Chapter 2: Fell Tunnels

After the formality and outright rigmarole of getting through the fort's front gate is over, you're led to the fort commander's quarters. Austere and practical like most other things dwarven, his quarters are a small corner area for a bed, and a large table that impresses itself on the rest of the room, centered under a skylight and surrounded by bookshelves and chairs. Currently it's got a map of the western reaches on it with several different flags in various locations. It's not certain, but you think those are probably troops or scouts or something similar.

As you're shown in to the room, the commander stands, his presence imperious despite his lack of height. One of your escorts nods to him and murmurs, "Commander Throlan, soldiers from Axis," before ducking back out.

Commander Throlan scowls over at you. Dwarves are just a little distrustful about outsiders and - as at least some of you probably know - hate being put in the position of needing help from them. "So you're the ones the Emperor sent us, eh? I can't rightly say you look like much, but he hasn't let us down before. I'm putting my trust in you. Don't let me down. We've got a delicate situation here. Our cousins from the deep have been pushing at us from the west for quite a while now. So far we're holding our own, but we may not be able to for long. We've gotten word that they've discovered the location of an old keep from generations ago. At first, we didn't put much stock in it. After all, it's been abandoned for millennia. But some recent findings in the capital have given us a new urgency. That keep at one time housed some of our greatest siege weapons. I'll be honest. We're stretched thin. Every day we're repelling attacks. We're going to use one of those attacks to sneak you behind the derro lines. We need you to find the keep, and bring back what weapons you can - if any exist. If there's some you can't bring back, you'll have to destroy the keep."

Edgar knows the keep in question from stories, even before the commander mentions it. "Quandry Keep was built to befuddle invaders, the same way all of them were before things got... 'civilized'." The air quotes are audible. "There is a seal that can point the way, sort of an arcane compass, but it went missing the same time the keep did. If they're making any effort to take the keep though, they'll need it, because the only other way to not get lost in there is to not go in in the first place. You might need to make a detour to obtain that seal for yourself. We have a group of soldiers guarding a void bomb down by the front lines. They're currently under orders to use it if the lines break, but you'll have orders for them to hand it over to you. It's not large; you should be able to carry it with you easily and plant it in the keep to bring it down."

There's another way too, Furmyr knows. Something the dwarf is keeping from you all, probably because you're NOT dwarves, and he's paranoid about non-dwarves knowing. In every keep, there's glyphs on the walls at certain intersections that can be read to figure out where exactly you are, sort of a grid system, but if the keep was deserted officially, some of those might be missing, having been scraped off by the retreating soldiers. Still, it could be a better option than trying to figure out where the derro are keeping the seal.

"The soldiers we have are simply guarding the bomb, they're not scouts. We have them planted all along the tunnels in the west. It's a last ditch measure. If we can't hold them back, they'll detonate it and close the tunnels. The King doesn't want to do it, and for good reason. We lose access to a lot of territory and lot of history if we detonate it. But it'll happen if we need to. As far as the derro go, there's something you need to understand. All of them, they used to be us. Something happened ages ago out west. Dwarves started slowly going crazy. We're natural diggers; we live underground after all. But for them, they started hearing voices that told them to start digging strange tunnels that seemed to go nowhere, connecting them up in odd patterns. They keep digging and digging, and the further they dig, the further the effect spreads. We lose a couple soldiers a week to the derro. They start talking to themselves, and then they either run off west or they attack their fellow soldiers. We can't lock them up or they'll dig with their bare hands. They're not stupid, they'll understand things they hear, they know threats and they know promises, but... reason? They lost that a long time ago."

If there's nothing else to ask the Commander, we'll go ahead and move forward. (If there was more you wanted to do, we can handle it in notes as we move on.) You've got your marching orders, so to speak, and you're directed to the lower levels of the keep, where a great iron door bars the way to the western reaches. While the Empire ostensibly controls the land above the ground - for very specific and legal definitions of control that have nothing to do with having power over any of said land - the Dwarf King is the recently disputed master of all that lies below. The derro that are attacking in the west are a recent development - this much you learn from the soldier that accompanies you to the door. While it's true that derro have existed as long as dwarves has - and some say longer - the derro being any more than a simple tribal, territorial nuisance is very new.

The door swings open and reveals a torchlit stairwell that leads down under the mountain. It is broad and spacious, and the shadows that cling to every surface probably hide more than just secrets. You step out carefully into the deserted passage, heading west to where the fighting is supposedly more prevalent.

It's what you feel is a day's march and probably another thousand feet down. The tunnel gives way to the underworld proper, and you lose sight of the ceiling as it fades into the darkness. Finally, you come to a wall that's probably four times your height, maybe more. At first you just see it out ahead of you, the torches on it's battlements giving you an inkling of it's size. There's movement around the base of it that you can't make out.

As you get closer, you can start to make out that the contingent of dwarves that's stationed there is the target of an attack. Individual dwarves are attempting to hold the gate as it comes under attack from some sort of battering ram. The door shakes and cracks with each hit. Other dwarves are preparing to set up a counterattack when the gate finally falls. You finally get close enough to call out, but your greeting isn't more than halfway out of your mouth when, with a massive explosion, the gate rips in half, showering the dwarves with splinters that are nearly the size of them.

The dwarves guarding the gate go down instantly, some dead, some probably wishing they were. The remainder rush toward the new hole in the wall that's already swarming with derro. One of the dwarves, as he rushes for the gate, calls out to you, "You there! If you're not here sightseeing, fight! We can't let them through!"

There's time for just a glance to confirm your intentions, and then you all act in one accord, rushing toward the embattled dwarves and their attackers. As you run the battle is already in full swing. Hordes of derro flood through, crashing against the stalwart dwarven lines of defense. In a very real way, this battle is the embodiment of chaos vs. order. It's also much larger than you could ever claim to influence. Watching the lines, it's clear that the derro will eventually lose and be beaten back beyond the wall.

And then you realize with a start, that they're not trying to win. The battle is creeping closer to the void bomb even as its successfully deflected from the fortress. The dwarves don't seem to have noticed. But you have. A group of six derro have just broken off from the rest of the battle when you catch up to them.

Five of them - one of whom is wielding an axe taller than he is - turn to block your path as the sixth one moves to the bomb and begins to tinker with a panel on its side.