RHUNRIKKI STROLLAR (Warhammer Fantasy Golden Age Dwarf Runelord Quest)

[Voikirium]

Nain's New Discovery

"Master, we've received a letter from my honored cousin Gnolbaraz Dumbane..."

Inwardly, Nain sighed a particularly deep sigh even as he half-tuned out the semi-formal recitation of his poor apprentice's kin's many, many, many titles, half self-anointed, on the tosser. Of course, half weren't, a stunning improvement over most of Tholinn's Clan, and the really important weren't. Might be a tosser, but he was a tosser who had, in fact, carved through Chaos like so much moldy wood before a particularly sharp, particularly fiery ax.

Tholinn drank a deep draft of the fermented apple juice the Brana were so fond of (And which he studiously ignored for the sake of not burning down the progress in making Tholinn a person rather than a convenient tool in every sense of the word), and that acted as the sign that the long recitation was done and that he needed to put out his hand to grab the letter. He did and Tholinn put the letter in his hand and of course it was long and overbearing and so he carved through the pretentious verbiage, all airy fairy nonsense and Ancestors only knew what else, to cut to the heart of the matter.

...Honored Master Runesmith, apprentice to the Giftgiver (He thanked his lucky stars then that Master Yorri had burned his history so utterly and completely from every record he could), a patrol to the far west reaches of those lands of Kraka Drak revealed a substance unknown. As it seems, at worst, benign; and as the Runelords are otherwise preoccupied avenging the Dawi upon the Fimir; and as a great debt is owed in your teaching our beloved cousin (He blinked at that); we desired that we might allow you either the opportunity to catalogue, disarm, and destroy a potential threat and so gain the acclaim and honor therein; or else make what use of it as you may desire, if it turns out to be beneficial; and further to make such usage of it as you desire. A coterie of my own Lifeguard are at your disposal both to lead you there and to ensure the safety and security of your person.

Hm. On the one hand, a potential danger snuffed out before it could cause trouble or a potential new ingredient for Runesmithing.

On the other hand, the Lifts. Those needed to be done right and properly, before, above, and beyond anything else.

With senses honed by more than three centuries of life, he also heard his apprentice shuffle a sheet of parchment thinking he was being slick and again he did not comment on it...directly. No doubt a letter from the Steelfist lad.

Very, friendly, that one, and Tholinn didn't even realize it.

Nain made up his mind then to do something mildly clever and mildly risky. "Well, Apprentice, you're in luck. It seems I need to take a month or so to go spot some trouble out west, and I'll be gone for some time." He let himself pause for a second, trying to lay out exactly what he needed his apprentice to do. "Fortunately, we are in a part of the process where I require my Mise en Place in position more than anything else, which is something you can do while I'm out. I will write out exact instruction of what I need, where, and when. You will follow them. You will also meet with the masons and other workers making sure they have sufficient resources. Aside from that, you will spend an hour each day reading the basic treatises of ingredients."

There. Rune learning...and enough time to do things other than Runes before he fries his brain.

"Aye, Master. It will be done."
--
The Lifeguard acting as his escort walked silently through the snowy forest, pine covered and shadow blanketed, where trolls and wolves and dogs and Ancestors alone might know what else lurked in the dark places. The guards, of course, were silent. Not entirely disconcerting given the unfriendly situation they found themselves in; but they had been quiet long, long, long before they had entered the forest.

More disconcerting, of course, was the armor, the weapons, the everything that the Lifeguard wore and had.

It was all-but identical. Loaf helms, with varying but never overly long nasals. Splint greaves, splint vambraces. Scale like shingles to cover the main torso. All Ancestor decoration. Only scarcely changed with use, with time, a trophy here or a trophy there perhaps only just allowing someone to look at and identify and distinguish one Dwarf from another: one might have a claw from a manticore and the other the eye of a fimir...but by and large?

Telling them apart was a matter of luck.

The only exception were the Runes. Even Clan Brightwill, it seemed, could not stop the aristry of a Runesmith.

There was something comforting in that.

Still, he felt a weight fall from his shoulders as he saw the opening to the gorge that Gnolbaraz was so scared of, and the shimmering, twinkling white light that emanated from it. Soft but pure, for now, and magic...how much could magic trusted to remain as such? "Master Kazarsson, through there."

"Thank you."

And then mustering up his courage, he approached.

The first thing he felt was judged, as he approached the light. As though it was prodding at him, and he found he rather disliked the sensation. His beard twitched a bit, and then the magic subsided.

Some, anyway.

He was no master Snorri yet, after all.

Privately he doubted that Master Snorri, outside of his panoply, would manage to smother the quickly growing light that Nain followed down to its source. The cave walls were all smooth, bright white, except where cave plants--creeping vines in fractal patterns from the largest to the smallest, and white flowers with geometric patterns in mathematically perfect precision-- covered them, Nain resolutely ignoring them all the while.

It would take a bit more than some fancy flowers to press on his mind.

For seconds that were hours or hours that were seconds he walked, unafraid, into the constantly stronger light. What had begun as a soft, twinkling blanket wrapped around the shadows of the world rapidly became a bright, uncompromising, hand wrapped around the world, like a second sun set in the midst of the cavern, revealing every nook and cranny. Oddly though, it caused no discomfort, a light without heat or glare. It simply was, and that was enough.

And then he entered the cavern.

Laced throughout the walls was some sort of crystal, shining and blinding and brilliant and with an inner light. One unfading, that does not dim. The veins themselves are in geometrically, mathematically, aesthetically pleasing patterns that flow from top to bottom. He could trace some of them for hours with his eyes, following the intricacies, the patterns, the oddities for as long as they could go.

Then screaming wisdom from Master Snorri enters his brain and he breaks that particular train of thought. There aren't nearly enough beaks, horns, toads, snakes or associated beasts depicted to be the enemy as he knows them, but best not to take any chances.

Rather instead he leans down, the better to examine it.

"Gnolbaraz, what have you shown me now?"

 

[Voikirium]

Living Mist

Fjolla's greaves beat out a false, staccato beat as she walked, her ax in one hand, bright-furious Lhunegal in the other, casting away the magic, turning the slop and mud and filth into something walkable for a time. The magic was perturbed here, in this place, perturbed and unnatural and wrong, wronger than usual even. Dwarfs never trusted the stuff to begin with, of course. But even the Brana and the Elves, who seemed to enjoy drinking the stuff down like good ales and beers, apparently did not trust whatever was happening here, in this forest, poisoned as it was by Beastmen and Daemons and worse. Of course with the Fimir accounting for so much attention and time, there were few who could be dispatched to handle this, whatever this was.

Leaving it perfectly suited for Fjolla.

