Leaf gathers his stuff to finally leave town. He’s not sure what to bring — not that he needs much, since he doesn’t need food or sleep.

First, he gathers his main supplies from his bedroom: a shovel, a pickaxe, a lantern, and some oil. As he begins walking toward the entrance, making his way through the dark mine, he looks around with a wistful sigh.

“I’m going to need a traveling companion,” the lone warforged says to himself; his metallic voice echoes through the emptiness around him. He doesn’t get to take another step before something slams into him, sending him thudding to the cold stone floor with a groan. “What the hell..?”

Leaf walks these mines mostly in the dim candlelight, often in darkness from decades of mental mapping, and he knows there shouldn’t be anything here; he grabs a candle and lights it with his fingertip.

Boots, charred and rugged. The leather is cracked in places and blackened in others, pieces flaking off from wear.

As Leaf raises the candle, more of the figure is seen: charred, blackened fabric melted, blurring the lines between the figure’s uniform and their skin. The smell of ash and coal dust rolls off the figure in thick, pungent clouds.

Sparks fly as the sound of metal scraping against stone fills the air; the figure swings their pickaxe over their shoulder.

“Too Dark,” the voice comes out, almost as if talking through a straw. “Couldn’t see me.”

Leaf shoots upright, at first out of fear, then out of recognition: Harry.

“Canary! You’re still here!” Leaf wraps his arms around the figure, clutching him as if he were the first person he’s seen in years because… well, he is.

“Still here, too quiet.” Canary chimes, the words muffled and rough, like sandpaper. He hesitates for a moment before returning the hug, “Everyone else gone.”

“So you noticed too, huh?” Leaf asks with a melancholic sigh

Canary nods, looking down at the warforged’s pack. “Leave soon?”

“Yeah, I need to find out what happened to the mayor, I need to-”

“We find,” Canary interrupts, “I protect.”

For the first time in years, Leaf feels a twinge in his chest: hope. The feeling burns warm inside him, and suddenly the road ahead seems possible.

Leaf reaches the surface with his equipment strapped to his back, and Canary steps out of the mine just after, hesitating for a moment before shielding his eyes from the sun with his tattered hand.

Six foot four, a wide, muscular frame. His breath is ragged, labored through his gas mask that’s melted to his skin. His pickaxe hangs over his shoulder, his clothes burnt and charred in places, melted in others.

Canary wears a pack, dangling off the back is a lantern with a dull blue glow, a faint heartbeat of the tattered miner.

They stop at the machine shop, the building Leaf has spent hours in: cutting, polishing, and perfecting his growing collection of ore and gems. He looks around and is drowned in a flood of memories: decades of his life spent in this shop. He could never decide which felt more like home — here or the mines.

Leaf walks over to his workbench and grabs his tools, tucking them into his bag. He needs them; they are a part of who he is. Lastly, Leaf grabs a scrap sheet of paper; he needs to make a map — he is a cartographer as much as he is a miner.

The warforged sits down one last time at his workbench and, in the middle of the paper, sketches out a pickaxe, a symbol to represent this town, his town, his home.

At last, Leaf is ready; he takes a deep, metallic breath and walks toward the edge of town. He's nearly out of town when he passes a sign — one he made years before.

“Ash Haven,” Leaf says with a sigh. “So much for being a haven…” Leaf drops his pack to the ground, gripping the post, and tears it from the earth.

“The home of miners,” Canary adds, the subtext from the sign. “We find, bring them home.”

“Yes, we will, I couldn’t have said it better myself.” Leaf lets out a small chuckle as he tosses the sign into the grass next to the path, “Won’t be needing that for a while, you stay put.”

The two miners, lost to the world, take their first steps out of town in what feels like forever, pickaxes over their shoulders, ready for whatever they might find.