Happily ever after

Prompt 3

‘Happily, ever after’

Word count 3583

Happily, ever after they said in the stories. It always ended happily ever after.

Well here I am stuck on guard duty after being part of the group who found my long-lost uncle in that bloody ruin that we chased those goblins into last year. A lot has happened since then.

When my father, the Dwarven High Mage, his apprentice, a few guards, my two friends and myself first unlocked the magic room as we thought it was and discovered my uncle. Who used to be the High Mage until he disappeared thirty years ago. First, we were shocked, then overjoyed, then suspicious, (we are dwarves), then incensed, then mad and finally a mixture of all the afore mentioned conditions.

Suspicious by nature we were obviously happy about finding my uncle but, he had been gone a long time with no contact with his clan. That was unheard of, Dwarven High mages did not just go gallivanting off without contact with the clan.

I am getting ahead of myself, here’s what happened.

We had chased some marauding Goblins into a ruin, discovered some magical artefacts. Found an interesting dual lock thingy and then gone back to investigate further with our own magical experts in the form of my father the High Mage to see what else we could discover. This was when we employed the magical lock thingy and we had discovered the secret room.

We had just discovered the secret room and were exploring. It was three stories high each floor joined by a circular staircase. Fin and Gus, my two friends had gone on up to check the top floor whilst the High Mage, (my father) and I had continued searching around the second floor. We had heard a click and a bookcase had swung inward away from the wall. The area within the door frame formed was filled with a reddish glow, and from that glow a shadow was being projected forward into the room we were in.

We shouted Fin and Gus to join us, we drew our weapons and started forward. What we then saw left us gob smacked. The door had swung open allowing us to see into another circular room about twice the size of the one we had been standing in. Placed in the middle of that room was a cage, and in that cage, was a Dwarf. Well I say a dwarf we thought it was, it was the right height the right shape but the hair was unkempt, the beard filled with snarls and tangles. No self-respecting Dwarf would have let themselves go like that.

We entered the room, I circled to the left with Gus, The High Mage and Fin went to the left, and the guards came in behind and held their place at the door in case we had to get out fast.

The room was roughly formed out of rock by what looked like magic, but there was no finesse like the previous room. This looked like it had been fashioned by someone in a hurry. So, it had roughhewn walls, a ceiling height of roughly three Dwarves stood on top of each other and three strange lamps set in a triangle around the edges of the room. Those lamps were strange as I think back to it. They were made of some strange red coloured glass with a light captured inside of it. Between the two lamps to my left had been another opening this time no door was on it but instead a passageway ran away and down from us into the distance. We did follow this eventually, but again I am getting in front of myself.

Once we had made sure we were alone in the room I had moved one of the guards to stand by the other passage, just in case.

This was when we got to have a good look at the Dwarf in the cage, well I say cage it was more an enclosure of light than a physical cage. Obviously magical in nature, and just as obviously it had been a pain to break into apparently, or so that is what my father had told me. This enclosure was shaped like a square but where we would have built it out of steel the walls of this thing were shaped by a pale blue light. It is hard to explain the shape of these magical barriers because it seemed to shift and shimmer into different shapes constantly. First, they would look round, then triangular, then square, but it hurt to track the changes. I was told later that this was to stop my uncle trying to work out how it worked and help to prevent him from breaking free.

The cage was not the only way he was kept secure, we found out later that his food had been drugged to stop him focussing his magical energy. That was why he had been in the state he had.

My father had approached the cage and it was the armour he recognised first before he realised he was looking at his brother. As soon as he realised who it was he had rushed over to the side of the enclosure shouting his brother’s name. “Kram! Kram! What the fuck happened to you?” He has a way with words does my dad.
When he heard the shout, Kram, my uncle looked up but with no recognition in his eyes at all. Instead there was just a flat, dead, uninterested gaze turned toward us. My memory of my uncle was not that good anyway but I certainly remembered how he used to look when he looked at me when I was a young Dwarf. His gaze used to be fierce, intent and full of questions.

Whilst my father and his apprentice studied the cage and its occupant I had wandered around the room and ventured a little way down the passageway that led away from the room with the cage. I did not take a torch as I had the natural sight of a dwarf and I was adept in seeing in low light conditions. Not pitch black but low light, that is a common mistake made by many and one that we are not quick to put right either. Anyway, like I was saying I had wandered down the passageway until I was struggling to see. The passage continued downward and was as quiet as a grave. Which was not right, there should have been some sounds even going underground, mice, and some of the other creepy crawlies that shared our love for living in solid rock.

It was at this point that I had cast a spell, oh had I forgot to tell you that I can use magic? It is in my blood obviously, although I can use magic I was not due to start training properly until after I had spent my twenty years learning how to fight as a warrior. Being the son of the High Mage does have some perks.

