"So you're... explorers? Travellers from another world?"

"More like refugees," their defender said. "If we're being honest."

They had made their way to the smith's forge and erstwhile home, guided by the tall, ethereal creature that had come to their rescue. Any menace it might have exuded was immediately dispelled when it crouched over the smith, cradling the back of his head with one gold tipped hand while it assessed his condition. After helping the armored man back to his feet with a studied gentleness, it gestures to Enoch to lend the smith his shoulder for support. In the darkness and the chaos of the fight, Sumira hadn't noticed that one of the smith's legs wasn't so much armored as held in a brace.

Together they reached the light at the end of the corridor that officially marked the end of the Hydra's territory, and ventured past it into a stone chamber with bronze-bound doors. Whatever the place had been in the ancient days of the mine, it had been made into a secure and secluded roost for the defender and his otherworldly companion.

At the far end of the vaulted room was a mechanized lift that showed signs of recent refurbishment. The smith had gathered stray stone blocks to make a forge, with a segment of a bronze girder to act as an anvil.

The rescuers had proven calm and hospitable in the aftermath of the conflict, even though they “didn’t set up in a forgotten mineshaft with a grumpy darkness monster on the doorstep because we wanted houseguests” according to the smith. Once the heavy doors were shut behind them, he'd begun to strip his armor off, and seeing him in the refuge's lamplight Sumira caught herself staring. The smith was attractive, with bronze skin close to her own in color, and something in the cast of his features that spoke of both determination and tenderness.

A glance around the room and she had found Enoch and their other silent host watching as well. While Enoch quickly turned away from her gaze and focused instead on taking Strom's sling from her shoulders, the smith's companion lifted its chin and met her gaze with amusement before its attention returned to the smith. It helped him, patient as it took each piece of heavy armor and set it to a rack near the forge. "The lift will take you to the surface," the smith indicated once he was standing unarmored and bare-chested over his forge, stoking the embers back to life. "But if you came in from the eastern ridge catacombs, you can at least stay long enough to tell us why you're here.”

Perhaps he realizes the edge in his tone, because his expression softens. "Do you drink tea? I can get some started." He began to lift a heavy iron kettle with a hooked pole when his companion intercepted him, took the pole, and set the kettle on a bracket above the forge fire, keeping eye contact with the smith the entire time. One emphatic gesture towards a shabby upholstered chair and the smith reluctantly limped over to finally sit himself down.

The smith's companion set to work gathering mugs and a teapot; seeing the ethereal being turn itself towards utter domesticity was made less surreal only by the times Sumira had seen Alal, the Reaver, do the same.

"So you're not trying to return to... wherever it is you came from?" Enoch had pulled up a crate to sit beside the smith, Strom resting on his lap as it carefully unwrapped 'Travelling cheese' within it's claws.

"Not now, not yet," sighs the smith. "Maybe not ever? This might be the best we could've asked for. Just... a fresh start."

Sumira watched him cast a quick glance over to the being and then frown slightly. "I don't think you're being fair to yourself. Stop denying me my share of the blame."

"So it speaks to you?"

"He does. We're linked." The defender put down his teacup to hold up his hands, intermeshing his fingers. "The same process that took us out of our world and brought us here."

The being gave a minute shake of his head.

The defender looked up, then nodded. "He says precision matters: The process we instigated only cut us loose from our reality. He keeps insisting some other force intervened and rescued us, bringing us to this world. I don't remember it like that but he's more tuned in to these things than I am and I was... I had other things on my mind."

"What is he?" Strom spoke up after swallowing a mouthful of cheese. After a sharp look from Enoch, it chittered, "Someone had to ask. It isn't fair to always count on you to be the rude one."

"Since when am I rude? And since when were you interested in being fair to me?"

Strom gestured back with a piece of cheese. "Since you offered to let the Hydra eat you first, Scholar."

"It's a long story."