With the lanterns at his back, Jumah could almost see through the darkness ahead of him using his natural ability to see in the blackness. However, the harsh glow limited the range of his vision severely and the ever-increasing mechanical noises emanating from ahead of them created a wash of cascading noises around them that turned into a dull roar, muting his keen hearing.

“We surely must be drawing near our destination by now.” Gimbobble’s voice barely squeaked over the din.

“Either that or there is some sort of Gnomish trade show going on down here somewhere.” Jumah replied through gritted teeth. The disadvantage to his heightened senses was that they were easily offended by overly powerful experiences.

“Why would Gnomes have a trade show down here in these mines?” Gimbobble asked seriously.

Jumah’s shoulders sagged slightly as he sighed, silently admitting defeat on the matter. All he knew was that if he didn’t get out of this noise soon, his ears would start bleeding. That’s when it happened. They rounded a corner and stepped into a huge, cavernous space. It stretched well beyond the limited range of Jumah’s vision, but the change in the constant din of mechanical clicking and clanging told him that it was a cavern easily the size of the one in which the entire city of Talanor was built. All he really cared about was that the noise level reduced to a point at which it was at least tolerable for him.

“What is this?” Gimbobble breathed, barely audible, “It must be Kal’ek T’nal!”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself Gimbobble. Douse the lights.”

“But, Master Wataru, we won’t be able to see…” She began to protest.

Jumah wheeled around on the gnomes and stuck one finger in each of the lanterns, squelching the tiny flames. “It isn’t us being able to see that I am concerned about. It’s them being able to see us.”

As the lights went out, the mechanical noises filling the chamber stopped as well, eliciting a collective gasp from the gnomes.

“Stay put.” Jumah hissed as he slipped off into the cavern, leaving the gnomes standing alone in the darkness.

Their nervousness was palpable as they shuffled their feet and peered around in the darkness. The sound of mechanical legs striking stone began filling their ears as they imagined an army of the mechanical spiders bearing down on them in the darkness.

“M….master Wataru…” Gimbobble’s voice broke ass she whispered to the darkness, hoping that she was not truly left alone there.

The sounds of the mechanical spiders grew louder and louder, accompanied by the crumbling and rolling of small stones as the sharp mechanical appendages broke loose chunks of the stone firmament.

As the sounds began to become unbearable to their tiny ears, a panic began to set in on them. Their overly-powerful imaginations conjuring up images of their tiny bodies being torn to pieces by an army of mechanical spiders that didn’t want them in their home. They began to shift more in their places and were near the breaking point when a loud metallic clang echoed through the caver, accompanied by a brilliant flash of blue-white light.

The bright light briefly silhouetted the form of Jumah, standing lightly on top of one of the mechanical spiders, his twin swords skewered through the central mass of one of the spiders. An instant later the light was gone again and the gnomes were left with a brilliant white spot in their vision, now completely blinded in the darkness.

The mechanical scuttling sounds shifted their direction, and the timbre changed as the automations seemed to readjust their course to deal with the more threatening of the intruders. Another brilliant flash of light revealed Jumah, now on the far side of the group of attacking spiders, squashing the thing under his weight and driving one of his swords through the thing’s body. As it crumpled to the ground Gimbobble gasped as realization dawned on her.

“He’s attacking their power supplies!” She muttered with a combination of respect and disgust in her voice. She seemed very happy that they might not actually end up on the spider’s menu, but the fact that he had so quickly learned how to destroy them and seemed to have no reservations about doing so, seemed to cause her a bit of pain at the loss of the mechanical contraptions.

A moment later there was a cacophony of mechanical noise as the spiders seemed to begin coordinating their efforts at attacking their quarry. Flashes of light began to erupt around the cavern at more regular intervals, never from anywhere near the location of the last. Jumah seemed to attack one of the machines, and then instantly be on the other side of the group attacking again.

The gnomes stared in awe as they watched him flashing across the space. They had no idea how quickly he was actually moving as many of the flashes began to blend together into an increasingly brightening light in the center of their vision.

Finally, the noise and light seemed to come to a deafening silence and a brilliant white splotch in their vision. A long moment of silence followed where the gnomes began to shift on their feet again, wondering what was happening in the all-consuming darkness of the giant cavern.

Suddenly one of the lanterns flared to life again, causing the three gnomes to jump. Turning to face the light the gnomes were greeted by the form of Jumah, standing there with his weapons back in the scabbards on his back. He was standing there, almost casually, leaning against the gnomes sled full of equipment. His body was covered nearly from head to toe in blood, but not a single wound could actually be seen on his body.

“Master Wataru!” Gimbobble gushed. “Are you alright?! That was… the most amazing, frightening, despicable…”

Jumah quirked an eyebrow at he as he retrieved a water skin and a small cloth from the gnome’s equipment. Slowly he began wiping the blood from his face and body as the gnomes relit the rest of the lanterns and began poking about in the wreckage of the mechanical army that lay at their feet.

Gimbobble Walked up to him tentatively, seemingly feeling very unsure of herself. “Master Wataru I…”

Jumah looked at her with his raised eyebrow for a moment before shifting into a more serious look when he realized how serious she looked. “Yes?”

“I…er…” She shifted her feet uncomfortably as she seemed to be having some internal struggle with what she was about to say.

“Yes?” Jumah prompted her.

