They continued walking through the strange forest. The more they walked the more different species of trees they saw. Sky looked up at the canopy and froze for a second. From the forest floor it looked like a sea of fire with grey and green clouds stuck, frozen in space. Eventually they made their way out, near the opposite side of the volcano.
Kronos smirked when he looked up at the top of the volcano while Jennifer and Sky froze in awe of what stood before them. A giant cone had been cut into the volcano's side, full of pipes, metal cones and other machines, making it looked like a giant, red, mechanical Christmas tree. From where they were standing they could see the lava from the earlier rumble dribbling down the side of the volcano. It continued until it hit one of the metal cones where it dripped down into a pipe. Once inside a nearby machine started flashing lights before its giant gears started spinning. As the lava moved inside the pipe red liquid dripped out of the connections and onto the side of the volcano.
Following the giant and numerous lines of pipes, a small town could be spotted at the base of the volcano with tall grey mountains everywhere. The pipes ran through the town and disappeared underground a few meters away.
"Welcome to Erik Roars Town." Prometheus said in a gentle voice, as if admiring the town. "It's also known as Eroars Town."
He smiled and started walking forwards towards the entrance. Sky turned to look at Kronos who had a sad smile on his face as he took in the mechanical sight that stood before him. Eventually he pushed himself forwards and followed Prometheus with Sky and Jennifer lagging behind. The entrance was made up of a broken, wooden sign, nailed onto misaligned wooden poles buried underground.
The sign read "Erik Roars Town, Welcome Smiths of All Kinds" in horrible handwriting. Prometheus continued walking, ignoring the sign. As Sky walked through it he started seeing signs of life. There were short, stocky people everywhere. Unlike the rounded shape that his arms, legs and torso had, the shape of these people resembled that of a block. They all seemed muscular and powerful, despite their short stature. As one walked by, Sky measured himself against him, seeing that the man came to about where his pectoral muscle sat. This was a surprise, being only twelve, and five feet seven inches, it was rare to see people shorter than him.
He noticed that most of the men had long, unkempt beards, tattoos and wore tank tops or nothing on their torso while their lower half would be covered in long, heavy pants, big boots and various different tool belts. The ladies were all muscular and dressed in a similar fashion to the men, although all of them would wear some sort of clothes on their upper torso.
Sky looked forwards to Kronos and watched as the short man came only to Kronos' waist as he walked by.
"They're dwarves." Jennifer finally spoke, getting tired of Sky spinning around and looking at the people.
"Dwarves? From the legend?" Sky asked as he continued to swivel around, getting a better look at the people around him.
"Yes, you do realize those races from the legend actually exist right?" Jennifer crossed her arms and snorted.
"I thought the giants wiped them out?" Sky continued to ask questions.
Kronos stopped and turned around. "You can thank Prometheus for saving those races from complete extinction." Kronos explained.
Prometheus smirked. "It wasn't a big deal." He waved.
Sky's attention finally drifted from the people to the buildings and the giant mounds of grey. Upon closer inspection the buildings were all made out of metal sheets of various different colors with the roofs of the buildings being red. The buildings had glass windows and everything, all in all they looked like giant, metallic boxes with windows and red roofs. He then looked at the mounds realizing they weren't grey mountains but rather mountains made up over time due to different tools and weapons and other strange mechanical devices being thrown in the same place over and over again.
They kept walking until Prometheus suddenly stopped and turned left, knocking on the metallic doors of one of the buildings that a pipe was feeding into.
After a few moments of waiting there was no answer. KNOCK! KNOCK! Prometheus knocked again. They waited another few moments but still no answer. WHAM! WHAM! Prometheus punched the door twice, leaving two large dents in it.
THUD! The sound could be heard from outside followed by some low grumbling and heavy footsteps. SLINK! An eye hole opened in the middle of the door. "WHO'S THERE?" Yelled an angry, deep voice.
Prometheus smiled. "An old friend…" He said as he knelt and looked into the eye hole.
The eye hole quickly slid shut. SLINK! CHINK! KARCHOW! WHAM! SIIIII! A flurry of noises followed ending with the door opening, revealing a strange looking man.
He looked to be in his late 70's and had on a red beanie with a black eye patch covering his right eye. He had a very round and large nose with a similarly long white beard that fell down to his stomach. Around his face you could see wrinkles, some deep while others shallow. He was wearing a white tank top that was covered in black stains and singes with black pants and giant black boots. Around his waist were three brown pouches, each having a different set of tools in them and sitting on his back, his right thigh and left thigh. On his right forearm a pair of tongs were tattooed on while on his left was a giant smithing hammer, both of which were surrounded in strange patterns stretching from his elbow to his wrists.
"Welcome, Lord Prometheus." The stocky man moved to the side and signalled for Prometheus to enter.
Prometheus walked in, followed by the other three. "Drop the lord Bjornn, we've known each other too long for formalities… you look good." He turned around and gave the stocky man a warm hug.
Bjornn chuckled. "We dwarves do have a lifespan that is five times that of humans, can't be going and looking ugly now only four fifths of the way through my life now can I." He smiled.
"Four fifths?!" Sky murmured. "Grandpa how old are you?!"
SMACK!! Bjornn slammed Sky on the head with a tinker's hammer. "DON'T CALL ME A GRANDPA WHEN I'M STILL IN MY YOUTHFUL 410's!" He yelled.
Prometheus started laughing. "Bjornn we're here to train this young man here." Prometheus grabbed Sky's shoulders.
Bjornn snorted. "Well, as you can see this is the perfect place to do so." He smiled while looking at the young man, taking a few seconds to absorb him completely in his memory while he still rubbed the top of his head.