Steel Burner

Subterra? Never heard of it!

The two companions were amazed at the sight held before them. Past the barrier, Omior and Vigil saw an amazing, well lit, and beautifully carved out city.

They followed Grell through the hand made city. The craftsmanship was amazing and not once did they find a crack or a chip in the structures. The buildings were all unique to each other one; one was never exactly the same as the other, the only common similarity was that everything was pretty much painted the same color; Brown.

After a while of walking, the three started to pass other gremlins that were going about their day, after a few minutes it went from a few gremlins the trio passed, to larger groups of them. Nearly every gremlin either stared on in respect or confusion at the trio and Omior couldn't think of the reason why.

"We almost to castle pony and human. Do not fret at gremlin stares, I have lots to tell."

Accepting this as a worthy answer, Omior, Vigil, and Grell continued to the gremlin castle.

Entering, they went from corridor to corridor; It was extremely confusing, especially when each of the rooms were very dark shades of colors and each corridor was indifferent to the other. But, somehow, Grell lead them through like he knew where he was going, so Omior didn’t question it.

After a while, roughly five to ten minutes, the group stopped at a corridor which was different than the rest. The corridor had two big doors facing opposite of each other rather than a group of smaller doors lined across the hallway. Both doors were guarded by a small group of gremlins, three or four at most. Without hesitation, Grell walked up to the left door and whispered something into the guards’ ears. Both guards looked uneasy as they glanced over to the two odd travellers but the guards reluctantly abided to Grell.

Stepping aside, they allowed Grell and the two travellers entrance into the room. Going in, Omior noted that it was more brightly colored than the rest of the city and was even more carefully sculpted, shaped, and detailed than the rest of the city; And that was saying something.

At the end of the room was a royal throne adorned with odd medals and trinkets. Grell promptly went past the throne after having Omior and Vigil stay where they were. He pulled out a pot of some kind and a stir stick. He placed them both in front of the two travellers and went back and pulled out an assortment of materials of some strange kind.

Carefully, Grell started to mix the materials into the cauldron as he spoke. “Let Grell explain of gremlin past. You two may be able to help gremlins in stopping blackwing, gryphon that did this.”
Nodding carefully, Omior and Vigil sat in front of the cauldron; waiting patiently for the gremlin to speak.

“It all began three hundred and fifty two years ago, in a land that is now a burning wasteland...”

********** 352 years ago **********

It was midmorning day, the birds were chirping happily as they made their nests. Gremlins were working happily in the village and all seemed right.

A group of gremlins were finishing up the construction of another home in their village when a loud roar was heard. A strange gremlin covered in blood came running out of the forest near the village screaming over and over “Timberwolves! The Timberwolves are coming!”

Shortly behind the gremlin, in the forest right behind him, a pack of five timberwolves came dashing out at breakneck speed. Another, bigger, red timberwolf came out into the open shortly after the others. A mighty, blood piercing howl emanated from its mouth as it dashed ahead of the others.

The gremlins in the town were dashing around, either in aimless panic, or in a hurry to gather weapons from the town barracks. There was only a handful that had already been prepared and stared on in fear as the red Timberwolf ripped the running gremlin into pieces. After it was sure the short green creature was dead, it dashed for the poorly made barricades and spiked walls.

It stopped and dashed off to the left as spears went flying towards it, the other timberwolves did the same, but one timberwolf was not as fast as the others and it died with a spear in its head.

Some of the wolves attempted to jump the barricade to get to the tiny green morsels, this resulted in either them being impaled by the barricades spikes, or spears tearing into them and rupturing vital organs.

After a while, there appeared to be only four timberwolves left. The alpha took notice at the lack of numbers and strafed right, narrowly avoiding a few arrows sent flying in its direction. The leader saw an opening in the side of the barricade that was just big enough to break through with little resistance. The head of the pack howled a blood curdling howl as it charged for the weak spot in a zigzag motion. The rest of the alpha’s pack followed in a similar fashion, howling along with it.

The gremlins had gotten ready for battle completely by now and started throwing spear after spear towards the advancing enemies.

They kept this up, but it was to no avail; The alpha made it to the barricade and broke through as easy as it was to cut butter with a knife. With a few high pitched screams from villagers still out in the open, the wolves started breaking through the town, smashing houses and ripping villagers apart. The battle ready town guards chased after the wolves and tried to protect as many villagers as they could. Those of the villagers that were smart and lucky made it to the town hall safely, others were not so luck and died horribly. Some of the unfortunate guards had even been torn apart by the alpha.

The gremlin warriors attempted to get a foothold and hold the enemy wolves back. This method was successful in pinning a timberwolf to a corner where they skewered it alive.

They repeated this for the other two wolves, but ended up failing when trying to do this to the smarter alpha wolf. Most of the village was in ruins and the alpha was ripping apart another house that contained an elderly old gremlin woman.

The guards that weren’t protecting the town hall that housed the survivors of the village were already taking action against the beast. They threw spears towards it while the great monster was busy trying to reach the elderly woman. The alpha screamed out in agony as the spears made contact in multiple places, causing it to bleed sap.

It turned its focus to the guards who stood their ground. Each holding a spear towards the beast. With a sickening roar, the behemoth charged towards puny guards. What happened next, the beast did not expect. Another of the guards, a smaller, younger one, jumped onto the alpha’s back and in a quick motion, jammed its spear into the back of the monsters head.

The alpha stopped in its tracks, it violently shook off the young guard before another three guards came up and jammed their spears into the behemoth. With a sickening ‘Crack’ the creature fell to the ground, dead.

Hours afterward, the survivors started to repair the village. They buried the dead and held their respects, but it had to be brief due to the extent of the damage. The body count was 24 out of their village of 160. It was a huge loss for them and the caravan’s were to come for trading in a few weeks. This dampened their moods as they now had little to trade with the caravans for the much needed supplies.

The villagers knew they were going to have to work harder now more than ever after all that had just occurred.