She rolled her shoulder, felt no tension, no slowness, where the Fimir blade had parted her gut like so much bread, opened her from shoulder to waist, an ugly, bleeding thing. She was ready again, her armor hard, her ax sharp, her mind turned to the task at hand. When she had entered the forest, of course, it had been normal. This deep in, it was much less so, but that did not distract her. The chirping sounds of animals twisted by so much magic, melding together with a meaty thwack to their tone. The deer with one horn too many. The rats thick and fat and watching, waiting. Squirrels, twin-tongued, who shrieked to see her. The trees themselves either stunted and warped or lanky and obscene, in all cases their fruits aromatic, slimy, dripping substances to the ground. And yet all of this corruption did not distract her.

Nor did it keep her from seeing, as she walked, a flower. It was a soft, comforting gray, like mist, fog, darkness yes but darkness a rational mind might seek to hide in, rather than a laughing, hungry maw. There was magic worked into it, light but present, promising mystery and confusion.

Looking she saw more of the flowers, in this forest not so distant from home. She catalogued it, but did not let it distract her, even as she approached the epicenter of the magic.

And brushing her way through the trees she revealed something she did not understand.

Four trees, stunted little things, each with burned, wicked sigils wrought not simply into the bark but into the very essence of the things. One for Hate, one for Lust, one for Despair, and one for Desire. They surrounded a tall, unblemished, unburned and unwarped tree, at least as wide as four of her, and ten times taller. And rising from the tree's trunk, almost a throne, and seated on it something biped.

No.

Not seated.

Not a throne.

A prison.

Chains of meat anchored with bones were wrapped around the thing's waist, its wrists, its knees and ankles and neck, and its mouth was open, its tongue missing, and its eyes empty pits filled with scarabs. A sword was jammed through it.

It was dead.

Hopefully, long, long before that had come to pass.

And yet it still bled. It bled, and a moan seemed to fall from its dying throat, a singular thing of exertion stretched out into infinity.

It was trapped, bound, held, tortured, feared.

Fjolla paused. She had not thought that.

And yet even with the confusion that brought it was not hard for her to bring her ax around and force the Gor's sword into the dirt, followed not a second later by ending its life.

"My time is valuable, Shaman. Stop wasting it."

Fog poured in, filling the clearing, leaking from the boughs of the trees and gaps to cover the quinqux that was her-its, she snarled--sacrifical altar, where whatever the dead creature was trapped, and then appearing in a flash of silver the shaman, ready for battle in a way none other were, all clad in armor.

The panoply was brutal, ugly stuff, wrapped around the thing's body, thick and ungainly but articulated plate. For all evil runes burned on it, it was solid, substantial, metal pounded by will, not magic hastily shaped by idiot daemon things screaming into the void. Not merely a gift of the gods, but something resembling a true craftsman's work, if not an artist's. She would have considered it acceptable--if tasteless--from a people more civilized, if the Brana had brought it about or the elves or whatever the things Master Snorri kept discovering enslaved by the Fimir were. It was a big world, and privately she thought perhaps someone more focused on seeing the deed done than making it pretty...might...not always be wrong.

But it was Dum, and so to her it was hideous.

It did not help that the Shaman itself was a vile, odious, disgusting mismatch of creatures, none of which were meant to share the same body. Segmented, insectoid legs below the knee ending in clawed feet, perhaps those of a butterfly, colored the yellow of pus. Above that it was the leg of a great stag, shaggy and tangled and overgrown, the fur peaking out through the armor, sweaty and foul. That melded, and not seamlessly, into the scaled belly of a fish, which at the back sprouted the wings of butterfly, except unlike a butterfly which might fake eyes to frighten off predators this thing's wings were covered, inch by hideous inch, with seeing, staring, horrifying eyes. Its upper arms were leonine, its forearms dwarfish, and its head that of a four eyed, four horned frog.

It began spewing blasphemous words, and floating, and magic began to swirl and swirl and swirl and with a noise that ended all noise a for a moment there was a burst of mist. Fjolla tossed her ax and raised Lhungal, unleashing its bright light.

The next thing she could remember, the forest was ablaze. The animals screamed, and not only in pain but some in relief as the misery was ended, the smell of burning pus was thick in the air, and the beastman was dead, and the creature was still trapped.

Chaos hated all that was good.

Chaos hated plenty that was evil.

She pulled the sword out and she swore she heard a whispered thanks on the air even as she turned to see one of the Fogflowers and suddenly filled with a desire that not everything should burn, plucked it and prepared to flee, to run, from the forest as magic atop magic atop magic poured out into it.

It would be a trophy, aye.

And something to study.
--
Re: Whatever the creature is

 

[Voikirium]

The Metal of Will

...The Dawi found it first, Vaul's mercy on them, and examined it deeply, this, the Elqenyi, the stuff of will. Karu Tuk-Azul they named it, those mountain folk, and they did not understand it; now, millennia later, they still do not. If they did, they might ask themselves why they found it in the burrows of rabbits rather than in the mountain deeps.
--
Karstah flailed as she heard the sound of her f- Master's footsteps on the hard rock, the Adamant of his gauntlets scraping and thumping and thudding on the stone. She flailed as she tossed herself into bed, trying to make sure he didn't realize she had past out at her desk, writing down her notes on Karak Izril, the riddle Thungni had given them, the possibilities waiting for them down there in the deep places, where glory and knowledge in equal measure waited.. She did not want to imagine the disappointment, the shame, the lecture her master would give her for such behavior, not to rest properly as a wise, well-educated Runesmith ought (She, quite charitably, ignored a few thousand instances of her master managing behavior even less healthy and even less restful than sleeping in a chair). One thing to eschew sleep for a time; but to sleep and not sleep properly, well that was the worst of both worlds, offering neither the restorative clarity of good rest nor the sheer, brolic, rolling effort of keeping herself awake.

She was just barely in bed by the time her door slid open. "Apprentice, I have work for you." Her master's voice was like the door that slid across the stone, a smooth, heavy stone weight gliding with some efficiency and little grace. She wearily sat up, feeling her heart beat a little less than a million-miles-a-minute as her master seemed to buy her little deception. He walked to her bed and handed over a metal that was the shade of bronze, and felt, even, like bronze.

It was no bronze.

Her sense for magic was not quite as developed as Master Snorri's, but she could feel it stiffening in her braids. Magic. Not particularly potent, at best equal to the Dronril in this, its unworked state; but then, on the other hand, it was unworked. And even if it was never better than that, more reagents meant more Runes, meant less Dwarfs dying.

Meant fewer foundlings.

"One of Get-Gold's people found it while he was hunting for some softer fur for a collar, hidden in a rabbit's burrow. It was a small seam of the stuff all things considered but he thought there was likely more peaking about, it just hadn't been noticed yet. He's been examining it but we do have a reputation. Thungni's riddle is to be top priority, but work on it when you can, alright?" He walked away from her bed, leaving her with the metal. He paused at the door, and turned his head around some. "Oh, and the bed's for sleeping, not the chair." Karstah sputtered out apologies, promises and more as Snorri walked away. He shook his head as he walked away, drawn to some Runelord business. "I swear, the youth these days..."
--
Survival.

