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Rhunrikki Strollar (Warhammer Fantasy Dwarf Runelord Quest)
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You play as a Snorri Klausson, Runelord of Kraka Drakk, in the earliest days of the Karaz Ankor, and through the Highs and Lows of the Canonical Golden Age.
Rurduat Stonecrag gazed at the polished granite wall among the halls of his clan. His face gazed back from the mirror finish, sharp eyes and well-kempt white beard, wrinkles crinkling around his eyes, in memory of the centuries filled with laughter and joy. Glancing down, he saw his calloused hands clenched into fists looking more like the knots in a tree worn by time and stone, work and steel, battle and wood. With a steady breath, the tension he was barely aware of released, and with it, his hands relaxed. Bending down, Rurduat Stonecrag could feel his back tense and tear with pain, not yet healed from the injuries. But… there was work to be done, and so he grabbed his hammer and chisel and struck the wall. With each strike of the hammer to chisel, came the memories.
He was in his workshop, working on the sketches for a commission from Clan Onyxseeker when the first alarms were raised. The storm which had been gathering on the horizon had finally come, and with fury and rage it attempted to strike down Kraka Drakk. Beastmen flowed like a river of pungent mud into the killing zone, and died before they could reach the walls. Bolts and boulders poured into the killing area, and the mighty runic arrays buried in the earth had been turned on, turning the valley into more of a swamp than anything resembling the tundra it was supposed to be. But as he volunteered to move ammunition to the artillery pieces, Rurduat Stonecrag could see that it would not be enough. The stench of iron was overpowering as blood became more common than water, seeping into the ground and tinting it a dark red, what little of the ground could be seen over the carpet of the dead.
Then the daemons came, howling from the north and streaming in, first in strands as thin as a spider web, but then in ever greater numbers until it seemed like the cords of some large rope. Pungent abominations, gleeful dancers, twisted sorcerers, and frothing berserkers all came and many died. But not enough, never enough. Soon enough the fields of the dead started to be burned so that more daemons and beastmen could attempt to breakdown the wall. Eventually, he got used to the hideous smell as it wafted around the battlefield. For years this went on, a steady pattern of death, like the drumming of a particularly insane percussionist. But it couldn't stay the same, and in the face of a perpetual storm, even the strongest mountain might be forced to shed a layer of stone. While he didn't see the first wall of Kraka Drakk fall, he could feel it, the shuttering of the earth as a part of the mountain crumbled and fell before the storm hammering at it. And as the alarms of a staggered retreat sounded, Rurduat Stonecrag felt a seed of something he had not felt in almost half a millennia. Fear.
By the time the second wall had fallen, a perverted sense of normality had befallen the hold. For almost a decade they had been under-siege, their stores of food carefully rationed to prolong the foods that could not be grown internally. He had even met some of the babes of the clan, in his pitifully few off-hours, that had not known anything else but this endless storm, who believed that this was truly all there was in the world and all that would be. It was grim to see such despondency in those who knew nothing else but this endless battle, but those few children gave another reason to fight all the harder, to ensure that at some point the youngest of them would be able to see sun and moon instead of an eternal storm. It made the stench and exhaustion of battle more bearable, as he hardened his resolve to endure all that the world could throw at him.
And as he gazed at the sky before delivering another cartload of ammunition, he saw that those honored by the Ancestors struggled just as hard. Hordes of the daemonic swirled in the air above them, striking and being struck down in turn by their allies of the Sky. Griffins dove amongst the lightning, rain, and hail tearing out hearts only to screech in pain as monsters raked them with claws and attempted to pierce their wings. Bolt throwers that could be spared from holding back the tide arrayed upon the earth turned their efforts skyward and pierced the vaults of the heaven, bringing death to those that flew above. But it was not enough, it was never enough, as one by one the mighty griffins who ruled the sky fell against the eternal storm.
With each step with the cart, Rurduat Stonecrag smothered the fear that was attempting to blossom in his heart. Fear now would be the ruin of Kraka Drakk, paralyze them into inaction and make them prey to the darkness the world bred. All they must do is to hold until the storm broke, for the Dwarfs were of the mountains and no mountain bowed before a storm, no matter how fierce.
Rurduat Stonecrag didn't hear or even feel the fall of the third wall, but he heard the tales of the Adamant Wyrm and how he held the breach long enough for a proper retreat to the fourth wall. No, he was in the Underway, fighting with the Cavernlord. It was a shame that he had not held an axe since the days of his youth, for all who could had been called to hold the battle lines. The youngsters were charged with porting ammunition to the quarrelers and the artillery now, and everyone who had ever held an axe was charged with the defense of the hold. In the times of clarity between battles, he did take time to admire the axe. It was shining brightly with runes and was perfectly balanced in his hands, it was unfortunate that he… couldn't quite remember at the moment who had made it for him. Remembering things down here was getting more and more difficult for him, there was only battles, the haze where he wasn't killing something in between them, and sparks of clarity. Had he already thanked the runesmith for the axe? Or had he grabbed the axe from a fallen friend to behead the next daemon in the fight? He… couldn't remember, but as he heard the trumpet to prepare for another wave he smiled. The Cavernlord had never lead them wrong yet, there were more daemons to slay. Gripping his axe and gathering his shield, Rurduat Stonecrag marched to the lines of battle, to rage at and slay that who dared to destroy his home.
With the final careful strike, Rurduat Stonecrag finished his work. Years of work on this one hall, carving it into a mural which would allow him, and others, to remember the Great Siege of Kraka Drakk. He had mourned and grieved during those years, but he had kept working. He had raged at the world and drunk himself into a stupor more than once during the years, but every morning he would raise himself up and begin work again. He had prayed and dedicated time to the ancestors to give those who had fallen respite and peace in the eternal halls of Gazul, and yet still he had worked on the wall.
It was a fine mural, dedicated to those who had fallen amongst his clan during the Great Siege, possibly the finest he had ever made. Starting on the left side of the hallway, it depicted the gathering storm, and the preparations both over and under Kraka Drakk. And as one walked right, it depicted the stages of the siege, of the flowing underground battle, reminiscent of the tides of the ocean, paralleled by the mighty stand above ground, of both Griffin and Dwarf, reminiscent of the eternally enduring mountains. Finally, as one reached the end of the hallway, engraved for all to remember, was the slaying of the Suneater by Otrek Ironarm, the Adamant Wyrm, and the arrival of Grimnir who drove the storm away and let the sun shine once again upon Kraka Drakk.
Beneath it all was the names of his clansmen who had died, engraved in the order of their death. First was Sardod Stonecrag, who fell in defense of the first wall giving his life so that reinforcements had time to shore up that section of the wall. Sardod Stonecrag was not the last name of the list, and as Rurduat Stonecrag brushed his hand over each name of the fallen, he remembered their faces, works, and tales of how they died. With each name, a tear fell onto his beard, but with the last name, he knelt and wept for what could have been. Trikog Stonecrag, his great-great-grandchild. He was not even twenty years old when he had fallen, a falling monster from the sky crushing him as he was pulling ammunition to the artillery. The very same day that the King of the Sky returned, the Suneater was killed, and Grimnir drove the hordes away. He had been born after the storm had come, and he had died before he had ever felt the sun on his face, or had drunk alcohol under the moonlight. Trikog Stonecrag wanted to be a stone carver like his great-great-grandfather, and he remembered giving the babe some of his older tools to play with. But now, none of it mattered. All that remained were memories and all that could be given was a restful peace knowing that Kraka Drakk still stood. That the sacrifices were not in vain and the mountain still stood.
A/N: Well, the muse spoke and so I wrote. I hope you find this other perspective of the Siege from an old craftsman to be an enjoyable read. Also, @soulcake another make for the omake throne.
The door whispered open as Stonebeard crept into his home. As quietly as he could he closed the door behind him. He didn't know if Frega was up but it was better safe than sorry. She needed all the rest she could get. Rolling his shoulders he shed his light cloak and hung it on its hook. Water dripped and formed a puddle. Stonebeard paused and squinted at the puddle. At just the right angle the torch light around him made the puddle sparkle. Sparkle like stars. Only Frega calling out to him pulled him away from the puddle.
"Dearest? Are you there? I am going to warm up some soup. Do you want any?"
"Yes Dear. That would warm me right up."
"Alright, I will be by the fire."
With smooth movements Stonebeard pulled off his boots and padded over to his wife. She was resting in by the fire in her chair, one hand absently caressing her stomach. With a soft grunt Stonebeard sat down in his chair and took the offered bowl of soup. They stayed like that for a short time. Enjoying the warm soup and the crackle and pop of the fire.
"I didn't wake you up did I?" Stonebeard asked, "I tried to be as quiet as I could."
Frega waved away his concern. "I was already up. Your daughter has quite a pair of legs on her."
Stonebeard smiled, "Don't forget, you'll owe me two bowls of mushroom and goat soup if he's a boy."
Frega laughed softly, "I'll remember." She looked back into the fire. "How was today?" She asked, her voice quiet and hesitant.
Stonebeard shrugged. "Better than most days. A couple of demons mindless attacked and word from the thanes is that they are expecting another big attack in a couple of days so everyone is gearing up for that."
Frega went silent at that. The two of them enjoyed some of the warm soup and the crackle and pop of the fire. Eventually Frega spoke again. "Any word?" She asked. It was the same question she asked every night. Every night for the last two decades.
Stonebeard stared into the fire. It was dying down. "No." He said. "No word."
Again they descended into a comfortable quietness. The fire was just embers now as they finished their soup. With a satisfied sigh Stonebeard set his bowl aside. Then he rested his hands in his hands and looked back to the fire. Dull embers burned inside the fireplace. The light casted from them extended shadows. Then he spoke.
"It's getting harder." Frega stilled beside him. "Each battle," he continued, "there are less dwarfs. More demons. I don't know when it will end. If it will end. Just moments ago I stared into a puddle of rainwater that reflected torch light like stars. I used to take stars for granted but now…" He sighed. "Will our child ever get to see stars?"
Frega reached over and gripped his hand. "I pray every day," she said, "to Grungi, Valaya, and Griminr that this test ends. Until that day we must endure. For your daughter."
Stonebeard stared into his wife's brilliant eyes. An unborn tear glistened there. "Of course dear. I was being silly. We will endure as Grungi taught as. As the mountains do." He lifted his hand to her face. His calloused thumb brushed aside her unshed tear. Frega sighed and leaned into his hand. They stayed together like that for a time.
Rough knocking at the door interrupted the moment. With a grumble Stonebeard got up and gave a quick kiss to Frega.
"I am coming, I am coming."
When he opened the door a panting beardling was standing there.
"I am very sorry to knock on your door at this hour, honored Elder," said the beardling. "But I have been instructed to inform you that a clan wide meeting has been called. The meeting is taking place at Elder Stonefoot's house."
"When is the meeting taking place?" Stonebeard asked, knowing and dreading the answer.
"Now, honored Elder." The beardling replied.
"Very well, go on your way then." Stonebeard grunted out.
The beardling nodded his thanks and hurried off to the next house. Stonebeard turned around and stomped back into his house. Frega was standing by the entrance to the kitchen.
"Is something wrong?"
"A clan meeting. I don't know what it's about. You should get some rest though. I don't know how long this will take."
Frega nodded and retreated further into the house. Stonebeard grabbed a pair of boots, almost grabbing the wet ones, and made his way to Elder Stonefoot's house.
The clan head's house was the perfect meeting place. Large and spacious with plenty of light rooms carved into tasteful nooks and crannies. A large table that could sit each head of house as well as the food they often ate. Such meetings used to take place at most every three months. They would be scheduled well in advance and everyone would know the topic. With the coming of disasters the meetings had changed. Grim news and dire signs came almost every day and it was a rare week that less than three meetings were called to discuss the latest disaster and how it affected the clan. At the head of the table sat Elder Stonefoot. He puffed on a small pipe and the smoke from it drifted lazily away. Even as Stonebeard pulled up his seat Elder Stonefoot's daughter was feeding wood to the fireplace getting it to a roaring heat. The news must be quite fresh if Elder Stonefoot wasn't prepared yet. When the chairs had been filled Elder Stonefoot broke the gentle murmings filling the hall.
"We have news from Kraka Drakk."
Silence descended on the hall. Stonebeard closed his eyes. This was it. For two decades the center of the north had been cut off with Frega's brother. This was the expected bitter news.
"It stands." Elder Stonefoot continued.
Stonebeard's eyes snapped open. All around him he could see the relief on the craggy faces of his clan.
"Even as the Valiant cleared away the demons sieging Kraka Drakk from the underway the hold's throng sallied out and drove away the demon hoard that had been besieging them." Now the silence in the hall was one of stunned disbelief. Elder Stonefoot continued seeming to care little about the magnitude of the news he was sharing. "King Otrek Ironarm held the fourth wall of Kraka Drakk and in a pitched battle slew Kholek Suneater Ruiner of the North."
Excited murmuring filled the grand hall. Everyone could feel it. A great blow for dwarf kind had been struck. Like an ax blow making a flooding river pause. It wouldn't stop the horrors. But this. This was proof that hope was not lost.
Elder Stonefoot continued, "I know that many of you have family living in Kraka Drakk." Stonebeard could almost believe that Elder Stonefoot had glanced in his direction. "While there is little we can spare from the defense of our hold I hope that there is something that we can do for our families living in the north. This meeting is to discuss what can be spared and how to arrange its travel north."
The rest of the meeting moved quickly. Each head of family gave an account of what they believed could be spared. Grain was promised, as well as kegs of ale. It was a meager, but heartfelt, amount. Elder Stonefoot called the meeting to a close with a declaration that he would work with other clan heads to create a caravan strong enough to brave the underway. With that everyone hurried home to share the news.
Stonebeard, for the second time, opened the door as softly as he could. Just in case his wife had gone to sleep. She hadn't. He could see her shadow from the fire that she had kindled back to a roar.
"Frega dearest," he said, as he sat next to her, "I have news."
A small token of my appreciation for your work and the inspiration it invoked in me.
Major thanks to @BungieONI for betaing it and helping me fix up the grammatical errors.
The March of Grimnir
The sky was alive.
Such a statement could be attributed to primitive superstition or fever dreams most of the time, but the current circumstances were such that it was the only way to describe what was occurring in the air and heavens.
The wind swirled like the breath of a being of unfathomable size. The stench of nameless incense and iron ichor, sickeningly perfect perfumes and overripe rotting flesh was carried in it. The horizon shifted in one's vision into a myriad of forms while the clouds and stars shaped themselves as leering faces and grasping claws. The sound of the breeze was a growl that was a chortle that was a purr that was a hiss.
When lightning tore across the sky, it left behind fissures carved into the vast expanse like jagged blades cutting open skin. Fungi and moldy growths sprouted where it impacted, or fountains of blood that seemed to channel from some underground reservoir that any excavation would reveal had not been there prior to the strike.