“I noticed that you… That is… I… I mean, you’re all covered in blood!” She finally managed as if it explained everything she was thinking and trying to get out.

“You know Gimbobble… Sometimes, I think your most impressive feature is your iron-clad grasp of the obvious.” He smirked as she balked at his statement.

“But you haven’t any wounds! That’s the point Master Wataru. You are covered in blood, and you haven’t any wounds on you!”

“You know… I noticed that.”

“And the one you fought earlier. I saw it stab you, straight through you! Just there!” She pointed at him in the location the first mechanical spider had skewered him.

Jumah sighed heavily as he crouched down to look her in the eyes. “Are you sure you saw what you think you saw?”

She eyed him clinically for a moment before nodding her head slowly, purposefully. “I did.”

“Then what is your conclusion?” He asked, his eyebrow raised again as if challenging her to a duel of intellects.

She knitted her fuzzy eyebrows together, turning around and pacing a small path in front of him with one hand crooked under her chin and the other at the elbow of the first. “You bleed so you must not be undead. But you don’t actually show any signs of having actually been damaged so you must either heal extremely quickly or you are somehow displacing the damage.”

“Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.” Jumah grinned at her.

“Wait ‘till I get going!” She beamed.

“So you are not undead, but you could be a polymorphed dragon, although they would be much tougher to damage and since you yourself said that they were merely mundane metals, it is unlikely that they would be capable of damaging a dragon thusly, therefore I can clearly rule out your being a dragon.”

Jumah shook his head, a smile spreading across his lips as he watched Gimbobble reason things out.

But there are so few creatures that can heal that quickly and still function in society, and are active during daylight hours and most of those tend to be deities and gods, but if you were a deity or a god then you would probably not be bleeding at all so I can clearly assume you are neither of those.”

Jumah kept on wiping himself with the tiny cloth, trying to get himself somewhat clean again while he watched Gimbobble work things out.

“Given what I know of the species of Kalijor, and what I have seen of you first hand, I can make only one logical assumption and that is that you are a lycanthrope. You do not appear to be feral so I can assume you are not a werewolf and judging by your speed and agility I think I can safely assume that you are not one of the larger felines, therefore the only logical conclusion is that you are a werecheetah.”

Jumah continued wiping at the drying blood, not looking at her, or acknowledging her statement in any way.

“What I don’t understand is why you would risk your life by being in a city and dealing with so many people when lycanthropes are a declared, kill on sight species. Everyone knows that lycanthropes can not adjust to civilization and are a dangerous race to anyone not of their own kind.”

Jumah looked very serious all of a sudden. He had stopped wiping at the blood and was looking directly at her as she paced and talked, more to herself than to him, or anyone else in the area. “So, what does logic dictate?”

She looked at him briefly, as though he had just slapped her, but she quickly fell back into her groove. “Logic dictates that if you are taking such a risk, then you are either insane and wish to die, or…” She looked up at Jumah with a strange look on her face.

“Or…” Jumah looked back at her, his own expression somewhere between hard and almost afraid.

“…or.” She continued, “the stories about Lycanthropes are much exaggerated.”

Jumah raised an eyebrow at her again, waiting for her to finish.

“Obviously you are a well-adjusted, competent individual with marketable skills and certain social graces. And you most certainly have a certain grasp of logical thinking, even if you are wrong quite a lot…” She eyes him back for a moment. “It simply must follow that not all lycanthropes are not as evil as we have been led to believe from the stories.”

Jumah relaxed visibly.

“My only question then is this, How much of the stories are false, and how much is truth?” She looked at him pointedly.

“I apologize for deceiving you. It’s not something I enjoy doing… What questions can I answer for you?”

“You have nothing to apologize for Master Wataru. If I were hunted because of some distant cousins of mine, I would most likely not open conversations with full disclosure either. Let’s begin with, is it true that lycanthropy spreads through bodily fluids?”

Jumah sat down, facing Gimbobble. “It is true only of the wolves. The werecats only pass on lycanthropy to their offspring.”

“I see. And the feral personalities?”

“The wolves again.” Jumah said softly. “We have been at war with them for centuries. Unfortunately the way they reproduce makes them a difficult adversary to overcome. Once we were close to beating them for good. That was when they rampaged through the streets of several small villages, turning everyone they saw.”

“The Blood War.” Gimbobble nodded. “That was when the rest of the races of Kalijor declared war on the Lycanthropes and destroyed any that were found, no matter where they were or what they were doing. Thousands were killed in just a few weeks time.”

“Yes. Much of my family among them. Since that day, all lycanthropes have taken precautions to keep themselves unknown to everyone. You are one of a very few people that know my secret Gimbobble. Can I trust you with this?” He asked her in earnest, there was no malice or threat in his voice, it was a simple question.

She looked at him seriously, searching his deep, blue eyes. Finally she smiled a genuine smile, her normal energy much calmer now, more focused and sincere. “Of course you can Master Wataru. You have more than proven yourself to us.”

Jumah inclined his head to her. “Thank you Gimbobble. There is just one more thing though…” He spoke as he stood up, crumpling up the tiny, blood-soaked cloth in his hand as he turned away from her and took a few steps toward the pile of destroyed mechanical spiders where the other two gnomes were busily looking for salvageable components.

“Yes?” She looked almost worried about what he was going to say.

“Please, call me Jumah.” He said over his shoulder as he waded off into the wreckage.

She smiled at him as she set about poking through the mechanical contraptions.