A Bored Lich

Doevm stepped in front of the group and held his hands up to show he wasn't armed: "We wish to enter the Polyglint Mines."

"Well, you've come to the right place," the guard replied. "Now state your business. Are you with Dragon's Horde?"

"No, we simply wish to use the mine," Doevm said.

"As does everyone," the guard said.

Doevm stepped forward, but the guard held up a hand and examined the group with open suspicion, especially Olpi and Frey. His stomach sank: "Is there a problem?"

The guard didn't respond. He continued to examine the rest of the group, who were still laughing at Frey's expense. A laughter which suddenly cut off, leaving a dead silence. Doevm curiously looked over his shoulder then cursed under his breath.

Kilot wore a deadpan expression. He strode up to the guard and got into his face: "What's that look for?"

There was a beat of silence where Doevm thought it could go either way. The rest of the guards exchanged looks with one another. 'We can't afford to make a scene. I told him that,' Doevm thought.

Finally, the guard relented and stepped back. "Mister, I mean no disrespect towards you," he explained. "If you've heard the same rumors we've had, you'd know you can't be too careful these days."

Kilot's face remained unreadable. He clamped a meaty hand on the guard's shoulder piece, which gave out a soft, metallic clunk, and said, "Son, the only danger out here is coal lung."

Doevm could almost see the tension wash away from the guard. He felt the same thing after all. If he had taken those same actions towards a human guard, the outcome would have been radically different.

"Coal lung?" the guard mused. "You'd be surprised, mister. It's not the usual rumors."

"I doubt it," Kilot insisted, glancing at Doevm.

'I don't,' Doevm thought.

"Believe what you want, mister," the guard said. "Be careful. Things are already strange enough around these parts." He let out three whistles, each sharper than the last, and light flooded through the gate's runic engravings.

As the gate screeched open the air ceased its chance to escape. It groaned in Doevm's ear as it blew by. The slight warmth was refreshing, but barely noticeable compared to the taste of fetid egg it put into his mouth.

The guards beckoned the group through the gate and into the pitch black beyond it. Kilot strolled inside - Dwarves had no need for the light. The group needed only to pull out their light crystals before following behind.

The gate shut behind them and Doevm realized that their handfuls of light could only stretch so far. Inside the cavernous void, there was no ceiling, there were no walls, and, after a bit, there was no entrance. There was only an uneven floor and Kilot to guide them across it.

"Are we really in the right place?" Olpi asked.

"The right place?" her echoed voice startled her.

"Certainly," Kilot said. He spoke at a volume where his echo wouldn't talk over him. Maybe that was why he muttered so much. "This place has changed a bit but it's still the same shithole. Back in my day, you minded your own damn business."

"Did you know them?" Thomas asked.

"Know them?" his echo called back.

Thomas sighed and emulated Kilot's volume. "Did you know them?" His voice spoke once, not twice. "Why were they calling you mister?"

"'Cause I'm old," Kilot grumbled. "Eyes forward."

Walls, ceiling, and lengths of chain snapped into existence. The light bumped into them all at once. Doevm's attention was taken in so many different directions that he almost missed Kilot's signal to stop.

The floor had come to an end. One more step was a sheer drop into nothingness. A sudden, falling sensation washed through Doevm's gut, pushing him back as a large shadow skulked past his peripherals.

The object skittered across the slick stone and flailed about. Doevm realized that it was alive. It was struggling.

Down it went.

It was Frey.

But Thomas was there, and their hands interlocked over the ledge. Below, Frey starfished against the wall with a fleshy slap. Above, the shift in weight pulled Thomas until his toes arched over the edge.

Frey let his light crystal drop down, down, down into the bottomless dark. He reached his other hand onto the edge and, with Thomas's help, pulled himself back into the light. For such a giant man, he could still shake like a wet dog.

"Why the hell didn't you warn us, Kilot?" Frey asked. "Are we really in the right place?"

Kilot shrugged and took a step back from the ledge: "You're fine, aren't you?"

'You almost fell off yourself,' Doevm thought. 'Which means you either weren't paying attention or, more likely, you were focused on something else.'

Curious, Doevm held up his light crystal. Its faint light outlined pipes crudely packed into both the walls and the ceiling, making it seem as if stone was a rarity. While the ugly mishmash of metal was hard to ignore, they were necessary to pump out the smoke. Doevm had seen them before, and he knew Kilot had too. What he hadn't seen before were the chains. Judging by Kilot's stare, he hadn't either.

The chains dangled from the ceiling, continuing down the sheer drop and out of sight. Compared to the iron pipes, their unique luster signified a rarer, stronger metal - mithril. A single chain could buy a mansion, or rip one out of the ground. Doevm counted dozens of them. 'What are they trying to do here?' he thought.

Frey was still more focused on his near-death experience as he exclaimed, "Why is it that every time I go to a forge, I almost die? What's so great about this place?"

Kilot responded by gesturing at one of many terraces along the edge. Doevm had walked right past them, but Kilot seemed to know exactly where they were. He strolled onto the nearest one, turned back to face the confused group, and wrapped a hand around a lever handle. "This mine was built for Dwarves. If you're surprised by this much then, by all means, go back now."