Other times sparks and fire burst where it struck, only for the embers to devour a blob of air and ground as fuel for their flames, and float away in the breeze, their crackling fire more akin to cackling. And then there was the fulgurite, the merger of ground and lightning, soil and dirt and stone shaped like living creatures contorted in expressions of raw emotion and passion so evocative, so lifelike, it caused the heart to skip a beat.
Into this hell, just slightly more eye-catching than the impossible sky that rebelled against his presence, the ground that trembled and twisted at his step, a Dwarf marched.
He did not march unhindered. From all directions, yet principally from the north, hordes of monsters and daemons and things hurled themselves at him.
Horns and claws and extended twitching tongues, eyes of every color that were windows into madness, their forms twitching and undulating with more hues than could be comprehended. A sea of madness that howled and roared, spitting in tongues not meant for mortal minds, a wave of sound fit to drive the world to despair and insanity, bearing weapons natural and not, some bone, some metal, some appendages or moldings sprung from their very flesh. A foul ocean formed of the droplets of something or somethings infinitely larger and incomprehensibly wrong. Anywhere that was sane would have cried out and resisted their existence, yet this slice of hell carved into reality was heaven to them.
And they were dying.
His pace was relatively slow and unrelenting, yet the air around him blurred with the force of his strikes. Where his axes struck, flesh and metal were unmade, turned into so much debris by the sheer force of the destruction that scythed through the masses like a volley of bolts and sling stones. The god-forged blades cut through hell-forged armor as though it were paper-thin, the cleaving blows knocking around the fortunate ones; those not so lucky were drawn into the vortex and rent asunder. In those moments where the Dwarf braced his feet against the ground to put effort behind his blows, it cracked and ruptured from his exertions.
Not all simply died. Whether by dint of numbers, unnatural resilience, superior skill than their fellows or sheer size, some managed to slash and stab and hack at him. Or perhaps it was by design.
The Dwarf's style lacked elegance, there was nothing graceful about it. But there was precision, an efficacy that was marvelous in its own way. He observed the battlefield with supernal five senses and likely more, embedding it all into his mind in a million sequential moments of frozen time that saw his enemies analyzed in ability and position, and carried out his next move accordingly.
Those with the skill to weather the initial onslaught that was his presence stumbled into the next strike.
The faster ones who sought to take his blind spot found themselves sliced apart from his backswing, seemingly without his notice.
The most resilient of the horde were hit as much by their own so-called allies as they were by the Dwarf, or served as bulwarks against the wave of enemies long enough to be obliterated by a spinning whirlwind or split in two under downward cuts that split the earth apart and blew those around back.
Grungni and Smednir applied their hands to the rock and metal of the earth in just the right manner as to shape it to their desires.
Grimnir applied himself to the battlefield in just the right manner and shaped it to his desire. The battleground was his forge, himself the hammer and chisel, and the battle itself the iron to be melded by his design.
Enemies came from the skies as well. Wretched furies and harpies and crossbreeds of the two circled like vultures, spiteful, weak creatures glutted on the magic in the air this far north. But they ever sought more. Chimerae and Manticores that would have otherwise challenged them flying in the same airspace were more focused on the raging bright souls far below, and leprous flies as large as oxen buzzed near manta rays soaring on arcane winds, their mutual hatred of each other's patron put aside.
The otherwise dazzling aerial spectacle, for all the violence and terror it represented, was being torn apart. But it was not the work of Grimnir that was responsible. Fireballs burst into existence, vaporizing the lucky, the less fortunate fell from the sky blackened as coal. Holes appeared in the larger monstrosities followed almost immediately by the thunderclap, other times by flashes of light as sun rays fried swathes of winged daemon-things and bored instantly cauterized holes through the larger beasts. Lightning came not from the sky, but the ground, crisscrossing through the air as it leapt from entity to entity.
The source of this destructive barrage was a great thing of silvery metal, covered in artfully arranged tubes and protrusions. Great treads rumbled at its sides and base, and smoke and ash roared out from funnels in great clouds that scorched the unwary and incinerated the foolish who dared to approach. It was brutish elegance and masterful craftsmanship incarnate into a machine fit to tread over all in its path. Drengi, the greatest work of the greatest engineer.
Not all the combat was blade-work. Illusions and curses rained upon the Ancestor God, magical attempts to dull his senses, loosen his muscles and confuse his sight. He squinted and with a flex shattered the enchantments. Globs of rancid mucus and fetid gas sought to strip the flesh from his bones and suffocate him. He swung his axes with purpose and redirected it into those nearby. Crackling prismatic bolts and fireballs met upraised arms, and where steel would have twisted into abominations of flesh and metal and stone would have been set aflame, there was nothing.
Indirect methods of magical use were no more successful. Rusted blades gangrenous and covered in necrotic pus glowed a noxious emerald as the contagions they were doused in were amplified, while others shimmered unnaturally as every swing deposited specks of gold dust or glowed so hot steam rose from the metal as if just out of the forge. It meant nothing when they could never hit their opponent. They were dead before they could try, their strikes dodged or deflected by offhand blows that more often than not cracked and shattered their sorcery empowered weapons.
Buboes and pustules erupted across many a daemon. In small showers of gore swarms of flies burst out to obscure his eyes with their bodies and his ears with their buzzing, too weak to pierce his skin with their claws and teeth. He didn't need either sense, he could smell their hosts and had already predicted what they would do.
Thread gold scale-plate from some abominable reptile wove itself across even more abominable forms. Muscles twisted and contorted as they swelled with unnatural strength to the point of bursting. Minds were forcefully absolved of reason and logic and replaced with the savage desire to kill and maim.
Grimnir's axes treated all equally, small or large, weak or powerful. Mystical protections came undone like wind splitting against a mountain, muscles that could have swallowed a hundred knife wounds in their constantly swelling slabs eviscerated in showers of blood.
Now the Dwarf turned his scowl upon one group of spellcasters and tightened his glare. Their next spells faltered as distance seemed to shrink, that bearded visage of pure wrath filling their vision, the sheer spite and contempt for their arcane work seared into what passed for their minds. Gathering energy was twisted, misaligned under their loss of focus, and burst apart into vortices of ectoplasm and warp lightning with thunderous cracks, obliterating all in their vicinity.
For a heartbeat the battlefield seemed to still, the circle around Grimnir remaining empty rather than immediately filling with new contenders. The daemons that wielded magic were hesitant to catch his attention, while the rest paused at the sheer unexpectedness that came from being attacked in such a way.
Then the Ancestor snorted and took a step forward.
---
The battlefield was covered in rents and cracks, craters and scorched earth. There were no corpses, no blood. Thunder roared in the distance, the fell voices in the air aware of the intruder in ways they had not been before. Awful mirth was heavy in the breeze. Grimnir continued his march north, the rumble of Morgrim's treaded behemoth the only indication he was not alone.
With that, the first fight in the Northern Wastes was concluded.
The next bands were the foolish and the desperate. Greedy specks seeking to gorge themselves on a bountiful morsel all alone, a prize usually reserved for the greatest among them. Clouds of furies descended in sky-darkening swarms, the bitter, hateful things pushing and clawing their way through each other in their eagerness to reach the Ancestor Gods.
Great swathes of the spiteful winged daemons were obliterated, blasted from the sky by Drengi. Those rare few of the downpour who outpaced the Ancestor God of Engineers in destructive output falling to his father's axes.
No evil raindrops could wear away a mountain.
Even the most stringent writers, the authors most frugal with words, could fill whole books on the enemies defeated in the march north. After the first warbands were slaughtered, word spread on fell winds of something the Daemons had not experienced in their long war on Mallus: invasion. They came in their hundreds and thousands, intermittently, led by Greater Daemons of the four. They competed with both their rivals aligned to other gods and their own kin serving the same dread deity. The fastest arrived first.
Gankhgrokha, Bloodthirster of the Sixth Circle, eschewed flight in favor of riding an enormous brass and bone throne on iron wheels, built up over eons with the bones of his enemies and blazing fire in its wake that accelerated it and gave singularly mighty bursts just before impact.
Adorned upon his mount was a massive totem taller than the Greater Daemon, shaped in the form of Khorne's rune. Yet despite what should have been an awkward encumbrance the chariot moved like it didn't exist. In his wake was a land armada of scaled Bloodletters riding atop metallic daemon-rhinos known as Juggernauts and ebony chariots driven by carmine Gorebeasts, a dusty cloud tinged crimson and black rising as they passed.
Morgrim and Grimnir met their charge head on, Drengi colliding with and through Gankhgrokha's mount with a thunderous collision as Grimnir leapt forward, axes swinging through the daemon's guard and neck. He landed behind the broken Blood Throne, swinging out an arm to latch onto Morgrim's swiftly approaching vehicle, broken pieces of hellish brass fading where they lay as scattered debris on Pure Gromril hull. Around them was the chaos of daemonic cavalry thrown into confusion and a moment of uncertainty. The Bloodthirster's head finally hit the ground, frozen in a rictus of rage and bewilderment. The rest of the riders were cut down with axe and fiery, scorching energy.
Rooglababha the Hive Queen led an aerial assault, a Rotfly Queen with gargantuan wings that caused the very air to shudder as they buzzed too fast for most eyes to see served as the pestilent matron's mount. Two Rotfly Queens were insensate save for their buzzing wings, towed by strands of slime-drenched intestines while all three birthed swarms of drones, burrowing as maggots straight out of their flesh.
While some fell to the earth far below as piles of slime and bone that rose uncaring of the deformities of impact, most were fully formed drones that flew immediately into battle. They were not a huge swarm at first, and individually were no match for the father and son pair of Ancestor Gods, but the breeders expelled more drones and Beasts of Nurgle by the minute, supported and augmented by the pungent and toxic magics of the Great Unclean One and her Herald attendants.
Morasses of filth rained from the sky, uncaring of what it hit, for life begat life under the aegis of Grandfather Nurgle. Pincers, claws and stingers already vile and filled with lethal payloads increased in toxicity while flesh torn apart caked itself back together with violent, bloody motions, while the less sturdy maggot-things on the ground grew bulky with leathery flesh covered in sores and lesions as ghastly fumes turned their eyewatering odor to something physically painful to experience. It did not save them from being carved apart by the axes of Grimnir, run over and splattered into piles of gore by Drengi, or blasted into pieces by the weapons of Morgrim.
But it did take a little bit longer.
Worse still, the daemonflies of Nurgle attended Rooglababha in droves. These did not bother trying to attack the Dwarves. Instead, every daemon that was killed had its essence drained by a fly with humanoid features, which they carried back to the source, the breeder drones. With these infusions marked by pulsing yellow bands of energy across their insectile forms, every new batch was greater in some way. Poisons were that much deadlier, hides crusted with exoskeletons pushed out from under their skin and still wet with gore, wounds were scabbed over by moldy growths without sorcerous aid and stomachs churned up warp-bile that could melt flesh.
It was a war of attrition, one that favored Nurgle's children. As nurglings began to wriggle from the bloody mulch that was once the shells of slain drones and beasts, Grimnir determined a new course of action. Drengi had scored a near mortal wound to one of the breeders near the start of the combat, but it had been swiftly healed and Rooglababha had taken herself and her attendants higher and, more importantly, directly over them. Those instruments of destruction Drengi possessed capable of hitting targets straight above at that height lacked the killing power to get through the swarms of drones that gladly sacrificed themselves as living shields.
Drengi weighed more than a calcified Elder Stonehorn, more than a Bull Mammoth. That did not stop Grimnir reaching down, taking hold of one tread and heaving it slowly but surely onto its side, muscles bulging and straining. With a flash, its greatest weapons fired, blasting holes in the sky as the swarm of drones and flies was pierced and the queens blown away, the air visibly lightening in its coloration and odor.
Lascelississazata led a dancing coterie of Slaanesh's handmaidens and Heralds riding the Prince of Pleasure's steeds or driving a horde of chariots, relying on lightning fast hit and run attacks as illusionary copies of the daemons leapt about. Grimnir ignored what his eyes and nose told him and grabbed hold of one of the six serpent headed lashes of the Keeper's whip as it came by for another pass, batting the rest aside with an axe. With a grunt and a yank he pulled, dragging the Greater Daemon off its pincer-feet towards him before felling it with a single great strike.
Such set the stage for much of the journey. The forces of Khorne and Nurgle were most fervent in barring the way. The Blood God's followers well approved of the complete absence of magic and sorcery while seeking to claim the skull of a false god of war and his progeny.
Nurglites found the intractability and endurance of Dwarves charming in its own way, akin to their own focus on ever-lastingness, making the very thought of their eventual surrender to the Grandfather's gifts all the more alluring; others saw it the other way around, seeking to break their stubborn refusal of pox and contagion that they bore such resistance to.
Ku'gath Plaguefather was foremost among those united in disdain after his defeat before the walls of Karaz-a-Karak, and he found the idea of drowning two Ancestor Gods all alone in the Wastes with contagions and diseases before parading their plagued and defiled corpses across the Karaz Ankor to be intoxicating. Grimnir and Morgrim would be the catalyst for his ascension to untold heights. Their bodies would be the testing grounds for a disease that by proof of concept laid low gods. Their deaths would break the Dwarves, a festival of despair ringing across the mountains, their internal organs would serve as the bedrock of a new plague that would lay low the world for Father Nurgle. All thanks to the virulent lifebringer that would reap the rewards.
Slaanesh's get made the occasional play, but the Dwarves were too dull in their feelings to excite them, especially when the Elves offered such delightful sport. The followers of the Changer of Ways meanwhile preferred their current targets, seeking to take advantage of a realm deprived of its greatest defenders.
--
A great pack of Flesh Hounds, half-breeds born of hellish unions between daemon dog and mortal mutt, and Slaughterbrutes hunted the Ancestor Gods for weeks on end. Their howls were a mix of snarl and high-pitched crooning, a savage chorus that kept both father or son up at night when they did not attack. When they did, it was with blood-red clouds filling the sky, through which shone Morrslieb's fell light, drowning the land in baleful red. It was like walking along the bottom of a blood red ocean for all the light that could be made out, while scent was…significantly hindered by the overwhelming stench of iron. But the dread mutts were at home, the reek of the divine guided their noses and the aura of anti-magic was like a beacon to them.
The leader of this pack was unique even among daemon-kind. Their mother had been a warhound of Chaos, gluttoned on the Chaotic energies of the far north. Rather than evolve (or perhaps, devolve) into a Giant Spined Chaos Beast with a form of twisted flesh and ever new protruding spikes and fangs, it maintained its lupine form. But that was all that separated it from its kind.
The bitch still led a torturous existence, a body wracked by pain barely contained by her flesh. One day, by chance, fate, or something else, it made its way directly into the Realm of Chaos. There, in the formless wastes between the lands of the gods, it was found by the greatest of dogs, the Talon of the Skull Throne, the Endless Hunter.
