They had been traveling quickly down hill for several hours before the steep decline began to level out again. Finally the Kobold came to an abrupt stop and seemed to refuse to go any further into the mine. Jumah leaned down and seemed to have a fairly intense conversation with the creature in its native tongue before finally producing a small leather pouch from one of his larger belt pouches. Turning the pouch over in his hand several small, brown objects fell into his open palm, each looking like a tiny wooden spiral. The Kobold’s eyes went wide in amazement and its bat-like wings fluttered with uncontained excitement. As Jumah carefully poured the objects back into the pouch and drew the strings closed the Kobold actually began to dance from foot to foot with its arms stretched out in front of it, reaching excitedly toward the pouch.

Finally Jumah removed the thin rope from the creatures waist, thanked it and bowed deeply before it, then handed it the small pouch. The creature snapped up the pouch and disappeared back up the cavern so quickly that it appeared to the Gnomes as nothing more than a blur.

Gimbobble looked back at Jumah with her eyes wide in amazement. “What was in that pouch? What were those things?”

Jumah smiled at her knowingly. “Brume tree seeds.”” He said simply as he looked up the mine shaft behind the vanishing Kobold.

“Brume tree seeds?! But that’s absurd! Brume tree seeds are worthless!”

“Maybe to you they are worthless. But most Kobolds live their entire lives under ground. The majority of them will never lay eyes on a brume tree. As such, their seeds are highly prized among the Kobolds. So you see, it is a good thing to know your neighbors. When you know how to motivate someone properly you can get amazing results.”

“So it would seem.” Gimbobble said with an air of disbelief. “So, why did you turn him loose? We have not reached Kal’ek T’nal yet!”

“He refuses to go any further because of the ghosts. It doesn’t really matter though, he got us past his friends and that is all we really needed him for.”

Jumah looked down at the Gnomes when the tunnel seemed suddenly and strangely silent. What he saw was amazing to him. All three Gnomes were looking at him with looks of pure disgust on their faces.

“What?”

“Master Wataru. A person of your apparent learnedness should know there is no such thing as ghosts!”

Jumah looked down at them all as they nodded their heads in unison, confirming the nonexistence of ghosts between them. Never mind the fact that Jumah had in the past encountered ghosts, indeed fought them with his magical blades. They were by no means a figment of the imagination and in fact, they were exceedingly difficult to destroy. He smiled at them. “Of course not. But as you say, they are simple creatures…” he was afraid his heavy sigh would betray his true feelings on the matter.

He had no desire to get into a debate on the nonexistence of ghosts with three Gnomes in the bottom of a mine shaft. Nothing about that thought even remotely piqued his interest. Besides, he was fairly certain that the banging and clanking noises described to him by the Kobold had very little to do with disgruntled spirits.

The Gnomes seemed satisfied with his response and the group moved on into the darkness where, before long they began to hear clanking and whirring noises that echoed off the walls of the shaft in strange ways. The faint sounds bounced and reverberated off of the rough walls, doubling back on themselves again and again, making it impossible at best to determine their source, what was causing them, or how many of whatever the source was there may be.

Cautiously they forged ahead into the growing din. Before long it began to sound as though they were in a Dwarven smithy, hammers pounding away at metal implements and bellows driving flames to impossible temperatures. The cacophony was nearly unbearable and prevented the Gnomes from hearing Jumah’s order to stop moving.

Instead they all piled into his still form, dropping their equipment in a heap on the ground and squealing in surprise as instantly the noise in the cavern stopped completely.

“Shhh…” Jumah hissed as quietly as possible as he placed his foot on a small metal tool that was noisily trying to escape from the scene of the Gnome’s traffic accident.

After a moment they could hear a soft whirring noise approaching from ahead of them and Jumah crouched down low, keeping his legs under him and placing his right hand on the handle of one of his swords and his left behind him in a gesture to silence the Gnomes.

The whirring sound grew steadily louder until it was joined by a soft and rapid clicking.

“That sounds like metal scraping stone. Probably some kind of digging machine.” Gimbobble whispered, causing Jumah to cover her face with the palm of his hand.

As he did so a mechanical spider came into view from around a bend in the mine shaft ahead of them. It was easily the size of a tall Gnome, with long, spindly, metal legs spreading out from a central core, five on either side. The machine was moving along the top of the shaft, its long legs stretching to either side of the tunnel. It moved without touching the ground at all, only the walls near the ceiling.

“Amazing!” Gimbobble exclaimed through Jumah’s hand.

Instantly the mechanical contraption swiveled its boxy metal head toward them, its glass, stalk mounted eyed focusing in on them with a series of whirring noises. It seemed to pause for a moment, going suddenly silent before lifting one of its spindly metal legs from the wall and raising it up to the ceiling with the point set directly toward Gimbobble.

