Bakstein crumpled to the floor in a heap of dust and beard. For a breathless moment, none of them moved.
Before the other could react, Gruis was already at his side, knees hitting the floorboards as he grabbed under the dwarf's shoulders.
"Stein!"
Without a word, Stein dropped his pack and crossed the room in a few quick strides. Together, the two of them hoisted Bakstein upright and leaned him carefully against one of the old barrels near the wall. The barrel creaked—but supported his weight.
The dwarf was fading in and out of consciousness, his head rolling slightly as he mumbled something inaudible. His lips were cracked, dry as the planks beneath him.
"Water," Gruis said, his voice sharp but steady.
"Aye!" Kiezel called, already halfway through the saloon door behind the bar. His feet pattered quick across the floor as he rummaged through their supplies. A few loud clunks later, he returned, breathless, with a battered metal flask.
Gruis took it and unscrewed the top.
"Hey," he said, voice gentler now. "Bakstein. It's Gruis. You're safe. Try to drink."
He brought the flask to the dwarf's lips, tilting it slowly. Bakstein sputtered at first, the water dribbling down his beard, but then he drank deep—desperate gulps, as if he might never get another chance. Gruis pulled it back gently before he choked.
Bakstein coughed hard, wiped his mouth with the back of a shaking hand, and let out a long, shuddering breath. His eyes opened slowly, red-rimmed and heavy.
"Easy," Gruis said, steadying him with a hand on his shoulder. "You're okay. You're not alone."
Bakstein blinked. "I... I didn't know where else to go."
"You came to the right place," Gruis said. "But slow down. Take another sip, then tell us what happened."
Bakstein nodded faintly and drank again—this time slower. The water seemed to breathe some life back into his voice.
"I was with the Dominion," he began. "Five years now. Mostly surface work, but some regular delving. Never more than the Enth Zone… maybe a hundred meters down. Safer runs. Steady pay."
Stein leaned slightly against the bar, arms crossed, silent.
Bakstein's hands shook faintly. "Two days ago, we descended for a deep-vein check—north of camp Cero. Nine of us. I knew the team. Worked with them before."
He paused, swallowed.
"After working for a few hours, we got ambushed by bandits. They took our best supplies and vanished into the deeper paths. They came from behind, like a bunch of pussies," Bakstein coughed, the anger being too much for him.
Gruis urged Bakstein calm down, and followed up. "What happened to you?"
"I got hit. Not hard, just off-balance. Fell—three to five meters down a shaft. Cracked my shoulder. Nothing serious. Although, I couldn't climb back up right away." His eyes dropped to the floor. "They thought I was dead."
Gruis's eyebrows pulled in tight.
"They left. The bandits took the gear, took the supplies… and left me. Every one of my team lived. Not one stayed behind to check if I was breathing."
Gruis felt a certain sorrow beneath the anger. The emotion of his dwarven friend made his hands curl into fists.
Bakstein's voice grew hoarser. "It took me two days to get out. No food. No water. I tried to find my team. But they were gone. And my pack—it was all I had left—it fell into a second hole while I was climbing out. I saw it go."
His shoulders sagged and his head dipped.
"Everything was in that pack. Tools. Provisions. My ledger. My mother's clasp. Everything."
"Did you go straight up after?" Gruis asked.
Bakstein nodded. "First thing I did. Went to the Dominion Dwarves. Told them what happened. Asked for help. They said it wasn't their responsibility. Said I'd lost my post. Said I didn't have standing anymore." He looked up, voice raw. "Five years with them. Five years!" Bakstein almost choked on his words.
Stein muttered a curse under his breath.
"I tried the other companies. Begged. No coin, no gear, no help. All of them turned me away." His hands shook again. "Then I saw him. Olix. Walking through the slums. Told him what happened."
He looked at Gruis now, directly.
"He said a new company moved into The Copper Rest. Said they have more heart than the ones with coin. Told me to come here."
Gruis let the words settle for a moment.
"Are you looking for our help?" Gruis asked slowly.
Bakstein nodded. "Yes, I need your help. I need to get my pack back. There's things in there I… I can't lose."
Kiezel nodded furiously.
"You came to the right place," Gruis said, repeating the words—but now with conviction.
