Nain's New Discovery
"Master, we've received a letter from my honored cousin Gnolbaraz Dumbane..."
Inwardly, Nain sighed a particularly deep sigh even as he half-tuned out the semi-formal recitation of his poor apprentice's kin's many, many, many titles, half self-anointed, on the tosser. Of course, half weren't, a stunning improvement over most of Tholinn's Clan, and the really important weren't. Might be a tosser, but he was a tosser who had, in fact, carved through Chaos like so much moldy wood before a particularly sharp, particularly fiery ax.
Tholinn drank a deep draft of the fermented apple juice the Brana were so fond of (And which he studiously ignored for the sake of not burning down the progress in making Tholinn a person rather than a convenient tool in every sense of the word), and that acted as the sign that the long recitation was done and that he needed to put out his hand to grab the letter. He did and Tholinn put the letter in his hand and of course it was long and overbearing and so he carved through the pretentious verbiage, all airy fairy nonsense and Ancestors only knew what else, to cut to the heart of the matter.
...Honored Master Runesmith, apprentice to the Giftgiver (He thanked his lucky stars then that Master Yorri had burned his history so utterly and completely from every record he could), a patrol to the far west reaches of those lands of Kraka Drak revealed a substance unknown. As it seems, at worst, benign; and as the Runelords are otherwise preoccupied avenging the Dawi upon the Fimir; and as a great debt is owed in your teaching our beloved cousin (He blinked at that); we desired that we might allow you either the opportunity to catalogue, disarm, and destroy a potential threat and so gain the acclaim and honor therein; or else make what use of it as you may desire, if it turns out to be beneficial; and further to make such usage of it as you desire. A coterie of my own Lifeguard are at your disposal both to lead you there and to ensure the safety and security of your person.
Hm. On the one hand, a potential danger snuffed out before it could cause trouble or a potential new ingredient for Runesmithing.
On the other hand, the Lifts. Those needed to be done right and properly, before, above, and beyond anything else.
With senses honed by more than three centuries of life, he also heard his apprentice shuffle a sheet of parchment thinking he was being slick and again he did not comment on it...directly. No doubt a letter from the Steelfist lad.
Very, friendly, that one, and Tholinn didn't even realize it.
Nain made up his mind then to do something mildly clever and mildly risky. "Well, Apprentice, you're in luck. It seems I need to take a month or so to go spot some trouble out west, and I'll be gone for some time." He let himself pause for a second, trying to lay out exactly what he needed his apprentice to do. "Fortunately, we are in a part of the process where I require my Mise en Place in position more than anything else, which is something you can do while I'm out. I will write out exact instruction of what I need, where, and when. You will follow them. You will also meet with the masons and other workers making sure they have sufficient resources. Aside from that, you will spend an hour each day reading the basic treatises of ingredients."
There. Rune learning...and enough time to do things other than Runes before he fries his brain.
"Aye, Master. It will be done."
--
The Lifeguard acting as his escort walked silently through the snowy forest, pine covered and shadow blanketed, where trolls and wolves and dogs and Ancestors alone might know what else lurked in the dark places. The guards, of course, were silent. Not entirely disconcerting given the unfriendly situation they found themselves in; but they had been quiet long, long, long before they had entered the forest.
More disconcerting, of course, was the armor, the weapons, the everything that the Lifeguard wore and had.
It was all-but identical. Loaf helms, with varying but never overly long nasals. Splint greaves, splint vambraces. Scale like shingles to cover the main torso. All Ancestor decoration. Only scarcely changed with use, with time, a trophy here or a trophy there perhaps only just allowing someone to look at and identify and distinguish one Dwarf from another: one might have a claw from a manticore and the other the eye of a fimir...but by and large?
Telling them apart was a matter of luck.
The only exception were the Runes. Even Clan Brightwill, it seemed, could not stop the aristry of a Runesmith.
There was something comforting in that.
Still, he felt a weight fall from his shoulders as he saw the opening to the gorge that Gnolbaraz was so scared of, and the shimmering, twinkling white light that emanated from it. Soft but pure, for now, and magic...how much could magic trusted to remain as such? "Master Kazarsson, through there."
"Thank you."
And then mustering up his courage, he approached.
The first thing he felt was judged, as he approached the light. As though it was prodding at him, and he found he rather disliked the sensation. His beard twitched a bit, and then the magic subsided.
Some, anyway.
He was no master Snorri yet, after all.
Privately he doubted that Master Snorri, outside of his panoply, would manage to smother the quickly growing light that Nain followed down to its source. The cave walls were all smooth, bright white, except where cave plants--creeping vines in fractal patterns from the largest to the smallest, and white flowers with geometric patterns in mathematically perfect precision-- covered them, Nain resolutely ignoring them all the while.
It would take a bit more than some fancy flowers to press on his mind.
For seconds that were hours or hours that were seconds he walked, unafraid, into the constantly stronger light. What had begun as a soft, twinkling blanket wrapped around the shadows of the world rapidly became a bright, uncompromising, hand wrapped around the world, like a second sun set in the midst of the cavern, revealing every nook and cranny. Oddly though, it caused no discomfort, a light without heat or glare. It simply was, and that was enough.
And then he entered the cavern.
Laced throughout the walls was some sort of crystal, shining and blinding and brilliant and with an inner light. One unfading, that does not dim. The veins themselves are in geometrically, mathematically, aesthetically pleasing patterns that flow from top to bottom. He could trace some of them for hours with his eyes, following the intricacies, the patterns, the oddities for as long as they could go.
Then screaming wisdom from Master Snorri enters his brain and he breaks that particular train of thought. There aren't nearly enough beaks, horns, toads, snakes or associated beasts depicted to be the enemy as he knows them, but best not to take any chances.
Rather instead he leans down, the better to examine it.
"Gnolbaraz, what have you shown me now?"
