"By the gods."
I watched in awe as one of those… black dwarves tugged and tugged on a freshly carved brazier until it was set in just the right place. After he brought it to life with a torch, he gave himself a proud nod and then scurried away at full speed.
Such a sight was repeated everywhere I looked. The formerly gray but now black dwarves were mining stone, smoothing stone, shaping stone into beds and chairs and tables for the grand halls they created in a single day. Thousands of them, there were, running around tirelessly. Silently.
The day began as any other had. We were pulled from the pens by whips and dragged chains and prodded into the mines by fangs and claws. We worked and worked and then… a deep rumble spread through the stones. An earthquake, many of us thought. But the Deep Gnomes knew better. Thus I knew better
Even from the pits, I heard the Gray-Dwarves swarming the entrance, hollering of a collapse in the tunnels and hollering even louder for us to get back to work. And then came the whispers. Haunting, they were. Like a thousand beings of the night, mocking the words of a single man.
Horrible, it was. But the terror came just seconds later.
It rolled through the tunnels like a wall of dust, shrouding any and everything in an impenetrable cold that carried the same whispers as before. The gargled screams of dying Gray-Dwarves were like a muttering in a foreign language that plagued the back of my mind. Scratched at it like rats trapped in a barrel.
The Abyss itself came to this cavern, the only world I'd ever known. And then came the light.
Where others saw fiendish humans of dark and light, I saw a warrior goddess emerge from the king's halls. She was tall and broad, with a glowing radiance across her scarred face that stole my legs from beneath me.
She dragged the king from his halls and placed him before this strange dark elf. A drow with dark hair and even darker eyes.
He went against everything I saw, heard of, or believed in. A drow, one with more control over darkness than any other, freeing over a thousand slaves.
And he was a necromancer.
"By the gods." I shook my head in disbelief again.
We were with them now, the strange drow and his warrior-goddess, more than a full cycle after we ate more than we thought possible and slept longer than we had since being born.
Sitting in the king's hall with him, in a place I had never been, only made him seem stranger. Only made the hall seem as if it had been changed drastically since my awakening. Reduced in size somehow, for that was the only way to explain the immensity of this small figure's force of will.
He wasn't sitting on the king's throne, for there was nothing more than a pile of rubble where it stood. He wasn't sitting at the table with us, picking over a wide range of mouth-watering dishes from the surface. He was at the entrance to the chambers, watching the Black-Dwarves- his dwarves- work tirelessly.
He didn't seem to care for or even understand our conversations. Muttered they were, but I knew he heard us. I knew he was listening. Learning, possibly, the languages we were speaking.
"What you think he wants?" Kast said to me in his native tongue. And the drow turned before I could begin to shrug my shoulders at the young goblin.
"Your names would be a good start."
"I knew it," I muttered in Duergan, but he caught that too.
"I'm good with languages."
"I- I didn't mean to offend, Sir!"
"You didn't." He quickly crossed his arms, relaxing me a bit. "And Amun is fine."
"A- Amun?" I shook my head.
"My name."
"Ah, yes." I hurriedly bowed. "I'm Syele, S- Amun."
"Geingurr Redstone." The dwarven woman bellowed after me. I saw her many times in the pits. Always covered in soot like the rest of us, she was. But she broke stone better than all of her kind, and better than the deep gnomes too, much to their ire. Her freedom allowed her fiery hair to show through, giving her the pride she lost from her now smooth and pale skin.
"I am Kamosh." The orc graciously bowed next. "I will never forget what you've done for me, dark elf. And I shall repay your hospitality in kind."
It went without saying, but the other orcs felt the same way about the strange drow. And many of us humans did as well. So much so that they thought it to be divine intervention.
Though I didn't disagree. I didn't agree either. But if there was anyone who could kill close to six thousand Gray Dwarves and their ugly cousins in a few minutes with no destruction to the environment, it was God.
He was already being worshiped in fact. Particularly by the goblins like Kast. Though she was still a child and thus as mailable as red-hot iron. She was so young she still struggled with Undercommon. So the Svirfneblin next to her introduced her to Amun in her stead.
"Nyella Lichenstone." The deep gnome bowed. "I speak for the rest of my kind when I say you are most honored in our eyes."
"While that's appreciated." The strange drow smiled. "I did not act out of kindness."
"And yet kindness was acted out." Nyella backfired. And the strange drow only shrugged helplessly.
"Tell me of your backgrounds," he then said. "Of how you've been slaves and what your people intend to do going forward."
"I've been here about forty years," Geingurr was quick to say. "Others been longer. Damn Duergar." She spat viciously at one of the dark things and wheeled her beady eyes back to Amun. "We'll be going home immediately."
"You're free to stay as long as you need to regain your health or gather provisions." The drow quickly offered. "But I won't stop you."
"I will spread a good word for you upon my return, dark elf. I promise you that." She grunted, then leaned into her chair to look around and wait for someone else to speak.
"I was told many of us were stolen from the surface long ago." I began. "Orcs and goblins too. Some of us were traded from other cities. But most of us were born here. I, for one, have dreamed of the surface for as long as I can remember."
"I want surface!" Kast shouted. Then started shouting "raid!" louder and louder.
"The surface may be a shock to you," Amun said calmly, silencing the goblin's excitement at once. "The light is bright, many creatures fill the air with constant noise, and the temperature changes daily. But I will prepare you if you wish to go."
"You'll just… let them do that?" I gasped in disbelief.
"I don't own them." He laughed through his nose. "And I can't exactly discourage them, considering my recent actions."
"That's true." I sank back in my seat. He wasn't as benevolent as I thought, but… still, I was curious. Enamored even. I needed to know more about him. About him and his warrior-goddess.