That was it. That was what was bound, nurtured, captured in the bronze. The will to survive, red-toothed and slick-clawed, in this world. To last, and last, and keep lasting; to survive and thrive because that was their duty. Their pleasure. Their desire and their law: to live.

The simple Rune of Stone she had bound in the helmet, the shield, and the breastplate, all passed out to less well-off warriors in return for notes and examination, told it so, each a variant of Magic Breaker, given varying quantities of the bronze: only Stone itself in the helmet; Stone and Warding in the shield; Stone, Warding, and Spellbreaking alike in the breastplate. All had become survivors, thrivers, their natural instincts sharpened to a bestial level. Aye, it gave them the strength--the strength of a beast. The strength of the enduring. The strength of some Antediluvian thing, existing since before there were two moons in the sky.

But there were, of course, consequences. The bearer of the helmet had become animalistic to be sure, detached and as brutal as she needed to be for the sake of victory, who allowed instincts to take over and survived as a wild animal would survive. But this was less than came to pass with the shield, whose bearer become clear-minded, singularly focused and all but cruel in battle.

And both paled in comparison to the bearer of the breastplate. He was as much animal as warrior in a fight, trying to assert dominance with every move, no matter whether it was a friendly spar or a duel to the death. It was not always so serious an attempt at dominance to be sure, but always jockeying to show he was the alpha, the best, the most furious. And even outside of battle he was more paranoid, more aware, more instinctive, though natural discipline and his own efforts leashed it down.

It was fortune beyond fortune that all were temporary, a stopgap, to be replaced with something more proper after sufficient data had been acquired for the material, for only the strength of an oath seemed absolutely sure to cut through the sheer arrogant, animalistic fervor that filled them, the desire to remain strong.

Of course, further testing needed to be done before deeper conclusions than "Magical animal metal affects people" could be drawn--this was at most preliminary testing to preliminary testing for the preliminary testing, the kind of thing that justifies a pilot study to see whether effects could be replicated. Could be this was nothing more than unfortunate resonance, could be an over reaction. But if nothing else for the time being she could recommend with a clear conscience not using more than a bar of the stuff to feed the Runes themselves, for who could even begin to guess what the effects could be if too much of the bronze was used?

She shuddered to imagine, particularly for more esoteric Runes.

"I'm going to build the whole thing out of it, Thinat."
--
Learn Eltharin:

Elqenyi- The Defiance of Death, formed from the Eltharin Runes Elui and Kenui.

 

[Voikirium]

Sparkshrooms

Dolgi curiously lifts a small bit of the wool with the stone tongs, dips it into the dye-filled barrel (a small one, but still) that the Brana had clunked down on his desk, twirls it in the dye for a brief moment, pulls it up--and grimaces as charge, energy, pours out, arcing through his clothing, his hands, his fingers, all around the spartan office, a secondary one attached to a secondary workshop (And supposed to be secret, which makes the fact this mere apprentice can find it with simple scrying something of a hair raiser though he pushes that aside for a moment) meant for unpleasant (not dangerous, never dangerous) work, things like leathermaking. The quantity of dye and wool aren't enough to do more than lightly annoy a man of his age, and by the mercy of the Ancestors his beard doesn't stick out in fifty-thousand directions, but he still none too gingerly tosses the wool back into the barrel, before that can change. "Now where did you say you found this, plaitling?"

"Mushrooms." The young Stormcaller, Lightninglung, gormlessly continues to stare over his shoulder in the most dismaying fashion, his skin crawling--she's one of the rare Brana more focused on the higher, more mystical side of the Wind she has chosen to study, and her thought are as distant and ephemeral as the very skies she covets. Unfiltered access to elf texts is apparently more of a threat than he had expected. He tries not to groan at the answer. Her appearance is appropriate at least, being small by Brana standards, her head and feathers the shade of a cloud while her leonine body is the color of a bright blue day, her eyes much the same.

"A bit more specific if you don't mind?"

"Twenty miles that way," she points north with a claw, again right over his shoulder, "it should be on the...I didn't give you the map yet, did I?"

"No Plaitling, I'm sorry to say you didn't."

A moment later some poor apprentice races in with the said map, huffing and puffing, "I told you you need to--" And then the apprentice's eyes widen and she starts blurting out apologies to Dolgi, who gives her a second to get it out of her system before raising a hand to quiet her. "Thank you lass, now give it here then get on with your day."
--
Well. They are mushrooms alright. Standing in the freezing Norscan cold, huddled in enough coats, cloaks, furs, and gloves to feel more like a caterpillar in its cocoon than a dwarf, might be sabotaging his sense of aesthetic but he can't say he's fond of how they look: a pale, putrescent, white stem, capped with a baby blue tip that closer examination after he pulls one from the earth, he can confirm there are gills loaded with spores the twinkling white of stars in the night sky. All along the flesh of the thing white streaks the shade of lightning go around in zig-zagging manner. The size itself varies in the patch he's been guided to, from as small an eye to as big as his forearm. There's an unpleasant smell, rather like too much perfume spray in too small a room, not the worst thing he's ever smelled but a decent sign that it's poisonous, "dashing any half-considered, lunatic plans of experimenting with feeding them to Brana to try and supercharge their magic" to paraphrase what Lightninglung had said and, perhaps, explain why she would share such a find with him rather than keep it for herself.

Also, lightning arcs off of the flesh, even more of a deterrent. The size varies depending on, well, size, but even the smallest would be painful to try and stick into your throat and the largest would almost certainly kill, which does actually leave him with rather a question of harvesting the stuff. He could just employ some dwarfs with inexpensive grounding and spare himself the trouble...or he could use it as an excuse to finally forge a really, really nice suit of armor and talisman to obviate the issue.

That's quite a find he has for his troubles. It isn't quite Master Snorri's stumbling onto a vein of Gromril...or the azrilwutroth...or the hearthstones--look, Master Snorri has stumbled onto quite a few reagants in his time, obviously, but finding even one will do great wonders for his vault, particularly considering his clientele.

There is, admittedly, a question of use. Not what the usage of the things would be: lightning spewing, sky-related mushrooms fairly-full of magic have some pretty obvious applications in lightning and sky-related Runes (and for that matter half-remembered lessons of electricity making things twitch leaves him idly-curious whether it might not be a potential replacement for a Troll Heart in Awakening) for all he'll need to test, and extensively at that, to be sure but, well, he can't exactly make armor out of the stuff, can he? Grinding it and trying to pour it directly into the metal or other materials he's working on risks shocking himself, given any kind of notable quantity, for any Master Rune and probably some of the chancier "just" Runes for that matter, but on the other hand there is something to be said for the direct route and it gives him even more of an excuse to go all out on making himself that armor--or even better, he can use the harvesting as an excuse to make some gronti and use the actual production as an excuse to make the armor. Klora can hardly side-eye him for that expense, now can she? The wisdom expected of a longbeard. Truly, he has earned his wrinkles.

