Celeste was hurled into the world with a force that might as well have cast her through every plane of existence at once. It was uncomfortable, and she felt her cape fluttered behind her, almost acting like a parachute. Suddenly, everything stopped, and she realized that she was lying on some kind of stone floor. She groaned as she sat up and found her massive Orkish friend sitting beside her, looking just as confused. The goddess couldn't help but feel incredibly small compared to the massive ork, though the goofy grin that Martin had on his face helped a lot.

  Looking around, Celeste noticed a lot of things in quick succession. For one, they were underground, though the tunnel they were inside was definitely not natural. Her Tinkering Domain pointed out the otherwise invisible markings of the tools that had been used to carve the tunnel. A tiled floor made from natural rocks was visible thanks to glowing runes placed on reinforcement columns every five meters. The tunnel wasn't large; that much became clear when both Celeste and Martin stood up. Martin had to crouch ever so slightly to ensure that his head wasn't pushing against the carved and engraved ceiling.

  "Welp, this is Life's End then?" The goddess asked, trying to start a conversation with the normally almost mute man beside her.

  Martin just nodded as he let his green digits run over the carved stone wall.

  Celeste was about to say something, but she felt a tug from her divine powers. Being the Goddess of Death, she was able to tell when people were dying around her, as well as decide if she truly would allow them to die. All thanks to a neat mix between the passive power of her Domain and the power Withholding the Mercy.

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  Divine Domain Unlocked: Death

  You may command undead in your presence. Greater undead gets a spirit save to resist. By focusing, you also know the details of what, where and how anything died or is dying within 100 meters.

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  Withholding the Mercy

  Type: Constant

  Energy usage: N/A

  Full effect: Those reduced to zero hit dice or hit points within 200 meters of you automatically stabilize or die as you wish. If you desire it, willing living creatures at zero HD or hit points around you may continue to act for as many rounds as you have Ranks before they unavoidably fall dead.

  She could feel people dying below her, fairly deep below her, as if they were barely within range of her powers. She could tell that some kind of battle was going on, and without knowing the purpose, she let the people dying during the battle die, as was the natural order of things.

  As they started to make their way down the hallway, both groaned as they found themselves assaulted by pop-ups informing them they had both levelled up. Celeste and Martin gave each other a look, and without pause, they dismissed the messages, wanting to explore the world before they got to level up.

  The hallway was slowly making its way down into the ground, and in any normal situation, Celeste would have assumed that they were going down the wrong path since any normal settlement would be located close to the surface. However, seeing as they were making their way towards a dwarven settlement, going down was probably the right call. She could, of course, use her Journeying Domain to find the right way.

  Celeste looked over her minimap and was surprised to find it up to date, though it showed the surface of the world, not the underground, which was a problem.

  She would have to talk with Jasper about fixing that. She paused and realized she didn't need to talk with her husband about this when she had Martin right by her side.

  "My minimap isn't showing the underground tunnels properly," She said as they walked.

  Martin grumbled a little but then nodded. "Yeah, figures. We haven't really made anything underground, as far as I know, and we will probably have to rework how the minimap even functions. I mean, last time I saw the code, it was just taking snapshots from above the world. You know the Google Maps approach. We would have to anchor the origin point to the player, which might provide some trouble down the line, but I guess we could make it kinda like tremor sense or maybe some echolocation. Even if we do that, it might be easier to try to make a snapshot user that doesn't have collision and is able to move through solid objects. Whatever the case, we should probably try and make it some kind of generic function that we can just call depending on the tags on the player."

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Celeste was stunned. In all the time she had known Martin, he had barely said a thing, despite her husband insisting he could be quite talkative. The man had just doubled the number of words that Celeste had ever heard him say. However, the message was loud and clear. If she wanted to talk with Martin, she would have to talk shop.

  "As far as I can tell, we are moving towards the westernmost town located on the map, though I have no idea what to expect, " she said, trying to keep up the conversation.

  Martin just nodded, not really responding to what he clearly considered small talk.

  With that, they walked in silence, making their way down the tunnel. Thanks to Celeste's Journeying Domain, she would not only get nourishment from travelling, but it would also count as a full night's sleep, meaning that when the tunnel finally came to an end, she had barely noticed how much time had passed.

  They stepped out into what could only be classified as a killbox. All around them, walls had been set up with slits and round holes for projectiles, while above them, glowing pipes were situated. A gate was set in the wall in front of them, meaning that this was definitely some kind of checkpoint.