The tri-headed daemon-beast bred with the oversized warhound, and days or centuries later, impossible to tell, she whelped a trio of pups. The ivory skin they inherited from their mother was stretched, their abnormally red muscles stood in stark contrast beneath it. In the madness of the aether they hunted as a pack, eerily attuned to each other's movements and working as a team with unnatural levels of synchronicity. They grew as large as their mother, but also possessed a portion of the unnatural daemonic attributes of their father.
Their final hunt together was at a Silver Tower of Tzeentch. They made their way through mind-bending labyrinths, traps spewing every manner of flame, hallucinations and illusions that boggled their individual senses but not all of them at once, and an assortment of lesser rainbow-colored flamers.
At last, as the strongest of the triplets lay dying with his teeth fastened around the neck of the Tower's sorcerous overlord and his siblings' corpses lying nearby, his mind finally actualized a word that had been on the tip of their tongues all their lives.
His attention now firmly on them for a second, the Blood God melded their essences together into a fully daemonic amalgamation. The siblings were now three-in-one, each adorned with brass collars of embodied scorn of those they hunted, weakening the blows of the hound's prey and making ever feckless sorcery all the more dangerous to their selves.
The left head boasted a weaker form of their sire's tracking abilities, the right head a bite that transformed the worthy hounds into lesser versions of their pre-union self and the unworthy into Slaughterbrutes, empowered and greater than before but shamed in form. The central head commanded the pack, melding sense and skill as the triplets once had when separated, imposing their savage killing ability on the lesser members. The left head found their new recruits, the right head melded them into a more fitting image, and the central head made the ever-growing hunting party that much more lethal. Its name was Fornaruus.
It was this canid parade that thought to make Grimnir and Morgrim their quarry. And though they prowled about, biting and snapping and lunging back and forth out of the eerily thick blood-mist, they died again and again. But as the weeks dragged on, even the Ancestor Gods began to feel weary. They had suffered scratches aplenty, and while they killed many of the dogs that hunted as if they were one entity in many bodies, more flocked to the pack every day, Flesh Hounds and Chaos Warhounds drawn by the howl of a blessed mutt of Khorne and the tiny hints of divine blood in the air.
In the end, however, it was Fornaruus' oldest gift, the hunting bond it had carried from its days as three half-breed entities, that was its undoing. The efficiency with which they hunted, the impossible levels of cooperation, from it Grimnir discerned a pattern and how it was carried out. He altered his and Morgrim's activities and responses and lured out Fornaruus himself. The Wolfkin was mighty, but Grimnir was still above it. With their leader erased, the rest of the pack lost their effectiveness, abandoning the hit and run tactics carried out at Fornaruus' will and hurling themselves headlong into oblivion.
The next threat would be as much Morgrim's domain as Grimnir's. A full battalion of no less than three Gorethunder Batteries traded fire with Drengi for hours until they were silenced. Grimnir rode atop the war machine, deflecting the flaming skulls as best he could while Morgrim returned fire. For all their capacity for ranged combat the Skull Cannoneers could not help but get closer, and the Ancestor God of Engineers was a better shot than them.
More conventional armies challenged them too. Hordes of mixed daemonic infantry and cavalry, Greater Daemons with more traditional and unoriginal armies and weapons but still infamous legends spanning beyond time. More than once, those with lesser daemon champions or seeking success above all joined forces with armies of rival gods, though rivalry and contention never truly disappeared.
Ku'gath Plaguefather mustered his personal hosts, made alliances with those of the Lord of Decay's get who bore similar grudges against the Dwarves, bartered the recipes of much of his vast collection of personal plagues and poxes for the allegiance of those who did not, and endeavored to alter the battleground itself. Returning to Nurgle's rotting, decrepit manse, he made his way to Nurgle's hotspring, filling seven vials with the liquid in which the Chaos God bathed, and returned to the mortal world. With him came two of the seven Proctors of Pestilence, Affligan and Cankis, four emerald-stained Hellgrinders gifted souls in Ku'gath's collection to help them complete their quota (though one simply desired to return to fight against the Dwarves faster), three of his own kin and their attendant legions of Plaguebearers, and seventy seven pox slugs that churned up fallow ground into rancid soil fit for the finest parasites, mushrooms, and other vegetation afflicting the Garden of Nurgle.
The Great Unclean One's plans to entrap them in a great lagoon bursting with the fruits of life borne directly from the Grandfather's lands were put paid to when someone sabotaged the ritual and much of the accumulated power transmuted nearby lands into a multi-fractal reflection of Tzeentch's Crystal Labyrinth. Tzeentch may have better mortals to plot and war against than a pair of lone Ancestor Gods, but he would not stomach Nurgle of all beings succeeding in any of the few possible futures gleaned.
The resulting battles scarred the earth and created multiple terrible, sprawling landmarks in the Chaos Wastes that persist to this day such as the Eternal Lagoon, the Twisted Towers, the Blighted Grove, the Crystal Spires and the Forest of Decay. Ku'gath Plaguebearer never learned what had went wrong, but as the daemonic hordes clashed, hatred empowering their blows, Cankin slipped away, the bulbous, plagueridden daemonic form shifting into a blue cloak absent a wearer.
--
Nor was it solely the daemonic that barred their way. Beastmen thrived in the far north, blessed by their gods in ways they would never see again in the future, living in ramshackle camps and twisted forests that shifted locations by the day. Legions could rush in howling and, if they ever emerged, do so leagues away. Monsters crawled out of caves and descended from mountain peaks that resembled mutilated flesh as the storm of magic rolled over them. Chimerae and manticores darkened the skies at times such were their numbers, creatures bearing the personal mark of Chaos Gods and so wracked with mutations their true species could barely be made out under armored shells, waving tentacles and mucus covered pelts. Daemongors with flesh that shifted and flickered in and out of reality, Ghorgons and Cygors taller than small hills with even more arms than normal, while Dread Maws large enough to swallow small workshops swam beneath the tainted grounds, eager to devour godly flesh, sometimes with an additional maw either adjacent to their main one or at the other end of their body.
The Chaos Wastes were the primordial ooze and from it squirmed forth a menagerie worthy only of nightmares and the minds of the insane. The worst of them brought the nightmares with them.
While Chaos blessed the world like it would hopefully never again, it doled out punishment and disdain as well. Spawn of Chaos, protean masses of shifting and oozing flesh, twisted bones, limbs and mouths alongside ill-designed eyes with no rhyme or reason to their form, emerged straight from the earth itself, from battlefields where semi-mortal corpses lay piled atop one another and forests that provided the clay of life from vegetation and wood.
All was smushed together, twisted from inanimate to a perverse form of life and sent shambling off mindless and insane, without direction save where there was something to kill or forces of the Dark Gods did battle. Those formed of the unlucky or the unfortunate mortal servants of Chaos were even worse in this day and age. Many were particularly sensitive to the tides of magic sweeping the world, supping the nectar of the gods and swelling in size until they could match hydras and Stonehorns in raw strength.
In this time of plenty even Chaos Spawn were granted the marks and blessings of the cruelly merciful Chaos Gods, some of which were anointed with the gifts of all four at once and could not exist outside of the north, as suffused with hellish energy as they were. Others were made savagery incarnate as Slaughterbrutes, while the more magically attuned were masses of claws and tentacles on a vaguely four limbed form, carrying a bizarrely attached sphere of magical energy atop their backs, mutating everyone and everything in the vicinity, including itself, flesh warping in and out of reality, their shapes molding themselves in and out of a caricature of a definite form.
Revolting as they were, they were pleasant to look at compared to the Jabberslythes. Where Manticores, Chimerae, Griffons and other creatures born of mutation and magic could arguably be said to derive from a mortal primogenitor, none would suggest the same of the Jabberslythe.
A thing born of madness, shaped by the mutating tides, in the far north they were comparatively populous. Perhaps there was something of a bat in them, maybe an essence of frog or some other amphibian, some scaled being, a hint of the serpentine, mammalian fur possibly? To gaze upon these things was to behold something so ugly, so indescribably hideous, it ravaged the mind and body. They gave even Grimnir a headache as he cut them down.
One particularly vile specimen had engaged in a fight with a Basilisk and barely won as the cold-blooded creature's mind gave out before the Jabberslythe's body. Flesh partly melting away, eyes boiled in their own juices, the creature blindly followed its instinct to feed, gulping down chunks of flesh even as they left scorch marks and permanent impressions in its tongue and throat. For months, a war of absolute annihilation raged inside the abomination's body, basilisk meat dissolving all around it while eye juices petrified what they touched, only for those bits to dissolve later and carry the stone-turning liquid elsewhere.
Stomach acid whose viscosity was something evil and acidic blood met and bored holes through the beast's own flesh. And all the while it writhed and contorted in indescribable agony, its flesh shifting as the world around it went into flux. That it survived is much the doing of the Chaos Wastes as its own durability.
Where it had lain was a partially living citadel of flesh and vegetation, shifting and pulsing with vile sounds. The air was like standing in a bonfire and cracks into the Realm of Chaos randomly open every second of every hour of every day. And yet no daemon has ever been known to lay claim to this place.
It is beyond the capacity of mortal thought to describe what became of the Jabberslythe in the battle. Suffice to say, it survived and remained there until the presence of Grimnir and Morgrim spurred it into action. Not until the appearance of the Cor-Dum thousands of years later would something akin to that horror blight the world.
Trolls there were as well, heavily mutated with extra limbs and heads and other, unnatural appendages.
This far north a number of the Greedy One's progeny hunted the proliferate Daemons with purpose, seeking to emulate their sire and go even further beyond where he had barely stepped before his demise. Thus far none had succeeded.
Those who survived the digestion were transformed into creatures reminiscent of Slaughterbrutes, but larger, possessed of regenerative abilities only slightly lesser to what they once had, skin so scabbed from lesions and healing it became thicker than leather. Most ominous was how they now expelled blood from insides that forever churned, a soup of gore and plasma that melted flesh and bone.
Other were transmuted into bipedal slabs of constantly churning muscle, a vortex beast's transmutation turned inward heightening the healing with an internal source of magical energy, mutations rampaging across the body mid battle, mid strike. An entirely new opponent from adaptation to the current enemy or random chance, who can say? Their bodies shifted in composition and shape so often one could mistake them for Chaos Spawn, their patterns and fighting styles effectively unreadable.
Every possible monster and abomination that could exist occupied these lands, and Grimnir and Morgrim cut their way through them. That is not to say they went out of their way to hunt them down. There were kingdoms established by Daemon Princes born up in the ranks of the damned from the followers of Be'lakor, warring among themselves for the right to control the world. These were bypassed.
It was simply a matter of what was directly in their way (and their way changed often, putting these obstacles directly in their path, for all that the two had strength of will to keep their course and distance relative and constantly decreasing towards their goal as opposed to being transported around the wastes); Grimnir's goal lay beyond the servants and shards. But many armies of these daemonic warlords challenged them directly, to varying degrees of success. What they shared was destruction.
Mortals dwelt here as well, Fimir in established settlements. The cyclopean lizard-folk favored marshes, swamps, and other semi-aquatic environments the most, but devotion was a seductive lure to those seeking communion with the divine, and here the presence of the gods was clearest. Their greatest settlement in the Chaos Wastes lay atop a great plateau called K'datha, and in the city atop it worship of Chaos was built into society itself. It was covered in mist that shifted from hue to hue in mimicry of the warped skies overhead and spilled over the plateau's sides like a hazy waterfall, the city's aura forever falling.
It is forever a mystery as to why Grimnir targeted this settlement. Perhaps the Ancestor God of War foresaw how a defeat here would impact the standing of the Fimir in the eyes of the dark gods.
It might well be that a civilization, true civilization and not the lies perpetuated by daemonic settlements or ramshackle Beastmen camps where they wallowed in their own filth and detritus, so offended him he could not help but destroy it.
The winding pathways leading up to the base of the plateau were guarded by heavily fortified gatehouses bedecked with the skulls and bodies of would-be invaders, mainly monsters but some mortal rivals. Even Daemons were gruesome trophies, preserved in fleshy raiment containing their essence via dark sorcery and the ample amount of magic in the air. The Fimir's subservience to Chaos did not preclude them to assault. These gatehouses were typically manned by the least of the Fimir soldiery along with grotesque halfbreeds born of forced unions with trolls and serving as expendable shock troops.
Morgrim bombarded them from afar seemingly without rhyme or reason, not even bothering to begin the ascent. The mists grew denser as protections were activated, but Morgrim had calibrated his deadly weapons after the battle with Fornaruus, and though he could only make out living bodies it was enough to calculate based on their positions and movements the general scale of the fortifications themselves. What artillery they had was readied but helpless as the Dawi war machine was well out of range of the Fimir weapons despite them being designed to trade with even the Skull Cannons of Khorne.
But the Fimir were well used to war and unusual opponents. Drugged and insensate harpies were prodded out, their wills broken and sent in flocks to assault the lone attacker while enslaved Beastmen were forced to march under banners that numbed them until all they felt was fury and the desire to kill. The slave masters and Fimir garrisons of the path holds took to underground bunkers, leaving the more durable and expendable to hold the walls against any assault. Alongside the cannon fodder meant to distract and absorb Drengi's fire, champions took to the skies on Manticores and Chimerae, while enormous swamp golems formed of the detritus of the sacred mires were animated and given over to Poxbringers as vessels, their sheer size and regenerative capabilities surpassing trolls making them lumbering distractions.
Finally, an elite, fast moving cavalry force consisting of a small mixed legion armored in baroque hellplate and swollen with blessings riding prized daemonic steeds set out. Things that might have been akin to oversized lizards or goats or both, but stretched out, distended like a colossus might pinch and peel at clay until it was ragged and made flesh. Azure triple appendages with eyes and mouths yet no discernible face swirling on jets of warpfire, bipedal flightless bird-snakes with conical sphincter-like mouths and lash-whipped tails, absent any uniformity in coloration.
Last but not least were massive one horned beasts of metal, dried blood decorating their flanks as still fresh ichor leaked from between iron-clad joints. Light flickered and distorted around them as they thundered down the plateau paths, leaving chronal afterimages in their wake. Balefiends casting from arcane sanctums within the city could reach targets anywhere on K'datha, if not further. The blessings of passage and speed were maintained as they passed through gatehouse after gatehouse.
Then they reached the midway point and a mountain fell on them.
--
Grimnir had scaled the vast rock with naught but his axes and bare hands. Though he lacked any cloaks or more arcane tools of stealth and guile, he did not need them. He had analyzed the defenses and patrols for hours, discerned enchantments of alarm and protection and the various magical traps fit to cover what soldiery and construction could not. With Morgrim's distraction perfectly timed, he slipped and nudged his way through the more metaphysical obstructions without notice.