On the other hand, as the plaitlings demonstrated, he could just make a dye, stain, and lacquer out of the stuff and use it that way, for all he thinks the colors won't be the prettiest.

Either way, he giggles at the amount of money he's about to make.
--

 

[Voikirium]

Form and Function

It has often been stated that I disdain the dwarfs' works, and their history, and their mythology. This is not...an entirely unfair accusation. But it is not completely true either. Though the traditional works of Dawi artisans are not to my taste, there is one group which, having adapted by necessity, I adore as craftsmen:

The Grey Dwarfs.

And among the Grey Dwarfs, among their intellectual forefathers who first allowed their changes, if only in their own minds, one looms tall:

Nain Kazzarsson.

In spite of living in the time of the Golden Age, there was a restraint, a simplicity, compared to the golden plated armor, jewel encrusted weapons, and towering structures of the Karaz Ankor at that time, he preferred to allow the natural beauty of his materials and of his work to shine. In particular, he coined a phrase near and dear to my own heart as a craftsman, and indeed to all the Windseekers, though none would ever admit the roots of the phrasology.
--

"Form follows function."

Tholin jolted a bit in the way only a Beardling caught by an Elder might, though at least it was less exaggerated than it had been when he'd first started training the boy. He was crouched over a the drawing of an ax.

Not any kind of ax that Nain would ever create, mind you. Which was not, necessarily, a problem, Nain himself attested to that: while Master Snorri had definitely left an influence on his style as a craftsman and an artist, his work was simple, austere, pristine, emphasizing what was within the beauty of the materials he was working with. If Tholin reverted to the mean, so much the better: goodness began with stubborness, independence, freedom of thought.

No, the bigger issue was that it was not very good.

There was a delicate line to tread here, he saw. Make sure the Beardling recognized he had made a mistake without being such an ass about it that he retreated as he had when Nain had first taken him on as an apprentice, worried about, well, worried about very many things. And then the third dimension, of not coddling the beardling so much that Tholin himself took umbrage at being treated like something very glass, very prone to breaking, rather than as living stone.

"I'm sorry master, what?"

Good, good. Enough spine to not immediately fold even to his master. Better, even.

"Here." He pointed to the chunk of lead on the bottom of the thing's proposed haft, the edges (encrusted!) with jewels, the haft of rock, "All of this, what is this?" He pointed to spikes of bone around the grip.

"I sketched it when I was thirteen master, It's been decades since I last looked at it. I..." He turned aside, embarrassed. "I was hoping I could improve it."

"And maybe you will, apprentice. But now's the time to revise, to make it work as an ax, to make it good as a tool and weapon before you make it beautiful. Jewels, decoration, that is all fine, but first and foremost it must be an ax, for there can be no beauty in something that does not fulfill its function." He thought for a second, then decided. "In fact, fire up the forge."
--
It was a tool, meant to instruct, to act as a symbol.
--
Hammer pounded and chisel cleaved. He was making a point to the Beardling, and so it was not hot gromril, not adamant, not Karu Tuk-Azul, but steel, good, hard steel, three bars of it, and wutroth. His only resignation was in that there were two bars of Drazh steel, and so black as charcoal and highest of quality; but it should never be difficult for a dwarf to acquire a stock of the metal, no matter what, right? The wutroth itself he had worked as well, staining it a soft yellow, blued steel acting as the grip, and a bit of pale black opal shaped to resemble Valaya herself at the bottom to act as a counterweight.

The bars came together into a billet, twisted together under his hammer, each blow bringing it closer and closer to shape, to form. Until all at once it was ready, and so he placed it onto the anvil and began to strike it, his hammer pounding on the hard metal to a sonorous beat.

The Runes too, those he chosen to follow function and so those he had set to work making onto the hot metal.

Master Snorri, Elder Snerra, Karstah, any of the others probably would have chosen some kind of lightning spewing, thunder calling, acid soaked nightmare beast that could light the entire field of battle itself alight.

His woul be simpler. And more straightforward for that, for any number of reasons.

The Master Rune of Currents. He delicately chiseled the symbol onto the hot steel, each strike as precise as he could manage, each blow delicately refining the shape as perfectly as possible. He could never match the raw Gift of the others, but this, this he could do, this he could put forward. This he was capable of. When he heard the scream of wind letting him know it was close to ready he took the paste of the griffon brain and began to spread it along the marks, the material disappearing as he did, until all at once there was a screech and the winds themselves seemed to gather around the ax, waiting for their duty.

He was not done.

Cleaving, no chant, simply focus, simply ability. It seemed to flow from his hands like ale from the keg until the gathering energy was tight and taut, waiting, and then he took the mighty cask of Grimnirzan he had gained and poured it out for seven heartbeats, one for each ancestor, letting it gather in the hard metal, pooling along it, such that it was stained with the red liquid even as the rest of the metal began to cool, returning to its natural black shade.

One last one.

The Rune of Featherweight. He chiseled some, the shape and geometry of the Rune simplest but most time consuming, thousands of tiny strikes to shape it properly. But at last it was done, at last it was ready, and with some solemnity he began to pepper the ground Phoenix Feather into the thing.

Until at last there was a hum and it was ready, as the metal cooled, and he dunked it into the corrosive, to reveal the inner beauty of the metal.
--
Gandar Dalaz is a simple ax, having made its way to the treasury of Kraka Drak. It has never failed to fulfill its function--It has been stopped but it has never failed-- and so the warriors of that realm wield it well to carve through the hardest of wood.
-Leandre Agua, A Treatise on the Art and Craftsmen of the Civilized Realms

 

[Voikirium]

Sunsteel

Two pairs of greaves slap against the stone of the abandoned mining shaft, Master and Apprentice. One an ancient thing, an embodiment of wisdom. The other an apprentice, to crave it.

Well, fair's fair, he is a Master Runesmith at this point, even if he does still crave some of his Master's wisdom.

Morek kneels down first, picks up a chunk of rock, sniffs it. It's not the exaggerated feat of a miner thinking he's caught some kind of whiff of something valuable (And assuming his sources aren't full of it he may well not be) but a good, honest, breath to catch it, and then he sets the rock back down. It looks like fairly normal iron ore, except, of course, that rather than the dull gray of that ore it's streaked through with yellow lines. Yellow specifically, not gold, no gold he knows of reacts like that, catches or throws light like that, though it sure is shiny. Almost like damascened steel, intricate whorls and waves and patterns playing along the whole surface.