Gruis glanced at the door as if Olix might be watching from the street. Maybe he was. Gruis knew the old man didn't move without purpose. This—Bakstein, the backpack, the slum-side encounter—felt like a test. Not just for Bakstein. For them. A proving. If they handled this right, it could mark their start as a real delving crew.
Kiezel stood, brushing off his knees. "So. We're going after a backpack?"
Bakstein looked up, ashamed. "I know it sounds—"
"Nope," Kiezel cut in. "Sounds like a reason to descend. And a good one."
Stein's hand dropped to the handle of his massive pickaxe that stood against the bar. "We'll need the details. Map. Drop point. How deep."
Gruis stood slowly, eyes still on Bakstein.
"We'll help you. Not because Olix said so, but because we don't abandon one of our own. We all grew up in the slums, we are all family." Gruis said with a little too much pride in his voice.
Bakstein didn't reply. But something passed through his expression—faint, fragile. A flicker of belief.
Gruis stood up, wiping sweat from his brow. "Alright," He said out loud, his voice echoing slightly through empty inn. "No sense charging into the Abyss with sleep still in our eyes. Let's rest tonight. We go first thing in the morning. Not like the backpack will run away any time soon."
As soon as he finished his sentence, Gruis caught Kiezel's white mop of hair bobbing up the stairs, three blankets under one arm, a coil of rope under the other.
"Dibs on the room with the least bird shit," Kiezel said as he passed.
"You can have the second," Gruis said with a grin. "First one's mine."
Kiezel narrowed his eyes playfully. "Unfair. You saw them first."
"Perks of paying full price," Gruis replied, winking to Kiezel before walking upstairs and heading into his room with a laugh.
The rest of the evening fell into a quiet rhythm. Back and forth, they passed each other in the narrow upstairs hall, arms full of bags, cloth bundles, tools. Doors opened and shut. Wood creaked. Belongings were hung, tucked, stored, and inspected. Like best friends who'd just moved in together.
Not just like that.
Exactly that.
Gruis felt it with every trip—this was something real now. Something they had longed for, for at least a decade now.
On his fourth or fifth pass down the stairs, he caught sight of Bakstein, still slouched against the barrel where they had left him. He hadn't moved much, but his breathing was slower, more even. His eyes were half-open, watching them with an unreadable expression.
Gruis gave a small nod, half a smile, then disappeared upstairs again.
Back in his room, his window faced the slums—out toward where the sun rises. He dropped the last of his rolled-up tunics on the floor, wiped his hands on a damp cloth, and gave the nearest wall a few lazy swipes. The dust smeared rather than lifted, but it felt good to do anyway.
That's when the scent hit him—burning embers, the first licks of a flame catching wood. Warmth crept up his spine, not from heat, but from memory. Gruis turned to the window and looked out.
Below, in front of the inn, Stein was crouched over a small pile of kindling, coaxing a fire to life inside a ring of rocks. The smoke was thin and fragrant, curling upward into the evening sky. A pot rested beside him.
Gruis leaned out the window, grin already on his face.
"Steeeiiin!" he called, stretching the name like a boy calling for his father at suppertime. "What's for diiiiiinner?"
Stein didn't look up. "Warmed oats. Salted meat."
Gruis laughed. "You know how to spoil us."
Kiezel popped his head into Gruis's room from the hallway. "Tell him to make extra. I'm so hungry, I could eat a river's worth of crocodiles!"
"Yeah yeah!" Stein called from below.
The sky above Herto was beginning to darken, shifting from gold to a deep violet, but not before painting the city in long strips of warmth. From his high perch, Gruis looked out beyond the inn, past the rooftops and patchwork homes of the slums, to the winding rows of the city beyond.
Smoke rose in thin grey plumes from nearly every direction. Small cooking fires and artifact-powered stoves glowed faintly from windows and courtyards. A thousand small homes preparing a thousand quiet meals.
He closed his eyes for a moment and breathed in deeply.
The scent of burning wood, spices, faint herbs. The smell of home, shared not just by one house, but by an entire city.
It gave him a sense of unity he hadn't realized he missed.
Here, at the edge of the Abyss, among old planks and new voices, they were becoming something.
And tomorrow, they would descend. Together.
Gruis heard Kiezel's footsteps creak down the stairs, followed by the soft thud of the front door closing. From his window, he watched his friend bounce into view, all lightness and purpose, and plop down next to the fire with a satisfied sigh.
