’s watch gate formed an open ceiling.

There were no overseers. Hopefully they had been summoned elsewhere.

“See, right there, three barrel doors.”

It was a Rat that pointed up. And there it was; a set of three rings cast into the ceiling grid, obviously serving as the jambs for a removable panel. The space above the grid, however, was lost in shadows. And sometimes the shadows seemed to move.

“And that’s the problem.”

The Rat crossed his arms.

“I do not know where the overseers are. But there’s at least one Weasel up there. Why? Because all the locks for the doors, the grate mechanisms, are up there where …”

His eyes narrowed.

“Where we can’t see them. And if we can’t see them or see in our minds where they are, we can’t move them. And the Weasel?

“Its to keep curious Mice like The Lockpick from sneaking up there and finding out.”

The Rat was then interrupted. There was a whumf of air and a disgruntled pair of words added to the conversation.

“Stupid weasels.”

Bopping into place atop one of the stone tables was the aforementioned Lockpick.

“Now we are fine. If by fine we mean it will take some time for the statues to figure out how to climb up the stairs they fell down, come back to the Forge and get through to here. Then things will not be fine. Stupid Statues. Mushroom proof.”

A smaller whumf, in turn, interrupted The Lockpick, almost knocking her off the table. It was Croga, the Littlest Mouse.

“They are rally’d! If rally’d means coming back here, right?”

On the bright side, based on the sounds coming from the mine door, the miners would get here before the statues did.

Probably.

Maybe.

Probably.


Last edited by Wolf; Wed 07/06/17 22:57 UTC.
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The Heartwood
Loch Faast Keep
To the Mines
Attaday, the Eighth Day of Yrick


Lyric and the Pack returning …

Wuff-Wuff was the first through the broken vestibule doors, to rush through and pause for but a second to determine where the others were. The Others – One Fang with an unconscious Soft under one arm, at the arched entrance to the living quarters, having only closed that distance as he was also helping drag Flower away from the Forge.

Following the one-word wuff were Snow, Left, Right and Lyric.

Next was Wrath and last was Broke. When they were through the door Left and Right shouldered it closed. Not that it would hold for long as its latching mechanism was rusted.

When the Pack and the Minstrel was able to pass through the arched opening they entered the empting eating area. But that did not mean they were alone; above them, paused on the overseer’s level, were the rest of the Forest Folk and most probably Croga, Dominic, Keiko and Tomomi too.


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