Yes, Vragni allows, his apprentice has brought him something very-damned-novel to poke at. He kneels down himself and grabs a chunk of the stuff in a clad hand, examining it. The sixth sense, good old instinct, survival-sharp knowledge, whatever you want to call it, makes Vragni well aware that this, this is no merely mundane metal. "Where did you say you heard about this, then, Morek?"

Morek bites his tongue in the same way he had forty, fifty years ago as an even more up-jumped beardling. "I had a run in with some of the Brana who themselves were having a run-in with some of the Neverborn." He does clench a little in distaste at that, at the idea of one of his students running into some of those abominations as just a Journeyman. "Things born of Old Rotgut." His voice is high, in that way it so often gets when he's worried he's disappointed his master, and so Vragni deigns, as a rare treat, to dispel that particular worry right off the bat.

"Damn Klausson for many things, among them no respect or pride as a craftsman. But talking to people is not one of those reasons." Though still tense, Morek does, at least, let himself relax a little, his hand unclenching around the loose ore. "And what, exactly, did the Brana have to say about it, hm?"

"Not much, they haven't run into too much of it themselves. They know it gets produced when somebody tosses around too much Gold, the magic of metal, the magic of Silverbearers. Probably just a few chunks."

Vragni stops, and looks around the mine. Abandoned for centuries, abandoned for good reason. Reasons told in the scorched rock, screamed in the shattered stone, whispered in the stink of mildew and decay that lingers in the mine. Chaos had come here, during The Incursion. An army of Daemons, boiling out of stone and tunnel in endless numbers.

And now they stand here, among the memories of blood and slaughter, and try to figure out what to make of it. Except another thought comes to him then. "Did you come in here trying to figure out whether you got that damn Rune finally working, beardling?" If he risked himself like that, Vragni is going to--

"No!" Morek draws back a little. "No. The Valayans thought there was a chance the mine was finally safe to use again, and they wanted me to make some talismans to protect them so they could check, well-understood Runes I learned from proper Runesmiths. Part of my payment was getting to see if there were any reagents, and I saw this, and I thought you might want to see as well." See, and provide the labor and capital to get the mine properly working again. Runes, to help ensure the area is safe.

Vragni lets himself relax some, a keenly analytical mind now stuck on a minor detail. "How do you suppose there was enough Gold down here to make any of this, anyway?"

"Silverbearer told me, the Tempter's Daemons make use of it too." Morek kneels down, runs a gauntleted hand through a crevice ripped into the stone by a blade at least as tall as he is, then examines his fingers for any signs of slime, rot, disgust, decay, or worse, the both of their Runes--things of purity, health and healing, defiance and disdain alike--faintly gleaming in the torchlight and as the magic itself burns away at whatever still contaminates the air. "I think those gibbering loons and lumbering idiots fought each other as much as they tried to fight us."

And that's the rub, isn't it? It could be mundane particulates, iron dust and other mundane refuse...or it could be some left-over mark of Chaos, weakened, degraded, faded by age, still trying to kill them. The kind of stubborness he could almost respect.

If it wasn't Chaos.

"You say you examined the area?"

"Thoroughly, along with a Silverbearer and Mage from Ulthuan hired by the Valayans specifically to get the best possible read on the matter."

Vragni turns to look at his apprentice, his stern gaze revealing nothing. "They let an elgi see the mines?"

"Gorek said it was fine. 'Oh, oh, the Elgi will know we have iron, how will we ever survive? Oh, he'll have a day's examination of something we're going to have to gut anyway, what a great threat! Bah, Beardlings,' and you can kind of guess where it went from there."

Vragni scoffed at his fellow elder, the kind of man who would have been a Snorrist if he'd been a Runesmith. Substantially younger than Vragni, if not so much he could be called a Beardling without Grudges flying his way from at least a dozen different angles, and not only Gorek and his kinsmen either. "I have half..."

His voice trailed off as they finally reached what had been the main vein and he looked around.

"Half a wha..."

He grabbed his apprentice's head, and twisted it gently, until he saw what Vragni was looking at.

Morek's voice trailed off too, and for good reason.

Glimmering, golden, splendid and pristine ore, a great vast quantity of it--at the least the whole chamber itself, and that was high enough you could have a drakk stand up and stretch its limbs and still have space to spare and broad enough that you could have marched a whole throng through shoulder to shoulder. All of it was lined in whorling, looping waves in mathematically precise angles, terminating in perfect ratios passed along to Dawi from the Ancestors, now unleashed simply by the primal forces of Magic, by evil purified simply by the capacity of time to purify, to grind away, to fade and break and shatter. That Zonazul all put on a canvass of varying, softer grays framing the yellow of the patterns, making them shine, unveiling the bright and beautiful inner patterns for all the world to see.

Almost be a shame to mine it and do any damage to it at all.

Almost.

"How much do you suppose, master?"

"Enough to split it fair and square apprentice, that much is for sure."

Let none call Vragni Svaltisson stingy, particularly not as regards his apprentices.

 

[Voikirium]

The Great Mound of Karak Zorn

A great temple, shrine, and monument all at once lies within the supposed realm of Karak Zorn, placed within the deeps of the jungle vast, somehow defiant of the weight of age, standing resolutely over the roads thousands upon thousands of years before us, here standing in the present day. A first layer of earthen turf rises up, gently sloping seventy feet, formed into an altogether perfect circle, all of this reinforced and contained by long planks of wutroth, each plank stained a delicate teal--the same color as Runes. Each of these planks is decorated with the mundane shape of various Runes then filled in purified gromril, the silvery metal gleaming in the light of sun and moon alike. The gaps are so narrow that water cannot get through. The only gap is a staircase, lined with wooden statues of the Children of Thungni--His direct children, that is. They eschew realism to emphasize the character of the figure so represented, the statue of Angkara Amberplaits, for instance, form a rope forty-nine times around her waist. The mundane shapes of Runes they discover offer their name to the wise, placed on the statue's base.

A second, straight walled, layer of turf eventually rises up from the center of the original sloping mound, the turf once again reinforced with the tealed wutroth, the wutroth itself once again carved with the mundane shapes of Runes. A floor wide enough to allow six dwarfs to travel shoulder-to-shoulder is lined with a soft golden wutroth, yet again carved with the shapes of Runes, and none of them repeats. This floor eventually terminates in a second mound, again gently, softly sloping, until it reaches another straight-walled mound, and on the pattern goes. Statues of the greatest of Runesmiths and Runelords line the straight walls.

This continues, forming six levels in precisely this pattern. The seventh, however, is something very different indeed. The seventh is a plateau, topped by a great forge, domed, the walls made of the teal-stained wutroth, the ceiling and dome made of purest Barazgal. On the inside the walls are decorated, painted in the intricately colorful if deeply stylized fashion, with the story of Thungni--not of His Journey to the Glittering Realm, or His battles, or His great feats of craftsmanship, but rather His Courting of Vanya Skellasdottir; not unimportant, to be sure, but compared to the great feats of mighty Thungni, an odd choice for certain.

