Traveling at first didn’t seem to be that difficult. Most of the time he was in tunnels, accompanied by the council and his captor, all but he himself carrying a torch. Multiple times, the path split up and went into some other random directions. If anyone was to invade his place, then the attacker would get lost and exhausted before even finding an enemy.

  Later in the day, they hadn’t seen the light anymore, staying inside the mountain at all times. They were now in an open area, being rather big with a pathway going down to a deeper part of the tunnels. There were wooden constructions in the wall, signaling that this part of the tunnel was used as an active mine.

  Seeing this, he started to think about it. They had lived here for many many thousands of years yet still managed to not run out of ores. As one of them started to make a campfire, Lehtern would sit down with the others as he looked around the group. One of the dwarves grabbed inside of their own bag, taking out what looked like an orb. After giving it a soft tap with a hammer, it started to glow and rise in the sky. There was barely any light that came out of it.

  That all changed when the fire started. The smoke slowly rose into the air as it got absorbed by the orb. The more smoke it got, the bigger the light got. Obviously finding fire wood in a cave would be insane as there were no trees here nor could they carry some with them so they got it from pre-determined storage spaces.

  At first it stayed quiet for a bit. The dwarves were lost in their own thoughts while Lehtern looked around the cave some more, now being fully lit by the smoke orb. He could see that there were many pickaxes lying around but not a lot of people.

  One of the dwarves would eventually let out a sigh, looking down in the depths. “Oh how I miss the singing of metal on rock. Those damned wizards; I doubt that I’ll ever get to hear it again like it used to be.”

  The other dwarves seemed to agree, growling and grumbling as it was what they thought of it. Eventually one of them got up, going to the donkey and opening up a bag. He took out multiple mugs, even one for Lehtern as he then started to fill them with booze from the barrel.

  As he sat back down and had put down a mug in front of everyone, they looked up at Lehtern as if they were expecting something. Sadly enough, he wasn’t up to date with their customs. In all fairness, with all the information they had been hiding, it seemed like he know frighteningly little about these people.

  Slowly he grabbed the mug, bringing it to his mouth. A strong smell hit his nose as he tried to ignore it as he then took a swig. The liquid had a strong taste of something sour, burning his throat as he quickly swallowed it. The regret that followed was immediate and fast, starting to couch as he quickly lowered the drink.

  A roaring sound of laughter sounded through the tunnels as they saw how this elf wasn’t able to take it. They toasted with each other, starting to take big swigs of this burning sour drink. He looked at it and then looked up at them, not understanding how they could like this. He tried it once more but with a smaller swig only to end up couching once more.

  “That’s something strong.”

  The dwarf closest to him would nudge his shoulder against Lehterns, leaning in closer to his face. “This is one of the weaker stuff. Wait until we reach the mountain capitol.”

  Once more they started to laugh as more and more booze was being drank. While they were focused on drinking, Lehtern was given the task to prepare food. If there was one thing that he knew, it was that dwarves could eat like the animals that they eat. Therefor he started to use a great portion of their food, starting to cook it over the fire using a grill from the cave.

  It barely fit over the fire as it was meant for single use but he made it work. With the cooking also came more smoke from the dripping juices from the meat, causing flames to sometimes shoot up. After a great bit of cooking and smoke inhalation, he would be done.

  As they dug in, it was silent for once as the dwarves had been chattering throughout their drinking session. It was rare for a dwarf to be silent during a meal, meaning he had done either a great job and they were impressed or he had done something terribly wrong.

  As their plates began to slowly get empty, they would also start to get more vocal. Not that he could understand a word of what they were saying, seemingly starting to talk in some kind of other language with each other, pointing at the food. Eventually they all finished, wiping some crumbs out of their beard before looking back at Lehtern.

  “Not good enough?” He seemed to get nervous in their company. Every step in their vicinity seemed like a test.

  Seeing him being nervous like this made them start to grin, grabbing their booze once more and continuing in their own language, keeping him guessing. Eventually he couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Can you guys maybe speak a language I do understand?”

  One of them grinned at him, standing up to get more booze from the barrel. “Your food was good elf. Url said that his wife might need to take some lessons with you to cook better because your food was great.”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The one that had captured him gave him a grin, appearing to be Url. The further the night progresses, the more booze was drank. Everyone except Lehtern started to get drunk. Lehtern hadn’t even touched his drink since the start. But as they got more drink, he would see a way to get more information about their life.

  His mind immediately went back to his ores question. “So… how come that you guys still haven’t ran out of ores?”

  He didn’t ask anyone in particular but they all seemed to focus on Lehtern, for as far as their clouded minds could focus. Url shook his head, knowing the least of this subject. One of the other dwarves tilted his head, trying to remember the answer.

  “There are these creatures called Harvest Wyrmlings. They’re like an infestation down here in the mines but we managed to control them.” He let out a burp before taking another swig. “They are rather big and lives off wood. In return the attach to solid rock, shitting out the same material as it is attached to, making basically naturally looking and naturally possible rock formations. In those rocks they leave behind children who wake up after someone mines away the rock.”