Compared to that, the actual physical rigor of the ascent was akin to a pleasant workout.
After he reached the summit, he stealthily made his way over and took an axe to the very rock and earth at the edge of the plateau. His weapon was a poor tool for this sort of work, but needs must, and this place did not deserve proper demolition.
The resulting avalanche contained no more than a small fraction of the summit with it, but it was still more than enough to squash and obliterate the mounted response force, sweep the gatehouse over the cliff and completely separate both halves of the line of forts meant to allow entry and exit to and from K'datha.
Now Grimnir revealed himself, tearing through the gates he let his fury run wild. He had not bothered to hide his approach after he chopped up part of K'datha's stony body and sent it falling, and he was met with a force willing to fight even a god.
The Fimir had been the most favored of the mortal servants of Chaos for eons, and their veneration showed. The entire population was ready and able to fight when necessary.
Many wore the ebony Chaos Armor of the most elite warriors of the Ruinous Powers, while many more had some mutation or dark blessing adorning their skin or form. Daemon weapons and enchanted arms were in ample evidence, and for every three that bore the honor of being Chaos Warriors, one was something beyond even that, an exalted soldier destined for greatness by the god they favored and who in turn favored them.
Bloated with power, they were their species writ half again as large if not moreso, their bodies no longer entirely tied to the mortal realm. Individual clans and groups were small leviathans of muscle and mutated flesh from pacts with daemons and not just their gods, misshaped Fimir that could overpower trolls and wrestle with dragons and Ghorgons, while others were normal sized but joined in harmony with daemons, two entities in one body. And in the heart of their power, their home, they fought with a determination and stubbornness that could not be broken by things as simple as fear and death.
Their great mountain city had been built compact but confusing. The lanes and streets were relatively tight and purposefully built akin to a maze. The roofs were lined with huge spikes pointing down and up to forestall assault from the street or air, and iron fences and gates were everywhere, carved with runes that hurt the eyes and harmed those seeking entry. It was a city meant to hamper any attack by army or monster, punish those seeking to overwhelm them with sheer numbers or relying on raw size. But it had not been designed with the inconceivable idea of a single, lone attacker that was smaller than the vast majority of the inhabitants.
Their magical defenses and embedded hexes and curses washed over Grimnir like water over rock, while the mad yet specific design of their city now prevented them from bringing their numbers to bear. That did not stop them. Though they died by the handful every second, they were always replaced by cyclopeans no less eager for battle. Priests and officers extolled them on, speaking of guaranteed ascension for the Dwarf's head and a place at the side of the gods.
It availed them not. They could not attack faster and fiercer than Grimnir could kill them. In the tight streets and lanes, he began walking over piles of corpses that could have engulfed him, the ground covered by armored bodies and discarded weapons.
As the Ancestor God trudged over hills of bodies and arms through the city, the leaders of the highest caste grew increasingly desperate. But as their desperation rose so too did their ambition. As the dead piled higher, so too did the potential rewards for he who triumphed over their city's greatest threat. A victory would wash away any cost, any sacrifice, and propel themselves to the highest echelons of power, infamy and glory among their race.
Aegnarl Bilgegut, who had offered up her own flesh as an offering to the Lord of Decay before ritually consuming it for seven days and nights before she was empowered, had become so decrepit and bare of skin and muscle, save for her belly from which bile and intestines flowed incessantly, that she had used her enhanced magic to form a half-daemonic fen beast which she piloted from within. No Fimir had seen her actual body in years.
Hyshene Firecatcher took his pyromania to new levels by tinging his Aqshy based spells with the versatility and malignant power of Dhar, with which he burnt nine hundred and ninety nine captives alive, controlling the rate at which the fires ate away at their flesh, souls, and even minds such that they all expired one at a time a fraction of a heartbeat after the other. From the still glowing ashes Horrors emerged by the individual, then the handful, then the dozen and more until hundreds capered and gibbered words from dozens of languages living and dead in no particular order. They burnt too at his whim, a bonfire that shrank into a condensed flame that he bottled inside a lantern and used to empower his fiery spells with the multi-colored, law-defying fires of Tzeentch.
Very few indeed knew how Magllagla had gotten where he was in the favor of the Prince of Pleasure. Suffice to say, his palace was always given a wide berth despite the raucous ever-present noise inside and lack of guards. Nowadays, few even knew what he looked like. Those still living at any rate.
Agiskartis the Skinwalker was remarkably calm for one who worshiped the God of Blood, especially considering that he was constantly kept on the edge of life and death, frozen in time at that point of total agony where his body was barely holding on, his flesh hanging from him like ribbons, until Khorne revitalized him. At least, until battle began, after which he was completely devoid of any sense or reason beyond overwhelming pain and all-consuming rage.
The first three took to the holiest places of their gods, beginning elaborate rituals whereby their most devoted servants and acolytes, along with huge numbers of slaves, were to be sacrificed to provide the magical impetus for the true work. The bog mires with their small, scattered personal shrines to the Fly Lord, the Decadent Pits below the city where every hint of what debauchery and madness might take place could be heard echoing over between alleys and through windows, but never known unless one actively participated, and the Nine Eyed Tower, with massive still-blinking eyes of nine Cygors and Balefiends fused together, their gaze piercing the fabric of reality and looking upon the realms of Tzeentch in awful, mind-shattering detail.
Agiskartis was preoccupied. He had leapt over the walls following Grimnir's collapse of part of the plateau, but the Dwarf had departed by the time he got there. He followed his trail to the shattered gates but found that others had crowded in between him and the Ancestor God. Rage growing to even greater heights he simply began cutting his way through his own kind to reach Grimnir. Some fought back, others turned on those who followed rival gods, and some joined him in carving his way through, though he barely noticed or cared.
Their sacrifices complete, the Chaos Lords of Tzeentch, Nurgle and Slaanesh began to work their magic upon the very soul of the city. Cyclopean flesh and organs broke into gas and flies and flew away to the holy swamps, magical essence slivered out of those same corpses' orifices, while the very memory embedded in their skein was lost to them.
Leering faces appeared in the blood-streaked skies as lightning strikes began to hit the city without leaving any marks. The Nine Eyed Tower began to blister and smolder, yet no flames were obvious. The mires and swamps churned and swirled in three great streams towards a central source. The terrible cacophony began to ring out of the mouths of dying Fimir as their essences were stolen. Agiskartis began to glow crimson as the spilled blood moved of its own accord like a wave of serpents, flooding into his forever open wounds.
As the last Fimir died, four pillars of raw aetheric energy shot into the skies.
--
Grimnir awaited them in the great amphitheater that had been used for everything from blood sports to calls for war. He could smell them. Four that were one, one that was four, each a tiny, tiny part of four great blights on reality that was a single conglomerate mass of foulness. He was calm, idly cleaning his axes and brushing dirt and blood out of his beard.
Their concordance was obvious to his eyes, he saw beyond their forms and into the twisted miasma of magic that connected their essences before spiraling into the otherworld, strengthening them beyond what they would have had they been alone.
He got to his feet and readied his axes.
Grimnir and Morgrim spent five days demolishing the city, leaving only ruins behind. It would later be occupied by humans, and come to be called Zanbaijin, the Fallen City.
--
There was no warning or prelude. The silence with which it appeared more suited an assassin or a servant trained to be unseen and unheard.
A shadow rose in the distance. Literally, the horizon turned black and green as a pall of emerald dimness spread from one corner of the earth to the other, the land that laughed at the laws of physics darkening as an umbral silhouette was cast across the earth. The sky was distorted as something spread across it, leathery and scaled and of a pair, and then it was a speck in the distance. A distance which meant nothing to the shape unfolding as if crawling off a painting, coming to hover before the Ancestors, every wingbeat causing a gale in the mortal realm, a minor magical tempest in the otherworld.
Its body was large for its species, but its soul was so vast the sky shuddered and flickered as blighted the world, a figure fit to devour armies, to turn the skies themselves to ash, eyes that were stars of verdant maliciousness, Morrslieb's infernal gaze given life in orbs of balefire. Its form was that of an ebony behemoth impaled through the chest by a shard of Chaos given physical form, a living corpse sustained by naught but the foulest of energies and the mightiest of souls, a proud scion of the eldest race twisted by circumstance as deathly virescence roamed through its veins. Its scales were the darkest obsidian tinged poisonous green…its appearance was one and many, shifting under perception with every blink, every gust of magical wind.
Warp lightning played across its scales without rhyme or rhythm, while the air shimmered, nay, shivered under the weight of the beast's green aura. Pitch black smoke rose from nothing as reality itself was kindled, cracks forming and leaking prismatic soul-ichor, mites and scavengers of the Warp peeking through only to shrivel and crumble away under the invisible fire of its heart.
The dirt and grass and ice, touched by Chaos for a thousand years and an eternity, stirred itself into motion as it landed with a sigh and a rumble at the same time. Like waves, shunting towards the beast only to recoil back as it was burned the color of roasted flesh and bone, only to charge back in like a starving lemming.
It was a dragon. But no son of the Karaz Ankor had ever seen a wyrm like this before.
Some argue it was Kalgalanos the Black, an entity that was at least a primogenitor of a subspecies of drakes and claimed by others to be the original progenitor of the entire draconic race, its heart and mind clearly as black as its body.
Others put forth the supposition of it being Urmskaladrak himself, the beast's soul preserved even after its body was dealt the mortal blow by Grimnir the Valiant, raised up against as something other for the sole purpose of getting revenge on the one who had slaughtered his kin in the War Against Dragons and his self in the battle that created Black Fire Pass.
Its sheer size and claims of a living corpse led others to theorize it was a long dead drake that had gone to rest at the Plain of Bones, resurrected by one of the incursive waves of Chaos magic that swept over the land, summoned to block Grimnir's path northward. There was even a claim that it was not a dragon at all, rather a daemon that had taken the form of one.
Perhaps none of these are the true epic. Perhaps all of them are, for who can fathom an entity fit to challenge Valiant Grimnir and his son, in an age of legends and monsters and a place where time and space have little hold over reality? Indeed, this account might be naught but the ramblings of a delusional fool.
Regardless, this is the tale that is told.
On the other side of the world a third continent existed, separated by the Great Pond. And it was the location of the second star gate created by the ones of old. The Elves and Dwarves and other races had been kept away by both their custodians and distance, and here some creatures that preferred the times of old, the days of snow and ice, made their lairs.
Among them were the greatest of those primordial times, the dragons. When the polar gates burst apart and Morrslieb formed from the tides of magic spewing forth, its violent birth sent newly crystallized and broken off shards to crash land in what would become the Southern Chaos Wastes. Many dragons, tainted by clouds of Warpstone-dust, were forced in turn to subsist on this Warpstone to survive and maintain their mutated forms.
One dragon had a somewhat different path. An elder wyrm was impaled by a fragment of solidified evil almost half as large it was. Barely alive, only magic sufficed to keep it so, and the only magic it could draw on was embedded in it. Day by day it slowly made its way north, clinging to life, away from the monsters and hellspawn pouring out of the hole in the world. Not far from the coast, much of the warpstone drained and the fragment diminished, it stumbled into a crevice to rest in a bed of moss and reeds sustained by an underground river.
Starving, a fever dream overtook it, a deep hunger for something, anything. It awoke and followed its nose down the canyon. Sprinkled across ferns were bits of concentrated warpstone dust. It dug in with a vigor, barely able to even think it was so hungry. It did not notice as it scraped away at vegetation and rock alike that the surroundings were changing. It only noticed that it was eating something, then the taste changed slightly but it was still edible, still good, something to ward away the knives in its belly. It just ate and ate and ate and ate until suddenly it could think again. It was no longer ravenous. And the land looked different. It was no longer dark, in fact, it was not in the ravine any longer.
Long ago, a great tree was planted in the center of the world, and its roots spread across the planet, transcending time and space. The forests that formed were all connected to that tree, which had grown large and mighty. The coming of Chaos corrupted and broke many of the world spanning roots, particularly in the far north and south, but not immediately. The great drake had stumbled upon these roots unconsciously, it's arcane senses and a confluence of coincidences seeing it to the point it had dug its way in. Now, having gnawed on the roots of the world from one end to the other, it was whole again. Greater than whole.
No longer feasting on mere flesh, the daemons of the north became its prey. Their essences were the sweetest morsel, their blood like nectar. They were not dead, a part of something greater now. And then one day there was a new scent, and for a second it could not even think straight it was so scrumptious and enticing.
Perhaps this was the Changer of Fate's true grand move against Grimnir, a change of heart or a lie writ upon reality itself? Or perhaps it was just coincidence. Certainly, Glammendrüng was no friend to Chaos, and with the unique state of the dragon's soul it could well have scented Grimnir from halfway across the northern wastes. But it did not appear to travel far to meet the Ancestor Gods.
What is fact though, is that they fought.
How can one possibly describe such a battle…? Where the earth was shattered and broken with each clash, as god-axes scraped against scales that were something beyond natural armor and warpstone alike, a material existing in both dimensions. No physical material had withstood his axes before yet now those ebony emerald scales were scratched and chipped away, but they held. Grimnir spent so long climbing over the wyrm's body, hacking away again and again.
Drengi loosed enough fire and force to level mountains, and the dragon responded with eruptions of warpfire that left the air twitching from the absence of anything where it passed, warpstone bursting into existence where it impacted like ice thrust up from the ground. Blackness was ripped from the space between worlds as tendrils of purest black, slashing and thrusting away, a second skin folding over the already gargantuan creature like armor of dark will. The landscape was broken in their passing, cracks and craters and crevices dotting the land.
Where divine dwarven blood fell, it burned everything. The corrupted air, the twisted ground. Where the drake's blood fell, trees sprouted, crystalline and made of fractals of nightmares, life born from the antithesis of it. Hurricanes of ice from before heat was a concept ravaged the land, and a mohawked body wrestled on the ground with one a thousand times its size while the land splintered apart. They fought for so very long in that place that disdained the rules of time.
And when the dragon fell, its skull split open and its brain savaged, it caused the Warp to tremble but left naught but a sigh in the mortal realm. This battlefield scarred the Chaos Wastes forever, echoes of the destructive powers that clashed brushing against the minds of those who dare make sojourns to it. It is known as Dragon's Death, and its only constant in the Chaos Wastes is that it is after Zanbaijin, but never on the same axis as the Red Abyss.
--
There was one final challenge. At least, that is how the sagas tell it. After the Wayblocker was felled and the ritual scars from the tips of its claws applied upon Grimnir's body, the duo made their way further north. Reality became inconsistent, the world around them shifting and molding itself into an infinite series of possibilities. By the strength of their will and the power of their souls, the Ancestor Gods forced their path, their way forward, to remain consistent. There were more bands of daemons, more hordes, more monsters of course. How could there not be, this close to the gates of hell? But the last momentous enemy would eclipse them all.