“Damnit!” Jumah hissed as he lurched to the side in time to intercept the deadly appendage as it speared through the air toward the Gnome. The metal limb stuck clean through his left shoulder causing him to grunt in something resembling pain, but not quite convincingly.

With one fluid motion he slipped one of he swords out of its sheath with his right hand and brought it down on the mechanical spider’s leg. A loud metal on metal sound shot through the cavern and sparks flew as the leg was wrenched from the thing’s body, falling to the ground, mangled and twisted.  Jumah used his left hand to pull the appendage free of his shoulder and held it up between himself and the spider. Looking at the leg he saw a massive bend in the metal leg where his sword had struck it, but it was not severed by the magical blade.

“This does not bode well.” He said as he tossed the thing to the ground and took a fighting stance.

The spider took a moment to twist its eye stalks around and examine the damage to its body.  Then it wheeled around again, focusing on Jumah as a red light began to glow through its glass eyes.

Jumah slipped his second sword into his left hand and moved them both into the path of the thing as it lunges bodily at him, throwing itself fully into the fray now.  Another metal on metal ring reverberated up and down the mine shaft as Jumah’s swords intercepted the creature’s body and he stepped forward into an offensive stance, tossing the automation to the ground.

Quickly it rolled over with a clamor and wheeled around to face the group again. Buzzing and clicking as it moved with surprising speed it lifted up another appendage and lanced it toward Jumah’s chest.

Jumah twisted himself out of the way and deflected the needle-sharp leg tip with one of his swords as he drove the other one forward, catching the machine off guard. The tip of his sword struck home on one of the thing’s glass eyes, shattering it to pieces and making the thing reel back away from him.

Again he took a defensive stance in front of the Gnomes and waited for the machine to make its next move. He didn’t have to wait long as the thing shot out a pair of limbs this time, its one remaining eye glowing bright red as it lunged forward for the attack.

Jumah jumped up over the legs, coming down on top of them and pinning them to the ground under his bare feet. A flash of metal in the corner of his eye had him bringing up one of his swords in time to parry another of the thing’s legs but he wasn’t fast enough to block the fourth as well. The metal spike drove through his chest with ease, piercing his lung and ripping up the muscles and bones on either side. He grimaced in pain and staggered, releasing the automaton’s legs. The device left its offending leg speared through Jumah’s body for a moment before finally pulling it free and backing away again.

Gimbobble shrieked as she watched Jumah get run through. There was no way he could have hidden it from them, the tip of its leg had probably been more than a foot exposed on his back. He forced himself to his feet as the Gnomes watched in amazement, the wound on his back closing itself up before their eyes. He was obviously much more than the human they had thought he was in the beginning.

“We need to put an end to this. If there are more of these things waiting in the wings this noise is sure to attract them.” Gimbobble finally managed.

“Agreed.” Jumah breathed heavily, his lung only just beginning to work again. “This ends, NOW!”

Lunging at the spider with his swords leading the way he deftly changed directions mid-charge as the thing shot out a pair of legs to intercept him. In an instant he was on the wall, feet planted firmly for an instant before gravity had time to force him to the ground. The spider reacted with amazing speed, jabbing toward him with another appendage, but it was too late, Jumah had already sprung across the shaft to the opposite wall, twisting around in mid-air to plant his feet solidly on that wall for an instant.

Again a pair of legs snapped out and drove deep into the rock face where Jumah had been an instant before. The mechanical contraption seemed to hesitate briefly, apparently unsure of what to make of the situation. That was all the time Jumah needed. Twisting around in mid-air once more, he planted his feet firmly on the ceiling above the machine and drove himself full force toward the ground, sword points first.

His right sword drove cleanly through the contraption’s head, his left through its blocky body, mid way between the legs on either side. Finally he brought his feet down and stomped mightily on the thing’s back, bending the metal into two perfect impressions of his feet and driving the thing bodily into the stone floor.

With a wrenching, metal on metal sound the thing’s internal mechanisms ground to a halt and slowly its one remaining eye went out.

Wrenching his swords out of the thing Jumah inspected it clinically, tapping its head with his foot to see if it reacted at all. Finally he decided to make sure and with a mighty stroke sliced half way through its thin metal neck. Raising an eyebrow curiously he took another swipe and severed the thing’s head completely.

“Interesting.” Gimbobble said as she scuttled forward and began inspecting the thing. She was positively twittering with excitement.

“I’ll say.” Jumah commented. “These swords cut dragon hide with less trouble. That is no ordinary metal that thing is made of.”