The silence in the council chamber didn't last. It shattered like brittle iron.
"Lies!" Elder Korg slammed his fist onto the table, cracking the slate tablet. "White scales? Painted leather! Bleached crocodile skin! The Pale Doom does not die!"
"The Runner saw what he saw!" Gorak roared back, his voice booming over the shouting elders. "The lake was silent! The water was clear! And the lizard-men were wearing armor that shimmered like the moon!"
The room dissolved into chaos.
"If the beast is dead, the mine is open!" one Elder shouted greedily. "If the beast is dead, who killed it?" another screamed in fear. "A God? A weapon? If they can kill a Region Guardian, they can crack this mountain like an egg!"
The industrial order of the Troglodytes was built on two things: Steel and Certainty. They knew how strong steel was. They knew the Hydra was invincible.
If the Hydra was dead, their certainty was gone. And if a "God" did it, their steel was useless.
"Order!" Elder Vraxx commanded. His voice wasn't loud, but it was sharp, cutting through the noise. "We are not savages howling at the thunder. We are Troglodytes. We analyze."
The room quieted down, though the tension remained thick as coal dust.
"We cannot plan a war against a ghost story," Vraxx stated coldly. "We need eyes inside their walls. We need to know if this 'City' is real, or just a pile of mud. We need to know if this 'God' is an entity, or just a trick of swamp gas."
Gorak stepped forward, his hand resting on the hilt of his greatsword.
"I will go," the Warlord growled. "I will march down there. I will kick open their gate. I will drag their Chieftain back by his throat and make him speak the truth."
"No," Vraxx shot him down instantly. "You are the Warlord. You are the symbol of our strength. If you walk into a trap and die, the morale of the Obsidian-Claw collapses. We do not risk the King to kill a pawn."
Gorak ground his teeth, sparks flying from the friction of his armored jaw, but he stepped back. He knew the logic was sound, even if he hated it.
"Send a slave," Elder Korg suggested, his one eye gleaming with malice. "We have Kobolds in the lower pits. Scrawny things. Break one out. Send him down. He looks like them. They will lower their guard."
"And then?" another Elder countered. "He enters their city. He sees they are free. He sees they are fed. Why would he return to us? He would betray us instantly. He would tell them our numbers, our defenses."
"We hold his clutch," Korg sneered. "We take his mate and his hatchlings. We put them in the cage over the magma vent. We tell him: 'Return in three days with the map, or your bloodline burns.'"
The council murmured. It was a brutal, effective strategy. It was the Troglodyte way.
"Too risky," Vraxx decided, shaking his head. "A desperate father might lie to buy time. Or worse... this 'God' might have magic to break the chains. If they truly have food and iron, a slave will trade his family for a chance at revenge against us."
Vraxx looked around the table.
"We do not send a blunt instrument. We do not send a traitor. We send a scalpel."
The Elders looked at each other. They knew who Vraxx meant.
"Is he... available?" Korg asked, sounding hesitant. "Last I heard, he was deep in the Under-Dark, hunting Deep-Stalkers for sport."
"He returned this morning," Vraxx said. "He is currently in the lower dungeons, testing a new poison on the prisoners."
Vraxx turned to the guards at the door.
"Summon Vex."
Ten minutes later, the doors opened silently.
Vex, the Night-Carver, did not walk like a normal Troglodyte. He didn't stomp. He poured himself into the room.
He was smaller than the others, lean and wired with muscle. He wore no heavy plate armor. instead, he was wrapped in tight leather made from the hide of cave-bats, dyed vantablack to absorb light. His eyes were covered by a strange set of goggles made of polished quartz lenses designed to see thermal heat signatures.
He didn't carry a greatsword. He carried two curved daggers made of obsidian glass.
"Elders," Vex whispered. His voice sounded like sand sliding over stone. "Who needs bleeding?"
"Not a kill," Vraxx corrected. "A look."
Vraxx outlined the mission. The swamp and the supposed city. And the God.
"We need the layout," Vraxx commanded. "Count their spears. Count their young. Find their food stores. And most importantly... find the source of their power. Is it a machine? A wizard? Or something else?"
Vex tilted his head, his quartz goggles reflecting the torchlight.
"The Swamp is wet," Vex complained softly. "It dulls my blade. But... for the Council... I will swim."
"Do not engage," Gorak warned, stepping forward to loom over the assassin. "If you are caught, you die alone. We do not know you."
Vex looked up at the giant Warlord and smirked, revealing filed, pointed teeth. "If I am caught, Warlord, it is because I wanted to be."
Vex bowed mockingly and vanished into the shadows of the pillars and was gone before the heavy doors even closed.
The Council relaxed. Vex was the best. If anyone could uncover the truth, it was him.
"The meeting is adjourned," Vraxx announced. "We wait for the report. Then... we decide how to crush them."
An hour later, the Onyx Hall was empty.
But outside the main citadel, on a hidden goat path that wound down the backside of the mountain, a heavy figure moved through the twilight.
Warlord Gorak checked the straps of his armor.
He respected the Council. He respected Vraxx's intellect. But he did not trust a spy to do a warrior's job.
"Spies look," Gorak grunted to himself, adjusting the weight of his massive sword. "Warriors act."
He wasn't going to interfere with Vex. He would let the little sneak do his work. But Gorak intended to be close by.
If the Kobolds were weak, he would know. If the God was a fake, he would know. And if Vex got into trouble... well, Gorak had been itching to test his blade against this "Iron-Scale" who had dared to speak back to him.
"You say your God is War?" Gorak whispered into the wind, staring down at the fog-covered swamp far below. "Let us see if he bleeds."
He signaled to the shadows behind him. Two of his personal Honor Guards, hulking brutes sworn to him by blood oath, stepped out.
"We hunt," Gorak commanded. "Quietly."
The three massive Troglodytes descended into the mist, a silent avalanche of steel waiting to crash into the Bastion.