Fluxwell Voreheim’s legs were so atrophied he couldn’t walk. Lain surmised the last time he had been awake was when the maugrim race still existed in this realm. It turned out the lone maugrim was alive because he was an artificer.

“Your guess was correct,” Fluxwell said. “This was a Fort as well as a lucrative mine. I came and setup my workshop to both help with the mining operation and to work on my designs. There were gems deep in the mountain I wanted to experiment with.”

“What happened?” Quincy asked.

“That damned tower appeared in the North,” Fluxwell said. “And along with it came that damned Nether Lord cunt and his army.”

“Isn’t that far away from here?” Lain said.

“Not far enough,” Fluxwell said. “There were a few incursions we fought off. I thought I had seen the last of them when I was conducting experiments on the Sleep of Stone.”

He gestured at the object in his spine again. “I didn’t mean to go into the sleep for so long. Is there no one left in the mountain?”

Lain and Quincy eyed each other. Lane shook her head, forlorn. “I’m sorry. The events you are describing must have been a very long time ago.”

“The Nether Lord must have overrun us,” Fluxwell said. His eyes were far off, thinking. Then he said, “What of Paleforge? How does the crown of the Spineshards fair? Is it still bustling? Still majestic and a center of industry and tradition that honors the rock? Imagine their faces when I return. Old Fluxwell can tell them the tales of their predecessors!”

Lain didn’t want to be the one to inform him that his city was a graveyard.

Quincy lowered himself to a knee so he could look Fluxwell in the eye. “I hate to be the one to tell you, friend.” He put a hand on the maugrim’s shoulder. “But Paleforge is empty.”

“Empty?” Fluxwell said. “I don’t understand. How can it be empty? Paleforge is twenty thousand maugrim strong!”

Fluxwell looked between Lain and Quincy. Lain found it hard to make eye contact with him.

Quincy shook his head. “I truly am sorry. More time has probably passed than you think. They’re all gone.”

“Gone?” Fluxwell said. “But how?”

“Do you know of The Scar?” Quincy said.

“Scar?” Fluxwell said.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Quincy said. “Another threat came out of The Scar and waged war with your city. There was a siege, but in the end they were overrun.”

“Impossible!” Fluxwell said.

“I wish that were so,” Quincy said. “You’re the first maugrim this realm has seen in ages. How many ages I do not know.”

Lain watched Fluxwell try to comprehend what he was hearing. She saw a dark guilt pass over him.

“I should have been there,” he said. “I should have been there to help defend the city.” Anger burned in his blue and green eyes, gems reflecting the light of a forge. “I need to get to work.”

“Hold on friend,” Quincy said. “I can carry you.”

“Absolutely not!” Fluxwell said. “No one carries a maugrim. Maugrim carry the mountains of this world on our backs! We are the ones who do the carrying!”

He began dragging himself towards his workshop.

Lain figured that trying to stop him would anger him more so she let the maugrim pass by her. “We need to get to the others,” she said. “Nay needs healing.”

“Aye,” Quincy said. “You go back out the way we came. Get Ilyawraith to fly you up. It’s better than wandering in here blindly. I’ll stay with the maugrim and make sure he doesn’t hurt himself.”

Lain nodded and then spoke over the vigor connection. “Ilyawraith, we got a bit side-tracked inside of the mountain. I need a lift up to the lair. Can you meet me down here?”

“I’m with Nay now,” Ilyawraith said. “She’s okay but will definitely need a poison cleanse. I’ll bring her to you first to be prudent.”

“Thank you,” Lain said. “How are the others?”

“Safe for now,” Nom said. “We killed a whole family of harpies it seems. Did you and Quincy find anything interesting?”

“As a matter of fact,” Quincy said, “we have a bit of a surprise for you.”

#

Nay was relieved to see Lain again. “I’d say that hunt went kind of sideways.”

Lain smiled. “Sometimes, you can make all the painstaking plans in the world, but it can all go wrong. All it takes is for the wind to blow the wrong way to scatter carefully sketched plans. What matters is the way you adapt to it.”

“She’s right,” Ilyawraith said. “Sometimes the difference between victory and loss, life and death, is a choice made in the moment. Thinking fast and making the correct choice is often the strongest strength.”

“But a hard one to develop,” Lain said. “But you can make better decisions with experience and wisdom.”

“At least I’m getting some experience,” Nay said. “You guys feel like my training wheels.”

“Training wheels?” Lain said.

“Or like a crutch for me to lean on while I learn to walk,” Nay said. “Nevermind. I’m just glad you’re both here.”

They went into the ice tunnel and found shelter from the wind.

Lain inspected Nay’s wounds. As always, her touch was gentle, her bedside manner peaceful.

“Do all healers have auras to calm their patients?” Nay said.

“The good ones do,” Ilyawraith said.

“Not all,” Lain said. “Some don’t think it’s necessary. It’s just a job for them. Close the wounds. Clean the blood. Fix the bones. They’d rather use the extra skill tree slots for other abilities than comforting someone’s spirits.”

“But not you,” Nay said.

“Soothing the soul, the heart and the mind is just as important to me as soothing than body,” Lain said. “I am as much a comforter as I am a healer.”

“And that’s what puts you on a different level than the rest,” Ilyawraith said.

“You honor me with your words,” Lain said. “But it’s just my nature to care about people.”

A glowing clump of green moss appeared in her hand. She held it over Nay’s head and said, “Dispel poison”. Nay felt a tingling inside her and then black motes flew out of her open wounds. The clump of moss absorbed the black motes.

