━<><><>< 323 A.P. ><><><>━
You walk through the streets of Karaz a Karak with your bodyguards incognito, dressed as a group of elderly rangers simply going about their elderly ranger business. Despite centuries between your last visit, you remember the path to your destination as if you'd been there yesterday. While there are a few changes on the way there; new or slightly altered shops, more Dwarfs walking the streets to be sure, there is still enough that remains the same that the few differences you could see stood out all the more for it. As you get closer and closer to your ultimate destination the number of Dwarfs around you increases with the scent of fresh bread and other baked goods. A cursory glance of your surroundings shows that despite the constant smell of baking goods in the air there are comparatively few bakeries nearby.
And when you lay your eyes on your destination, its front door constantly moving as Dwarfs come and go in a nice and orderly line, that you realize why so little competition exists in this part of the Karak.
Brangga's little shop is now far larger, the decor more refined and its clients far more numerous than when you had last been two centuries ago, but the scents that you remember are unmistakable.
Age has understandably only honed the young woman's skill.
Now to get what you actually came here for.
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"There was a lass as fair as Brightstone, her locks, like Ambergold, in torchlight shone?" one of them mutters absentmindedly as they march.
"I pity the poor sops that may have to learn the chants of any Rune you make," another journeyman comments.
Nain tunes their bickering out as he rubs at the scar absentmindedly, a gift from a Bestigor that had barrelled through the shieldwall and sent him flying. It would have likely charged forward and run him through had one of the elders around him not beheaded the beast with a single swing of his great axe, tutting at him after pulling Nain up from the cold hard ground. What had been a ragged wound that had seen him benched for a week was now a jagged line of pale scar tissue on his forearm that still occasionally itched despite the best efforts of the priestesses. It was only one of the many he'd gotten in the time spent on campaign with Lord Hammerspite, not even the worst admittedly, but it was the one he was most often thought about due to how often he saw it.
Soon, he'd be ready to head home, to prove himself to his Master that he was worthy of being considered a Master Runesmith and go through the final stages of his apprenticeship.
The moment he has a long enough period of free time to work on the creation in his mind he'll hole himself away until it's finished.
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"Elder," Brangga greets cheerily as she takes your coin, "It's been...two centuries since I last saw you if memory serves. How do you fare after all this time?"
"Well enough lass, well enough. I see you've taken on a few helpers," you mutter, staring at two young Dwarfs running about behind the counter with bags of bread, flour and whatever else in their hands.
"My nephews Borri and Galraz, they're doing as well as children their age can be expected I suppose. My cousin Oldor took up my daughter Hunni to be a brewer like her da," Brangga says while handing over the bags of baked goods to you and your retainers.
You nod, eyeing a certain Clan's symbol on one of the young Dwarf's beard rings, "Sensible enough. These two are Yinlinsson then?"
"My husband's kin aye. Clan Stoneflour has a tradition of matrilineal marriage and the Yinlinssons don't care either way and they had a bit of an overcrowding problem, so he joined my Clan when we were wed," she confirms.
"Hmph, well I won't take up any more of your time lass, you have quite the venture to run after all."
"Thank you for your praise elder," she says even as you and your retainers make for the door, "don't be a stranger!"
"Bah!" you shout goodnaturedly as you exit, passing by the line of patient Dwarfs waiting for their turn to purchase some fine baked goods.
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Your wanderings find you and your retainers walking through soot-stained streets and the rumble of industry. The ringing blows of hammers intermixed with the roar of flame, the grumbling of Master Artisans and the muttering of their apprentices. The smell of fine charcoal, blade oils, lubricants, chemicals and all manner of things needed to produce the great weapons and war machines of your people. While not as expansive as Zhufbar, but then again few places can compare to that massive workshop draped in the trappings of a Hold, the Foundries of Karaz a Karak are a sight to behold all the same.
Thankfully you're on your last bit of Stonebread, which is a blessing because you're sure the rest would be covered in a layer of soot and ash from all the active forges present. Your folk were not a filthy people of course, and simple practicality kept them from being unclean about things when they lived in the cramped confines of a Hold, nevermind the shame that came with being seen as messy. Systems to manage waste and keep things from becoming a literal garbage dump were one of the first things developed by your Ancestors, then refined further by Morgrim and Grungni and enforced by Valaya's teachings. Pipe systems, waste disposal, and chimneys that opened up outside the mountain to count only a few of the many,
many, ways your people did to keep things tidy.
