Solemn Soldier of Stone
Tink.
A flake of dust falls from the block of hard granite, landing gently at his feet even as his apprentices race about, making sure all his tools are in place, getting the furnace ready, getting the steel set, getting the wutroth placed even as he dances about the most expensive part, the stone itself.
Everything he could need.
Everything.
Tink tink.
Less and more than the other project. Hurgar created that in response to the Fimir as much as anything else. This, this he does proactively. This he does to ensure the Hold is stronger when he exits than it was when he entered. A gift to those who will follow behind him, a gift to kith and kin, a gift to the world, something that can fight the monsters at the door.
Tink tink tink.
He hasn't the wealth to clad the thing in Gromril, as Klausson has for his Maiden--indeed, he hasn't the wealth to make any part of Gromril.
But that is alright. He's above such cheap, material needs.
He can Rune better than that.
The image of a Dwarf thane takes shape, his body rough and covered in a layer of steel armor, at least until he can create something better. If that makes him a dibna, so be it.
Tink tink tink tink.
And finally, the form is done. And from form, to function. The Runes.
"Get out, Apprentices." And well taught they do, as his chisel bites through stone and leaves its mark, tracing a geometric pattern as he chants in this dark, bleak cavern. Not the Master Rune of Waking, not yet anyway, though the Hearthstone that will give it life and motion does wait in the chest by his feet on the scaffolding, waiting.
No, not that, not yet. Instead he carves a perennial favorite: The Rune of Fury, a soft orange glow in the hard, angular lines as power flows to it from the earth itself. Usually one would place it on weapons, one would place it on banners. But not him, not today, and for cause and with reason. Cause and understanding that will come soon enough, but first he must make the Rune work, that first and foremost.
Grimnirzan would be excellent. But he has something else in mind: Griffon Brain, slowly shoveled into position. There is a distinct smell of winter wind and the distinct tang of blood on the air as he does, the distinct smell of battle, of the hunt.
There is a flash and it comes to life, pulsing, almost confused itself.
He will offer comprehension.
Next, the Rune of Berserk. Fury, anger, rage, what rage is worse than the rage of a troll? And so into the thing's marks he pours and pours and pours a keg of Stone Troll's Blood, nearly as tall as he is, belching fire and sulfur and worse as the wretched power is forced into coherence until there is a slight bang.
When his ears stop ringing he starts carving the Master Rune.
And carves.
And carves.
And carves some more, chanting all the while.
Until at last it bursts into great orange life, and he knows he has mere moments to stabilize it: but mere moments are all he will need, mere moments are all he's ever needed as, with ample time he thrusts the Hearthstone into it, fire, fire, fire coming from it until the Rune starts to beat like a heart enraged as it is socketed into the creation.
As it comes not merely to the heartless life that so many of these creations are, but to something more...primal. His creation will have more personality than anything Klausson or his band slops out, that much is for sure.
There's anger in the thing's hands, almost twitching, as the three meters of stone seems to long for battle.
"Soon enough you'll have your fight, lad, just let me get you armed for it."
It looks at him, he swears, under the simple steel armor, under the layers of maille and the horned helm. And then with a nearly surly look it turns back to stillness.
Perhaps too much personality?
--
The furnace roars, its heat draconic or near enough. First one ax, then the other to have done. He pounds the shiny steel, pounds and pounds and pounds, until all at once it finally takes its shape, reminicesnt of a roaring elder, and nodding, he plants it on the wutroth. It sizzles but he does not care, for his chisel already strikes the hot metal, already strikes the burning steel, already strikes the screaming blade. Hot sparks from the hot edge, but he cares not, his body inured.
Even if it is an ax sized for a giant, it is still an ax and he refuses to be bested by a tool.
