Chapter 47: A City, Lost

The final goblin came at him with a feral squeal, swinging its rusted machete at him in a sloppy overhand blow. Kaius parried, A Father’s Gift knocking the short depths-born’s blade away with a clang. The goblin was left open. He followed through.

The point of Kaius’s sword punched right through its face with a spray of green blood.

**Ding! level 15 Goblin Outcast slain**

He sneered in disgust as the creature went limp, sliding free from his sword with a wet schlick. It was the last one. The fight had been easy. Coming up to his chest, he had an immense reach advantage on the goblins, even before his longsword was factored in. Though thanks to the tyranny of stats, they were still stronger than him.

Everything he had fought for months had been stronger than him. It didn’t matter all that much when the only way they had tried to leverage it was clumsy swings and wild swarm tactics. The goblins were about as good with their jagged machetes as he had expected after seeing their ramshackle weapons. Terrible. It had been all too easy to punish amateur swings with fatal repostes.

Kaius turned to check on his friend, finding Porkchop licking one paw clean of blood. A pile of crushed corpses arrayed around him.

“Gross.” He said, squirming at the sight of his friend happily enjoying goblin blood.

“What? It’s almost as good as jerky after all the undead.”

Kaius shook his head. “Definitely still gross.”

Porkchop huffed and went back to cleaning himself.

Shaking his head, Kaius moved towards the cook fire that was at the mining caverns centre. The goblins had been roasting some sort of beast over it. A massive rodent, judging by the head and tail. Frankly, it smelled delicious, especially after months of unsalted jerky and hastily cooked kills.

He’d had a growing suspicion that the Depths tried to make water and food readily available. Whatever the purpose of the arcane structure, its challenges weren’t meant to include death by starvation or dehydration. Even so, he would have to be an idiot to eat the meat without checking it first. He used Identify.

Roast Rous:

Depths-wrought Item

A Rous that has been inexpertly roasted over an open fire. Partially scorched. At least it’s salted.

**Ding! Identify has reached level 3!**

Salt.

He was already moving. Snatching one of the legs of the roasted beast, he twisted it free with an uncomfortable crack. The fire hissed as stray juice sizzled on the hot coals below. SInking his teeth into the leg, the meat scorched his mouth. He ignored the pain, moaning as salted meat practically melted in his mouth.

Kaius laughed into his food as Porkchop bolted over at seeing his reaction. His friend ripped his own leg free from the carcass. Savaging it on the cavern floor.

“It’s not gonna run away.”

“Why.” The bone crunched between Porkchop’s jaws. “Is.” A chuck of meat came free with a snarl. “This.” He snapped it down. “So. GOOD.”

“Salt. Best thing ever discovered.”

“Why haven’t you been doing this! Your jerky sucks!”

“I would if I could, buddy.” Kaius laughed. “We don’t have any. The jerky is pretty shitty, it’s supposed to have salt.”

As he ate, Kaius walked around the rough room that had been carved into the stone. The goblins had set up a number of tents. Crude things of leather and cloth, barely remaining standing as their rickety frames of sticks threatened to collapse at a moment’s notice. One of them did, when he accidentally brushed against it. He did find a barrel of water in one corner of the room. He refilled their water skins before they drank deeply from its reserves.

They moved on, returning to the dark shafts that criss crossed this biome.

Almost immediately they ran into more traps. The worst was a pitfall. A jagged pit carved into the floor of the passage, falling deep enough that he couldn’t see its bottom with his Low Light Vision. Ironically, the trap itself was incredibly poorly hidden. A blatant hole in the floor covered up with splintering slabs of wood. The problem came in crossing the pit. It was too wide to jump. While the planks looked sturdy enough that he could edge his way over them if he was slow, Porkchop would have smashed right through them.

It had taken carefully stacking the planks until they were four thick, and some very careful steps, to get his friend across. Even then, every creak of wood had sent Kaius’s heart leaping into his throat.

Once they left the pitfall behind, it wasn’t long before they noticed something…different. The tunnel ahead opened into what could only be called a corridor. So unlike the haphazard excavation of the goblins, this tunnel was smooth. Clean. Perfectly spaced metal supports holding up the room with geometric perfection.

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Every third section between the supports was carved in massive intricate reliefs that stretched from floor to ceiling. The ones he could see depicted stout figures in impressively thick armour, fighting off hordes of strange beasts for which he had no name.

“This is dwarven.” Kaius said, running his hands along the perfectly smooth walls. They weren’t manufactured, it’d been cut directly into the stone with a jeweller’s precision.

“You sure? It’s the Depths, not like it has to reflect your stories.”

“I know. But this matches up with everything I have ever heard of them. Plus, look at the art, those are definitely dwarves. Wherever this leads, I bet it’s going to take us to at least one Champion.” He said with conviction.