Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

He stepped out of the portal. Night had fallen, but he could still perfectly assess their surroundings. The first thing his eyes laid upon was a city in ruins. A part of it looked freshly burned down, while the rest were century-old ruins. Not much more than foundations and some broken walls, overgrown with grass and weeds.

"Lord Astora, we found the three recorders but there are no signs of the participants." one of the knights at his side reported to him.

Moments later the scouts that had entered first returned with news.

"My lord, the whole cliff has inexplicably collapsed. However, there are no signs of magic, that could have caused this kind of collapse. We found the crushed bodies of undead and what looks like an armored giant among the rubble." he reported quickly and concisely.

"The participants?"

"We found no signs of them."

"The Dragon?"

"The necromancer is currently fighting-"

"This time I will crush you!" a hysteric scream echoed across the ruined city. Andre lift one of his eyebrows and looked at the shadow scout questioningly.

"Correcting. The Necromancer has freed the Dragon and returned." the scout said slightly embarrassed.

"Yes, I can see that. Inform the rest of the search part to keep some distance. I will engage the girl."

"Excuse me if I'm being disrespectful but...Is that wise, Sir?" the scout asked troubled.

"Don't worry, boy. I already fought with real dragons and grownup champions. A fledgling on an undead dragon is the least of our problems. Just make sure to find the participants so we can get out of here." he assured the scout and set off to face the rotten beast and the dragon it was riding.

...

The place shook and dust fell from the ceiling of the treasure chamber. Seth didn't take note of it. He was focused on smelting the last kilograms of silver the golems had filled in the furnace. All of the equipment that seemed too precious or couldn't be smelted down was piled up in one corner of the room.

There were a few legendary items and items made of leather or other monster materials that couldn't be molten down. Seth was deliberating to summon Cerberus and have the Golem disassemble them, but the blacksmith had to take the situation in Delta into consideration.

He had left the golem there to take care of production, otherwise, Wedan and Hoen, the two dwarven blacksmiths, might overwork themself. Except for the legendary stuff, the other things were not really that attractive.

Seth didn't lack epic leathers or monster materials. He would have to leave those things here. The only silver lining was, that he had no idea what kind of power those items had in their prime. That way he did not feel that bad about the loss.

The biggest grieving was the dragon scales the golems pulled from the black sludge. Those were actually legendary materials, but so heavily cursed that Seth didn't dare to even touch them. While smelting the treasure, he kept wrecking his brain about a way to take them along.

The tower shook again and Polter almost dropped a rack of freshly filled molds. The precious Dragon Silver had almost spilled all over the floor. The quakes had kept growing stronger.

"Seth, did you notice the quake?" Ellie came running in.

"Yeah, couldn't I? Polter almost fell over." commented with an accusing glance at the dwarf. A dwarven warrior almost falling over from a little earthquake.

"Do you think it's the dragon?" Ellie asked slightly concerned.

"Hmm, I don't think so. That's not the sound of something digging, could that be-"

"It's a fight." someone completed his question with a confident answer.

Tamas had appeared behind them at some point.

"Oh, hey. Weren't you sitting with the others at the camp? What made you come here?" the blacksmith asked slightly surprised.

They had set up a camp in the hallway outside the treasury. Except for the blacksmith and Polter who were busy smelting the valuable, and Hubert's group who was off exploring the place, everyone else was resting there.

"I came to tell you to hurry. We will soon have to leave," he said with a friendly smile.

"Leave... you mean our reinforcement is currently fighting the Dragon?"

The fortuneteller shook his head.

"I can't be certain. All I know is that we should leave soon."

"... Okay, tell the other I will finish up here." Seth agreed. He was almost done anyway. After the last few times of filling the furnace and packing up the finished metal bars, Polter and Seth joined the rest at the campfire.

The fortune teller was just occupied with throwing and reading some die-shaped bones, while everyone else was packing up. It seemed that the fact that he had agreed to leave, was enough for the other to get ready, too.

"How is it?" he asked tamas who was reading the bones. The man suddenly held up three fingers and started silently counting down. When he bent the last finger, they heard footsteps from the corridor.