Right back to the story. The spell I cast was a simple alarm spell, should anyone or anything pass through the area that my spell had been cast then it would trigger a flash of green light and a screech alarm.

I had then gone back up to my father and waited to see what he was going to do about this cage.

When I got back the dwarf formally known as my uncle was eating. I asked my father how he had got the food. Apparently, the wall on one side of the cage had solidified across a two-foot expanse and an aperture had opened and the food was just there. When the food had been removed the wall reverted to its original state. Magic, I was told, I was then ushered out of the way so that they could try some experiments on the enclosure.

Well it turned out to be a bit of a poor job done by whoever had made this enclosure. It had sides and it had a roof and to be honest it had got the old man swearing and huffing and puffing. Anyway, we had been there for two days roughly with us being no closer to getting my uncle out when in desperation I suggested digging him out. I was swore at quite a lot over the next few minutes but having no new ideas they tried it. Well it turns out you can be the best mage in the world but all the magic in the world does not help if you are a daft pillock when you cast your spell. The enclosure was quite a thing but they had not got those magical walls penetrating the ground. If they had built a cell with bars they would have sunk the walls into the floor a good 2 foot. I would assume that a mage would have done the same with magic walls. Apparently not. Basically, we dug a trench into the floor, fair enough it was a rock floor but that isn’t too much of a problem for a dwarf, so we dug a trench under the walls expecting to encounter a barrier when we didn’t we were pleasantly surprised.

Once we had got my uncle out of the cell he continued in his slowed state, not talking, or paying much attention to anybody. Most of the time he sat staring straight ahead whilst my dad talked to him. This went on for a few days we had moved out of the stone room and into the more comfortable three-story room in the original ruins. The door between the two rooms was left open with two Dwarven guards by that other passage.

Anyway, after a couple of days my uncle started to get a spark back in his eyes, the only thing different was he was eating the same food as us, drinking the same as us. Two days after that he uttered his first words. It was like watching a drunk wake up, he didn’t know who he was, he didn’t know who my father was, the funny thing was he recognised me.

That was that, then I was tasked with getting him straightened out. Whilst this was going on my father had identified that his food had been drugged but with what he could not tell. It was nothing that we knew about. Anyway, after the third day after he had started talking it was pretty evident that my uncle’s faculties had returned. The only thing that had not been broached was his ability to still carry out magic.

My father and uncle had been talking about how he had been taken prisoner. I say talking, my father was asking the questions Kram was not saying much at this time, Although, he was getting back to normal he could not remember much about his time in the cell. He had a real hard time remembering how he had been captured or even why he had been away from the clan in the first place.

What he could remember was that something or someone kept coming up that passage and making sure the cell’s walls were strong asking him questions. What the questions were he never did remember or he hasn’t up to yet.

So, we had found out that he had been getting a visitor of sorts so my Father had set to chasing this down. Even though they had made progress something had been stopping my uncle’s memory coming back fully, that had got my father worried. He had sent his apprentice back to the Dwarven stronghold for some of his tomes on magical lore. Then we had been gifted with a few more days doing nothing.

It was early one morning and they two brothers had been reading and talking over something they had read in one of the large volumes of lore.

Something had been wrong I could tell because they had stopped swearing at each other, not a good sign. It had meant pain for someone in their youth, or like when we were in that ruin that they had arrived at a serious decision and the shit was about to get thrown into the wind potentially.

I had heard them talking and what I had heard had not been good. So, like a true nosy bastard I had sidled over to that tome of theirs and glimpsed at what they had been looking at. My flabber had never been so ghasted. All I could make out before they had caught me was the words ‘Dark Elf!’

Obviously, I then had used my family ties to question them on their findings.

The top and bottom of it had been this. Dark Elves were the only race other than us who were as comfortable underground as we were. They were the only ones who possessed magic of the sort that could overcome a Dwarves natural resistance to offensive spells. Remember too this was no ordinary Dwarf either we were talking about a Dwarf who was very strong in his own magical abilities. The only way they could have cast the spells to overcome my uncle was either, he had encountered a very high level Dark Elf mage or, a group of mages.

This had been a cause for concern as we had been in this place a while now and we had not been attempting to hide the fact.

What then had happened was my father, uncle, and two of their fellow mages had got their heads together and gone into a lengthy discussion on how to reverse the spells that had been cast on my uncle. So, after what had seemed an age they had arrived at a plan. They were going to cast several spells all of which were dangerous and had to be done in the rough rock room as this is where the they were anchored, or that is what they had thought.

