Part 1: At the Rear of the Nuria Copper Mine
Nuria had returned from her exploits aboard the flagship of Nereel Pyreen to find the entire landscape of Jemison Post had changed. It was now filled with white fur olgogs, and strange cloned green furs. More than a few looked like Lurtor, but didn’t seem to recognize her even though the real Lurtor and her were friends and allies.
Finally she found the Alphine who informed her she had more pressing matters. It seemed Eli McGraw had found a buyer who wanted copper from her Copper mine. The Banking Guild seemed willing to cover transport cost for a more than reasonable percentage, and Nuria realized she could make some solid bank.
Knowing Nereel Pyreen had some cult off in the mountains on Mt. Sandspire had freaked her out, but this matter of the Copper mine deal seemed more pressing.
Taking a Tracked truck out to the mine with both banking guild reps and Eli, Nuria had a comm crystal to call in Grim and Lurtor if things got concerning. But right now it was a business deal.
Then much to Nuria’s concern, there was a worker who stumbled from the mine screaming. Another was running steps behind the first. Then a third scrambled from the mine entrance.
But this worker did not look like the rest. He had obvious claw and bite marks on his neck and face, and they looked relatively human. The worker was clutching his chest, tearing away his clothes even though he was stumbling through knee deep snow.
There was what looked like an icy insect with a crystalline outer shell which was burrowing into the workers chest cavity. Nuria stepped forward fearlessly and burned the creature with fire. Melting away the crystalline insect, the worker fell to his feet relieved.
Thanking her profously he said, “We were digging a plentiful copper tunnel when we found a new shaft. One we had not dug ourselves. It had High Falos writing on it. Our translator said it was something about Frozen Homeforge territory.
We respected that and turned back to our own tunnels. But a skeletal thing, with a crystal in its chest tried to jump Zachary the Foreman. It got Andrew instead, and while it gnawed on him these insects burrowed into his body. And suddenly Andrew grew one of those crystals in his chest. Andrew turned on me and Zachary called for an evacuation.”
As Alphine began setting up a medical tent to treat the wounded workers, Eli, Nuria and Lurtor began planning their response to the infestation. While they bandied about different plans, including one that had a sonic attack echo through the tunnels shattering every Ice-Heart inside the mine. But the final plan was decided, a simple one, but a good and reliable one, where they would move tunnel to tunnel, clearing out the Ice-Heart worms as a team.
It was a good plan, but during the planning, and during the exploration, the bastard Grim was unusually silent. It was as if he was pondering something. He had never seen the Ice-heart Worms before, but they reminded him of two things. The first was the Ice-Heart themselves. He had been around the soldiers serving the K’iou Dra’kan Garmin Fe in the Northern Kingdoms, and those K’iou had similar frozen hearts, but theirs were controlled and did not take away their will or minds.
The second thought was one about the Ice-Heart worms they had witnessed. They reminded him of something, something he had seen a long long time ago in the Museum of Zelga. It was a set of scrolls brought back from the Prison Dimension of Les’tas’tral, the same prison dimension that had held Warmonger for aeons since the end of the K’ias Wars until only a year ago. The scrolls showed a historic epoch known as the Elemental Holy Wars. And in one corner of a mural, embellished with great beauty was a K’iou with an Ice Heart, with an army of IceGuard and Ice Giants at his disposal, standing on a Glacier infested with bugs that looked very much like the Ice-Heart Worms he had witnessed here. It was only a passing memory, and barely remembered over a life long lived.
Still Grim pondered the memory of the mural scroll, and said nothing, after all other than saying he had seen a picture of this creature in a museum on the other side of the continent, there was little to add.
Eli McGraw led the way, his revolvers at the ready. He wore heavier army, and rightfully so. The stove plate was incredibly heavy, and the tin can mask cut off a bit of his peripheral vision. But the first time an Ice-Heart Ghoul came charging out of the dark tunnels and leapt upon him, Eli was happy to have it.
While the Ice-Heart Ghoul shattered its teeth trying to bite through stove pipe, Eli put two rounds through its heart and shattered it. Eli kicked it upwards, so that Nuria could torch it. Again as the heat from Nuria’s fire ignited the former miner’s body, Eli was happy for the extra armor.
Nuria was meanwhile more worried about what it meant to be facing this type of outbreak. She had a deep fear of what could be causing these worms. Her mind raced with thoughts of what type of creature could be birthing them at the far end of the mine.
Yet she pushed on, torching and melting ice-hearts and worms as they went. Behind her Lurtor extinguished the flames once they passed, and preventing the bodies from being destroyed fully by the fire. Still Grim followed along, quiet, torching an Ice-Heart Worm here or there after seeming to study it for a moment.
It took them two hours to clear the mine, and by the end of it all four of them were so very tired. But their methodical plan had successfully disabled the Ice-Heart Worms and their hosts. The former hosts were now gathered outside the mine, in Alphine’s medical tent. It seemed except for two miners who were missing, all the workers had been rescued.
Heading back into the mine to find the last two remaining workers, Eli, Nuria, Grim and Lurtor continued their careful sweep. Finally arriving at the rear of the entire mine complex, Nuria found a curious tunnel that did not correspond to the Foreman’s maps. This must be the tunnel that the miners had mentioned.
As they got closer they saw the ground was littered with the dying bodies of Ice-Heart worms. These parasites didn’t seem to live long without a host, maybe five minutes at most. So those who were furthest away from the curious tunnel had died hostless. This did not stop Nuria and Grim from doing the responsible thing and cooking them with fire leyas for good measure.
Arriving at the curious tunnel, Grim saw markings carved across it. It was definitely a K’iou-made tunnel, but the design of the tunnel was not modern at all. In fact it was an ancient tunnel design, used by all K’iou Homeforges. Known as the Tail of the Gresla, this tunnel would lead to the heart of the homeforge.
From the markings in High Falos, this was labeled the Frozen Homeforge. Yet Grim had no knowledge of any surviving Homeforge being out here, nor any K’iou survivors except those living under rule of the IceWyrm Dragons.
They followed the tunnel downward, clearing Ice-Heart worm corpses as they went. It was as if the heat of the workers had caused a surge of activity and once all the available warm bodies had been converted, the rest of the Ice-Heart Worms just died.
Pushing onward, they found the tunnel opened up into a large amphitheater. Some sort of council chamber? Thought most, though Grim recognized it as the council chamber where the Homeforge’s Forgemasters and Leaders would meet with the Falosini. Currently the chamber was devoit of life, and the center of the amphitheater had apparantly had one final performance.