All told it forms a great, perfect mound of circle building on circles, rising up thirty-five meters into the air, with a circumference of two-hundred-and-ten-meters. Levels one to three are protected by the Master Rune of Mystifying Stone, the Rune of Discord, and the Rune of Fogginess, ensuring unwanted intruders are never allowed to assault the sacred place for they can barely comprehend it. Levels four-to-six, meanwhile, bear the Master Rune of Sky's Hate, pouring hot, arcing lightning against the enemy. The empty fields around the temple are scarred black with the remnants of some enemy learning to fear the true lightning. The seventh level, meanwhile--that is to say, the Forge-- holds the Master Rune of Thungni's Wisdom, the Rune of Grungni, and the Rune of Valaya, improving the creations forged there ten-fold. A mighty statue of Thungni, with His Rune and the Runes of His Parents at His feet, overlooks the anvil, easily twice as tall as He was in life--but not clad in armor and bearing Karaz-Kazak-Rune, nor in the soft, slate gray robes of His priesthood bearing Gormwand, but in tunic and trouser, simple workman's hammer in one hand and chisel in the other. His lips softly quirked to suggest a smile.

Though predating Khazagar, the Citadel of Creation, and the facilities at Brynduraz and Izril, and seeming in a certain sense to be related to their function, the great mound, Azgala Aldrhun--Treasure Hoard of the Old Runes-- as it is known in Khazalid, is not included in their number for a bevy of reasons. For one, oversized it might be but it lacks the space to teach more than a large-but-traditional amount of apprentices, perhaps five at most fitting into the top forge, and while there are those who will visit the lower levels to think and seek inspiration, that is not particularly different than any other Runesmith taking a gander at the works of others for inspiration. One could no more use it as one would the Aquila Academies, the White Tower, or the Dark Convent.

Perhaps most importantly, because it is not a shrine to a distant ancestral spirit but instead, a familial shrine.

One from a daughter seeking to honor a father, one who raised her; and her grandparents, who raised him.

For Azgala Aldrhun was designed, constructed, and Runed by Barra Vanyasdottir. One of the direct children of Thungni, directly instructed by Him in the arts of a Runesmith.

And there is dishearteningly little of her to be known, of this figure who by rights should stand proudly defiant with the many other among His children.

It is known she was a middle child. We know that her main abode was supposedly within mythical Karak Zorn, a proposition that seems much the liklier having discovered this shrine when otherwise the Lost Karak could be resolutely considered a mere legend. We know from the letters of various suitors that she was a nature enthusiast, a wanderer and a traveler, preferring to spend weeks, months even, above ground under the touch of the sun, speaking with the animals, the trees, the mountain peaks and the streams, to an extent that was considered borderline irresponsible. We know that there were those who considered her presence in Zorn either a sort of prank, or outright punishment, of the realm by Thungni for any number of insults laid upon Him, putting one of His most Radical children into a realm ossified in gerontocratic conservatism even by the standards of the Dawi.

We know, from the scarce--scarce--scarce artifacts left to us that she was, as expected of a Runesmith, able in the construction of many beautiful things, though by numerical supposition it might be conjectured that she preferred working with structures, ironically enough, having left several fabulous architectural achievements throughout the Old Holds of the World's Edge Mountains, more structures, in fact, than any other sort of artifacts.

We know from these Runes that Barra, ironically considering her political affiliation, particularly delved into the esoteric connections between nature and the Runes in her work. Runes of beasts, monsters, and wild things seemed to flow from her workshop as she hunted for inspiration, looking for the best of Reagents and the most obscure of Runes.

It can be considered that she took on many apprentices, hence the manpower for Azgala Aldrhun, for the perennial antagonist of Kraka Drak's Klausson Myths or Kraka Ravnsvake's Folk Hero, Vragni Silverbrand1​, is said to take on "Barra's Work" in metaphors presented by later writers, either as an admission from the writers who back Snorri and Kraka Drak or else as a sign of the esteem of Kraka Ravnsvake.

Scattered praise poetry, orders from kings signed and documented to the correct dates, there is reality here, a figure of great historical interest--

And yet we cannot even say how she died, or disappeared, or her broader fate. All we know is that at the least decades, quite possibly centuries, before the Great Incursion, writing about her disappears all at once. All we have left to go on are the scattered fragment in papyrus from, of all places, Athel Loren, having been preserved by the Hardstone Kindred, a band of Spellweavers whose distant, distant ancestors were once friends with her descendants:

That call of snakes echoes to her,
And she, the fairest voyager,
She prepared all things,
Suppos'd honor of kings,
That gave rings
Less than her.

Given the poem itself holds the title journey to the east, it seems the best supposition to be made is that she journeyed to the east to face the call of snakes, though that leaves us with the obvious, burning question--what snakes?

1. Vragni Svaltisson may not have been mangled to fit the image of Vragni Silverbrand quite so much as Snorri Klausson was mangled to fit the figure of Snorri Gift-Giver, but it boggles the mind to imagine any dwarf willingly tolerating as many young people as would be required for legends of his "Apprentice Swarm" to have truly existed. Mindlessly holding both the big Grudge and the little Grudge against Snorri Klausson, on the other hand, is well within parameters for a longbeard with an agenda. ​

-Leandre Agua, Temples and Monuments of the World Entire (Revised 6th Edition)

 

[Voikirium]

Experimentation

Thaldra ties the silvery wood together with chords of Troll Sinew, seated, kneeling, on a blanket in the apartment she's borrowing from some of her kin in Kraka Drak, still by and large bereft of her personality: an acceptable bed there, a state of Thungni in the corner, the usual for rented space in her clan.

A mere journeywoman she might be, but she does have some pride and so the chunks of silvery Azrilwut she's managed to acquire for her newest commission, such that it is, come together so seamlessly that if it weren't for the sinew (dried out and then soaked in salt water to harden it and yet leave it supple enough) you would scarcely notice there were gaps at all. The slats themselves are long and thin and painted with images of noble Grimnir heading north to His Doom. His mohawk is painted particularly vibrant, thickened with crushed stone earned from her last job, and the edge of His ax marked in negative space with yellow paint the shade of the sun on the silver wood, the backdrop of the hell of the Great Catastrophe indicated by black paint that implied the shape of any number of His foes as reported by Morgrim. Stylized, but still blatantly, obviously, His March.

And right that it should be so.

With the main chest piece done, she puts it aside and starts to tie together the rest of the armor next, starting with the arm slats, tied together at the elbow and vertically. The decoration is simpler, but the quality is by no means lacking, intricate Aldrhun running up and down the slats in reddest of red paint, exhorting mighty Grimnir for victory. The padding underneath, made of sixteen layers of troll skin, is dyed dark red and bright white, trimmed where it will poke out from underneath the slats proper with yet more Aldrhun, this time emanating from under Grimnir's snarling face.