  “After we’re done with a mine, we throw them down the pit together with a bunch of wood. While they start form stone and minerals, camouflaging their children. After a couple of years if we need another mine, we come back to the mineral rich area and start over again. We collect the children and store them away until we need a new batch. That’s when we stimulate their growth and turn them into new wyrmlings to start the process over again.”

  Lehtern had grabbed a small book out of his bag, starting to write things down about the creature, although one thing stuck out to him. “If these are wyrmlings… then what are they when they become adults?”

  His question was met with silence at first, the council members looking at each other before looking back at him. Url who knew as little as Lehtern would be interested as well, looking at them.

  “Well… when they reach a certain age and size which sometimes does happen, we kill them. Hence why we need new batches. Normally we can force their growth to be limited by putting them in glass cages which is one of the few materials they don’t eat. When they manage to be buried by the others for long enough and we fail to kill them… they get out. Every time you feel an earthquake, that’s one of them going around underneath the crust. We sometimes find their charred corpses, boiled and burned by the lava that start to flow due to their digging in the earth.”

  “The biggest one we ever found was so big, it was able to swallow half our mountain. What we realized was that they don’t have a growth limit. Their only limit is when they make a mistake and boil themselves to death.”

  This information was scary, now knowing that each time an earthquake happened, a huge creature was beneath them digging and causing problems. “Then why do you still use these things!”

  At first they seemed ashamed but that didn’t last. One of them pointing his mug to Lehtern. “What else can we do? Not use them? We’d be lost without their generative stone ability.”

  Lehtern knew that they were right. He sighed, packing up his book as he looked at them, knowing that he had fucked up the mood. He shook his head, grabbing the sleeping bag they had appointed to him before lying down next to the fire. The fire keeping him warm as the other dwarves continued to drink for a bit before also deciding to choose to sleep.

  While they all slept, eventually one of the dwarves woke up, feeling his bladder yelling at him for having drank too much. As he got up, he lifted up his pants a bit as it dropped a bit after having lied down. He knew where to go to find the toilet into the mine. He didn’t need to even grab some kind of torch as he knew his way in the dark.

  At least he thought that he did as he suddenly bumped into something. He let out a soft grunt, trying to feel what this was as there wasn’t anything supposed to be here. “What? What is this?” He could feel this it was some kind of stone and the longer that he tried to see what it was, the more he could see in the dark.

  When he finally could properly see, he felt a cold grip around his heart as the alcohol seemed to disappear from his body. He took a step back, trying to stay silent while he tried to make his way back to the group. The rock in front of him started to move, slowly standing up completely before turning to look at what touched him. Unlike dwarves, this golem was able to easily see in the dark, seeing the dwarf.

  As he started to walk to the dwarf with his hand stretched out to grab him, the dwarf would turn around and try to run. “Golem! There’s a golem! Ru…!”

  The golem grabbed his face, accidentally shutting him up as he started to squeeze. It didn’t take long for warm blood to leak down his arm and hand, the dwarf stopping with his movement. Even though the dwarf had died, the others heard him and woke up.

  Lehtern was up first. He grabbed his dagger as he tried to see in the dark. His eyes didn’t adapt to the dark as quickly as the dwarves would, not seeing where or what was coming for them. The sound of weapons could be heard as the dwarves armed themselves.

  “Ulf! Take the elf and bring him to the Skeleton Gurge! We’ll hold him back!” Since one of them already died, there were only four dwarves left to take down the huge golem on their own. Ulf grabbed Lethern by the back of his collar, pulling him away, grabbing then his arm to lead him through the dark.

  As they ran, the sound of iron of stone could be heard together with yelling right after they left. If they didn’t stop the golem, then they would’ve been gotten. He wanted to help them but he was mostly blind and less experienced with fighting.

  The further they ran, the softer the sounds got. As they went, they couldn’t tell who was winning and who wasn’t, eventually the sounds being completely gone. They ran for a while through cave after cave, his eyes finally getting used to the dark. He now managed to run on his own, losing track of time and his sense of direction being fully gone.

  After a long time of running, they started to see actual light shining through the cave. As they turned the corner, they saw a hole leading out of the mountain. Once there, the dwarf was panting, holding a warpick as he looked at Lehtern. “You better find the king!” He didn’t even say goodbye or anything, shoving him out of the mountain without food or anything, turning back around to run back to his most likely deceased friends.

  Lehtern sighed as he looked around to see in what type of land he was. Previous information about this land talked about it being some kind if tundra and all and it didn’t seem to be far off. There were multiple patches of forest with nothing but some grass and small bushes between the patches.

  He sighed, seeing the castle that he was talked about in the far distance. The sun was high, causing him to realize that he was extremely visible right here in the open. With not much else to do, he lie down on the ground, starting to crawl towards the nearest patch of trees. That alone would take a while.