While individuals had varying levels of personal cleanliness, most would agree that a tidy home and workshop had an understated beauty to it. Still, there can only be so much done. Fire was a messy thing, forging was a messy thing, most crafts left some form of waste or another. Most times it's easily dealt with, but soot and ash were ever the health hazard. Runes for clearing air and keeping the detritus manageable were commonplace, especially so in areas where Master Smiths and Engineers worked. So it's a testament to the industrious nature of your people that they can partially overcome the dozens of visible Runes dedicated to that very purpose. Not enough to be a concern, but enough to leave a black tint to the district. You pass by groups of stewards, Dwarfs with their heads covered in protective cloth, with a cart full of waste and debris cleaning a street, leaving a trail of clean stone that was already growing darker the farther back it went, stained from the fresh soot.
Your idle musing is interrupted by a round of applause accompanied by small smattering of grumbling. Turning, you see a crowd gathered in one of the few plazas of the district, several contraptions sitting on pedestals with the engineers who fabricated them standing beside each creation.
Curiously, you walk up to get as close a look as you can without bumping into anyone, listening to the young ones talk among themselves to learn that this was a public display of the Master Works of several young (to you) Engineers, lads and the odd lass just around their third century with beards and plaits bearing a shade only
just light enough to be considered grey, with streaks of color still running through their heads and at the tips of their facial hair.
The works on display vary, as is the nature of young engineers looking to make their mark on the world, but a common theme runs throughout. Each and every design before you is, from what you understand, a lifting machine of sorts. Miniature renditions of creations that are meant to raise or lower exceedingly heavy weights. You don't see a point in it, your folk have done well enough with solid Dwarf muscle and the tried and true cranes designed under Morgrim's grim stare but from what you can parse through your eavesdropping these are
different somehow. The words "open-air," "lateral," and some fandangled pulley design that has many of the youngsters in the crowd riled up into a tizzy.
Bah!
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Karstah huffs as she tosses the body onto the pile with the rest, nose wrinkling at the smell of burning fur, flesh and whatever other foulness was caked onto the bodies burning away. The Dwarfs around her, men and women who would also usually be doing something else pressed to the task out of temporary need, going about their shared work silently but just as obviously unenthused as she was. But a lack of enthusiasm wouldn't be enough to stop them. Ancestors, if you asked some of them a lack of enthusiasm was considered traditional.
The attacks continued, Dwarfs got injured, life readjusted to compensate.
The only spot of brightness in such a foul fate was that injuries had gone down, the realization that their foes were trying to bury them under the sheer weight of numbers had gotten the right Dwarfs thinking about a long term solution to their troubles, and that had meant taking a more cautious approach and taking fewer risks. Overeager and glory-seeking youths had been drilled out of their vanity, Shieldwall tactics drilled with far more gusto and orders for armour and protective talisman Runes over more offensive tactics.
There was little use making killing beastmen easier than it already was she supposed, the key here was keeping the number of combat-capable Dwarfs going strong. In this grinding conflict there was no visible end in sight, no key figure whose death could send the whole shoddy construction crashing down, just ceaseless, repetitive defences against innumerable groups of beastmen.
And of course, the burnings.
Damn things didn't even have the decency of bringing back their fallen, perfectly content to let the dead lay where they did, building up in mounds at the foot of the walls that had to be cleared lest the living clamber up the dead like scaling ladders during the next assault or worse, pollute the settlement with their foulness.
She'd rather be back working on her Runes, but there were too many bodies and the next attack was due soon so they had to be cleared. After tossing another body onto the pile Karstah must admit that spending hours inscribing Runes of Filtering or Light onto the walls of the Hold were looking more and more appealing.
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You spend a bit more time squinting suspiciously and grumbling at such newfangled nonsense, as any self-respecting Elder ought to do, before you and your retainers head off deeper into the Foundry District. The smell of coal, ore and ale growing different as the various workshops and machinery of the Engineers give way to the older, and therefore better, scents of the humble forge. The little path your party walks along opens up onto a great roadway lined by Metalsmiths, Weaponsmiths, Armoursmiths, Blacksmiths and all the other industries that keep them running plying their trade to the dozens of Dwarfs busily walking through. Chimneys rising up from shops then sloping towards larger and larger paths that reached into the cavern roof, like staring up at the roots of some forest of stone and steel.