Long ago it came to pass that the favored of Chaos, Be'lakor, began to grow boring to his dark patrons. They began to seek out new champions, ones beholden to not all the Chaos Gods but to one. The name and species of the mortal that became known as Kragen'ome'nanthal has been lost to time, perhaps plucked away from it by the Ruinous Powers. Indeed, given the unique status of the scion of Khorne, that might well have been the case.
When the first mortal drew the greatest of favors from the Blood God and discarded fleshy vestments for daemonic essence, there was nothing to base their new form on. But they were worthy of being the mightiest, and so he equated them to his mightiest of daemons, the shards of his own self, the Bloodthirster. The first Daemon Prince held Khorne's favor like none would ever again in those days, save perhaps Valkia. He was Khorne's scion, their son in soul and blood. This new daemon had its skill sharpened by the personal instruction of the War God, confined to the Great Game between the gods until Grimnir and Morgrim defeated the greatest of Warpfire Dragons.
Was it patriarchal jealousy or favor, some stratagem or plan that kept this one from Mallus? Perhaps it was his existence, for his blood had been replaced with droplets spilling from Khorne's own palm, his body armored in the splintered piece of Khorne's own armor chipped off in Skarbrand's rebellion. Even in the Great Catastrophe such a being could not enter the mortal realm easily. But he did. Deep, deep inside the Chaos Wastes, so close his true form was a flicker in the sky, tendrils of blood and the skulls of armies visible even to those with lesser arcane sight. This fight transcended the boundaries of possibility and left a bruise in reality, a column of hellfire dripping blood, a doorway to, but not from, the Blood God's very throne. To enter is to receive Khorne's full attention, and only the absolute greatest and most favored of his mortal servants survive the experience. Those who do not are burnt to nothing, evaporating in the bloodfire until nothing, not even the tiniest mote of their souls, remains.
At the scion of Khorne's call, bloody daggers rained from the sky. Flaming skulls the size of boulders fell where he directed. But it was when he matched blades with Grimnir that the true power of the first Daemon Prince of Khorne was revealed. They did not move nearly as much. Whole hours were spent in a small circle marked by ruin, blades flickering back forth dozens of times in a heartbeat. No sparks came as godblades met godblade, rather sheets of flame burst with every clash and faded as quickly as they appeared. The earth trembled as if living mountains dashed across them, every strike a death blow that turned into a parry into another death blow faster than thought. Lakes worth of blood danced along the daemon's axe and sword, expanding into building cleaving slashes with every flick, erupting into hellfire hotter than an elder magma wyrm's breath with a thought. Space distorted itself in flickers and flashes of pure crimson, such that distance disappeared; when Kragen'ome'nanthal struck his opponents were within reach.
Time seemed to fragment as godly will met that of a shard of war, and at times there were more than one pair of fighters, their analysis and reading of each other's moves transcending the passing of seconds and minutes. When the daemon was wounded blood gushed in steel rending bursts of hypersharp vitae, expelling far more than even a Bloodthirster's body could reasonably contain with a mere scratch. With every drop of divine ichor the Daemon Prince's blades tasted, they struck harder, hungrier. Khorne's eyes were fixed firmly upon this battle. After three days, the Daemon Prince, the son of the Blood God, was erased, the scar of its death throes permanently marking reality. Khorne scream of fury shook the Warp, his realm itself collapsed under its force, then rebuilt itself from the same energy that destroyed it, eight times over.
--
It is difficult to say just what prompted Grimnir to force his son to turn back, to follow their path south to rejoin the Karaz Ankor. The battle had only been one at great cost and immense exertion, and they had not even reached the end of the road. The ignorant would assume it to be based on fatalism, belief that their cause was hopeless and seeking to preserve his only child while distracting the daemon lords and their armies with his presence ever closer to his target. It would perhaps explain why he gave him one of his axes, to weaken himself so when the final push still lay ahead. Indeed, the axe could have been for Morgrim's own protection, with the great Drengi dealt so much terrible damage and lacking the degree of martial prowess his sire possessed, though he was still mightier than most.
Others are less (but ever quietly and in the privacy of their own thoughts or far out of earshot of any Dawi) say that it was less the certainty of his failure and more a precaution. Having faced merely the warden, if perhaps among the greatest, he deemed the loss of both himself and his son to be far more disastrous.
Only a fool does not have contingency plans, and of the two Grimnir was undoubtedly more likely to survive. His wounds had healed, but not even Morgrim could repair all of Drengi's mechanisms in this hellish wasteland. Better to not deprive the Karaz Ankor of two Ancestor Gods if the worst should come to pass. Some go so far as to suggest Grimnir felt his son more important to the survival of the Karaz Ankor with his skills of creation and development over the warrior's way that was the father's path.
The most respectful of his sacrifice would harshly rebuke both, and instead point out that was not Morgrim also instructed to be the defender of the Karaz Ankor in his stead? To fathom the mind of an Ancestor God is beyond any save perhaps their immediate scions, yet Valiant Grimnir was the God of War, deep in the heartlands of the enemy, having fought foes no other Dwarf could comprehend, let alone engage in combat with. He had time and again shown a sense for battle and war that went beyond mere intellectual genius and into the realm of the supernatural, or as some would say with some ironic amusement, the divine.
Most likely he had seen enough, perceived enough, to see a wavering of sorts as the battles in far off Ulthuan and Lustria and other lands progressed, foreseeing the coming Vortex, or at least some sign of vulnerability, for who can fathom those who tap into the infinite possibilities of the realm of souls and magic? After all, Grimnir had communed with the very one responsible for enacting the Vortex. Better to not take away an Ancestor and a divine weapon that could be used in the defense of all Dwarves where it was unnecessary.
It was likely not a single reason, but one stands out. Grimnir was the god of war, but he had always devoted his abilities to the defense of his people. He was the Valiant, the protector, the guardian whose skills did not fit with the craftsman and creator focus of the Dawi, yet possessing the abilities needed to thrive in a hostile world, while at the same time providing the materials for the most potent of their craft. He was the oddity, yet still played a vital role in society. A logical one, for no Dwarf did not have a craft that contributed to the welfare of the Karaz Ankor as well as the individual self.
Only Grimnir himself could answer as to whether his decision was backed by strategic implications, that now was the time while he was on the enemy's doorstep, or if he saw it as necessary given the challenge presented by Kragen'ome'nanthal and the remaining leagues and legions between him and his goal. Some part of the decision may well have been a desire for Morgrim for not to see what was to come.
Whatever the reason, Grimnir continued north. Morgrim's eyes remained fixed on his form until he disappeared over the horizon, the nebulous surface and sense of distance of the Wastes troubling him not as be bore witness to his father's departure.
--
There was once a room. Dark and empty, great in expanse yet with clearly defined and orderly boundaries. It was a pleasant room, calm. And there was another room next to it, separated by walls and no doors. This room was different. It was small yet infinite in its composition, no limit to its boundaries, and forever rang with a beautiful song. A symphony that echoed across eternity yet despite the vast differences between the rooms, it was heard clearly in the empty one. It was muffled perhaps, but the melody was clearly there. It was a good song, and both benefited from its presence.
Then new songs arose, and the rhythm was disrupted. One, two, three, four. New tunes sounded, and the order was disrupted. The newly arrived songs were chaotic and without reason, a billion-billion producers of songs each slightly different, yet by the specific methods of sounding out their cacophony they proscribed certain ideas.
One was violent and metallic, angry tunes that rang with rage and fury; a simple ruckus, yet easily identified with and powerful. Another moved from sensual and long into the whines and screeches of misapplied notes. A third was low and full of life, building up and grasping at the silence like a leech as it rose into a crescendo before reversing, and repeating again and again. Finally, there was the most random of the four songs, a stampede of ever-changing sounds wherein each musician changed their tune mid-way through a note, always hinting at something but never reaching it.
The discord grated and rasped against the walls between rooms, filling the empty room with their din far more so than the ordered melody of before, and it was most unpleasant. Over time, the racket grew louder and louder, threatening to flood both rooms equally in awful dissonance. And really, if both rooms eventually rang out with the same song, was there truly a wall between them?
One day, suddenly, a single, piercing note rang out. It was vengeful and angry and above all violent, interjected into the furious song's discordant melody in such a manner as to, for a fraction of a heartbeat, give order to the noise, a hint of a hint of a rhythm. It was louder than any other of the countless raging inflections and as such it commanded such notice. Then another, and another and another and another and another, thrust into the mix and suggesting at the possibility of synchronicity and structure.
The other songs cared not for it did not fit their themes. The infinite incensed chorus however could not help but take notice, such did the theme implied call to them in its strength, and it had been heard once before so it was somewhat familiar.
It was different now. Precise in how it was done, and it hinted at stability of the music, of fury and violence meshed into proper words and intonations that could be understood, and increasingly frequent enough to occupy a tiny but noticeable niche in the furious symphony. And if a song were proper, it would have an ending. If one's existence and identity were defined by their specific, individual note, then an ordered and planned song would see individuality made lesser, and eventually the end to all notes as music came to a close. And that was an unpleasant line of thought indeed.
--
Grimnir tore a path into the deepest parts of the Chaos Wastes. His axes stinging the air and dealing the true death to every daemon that was in his way. His beard and mohawk shining like a sun with the power of his wrath and fury. The essences of his kills marked a trail into the Warp, the Blood God himself shrank back, experiencing too much blood in the form of impossibility imposed on his self, his concept, his fragments and will a hundred thousand times over.
No one knows for sure if Grimnir succeeded in his quest, though his priests and his entire race say he did, and to this day fights to keep the northern gate of hell closed. What is fact is that at some point, but not during the formation of the Great Vortex, the Chaos Wastes receded, shrinking back as if in surprise, or even fear.
So much of what I have said is spoken with uncertainty, no? A myriad of different possibilities and mysteries left untold by the page. Well, I suppose that when one is dealing with gods, anything is possible.
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[Canon] Family, +15 to Snerra's Journeyman Roll [USED]
Snerra's breath was quick in her chest, and she struggled to keep the dignified pace of a runesmith as she hurried home, treasure clutched tightly in her arms. She failed completely to keep the grin off her face.
Well. That was alright. There was no one here but Thimdur and Balin Bryggeroot, and they knew the reason for her cheer.
Thimdur chuckled as she juggled her parcel, trying to fish the key to her workshop from a pocket. "Need a hand with that, lass?"
She gratefully handed him the bulky object and slotted her key home with a click. "Thank you!" she said, taking it back and disappearing inside. She reappeared momentarily, peeking around the door. "Um. You probably won't see me for another eight, maybe ten years? So, um, thank you. And I'm going to leave the door unlocked - could you ask Magda to bring me some ale and stonebread every two years or so?"
Thimdur raised an eyebrow. "Don't want to 'pull a Master Snorri', eh?"
Snerra felt certain at that moment that if Dolgi suddenly appeared beside her, she'd still be the reddest dwarf in the room.
"But- where- you-...MMMMPH!" she said, flailing for speech.
Her bodyguards were bent over laughing. Oh, well, at least her suffering was entertaining. The Wazzocks.
They recovered before she did. "It's alright, lass, it's alright. We won't tell a soul." Balin's eyes twinkled as he mimed turning a key over his mouth. "We'll see you're supplied and keep anyone else away."
Snerra groped for a retort before giving up. She sighed, and smiled back at them, cheeks still glowing. "Thank you. Um. 'Till then!" she said, and retreated behind her door.
She hurried back into the workshop, thoughts of the imminent future crowding out embarrassment. She really did need to ask Fjolla how to deal with this kind of thing, though.
Even if Balin did have a very handsome beard.
***
Snerra had always preferred a more open workshop than Master Snorri, even if he was right about the inefficiency. Ideas and work just flowed better for her when she could move around freely. The old blacksmith's forge she'd rented wasn't ideal, but the Flintfoots had happily signed her a century's lease in exchange for runing the facility, and that was good enough for now.
She felt that old, familiar flutter in her chest as she pulled on her forge garments. A long sleeved shirt and trousers of soft salamander leather, tooled with prayers to Thungni and geometric designs. A drake-hide apron, still embarrassingly new after only a century of use. A short cloth band to tie back her plaits. Picking up tongs, she gripped a pure gromril ingot and placed it gently into the heart of the forge.
The flames licked over the metal as she stoked the bellows higher. She glanced at her little statue of Thungni, biting her lip.
A silly, almost childish thought bubbled up in her brain, but somehow it felt right.
"Wish me luck!" she asked Thungni, and then turned and set to work.
***
Snerra brought her hammer down, drawing out the contour of the shoulder.
And Thungni found a cavern, and within it a great, glittering realm
She tilted her strikes as she neared the edge, drawing out a slight lip that would help seat the pauldron when the armour was finished.
And plucked from it gleaming seeds of power, that he might give to the dwarves.
Watching the metal closely, she sniffed, and found herself satisfied.
This gift we carry, as servants of our Lord.
......When had that stonebread gotten here?
***
Snerra's heart sang with fevered creation, and her face ached from smiling.
Line upon delicate line bloomed across the gromril plates. Jagged peaks and graceful whorls leapt into being, flowing into each other like nothing she'd ever done before. The beautiful stream of creation halted only to allow her delicate calipers to make hundreds of measurements. Precision was critical. Everything, every detail had to be perfect. She would accept nothing less.
Was this what It felt like? Small wonder Master Snorri disappeared so. She'd chase this feeling for the rest of her life.
Properly engraving the breast and back plate alone took a year and a half. The pauldrons, greaves, vambraces, and other miscellaneous pieces took another eight months. As she finished each piece, she placed them in shallow trays of an acidic solution - mainly troll bile, but also a nostril-searing array of chemicals in small quantities. When she removed them weeks later, each engraved line leapt off the plate in a shiny, permanent, metallic black.
Of course, neutralizing the traces of acid took another month, but the effect was well worth the wait.
***
While the chemicals took their effect, Snerra moved to the large, central worktable and released her prize from its burlap carry-sack.
The flat, grey, hexagonal pattern of an Ironback Tortoise shell gleamed at her in the forge-light.
She ran her hands lovingly over the pristine surface, chill to the touch. It shouldn't have been nearly so difficult to find, but with the influx of runelords from the south, and the memories of the war still fresh...
Well. She was just lucky that ranger Vraska had been so considerate to bring her the shell from his hunt! She'd have to make him something nice to thank him. Maybe a runed belt, something to keep him warm out there in the weather.
Distractions falling away, she began clamping the shell into place. She'd already laid a thin, flexible metal sheet down over the tabletop; the shell now rested on top of that sheet. Tightening the last clamp, she picked up a bit-and-brace and placed the point in the center of a hexagon on the shell-edge, just over where the tortoise's head would have been.
She took a breath, leaned her weight on the brace, and watched as the blade began carving miniscule shavings from the shell.
