When all was in readiness, Tenebroum opehe floodgates a dozens of cubic yards a sed casg into the darkness below. In time, the river might run dry, but if that happehanks to its efforts to salt the river and weaken her further, the al would not run dry until the os did.

  None of the spirits that swirled within the Lich had any idea how much water it would take to quench the fires of creation or what the sequences might be. The mages didn’t know, aher did the dwarves. Even the All-Father didn’t know. The spirits of the dwarven dead all seemed to believe that the fires would eventually go out on their own if the fe went unused for too long, but no one had any idea if that would be years or decades, and the Lich was unwilling to wait one day lohan it had to.

  So, instead, it emptied the river ahe flood flowing into the depths. Even falling as fast as it was, it still took several minutes for the first drops to reach the fiery depths. These evaporated before they even made tact, but the same could not be said for the wall of water that followed.

  The eruption of steam that followed was enormous, obsg the whole cavern in a b of scalding fog. Tenebroum knew nothing about volineering, but some of the dwarven spirits did, and as the va met with the torrents of water, they whispered what was happening. They expined how the pressure was building in an attempt to erupt but was uo because of the sheer weight of the water.

  Instead, the steam rippled out through the surrounding passages and caverns, doing untold damage and making the stoself shake so violently that it could be felt all the way on the surface. After verifying that the tremors caused no real damage, Tenebroum ighem. Instead, it focused on the elemental battle miles below.

  There, fire and water in their purest forms were battling out, releasing torrents of air and sbs of earth. It was, in its way, a perfect elemental boratory, and just watg the way that the four elements ied gave the Liew ideas and theories it could try with its elements. It had used them separately, but it had never mixed them together in an attempt to cause such a powerful rea. Such a thing could be a potent on.

  Still, it set that idea aside for now, and instead, it focused on the pure fury it had unleashed. No matter how much it drowhem, the fires of creation refused to extinguish. Instead, each time the magma cooled enough to bee the base sto should have been, those boulders would sih the fiery surface, and the process would repeat all ain. Sometimes, eruptions would occur between these small, shifting ptes, causing fresh ions to occur repeatedly.

  It was a se of primordial chaos that seemed like it would st forever, but no matter how long it took, the Lich could not turn away. The cavern was a vast pce with the All-Father’s anvil in the ter, but all of that was hidden by the storm of swirling steam. All that Tenebroum could see was where its poisoned waterfall came down like a pilr of water and vanished before it could bee the ke that it should have bee.

  Slowly, that ged, though. Day after day, the water came down, aually, the magma that it struck first turo hard stone. Slowly, almost too slowly to noti any given day, that area of fully solidified stone began to spread, and just as slowly, the endless fog began to dim.

  Until now, the white haze was u by the infernal red and yellow glows of the va. That, bined with the intense heat of the pce, made it impossible for the Lich to enter and explore whatever the All-Father had left behind for it to discover. However, that would ge. Day after day, and if necessary, week after week, both of those would diminish, aually, it would be able to explore this forbidden sanctum with impunity. It relished those thoughts, but even as it did, it watched the water slowly decrease in its flow until it was all but stopped.

  That was wheeam rocketed to the surface. The Lich fumed, worried it had finally run the river dry, but that turned out not to be the case. Instead, one of the stone walls its minions had built almost a quarter mile above this hellish pce had ruptured, and the water that should be queng the fe was now filling some nameless cavern and flooding the depths instead.

  If it had been drowning a dwarven city or something simir, Tenebroum might have accepted such a miserable dey, but the race was all but extinct at this point. There might not be a single dwarf left at this point, which made this a plete waste of time. Unfortunately, there was little it could do about it. As the steam rocketed hire, it detohat se of the tunnel, causing fractures and cave-ins that stopped the flow entirely.

  Tenebroum growled in frustration as it sidered its options. Why must it always be something, it thought to itself. First the stars, and now the steam. The darkness is only ever just out of reach!

  It could send the Devourer back down to bore a new hole. This would take time, but it wouldn’t be impacted by the water. It almost did just that until a few swirling voices in its soul pointed out that as soon as the blockage was cleared, the thing would be swept down and dashed upon the rocks far below.

  Though the Lich erfectly willing to sacrifice such a pawn, it had no idea whether or not it would he plex mae again. Instead, it set it aside and opted to use its Dark Titan instead.

  “Circumvent the blockage and craft a new el through the bedrock,” the Lianded.

  The elemental creature didn’t aowledge the and or make any reply. It never did. It was always silent as it got to work.

  The creature of stone and lead would not be nearly as fast as the Devourer. Rather than ripping and breaking apart the stoh teeth and cws tailor-made for the task, it maniputed stone simirly to the way that dwarves did, but making it malleable and molding it like a piece of cy. This would create a stronger path for the terrible pressures involved at those depths, making it an acceptable promise.

  While the Devourer could move feet of stone every day, the elemental could move only inches, so the workaround was even slower than Tenebroum had feared. Still, the thing worked tirelessly, and after a few weeks of endless waiting, the path was once again open.

  This time, much of the steam and, indeed, much of the heat had dissipated. Whether it had known it or not at the time, the Lich had been on the verge of success.

  So, while the cavern began to fill with water, the darkhat was the Lich’s soul followed it in, and began to search for anything of value that it might add to its resources. The anvil was the rgest thing. It was impossible to miss and also seemed to be made out of pure Adamantite or perhaps even something stronger. Such a thing represented an impossible trove of riches. The only problem was that Tenebroum had no idea how it would break the thing apart and refe it into something useful.

  Fortunately, that wasn’t the case with everything else. The hammer that went to the fe was missing, but the Liew exactly where that was. It was still resting at the bottom of the dead cathedral that had witheir dual not so long ago. Fortunately, there were any number of small implements made of mithril and other rarer things that would tide the Lich over until it made pns for the anvil.

  Around the main anvil were smaller ohat were presumably used by the fe master’s servants. Any number of smaller projects y around in states of partial pletion, and then beyond those, in a dark room that seemed to go on forever, it found the mother lode.

  Amongst the on and armor racks were nearly endless sets of ons and armor that had been made a aside. The dwarven spirits it had absorbed whispered that these were always being structed so that the stone men could fight the world’s end when the day of judgment arrived.

  Well, that didn’t work out for you, did it? The Lich mused as it prowled the rows, looking through the endless axes and horned helmets that sat there oiled and ready for use. It could outfit an infinite number of zombies now, which was Ironic, sidering it had so few at the moment. Unfortunately, it had no idea how it could get all of these to the surface. Even with a mithril , a e of such length seemed out of the question.

  Before it could give that problem much thought, though, it noticed something. It was almost fully dark now. Only a few flickering fmes guttered in the highest ground, and even now, that water was climbing higher and higher to reach it. One by oenebroum watched those go out as the room got darker and darker, quietly celebrating its victory. It had very nearly extinguished the fe fires of creation. It had dohe impossible.

  Then, suddenly, the darkness was plete; nothing could stop it from going even deeper and finding out what exactly this bea had been holding back for so long. The Lich rejoiced in that, but before it could explore deeper or reactivate its Devourer to tinue on its journey, it felt aremor. Another quake, it wondered. But the steam has stopped.

  It took the Lich a moment to realize that this wasn’t the stone making further pints.

  It was a different sound that was heard as much as felt. Something was ing.