Dormant Danger

The platform stretched out beneath us. Fifty paces across, maybe more. At its center rose a smaller platform, raised a few feet above the rest, empty except for a lever jutting from a stone housing beside it.

Above it hung the piston.

Twenty feet across and chained into the shadows of the ceiling by a lattice of iron and older magic, its underside scorched black from however many centuries of use. Seeing it from the safety of a monitor hadn't compared to this—one hit from this juggernaut of engineering meant certain death.

“Stand clear of this place,” I said, motioning the others back toward the edge.

Kagha tilted her head, studying the mechanism with open curiosity. Lae'zel eyed it like she was deciding whether it could be killed. Shadowheart just looked bored at the intricate machinery.

I crossed to the lever, testing the metal in my hand, then turned back to them.

“This is it.”

Karlach's brow furrowed. “Should we grab Dammon first? Isn't he key to this whole operation?”

“Let's give it a test run first,” I said. “Make sure there aren't any unwanted surprises.”

“There is no one down there, darlings.” Eliette's voice curled down from somewhere along the wall, amused and certain. She'd followed us the whole way, spiderlings trailing after her like a living carpet. “I can sense every heartbeat in our home.” Her eyes drifted, warm and entirely too pointed, toward Karlach. “No matter how irregular.”

Karlach shifted her weight, thumping her chest twice with her fist. “Yeah, that's kinda the reason we're down here.”

“Traps don't have heartbeats,” I said. “I just don't want one springing on Dammon while his hands are full of molten metal. We clear it, then we bring him in.”

Eliette inclined her head, gracious and unbothered, and settled back to watch.

I pulled the lever.

The piston fell.

It came down with a monstrous sound, slamming into the raised pedestal with enough force that I felt it in my teeth for several seconds. The stone groaned, shuddered, and sank—the entire platform dropping in a slow, grinding descent until it settled flush with a churning river of lava deep in the stomach of the earth.

“Let's spread out,” I said, keeping near the lever. “Karlach, you move to the valve. Everyone else, away from the middle.”

We formed a loose five-point ring around the lifted pedestal—Karlach ready at the valve wheel, me at the lever, Lae'zel, Shadowheart, and Kagha fanned out opposite us. Eliette perched above it all on the wall with her young, watching the surfacers' odd antics with fond attention.

“Karlach. Open it.”

She spun the valve. Lava spilled along carved channels in the platform floor, molten rivers finding old courses, throwing the whole chamber into shifting orange.

Silence filled the room for about three seconds. Then the scream of metal against metal sounded from somewhere down in the pipe.

The lava bulged. Something enormous moved behind it.

Glowing-hot iron broke the surface first. Massive shoulders followed. Then a featureless helm adorned with a spiked halo. It looked born from nightmares of dwarves getting crushed in their own machines—vaguely humanoid, thrice my height, its armor plating glowing a furious molten orange from whatever passed for a furnace in its chest. Steam rolled off it in sheets.

“What in all the hells… is that what you thought of when you said traps?” Karlach yelped

“More or less,” I answered.

“What do we even do against such a thing?!”

I pointed to the three other girls “Keep your distance and try not to get it's attention,” I continued. “We need to get into the center!”

It had already fixed on Karlach first—she had turned the vavle and in doing so, disturbed it's lava-heated slumber. I hit it with a triple eldritch blast before it could close the gap. The bolts caught it in the side and did almost no damage; the pink lights just scratched off the metal. It shifted its entire focus to me and slowly started working it's way towards me with heavy steps.

Behind a screen waiting for the right timing was easy, but keeping cool while facing down several tons of molten, furious steel face to face made my legs quiver and my breath tighten in my chest.

When four steps remained between us, I shouted a command to Shadowheart, my voice more panicked than I'd hoped.

“Firebolt, now! NOW!”

A streak of flame lashed across its shoulder, and its head swiveled toward her with flat mechanical patience. It started walking straight for her. Straight through the center of the platform. Straight under the piston.

I slammed the lever. The entire forge lurched.

CLANG!

The Guardian went down in a spray of sparks, crushed under ten meters of falling steel—hard enough that I felt the vibrations travel up through my boots and into my bones.

It lay there. One second. Two. Three.

Then it climbed back to its feet, dented but very much upright. The lava beneath it hissed and receded—channels opening, the whole floor drying to bare steel as some deeper mechanism in the forge cut the flow. Without the heat, the metal stopped glowing. In mere seconds, it hardened into an impenetrable shell.

The guardian scanned the area once more, slow and measuring, then hammered its foot into the ground with all it's might.

The shockwave that followed felt sent us all to the ground.

Four points along the surrounding lava river split open, and four small, grinning shapes clawed their way out—Magma Mephits. Impish lava elementals with wings of ember, mouths full of coal-black teeth, awakened by the Guardians singal and joined the fight on it's side. They split and dove straight toward the girls who was now scrambling to get back on their feet.

The Mephits reached each target in mere moments, yet they didn't attack with claws. In unison they murmured coarse words of magic, and the weapons wielded by each girl went white-hot in their hands in the same instant.

“No—” Shadowheart's Phalar Aluve hit the steel ground with a furious clatter. “I just got that!”

“My gifts—” Kagha snatched her hand back from her dual rapiers like they had bitten her, cradling her fingers, more offended than hurt.

Lae'zel's jaw clenched as the hilt of her blade glowed white-hot, but even she was forced to let go. “T'shk. What insolence!”

Karlach alone kept her grip on her axe, though not without a fight. The glowing metal was hard to handle even for her, and she juggled the haft from hand to hand. Uncomfortable, but not unbearable.

“Ouch. Ouch. Ouch,” she hissed.

Behind her, the Guardian searched the area for its next target. Steam began venting from every seam in its armor as it closed in on whoever most recently had posed as a threat.

Shadowheart.

Hi everyone! Once again, thank you so much for following along my little story, and I especially want to give a huge thank you for all the likes, favorites and not least the comments.

I treasure every single one. I really do!

We are finally getting close to Karlach's first real sex scene, and it's been along time underway. I do however have some not great news, my AI gen guy is currently occupied and I'm therefore looking for someone who might want to help me out with the pics. It would definitely improve Karlach's upcoming scene.

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