***
The bit made a thunk as it pierced the shell for the final time, leaving a hole in the central hexagon to match those in every other. Straightening with a satisfying crick, she hopped down off the table and quickly undid the clamps. She removed the shell, careful not to disturb the piles of shell-dust that had formed underneath. Placing it to one side, she moved to the end of the table and grasped the metal sheet. Rolling it to form a U shape, she lifted her end, sending the shell-dust gently skimming down into a collection bowl she'd placed at the other end.
There. Now, she could begin.
***
Eighteen strikes mark the first line, alternating in strength between strikes of five hair-widths depth in steel, and 13 hair-widths depth in steel.
On the fifth line, strike three times with each indrawn breath, four times with each exhale.
On the seventh line, begin pouring the reagent evenly into the forming rune, striking every three heartbeats.
The hardest part was always, always, keeping her heart rate slow enough to swing her hammer on pace.
Beneath rapturous eyes, the rune glowed and took shape.
***
Her chisel switched from line to line.
Faster
Each move precise, each strike exact.
Faster
Gromril on gromril, ringing through the forge.
Faster
Sweat dripping down her brow, but never yielding hesitation.
Faster
***
Snerra's hammer rose and fell with almighty crashes. The end was in sight. She could taste it.
Power Flows.
The rune demanded utmost vigor. She gave it that, and exaltation besides.
Will guides it
The form was life, beneath her eyes. She bade it, BE! And it was so.
Let song remind you
Her chisel sang with culmination, ten years in a moment.
Let mind shape it
The rune glowed red.
It was done.
Snerra saw what she had wrought, and wept.
***
Eight months later....
Jorri approved of his daughter's choice in dwellings. Tucked away in one of the warmer sections of the hold, her quarters were located on a side-tunnel off one of the markets, and the scent of fresh stonebread hung permanently in the air. Her door was painted a cheerful red, enhanced by thin geometric designs in gold.
He rapped his customary greeting on the door. No guarantee she'd be in, of course, he was a month early, but either way he'd see her soon eno-WHOOF
"DA!" yelled the missile currently straining his ribs.
He hugged her back just as tightly, hooking his stump around her shoulders as his good hand thumped her back. "Ancestors, girl, what are they feeding you? Or did someone just swap out my daughter for an ogre when I wasn't looking?"
She laughed into his chest. "Oh, Da." she said, not the least upset. She let him go, grinning up at him. "I missed you."
"I missed you too, Snerra. Now, you certainly seem fine, but is everything alright? Your letter had me a mite worried."
"I'm fine, Da. Here, come in, I have a gift for you!" She disappeared inside, leaving the door hanging open behind her.
"A gift? I appreciate it, lass, but what was so urgen-"
Jorri stopped in the hallway, for one of a handful of moments in his life, struck utterly dumb.
The gromril armour stood on a wutroth display stand in the middle of her living room, candle and fire light dancing in its polished surfaces. The plates took a rounded, graceful design, more segmented than usual, and Jorri knew it was to ensure his comfort on the roads. One arm ended in a gromril cap, but he could see that the penultimate piece was slightly wider than the rest of the arm - she'd made it to be compatible with his new prosthetic, once Snorri finally got around to making it.
What drew his eyes, though, were the engravings. Commanding the center of the breastplate was a great, six-spoked wagon wheel, somehow seeming in motion even as it stood still. In the spaces between the spokes, in trilateral symmetry, glowed three runes. He recognized them. Protection, Speed and Fortitude. Surrounding them, covering every inch between the spokes and outside the wheel, was a map of the Karaz Ankor. A quick peek around verified that the map extended over the backplate as well. He knew within his bones it was as accurate as an engineer's map too.
"I thought, if you're ever lost, you'll have a map home." A pause. "Do you like it?"
Jorri turned, and saw, fidgeting with her plaits, Snerra. His daughter, woman grown, journeyman runesmith. A prodigy destined for heady heights, if Snorri was to be believed. And yet, somehow, still very much his little girl.
"Lass." he said, words returning to him. "If I live to be as old as Grungni, I'll still not cherish anything more."
He hugged her, and if her eyes and his eyes were a little misty, they both pretended not to notice.
She broke the hug first. "You scared me." He waited, questioningly. "When you came back like- when I saw that-" Her hand rested gently on his stump. "It's not safe out there. Not even in the underway. Not anymore. So....I had to do what I could."
"It's...incredible, Snerra, I don't know -"
"I need you to promise me, Da." She cut him off. "Promise me you'll wear it on the road. Even in the underway. No matter what. Alright?"
"Snerra-"
"Promise me!"
And if the desperation in her voice wasn't enough, the fear and pain he saw in her eyes certainly was.
"I swear it on my beard, lass."
She sobbed, and they hugged, and neither of them felt any pressing need to do otherwise for a good while after.
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[Canon cept for a few bits] A Foundation, +15 to Nain's Apprentice Roll [USED]
"Hey, have you heard? Bronn's completed his first rune!"
Of course he'd heard. It was the talk of the whole clan: not even a decade into his apprenticeship and Bronn Grundisson had already made an acceptable Rune of Stone. Great-Aunt Bara had been making a point of complaining about it merely being acceptable to anyone she'd meet, that was how pleased she was.
"They say it's been centuries since a Stoneplate apprentice accomplished anything like that so quickly. Say, Nain, how's your own apprenticeship going, anyway?"
Master Snorri didn't even trust him to chisel practice runes into real stone yet. He was still carving lines into clay tablets, much as he had been doing since his first day as an apprentice - and still making much the same mistakes, if Master's irate yelling was anything to go by. Well, that was the gist of it, anyway: he gave a mumbled response to the question while staring into his tankard, so he wasn't sure all the detail quite came across. The general tenor of his answer was obvious enough, though.
He'd had the same conversation several times by now. His elders would grumble about the fecklessness of youth, conspicuously without the undertone of respect they had when grumbling about Bronn. His fellow beardlings were worse: platitudes and awkward half-smiles all around, as if they weren't sure if they were supposed to console him or ignore him. Cousin Inga had reached out a hand towards his shoulder but stopped halfway when he hunched in his seat.
---
Karstah was out running errands, and Master had stalked off to some other part of the workshop, muttering about tubers. Nain was left alone with his thoughts, and found he didn't much care for the company. His practice lines seemed to stare back accusingly at him. Is this all you amount to, son of Kazzar? Do you have the gall to call yourself a runesmith if this is the best you can accomplish? Perhaps you ought to-
"Mmm. Third line's a little shallow, I'd say."
Nain whipped around with an undignified yelp and found himself face to face with one of Master's older students, standing stupidly in place for a few moments before giving an awkward half-bow. "Er, hello, elder Dolgi, sir. I didn't hear you approach."
He'd never really spoken to Dolgi Griffonfriend, who spent most of his time inside the secure workshop, learning guild secrets Nain wasn't even supposed to know existed. His friend Gunder who was apprenticing as a blacksmith had received instruction from the man on making griffon armour, though. The smith apprentices all swore up and down he never complained about anything, ever. On those occasions even the other beardlings could tell an apprentice was being foolish, he just stared at them patiently and explained exactly what they were doing wrong. It was more than a little intimidating: how were you supposed to tell what an elder was thinking if they didn't grumble?
"I don't mean to pry, lad, but you seem a little out of sorts. Are you all right?"
I'm fine, sir. Sorry to trouble you, sir. That's what he should have said. Something that would have let him salvage a bit of dignity and get back to practicing. But his mouth seemed to have come unmoored from his brain, and so the rest of him could only watch in muted horror as it blurted out: "how old were you when you made your first rune?"
Elder Dolgi looked at him for a second with those patient eyes of his. "This is about that cousin of yours, is it? The prodigy."
Nain had not exactly begun as he'd meant to continue, but since the earth seemed uninterested in swallowing him up as he'd been praying for, he needed to fill the air with something. "I- I just worry about not measuring up, um, sir. Not just to Bronn. Everybody always talks about Master Snorri's previous students all being geniuses, and..." he trailed off, glancing at his linework.
"Mm. It's a little early in your apprenticeship to worry about that sort of thing, don't you think?"
You don't understand, Nain thought and didn't say, having finally gotten his tongue back under control. The message seemed to be received regardless, because elder Dolgi smiled wryly at him.
"Lad, I trained together with a woman a hundred years younger than me. It took her perhaps twenty years to surpass me as a runesmith. I may have some inkling about what it feels like to not 'measure up'." He paused for a moment. "But that's the wrong way to think about this. The truth is that every apprentice learns at exactly the same pace: one step at a time."
"I-"
Elder Dolgi held up a hand to forestall him. "Talent's a fine thing, and it's certainly true that there are dwarfs out there who learn their runework quicker than you or I. But Master Snorri can fill your head with runelore and make your hands into maker's hands no matter where you started from. The only thing you absolutely have to do by yourself is to find the determination to keep going, even when the wall ahead of you seems insurmountable." The elder paused to contemplate Nain's linework. "You've already started to build a solid foundation, even if it doesn't feel that way at the moment. You decided you'd work as hard as you needed when you accepted this apprenticeship, didn't you? That right there is the most important step. If you can keep hold of that resolve, and fix your eyes on the road ahead of you, then I promise you'll make a fine runesmith one day. A pillar of clan Stoneplate."
"You really think so?" Nain asked in a small voice.
"Course I do. If you can't trust in your own potential, then trust in Master Snorri's judgement. He's very wise, after all: if he thinks you're worth his time, who are we to say he's mistaken?"
Nain closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. Then he opened them, squared his shoulders and bowed - a proper one this time. "I will take your words to heart, elder. Thank you."
Elder Dolgi grinned at him. "Don't worry about it, kid. Now we'd best get back to work before the master-"
"Well, well, WELL! I pop out for a minute and find not one but two idiot pupils cooling their heels when they should be working! You think yourself done with your master runes already, Dolgi? Learned enough to take over teaching my apprentices for me, have you?"
"Certainly not, Master. I'll get back to my duties immediately," said elder Dolgi, seemingly unperturbed.
"You'd better. As for you," and Nain could feel himself wilting under Master Snorri's glare, "if you think you have time to stand around moping then I've clearly been too soft on you. Well, don't worry, we'll be fixing that presently. For now, get back to practicing while I give young Dolgi a piece of my mind. Take another break like this and you'll live to regret it, understand?"
"Yes, Master!" Nain shouted, but Master had already turned on his heel and stalked off, elder Dolgi to his right and a half-step behind him.
"What would my fellow runelords say if they saw this sorry scene, Dolgi? My own pupils, downing tools the moment I turn my back! Downright disrespectful is what it is. I've half a mind to have you restart your apprenticeship from the beginning."
"Yes, Master. I apologise, Master."
"Sometimes I despair of the youth today. They've got no respect. Back in my day we knew to honour the words of our elders. Are you listening to me, Dolgi?"
"Of course, Master."
"Bah! Maybe Master Yorri was right all along. Maybe I've spoiled yourotten by sparingyou the troll tongue.Well, perhaps it's time I-"
Funny how things work out sometimes, Nain thought as he got back to doing his lines. The prospect of facing Master Snorri's... inventive... methods of remedial discipline ought to have him shaking like a leaf, but his hands were steadier than they'd been for months.
[Canon] Northern Spirit, +15 to a Local RER Roll [USED]
Gron Karisson followed Alda Bjallasdottir of Clan Hardpick through the Fifth Tunnel-way Under Ironarm Halls, his auburn beard nearly twitching with curiosity as he followed the Northern lass by the light of her candle and the faint teal of tiny Runes in the walls and ceiling. Strange folk these northerners, wrapped up in thick furs and hide stitched with knotwork and litanies of Aldrhuns in gilt thread. Everywhere you could stick them you were as likely as not to find some bit of writing or other etched there.
Like the ceiling, which was only a few handspans above the beardling's head, and which was covered by knotwork almost like rolling thunderclouds. If one looked closely, nose almost pressed to the lines you could see little words of Klinkarhun and Aldrhun marked out in the spaces alongside the Runes, declaring small stories of the miners who carved out this tunnel and ways to go through the complicated maze of interwoven tunnels.
Talkative too.
"You done staring at the ceiling Gron? It's really close by, can't have you getting caught up in the stones." Alda chuckled at him, causing Gron to blink for a minute before focusing back on what they were doing.
He grunted. "Look it-, argh! Can you blame a dwarf for liking writing?" He sputtered as he gestured wildly around them at the art. Alda giggled, her blonde hair studded with small rubies at the end of her plaits glinting in the candlelight. "Show me this 'giant mural of the Deeps built out of Gromril and Gold, fit to cover an entire room' then!" Gron grumbled, completely failing to hide his excitement much at all.
Alda grinned and waved a hand at him. "Come on, its just around the corner here." She told him as she walked to a sharp 90 degree left corner in the tunnel they walked down. The tunnel went on into the pleasant dimness but Alda only walked a few short steps before turning to the wall and staring at it intently.
Gron didn't know what the lass of six decades was doing until she started muttering under her breath and pressing on the wall in a specific pattern. "Aha!" Grind, krick. Dozens of little thumbnail sized plates depressed in sequence and Runes lit up around a doorway into a Dringorak (secret passage) that lead into a chamber with stairs going down to their right. She went down and Gron followed, curiosity rising higher as they entered the dark expanse. He couldn't see hardly anything.
Alda spoke as they descended into the black. "We're a bit in between the Royal Deep where the Throne Room and Council Chamber lies, and the Smeltery. Not quite a Deep of its own, but a 'Little Deep' as my Da calls it. He helped carved this room, did ya know? Did most of it himself."
Gron wasn't sure what to make of the strange juxtaposition of pride in their comradery and productivity these North Dwarves had. Always obsessed with greater and greater works of scope and how they went about it was different than the southern boy was used to. Probably because of well... the obvious.
He focused again on her words as they reached a switch back. "Hardpick started this project before the First King was crowned by his Grandmother and the Gift Giver gave him Trollslayer, back when we first struck the earth in my Grandfather's time and we'll continue it for as long as dwarves live here. Hopefully forever ya see. Now, don't trip on the final step, Darri Rockhead did that once and the lump didn't go down for two weeks." Alda said with a laugh.
Watching his step in the dark Gron still nearly tripped as he caught a glimpse of something glimmering out of the corner of his eye on the distant far wall. The room they were in must have been the size of a modest feast hall, long and rectangular, and they had descended one of the long walls to reach the floor. Glints continued as the tiny bubble of light from Alda's candle moved across the floor with the girl.
"Now where did my Da say those Runes were? Was it to the left, or did he say up and left... how did the rhyme go again? 'Kholek Suneater struck to the...' Ah! " The girl said to herself as she poked around the floor of the room and did something Gron couldn't see.
Teal light spun out in channels at her feet and shot towards the far wall, silvery reflections beginning to dance as metal glinted. "Lady Lorna did this back before she was ordained Runelord, before I was born along with six other Master Runesmiths under contract with my Grandfather. They say they worked for a year and a day each to inscribe the Runes, each working on a section in secret until it was complete."