All the while we had been at the ruin we had been quite secretive and only telling the clan chief and his close advisers what we were up to. At first it was because we were not sure if it had been my uncle we had found plus there were areas that we had not explored yet. We knew we had to go deeper into the ruins but we had been determined to get my uncle right first. Because of the hush hush nature of what we were doing we did not have that big of a force with us
.
If we knew then what we know now we would have been there with the whole Dwarven army and called help in from the other Dwarven strongholds.

Anyway, back to it. After the lengthy preparations, the spells had been cast, the two lesser mages had passed out with the effort. My father was pale and drawn and could hardly stand. So, it was at this point that the screech alarm sounded out of the passage and a green light had shot out of the passage opening casting shadows before it.

There had been Lon, Gus and myself by the passage with the other two guards at the other door into the ruins proper. They had just moved the two unconscious Dwarves out into the other room with my father following them with my uncle, who had finished with a blinding headache and not knowing his name again.
I had just managed to draw my axes when the first Elf burst out of the passage with his sword drawn in one hand and a small pistol crossbow in the other. I caught him a beauty in his throat as I spun around using my right-hand axe to take him down as I turned to make sure my father was clear of the room before shouting at the guards to get out and lock the door from the other side.

Three more had rushed in behind the first and my friends had squared off with two of them and were trading blows which left the third for me. All this in the blink of an eye.

We could hear more in the tunnel rushing towards us. These must have been the scout party. The Elf swung his sword at my head, he expected me to duck, I didn’t I had leaned back away from the cut. I allowed it to pass then I was on him. My axes were magically charged he may as well have not been wearing armour the edge of my axes cut straight through it, my left axe travelled to the left side of the Elf’s neck biting through into the flesh beneath, my second axe had taken him in the side of the helmet. He had continued past me, carried by his charge and weight of his dying body dropping forward. Lon and Gus had made short work of the two they had engaged, both lay dead at their feet.

We turned to the passageway, we could block it with ourselves it was a narrow passage which would negate their superior numbers but, we would tire quickly. They could rotate fresh warriors up to the entrance, all we had got was us, and we would tire eventually.

It was at this point that we had found out whether the spells had worked on my uncle because the door behind us boomed open and he came piss balling in screaming like a madman.

“I’ll fucking kill those goat shagging effeminate fuck witting ball bags!!” I think those were his words. You can see as a family we ought to be poets.

His armour had got like a nimbus around it. He held my father’s axes in his hands, but it was what he did when he reached the entranced of the passageway that shocked even us. We knew he had been the high mage but none of us had witnessed a mage in berserker mode. He stopped when he entered the entrance to the passage the axes were passing in front of him like a twirling fan of death but as they spun faster and faster they started to glow first a dull red then it intensified until we had to look away. This was when he uttered one word and the axes stopped spinning as soon as they stopped the intense orange lights had ran on in front of the blades shooting into the darkness. The first ranks of the Elves had been around thirty feet away when those thin lines of orange hit them twisting round them like an orange gossamer net first one then shooting to the next in line. As soon as they were surrounded they stopped dead in their tracks pain screwing up their faces. The heat of the orange ribbons wrapped around them, the heat cracked the skin on their faces, smoke leaked from under their armour, eyes bulged and popped from the steam generated by the heat. Normally they would have been long dead but this was no normal fire that had been consuming them this was a Dwarven high mages spell and he had been mad as hell.

The ribbons slowly faded away, and as they did the husks of what had been elves dropped to floor blackened, burnt, shrivelled and smelling like burnt offal. Not only had the Elves dropped to the floor so had my uncle.

We had listened for any more sounds coming from the passage, there had been none. We transferred my uncle back to the other room and settled him next to the two unconscious apprentices. After about an hour I had slipped into the passage and picked my way passed the corpses and cast my alarm spell again.

Over the next couple of days as the mages had recovered including my uncle we had made several changes to that passageway. We had taken a small patrol down the passage and we had travelled for a few hours all the time going down. This passage was leading down to a depth that rivalled or even surpassed the deepest Dwarven cities and mines. It had been a straight passageway with no side tunnels. So, we had been busy on the way back up. We had built several Dwarven traps and fashioned magical reinforced wooden doors that would give us plenty of notice if the elves tried to attack again.

They have tried three times in the last few months which sees me as the commander of the considerably larger garrison guarding the tunnel. We now have a High mage stationed here as well now.

My uncle did tell my father what had happened to him, how he was captured but then sworn him to secrecy. One thing was certain though we could not leave this passageway unguarded. At some point, we are going to have to go down and see what is down there. It is just too close to our stronghold. This may not be the only passageway. They may not have realised how close they were to a Clan stronghold or they did and that is why the passageway was hidden.

Whatever the reason, they are down there, I am stuck here guarding a dank dark tunnel to the depths of hell. Waiting for the them to make the mistake of coming up here again.

So, I ask again although we won the battle how is this ‘Happily ever after?’