Cecile

  When Cecile had first spotted Dave, looking barely alive and out of his mind in the Spire his initial thought had been to help him. While most of the species he had seen over the last week had been brand new to him, humans weren’t. A couple had passed through his village just last year, working on mapping the planet, or so they said. He wasn’t sure, and the dwarfs certainly weren’t talking, but they were nice enough and even shared soup at the community dinner. None of the dwarfs ever did that.

  That was a big part of why they were in the Spire at all. It had taken generations of hiding and saving every tiny bit of scrap they could get a hold of. When their dad had come to them two years ago and told them the truth of why their training had been so intense and so different from most of the other kids Cecile had been shocked. He couldn’t believe the village thought he and Elicec could be the ones the ones to fight for their freedom. Would they have sent the brothers if they had known what the Arena was really like? He wasn’t sure but was glad they had.

  Their dad had introduced them to a very strange figure a week before they had left their home. He was just a series of four triangles stacked on top of each other, but he had been nice enough. He took all of their scraps and promised them that he would be at the meeting place in a week. Cecile hadn’t known what that spot was at the time, but his father had made it clear that he needed to remember exactly what the man they had met looked like. When he asked about a name, he wasn’t given one.

  Elicec

  Elicec hadn’t trusted Dave when he first saw him. He reminded him far too much of the humans that had visited their village. They had been there to gather information for the dwarfs. He was sure of that. He suspected the dwarfs knew something had changed just slightly with the village patterns, specifically how he and Cecile were being trained. Luckily, he was able to keep the humans in the dark. He had made Cecile go to the root fields that day, convinced him it was for some extra strength training, but they had stayed the entire day. He had wanted it to be convincing. His brother was just too trusting.

  He was sure that was why their mother had given him the book for safekeeping. He had the only complete copy of the history of their people, and now it would survive outside of their village. He deeply missed his parents, but this had been the right move, no matter how much it hurt to be away from them. He did have to concede at least one point in Cecile’s favor. Without Dave, there is no way they’d have ever had a chance to free their world. His brother had made the right move there.

  “Looks like that egg thing is probably what we need to take to the end of this. Get your hoe ready. I can already tell this place is full of monsters,” Elicec said. His class ability for spotting long-range combatants had kicked in the moment the door had shut behind them. There were at least two dozen in his range.

  Cecile

  When he had told Eliecec they needed to help the human, his brother had been strongly against it. But he knew that their dad would have expected them to, and he would not let that man’s ideals down. If you didn’t help those in need, how could you ever call yourself worthy of being a Twinog champion? Cecile had long ago made a promise to himself not to be corrupted by anything outside his village, and he knew that ignoring someone like Dave would have been the first step down that path.

  “Hey you doing okay?” he had first yelled to the slumped-over figure and gotten no response other than Elicec sighing.

  “Come on, you gotta get up. If one of the guards catches you on the ground, they’ll make you start the line all over,” he tried saying again, worried the man might have run out of food in these lines. Their dad had made sure they were prepared. The stranger had briefed them on that the week before they had left.

  The journey through the lava gorge had been terrifying at first, it was further down than they had ever been before, and while their great-grandfather had told them stories about the depths, it hadn’t remotely prepared them for the noises when they slept. The first night, they had found a cool cave with a small pond. Elicec had warned against drinking anything they found down here, something about weird gas contamination, but that wasn’t the part of the memory that had left the nightmares. It was the twisted scream of what sounded like a baby Twinog followed by loud crunching sounds and the beating of massive wings as something flew near their cave. Neither of them had slept that night.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  He pushed down that memory and drew his hoe as Elicec had asked. His brother might be a bit grumpier than him, but he was a good leader. He was glad the others had seen that so quickly. An alert flashed in his mind as he turned the hoe into a scythe.

  !raqqashino row 1, #7 damaged by burrowing creature

  Apparently, something had managed to get into the garden and munch on one of the raqqashino plants. He’d have to check into that when they got back.