A flash of Runelight bloomed and the silvery sheen of Gromril filled Gron's vision. Limned in the sublime light of lines of Runes a great mural forged from Gromril was revealed, glimmering like molten silver, Gold used to highlight the etchings like rays of sunlight. Gron stood gobsmacked at the sight. His fifty years of experience paled at its beauty.
At the top near the darkness of the chamber ceiling, lovingly carved diamonds had been set into the silvery metal as stars. Below them sat a golden sun of beaten Gold and Gromril. These hung above a great mountain, a sharp crown rising from it to form a citadel. Griffons flew around the crown, picked out with onyx and obsidian. "The Highest Heights there at the top is crowned by the Stormpeak and the Upper Lift Terminal." Alda said, gesturing with her candle. She continued speaking as she pointed out features of note in the map.
Rooms descended from the peak, stores and a labyrinthine mix of tunnels, marked out with Aldrhuns describing their relative placements in three dimensions. The Upper Levels extend further and further down through the body of the mountain until the Clan Deep and the Clan Halls it houses. They are lit brightly, a band of silver and teal light glinting off of gemstones and filigree names for every Clan that calls Kraka Drakk home. Litanies of their deeds are recorded in minute script. Then comes the middle of the mountain and the bottom of the Clan Deep.
Alda's voice quiets as she points up to the space near the Gate of Kraka Drakk. "The First Delving was here, when us Hardpicks set tool to stone and began to carve homes for our Clans." Her finger follows the tunnels up into the Clan Deep. "Winterhearth, Ironarm, Hardpick, Grimseal, Stoneplate, Dromminling, Grimlisson, Hrokisson. These Clans and many others are our heroes. We stood with each other." She pauses for a long moment.
"I remember that day when the Shadow came, even though I was just a babe. Our cries were louder than his screams and roars, Branakroki and Dwarf together at what might have been their end." Her voice echoed in the cavernous hall, and Gron felt a strange thrill pass through him at her strange tone.
"Tell me more." He asked her.
She did. Pointing out the Royal Deep and then the Smeltery Deep where the primary smelter complex and the magnificent Pure Gromril smelter lay. She told him stories about how ore might be brought up from the depths and mines and made into great works to gird her people and of the Runesmiths. Always more about the Runesmiths, and the sonorous sounds of their hammers striking metal and chisel. She told him of how twice Kraka Drakk had sang with the industry of its peoples in the time of her forefathers at the direction of the Gift Giver, that towering figure of renown.
He started to understand, a little, when she moved to the thoroughfares of the Great Underway Terminal and then even below that to the winding shadows and darkened lines of the Dharkhangron (Depths below the Underway, lit 'Dark beneath the world'). He understood them as he heard the anticipatory anger in her voice when she traced out the enormous shadowy Wyrm that curled beneath the Hold, below the deepest depths and tunnels, hanging above an expanse of uncarved metal and stone.
These Northerners were cheerful because of their circumstances, not in spite of it. They drove themselves to be useful and productive because this harsh land allowed for no other response. They rose to the challenge, these people led by the Blood of Grimnir, and spat in its eye with a smile. And she told him of how they looked to the future, buoyed by the past, and looked to carve even more of their presence into the rocks themselves as she pointed out the careful tool marks along the floor where Gromril met stone ready for further deepening of this chamber and expansion of this work of art.
It was late in the afternoon, business hours were drawing to a close and apprentices across the hold were rushing to fill the public houses. In a wee while their honoured elders would start trickling in and naturally receive preferential service, but for the moment it was possible for a youngster to get the attention of a publican with a minimum of fuss, and so apprentices congregated to share war stories and commiserate about capricious masters over drinks. One pair of young women in particular drew sympathetic looks. "Wow, you two look awful," Svein said.
"Long day," Sigrun groused in response. "Master's been in a mood."
The other apprentices exchanged glances. "That's surprising," Ivar ventured, eventually. "Lady Snerra's always seemed like such a kind woman, you know? We figured she'd go a little easy on you, at least in the early days."
"Well... she does go easy," said Jolla, looking at once haggard and sheepish. "She never shouts or grumbles or even raises her voice, really, and she tries hard to hide her disappointment when we fail to meet her expectiations."
Svein scratched his chin. "I don't get it. If she's like that, then why do you look like you've been run over by a mine cart?"
"Because she's terrible at hiding her disappointment," Sigrun exclaimed. "Whenever we mess up she's all over us to reassure us, saying don't feel bad, you'll succeed next time for sure, here's a stonebread biscuit I just baked. It's like she's afraid we'll fall to pieces and start crying if she chews us out, so she treats us with kid gloves instead, even though we can tell she's worried for us. Makes me feel about as useful as tits on a- hey!" She cut herself off with an indignant yelp and rubbed the spot on the back of her head where Jolla had just cuffed her.
"Language," Jolla said sternly. Then she slumped in her seat. "But you're not wrong. Letting Master down is a punch to the gut to begin with, and then she tries to brush it off by saying something kind, even though she has to be disappointed... it's like you've kicked a foal. To make things worse, Master's longbeard bodyguards have figured out we're distressing her and we have to pass by them every day when entering or leaving the workshop. They just glare at us whenever we walk past. It's terrifying."
"You can say that again," Sigrun muttered. "This morning I touched something I shouldn't have in Master's reagent storage room and," she shuddered with repressed memories, "and anyway, I saw her talk with Da later in the day and I don't know what she said, but Da went all stonefaced. Maybe Da thinks we've shamed him, now, and what're we to do then?"
"We've talked it out, the two of us, and the only thing we could think of to try to fix things was to push ourselves harder and make fewer mistakes, so Master wouldn't have cause to feel disappointed with us. Results so far have been... mixed."
"It can be tricky," Sigrun agreed. "Some days, like this one, one of us makes a mess early on. Then Master tries to dismiss it as no big deal, you'll do better next time, which makes us work harder but also nervous enough to cock up something else, which leads to Master trying harder to cheer us up, which makes us work harder still... it's a vicious cycle. After a day like that, I'm knackered."
Throughout the whole exchange, a grin had slowly been blooming on Ivar's face. By this point, it practically stretched from ear to ear. "To summarise, then, the core of your problem is that you've been running yourselves ragged to meet your master's standards, because if you fall short, you're afraid she'll be excessively nice to you?"
All the assembled apprentices guffawed heartily at that - save two. "It's not funny!" they wailed.
---
Earlier...
"It's not funny!" she hissed.
"Who said anything about funny? I don't think this is funny."
"Don't lie to me, Dolgi, your face has gone expessionless and you always do that when you're laughing inside but don't want it to show. Well, I'm glad you're amused. Your daughters are terrified of me! What am I to do now?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," said Dolgi, unconvincingly. "And I'm sure there's a way to get things straightened out with your students. Have you asked your retainers for advice? They're all longbeards, surely there's some among them who have teaching experience."
"Oh, don't get me started on that lot", Snerra responded, perhaps a touch sullenly. "They think this whole thing is hilarious. They're calling me the great terror of apprentices everywhere, and they've taken to grumbling and staring at poor Sigrun and Jolla whenever they get the chance. As soon as those two are out of earshot, they're howling with laughter." She looked down, uncharacteristically glum. "I just wanted to teach without screaming at people or throwing gravel in their faces, and somehow, I've ended up driving them harder than Master Snorri ever drove any of us when we were their age."
"I don't think you're wrong to want to be a teacher like that," Dolgi began hesitatingly, "but you may need to change your approach, a little."
"Oh?" Snerra gave him a look that was probably meant to convey sceptical annoyance, but mostly just made her seem embarrassed. "And what do you think I should be doing differently, then?"
Dolgi stayed silent for a little while, marshalling his thoughts. He was not at all comfortable offering advice in an area where his own experience was so limited, but - and merely thinking the thought felt akin to blasphemy - this was one instance where seeking help from Master Snorri didn't seem like a good idea. He'd probably offer a treatise on the pocket sand gambit, or else apply the technique directly to Snerra's face for asking a foolish question, neither of which was what she needed right now. Oh well, when a tunnel needed reinforcing you used the supports you had on hand, not the ones you wished you had, so he'd just have to do his best. If he didn't at least try he'd be leaving his junior student and his daughters in the lurch, which was unthinkable. Now then, how to phrase this... "Don't pity them."
"What? I'm not pitying them!"
"I know you're not," he said soothingly, "but look at it from their perspective. All their lives they've been taught that, when they go astray, their elders will set them straight, firmly if need be. If you're instructing them and they fail to apply your instructions correctly, more often than not they'll know they've mucked something up and expect you to correct them. If you just try incessantly to cheer them up instead, you'll come across like you don't even trust them to handle being criticised. So my advice would be: don't be afraid to tell them when and exactly how they're wrong, don't immediately give up on challenging them when at first they don't succeed and make sure they know you expect the best of them. You want to be a teacher who isn't hurtful, and I genuinely admire that, but remember you can still push people to succeed without bruising them."
Snerra frowned, but it was easy enough to see the cogs turning in her head. It was actually pretty funny to see her think so hard, not that he would tell her so to her face, especially the part where she replayed their conversation and realised what kind of tone she'd been taking with a man a hundred years her senior.
Snerra offered a few embarrassed apologies, which he accepted with uncommon grace if he might think so himself, and then they parted company, leaving him feeling reassured. Snerra's natural good cheer would reassert itself soon enough, and once she'd learnt to be a touch more firm with her charges, and they'd learnt to adjust their expectations of her a little bit, he had a feeling this master and these students would go uncommonly well together. Why, with his talented daughters being taught by a genius like Snerra he might well live to see them both surpass him in skill as a runesmith, which was the second most beautiful thing he could imagine.
That was for the future, though. For now, he needed to beat a hasty retreat to his sealed workshop, where he was absolutely sure neither Snerra nor his daughters could hear him, and finally release the giggles that had been trying to force their way past his throat ever since Snerra first told him she'd accidentally made herself one of the harshest taskmistresses of apprentices in Krakka Drakk.
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[Canon] Nightfeather [Branakroki/Griffon] Added to Character Recruitment Pool (youre gonna need crits for this to happen +subvote)
"I said I wanted to join the Hearth Guard." His friend shot him a quizzical look. "Why, is that surprising? Do you think I'm too young?"
"Well, uh, no," Arnfinn floundered. "I suppose there's probably some wardens who are your age or younger. It's just..." he trailed off, searching fruitlessly for some tactful way to explain his reaction. "I don't think you're quite what Lord Snorri had in mind when he formed the guard?"
"I'm sure I don't know what you mean."
There was a moment of pained indecision, after which Arnfinn finally gave up on expressing himself diplomatically and settled for the blunt truth. "I think recruitment is probably only open to dwarfs, all right?"
Nightfeather clacked his beak at him. "I have perused the articles of association, and nowhere do they say membership is restricted to any particular species. On the contrary, aspirants of all lineages are explicitly permitted to apply. The only requirements are personal combat prowess and the desire to aid those in danger, both of which I possess, as well as useful noncombat skills. In that respect I believe I have much to offer: I am an experienced scout, for example, and could track down lost travellers from a high vantage point in the sky, or quickly ferry supplies to beleaguered prospectors stuck on a mountainside. I could carry messages great distances. If the group should ever encounter any of the sea folk, I could act as translator, regardless of what dialect those sea folk spoke. Furthermore, I can shoot lightning bolts out of my eyes."
Arnfinn pinched the bridge of his nose. He had found himself in a situation with which he had by now become familiar, knowing with bone-deep certainty Nightfeather was wrong but struggling to articulate exactly why. "Right, I'm sure you'd be very helpful, but that's not what I mean. The wardens are all longbeards, and you're not a longbeard, even if you're of an age with one."
"I do not believe having a beard is mandatory. The warden we met did not have one."
"She was a woman, of course she didn't have a beard!"
"So we agree," Nightfeather said shrewdly, "that 'longbeard' is merely a respectful term denoting age and experience, and that one can be a longbeard without in fact having a beard that is long?"
"Look, beard, plaits, you need one or the other and you haven't got either, so give it up."
"It is true I could not grow a facsimile of those things, either on my head or my throat, but if long hair on some part of the body is required, I have fur on my hindquarters and I believe with the right inducement it could grow quite long-"
"Please don't tell Lord Snorri you're planning to grow a beard on your ass," Arnfinn interjected. "He, uh, he would not take it in the spirit you intend. Look, just- forget about the hair thing, all right? It's all beside the point. A place in a runelord's personal retinue is one of the highest honours a citizen of Krakka Drakk can aspire to. Nobody's ever heard of someone who isn't even a dwarf holding a title like that."
Arnfinn and Nightfeather stared at each other for a long, awkward moment. Then: "I begin to understand. The author of the articles did not specify a member had to be a dwarf because, to him, it was so obvious it did not require mentioning. You object to my joining the retinue not because it would offend against some explicit rule, but rather because it would be unconventional. There is no precedent to draw on; I may protest my suitability for the position, but in the end, those are only words, and words without precedent carry little weight."
"Yeah, it'd be unprecedented, that's the word exactly," Arnfinn said gratefully. "It's nothing to do with you personally, a griffon retainer is just such a huge step from what we know. Maybe in a thousand years things will be different, but not now. I'm sorry."
"You need not be sorry, friend Arnfinn. The patron of the hearth wardens is known to depart from convention, from time to time, given sufficient cause. I merely need to persuade him that, although accepting a member of the sky folk as a retainer would be a new thing, in this instance it would also be a good thing."
"How are you gonna do that?" Arnfinn asked, interested despite himself.
"It is very simple. In the coming years and decades, I shall dedicate myself to assisting those in need of help, by co-ordinating with your rangers, accompanying the expedition to the place of isolation and by whatever other avenues I may think of. I shall come to the aid of many people, and once I have accrued much merit, I shall go before He Who Quietens the Wind. To my own petition, I shall add the testimonies of those I have assisted, thereby proving that even without precedent my words can still have weight. Once I have demonstrated my sincerity and the strength of my convictions, I believe he will be willing to set a new precedent."
"That's great, but you can't know Lord Snorri will take you on just because you've done some good work. Besides, he might already be full up on retainers by the time you're done preparing, for all you know. What then?"
Then I shall have acted with honour," Nightfeather said firmly, "and have earned the goodwill of many mountain folk in the process. My efforts will not have been wasted."
Arnfinn grasped for his next objection, and couldn't think of any. It was a damned odd thing, what Nightfeather was trying to do, but also honourable, in its own strange way. In fact, if he was going to go out of his way to help travellers in need then it'd be positively dishonourable to try to talk him out of it. "Well, I think you'll have a hard time convincing Lord Snorri, but I can see you're determined. So I guess all I can do is wish you luck."
