Commander Dahl was happy with how quickly the army was adapting to the new operations paradigm. Much happier than he thought he’d be in fact.

  Over the past day, he’d received over 20 transfers into his command, directed by the grandmaster himself. Each of them had taken over aspects of his responsibilities dealing with briefing the council of leadership and interacting with the nobles. Several were simply there to ward off personal requests he had been constantly receiving through his link.

  Even better, the chain of command had been verified by the grandmaster and sent out to all the commanders in the city. No longer would different assignments have isolated command structures. There was now just a singular chain of command across the entire army.

  How that would work in the future with special assignments and differing areas of responsibility he didn’t know… and he no longer needed to care. According to his new orders, he was simply responsible for the war, and nothing else. As the provisional head of the new operational structure, other commanders and subcommanders would be handling all that.

  Now, all he had to do was focus on winning the war… or at least pushing the kobalds out of the mountain city.

  While standing at the deployment table at central command, he stared out over the map the dwarves had sent him. The holographic depiction of how many cities the kobalds had built up throughout the mountain range seemingly mocked him with how out of his depth he was. He’d thought he was just fighting the kobalds in the mountain, but this… this was just too much.

  Their numbers would be practically endless, and if any of those cities had developed portals to the kobalds’ planar home, then they really would be.

  He needed to clear out the city as quickly as possible, cut off their tunnels, and rebuild the defenses.

  The density shift was slowly getting worse, and no matter how many hunters arrived, more and more essence disturbances were being allowed to grow. More and more villages and towns were arriving with their supplies, taking refuge behind Dorchester’s walls.

  Already several isolated areas within Dorchester’s area of influence had been lost to monsters and the beginnings of the beast waves. While the roads weren’t unpassable yet, he knew that time was coming. He had months, maybe a year, but not much longer to get the city prepared for what was coming.

  Sighing deeply, he thought about how outnumbered they were, how much was against them, and how unlikely their chances were.

  Firming his resolve, he straightened his back and squared his shoulders. Angrily swiping away the hologram, he changed it to the current display of his army’s progress through the mountain.

  ‘One foot in front of the other will get us down our path. There is no obstacle that cannot be overcome,’ he reminded himself firmly.

  —--

  No matter how many times he’d experienced it, Nero was still amazed at how intuitive the Thought Hub was. With a link in his pocket, he could get answers to any question he wanted. It was no wonder people here were willing to walk around with a piece of metal on their temples, connecting their brains to the local equivalent of a central computer. Although Nero still found the entire process suspect, he could understand the appeal.

  Using his link, he was able to locate Nick in the mustering square easily. It barely took any effort. Nothing more than a thought request sent to the Thought Hub.

  After leading Crusher and the two other dwarves through the crowd, Nero found Nick in a serious conversation with Natalie Keening. They were surrounded by a few other people wearing House Walker colors, all of them stoically waiting for the opportunity to go into the mountain and fight for House Walker.

  Walking up to them, he introduced Crusher to them and then stepped back, eager to see how they’d get along.

  Just as he’d thought, Nick began immediately assaulting Crusher with questions. The first words out of Nick’s mouth were, ‘Are you a practitioner of runic magic?’ Before the dwarf could even formulate a reply, Nick was already changing the subject and inquiring about Crusher’s armor, whether it was runically enchanted or simply smithed.

  While chuckling at the awkwardness, he didn’t want the dwarf too pissed off, so he quickly stepped in.

  “Hold your questions until the end of the class, Nick. Let’s let Crusher introduce himself and collect the rest of his friends,” he said, patting Nick on the shoulder.

  Crusher looked less than pleased at the moment, so his voice was rather gruff when he stared up at Natalie and asked, “So, ye’re the one who’s gonna be leading our war band?”

  Looking every bit the professional soldier, she replied, “I suppose I am. I’ve been requested to incorporate your forces into mine. Am I to understand that you wish to stay near Lord Walker?”

  Grunting in appreciation of her not wasting words, he replied, “Aye, that I am. I have 50 dwarfs ready for war. Me and a few others will stay near the lad, while you can use the others as ya see fit. I’ll keep an eye on ya though, so you won’t be misusing my warriors… not if ye want to leave this mountain alive.”

  Seeing Natalie’s expression becoming a frown, Nero headed off the totally justified reply by saying, “That’s fine. We’ll treat your warriors the same way we do our own. Until we know how you all fight, we’ll be taking things slow. Have no worries about Ms. Keening here, she knows her business.”

  Nodding gruffly, Crusher replied, “I’m sure she does.” Turning away, he added, “I’ll collect my warriors and we can head off.”

  Watching Crusher and the two unnamed dwarves walk away, Nero stepped up next to Natalie and said quietly, “Don’t mind him. Dwarves are just grumpy by nature. Even when laughing they sound like they’re mocking you. Don’t take it personally.”

  Nick, apparently not caring about the tension, asked, “Did you find out if he or any of their warriors are runic casters? I’d like the opportunity to see runic magic in person. From what I understand it is fundamentally different than spell-form-based casting, operating instead on the concept of caster’s intentions and the world’s interpretation of the ethereal carvings.”