The Rune of Hunting, the work of days. It is a thing that will make the weapon agile, manuverable, handlable. A Griffon Brain, a White Lion Heart, Grimnirzan, all of them simple enough. Too simple. Instead he takes the bowl of Dragon Ogre's Blood and slowly pours it in, a deep hum filling the air. They were large bastards they were, but some of the more able warriors in the Great Incursion according to his kin, and so he seeks to imbue his creation with some of that ability and spite and rage.
The Rune of Battle comes next. He grinds the Griffin Feather in carefully, slowly, over days, feeding it and feeding it to the creation until with a pop it is complete.
The Master Rune of Grimnir takes more time. It rages, it rages and desires, desires and rages, bucking against his will. The chants combine with the hot roar, the heat, the power, the orange glow like something called up from the very center of the earth until it is physically shaped and then, at the peak of the roar of the fire, he tips in the decanter of Grimnirzan.
There is a woosh that knocks him to the ground with quite a bang. He feels the stone of his creation help get him back to his feet, and eventually the world stops being a big red spot and becomes the world again...with the ax complete.
The ax is a thing to for skillful slaying, for the destruction of the able.
He can almost feel his creation straining, so he sighs and with a tone similar to his students he tells the thing, "go ahead, grab it."
Slowly, carefully, it does.
Even as he begins work on the next.
--
There be trolls in the mountains.
Trolls he loathes.
And this ax reflects his loathing. A head of steel, a of haft troll bone scrimshawed with the hunt for the bastard creature, and for decoration a troll horn buttspike scrimshawed with runes of insult and loathing. Simple, direct, lethal, threatening.
His master's rival, killing the trolls so bad they fear him, when by rights they should be too stupid? A part of him, the most honest part, that he must acknowledge, is impressive.
But that is more than enough wool-gathering.
He has an ax to Rune.
He strikes it with quite a thud, the first of the marks to come, and with it the beginning of the Rune of Trollslaying. The bone lets out a groan like a troll's death rattle, obstinate, stupid, stubborn, but he is more than stubborn, he is unyielding as he carves and carves and carves yet more, until there is an orange flash. He grabs the powdered Moraidyr, and with little fanfare pours it the powder stuff into the carving, the orange flashing purple for a moment until it returns to that orange. Creatures so linked to death that even the healing of trolls will not surpass it.
He strikes the bone once more, heat, light, power fills the air, as he imposes order on a world that denies it, carving the next Rune on the haft: the Rune of Obligation. A Rune of kingly dignity, a Rune of contempt for the creatures of Chaos. The filthy creatures serve Chaos, and the filthy Dumi drag trolls with them wherever they go, and so together the Rune shall allow his creation to turn both monster and master into fillets. He pours Oathgold, good oathgold, into the haft and watches the flakes of yellow melt into the white bone, as Grungni Himself redoubts the ax against the creatures of Chaos, Troll...or otherwise.
And last but not least, the Master Rune of Trollslaying: Because if it's worth doing, it's worth doing right. The blows are slow, carved into the steel of the head for the steel shall maintain them best but maintain them it shall, looping and whorling until all at once there is a soft hiss as power is demanded and so power he supplies: The heart of a dragon, a young beast that had threatened Ornsmotek beyond all reason, a heart that had dueled with and hated trolls. The fire that surrounds that head will burn bright indeed.
To kill trolls, and the lesser warriors of Chaos. Simple, brutal, blunt like rock to the head, and like a rock to the head very effective assuming violence is your desire.
Finally, to the third.
A hammer, a mighty hammer awaits, a hammer to break things, a hammer to break the foe, a hammer to break the enemy.
--
It shall be the best of work. A haft of wutroth, stained a dark, ale brown. A cap of gold at the bottom and at the top, where the head and handle shall slide together. The hammer's head is that of a sledgehammer, the steel blued to protect it from rust and decline. In the center, in bronze, the face of mighty Smednir, simplified and yet apparent, calm, at peace, in repose and yet only just waiting to bring doom. Prescisely every twelve inches a bright orange jewel, topaz, citrine, zircon and more, twinkle like fire.