Stein was still at work, moving with quiet precision. He filled the iron pot, dropped in a handful of oats, and followed it with slices of dried, salted meat. After which, practiced calm, he set the pot atop the fire, adjusting the stones around it to balance the weight just right. Flames caressed the bottom gently, smoke curling upward in a narrow trail.
Gruis leaned back from the window, a grin spreading across his face.
He turned, stepped over his half-sorted pack, and reached for the smaller bag he'd set beside his bedroll. His fingers found the familiar worn leather, the soft weight of what mattered most. From it, he drew out a slim wooden flute, worn at the mouthpiece and polished smooth by years of playing.
There was no better time than now.
He raised it to his lips and played two sharp, playful notes, high and clear. They rang out into the slums below like birdsong, breaking the stillness of the fire's crackle and the hush of settling dust.
From down by the fire, Kiezel and Stein both looked up toward the second-story window.
Gruis leaned out, flute in one hand, a crooked grin on his lips.
Then he sang:
"We got walls full of holes and a roof with a tilt,
But I'd trade no palace for the bonds that we built.
With boots in the dust and a pack on our backs,
Together we dive, no fear, no cracks!"
He ended it with a theatrical bow from the window frame.
Kiezel let out a cheer, clapping his hands like a street performer had just done three flips in a row. "Encore!"
Stein, still crouched by the fire, didn't even look up. His voice drifted upward, stoic as ever.
"Yeah, yeah. Get your out-of-tune singing ass down here. Food's done."
Gruis laughed, spun his flute once between his fingers, and tucked it back into the bag.
"That's Maestro Out-of-Tune to you," Gruis muttered with a grin, and turned toward the stairs.
Before stepping outside, Gruis slung Bakstein's arm over his shoulders and helped him towards the fire, careful with the dwarf's pace. The cooler, but still very hot, evening breeze touched their skin as they reached the fire. Gruis lowered him gently onto one of the thicker bedrolls Kiezel had already laid out near the ring of stones.
Stein poured hot bowls from the simmering pot without a word, handing each one off like ritual—Gruis, Kiezel, Bakstein, then himself. The scent of oats and salted meat curled in the air, earthy and warm, carried on the last of the twilight wind.
They ate together, in a loose circle. No one rushed. The stars blinked to life overhead, one by one.
Stories began—not loud, not for show. Just old memories pulled from tired corners, passed around like a second serving. They talked of Olix, the old delver whose shadow stretched longer than any torch ever could. They told the tale of how he supposedly fought off a Sulkwalker at bottom of the first layer with only his wits and a simple dagger—and came back with "The Decapitator", a blade so sharp it was said to split sound before bone.
Gruis had heard the story a dozen ways. Each one more impossible than the last. But it didn't matter. That was the magic of it. Olix had lived a hundred lives in stories, and the fire brough them all to live again
Laughter came in waves, interrupted by the clink of spoons and the occasional groan as someone shifted sore muscles.
By the time the fire had burned down to red-orange embers, and the bowls lay stacked beside the dying heat, the energy had faded into a comfortable silence.
Stein and Kiezel helped Gruis lift Bakstein to his feet again, the dwarf steadier now, still leaning heavy on Gruis's side. They brought him upstairs and led him to the fourth bedroom.
Gruis pushed open the door—then stopped.
The room was clean.
Not pristine, but dustless, swept, and faintly smelling of dry mint leaves. The floor was clear. Even the window frame looked freshly wiped.
Gruis blinked. "...Huh."
He glanced over his shoulder to see Kiezel grinning, arms crossed smugly.
Gruis just shook his head. "Of course."
Bakstein looked too tired to notice the effort, but Gruis didn't miss it.
They helped him settle in, gave him a blanket, and closed the door with care.
The house grew quiet again, the creaks of old boards marking the last movements of the day. Everyone retreated to their rooms, one by one. Gruis laid out his own bedroll, smoothed the edges, and took a long breath.
He wandered to the open window, resting his elbows on the wooden frame. The moon hung above Herto, soft and silver, casting pale light over the rooftops.
"Thanks, everyone."
His voice was barely a whisper.
"Goodnight."
He stepped back from the window, letting the chill fade behind him.
Gruis laid back on his bedroll, staring at the ceiling as his eyelids grew heavy. Tomorrow—
their first descent into the Abyss.