━<><><>< 472 A.P. ><><><>━
When you work with Gromril and Adamant as often as you do, you notice a few things. Take, for instance, the unique ways both metals react when they're struck by spells. Gromril is not special in that regard save for its toughness, enduring where steel and other metals would falter, and in conjunction with the right defensive Runes that toughness only grows stronger.
In comparison Adamant not only absorbs the blow but repels the energy slightly; flinging away some of the power that would have struck it akin to how it repels the ambient winds from impregnating it. An effect that, like with Gromril, grows more prominent when Runes are applied, but unlike Star Iron, Adamant just needs
any Rune on it for that effect to materialize.
The ingot in your hand doesn't react like either of its precursor stages.
Instead you see it begin to faintly shine, shifting through a range of colors you'd see on tempered steel, almost sucking up the energy, when the spell strikes it. That glow doesn't grow or change as more and more spells slam home, but something else
does happen. At a certain point you unconsciously straighten your back as you begin to feel something, the bar, take effect. Your thoughts run true and clear as distraction fades, and you can think with a clarity more in line after a long, restful sleep than after enduring the struggles of the past several hours. Pain becomes nothing more than this niggling thing in the back of your mind, anxiety is calmed, and doubts assauged like an Elder calming down the beardlings on the eve before battle.
This Trial can be beaten.
This burden is bearable.
The world could fall on your shoulders and you would not buckle.
All this, you know with an ironclad certainty.
You aren't sure what possesses you to do it, maybe it was this newfound well of strength, maybe it's the quiet indignance of a Runelord hiding behind some rocks, even the simple desire to complete the challenge before you, or maybe some mix of all three; but whatever it is, you find yourself moving out from behind the barrier to face the oncoming storm with head held high and courage beating in your heart.
Spells strike you the moment you expose yourself, and though they impart enough force to jerk you back and forth, to sear flesh and to crack the stony facade of your skin, you force your feet to march forward. Karstah calls after you, but you merely turn your head to lock eyes with your heir and nod at her, never once stopping your march.
You begin fighting back against the onslaught of spells.
Bolts of arcane energy fizzle and die, others are intercepted by walls of stone or deftly deflected so that they either miss entirely or bounce off helplessly as your body subconsciously moves so that they strike at poor angles.
Your walk speeds up.
With each step forward, or perhaps with each spell that strikes the bar held in your hand, things become
easier almost. Your body moves with increasing fluidity, your reactions become that much sharper, and your Will swelling as its fed from some unseen source.
As if reacting to your increasing skill, the Trial only grows more ferocious in its assault; flinging more spells, stronger spells, more esoteric spells as you continue your march to the chamber's end.
But as the attacks keep coming, you only feel a growing sense of confusion. there's something
off about them.
It feels like a trick of the light, but the attacks seem
weaker. Paradoxical, considering your earlier thoughts and the very clear evidence to the contrary, but you cannot shake the feeling that it's true. Your eyes narrow, focusing on one of the myriad of fireballs coming for you. Ignoring the instinctive urge to dispel it, you instead activate your eye and direct most of your attention on it, even to the detriment of your forward progress.
There!
Your eyes widen as you see the fireball's structure destabilize, not by much but enough for you to notice, and physically slow the moment it passes some unseen threshold.
"What was that?" Karstah asks, nearly making you jump.
"You noticed it too then? Well, at least that confirms I'm not going mad from all the blows to my head," you mutter, collecting yourself. "It's the ingot, it looks like it's capable of far more than we may have realized."
"I see. And your eye doesn't give you an inkling as to why?"
You duck under an errant lightning bolt as you reply, "Not a thing."
"That's a shame."
"It is, but even if I don't know why." you use the bar to block a lightning bolt. "We can still take advantage of what its doing."
Your eyes immediately move and stare hard at an incoming beam of luminous energy, watching it slightly disperse and lose coherency just like the fireball did.
If the ingot wanted magic, then you'd give it magic.
━<><><><==><><><>━
"Lord Ironwill," Ylva greets, nodding her head in the younger Dwarf's direction.
"My lady, you have me at a disadvantage," the Runelord answers, eyeing the iconography of their Lord on one of the wagons consideringly, "As does Lord Klausson it seems."
She inclines in head.
"Aye Rhunrikki. Ylva Hearth Hands, I'm the one in charge of this motley lot until our Lord returns."
The Runelord hums in thought.