She considers what Mahal had requested in the commission itself, trying not to "sigh like some half-baked maiden out of the kind of trash you youths have the audacity to call sagas" as her master would say:

"I want to fight, and I want to win. And I want to move fast while I do it." He hands the chest over, his unadorned set of armor jingling at it does. He might be embarassed that his beard still hasn't gone white at all, but she much prefers it the golden shade of blond it is now even if it does make him look young. "And there's no one I trust more to do it right."

(And I want to see what you come up with when you experiment had been unsaid but not altogether unimplied, particularly when even as a clanless foundling with all the bounties he'd brought in on on Gori he could still have commissioned a more established Runesmith, even if it did have to be a journeyman.)

With all that done she sets to work, places the carving knife against Grimnir's ax on the chest piece, and begins to work, carving and chanting.

When the world was young, we glimmered old.

The Rune of Grimnir, the Rune of battle, the rune of valiance. She's hardly some new Snerra, some new Fjolla, some new Dolgi, but she puts every ounce of care into it, intricately, carefully marking the symbol of her--friend's patron onto the wood, thick and deep and proper like, exactly as her master had taught her. As it starts to spark and steam from the magic she takes the bottle of Grimnirzan and begins to pour it in, sizzling and fizzling and popping. Grimnirzan, inside the Rune of Grimnir, is so blatantly, deeply, obvious that even that wazzock Snerra (Not that one!) could near-certainly put it together. She keeps pouring until about half the bottle is left, again exactly how Master Modi had taught her.

Now the world is bleak, and the fires all cold.

Next to it, on the Ancestor's bare chest, she places the Rune of Courage, letting the gromril of her knife slide through the wood. It starts to hum too, bright lights and bright power, and as it does she starts to pour the bowl full of Griffon Brain into the Rune, the slimy material disappearing with a burst of amber fire as it touches the marks and she continues to chant. All the unyielding pride and skill and sheer resolute nature of the beasts should make him quite a force to be reckoned with, even if making acquaintance with the Brana has made handling their internal organs considerably more awkward than it used to be.

But still we glimmer, yet more bold.

Finally, Valaya's Rune at the bottom, at the center, emanating light and guiding Grimnir. The most expensive reagent, and yet she doesn't so much as wince as she pours in the broken, ground up Hearthstone to the marks her knife makes. It's not quite as obvious as Grimnirzan, but as a heat, a warmth, a fire starts to flicker and burn along the Rune she feels correct in spending so much of what were limited funds on it: it will protect him, as he marches against the fimir, their Balefiends, and their Mearghs, the magic struggling against the Runes.

There is a sound like a cool breeze and the Runes finish even as she finishes chanting. She examines the armor, the breastplate in particular, and feels quiet satisfaction and growing ambition alike in her chest.

It's far from her apex. That, hopefully, lies many years hence, when she is old and gray as the Gift-Giver, made more usually, from hard Adamant with such Runes of destruction and potency that the enemy simply explodes when they see her coming. But for the perennial middle child, scarcely noticed compared to kinfolk, daughter or no daughter and Gift or no Gift; and for a clanless, up-jumped warrior, it's not a bad start, not a bad start at all.

She can already imagine master Modi rolling his eyes, but she sighs anyway.

 

[Voikirium]

A Heart Honest and True

It's a simple seven knocks that makes you look up from the correspondence on your desk and give a gruff "come in" in the general direction of your door, Rudil and the Hearth Guard having given you the knock that company was coming. The stone grinds as it opens, exposing you to the hall, and in comes your guest.

A Master Runesmith. She walks with a quiet stillness, not the onset of grinding, devouring age and mortality but one who, having had peace taken from them, now seeks it in that. Her face is lined not just by age but by stress, and her plaits are long enough to wrap around her waist at least seven times. Her eyes speak to a long life, one filled with struggle.

And with thanks.

Her long, brown cloak is embroidered with apples of gold. The heraldry of Clan Vasttable. It drapes over the chair as she sits acrosss from you.

She says nothing, only examining your armor herself--no, wait. Not the armor. Mizpal Zharr. Looking at the Runes, in particular the Master Rune of Expurgation.

The heraldry of Skalla Honestheart, Master Runesmith of Karaz-A-Karak. Judging by her armor, and her ax, that could be Runelord one day. Maybe even should be.

Not that there aren't many reasons why she's not, either.

Her story is not quite as familiar to you as some others, but you do know the bare-bones. She was a talent to par with Fjolla, as you recall, from a struggling clan. The Vasttables had suffered during the Great Catastrophe, many of their members dead and treasures burned by Beastmen and by Daemons--especially Daemons. So when they had realized that they had such a talent, such a chance to rebuild, as her ability they had made clear they had...expectations. Nothing horrifically untoward, especially since she was well able to meet them, and ambitious enough to want to.

But there are always predators lurking, looking, hunting for their next prey, the next life to ruin. Tzeentch's voice in her ear, Tzeentch's promises and oaths and vows, not that that miserable creature ever would have kept them, hunted her and haunted her and sought her and gave such whispered silken words.

Skalla had gone, immediately, to her Master, and told her. And been honest; and truthful. And kept to the Ancestors. And so for this she gained the title of "Honestheart."

She studied, and she studied, and she studied. Tormented but buoyed by clan and teacher.

Until she finally managed to invent the Master Rune that bears her name, which shines on the ax she no doubt left with Rudil and in the Armor she still wears.

Well, if she's going to play lookie-loo with your ring...

The armor, perhaps, the greater. Thousands of gromil scales, draped over her entire body and pure as can be. The colors alternate between the shining black and a brassy bronze, switching row by row, all sewn onto a backing of troll skin worked until it may as well be silk and yet still tough enough to turn aside a Lord of Change's claws (proved through the most rigorous testing possible, actually doing it), Klinkarhun describing the stories of Grungni, the Ancestor her clan most favors aside, of course, from Thungni etched along the scales. The helm is a simple flat-topped nasal helm, the shade of brass, clasped under her elbow, reinforced at the joints with yet more gromril. The line of Scales lies taut along her arms and legs as well, with hard, articulated gauntlets, joints reinforced with pearls the white of lightning; pauldrons, shaped to resemble the visage of Grungni and Valaya on her left and right shoulder, respectively; and greaves, bearing the heraldry of her clan.

The most important feature, of course, are the Runes.

You know the Rune of Berserk well enough, meaning the Master Rune it flanks must, by rights, be the Master Rune of Skalla Honestheart. It offers a very simple encapsulation of what the armor is for: Finding and killing the servants of Tzeentch, breaking the magic they'd use to try and kill her even as it makes her better at killing them.