A perfect place to find a wedding gift!
Of course you'd be making something for them with your own hands, but there were things you'd rather commission instead of create with your own two hands. Jewelry, fine cutlery and like, something you
could do but you were by no means a master of, not like some of the Dwarfs you could find here. It would be a tricksy thing, finding a smith of good standing that Fjolla and Joll would be honoured to possess and planning everything out so that the work would be done and delivered by the time of the wedding. Which ought to be easy really, compared to the lengths of time you needed to coordinate to meet your
own commissions, these were done in the blink of an eye.
Years instead of decades, almost
scandalously fast. But you would grudgingly admit that Runesmiths worked on rather wonky timescales compared to most.
Taking your time and splitting up to cover more ground, you spend a good amount of the morning and early afternoon looking before you finally find the right smith. A silversmith of enough renown that he'd received offers from a few kings to relocate and create works for them personally but had chosen to keep his business open to the general public, both out of a desire to have his creations known and spread throughout the realms, but also to pick and choose who would be receiving his work. It took a bit of arguing and more than a fair share of elderly grumbling, but you got the youngster to agree to your proposition.
So when you leave his shop there's a small pep in your step as you head towards the predetermined meeting point to rejoin your retainers. Only that you're stopped when you inadvertently lock gazes with one of your colleagues, also going through the foundries for whatever reason.
"Lord Klausson, what brings you here?" Igna says as she walks over to you, utterly unaware or uncaring that she's blown your cover.
Well so much for going incognito.
Already you can hear a bit of shuffling as several Dwarfs, many of them smiths, turn to glance at you meaningfully before going about their business. A few manage to keep their whispering quieter than the rest, but your ears are a keen thing.
Word's gotten around for decades now, and no one's forgotten what you've accomplished.
How could they?
"Purchasing gifts for my apprentice's upcoming wedding, just spoke with a silversmith worthy of the title a bit ago actually. What about you?"
"Wandering. I've prepared enough that any more time I spend is more liable to make things worse. Passed by here more out of sentiment; the smells, the sounds, they're a reprieve from the letters and writing I've had to do. Bah, I'll be glad to get back to the thick of things once Clan Metalheart's situated itself more securely, but that won't be for a while longer I imagine."
"The world makes a habit of mucking up one's plans aye," you agree, "Only two more days before it all comes to a head."
"Aye, there'll be quite a few questions for me specifically. Clan Metalheart's been deemed clean, but the mark, even for our Clan, is a particularly damning one for those in the know."
Right.
Because Clan Metalheart in its entirety was stuck in Karag Dum for the better part of a few, relative, centuries there would be
suspicion. While Gazul had cleared the survivors of
any guilt, the fact remains.
Somehow the Frurndar had gotten enough that they were tinkering with Runelore, as attested to by that damn gate and a myriad of other foul works long since destroyed with the rest of that blighted place. There would be some, especially in the more southerly Runesmith Clans, that would be rather aggressive in questioning as to how the enemy had gotten that knowledge and it didn't take a particularly sharp lad to put two and two together.
There were no oathbreakers living in Clan Metalheart, but even if that knowledge had been lost unintentionally or, more likely, from the edge of a torturer's blade, the shame of such a thing would make relations...well difficult is putting it mildly.
And now your mood's taken a jump off a steep cliff.
You don't wish ill on your colleagues, but you wouldn't mind if they forever kept misplacing their tools and wasted a not-insignificant amount of their time finding them every so often.
"They'll bluster and grunt, but unless your Clan decides to head south they can do little to truly hinder you."
"We'll see. Regardless, even a few blacklistings is far and away a better deal than what we had before," she replies.
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Even with her prince and King not present, the court of Karaz a Karak still bustles with nobles. The machinery that keeps a Hold running now more vital than ever with the needs of an entire Throng out on the march to supervise. Runebearers, scribes and youngsters scurry about with missives and orders from within and without the Hold, courtiers and other nobles discuss and plan amongst themselves. Here in what is well on its way to becoming a true hub of the greatest movers and shakers in all the realms, the announcement of your arrival is, not a common, but certainly not a new experience. Certainly you are afforded the respect your rank and station deserve, especially considering what you've achieved, but here you are just one Runelord of the many who live here and have come for Rhunkalbrogg. It gives you a level, well not anonymity, but there are few if any eyes upon you for longer than a minute or three, less so after your retainers kept politely but firmly shooing away any nobles looking to have a talk with you. To these Dawi you were that particularly odd Runelord from the Far North, one who'd restored missing limbs and uncovered the secrets of Gromril Chain, but in this place? The homes of Angkra Twenty Loops, Alric Thungnisson, and so many other living legends?