"I'm ever grateful," I said. "But, why did you kill the Gray-Dwarves?"
"I needed mithral and adamantine." He carelessly shrugged. "Them living inside a kilometer's long vein of the latter was an invitation to be invaded by someone. And." He turned to me, grinning wickedly. "There's a vein of the former just down the tunnels."
"So, you just… killed them?" I asked incredulously, trying not to think of myself next.
"He did a damn good thing!" Geingurr passionately hissed.
"They wouldn't have been missed or remembered," Amun said. "Gray-dwarves would wipe out all the other races if they could. They believe they can, and so they'll try."
"Damn right!" She hissed again.
"Now, however, they will gain prominence as a part of my Legions."
"Your… undead legions?" Kamosh hesitantly asked.
"Noctis." Amun's face curled into a fiendish grin. "The Legio Noctis, to which this mine now belongs. It is my guild on the surface, comprised of the blessed living and the graced undead. We are, above all, explorers of the realms above.
"Would you like to join us?"
"I would not." Geingurr hissed again. "Me and mine are returning home. But we'll do our best to convince our king to name us allies of your Legions. Amun, you say yer name was?"
"Of the Nox." He nodded.
"Hmm… sounds familiar."
"My family is ancient," Amun smirked. "At the very least, however, allow me to give you an escort." He produced two platoons worth of gray dwarves and their cousins with but a wave of his hand. "You can take your former oppressors and kill them over and over along the way if you like?"
Her smile turned into one of pure sadism. And no doubt, mine did too. "Now that, I'll accept."
"You're a drow from the surface?" Nyella leaned in, asking. And so too did we.
"Yes." He nodded calmly. "But only half. My mother lived with us with my father until I was fifteen. That's where all this comes from." He waved to the shadow still scurrying about. "My father's side of the family is the Nox. A clan of sorcerers with ties to the Plane of Shadow and the Underworld."
"So that's what it was!" Geingurr slammed her meaty palm on the table, nearly sending everyone's scraps flinging about the hall. "I've heard of ye before, Devil."
"It's a hell of a combination, right?" He rose his brows repeatedly in a teasing manner.
"One that belies your actions," Geingurr growled.
"Everyone is capable of good and evil, Geingurr." Came Amun's quick reply, catching us all off guard. "It is the circumstances of our upbringing that drives our actions. Duergar live in an environment that makes them hostile and cruel, I was raised in one that abhors slavery. The same is true for drow, devils. Even dwarves. We act in accordance with the biases imposed upon us in youth. But that is inconsequential.
"The fact is, good and evil are determined only by the consequences of our actions. Their raiding and conquests resulted in the oppression of all of you. My raiding and conquest resulted in your freedom and their undeath. Both required the slaughter of dozens. Hundreds, or in my case, thousands of souls dropped into the Abyss for the sake of one's selfish goals.
"In this case, adamantine and mithral." He snickered. Hauntingly so.
"So then." Geingurr began after a long pause. Then seemed to give up. So I stepped in.
"I suppose the question to ask is, what are the consequences of your actions besides our freedom and their undeath?"
"Well." He sighed. "Those returning to the surface can either go about their business or join my guild as Legionaries. Else, you can become a citizen of this new city. Or go off into the caverns to find your lost homes.
"Unless anyone can think of anything else of course." He quickly added once finished. "I'm open to suggestions."
While I said nothing, what he said earlier got to me. The bit about the light and noise from creatures all around the surface. The Darkworld was all I'd known. The only light I knew came from the burning earth and glowing fungus. The only temperatures I knew were hot and hotter. And the only monsters seen in these caverns were the gray dwarves and their blundering cousins.
I said nothing. Not until that realization hit me.
"And what of this place?" I asked.
"It'll remain as a mining town as a part of my empire," he said, much to my relief. But it was stolen just after. "It'll be moved in three months though."
"Moved?"
"Gloom will befall this place by then, and not even I can stop her from keeping everyone in a state of fear. So, this place will be pulled from this Darkworld and placed into a new one." Amun explained. But also didn't. "Regardless, all will continue normally here. The undead will work without end and you all will be free to do as you please in this city. You can decide on laws and the like yourselves. After I educate you, that is.
"All I ask is that you keep no slaves. Though." He laughed through his nose. "I'm sure I don't have to ask."
"You don't." I and a few others said.
"Good." He smiled, then sent a dismissive wave our way. I almost expected another group of undead to fall from his arm, but all that came was his voice. "That's all for now. Go out and spread the word. I'll be here."
"Thank you again." Nyella patted the strange drow on the hip before stepping out behind a bounding Kast. Kamosh repeated the Deep Gnomes' actions almost precisely, only adding on to say he had an interest in hearing more of these Legions.
Then he was gone. And it was just me and the strange drow who was also a devil.
"Is this what they call fate?" I found myself asking aloud.
"I don't believe in fate. Only change."
"Change," I repeated. And for the first time, understood what such a word meant. Change. Thousands waking up as slaves and going to sleep as free people, that was change. "It- freedom was not something I allowed myself to hope for. To be honest, I don't know what I'm to do, besides helping you in any way I can. I owe you my life. So, please. Is there anything you need me to do?"
"Not at the moment." He shook his head, much to my dismay. "But don't stress about such things. For now, enjoy a life you've never allowed yourself to hope for. You'll be learning many things over the coming weeks. You will find your calling in due time. Just have faith."
"Faith… huh? Alright." I nodded slowly. Looked over, and couldn't help but notice a black and gold sphere being hauled into a spherical building.
"Yeah." I nodded faster. "Faith."