As she expertly did, once she finished finally creating the Rune, and gained some peace and quite. And used that peace and quiet to find the statue of pure Warpstone, in the shape of Tzeentch himself, and shatter it with her ax, breaking it to bits and banishing a daemon that had menaced the area in the process. After they had a great feast, gathering the Vasttables from all the corners of the Empire together, and they continue that tradition, with smaller regional gatherings every year and a great gathering every decade.

Above adequate, given her age at the time, but she can do better now and she probably should.

(No, irony is not the name of your ax, thank you.)

She has used that as the most volatile, pure fuel, to learn as many Runes dedicated to spiting Tzeentch in particular and wizards in general as she can, and crafting beautiful things for the deed.

And yet, for all she is--all that, she is no Runelord (yet, anyway). For one, to know that Tzeentch is constantly trying to tempt her is something of a security risk. And if the North is full of Runelords, how saturated must be Karaz-A-Karak?

Perhaps most importantly, she has thrown her lot in with the Radicals, pushing bounds and boundaries to learn ever-more effective ways of spiting Tzeentch. Though her actual construction more resembles something out of Vragni's new exercise in coping--she has a bespoke ax intended entirely for Kairos, a bolt and bolt thrower with the Blue Horrors' name on it both literally and figuratively, and a cloak that by rumor will cover the Changeling in boiling pitch if he gets within a mile of her position--her attempts to both gather up lore and to disseminate it make your own efforts look positively obscure.

A quirkier note, of course, is that most of her apprentices have a talent ranging from average-to-below average; apparently it is a point of pride for her to make something excellent out of lesser material.

"I want to teach at Kazaghar," she says finally, as you finish examining her work and she finishes examining yours. "All the Runes I know to scourge that forsaken bird." She nods her head, thinking. "I have for a while really, but it's something of a trek coming here. But now my fool son has a son, and named the boy after me, and I can hardly dote on my grandson from Karaz-A-Karak now can I?"

 

[Voikirium]

The Pleasurebane Comes

The Citadel looms large, traditional gates of stone etched with gold and jewels guarding its entrance in the Underway from any intruders. That is not the only defense, but it is a righteous one, each rising five-dwarfs high, and whatever it lacks in the simplicity of its materials the breadth of knowledge the shaper, the maker, the creator knows no doubt allowing it to stand head and shoulders above another work, perhaps of better material but lower in knowledge.

A steel hammer with a Master Rune of Conduction will always surpass a gromril ax with a Rune of Cleaving, after all.

The gates grind open, and out steps the very man of the hour.

Vragni Silverbrand.

He nods to you, his gromril slightly jingling, and then turns his back, gesturing for you to follow. The carts of reagents you've acquired, gained over a long, long life trundle behind you.
--
The Halls are huge and ring with the sound of hammers on gromril, the roar of furnaces and the rhythm of chants. Statues of Ancestors and Runelords, legends one and all, line the halls, made in precise, meticulous detail, representing them as they were; or are, perhaps, in some cases. Tile mosaics line the ceilings themselves, while good, solid stone polished and decorated with the mundane carvings of Runes, more than a few of which you invented (and he refined, do not let yourself forget that, do not shame the boy in that way any more than you already did).

You pause as you make eye contact with Master Yorren, before shaking your head.

He'd be so disappointed.

What has Kazrik the Magnanimous, Kazrik the Wise, Kazrik Goodfather come to?

Kazrik Pleasurebane.

But the work continues.

And it will continue, until you can feel that greasy, slimy abomination's blood flowing over your hands. All else pales to that.

Aye, the Citadel is beautiful, but more than that, you can feel it.

A place fit for Runes. A place fit to create.

One of the apprentices from Vragni's cloud of Beardlings appears and gives a slight bow at the waist, directing you to the reason you turned to Vragni, rather than putting your fullness behind the Brilliant Hall or even moreso, Khazagar.

It certainly isn't because you give a damn for Vragni's rivalry with Klausson. You have your opinions, of course, but they pale in comparison to the work he's done: if he wants to pin his legacy on wise men holding Kazaghar until the end of time, bully for him. At worst he is a fool, not a would-be tyrant.

And the world has endured worse foolishness than anything Klausson can do.

But you have no interest in Kazaghar, either. Mild curiosity, at best. And that mild curiosity pales in comparison to what you know you can do, in this place crafted by worthy hands.

Khazagar is a repository of Runelore, but Runelore does not need deposited.

It needs used.

And there is nowhere better to do that, here and now, than here.

You are interrupted in your ruminations by the apprentice opening the door to a forge.

As expected, it is beautiful, if simple. A furnace, an anvil, and a vast shelf of reagents, prepared as you asked. You look to the apprentice, and nod. "Thank you, beardling. Bring my thanks to your master. But please...leave me." The beardling bows at the waist and parts, leaving you alone with an empty room, only waiting to create.

The anvil catches your eye. Shaped to look like Smednir, Thungni, and Grungni are holding it aloft, looking at you, judging you. The motto of the institution is embossed on the purified gromril in gold.

Your mind is your obstacle.

You hold Gomrund's body in your arms, and the world is fuzzy in your sight. It's shameful, that you weep when you weren't even harmed. No, not you.

Your son. The boy you swore to protect, the boy you swore to teach, the boy your swore to care for, bloody and bruised and broken at the edge of your hammer, only his ability--Greater than you were at that age, to be sure--having kept him alive even as you, you were puppeted by Slaanesh, your own mind deceived, lied to, and turned to turning your son into a pulp.

Your son, who looks up at you with delicate eyes. His beard, red and ragged with his blood, hanging limply from his jaw. Wheezing as he breathes, choking as he tries to force air out. "Not your fault, father."

"Isn't that touching? But shouldn't you be angrier, Gomrund? Why that--"

You wing his ax at the daemon and cleave its head from its shoulders, even as you rise up. All your amulets, your rings, your clasps, burn as your mind realizes what's been done to you, as you realize you have been lied to, and turned into a weapon to harm your own son.

The next minutes are a blur. Things only really clear up when the Valayans manage to get in, and find him, bleeding.

Bleeding...but alive. Ancestors be praised, alive.

Your shame is not that great.

A part of you wishes it had been after the Slayers arose, so you did not need to live with the shame. The guilt. That you could merely have shaved your head and marched to a valiant Doom.

The other part only just continues to pour itself into the oath you could make, did make, and have followed through on--

The furnace steams, the great bowl of fire held aloft by Grimnir, Valaya and Gazul letting you know that it is finished and ready to be pulled free. Plunging the tongs in, you pull out the ingot and begin to pound it immediately, no sense in wasting time was there? An ax, always a need for an ax.

--to spite Slaanesh until you can see the abomination's heart, or until you finally join Harroka in the Underearth. Assuming your wife will let you, anyway.

Hm, Smiting, Blazes, Gazul's Flames? Ancestors know, you've got plenty of Reagents to really make it hurt.