“Is that the poison?” Nay said.

“It’s my ability that sucks all the toxins out of your blood and flesh,” Lain said. The clump of moss swelled as it absorbed the noxious motes. Nay no longer felt queasy. It felt like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She also felt clean, like she had just gone into a sauna and sweated out a bunch of toxins.

When it was finished, the bloated clump of glowing moss crumbled like dry leaves. Pieces of it fell to the ice floor, curled up and disappeared.

Next, Lain mended her torn flesh and Nay felt right as rain.

#

Ilyawraith had ferried Tuk-Tuk and Nom down to the ice tunnel exit and they had all traveled to the remnants of the maugrim fort inside of the mountain. They joined Quincy, where he met them near the stone lift in the middle of the fort.

“Glad to see that everyone is relatively unscathed,” Quincy said.

Nay pointed out that he had only half a mustache, as the other half had been burned off by the reaver blast. “Lain, you can’t make hair regrow can you?”

“I had the option to gain such an ability,” Lain said, “but I opted to go with the ability that regenerates toenails instead.” And she winked at Nay.

“Very funny,” Quincy said. “I’d like to see one of you all get blasted with vigor fire and manage to keep all your hair.”

“Is this what you wanted to show us?” Nom said. “The ruins of a maugrim settlement?”

Quincy smiled then. “It’s much more than that. But be forewarned, nothing can prepare you for what I’m about to show you.”

Nay was now super curious about Quincy and Lain’s discovery. On the way here, the healer had refused to say anything else about the matter. She just said she’d see for herself soon enough.

Quincy brought them into the maugrim workshop, where Nay saw someone else who wasn’t part of their party, someone else alive and well, who was sitting on a bench at one of the worktables, their back to them, working with tools on a bunch of metal, stones and gems.

And Nay noticed that although the person was humanoid, they were of a different stature than human entirely.

It was a maugrim with wide shoulders and silver hair and beard, tinkering on what might have been leg armor of some kind. As they approached, she could see the maugrim was wearing goggles as he worked.

“Fluxwell,” Quincy said. “I’d like for you to meet the rest of the party.”

“Everyone,” Quincy said, “this is Fluxwell, the maugrim artificer.”

Fluxwell grunted and kept working for a bit before finally turning to glance at them. And when he did, he did a double take and took off his goggles. As if he couldn’t believe his eyes.

“An underbog denizen!” Fluxwell said. And he picked up a metal gauntlet and pointed the knuckles at Nom. Vigor flames ejected out of exhaust openings in the metal and burned towards the tentacle.

To Nom’s surprise, the stream of fire swept past the tentacle’s displacer image and reached his true image.

The flames reflected off Nom and licks of fire curled back at Fluxwell. The maugrim fell backwards off the table to avoid the flames, landing on his back.

“Sorry about that,” Nom said. “But I have a natural reflective surface!”

He slithered underneath the table and appeared next to the maugrim.

Fluxwell screamed. “Get it off me! Get it off me!”

“Sir, I am not touching you! My goodness. I’m merely trying to make an introduction!”

Nay crouched on the floor next to Nom and put an arm around her friend in front of Fluxwell. “It’s okay. See? The tentacle is with us.”

“That foul beast of the underbog is with all of you?” He looked past Nay at the rest of the group. His eyes settled on Quincy for confirmation.

“She speaks the truth, Fluxwell,” Quincy said. “The tentacle is an ally and a friend. And a damn good cook to boot!”

“What has become of the world I once knew?” Fluxwell said in dismay.

He pushed himself up and climbed back onto the bench. He plucked out the empty vigor gem and pulled another out of the box. This new one was charged. He inserted it into the gauntlet, trading out the empty one.

“I will propose a truce with the tentacle,” Fluxwell said. “I will tolerate your presence in the group by pretending you are not there. If you come within a foot of me I will scorch you with fire.”

“Yeah, you tried that, bud,” Nom said.

Fluxwell wrinkled his nose, irritated. He grabbed a mace. “Then I will flog you with my Rocket Mace!” He pressed a button on the handle and flames and vigor spirit shot out of one end, making it whip around in a circle super fast.

Everyone backed away and Fluxwell accidentally took out a chunk of the wall before powering the Rocket Mace down.

“This maugrim is clearly unhinged,” Nom said. “And I like it.”

Fluxwell snorted and got back to working on his project, grumbling and side-eyeing Nom.

“So I think you should honor his wishes and keep your distance,” Nay said. “He’s a cranky maugrim.”

“I’ll grow on him,” Nom said. “You’ll see.”

Nay turned to Ilyawraith and Quincy. “So, are we taking the artificer with us?”

“We can’t leave him here,” Quincy said.

“We could,” Ilya wraith said. “But I don’t think he’d be able to keep himself alive. There’s no food. No supplies. We’d be leaving a legless maugrim to his death. And if he’s the last maugrim alive in this realm, I can’t have that on my conscience.”

“We’ll have to rig a special saddle for him for one of the fauglirs,” Nay said. “He won’t be able to make the journey with his condition.”

Right as she said that, there was a metallic clomp, as if iron hit the floor. Then there was the sound of what Nay thought was a pneumatic hiss.

They all turned to see that Fluxwell was standing. Metal boots encased his feet. And armor covered his lower legs and thighs. At the knee joints, there were cogs on the side, inlaid with vigor gems.

As he showed off that he could walk, vigor energy flowed out of the gems and encased the legs in an aura, giving the maugrim the power to walk.

“I don’t need no special saddle, you fucks” Fluxwell said. “I fixed my own damn legs!”