She began to move her arms in the intricate patterns of a spell as she chanted. The surrounding creatures backed away in fear as she continued to move through the motions.
As she finished and the spell completed a light appeared on the ground a short distance from where she stood.
"Quickly mark that spot and grab tools. Dig there and you will have water. I cast a water dousing spell to locate a good place to create a well. That glowing spot is your best bet." Stated Neve.
Asher quickly ran and stood in the middle of the glow as the others gathered their clubs and moved toward him.
The orc again spoke above the footsteps of those nearby. "Don't worry we don't intend to attack you; these are just the only things we have to dig with."
Asher drew his twin axes and began striking the stone below him. With each strike he managed to free a rather large piece of stone.
In this manner Asher began to dig the hole to create a well. Occasionally stopping to allow the orcs and midnight beasts to remove the stone and debris he freed. When they were not removing stone and debris, the orcs and midnight beasts began to clear out the area in which Asher's home would be built.
Even with Asher's great strength progress was extremely slow and rather detrimental to the condition of his axes.
Finally at the end of the week, water began to seep into the hole that Asher created. Water levels began to increase rather rapidly as Asher placed his axes upon his back and prepared to climb.
Neve quickly released the levitation spell she had bound to the scroll within her hand upon Asher. Once it activated, Asher began to rise into the air, easily beating the rising water.
Now the slave quarters had a viable location to gather fresh water. Unfortunately, they had no means in which to gather it. They had no rope nor buckets to lower into the water to enable them to carry it.
For this issue, Neve travelled to her wizard's tower to see what its previous occupant may have left behind.
Within the tower she had found a large well with immaculately clean water. This would be the first place she examined to find spare buckets or bowls.
Within an antechamber next to the well, Neve found many buckets made from iron and a brown material she did not recognize. There were also ropes and earthenware jugs. Neve grabbed as many as she could carry and returned to the newly dug hole.
Once she returned to the newly dug hole in the ground, she attached one of the ropes to a bucket and threw it down into the hole. She then carefully pulled it back up, filled with water.
Seeing an entire bucket of water, the orcs and midnight beasts were elated.
They quickly began gathering more water from the hole and filling the buckets and jugs that Neve continued to bring from her tower.
They then began to return home with the life sustaining water. For the first night ever, none of them would go thirsty.
Asher began to gather the stone blocks that he had removed from the hole and began stacking them where the walls from the fallen structure had been. While he did not have enough to complete the job, he did have enough to wall off a single room. This would at least provide some privacy.
Asher continued to place the stones as Neve and the other creatures continued to improve the well and gather water. The availability was quite the luxury and would take a great deal of time to grow accustomed to.
With the walls as completed as Asher was able to get them, he went to the guard that guarded the exit and requested to be allowed to go out to hunt.
Pharod had given permission for Asher to leave to hunt freely. This was in part of course that he hoped Asher would decide to stay in the wild. Though if he truly trained the midnight beasts, that would be great too. If he stayed out of the way.
The guard opened the door and Asher cautiously exited. Mentally noting the location and tracking his steps as he moved into the darkness of the caverns.
Asher ventured for half a day, cautiously stalking the caverns before he began to see signs of any creatures.
He found himself surprised it was merely half a day. Typically, there would be none so close to habitations. As Asher considered this, he continued to look for the creatures he could sense nearby.
As he moved closer, Asher began to hear a strange thumping. It was a constant rhythmic sound that he couldn't imagine coming from a beast.
He next began to hear a scream, followed quickly by a stampede of whatever manner of creatures lurked in the cavern nearby.
Asher removed his axes from their holsters on his back and quickly ran toward the noise. He simply could not allow this many creatures to get away,
As he moved closer, Asher began to hear a creature seemingly speaking to itself, as he heard no sound of a response.
"That wasn't what it was supposed to do. Though it did bring beasts that mine, and it didn't blow up. Ill mark this as a success. If I survive…."
As the last word came out, Asher saw a creature slightly larger than his foot round the corner of the cavern. Asher did not have time to consider this creatures attire though he couldn't help but notice its sharp pointy hat, the hat successfully doubled the creatures height.
There were many night stalkers (Night stalkers have the bodies of a panther with a hyena like face. They excelled in moving silently and assassinating their prey), mining beetles, and a few plated lizards chasing behind him.
Seeing Asher, the creature screamed louder and dove between his legs.
Asher swung at the leading night stalker and cleanly removed the top portion of its head with his axe.
Asher continued to swing his axes, each swing of his powerful arms disabling one of the creatures as he moved through the cavern.
Never had Asher seen so many creatures in one place, especially multiple types of creatures, and never had any attacked so irrationally. It was as if they were in a state of frenzy.
