“Should we follow it?”

No clear response from Val. She turned some purple, then gray, then red and quickly green color, but ultimately she settled with the same blue she started with. Both of us were really considering to follow the thing. It could be the way towards The City literally being laid out for us, but it could just as well be the way towards certain doom.

“I’ll leave the choice up to you, Valentina. Left or right.”

That made her feel anxious. Het blue color darkened and she constantly kept switching from going to the right, to quickly going to the left, and back again. To be fair, that pretty much sums up how I was feeling about the situation as well, but with a stronger preference to going to the right. I’m not afraid to take any uncalculated risks, even if the odds were severely against me, but this time I couldn’t do it. We had faced enough on The Lands for me to become afraid of them. And above all else, I could be putting my wispy companion into high danger, which I couldn’t bring myself to do… Let’s be honest, we’d probably find The City anyway, even if it took a small dozen of hours.

She needed another minute to completely calm down from her rush of anxiety – which didn’t get better with the entire tunnel shaking around her – but in the end, she chose to go to the right. I heard myself sigh silently of relief.

We turned our back to the hallway we saw the creature dig through.

“Let’s go then.”

Val took the lead, with me following very close behind. We were moving slower than before, and I mean a lot slower. After having seen an unknown, possibly (let’s be real: probably), dangerous thing just casually breaking through The Mountain as if it were a hot knife slicing through butter, I think it’s evident why we were a lot more cautious now.

We hadn’t been floating for more than a minute – in that time, we had only traveled about ten feet – when The Mountain stopped shaking and the sounds of stone being broken where interrupted by a loud roar. The roar came from the tunnel the creature had dug, and echoed so vividly it easily reached us (and possibly even outside The Mountain). When it got to us, it sounded like the creature was everywhere, or there were multiple screaming all over The Mountain. Both Val and I hoped strongly only the former was true.

After this roaring, it went silent for a second. Dead silent. Not sound was to be heard; no water dripping from the damp walls of the tunnels, no gust of wind blowing through a couple of vines hanging from above, not even Val’s signature glassy, wispy sounds. Everything went so silent. In fact, you could hear my Magnetic Field Manipulators buzz very faintly; a sound I had never got to hear before.

The silence was followed by another load roar, as the ground began shaking once again. This time, however, it wasn’t one constant quake, but rather several smaller ones adding up to one big pulse going through a part of The Mountain. They were rapidly increasing in frequency, and – maybe more worrying – in intensity.

“It’s coming back…” I first said quietly to myself, “Valentina… Valentina! It’s coming back!”

Then the slight feeling of panic kicked in, and Val was quick to follow. Her blue color became much lighter and brighter, and she started moving quickly around me. It was a very different reaction to what she had done back on The Lands when a similar situation had taken place inside The Mountain. I suppose the sheer panic in my voice didn’t help her. She also might still have been recovering from the moment I almost died… Or the moment after that, where we both almost died…

“Valentina…” I tried, but she kept panicking, making high-pitched, electrical sounds like she always did when scared.

“Valentina, please…” Still rapid movements around my shell, making the tunnels flash like a pulsar.

“For the Gods’ sake! Valentina!” I yelled at her, possibly louder than the deep roars coming from the beast in the other tunnel. I took her between my hands again. She was cold. Very cold.

“Stop. Panicking. Please.” She was still shaking between my hands, in a bad way (a very bad way). “You panicking isn’t helping anyone right now… so please… please, stop.” I tried to say it in the least harsh way I could.

It didn’t help, she kept glowing brightly in a very light blue color. I could feel her trembling in the palms of my hands. “Val, sweetie. Could you, please, try shining a little less brightly so we don’t stand out this much?”

She tried, she really did. I could see her really trying her best to dim her light, and I appreciated that greatly, even if it didn’t help a lot.

“Look, dear. We need to head back to the intersection. We might be able to hide in the tunnel we came out of, just in case the creature decides to take a turn into this one. Alright?”

She somehow found the strength and willpower to turn the blue to a greenish color for the slightest moment, after which she rushed back to the corner faster than I had ever seen her fly. I followed her as quickly as the magnetic field was able to be manipulated.