A curiosity, if they felt particularly positive then someone with a great deal of potential, but nothing at all like the Dawi of your home would feel.
But you don't much care for what they think though. You hadn't come here to rub shoulders with these folk, to make deals or anything else of the sort. You were here for a wholly different purpose, one that had you moving swiftly and quietly to the reason you braved this, admittedly magnificently made, pit of politics and courtly frippery.
Azamar.
You stop to the left of the foot of the stairs leading up to the Throne of Power, a meter and a bit away from the two Elder guarding the steps. From your position at the foot of the stairs leading up to the Throne the Rune of Eternity's light shines on you like nothing else. All-encompassing like the sun yet without its glare nor its heat, brilliant like a gemstone but with none of its fragility, and just as imposing, stalwart and untouched like the highest peaks of the world. Clear, pure,
beautiful beyond measure. A small part hoped that now, on the cusp of your thousandth year on this mortal plane, you would be able to glean
something,
anything, from the Rune of Eternity. The rest admonishes you for the foolishness of believing that a paltry two centuries would change something.
You stare at Azamar regardless, feeling equal parts disappointed and excited to find that it had become no less mystifying than it was all those centuries ago.
"Another youngster looking for inspiration then?" a voice mutters, drawing your attention away from the throne to its source.
Whatever words you were going to say die on your lips as your eyes behold the ancient countenance of Angkra Twenty Loops, still staring up at Azamar despite her words directed at you.
"Aye Elder, I-well who knows what I had thought I'd find here," you eventually reply after spending far too long trying to come up with a response.
"And here I thought you'd be here doing research and trying to meet another one of my Lord Grandfather's challenges," she says.
You blink, the idea of reach-
attempting to reach the pinnacle that was Azamar…
"No, not until I'm done with the one I took on first," you whisper, more to yourself than to Thungni's daughter, but she heard it regardless.
"Oh? I've seen many a youngster try and fail to do what you have, and here you are saying it isn't enough? I have to wonder boy, is it pride or vision that
really drives you?"
"I thought I climbed a mountain, but when I reached the top I saw ahead of me yet higher peaks. And when I look back, I see the missteps, the failures and the opportunities to grow. Maybe it
is hubris that drives me forward, but maybe it's vision? I won't know until I try. Some would say the only difference between the two is success after all," you eventually say after gathering your thoughts.
Lady Angkra says nothing, feelings about your response inscrutable as she continues staring up at
Azamar's brilliance.
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You leave the Throneroom and Thungni's daughter not long after, feet taking you back towards the tavern and inn that you were lodging in for the remainder of Rhunkalbrogg.
Tomorrow was the last day before you would be brought forth to testify about what happened at Karag Dum, and stand before the House to present your efforts with Gromril chain as something to be taught to every Master Runesmith worth their braids or beard.
It is terrifying, you must admit.
Much of your day will be spent on final preparations, but for the sake of your sanity you could fit in a few sights and sounds before the big event.
Choose 2:
[ ][
Explore]: The Markets.
Goods a plenty, there is doubtlessly
something of value to you, Karaz a Karak has only cemented its position as a nexus of trade across the Realms in the time since.
[ ][
Explore]: The Temples.
The shrines and temples of the Ancestors are quite the thing to behold. It will be good to visit them and see what's happening, there's usually some ceremony or rite being done.
[ ][
Explore]: The Taverns.
Ale, what other reason is necessary? Doubtlessly there will be people, but they're just in the way between you and that most delightful of drinks.
[ ][
Explore]: The Walls.
The Defenses of Karaz a Karak are said to be a thing of wonder. Molten rivers of lava, rows upon rows of artillery and with walls and a gate strong enough to withstand the ire of the mightiest daemons with little more than a scratch.
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There will be a two-hour moratorium for discussion.
Exams didn't kill me, thanks for waiting and have this smaller update to help get everyone back into the swing of things. I am pleased to be once more, asking that you don't forget to C&C. :^)
