No sooner had he made his appearance was the Keeper swarmed by several of his various followers, all seemingly curious about their orders or wanting something. Xallihion was rather interesting. He hadn't been watching Clotho when she had encountered the Mind Flayer, but it seemed that she had enlisted him into the Horde. The Master used telepathy to briefly communicate to his newest recruit a short welcome before he turned to address all of the ones gathered around him.

[b][i]"Clotho is preparing for her forces to assault the upper levels. We shall assist her in any way possible, and be sure to retrieve the magical explosives! Those are what we have come to retrieve."[/i][/b] He did not bother to answer Balothiss' question; even if he could remember what he had done to the sword a few minutes ago, he wouldn't have bothered to waste his breath. Balothiss would have a chance to see for himself soon enough.

Suddenly the stone itself began to groan and crack, a terrifying sound considering that it signaled an impending collapse of the tunnels and certain death for all inside. These tunnels were new and not particularly shoddy, so the Master was correct in guessing that this was the doing of the dwarves above. Geomancy. They were trying to cave in their own mines to trap or kill whatever was coming up for them.

Unfortunately, they hadn't counted on a formidable warlock being present among their attackers. While manipulating the earth was certainly not the strength of the Master (or almost any demon, really) his magic was versatile enough to quickly sense the geomancers above and nullify their ritual. [b][i]"The dwarves are trying to bring down this entire mountain upon us! I will stay here and counter their magic, but there is no time to waste. Go!"[/i][/b]

After an exhaustively long charge upon countless dark and winding tunnels, the Horde would find themselves faced with several lines of dwarven pikemen. The creatures' great spears and shields made their formation all the more strong. Some of the rear lines of pikemen had hastily erected barricades of rubble in front of them to help stay any attack on them, and in the back were several dwarves bringing in wheelbarrows of explosives. It seemed that they still intended to collapse the lower levels if given the chance, earth magic or no.