We fled behind the corner, and I took Valentina between my arms, pressing her close to my shell, trying to hide as much of her blue shine as possible from the beast. I felt the chilly aura around her touch my body, and in a mere moment, my whole being was becoming colder, freezing rapidly.

“Shush… We’re – argh – we’re safe now. I… I got you, Val. They won’t… They won’t get you now.” My limbs started hurting after the prolonged exposure to Valentina’s frost, but I slowly felt it go away again.

“It’s alright, girl… I’m here. I got you… Don’t worry.” I tried comforting her even more, for the good of both of us.

She steadily became less shaky, and gradually warmer. After the first painful moments of frost, the warmth was quite welcome, and became even pleasant after a little while.

The ground was now shaking heavily. The pebbles we saw jolting semi-regularly when the giant creature made his way inside The Mountain were now jumping up and down with every step the creature took. The roars had stopped occurring, so the only things we were still able to hear were the feet of the beast stomping on the ground, along with the rocks beneath them getting crushed, it’s enormous body grinding against the walls of the tunnel he had dug himself, and Valentina’s buzzing sound, while she was steadily becoming a less and less vibrant blue.

All those terrifying sounds (except Val’s, of course) were accompanied by something else. There were other sounds in the background, very faintly, even more faint than Val’s buzzing. They slowly but surely became louder, and it wasn’t until another minute later before it became clear what they actually were: voices.

They weren’t normal voices though, it wasn’t two people just talking casually about… whatever it is two people talk about inside the caves of a mountain. It wasn’t whispering of people hiding from the beast that was now rushing out of The Mountain. No. It was an audible version of turmoil and tumult. About twentyish voices were all yelling other things at the same time, making it a pure chaos of unintelligible speech, but one voice stuck out above the rest. It was the immensely loud, deep voice of a young adult, which echoed far beyond where we were hiding behind the corner. I couldn’t quite understand what he said, but it definitely seemed like he was leading these twenty voices. He didn’t bother bringing silence upon the pandemonium though; it kept resonating through the tunnels.

“Val, do you hear that too? The voices?” I whispered as quietly as possible to my slowly calming down friend.

She blinked green.

“What are they?” I said, while loosening my grip on Valentina ever so slightly. “Hang on…”

I now released Valentina completely, and leaned over the corner so I could barely see the end of the tunnel. From the corner of my eyes (technically it was some sort of camera) I saw Valentina turning some strange redly blue (but it wasn’t quite a neutral purple I was used to). She started pulling on me almost immediately, trying to get me back behind the corner.

I could just about see a tail fling through the tunnel the creature had dug. The tail actually was luminescent, with light coming from the red lines covering its body. I could now see more clearly how it was actually covered in rocks and earth, and how the red lines had some wavelike motion to them, like they were flowing down, underneath its body. The tail disappeared to the left, searching its way out of The Mountain again.

“It’s alright, Val. The thing is gone.”

With those words, Val immediately dimmed her brightness, like she was letting out an enormous sigh of relief. I did the same thing, or at least the ‘sigh of relief’-part. We appeared again from behind the corner, looking towards the left, where that beast just flew past. The shaking of the tunnels was slowly starting to lessen, but the voices that accompanied it began becoming louder and louder.

“Faster troops! Make it run! Make it leave!” I could hear the leader shout aggressively.

The rumbling of the cave was now silent enough for me to make out individual words of his voice. I couldn’t make anything from the chaos of the twenty others yet. Shortly after we heard him yell that command, we saw a cluster of presumably Dwarves run past, through the hole of the creature. They didn’t run remotely as fast as the beast they were chasing did, which made it easier for us to examine them better.

Two of the cluster were holding some sort of lantern that lighted up the bunch of them, making it much easier to see them all. The Dwarves all wore the same equipment, except from one (which I presumed to be the leader of the bunch), he wore a breastplate in some black metal, laid with gold, as opposed to the simple chainmail the rest was wearing. All of them – excluding the captain, of course – were wielding weaponry: either swords or spears. The leader of the bunch was running behind them, while the rest stormed passed us, following the creature.

I started floating towards them, and Val followed me closely.

“Looks like we got us a way to The City now… Let’s hope they’re as welcoming here as they are on The Lands.”

