NOVPUBWith the incentives of curiosity, frustration, and aged whiskey, it did not take long for the Deep Rock Engineers to construct a bridge across the chasm. Bridging small fissures and leveling out the caverns they drilled into was a daily job, and building a road across a deep fissure was only slightly more complex. First, a temporary bridge section only two feet wide was constructed and slowly moved forward over the abyss. A cable running from the end of the section to a pulley embedded in the roof of the tunnel gave the dwarves a way to keep the end from sagging. As soon as the end of the section was dropped in the tunnel on the opposite side, a nimble junior brother volunteered to run across and secure that end.
The senior Engineers watched as Brother Shiftstick casually walked across the chasm. He was wearing a standard harness and safety line, as required, of course, but a few people held their breaths as he stopped at the halfway point and dropped a chemical torch into the darkness. Seconds ticked by as he timed the torches' fall. "Nine and a half seconds before it winked out. Think I heard splash, not sure." His first job done, he moved to the far end and secured the bridge with temporary spikes driven into the rock and a layer of instant cement. That done, he secured the whiskey barrel with a second safety line and carefully walked back across the bridge to several cheers.
With the whiskey secured, the dwarves began work in earnest. More lines were secured to the hard rock, and armored Engineers with diamond drills climbed above or hung below the opening, creating anchors for bridge ends and the cable network that would strengthen it. Here, the Gneiss became an ally. The anchors set into the drilled holes would support many times the weight of lesser stone. Notches were cut into the stone at the end of each tunnel, extending four feet into the tunnel, giving each bridge end the support it would need to haul loaded ore carts from Limburger Hollow. When the last bolt was driven and the job was done, they celebrated by tapping the small keg and toasting the new bridge. The whiskey was centuries old with a mellow, smoky flavor. Sledgemonkey declared that a double share was appropriate and then sealed the keg for later. It was time to travel and find their Brother Engineer.
Brutus and the girls were playing 'Patrol', marching back and forth in the old city, when they heard the distinctive sound of dwarven singing and the stamping of marching feet. "Looks like they found the whiskey, time to play welcoming committee." They met the Engineers as they exited the tunnel they had carved through the hard rock. Brutus had a broad smile on his face as he saw Sledgemonkey and Two-Screws. "Greetings, visitors. I am Head Guard Brutus, and these are my two valued assistants, Guard Buttercup and Guard Rosie."
The dwarves looked at the three towering ratkin guards wearing complete sets of Dark Steel armor with huge pole-axes. The smell of fresh-forged metal and burning coal filled their nostrils. They bowed low, smiles on their faces. "Always nice to find hard-working guards keeping the caverns safe. Now, before we burst from curiosity, where the hell are we? I'd swear that's dwarven architecture."
"Well, I'll let you be the judge of that. Tallsqueak thinks so as well. But finding this place was a surprise to us. We thought it best to leave off exploring until you got here. But first, I've got orders to escort you to the other end of the city. The rest of them got busy doing some forging and mining and are running around like a bunch of jellybean addicts, having fun pounding hot steel. No complaints. This is the nicest set of armor I've ever seen, and pretty enough that I even managed to get the girls to wear theirs."
"Well, lead on then. If Senior Engineer Milo already has a forge set up, he must have found something we'd like to see."
Brutus winked, "Oh, I think you'll be happy with it."
The procession moved along the main road, the dwarves taking time to look at the empty city under the roof of the large cavern. Shiftstick, in particular, stared through the dimness until he could see the large metal doors atop a short staircase. Then, seeing he was falling behind, he ran to catch up, taking his place at the end of the procession next to Varihold. The youth looked at him, curious. "See something?"
"Maybe, maybe not. Old stories from my clan's elders, told so many times that no one knows the original words. And crazy rantings from my cousin, Burnock, since we were beardlings. He always wanted to bring Clan Shadowforge back to its glory, even if he didn't have the least idea of what that was. I think sometimes he just wanted to be in charge of everything. It makes me wish I'd paid more attention to the old history, but my mind was on my next beer, the same as any young dwarf. Damned if this place doesn't remind me of the stories about Finditurpetram."
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Vary worked through the old dwarven word, "Cracked Rock?"
"Aye. The Elders say the clan came from deep in the hard rock, fleeing from the Mountain King's madness. They followed an old trail that wound back and forth within a deep fissure, always fleeing upwards. They didn't stop until they came to a land of easy mining and soft stone and built a city in the biggest cavern they found. They fled again after the cataclysm and settled in the ruins of the old city, which became Shadowport."
Vary's eyes were huge. "Wow, and you think this is Cracked Rock."
Shiftstick shrugged, "Big cavern where the Gneiss meets the softer rock. The only details I remember were the stories of the king's court, behind huge double doors with a fissure running down the middle of the room, the same that they came from long ago."
"Don't most dwarven holds have huge metal doors leading to the king's court? Sort of traditional? Isn't it?"
Shiftstick smiled, "Yeah, which is why I didn't pay as much attention as I should have. One legend starts sounding like another. Guess we'll find out."
The armor the guards were wearing had prepared the dwarves for a foundry or blacksmith's shop, not a full-blown metalworking factory. Vary and Stickshift shared a look as they entered through two large metal doors big enough for four sets of rails. Molten Dark Steel was pouring from an old-fashioned blast furnace into ingot and rail molds. Adding to the noise were a half dozen blacksmiths hammering away on anvils, making armor or picks. Master Clawhammer hammered away on his own project while keeping an eye on his apprentices and Tallsqueak. The latter was working with the new alloy, making pickaxes and other tools, some very oversized.
Other ratkin were operating the blast furnace or preparing a huge pile of raw ore for processing. Someone yelled for them to clear the door just before two gigantic moles pulling three full carts of ore each moved into the foundry room to exchange full carts for empty and head back out. Sledgemonky looked at Brutus, who had a smirk on his face, "We had some extra time waiting for you to get here, and Master Clawhammer likes to keep his apprentices working."
"I can see that and approve of his diligence. Nothing worse than a junior brother with too much time to get into trouble. But, by my beard, how in the hell did you find this place?"
The big guard leaned on his halberd. "Well, it was in the way. Tallsqueak knew the direction we had to go, but we ran into this vein of Dark Iron. Too big to go around, under, or over, so we did our best and carved through it. Found this place on the other side. Ownership was in dispute, and we fought a few critters to clean it out. Saved a lot of tunneling by following the old dwarven caverns. We realized we had some time on our hands, waiting for you folk to build a bridge, so we invited a few friends from the Hollow to join in the fun. It's going to take a few decades to mine out all that Dark Iron ore, so we figured we'd get a head start on it. Tallsqueak says you might have a use for it."
Two-Screws was looking at the stacks of ingot, not all of which were iron or steel. "You've got some interesting metal over there, and that's a lot of Deep Copper. Is that from the Hollow?"
"Oh, no. Roads are still too rough for that. We went Snake hunting and found a big one. Just part of cleaning the place up. The other metal was from melting down all the odd, half-mechanical critters. Tallsqueak was a little worried about the leftovers and wanted us to melt them down and not take any chances."
"Snake hunting?"
"Yep, big snake."
"Don't blame him for being cautious, then. Snakes are the worst.
A deep voice came from the doorway like the sound of an avalanche. "The Snake was not the worst thing that haunts this city. Bring forth the heir to Finditurpetram."
All activity that could stop did so, as dwarves and ratkin watched as a figure made of stone entered the room, taking ponderous but oddly silent steps.