"There was word of an old prospector's party heading into the depths back in Izril, you wouldn't happen to know who those Dwarfs were would you?" Kazador asks, though both of them know that it was a rhetorical question.
"I would," Ylva says, but offers nothing more.
Kazador makes a sound akin to a laugh before his gaze moves over to see one of the wounded Hearthwardens standing behind her and something akin to sympathy graces his otherwise stoic visage.
"Any words of advice my lady? You have things well in hand it seems, but In exchange, I'll offer aid from me and mine if it would sweeten the pot," he asks, gesturing at the banner that bears his personal sigil that one of his retainers is carrying, the glow of Rhunkul lighting their surroundings.
She glances at Kazador's party quietly. Each Dwarf with him was more heavily armed than any individual Hearthwarden, being covered head to toe in all-concealing suits of Gromril armour, that left all but the tips of their beards exposed. The only group of Dawi more defended were Lady Igna's own followers, but she didn't doubt that if this young man were so inclined he could at least match the quantity of Gromril the other Runelord used.
Perks of being from
the Gromril mine of the Karaz Ankor.
"You can ask a question, and based on my answer I'll let you decide how much aid it's worth," she offers, watching the other Dwarf consider for a moment.
"Aye, I suppose that works."
"Ask away then Rhunrikki," she prompts.
You ought to hurry Lord Klausson.
━<><><><==><><><>━
By the time you reach the Chamber's end the number of spells striking you feels honestly endless. Your vision is dominated by a cascade of light, strange effects, and other magical phenomena while your ears are assaulted by such a constant cacophony of noise that it all blends together in a loud roar as the Trial attempts to stop you.
But it doesn't matter.
Not with the bar in your hand, still shimmering the pearlescent tones of heat tempered metal, aiding you. You have grown accustomed to using the ingot as a shield, and when you cannot you dodge. When you cannot dodge, instead you block the blow with
Zharrgal's stone walls or
Mhorni's body. And where even that fails, you simply take the blow. Finding that even as the spells have grown in power and ferocity they have only become more easy to endure, buoyed as you are by the powers of the ingot the torrent of magic breaks upon you like the tide.
Then, as has happened so many times before, you pass some invisible threshold and find your vision and hearing cleared as the ceaseless barrage unceremoniously empties out like a fully tapped keg.
"
You have succeeded," The Dragon rumbles, looking down its snout at you and Karstah.
"Aye we did, what now Drakk?" you reply, looking up at the construct expectantly.
It turns its head towards the exit, as if pointing to it.
"
The next chamber lies beyond, the time for idleness comes to a close. Follow the path, it will not take long."
"And you Construct? What's to become of you?" Karstah interjects, curiosity leaking into her voice.
It turns to look at her, gemstone eyes shining with cryptic intent.
"
Many fates were prepared for," it eventually replies, voice unchanging, "
This one recommends that you not delay further. Another Contender's presence looms just outside the entrance."
Both you and your heir blink.
That certainly came as a shock, but before you can inquire further the golem goes back to staring at the chamber's exit, seemingly ignoring your presence.
You look at Karstah, who only shrugs helplessly.
Turning around, you hold back a sigh as you stare at the distance you'll need to cover
again.
At least the both of you weren't being pelted with deadly waves of magic this time.
━<><><><==><><><>━
Perhaps Thungni believed that long winding paths weren't needed this deep into the ordeal for a contender to prove his worthiness, perhaps he simply grew tired of making them.
But true to the Gronti's word, you find yourselves at the next chamber far faster than usual.
The Trial of Warding, from the looks of it, is a return to the earlier chambers; with no door and with its namesake Rune engraved above the entrance. When you enter though there is no sudden onslaught of attacks, no puzzle to solve, no
Gronti or cryptic message to make sense of.
Instead it is a plinth with a suspiciously ingot-shaped divot.
You don't need some gut feeling or hard won wisdom to understand what is being asked of you of course, and you, understandably, hesitate a bit to put the bar there, but when push comes to shove you know that for all its wondrous properties and promises the ingot was not the prize of this labyrinth.
Even if it felt like it should be.
All of you watch as the plinth smoothly descends into the ground with the ingot, and you cannot help but feel a final, fleeting wave of sadness when it disappears from view completely.
"What now?" Karstah wonders aloud, causing a wave of agreeing grumbles to erupt from your retainers.
What indeed?
"Thungni's Will will make itself known in short order I imagine," you murmur, eyeing your surroundings cautiously.