"Your well wishes are much appreciated, friend Arnfinn. Now if you will excuse me; I have much planning to do."
[Canon] Thoughts in the Aftermath, +15 to a Retainer Roll [USED]
The gathering hall of the Hearth Guard was a simple thing, as of yet. Rectangular in shape, it was dominated at one end by Lord Snorri's seat of honour and at the other by a massive and richly ornamented fireplace, above which hung a ceremonial shield painted with the Guard's coat of arms. The walls were otherwise simple smooth stone, bare of any adornment; Lord Snorri had been content to let his retainers decide for themselves how the hall might best be beautified, and they had all agreed in turn it should be more than merely aesthetically pleasing. Every mark on the walls, every work of art on display within the chamber, no matter how minor, would be made by their own hands, piece by piece, each relaying a segment of their shared history. In this manner they would proceed, marking the Guard's every triumph and tragedy in stone and metal and wood and cloth and glass; the hall itself would serve as a living testament to the history of their company, modest for now but growing in splendour as the Guard grew in fame. Already the women were talking among themselves of weaving a great tapestry to commemorate the Relief of the Underkarak, and Thargrim was sketching out in charcoal the depiction of the Breaking of the Gates that he would later carve into a section of the eastern wall, having won the honour in a game of dice. (Alrik, graceful as ever in the face of defeat, was sitting beside him and offering helpful commentary in the vein of what was all this mouse-paw scribbling about, the perspective was all wrong, what was even the point of blundering to victory through dumb luck if he was going to make such an awful mess of everything anyway, and so on, and so forth.)
All the members of the Guard were in attendance today, having assembled at Lord Snorri's invitation to celebrate their homecoming, and already in the earliest stages of inebriation. All the same, they fell quiet immediately when Lord Snorri rose to speak. "Our first campaign was a hard-fought one," he began, "and hard for other reasons besides. No doubt you have had cause to reflect on the many grave things we witnessed, just as I have. Nevertheless, the truth is evident: Karag Dum was a victory for our people, and we dwarfs of Drakk have won honour for our hold through our part in the deed. As you know, there will be a great feast a few days hence, where we will be feted for success in battle, for grudges struck out and hated enemies brought low." He paused for effect. "All worthy things, to be sure. Today, however, I have called you here for a different reason. I do not wish to speak of those dead by our hands, but rather of those who were saved. The good surviving dwarfs of Dum have been rescued from that bleak place and from the prospect of a fate worse than death, as chattel or blood sacrifices for kinslayers, and I know without a doubt that your efforts in particular helped save many lives. They were imperilled and you sheltered them; they were imprisoned and you freed them; they were without hope, and you delivered them from evil. For this, I give you my heartfelt thanks. To your health, wardens!" He raised his tankard, and sixty voices answered him as one.
---
It was a quieter feast than the hold-wide celebration was likely to turn out to be, but then that was usually how things went when longbeards drank among themselves, with no beardlings around thinking they needed to prove themselves and biting off more than they could chew. After a genial and affable dinner for sixty-one, the wardens had mostly split up to drink and converse in smaller groups. Over in one corner, a slightly larger gaggle were playing dice, a few of the participants already breaking off in pairs for the traditional post-dicing friendly fistfight. Elsewhere those individual wardens who had previously not had the chance to socialise together were making friends in the manner typical of longbeards. "You're slowing down! Having trouble handling your drink, eh, sonny boy?" one woman gloated. "Maybe you oughta stick to water for a bit, haha!"
"Matron, I hold," here her drinking companion paused to let out a huge belch, "hold you in the greateshht regard. But you mustn't imply a man of Clan Bitterbrew is a lightweight! Why, my honour demands you meet me in that most noble of contests," and here he stopped to drain his tankard and slam it into the table, "drinking!"
"Bahahaha! Very well then, you face Gunhild, fiercest of all valkyries! Come at me if you've got the stones, little billy!"
From the next table over, Vikken was watching the proceedings with mild interest. "You ladies have a fiercest among you? That an official title?"
"Oh, let her have her fun for now," Ylva replied, grinning lazily. "I'll take her out to the practice yard tomorrow. See how fierce she is after a bit of full-contact sparring, heh."
"Well, it's good they can cut loose, at any rate," Vikken said. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly through his nose. "This whole thing's got me a little shook, I don't mind telling you. Elders turning on their juniors, masters turning on their apprentices... the dangers outside of our holds are one thing, but I never would have thought a hold could rot from within so completely. Just imagine what it must have been like for the youngins we pulled out of Dum, who actually had to live through it."
"They'll muddle through in the end, I expect," Ylva answered. "Made of stern stuff, that lot, and besides, even having seen all that they did, they still know to trust us elders to step in when they falter. And if even we fall short, well, we can always look to the ancestors for reassurance." She glanced meaningfully towards Lord Snorri, who was currently being cajoled by a group of wardens to join their impromptu armwrestling tournament. He had seemed reticent at first, but the eloquent entreaties of his retainers and the good ale in his belly were each persuasive in their own way. Already he was rolling up his shirt sleeve, baring his enormous biceps to the other competitors' raucous delight.
Vikken huffed. "I won't fault anyone for relying on Lord Snorri, but even he can't peer inside men's hearts to see who's true to the ancestors and who isn't. And credit to the beardlings for keeping to the good customs like they did, when their own thanes and guildmasters betrayed them, but I'm still worried. What'll we do if heretics start showing up here at home, eh? Scurrying about in the dark, whispering lies to all who will listen that the ancestors have turned their backs to us?"
"That presupposes there's anyone here who will listen," she countered, "if and when they do show up. The deviants can only do real damage if they get a foothold among our own; as long as good dwarfs keep the faith and refuse to listen to blasphemy, any heretics who come here will be rats in a tunnel. Scurrying about in the dark, like you said."
"Betcha that was how people thought in Dum too, at first, when the murders started," Vikken muttered darkly. "A few crazy people with knives loose in the hold. But they kept coming and coming and soon enough you had people listening to honeyed words about help from the 'hidden father' or what have you."
Ylva gave him a reassuring smile, shaded, perhaps, with a hint of concern. "You're not wrong to worry, but we need to take care not to do harm ourselves, seeing infiltrators in every corner. Remember that good dawi wrongly accusing each other of treason does the work of our enemies as well. Besides, even if - Valaya forbid - the rot takes hold elsewhere, I really don't think it could go so bad as it did in Dum. They were ground down by isolation and miscarriages and probably by countless other horrors, but a heretic in one of the northern holds would have to contend with strong-hearted dawi, and visitors from outside as well. Word would get out."
"Right, but what if they bring about the circumstances where-" Vikken was interrupted by a thunderous retort as Lord Snorri slammed the other finalist's arm down hard enough to shatter the table, sending the unfortunate dwarf hurtling to the floor through a rapidly expanding cloud of splinters. Once the dust settled, Lord Snorri was revealed to the rest of the room with his hand raised; his opponent was still clinging to it even as he struggled to find his footing. "See this, fellows?" Lord Snorri said. "His grip remains unyielding even now. Now that's what I like to see in a retainer - guts enough to make a greatbeard proud! A toast to young Storri, for having such a good fightin' arm!" Vikken and Ylva joined the others in a polite roar of approval and a chug as the duellists separated, Lord Snorri returning to once again peer magisterially at them from his seat of honour while a discombobulated but happy Storri was escorted to a seat of his own. There he had a tankard pressed into his hands by a laughing compatriot and found himself being fussed over by a handsome matron with a braid half again as long as his own beard, a state of affairs he did not appear to find entirely unpleasant. "I'm sorry, you were saying?" Ylva asked pleasantly.
"Ach, never mind me. Dark thoughts not fit for the occasion. I'll speak no more of it." The conversation turned to lighter things after that, of art and family happenings and the foolishness of the young, before they eventually lapsed into a companionable silence.
---
Vikken extricated himself from the feast some hours later, passing largely unnoticed save for the time Lord Snorri appeared as out of thin air to see him off and hand him a covered package ("for your grandnephew, but you didn't get it from me, understand?"). So it was that his thoughts turned toward family while he walked back toward the clanhall. He thought of the time his nephew told him the newborn would be called Vikken, in honour of his granduncle, and the fierce pride he had felt then. He thought of the grin on little Vikken's face when he'd at last come home from the campaign, and the rush of love that had come upon him unbidden, overpowering to the point he'd nearly made a fool of himself in front of his honoured elders. He thought of the many other youngsters of his clan, and of the beardlings who might think of themselves as adults (feh! as if!). Vikken had no children of his own and was unlikely to ever sire any, but he had nephews and nieces aplenty, in all shapes and sizes, and the thought of any of them being dragged away into the dark by deranged chaos cultists was... intolerable.
He wanted to spring into action, to search the hold from top to bottom until he was sure there were no traitors skulking around, or else find them and wring their necks. He wanted the proper order of things to reassert itself; he wanted back the unshakeable trust he'd had in karaks, all karaks, as places of safety only vulnerable from without. Most of all he wished he was wise enough to see a way forward. He couldn't just go chasing shadows, because he knew Ylva had had the right of it: if he started swinging his axe around at enemies he couldn't see, he was only going to get good people hurt. But then what was a man to do?
The truth, he supposed, was that there was no grand solution, no ancestor-granted miracle to remove the threat of heresy for ever. At the very least, it certainly wouldn't come from him. Once more he asked himself, stubbornly: what was a man to do? His thoughts turned to what Ylva had said, about how Karag Dum had been ground down by isolation and horror. That made sense enough: fear and despair had torn at them to the point where they had eventually been ready to contemplate what had once been unthinkable. Did that mean, then, that a world without fear was a world without heresy?
A fanciful notion, he knew, but there was something to the idea all the same. The betrayers had found accomplices among those who knew only hurt, who thought the ancestors had cast them aside. And he knew a thing or two about soothing hurts, these days, didn't he? He might not be able to rid the world of its evils all by himself, but he could certainly show by example that there were elders about to render aid and that there were few ills that couldn't be remedied by enough good dawi working shoulder to shoulder. The Hearth Guard would teach by their actions that the ancestors watched out for all dawi, that life and hope went hand in hand, and every beardling thus taught was one more door closed to the usurpers. One more recruit denied to them.
He turned that thought over in his head, examining it from all angles. It would take a while for it to settle in his gut, he was sure, for he was a worrier at heart and the fact remained this was too big a problem for one dwarf to solve, longbeard or no. But it was a start, all the same. He had been charged with bringing guidance to the lost and succor to the injured, and that was exactly what he would do. The politics and the spycraft he'd leave to those with the head for it; he'd do his part, do it well, and have faith in his elders and the ancestors to do the things he couldn't. And if some catspaw of that damned overgrown aurochs ever did come running out at his family, knife in hand, well. He'd have the pleasure of demonstrating to them that he came by the name Vikken Vicegrip honestly.
Which left the question of how he would explain where he'd got the package. Oh well, young Vikken was a clever little sprog - he was sure to put two and two together if old Vikken just winked obnoxiously and said the gift definitely did not come from great-great-granduncle Snorri.
[Canon] Crystal Bonsai, +10 to a local RER Roll, Crystal "Bonsai," a tradition started in Karak Izril, present in Kraka Drakk
- Things other than a goat or pony a Dwarf would raise/grow as a hobby. (Better chances if it's something that's long-lived, can be worked on over successive generations. Plants and Crystals are on the table.)
Brogi Grimson chuckled contentedly as he sat in his favorite chair and tended to his family's crystal tree, carefully polishing it. Sat in a decorative stone pot inscribed with the Runes at great expense millennia ago, the pot held a mixture of dirt and gravel from which sprouted a yellow-white crystal of quartz. It grew in a straight trunk for three hand spans, and from that short length dozens of other carefully cultivated crystals had been coaxed from its surface, creating a small shape reminiscent of a tree.
The clan of Diamondeye had cared for this tree for twenty generations, since it was found by the original Grim deep in the depths, and it wouldn't be Brogi Grimson who failed to care for it properly! His ancestors would shame him if he did. The jeweler grumbled to himself as he squinted at his prized hobby through a jeweler's lens, hunched over his work desk as he carefully scrubbed a miniscule speck of grime from one of the 'branches'.
With a huff the five hundred year old dwarf elder straightened and bustled about putting away his tools and then carefully carried the pot to its place beneath the complicated series of pipes and valves which hung in a side room and dripped a carefully mixed solution of mineral water onto a pinpoint section of the crystal. Sourced from the waters in the living rock of Kraka Drakk, he was quite pleased to find that his family heirloom had been doing quite nicely since he moved here in the wake of Lord Klausson when he was a much younger lad.
His happy humming was interrupted when he spied a bit of warping on one of his pipes. "Krut! Ancestors be damned iron, knew I wasn't getting... shoulda..." Brogi grumbled mightily as he fussed over his pipes and planned how he was going to replace them.
Bah!
If he was going to replace some he might as well do some of those improvements he'd been meaning too. The hold was abuzz with activity and news of that business in Kadrin so there'd probably be someone he could talk to who needed the business. Maybe that old lad Mordin? Be nice to talk to him again, been a while since they'd had a good hearty ale.
Careful fiddling adjusted the light level as he pressed the various Runes on his walls or spoke a few quiet words over them, dimming to a nice cave like shine. He'd have to go quickly.
His train of thought was disrupted as a furious knocking started on his door and then he heard his friend Dorri yelling frantically. "Brogi get out you wazzock we have a dozen orders in our lap and the guildmaster is grumbling hard enough to shake the ceiling. Please hurry up!"
Brogi snorted angrily and yanked his door open, nearly getting a fist in his face for his troubles before his younger friend jerked it back. "What!?" He shouted grumpily. He had things to do besides get caught up in whatever this nonsense was.
"The Lord Ancestor is in a Mood again!" Dorri yelled back.
Ah.
Oh.
Oh dear.
Brogi paled white as a sheet. "What are you standing here for you wazzock, go go go, no time to waste!"
"I'll go tell Magda!" Dorri shouted as he ran off down the street. Brogi could see similar scenes playing out across down the street, dwarves rushing about everywhere in a carefully organized but extremely speedy rush. Dorri disappeared into that crush as the entire cavern echoed with the sounds of booted feet and grumbling voices.
He'd need to get those diamonds from Jolla and the transcripts from the guild master and oil the cart wheels and make sure his fool apprentices didn't suddenly get themselves lost chasing light down a mineshaft, and...!
Bah!
Nothing for it but to make sure the beardlings didn't bungle it up too much while he pushed through his work. If it was this urgent the entire hold would be up in a hubbub about it!
Rushing into his house to scoop up his tools the elderly dwarf stashed them in his apron and then dashed off towards the guildhall, his grumbles clearing a path through all the beardlings thronging about under the careful hand of their harried and grumbling elders.
Just a little omake about a jeweler and his crystal growing hobby.
