Sometime earlier, shortly after killing Vorgarag with her wind cannon, Sharog and the other orcs were left with nothing to do.
"Do we return now?" One orc asked skeptically.
Sharog who at the moment tending to Shel's wounds froze hearing the comment.
"No!" She exclaimed suddenly causing many of the orcs to turn to her with a mix of either surprise or awkwardness.
"This isn't all. Th- He was hiding something from us, we have to investigate it! For Ed…" Sharog explained herself before mumbling the end of her words perhaps believing this whole story was too farfetched.
"Heck yeah!" "Let's do it!" "Rooooarrr!!!" The orcs bought it instantly, however.
Sharog didn't even manage to process this change in attitude before the orcs started to push further into the cavern. Only a couple stayed behind and those were the ones directly helping Shel treat the wounded.
"Sh- Shel!?!?" Next thing Sharog knew Shel was up and at it charging with the rest of the orcs further in.
This raid was short-lived however as the orcs were soon face to face with lots of hot red fire. To be more specific, they were faced with the flame array responsible for melting the glacier-like ice.
"What is this thing?" An orc asked thinking out loud. This was a thought shared by many others.
At this point, Sharog stepped forward and began to investigate the glowing runes and their function. This was to no avail as she only felt a headache coming over her. But this mattered little, her first order of business was shutting the thing down.
There were multiple ways to go about this, but the easiest way was to attack the array. Sharog cast a blade of wind to cut an insignificant-looking rune.
The wind mana interfered and cut the stable chain of fire mana being acquired from a crystal causing the whole thing to quickly die down.
Some orcs were impressed by the short display, while others were simply more curious about what would be inside the icy tunnel towards which the flames were being funneled.
"What we need is inside here, umm, we need to mine the ice" Sharog took the opportunity to trick the orcs into hiding by prompting them to start manually digging at the ice. To most, this would seem like a weird action and there were indeed some that harbored doubts but ultimately all of them showed their willingness through bodily or facial gestures.
After waiting a couple of minutes for the steam to waft out of the wet tunnel, the orcs were led in by Sharog. It took them less than a minute to reach the end of the frosty tunnel. Some tough orcs were shivering, but there was nothing like manual labor to warm oneself. Under the order of Sharog the orcs all got to work on mining the ice.
Some used axes and others used proper pickaxes. Why they brought their pickaxes to a fight was beyond Sharog but it certainly came in handy now.
While this happened, Sharog was not idling. With Shel watching from the side due to her injuries Sharog got to work on the array.
She was praying inwardly that the humans wouldn't show up but in the case that they did, she had to prepare some form of welcome. It just so happened that the array was ideal for this.
Sharog only needed to somehow figure out how to make the array turn towards the proper direction upon activation as well as repair the rune she had destroyed.
Fortunately, Vorgarag had taught her alongside Ed to make his magical cannons. This meant that she was somewhat familiar with Vorgarag's rune writing and could more or less find out the function of certain rune array circles.
It was similar to programming something using functions you knew nothing about. All you would know was that the functions worked to turn your x to y.
By the time Sharog finished, the array was as good as before she sliced a piece off. As for the crystal… the original still had some juice in it so Sharog didn't swap it out. To be fair she didn't have any to spare as Dakgu had hogged all of them, not any fault of his own.
Under the sound of metal hitting against ice, Sharog got to thinking about other possible measures. She wanted to try her best and implement any viable ones, but time was not kind to her.
The humans came sooner than she anticipated and the flame trap did run out of juice. Though that didn't really matter as the humans had employed a wall of earth to seemingly lock them inside the ice tunnel.
It crushed the array and the crystal before colliding against the ice wall. The loud sound of the collision alerted all the mining orcs.
"Hey what the hell is going on!?!" An orc yelled having long since stopped his mining.
"Were those humans!?!" Another asked in disbelief having believed he caught a glance of armored humanoid figures before the wall was summoned to trap them in.
"Calm down everyone!" Sharog yelled trying to calm down the situation. Her specialty of wind could not help them escape in this situation and being trapped here meant the humans could open it and chuck something dangerous in with no risk of their own.
Orcs were the type to die valiantly, they couldn't sit there and wait for their deaths! The mining orcs wanted to immediately run-up to the wall of earth and mine it but were halted by a shout.
"Wait! Dig into the sides!" Sharog instructed causing many of the orcs to pause and consider her proposal. It seemed a bit radical. The exit was sealed so you unseal it no?
But many had already learned to listen to instructions and others weren't willing to cause a scene. The orcs quickly split off into nearly even groups mining in opposite directions.
The reason was unknown to these orcs but they carried out their mission faithfully. They couldn't figure out Sharog's thoughts, so why worry about it?
***
On the other side of the earthen wall, Balin's company was similarly left in the dark.
"Commander, aren't you concerned about the noise they are making?" Ray who was still sticking with Balin asked expressing his confusion to their inactivity.
'They are digging" Balin responded well aware of their actions. Knowing that they were digging also meant he knew where they were digging to and without any surprises, there was no need to worry.
Of course, with all the perilous situations he and his company braved in their brief time there, he no longer dared to make assumptions bound by common sense. That also meant that his solutions to problems had to be a bit more unique.
"Tha- That's right but…" Staying quiet implied he didn't have a plan. That was what many had figured. Most were unwilling to voice these thoughts due to their loyalty but they likely all dealt with the thought even if only briefly.
Ray hadn't said anything much but Balin understood quite well what he wanted to say. Truthfully, Balin couldn't say he had a plan. No matter what he came up with the result would deviate from his intentions.
That wasn't to say he hadn't planned anything as now was certainly not the time to take gambles or switch life philosophies.
"I just have to make their tunnels collapse" Balin finally spoke of his plan while staring at the wall of ice. The ice that surrounded them was surprisingly thick and firm. Balin could not grow any plants on it nor could he cause it to break by say creating a tremor.
That left him with the only option of charging in or wait for the orcs to charge out. He had no intention to give them time to prepare but Balin was also in no apparent rush.
It wasn't like he could dig the tunnel for them to speed up the process.
After these thoughts were exchanged by the two parties a third party got involved.
"Sir Balin, please come over" A mage clad in a simple yet luxurious blue robe said signaling for Balin to come.
This mage was skilled at deciphering and had also done lots of research on array theory and technology. The array was essentially run over by the wall of earth, but writing was flat, the runes could still be studied.
"This array seems to be nothing much. It enhances the power of the fire element here and…" As she began to explain everything Balin only listened attentively gathering the gist of things.
The array was made to melt the thick impenetrable wall of ice. This could only mean whatever was inside was important. Important enough have the orc chief delegate all manpower to the mines.
"I wonder what it is they are hiding…" Balin murmured audibly. When conquering dungeons on new floors one of the most profitable things to do was to grab loot from treasure chests and other similar locations.
In Balin's eyes, whatever was inside this glacier was the same. Regardless of whether it was placed inside the ice by the dungeon or an orc, it had to be important. It couldn't hurt him to get it.
With this new variable in the equation, Balin had to make a change of plans. His initial conservative approach to the problem could no longer be maintained. What if the thing inside powered up the orcs? He had to push in with the rest.
"Knights, destroy the wall.. We will enter" The commander's words were absolute, two knights went forward ready to slice the earthen wall into pieces.