True to your word the entire cavern begins to shudder lightly, and before you eyes three Plinths and a plaque rise up from the stone in place where the first once stood. Your eyes immediately hone in on the plaque, the Klinkarhun carved into it lit up by some unseen Rune no doubt.
To claim the Hammer is to claim the seat of one Lost.
To claim the seat of one Lost is to claim Understanding.
To claim Understanding is to understand the Stone and those born from it.
To understand the Stone and those born from it, is to know thus:
Resist.
Overcome.
Endure.
And, to your open shock, there on each of the plinths was an exact copy of the ingot. You instinctively move to pull the nearest one from its resting place, but stop yourself when you notice something strange about it.
There is a Rune on this ingot, and when you go to check on the others realize they too have a single Rune carved onto their surfaces.
At a glance they all appear to be the Rune of Warding, but experience and intuition tells you that it isn't so simple as that. So you remove your gauntlet, confusing Karstah, and run it down the surface of each Rune, then two at the same time, and if you could you would have done all three at once as well. Each time you examine them you focus on feeling each Rune's physical structure, the intimate and precise strike marks to help build the image already forming in your mind.
You even used your Eye, not to fruitlessly examine the Runes, but to see if it could reveal any poignant differences in how each one affected the surrounding Winds.
"Karstah!" you bark, eyes not leaving the ingots, "come here lass. Quickly now."
A few seconds and the thumping of boots on stone later, you feel Karstah's braid softly bump into you as she leans in close to what you're looking at.
"Run your hand along it Karstah, feel it and tell me what you think," you instruct quietly.
You feel her confused look, but merely point at the ingot again insistently.
"I need a second opinion Lass, now go!"
Confused as she is, your heir heeds your command and examines each ingot herself, all the while you are patiently watching and waiting to see if she also picks up on what you noticed, quietly placing your ability to believe in your own sanity on her answer.
It takes her a bit longer than you, but you notice the glint in her eye as comprehension dawns and nod when she turns away from the ingots to look at you pointedly.
"
None of these are the Rune of Warding." Karstah murmurs quietly, confirming your suspicions.
You nod.
"Aye."
Each ingot is a variant, bearing an infinitesimally minute difference in their construction that even you, a Runelord, almost missed them the first time, and had to confirm after the second and subsequent examinations. One of the Runes had minor alterations done to the section that general consensus believed, based on empirical data and cross-examining the variants Thungni taught to His students, controlled the shape of the Ward's protective field. Another had small, but definitely purposeful, divots along the segment of the Rune that manipulated what it protected against. The final of the three Runes had the least amount of changes done, but what changes were present were all centered around the area where the Rune is first struck, and more importantly where most Runesmiths believed was what controlled how the Rune expended its energy.
That, however, did not explain anything beyond those facts.
To truly know what sort of alterations Thungni did, you would need to know the chant and ingredients that he used, or spend the decades painstakingly discovering that knowledge from reverse engineering the Rune. You do not know this Rune, nor do you have the time to reverse engineer it.
So you'll do the next best thing.
Activate the Runes and see it firsthand.
"Karstah," you say while reaching for your hammer, "step back."
"Can't you just pick them up?" she asks, immediately understanding your intent the minute she sees
Zharrgal's head light up.
You pause and consider her point for a moment.
"No."
You bring
Zharrgal down on the leftmost ingot.
━<><><><==><><><>━
To claim the Hammer is to claim the seat of one Lost.
To claim the seat of one Lost is to claim Understanding.
To claim Understanding is to understand the Stone and those born from it.
To understand the Stone and those born from it, is to know thus:
Resist.
Overcome.
Endure.
Create the:
Combo, Dawi: [This Choice, What comes after, What comes last]
Pick 1
[ ] [
Warding:]
Left.
[Blows against the wearer cause the struck area to become increasingly resistant against that type of damage]
[ ] [
Warding:]
Center.
[The wearer grows increasingly resistant until all but impervious to the first kind of attack they suffer for the duration of the battle]
[ ] [
Warding:]
Right.
[The wearer has greatly increased resistance to magical and physical damage as long as they are in contact with stone]
━<><><>< Khazalid Trivia ><><><>━
Rhunrikki - "Rune King/Lord"/ Runelord
━<><><><==><><><>━
I will open the vote in the morning (MST).
AN: Please give this some honest and hard thought! It was supposed to be a shorter update but...eh. Sorry for the delay! I hope you enjoy, and don't forget to C&C. Also, questions, ask em! :^)