  A quick inspection showed that everything was covered in various runes, and while Celeste wasn't an expert in what runes were, she recognized how they reinforced the walls and structures around her. What was the most interesting was the runes around the pipes over their heads. They were made to make the metal resistant to heat while keeping it warm. Putting two and two together, the goddess realized that if all else failed, the room was made to douse any attacker in magma... yea, they were underground, so it would still be magma.

  Martin didn't have the same insight, and before Celeste could tell him what was going on, he had wandered over to the gate and knocked on it.

  The gate was in the shape of two giant dwarven heads, side by side, looking with stern eyes at the people approaching. Martin decided to bang his large green fist right between the eyes of the left-most dwarven face.

  The knocking rang loudly through the room as the echo of vibrating metal made its way down the tunnel behind the pair of gods. The sound of scrambling could be heard from the other side of the wall, and Celeste sighed. They probably shouldn't be flexing divine powers already, but this situation reminded her a lot of the time she had slaughtered a squadron of guards just to rewind time and ask the leader of the squad to think again before stopping her.

  "Whose there?!" A voice asked from the other side of the metal door, pulling Celeste out of her memories.

  Martin cleared his throat and answered the question. "Just friendly travellers"

  "Well, I'll be a goblin's uncle. It is an ork, and it even looks civilized. No screaming or anything." The voice said from the other side. The source was definitely able to observe the duo.

  Celeste decided that she might just be able to contribute, but a look from Martin reminded her that he had the bigger charisma score of the two of them, so he continued to talk. "Yup, civilized folk here, wanting to do business... and kills some drows."

  The Architect of Reality could almost see how the game pulled on Martin's consciousness. The way he subtly added the last part was as if he had passed some kind of check and found himself, including what was probably the best argument possible.

  The dwarf on the other side paused. "Well, if it is killing drows you want, then you have come to the right place. But one wrong move, stranger, and I will be putting a bullet between your eyes."

  Celeste's eyes shot up. Bullet? Did that mean that the dwarves had access to guns?

  The question was immediately answered when the doors opened, and five dwarves, all with incredibly bushy beards, met the two strangers, muskets raised and pointed at the newcomers.

  Celeste instantly saw what nobody else would see. The amazing craftsmanship that had been poured into every single gun. The way they had been obsessed over and adjusted until there was not a scratch out of place. Then she winced when she saw that some of the musket-like weapons hadn't been properly taken care of, grime building up between the fittings, and one even had a small dent.

  Being a Dane, Celeste didn't know much about guns. She had no interest in them, and the term rifle might as well refer to any gun that you couldn't hold in one hand. However, it was like the game was trying to inform her of just how amazing the creation was in front of her, and it was consistently meeting a wall of ignorance.

  However, something told her that the guns were a mix of rifles and a blunderbuss. The barrel tapered out in a wide cone-like shape, essentially giving the impression that the dwarves were pointing modified trumpets at the two gods. Yet, she could see that the inside had grooves that would allow any projectile to spill, clearly hand-carved based on the ever so slight imperfections. The barrel was attached to a flint-lock system where a miniature hammer would pull back on a spring only to lock it in place. It was obvious that pulling the trigger would make the hammer move forward and hit what looked like a miniature anvil.

  As the Goddess of Tinkering, Celeste instantly realized that while powerful, there were several things that held the guns back. They could only be loaded with a single shot before they needed to be reloaded, though judging by the packets of cloth around the waist of the dwarves, the compact people had managed to find a solution to this problem.

  Martin had also been fixated on the weapons, and Celeste remembered that he had Range as one of his Domains, meaning that he had probably been going through the same analysis. He seemed to finally have snapped out of the trance and gave the dwarves a big smile, which only made them move their fingers to the triggers of their weapons as the massive ork showed his sharp teeth and massive tusks.

  The orkish god seemed to realize his mistake and pulled back the smile. "Sorry to disturb you. But we are not here to fight you. We are here to make friends. To that, I am willing to give a soul oath."

  The front dwarf didn't say anything to this but simply nodded, prompting Martin to continue.

  "I swear, on my soul, that I will not intentionally harm any dwarves, and I will not break any dwarven laws while I am welcome in their society. I give this oath under the assumption that they will not treat me unfairly nor attack me." Martin stated.

  Satisfied, the dwarf shifted their weapons to target Celeste.

  The goddess cleared her throat. "On my soul, I swear the same."

  She got the pop-up asking if she wanted to compel herself to obey this oath, but she simply accepted the oath as a mortal.

  The lead dwarf nodded, and everyone lowered their weapons. "Well," He said, and Celeste recognized the voice as the one that had spoken behind the door. "I accept your oath, and I welcome you as guests of the Hammer Clan".