The cold water of the creek washed over Harros’ face as he scrubbed the blood from the iron strips. As the blood washed out and flowed downstream, he gingerly rubbed his plated fingers over an insignia engraved into the cheeks. The Insignia looked like a hawk grasping the sun in its talons. The insignia represented the Academic halls Harros had once walked, an institution dedicated to the endeavor of extracting, deciphering, and utilizing the magics of the devious little Faye that fluttered around the canopies of the regions’ northern forests. No larger than a firefly, the first settlers to the area had thought little of the dancing lights until children began disappearing in the woods. Harros’ older brother had been part of the first warband sent to investigate the woods. At the time, the reports indicated that the trouble may be due to bandits or at the very worst a hive of Crugs – a species of semi-intelligent insectoid creatures that the common-folk simply referred to as cave-bugs. The warband became reported missing themselves and were later found sprawled out on the hillsides, their bodies and plate armor broken against the rocks, the flesh picked clean from inside their broken metal shells. Harros shuddered slightly at the thought. His finger moved away from the insignia to reveal the icon of a wolf head about to devour the hawk. The symbol of his shame.

Harros let out a deep longing sigh and returned to scrubbing the rest of the iron mask and as the sounds of hooves echoed through the trees behind him he fitted the iron mask back upon his flesh and sighed again. This time it was of relief as he felt whole again, his true face having been returned to its proper position, the chill of the cold metal fitting snugly around his own countenance mimicking it with a dead stare. The horses came to a stop behind him. Five, by his count. Low, indiscernible chatter. He bent down and picked up his Warhammer.

“Harros, ya dumb bastard!” A deep jovial voice sounded from the group. Harros relaxed a bit as he turned around.

“Six total? That might not be enough.” Harros surveyed the group before him. There was Ori, the man who had greeted Harros walking towards him with a sly grin on his face that only meant trouble, his brother Caelan, always the more serious of the two, and three others Harros didn’t recognize. Two looked to be armed with a Blunderbuss and a small side weapon each, the man an arming sword and the woman an axe. The last person looked to be generally unarmed except for a small dagger at his side – strange.

“Oi, come on, not even a hello? We missed you at the meet up!” Ori was saying as he approached Harros.

“Ori, I came across something …” Harros turned to grab something out of his satchel unaware of Ori grabbing the pick of his back and subsequently smacking Harros upside the head with it’s broad side. Harros stabilized himself by digging his Warhammer into the red ground, but the claw he had been fishing out of his satchel dropped to the dirt.

“We like you Harros, you ain’t as creepy or a much an ass as a lot of other Penitent, but sometimes you make things hard.”

“An adept showed up at the meet up, looking for you.” Caelan explained as he dropped off his horse. The other three looked on in bewilderment.

“Ah, he’s fine. See, ain’t even let out a grunt and I don’t pull punches. Ain’t no one tougher than our Harros. It’s why we keep him around. Good in caves he is.” Ori shot off as an explanation, beaming, and then wandered off towards the large carcass laying a few feet behind Harros.

“Great Faye, an Adept?” Harros asked Caelan as he bent down to fish the claw out of the dirt.

“Yeah, an Adept. Apparently, they’re paying for this expedition, and they’re particularly interested in you.”

Harros stiffened, his hands clawing into the iron head of his Warhammer. He glowered at Caelan. “I’m not going back there. Accepting postings from them? Why don’t you just hand me over?”

“Look, we didn’t know until ‘it’ showed up.” Caelan said, his arms spread wide. “Intimidating isn’t he.” Caelan said beckoning at Harros’ towering figure while glancing back at the other three on their horses. He turned back to Harros, “Anyway, really creepy voice, why does your voice sound so normal?”

“I gave up magic when they banished me, you know that.” Harros tenderly grasped at a few vials at his side.

“Uh-huh.” Ori said, walking up behind Harros. “Sure thing, buddy. You just swapped the magic of the Fae for the magic of caves.” Ori chuckled at his own jest and gave Harros a genial pat on his Brigandine’s plated shoulder. “Anyway, was that thing you found that bear-sloth, cuz looks to me you already dealt with it quite handily.”

“Harros,” Caelan interjected, Ori opened his mouth to say something, but Caelan cut him off with a swift gesture of urgency. “I’m concerned with how much power the Academy and its Adepts have been getting lately. Word is getting out about how profitable mining is getting – even just speculation of possible sites, competition is starting to appear out of the woodwork and” Caelan paused here with a tinge of reluctance, “whether or not we want to admit it, Ori and I are running a business and you are just hired muscle.”

Harros grunted in reply. He understood. Ori had decided to leave the two to their conversation and had waved the others off their horses towards the hulking remnants of the bear-sloth, in the background Harros could hear him joking about how much bear-sloths just love to suckle on human limbs. Based on the squeals that followed Harros guessed he was tormenting the female gunner.

“Harros,” Caelan’s tone softened. “You know as well as us how dangerous this job can be, it’s more than many can say being able to get someone like you to watch their backs. Hell, if it weren’t for you carrying Ori out of Scuttlerock Hill last year …” Caelan’s tone wavered slightly, his eyes watering slightly. He cleared his throat and continued “The Adept was ‘concerned’ that we had simply let a penitent run free. In their eyes, your kind of still their property they are graciously loaning to us. We had to agree to do our next five jobs for them – with you in tow. We’re all in a bad spot here, lets just try to get through it together, eh?”

Harros nodded silently and Caelan rested his hand on his shoulder.

Caelan sighed. “Well, we’ll worry about that later. Let’s take a look at this kill of yours.”

Harros and Caelan wandered up to the group around the bear-sloth. Ori was examining the crushed skull of the massive beast and whistling softly to himself through his beard.

The woman with the Blunderbuss motioned to Harros, asking tenatively “You manage that with that hammer of yours?”

“No, I had been disarmed. I crushed it with my fists.”

Ori whistled again and turned to Harros. “At least food will not be a problem.  How did you manage to stumble across this?”

“It stumbled across me.” Harros curtly replied aw he extended his hand, exposing an insect claw as long as his head. “Either way that’s not what I had meant.”

Ori’s jovial nature evaporated as his eyes fell upon the claw. “Crugs? Here? Do you think they’ve managed to hive?”

“I don’t know.” Harros said as he stuffed the claw away. He gestured at the downed beast “I found it embedded in the Bear’s hide.”

Ori sighed, and stood for a bit gazing at the ground, his leg thumping maniacally as he rubbed his chin. The others stood silent, out of respect for the sudden gravity in the normally cheerful man’s demeanor.

In the end it was Caelan who spoke up. “Harros, take Seiglinde with you to the nearby village. Ask around about disappearances and other rumors. We’ll take care of the bear an do some prospecting here around the creek head. Perhaps we can still leave with something of value without having to enter … their domain.” He gestured at the cave from which the creek gurgled.

Harros nodded and turned to the female gunner, her face drained of color from seeing the Crug’s claw. “Come.”

“Y-es.” She stammered as she turned to stare into the inky black darkness of the cave and then quickly turned away and followed behind Harros towards the horses.