And burned into that mighty, twin-handed hammer, so large no dwarf could lift it, the Runes of Power, the Runes of Might.
The Master Rune of Smednir twinkles with bright contempt, an orange flare mighty in it, a deep contempt. He had fed it the blood of the same dragon that had provided the heart, and there was fire in that blood, fire to burn the world, fire to set the forge alight, fire to make his blows terrible.
The Rune of Thungni, the Rune Lord, the Ancestor. This was not to be the most expensive of projects...but for this one part he had shattered obsidian and given it, happily, to the thing even as it greedily and greedily and greedily ate. The craftsmanship, and the judgement, are bitterer now than they already were under Smednir and that is a bitter judgement indeed.
And last, contemptuous, the Rune of Spellburning. Magic bound into steel would break surely, spells burned away, all magic at the Gronti's--and by extension, his--sufferance. The Dragon's Lung gives it fire bright and hot.
Spell and steel alike not to the standard of Thungni and Smednir would shatter, break, fizzle and fail against the Gronti's rage. Against his rage.
The axes were done. The weapons were ready. One last thing, one last work.
He ignores the Gronti as it grips the weapons at his command, but much the more promptly than he had expected.
One last set of Runes.
--
The Gromril is not purified, he hasn't the time nor the money for it, not right now anyway. He could replace it at it some point for something better, he's certainly done worse.
But it is...Gromril. And that grants it a certain base of quality.
The armor itself is fairly simple. A base helm, maille dangling from it, not unlike what he'd place on a client though much, much thicker. The gray-silver of the metal is contrasted with good bronze, layered over the browridge and the cheekpieces, decorated with the Clan's heraldry and the Gromril carved with images of Dwarf history. Splints, dotted with semi-precious stones sewn on a layer of troll-skin, protect the forearms and the calfs, and while made with craftsmanship there is precious little decoration aside from that.
The decoration shall be foe-blood...foe-blood and the burning of Runes.
The Gronti can be sacrificed in a way he would never sacrifice a dwarf, but that doesn't mean he intends to slop it out.
At worst it means he shall be bleakly practical, and he planned that from the start. And so with a harsh tink his chisel bites through the Gromril.
--
The Rune of Stone. The first Rune. It flickers orange like a fire place; he is able enough that he could finish it without a reagent.
He could.
He isn't going to. Instead he grinds the Troll Heart into it, the source of the thing's endurance, the source of the thing's cursed willingness to survive, its durability.
He has not named the Gronti yet, but he knows its purpose as well as he knows anything else. Inexpensive (Never cheap), certainly by comparison to the other option of dead Dwarfs, it shall seek and destroy enemy heroes: less than the true champion, the Exalted Daemons, the accursed, but more than common creatures, and the monstrous alike: Trolls, Heralds, Bestigors and more at a decisive advantage. The weapons to kill them, the skill to outmatch them and the armor to outlast them.
And so to that end he starts striking the next Rune.
--
The Rune of Iron. A simple Rune, protective and enduring. He chants and chants and chants more as he carves it, grinding the Mammoth Tusk in as he does, to convey their unyielding strength to the Gronti, to the wearer, to make the three meters of rock as strong and enduring as the Mammoths themselves.
There is a hiss and he smiles beside himself.
Well. Maybe a little Pure Gromril.
--
The Master Rune of Gromril gleams like orange metal and yet, with not so much as an ounce of hesitation he finishes the Rune, pouring the bubbling Pure Gromril into it over seven moments precisely counted--six-hundred-and-thirty seconds on the dot--and there is a sound like iron on the anvil as it finishes.
He smiles even as he falls to his knees, the amulets and talismans of endurance flaring.
He will be fine.
And Foe-Hunter, Foe-Hunter shall be armed.
The moment passes and he stands again and sees, armor inviolate to any threat.
And smiles a spiteful thing.