Hubert and his group came back with a quick gate. It seemed like they were in a hurry.

"Oh great! You are already getting ready to leave! Perfect. We... We are also done over there. We should get out of here quickly." the dimensional merchant said obviously nervous.

"...What did you do over there?" Seth asked suspiciously

"I, errm, we..." he stammered. An infernal screech from the depth of the corridor answered the question his place.

"let's just say we found the library and tried some stuff we should have waited with...Can we go now?" the merchant explained and tried to rush to the entrance.

Seth looked down the hallway they came from. With <Night Vision> and <Clairvoyance> he could see light fall out of a door at the far end of the hallway. The silhouette of wriggling tentacles or worms gushing out from the door convinced him.

"Yeah, let's go."

The camp was packed up and the team followed the merchant with quick steps back to the exit. Seth brought out his deity golem and they all boarded the Python Express back to the surface. Their destination was clear. The point where Seth had left the recorders.

~ It's about 20m until we reach the destination. ~ Python informed Seth and halted

~Thanks.~

"This is where we go by foot, guys," Seth announced.

"Aren't we going all the way with your golem?" Caleb asked.

"I don't want to reveal my Python, we will go the rest by mining." the blacksmith told them and brought out Iapetos' Pickaxe. When they exited; Seth stashed away the giant snake and they were left in a dark hole in the ground.

With quick hacking motions, Seth started mining towards the surface. Everyone else followed behind the blacksmith through the wide tunnel he was digging through the earth.

Just moments later fresh air flowed into the tunnel, and everyone had a breath of relief. It was night outside, but before Seth could climb out of the hole, a saw the light of the stars sparkling on a bunch of blades pointed at him.

"Errm, we came in peace, honorable surface dweller?" the bard asked insecurely.

"It's the participants, we found them." one of the knights that surrounded the hole called out, and the swords were put away.

Again, the whole place shook, from the clash of titans in the distance. The knight helped them climb out of the tunnel. The sight Seth witnessed when he looked at the fight humbled him. One side was the dragon Kalzemir.

It seemed even bigger than before. On its back was the necromancer Natina with a purple halo behind her back. Her beast was enveloped in all kinds of auras that originated from her halo and kept flowing into the dragon.

If this was her being serious, then Python would not have had a chance.

On the other side was a single man. He was huge and had a wild silver beard and hair. He was half-naked, and his upper body was covered in runic tattoos that gave the impression to glow. With his roar, he summoned the colossal phantasm of a golden lion that easily rivaled the dragon.

With every move of the man, the giant figure moved two. When he punched, the lion swiped and a huge gash appeared on the zombie dragon's rotten skin and exposed bones. It was not just an illusion, the image of a giant lion had a corporeal quality that enabled the man to have the upper hand in this face-off.

The rest of the team also left their burrow and stared at the fight in the sky with shocked expressions.

"Okay, did you gawk enough?" one of the knights in a more colorful armor asked the group.

"Lord Astora is not fighting for fun; we must get you to safety quickly. I'm Captain Lyngle of the Imperial Guard of Chrona. Prince Hardwig sent us under the Decree of the Emperor to get as many of you back alive, as quickly as possible." he explained and showed the scroll of the imperial decree.

As Ori-races, they had little knowledge about the customs of the empire, but the archeologist Megan was able to guarantee that it was really an imperial decree from Chrona. After this was ascertained, Lyngle gestured for them to follow him.

Although Seth would have thought the knight would be annoyed by their distrust, he could actually see a proud smile on the knight captain's face. The bard did not know how he should feel to be treated like a pupil that did well on a test...

"Sir, What about the Evaluation Quest?" Caleb asked the knight captain, earning some askant glances from the other.

Not even Seth cared about the quest anymore. Well, maybe because he had made a huge gain here, but still.

"Do not worry about the quest. You will get be sufficiently rewarded for your deeds." Lyngle guaranteed and led them to the portal.

A blue disc swirling with brilliant white lights was floating in the air, where Seth had positioned the recorder golems. One by one, they entered the portal. With a last woeful glance at the dragon s and its bones, the blacksmith stepped through the portal.