Can Never Go Gnomeragan

The lone droid chugged its way down the hall towards the main reactor for the city, its large package carefully balanced in its arms. It gave no thoughts about its task, for the simple reason that it couldn't. It was only doing what it had been programmed to do, and when it was finished it would return to its storage room to await the next set of orders. As it entered the room that housed the power core for the city, a little note said that this was its destination. Without hesitation, it carefully lowered the package to the ground, turned around and left.



Fyina waited for the bot to leave before she pulled out her tool kit and examined the large box. Despite its recent activity, there was still a thick layer of dust covering the lid, which she realized, had never been opened. As she had suspected, Thermaplugg had known what was in it without having to look. She wondered how many others knew about it, what they knew and what they believed was true. Did they believe it was just fear mongering? Too fantastic to be true? Or, and this was the possibility that scared her more than anything, did they see it as a possibility that they could pursue.



She sighed as she opened the box and looked at the device inside. It didn't look so terrifying. Just a silver cylinder with knobs and buttons on it. The kind of thing a child gnome would play with, take apart and put back together again. On top was a thick sheaf of papers, written in a sort of scrawl she knew very well. Her father's writing often did go from impressively neat to insane gibberish and then back again. Except here. Here he had ventured into the insane and never came back. Looking at it, she felt her throat tighten and her eyes grow moist.



She hadn't been that old when Mekkatorque had arrested her father and had him confined, but she had known something was wrong. It had been the beginning of the Trogg encroachment, and the Gnome scientists and engineers had been working feverishly to find a way to stop it. Her father had been considered one of the best, brilliant and resourceful. But then he began talking about this. About destruction on a scale no one had even imagined. She had heard from some sources that it had started out as a musing by someone else, at a meeting or something, and the gears in her father's head had gone from there.



He was soon obsessed, and her memories were full of designs and plans for the ultimate weapon, and her father's glassy stare as he explained to her what it would do. He said that stone would be reduced to dust, that trees would turn to ash and skin, flesh and bone would be burnt away, all in the blink of an eye. She later learned that Mekkatorque had ordered him to stop all work on the project, and her father, in the midst of his growing insanity, had defied him, determined to give his creation form. Then, he had figured, the gnomes would see and understand, and he would be a hero. She could still hear him screaming exactly that when Mekkatorque's men had taken him away. For weeks afterwards he continued his decline in his confinement, growing weaker as he stopped eating and drinking, until finally he had died.



She shook her head and looked at the notes to be sure she knew what she was doing. Carefully, she popped the latches on the side of the cylinder, opening it up to expose the various wires and circuits that were still buzzing away happily. Her father had made things to last after all. She cut a couple of wires and the whole thing smoothly came to a stop. She then set to work on a second casing that had been in the first, opening it up with less care than the first. It wouldn't go off now, she knew, and once she had gotten rid of what was in here, it would never be anything more than a bomb.







Deydis was on the level above, occasionally checking the small watch she had given him, and waiting. The small room was cluttered and dusty, but the wall was lined with blinking lights, levers and dials that made no sense to him whatsoever. The gnome had written down explicit instructions which he had memorized before destroying, as a matter of habit really, and he was in no way inclined to try to pull a fast one and not do what he was told to now.



The watch made a quiet ding, and he turned to the controls. It was a fairly complex action, that involved twisting dials, waiting for a certain amount of time, watching another meter, pulling a lever, waiting and then finally pulling down a large handle. As soon as he did, all the lights went out. That was alright, he had expected that.



Other people in Gnomeragan however, didn't.





As soon as the lights went out, Fyina began to work fast. Her small portable lantern gave her sufficient light to finish this part of her task, which involved a rather complicated process of opening the fuel cell hatch, on manual since the power was down. She knew that Thermaplugg and his cohorts would know where to look, and she had to hurry so that Deydis had time to get clear. Pulling on a pair of thick gloves and goggles, she opened the hatch.



Inside were a series of slots for fuel to be placed for the reactor. A thick cloud of steam rose up from them as their heat was expelled into the air. Taking great care not to get any in the face she carefully placed a black orb, which she had taken from the device, into a slot, before quickly closing the hatch again and sealing it closed. Behind her where the shattered remains of the device, which she had quickly dismantled and destroyed, and the ashen remains of her father's notes.



Now for the power to come back on...which it didn't. She frowned and looked at her watch, then she looked up and asked no one in particular, “What in the hell are you doing up there?”





For the second time in as many days, Deydis was under the heel of a dwarf woman's boot. Only this time it wasn't just figuratively. He forced his body to go limp and lay his hands flat on the floor, waiting to see just how badly he was screwed. It had been mere seconds after the power had gone out that he had been attacked from behind, which meant that they must have been in the area, but also knew where this room was. Plus the dwarves had better dark vision than he did, so it was all just some rotten luck.



Within seconds he had been knocked on his stomach, with a heel on his cheek keeping him down and the rough voice of a dwarf woman barking above him. At least that's what it sounded like to him. Finally the face of a dark iron filled his view, illuminated by a small light he had had with him.



“Well, whatareye doin here then laddie?”



“Memorizing the dust patterns on the floor it looks like,” he answered, and then winced when the boot pressed painfully into his jaw. The dwarf in his face laughed, but it wasn't a nice “that was a good one” laugh, but rather a “I'm going to enjoy doing horrible things to you” kind of laugh.



“Let me be more specific then, whatcha doing in here before the lights went out?”



“Turning them off,” the elf answered as if it was a stupid question. The dwarf woman lifted her foot up and then stomped down hard on his chin. The inside of his mouth cut on his teeth and blood seeped out the corner of his mouth, but he kept his gaze steady.



“And why would ya be wanting to turn them off?” the dwarf asked matter of factly.



“Are you blind? This place is ugly as sin, better to be stumbling around in the dark than look at it,” the blossoming bruise on his cheek was pressed inward again, making him wince despite himself. So far he had heard no other dwarves, so it was probably just these two. That made him feel a bit better.



The dwarf sneered at him, all pretense of humor lost, “Ye turned off the air circulation too ya addle brained elf!”



“Oh well then maybe you should let me up so I can turn it back on.”



That got the dwarf by surprise, “Ye mean...ye were gonna turn it back on?”



“Well I was until somebody threw me to the ground and started asking me stupid questions,” Deydis shouted back, and when the dwarf woman lifted her foot again, he suddenly rolled back, right into her other leg and knocking her off balance. She toppled forward right onto her companion, who had been on his hands and knees so he could question Deydis.



She frantically tried to get up but was grabbed from behind. The other dwarf, pushed himself up with his arms and was soon on his feet, but a heavy weight shoved him back and caused him to stumble back. It was the female he knew and he was about to yell at her for getting in the way when he realized that there was a warm liquid covering her limp form. Her throat had been slit.



He pushed her body back in horror and reached for his weapon but a blur crossed his vision and a sharp pain erupted in his arm. Blood oozed out of the fresh cut across his arm and he immediately began to feel groggy. Another sharp pain hit him from behind and he fell to the ground, the world spinning around him before going to black.



And then the lights came back on.