  Glancing over at Nick in amusement, Nero said, “Never change, Nick. Never change.”

  Confused, Nick was about to reply when Natalie interrupted him. “Lord Walker, everything is ready for deployment. We’ll be heading in under Knight Angleton’s command. You, Lord Verena, and I will be working together alongside 7 others. I’ve been ordered to incorporate whoever the dwarves would like into our assault team.”

  Nodding in understanding, Nero replied, “Yeah, I took a quick look at the deployment plans. We’re just going to splitting up into teams and clearing rooms unless we find a concentrated area of kobalds. It shouldn’t be a problem to let the dwarves tag along.”

  For the next few minutes, Natalie and Nero went over the specifics. He found it more than a little amusing how she continued to ‘hint’ at the fact that he needed to listen to her and stay out of the fighting as much as he could. She seemed more than a little concerned that he would just run off and try and clear the mountain out by himself, leaving her to have to explain to Cathleen what he was doing.

  Honestly, he couldn’t really fault her for her suspicions based on what he did at the battle on the mountain’s surface. However, he did find it funny how uncomfortable she was trying to give him orders.

  Before long, Crusher showed up with the rest of the dwarves. Together they looked like a rolling wave of shining metal and hair.

  The moment they arrived, Knight Angleton and a few other serious-looking soldiers appeared alongside them from out of nowhere. He and Crusher seemed to recognize each other the moment their eyes met, probably due to the relative strength of their presence in the ether.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  It was an interesting sight for Nero to witness with his perception field, as he could practically see their essence fields clashing. While it wasn’t exactly hostile, it was definitely confrontational.

  Luckily, nothing happened aside from Knight Angleton giving out a few orders and assigning dwarven teams to different troop leaders. The man didn’t even bother to stick around long enough to say hi, and promptly headed off after he was done.

  Crusher and a few others came over while the other dwarven teams headed off with their new groups.

  “Alright, so are we ready to get moving?” he asked grumpily, apparently unhappy at how long this was taking.

  Natalie replied quickly, “Almost. We’re just waiting for word from -”

  Pausing midsentence, she turned her head to look out over the courtyard before nodding at nothing.

  “There it is. We’re heading in now. We’ll be with the first wave. Lord Walker, if you’d please stay close by, I’d appreciate it,” she added in a tone sounding less like an order than a request.

  Sighing in acceptance of the fact that he’d probably just have to get used to the special treatment, he replied, “Sure thing, boss.”

  Despite saying that they were heading right in, it still took around 20 minutes before everything was ready. In addition to the team, which altogether counted as 15… dwarves and humans included… there was a wagon with handles for supplies that had to be dragged by manpower. Nero hesitated to call it a wagon as it was more like an oversized backward wheelbarrow.

  The one bright side of having to wait for everyone to get moving was that Nero was able to get his first look at a female dwarf. Apparently, two of the dwarves who’d be accompanying them weren’t just beardless.

  For the most part, female dwarves were indistinguishable from the males. They were still short, wide, and imposing. Their faces, however, were much softer and shapely. That unfortunately didn’t stop them from having the same perma-frown on their faces that every other dwarf did when they were looking around.

  Nero wasn’t sure if they were just unhappy to be among humans, or if they were always like that. He couldn’t help but wonder how grumpy they were in general, and what a date between dwarves would even look like. The fact that female dwarves even existed was enough to answer some of the questions he’d been thinking about.

  As a fantasy race, dwarves could have just been birthed from the earth like elementals, or reproduced in any number of weird ways. Being a binary species made them seem instantly more relatable, and Nero wondered how different they really were from humans.

  While their essence fields and ‘feeling’ made it clear that they weren’t like him, he could still feel a sense of kinship with them. Something about the way they looked at the world resonated with him… almost more than the humans he’d been living with.

  Eventually, he ran out of time for serious thoughts as Natalie called for them to move out.

  Heading toward the mountain, Nero stuck close to her as he’d been asked. Around him, Crusher and his group of four dwarves followed along, while the rest of the team marched in rows of twos. Behind them, two burly-looking wackos dragged the wagon.

  Nero, spreading out his senses, watched the controlled chaos as more and more groups began organizing themselves. Smiling to himself, he noticed Rose’s presence gliding along silently, weaving her way in between people who didn’t notice her presence.

  She’d been in the background of his life for a while now, always watching. Now that he’d grown used to noticing people dimming their presence, he had no trouble picking her out of a crowd. While she’d grown quite good at hiding herself, she was no match for his improved ethereal senses.

  While he walked, he recalled his time in the wilds with Nick and the others. She had always been there, just out of sight, slipping out of his attention and just watching. She’d started off as a spy for the former general and had now agreed to follow him as a wacko. He still didn’t know why. She hadn’t spoken to him about it and hadn’t filled out any forms that he’d been aware of. For all he knew, she was now spying for someone else.

  Honestly, he didn’t know why the idea of her being around didn’t bother him. He was 90% sure it wasn’t just because she was hot, he just didn’t feel like she was much of a threat… or at least that’s what he kept telling himself.

  He didn’t know why, but her presence being close by made him smile.