We rapidly started heading in the direction of the group of Dwarves. I kept Valentina close to me, so she slowly started becoming purple again, which made me slightly more at ease. We stopped on the newly dug out intersection, and I turned left, where I saw the group of twenty running as fast as they could behind a creature they could never catch up to.

“Hello?” I said inside the tunnel, hoping the echoes would take my voice far enough without me having to scream.

Sadly, that wasn’t the case. I don’t know how far my voice did go, but the only thing I heard echoing in the cave was still the commotion of those angry Dwarves. I sighed, because I really didn’t want to scream, with a risk of bringing another danger upon us. Then I realized how there’s a whole army of armed Dwarves not far from here making more noise than I ever could, so one extra screaming of the top of her lungs probably wouldn’t make the difference.

“HEY!” I yelled, maybe a little too loud and a little too sudden, because I saw Valentina next to me give a quick pulse of blue in her color. It actually hurt my throat screaming that loud… Really, what is the advantage of having pain receivers on an exploration probe?

When my voice finally got there (which, in reality, didn’t take long, but it felt like at least an hour), the volume of the Dwarves rapidly lessened. As if thunder had struck, they all turned to look at me, each looking as confused as the next.

“What in…” I heard the leader mumble rather loudly.

“I am…” I tried to say, but the chaos of voices began rising again. I sighed annoyed and looked towards Valentina.

“Dwarves!” The chieftain shouted. “I demand silence!”

And so it became, he just had to say the words and every single one of his soldiers was silent. After having said that, he came walking up to us at a fairly slow pace. I don’t know whether he was examining us while doing so, but he seemed very wary of his actions. His little army was following him close by, all being on their guard for anything severely dangerous I could do.

“Position seven!” I heard the commander yell at his troops.

From the moment those words left his mouth, the Dwarves all ran past him, making a circle around Val and myself, then they all pointed either their spear or sword at us, in sync. I froze in place, trying to move as little as I could, while I felt Valentina move closer to my shell. She was now shining purple with a subtle, but noticeable, tint of blue.

The leading Dwarf now came closer to us, but stayed safely behind the wall of his men.

“What do we have here?”

He looked at me. I didn’t respond, because I thought it was a rhetorical question, but it wasn’t, as evidenced by him shouting “Answer me!”, while the spears were pushed slightly closer to us.

“Kate, sir. I am Kate, and this is Valentina.” I tilted my head to point at Val, since I didn’t dare move my arms or hands, in fear of being stabbed by any point edges.

“Kate, huh?” He said attackingly. “What brings you to The Mountain to The North-East?”

“Sir, we’re seeking The King under The Mountain.”

The Dwarf laughed loudly and his army took that as an example. “You must be kidding!”

He stopped laughing when he saw I was not, the Dwarves followed his lead.

“Behold, for before you stands The King under The Mountain!” He said like he was some sort of ceremonial priest announcing himself.

No, I did not believe that. I don’t care what you tell me. This was not The King under The Mountain. Before me stood a Dwarf which seemed as old as Feldir (for what wasn’t hidden by his armor and helmet, that is). His beard was completely white, his face filled with wrinkles. This was not The King under The Mountain, at least not the one Feldir had told me about.

“I’m sorry sir, but can I ask you how old you are now?” I tried to sound as polite as possible, but my suspiciousness was faintly audible in my voice.

“Which age?” He asked me annoyed.

“Excuse me?”

“Which kind of age are you talking about? The Bestial age, or the Ethereal age?” He sounded like it was obvious I should know the difference between them.

“The Bestial age… I suppose?”

“One hundred and eighty years, as is common for the Dwarves.”

Yeah, that definitely wasn’t The King under The Mountain I was looking for.

“I’m sorry sir, but I think there’s a misunderstanding.” I apologized.

“What are you talking about?” He responded rather aggressively.

“I am looking for someone else. Someone a little… younger, perhaps?”

“Nonsense! We, Kings, are all aged around one hundred and eighty years in Bestial age!” He yelled at us now.

“And still, I am looking for someone el—”

“There are no ‘younger’ Kings!” He interrupted me, extremely mad. “Dwarves! Take them! We’ll have them arrested for treason!”