  Elicec

  He had never told Cecile about what happened in that lava gorge they had gone through the first night, and hopefully, he would never have to. That was where the dwarfs left the Twinog young that they thought they had no use. The ones who hadn’t quite matured the way they were supposed to, or if they had found some other defect they didn’t like. Luckily, their village had managed to avoid that kind of treatment so far, as their harvests had been high enough for long enough that the dwarfs hadn’t directly stepped in on that level. But he knew one day it would happen. He had read the book. His mother had managed to escape from a village where that was routine.

  The third day of their trip had nearly been a disaster. There was a lava elemental blocking their path, and as far as they could find, it was the only way through. Cecile, though, managed to convince the creature to let them pass. All it took were a couple of mushrooms from the surface, and it moved aside like they were all friends. This was Cecile’s strength, and he knew that. His brother had an innate kindness that he could never match, and even if sometimes he thought it would lead them astray, he would never ask the man to get rid of it. That kindness was the reason they had a chance to save their world. Had Elicec had his way, they’d have continued in the line, ignoring Dave’s plight, and probably have died on the first floor of the Arena.

  After the gorge, they descended even further underground into the darkzones that Twinoges rarely ventured into. None of the villages had any first-hand experience that far down, but some of the elders had said their parents had once gone into the depths during a great storm. All they knew was that few who had gone had returned. They didn’t sleep for either of the two days they were down there, choosing to press through as quickly as they could in search of the man their father had entrusted them to.

  “Cecile duck!” Elicec yelled as two bolts of lightning flashed down the tunnel toward them, freeing him of his memories. It looked like something down there was just as aware of them as they were of it. The Twinogs began to charge down the path toward their new enemies.

  Cecile

  Cecile pulled his head down just as Elicec yanked their body under the blast. He had heard the rush of the attack but hadn’t seen it as fast as his brother. They charged down the path ahead, quickly dispatching the weird, elongated things flying around the room that were firing off blasts of electricity. They managed to jolt them both a few times, but it was nothing too serious.

  Cecile hoped none of the creatures had been real. It wasn’t like the corrupted creatures in dungeons, or the mutated monsters of various planets. These had just seemed like animals outside of their normal environment. That was why he had been so glad when they found the man in the underground. It meant they didn’t have to risk fighting anything else down there that was just trying to survive.

  Elicec

  He was surprised at how easily the air eels had gone down. They really were getting impressively strong the longer they were in Dave’s squad. He felt bad for trying to talk Cecile out of sticking with Dave in the Archives. When Cecile had first suggested bringing him to the dungeon Elicec had thought it was a terrible idea and made that as clear as he could, especially as Dave still didn’t have a core. In the end, though, he had relented, and there was a good chance they wouldn’t have survived that first encounter if he hadn’t.

  This was a big part of why he had decided to stick so strongly with Dave. Cecile had been entirely right about the man, and he agreed that following him back to his home was the correct move. Now Cecile had his garden, larger than they ever would have had even if they survived the Arena at this stage of their development, and he had access to both Mel and Elody to learn from. One day, they would return to Hrorpia and free all their people. He was sure of that now. Cecile’s optimism had finally infected him.

  When the moment comes to act, you generally only have one chance to make real change in the Spiral. You can never know if the people with you are really ready for what that entails until it happens, either. That means it’s entirely possible that when you stand up to make that change, you do so alone. And either way, the choice has been made, and while you may fail, it is entirely likely someone else will get that same chance in the future, but you won’t be around to see it. Do not consider your sacrifice worthless, as you will be their inspiration.

  The introduction to the code of ethics of the Paladins of Liberty

  3500 Followers - Bonus Chapter

  ?????????? 10%

  750 Favorites - Bonus Chapter

  ?????????? 80%

  100 Subscriptions - 3 Bonus Chapters

  ?????????? 50%

  100 Members - Vote On 2 Bonus Excerpts

  ?????????? 40%

  Read up to 20 chapters ahead of Magical Engineering on my Patreon:

  Checkout the official

  And if you like my work, consider checking out my other ongoing series.