  “It’s really impressive, isn’t it?” Nick asked.

  Blinking a few times to come out of his thoughts, Nero noticed Nick looking around at the exterior of the entrance in awe. Now that he was closer, he could see how large the Mountain City actually was. ‘Impressive’ was an understatement.

  Hundreds of meters across, the entire entryway opened up to a massive chamber that could only loosely be described as a tunnel. Along the sides, there were massive pillars of stone that stretched up to the ceiling. Nero could practically taste the architectural history in the ether. Domed essence lights hung in the air, filling the tunnel with a sense of grandeur and firmness. The place just looked… solid.

  “When humans first arrived in the area, this is where we lived. The wilds were too dangerous despite the efforts of the Populators to clear them out. Thousands upon thousands of man-hours went into building the Mountain City, creating a safe haven for us to return to while we stretched out above ground. The underground farms and habitats were essential for us for quite some time. It wasn’t until we finished the beginnings of the wall that we dared come out above ground,” Nick said, sounding like a tour guide.

  Nero walked in silence as he stared up at the distant ceiling. He hadn’t been this impressed with anything since he saw the Hoover Damn… and this was just the entryway.

  Thinking back to the holographic maps he’d seen, he had trouble wrapping his head around how big this place actually was. Supposedly, it went through the entire mountain, both up and down. And now, it was full of kobalds.

  “Why did you abandon it?” Nero asked quietly.

  Nick, ever helpful when it came to a question… any question, replied, “We no longer needed it. Our population took a massive hit during the failed Dorchen rebellion, and many people who’d lived underground took the opportunity to refill the villages and towns who’d lost people in the fighting. Without the need for the space, the council of leadership decided to turn off the generators and seal the doors. We knew it would be here if we needed it. Even if the density shift hadn’t come, eventually it would have been reopened regardless.”

  A dwarf walking along next to Crusher said from behind them, “Ye lot never should have left the space empty. Unused ruins like these are breeding grounds for dimensional incursions.”

  Looking surprisingly angry, Nick looked over his shoulder and said emphatically, “They’re not ruins! Ruins imply destruction, and there was barely any fighting here.”

  Suddenly losing some fire from his tone, Nick looked around at the areas of the floor which were now blackened by soot due to the conflict, adding, “Or at least there wasn’t. Who knows what the kobalds have done to our history while we built the rest of Dorchester.”

  Sounding almost compassionate, Crusher said, “Don’t ye worry, we’ll see your home cleared out. Ye’ll have your chance to rebuild.”

  Nodding in appreciation of the dwarf’s words, Nick seemed no longer in the mood to talk.

  Nero on the other hand still had questions. However, he could tell that the man was no longer interested in playing tour guide.

  Taking advantage of the silence, he spread out his perception field as far as it could go, trying to see through the crowd to estimate what kind of fighting had taken place here. He could see areas of stone that had been rebuilt and remnants of heavy spell effects hanging around in the ether.

  Nero had a sense that he could delve into them to witness the past, reliving the events that caused them. He almost did just that but was interrupted by the sight of wagon trains being dragged out in the other direction.

  He could see piles of kobald bodies being brought out, along with more than a few wagons filled with humans.

  It was easy for him to forget the cost of fighting what with all the healing magic and success he’d had.

  He thought about asking what they were going to do with all the bodies but thought better of it. There was no reason to put Nick in any worse of a mood than he already was.

  Time passed as they walked, and Nero thought about what this tunnel must have been like when it was inhabited. It looked more like a massive fairground than an entryway, and he wondered if they used to have stalls arranged up and down the place. There were probably wagons of good heading in and out all day and night, filling the place with commerce and people.

  Now, there was just a long train of humans heading off to war.

  ‘At least someone had the good sense to clean up after all the fighting. I wonder if they used brooms to sweep everything up, or if they have some kind of large-scale cleaning magic to pick up all the blood and whatnot,’ he thought to himself.

  While they pushed deeper into the mountain, Nero’s thoughts bounced all over the place. From the history of the space, to what kind of fighting they were likely to face, he rarely thought about a singular subject to conclusion. Mentally, he was just wasting time.

  Eventually, Natalie led them to their first checkpoint. It was through a large door alongside the central tunnel leading to another massive chamber. This one looked like it was once another way to move through the mountain. There were exits all over the place, with stairs and platforms leading off in all kinds of directions. To Nero, it looked like a really humanized anthill. He could just imagine assholes with clipboards at each exit, checking people off as they and their wagons went through.

  Natalie didn’t bother to stop and check in with anyone, ignoring the army tents and soldiers who were taking a rest. Instead, she led them directly toward one of the exits, splitting off from the wider forces and heading toward their assigned area of operations.

  It was still about an hour until they met their first kobalds. They’d had to go through multiple tunnels which showed the aftereffects of fighting. Charred walls and broken essence lights gave the entire place the vibe of a horror game mixed with a tabletop RPG. The tunnels were wide as hell and mostly empty. There was no furniture or leftovers of civilization despite how many rooms they checked. It was all just depressingly empty.

  So, when the front of the 15-man group called out ‘Contact!’, Nero was happy for the change of pace.