He found himself quickly grateful that the cavern was barely wide enough to swing his axes. This meant none of the beasts could manage to get behind him. Though he did have to be careful in the now blood-soaked caverns
After the 25th beast had been slain, Asher began to wonder how many were coming. Yet he continued to move forward, crushing the beasts under the weight of his body, there was little else he could do as he struck one creature after another. He could not stay still, or the corpses would quickly fill the cavern and block him in.
With the 49th beast slain, Asher began to completely evaluate his surroundings, and gather the corpses. He feared the sticky sweet smell of their blood would attract larger predators to the area.
As Asher gathered the corpses and placed them in his bag, the small creature approached him.
"I appreciate your help. I'm Fitzburtenston Thundersprocket, Technomancer extraordinaire. You can call me Fitz though; all my friends do. Or at least they would if I had any friends. I thought I was chow for the beasties for sure. But you could have left the mining beetles. I need them to work by my new machine. Course it drove em mad, so they may not have worked by it very well, and they did try to kill me. Of course…"
Fitz's speech was quickly cut off short by the sound of a loud metallic grating screech coming from the direction of the thumping. The very sound began to cause shivers to involuntarily run up both Asher and Fitz's spines.
"Uh maybe I should cut off my machine. Its pissing off the big boys now. Can you take care of that one too, while I cut it off? Otherwise, who knows how many creatures will be drawn to this cavern…." Replied Fitz.
Asher recognized the sound as that of a Kathakos. (Kathakos are a legendary beast said to only inhabit the lightless realms. A full-grown beast stands at least as tall as Asher. They have the face of a pit bull with metallic jaws that always sound like they need to be oiled. Their bodies have the feline grace of a panther with the muscling of a bull and the claws of a mole, which are reinforced with the same metal as its jaw, and can easily tear apart rock or flesh. Their hide bears the color of the metal they are reinforced with; thus, their strength is easily determined. Their tail is a living viper that posses a head all its own, ready to inject its devastating venom into any prey it encounters. Kathakos are carnivores and scavengers and are drawn to the smell of blood and death. The promise of an easy meal always brings a devilish grin to their faces. They also seek out ore from within the earth, the more they mine and consume the stronger they become. They can also evolve into stronger creatures by consuming quantities of stronger metals, if enough is consumed they can produce an alloy that may be stronger than all the original metals combined. Yet this is not what makes a Kathakos so dangerous. They are notoriously intelligent; some would say more so than even the dragons that roam the skies above.)
Asher would normally avoid any Kathakos like the plague, yet he was only a half a day from the other midnight beasts. That was far to close for his comfort.
Fitz carefully climbed onto the top of Asher's foot as Asher began to carefully move down the cavern.
To Asher's surprise the cavern opened into a massive room, with several devices thump, thump, thumping in the center.
Next to these devices stood the Kathakos. With each thump, its eyes grew slightly redder, and its screams grew ever louder.
Fortunately, this Kathakos had a light blue hint to its hide. It was only a mithril Kathakos. While quite dangerous, Asher felt he could handle it. Had it been a green Adamantium Kathakos, Asher feared he would have been slain on the spot.
Asher charged toward the Kathakos. Fitz, held tightly to his shoes.
The Kathakos stalked toward Asher. Its eyes growing redder by the moment.
Asher quickly struck out with the axe in his right hand.
The Kathakos raided it might claw and swiped it to the side effortlessly.
Its eyes had now turned completely red, it screamed out in its fury as the thump, thump, thumping continued.
Asher continued to swing his axes, with the reputation of the Kathakos, he had to destroy it before it could destroy him.
The Kathakos continued to block each strike, occasionally adding a strike from its tail in its attempt to poison Asher.
Asher continued to strike, not leaving so much as a scratch on the mighty Kathakos.
As the battle continued, Asher began to wonder why the Kathakos was merely blocking. None of its intelligence was being utilized. It did not strategize, it merely attacked as a wild beast.
While he found himself rather grateful for this, he began to wonder if this was merely a ploy of the Kathakos to keep him off guard.
Yet Asher had no time to ponder upon this as the mighty Kathakos screamed in fury and struck out with its mighty jaws.
Asher swung his axe, cleanly hitting the mighty beast in its massive jaw. Asher smiled briefly as his axe contacted the beast's jaw.
That is until he felt the head of his axe crack as easily as cracking an egg.
Feeling the axe crack on its jaw the beast opened its mouth wider and began to devour it.
Asher had no choice but to let go of the massive weapon, as he watched it be consumed by the Kathakos.
With the Kathakos now distracted, Asher swung out with his other axe.'
Like lightening, the Kathakos struck the axe with its mighty jaws, easily consuming the head from it as well.