It started with the alarms.
A deep, mechanical clang echoed through the canyon—slow at first, like someone testing a broken bell. Then louder. Faster. Urgent.
The forge fires flared brighter as the air pressure shifted. Dwarves spilled out of bunkers and tunnels with weapons in hand, confusion on their faces.
I was halfway through pulling on my boots when Velis burst into the room, cloak still smoking from spell residue.
"East tunnel breach," she said. "The wards collapsed."
Lyra was already behind her, gloves on, hair tied back, eyes narrowed. "Collapsed or shattered?"
"Shattered. Like they were targeted."
Iria entered last, armor half-fastened, sword in hand.
"Sound your ready," she said. "War is below."
Outside, Stonecut Hollow was transforming.
Dwarves formed ranks along rope-bridges and cliff ledges, loading crossbows, sharpening axes. There was shouting—orders, prayers, fear.
Silas dropped down from a scaffold above us, landing lightly with daggers in hand.
"Scouts are gone," he said. "North tunnel's dark. No runners. Something's blocking signals."
"Magical interference?" Velis asked.
"More like intentional sabotage."
I looked down the main ramp.
Smoke was rising from the canyon floor.
Not forge smoke.
This was darker. Thicker.
It smelled like brimstone and rot.
We followed the dwarves down the main stair path, torchlight warping against the stone walls.
I could feel it in my bones—the pressure of something below. Not magic. Not just evil.
Movement. Rhythm. Intention.
The closer we got, the more I noticed it: the way the ground hummed out of sync, the way runes on the support beams were melting.
Velis paused at one and ran her fingers along the glyph.
"This one was rewritten," she said. "Someone re-coded the defensive structure. It's not just corruption—it's coordination."
Iria's grip on her sword tightened.
"Then we answer it with steel."
We reached the lower staging platform just in time to see the far eastern tunnel collapse.
Stone blasted outward.
From the dust came the first wave.
Imps. Dozens of them. Red-skinned, ember-eyed, clawed like buzzsaws. They skittered over walls and ceilings like spiders on fire.
Behind them came something worse: a creature that might've once been a bear, now bloated, horned, steaming with internal heat, eyes boiling in its skull.
And at the center—tall, skeletal, armored in cracked obsidian—was a demon captain.
Humanoid in shape.
Crowned with bone.
Eyes glowing like lanterns of hate.
It held no weapon—just chains of molten shadow, which it dragged behind like dead weight.
The dwarves opened fire.
Crossbows snapped.
Axes were thrown.
Some imps fell.
Some didn't.
Then the captain raised one hand, and the chains lashed out.
Three dwarves were caught mid-swing—yanked off their feet, crushed midair, flung like dolls against the walls.
Velis shouted a warning. Lyra muttered a curse. Iria charged ahead.
I couldn't move at first.
I just stared.
Because this wasn't chaos.
This wasn't random.
This was an army.
Not just monsters—but tactics. Formation. Focus.
We were being invaded.
The dwarves rushed the line first.
Axes crashed against imps with a wet crunch. Fire lit the air. Runes on the canyon walls pulsed to life—but flickered, failing mid-glow. Someone screamed as a bat-winged demon plummeted from the ceiling, claws slashing.
Velis dropped to one knee, slammed her staff into the stone, and sent a wave of freezing light through the left flank. Three imps turned to frost-dust. The fourth caught on fire anyway.
"Who enchanted that one with lava blood?!" she shouted.
"No one!" Silas shouted back, flipping over a charging brute. "They're evolving!"
He drove his daggers into a demon's exposed spine, twisted, and vanished into the smoke.
On the right flank, Iria had become a battering ram.
Edelbrecht swept wide, cleaving imps in half. She took hits—burns across her gauntlet, blood at her temple—but didn't slow. Behind her, dwarves rallied.
"To Iron Song!" one shouted.
She didn't respond.
She was too busy charging the demon captain.
Lyra was in the center, casting wide-spread healbursts and throwing salves like grenades. One dwarf caught an imp bite to the leg—Lyra slammed a glowing seed into the wound, sealed it with bark, and shoved him back into the fight.
"I am not losing a patient before I've insulted him properly!" she yelled.
A horned dog-like demon lunged at her from the side.
I tackled it midair.
We hit the ground hard, its jaw snapping an inch from my face.
I punched it.
Nothing.
I headbutted it.
Less than nothing.
Then it yelped.
Because Silas reappeared behind it and stabbed it somewhere only he'd know would work.
"Teamwork!" I wheezed.
"Accidental flailing," he corrected.
We pulled back toward the mining carts.
More were pouring from the tunnels—imp swarms, more mutated beasts, and two more chain-dragging lieutenants. The dwarves were being pushed back.
"We'll get overrun," Velis shouted. "There's too many!"
"No way out?" I asked.
"Not unless we can collapse the southern rampart without killing ourselves in the process."
I looked around.
At the loose support beams.
At the rail switches.
At the full ore cart behind us.
"I have an idea," I said.
"Oh no," said Lyra.
I jumped onto the cart, grabbed the brake lever, and shouted: "When I give the signal, hit the supports!"
"What's the signal?" Iria called.
"You'll know!"
I kicked the lever down.
The cart surged forward.
I rode it straight down the ramp, wind and demon-fire roaring in my ears.
Imps turned toward me—too slow.
I ducked one, used a pickaxe to bat another aside.
The demon captain turned.
Saw me.
Raised his chains.
I pulled something from my bag.
A rune-charged blasting wedge from the tool racks.
"Eat compressed dwarven engineering!" I screamed—and threw it.
It hit the stone pillar behind him just as Iria slammed Edelbrecht into the wall's edge.
The signal.
The world exploded.
The entire southern ramp groaned, cracked—and collapsed, taking the forward horde and half the eastern tunnel with it.
The captain fell, chains flailing.
I leapt off the cart.
Landed badly.
Rolled.
Everything hurt.
I laughed anyway.
It took an hour to clear the last of the swarm.
The remaining demons fled into the dark.
The dwarves cheered, bloodied, singed, exhausted.
Velis sat against a wall, breathing hard, hair scorched at the tips.
Iria was checking for survivors, sword dragging behind her.
Silas had somehow looted a lieutenant's ring and was examining it like a wine glass.
And Lyra—
Lyra stormed over, pulled me upright by the collar, and slapped a salve into my chest.
"You're a moron," she hissed.
"I bought us time."
"You bought yourself cracked ribs and a new lecture."
"Worth it?"
She looked away.
"...A little."
Velis finally stood and pointed to the fallen tunnel.
"There's something down there," she said. "A buried relic or conduit. That captain wasn't here just to kill."
"What, then?" I asked.
"To tap into something. Like in the forest."
Lyra nodded grimly. "Second node."
We looked down into the ruins.
Smoke curled up from the cracks.
The demons were getting bolder.
And smarter.