Legend of the Runeforger: A Dwarven Progression Fantasy

Guildmaster Wharoth is shocked into silence by Braztak's words. He stares, aghast, from Braztak to the other dwarf and back again. Then, another runeknight stands—Mulkath in his mercury runes, and then another. Then another.

“Are you all serious?” Wharoth shouts. “Serious about this?”

“Yes,” says Braztak solemnly. “Guildmaster, I have never been more serious.”

“To even get to the dragon you will be passing over Runeking Uthrarzak's caverns!”

“Likely he's sending dwarves out to destroy the beast already. But I see no reason why a temporary alliance cannot be formed—just as we had with Runethane Broderick when we first fled from it.”

“If, by some impossible chance, they agree to that, and you do slay the black dragon together, they will turn on you.”

“Xomhyrk has no war with him.”

“Uthrarzak's Runethanes will not care.”

“Even so, by then our purpose will be fulfilled.”

Wharoth shakes his head in despair. “This is idiocy. It is not the right time. Let others throw their lives away. All you'll do by going is give it another chance to scar us.”

“Guildmaster, you are afraid of loss. I understand that feeling. Yet if we do not fight the monster, if we let others slay it in our stead, we are not runeknights. We are cowards.”

“Picking your battles is not cowardly. Charging forward unprepared, armor half-forged, is not bravery. It's idiocy.”

“We will be known as the guild who was too scared to take revenge.”

“It is not fear that drives me. It's grief at losing half of you all, my friends, yet again!”

“We will return if we can.”

“You will not.”

“We will!” Braztak says firmly. “There is no beast below the stone or above it that cannot be killed. Allow us to go, guildmaster. Allow us to put to rest this blight on our guild's history!”

“I cannot allow it!”

“You have no right to disallow it!” Mulkath shouts. “We are free to choose our own quests and always have been. If you refuse us to go, we leave the guild!”

“Allow us to go,” says Braztak, “Or the guild tears apart.”

“If I allow you to go, it tears apart also.”

“Then we must all go.”

“All? Even the tenth degrees? The new initiates?”

“Even them. Everyone can have a part to play.”

There's a long silence. For a moment I think that Wharoth's been persuaded, think he's given in. He opens his mouth as if to finally give assent, but then he shuts it, and shakes his head. “No,” he says quietly. “I cannot lose you all. I cannot throw your lives away.”

“Then I leave the guild.”

“No. No, you don't have to. I can't disallow your leaving. You are right that we are free here to take on the quests we choose. I won't change that rule, in the hope that at least some of you will realize your folly halfway and decide to return.”

“I, for one, will not turn back.”

“I know. All the same...” Wharoth shakes his head. “Do as you wish. All of you can do as you wish. And if you wish to fight the impossible, a beast that's just killed a Runeking, then do it. I will rebuild the guild just as I did the last time, and the time before that also.”

He bows his head and, slow step by slow step, makes his way out of the hall, to go back down, I imagine, to his forge, to find some peace from this fresh grief.

Mind and heart whirling with emotions and thoughts going too fast for me to catch, to make sense of, I retreat from the furious arguments breaking out all over the guildhall to the place that feels most like home: the forge.

Just like Wharoth has done.

I begin to sketch the basic designs—not just for breastplate and backplate, but for every plate, from boot-caps to helmet. I'm going to throw everything I have into a full new set of armor, armor that will get me across the surface and to the mountain lair of the black dragon. I'm going to spend every ounce of gold on it. I'm going to exert my abilities to their fullest. Its runic power will exceed even that of Gutspiercer—just so long as I make no mistakes.

Titanium is my choice for metal. Light and strong, it takes runes well and I know well how to work it. Buying enough for an entire suit of plate will cost about half the gold I have, yet it's the only option.

Briefly I question myself: is titanium really the only option? How about steel? But steel seems too cheap for a runeknight of fourth degree, unless I have some special reason to use it. So how about tungsten, the favored metal for fighting beasts of flame in? But I can't risk purchasing so much of a metal I've never worked with before, and I'm also not too sure which runes will work best on it.

And I have a feeling that my new script will take to titanium better.

What metal for the runes themselves? Something cold, calm, pure. Platinum. Platinum is the only choice, I think. It feels right, pure and cold like ice itself.

Or maybe not. Since my trial I've educated myself on every metal and alloy I had available to me but didn't know enough about to take advantage of. I think of a different metal, a little rarer:

Palladium.

Isn't that metal even more like ice than its sister? It has a white sheen and is lighter also. It's brittle, said to crack fast when bent too far, just like a sheet of ice will. It'll cost me a little more than platinum would, but again, I'm determined to pour everything I have into this armor, no compromises made.

As for the reagent, I'll use hytrigite for the key runes, and quizik and jasperite for the others. This isn't so much a compromise as an unfortunate reality. To obtain enough hytrigite to graft each and every rune with would require ten times as much gold as is in my safe.

My safe. That reminds me of something. Something that I can't quite put my finger on. I glance away from my sketching to look at the dark metal box. There was something in there, wasn't there? Something important, that kept drawing me to open my safe and pull it out again and again, sometimes without me even realizing I was doing so.

I can't remember what it was. A strange feeling comes over me—fear mixed with curiosity. I shake my head and try to ignore it. Whatever I'm forgetting, my armor is more important.

I draw up a design for the breastplate. It'll be angled out at the front so that any dragonfire washes off it, so that any human barbs or dwarven spears glance away.

My helmet will be light and close-fit, and almost entirely closed. The poem I graft to it—wait, I'll make it entirely closed. And the runes will turn the front as transparent as ice.

My gloves will be more or less regular. I can't have runes of grip on them, not of ice. I could make a completely different poem for them, I suppose, with a different script, yet I think the rest of the suit would reject it.

I'll come up with some clever idea later on.

As for my boots, they're going to be one of the greatest elements of this craft. When I command it, by means of a clever inner switch, they're going to slide. My speed across the stone will be something to fear, though becoming able to control it may take some time, and even when I've mastered it, it'll still take immense concentration in battle to use effectively. If I slip up—literally—I could find myself deep into enemy ranks, or perhaps dragon's lair, with no support, in seconds.

I put down my writing stick. I frown at the paper, the mass of angled shapes and snatches of poems in this strange new script. Though the designs and poems are now beginning to take shape, solidifying from liquid idea, this is an ambitious task I'm setting myself.

Am I really about to create an entire new suit of armor enruned with an entirely new script? Should I not be more conservative? I'm only a fourth degree, after all. Am I overreaching? Am I about to waste all my money, all my time before the quest, on ideas that simply won't work when put to the heat of the forge?

No. I feel totally confident in my success.

Why, though? And after all that's happened as well! Where's my doubt? Where's the voice in my head telling me to slow down, think things through?

My eyes move to the safe once more. There's something odd about it, something off. I walk over and kneel down to open it. I struggle to get the key into the lock, though I've never struggled with it before.

Eventually I get it in, turn it, and the heavy door opens. There was something in the bottom, wasn't there? Or was it the top? I search from top to bottom slowly and carefully. All my gold is here, and all my reagents too. Nothing out of order then. Strange. I shut the safe...

There was something more precious than gold and reagent in there. There was a gem. A prickle travels down my neck. I reopen the safe and, from the very bottom, from under some old tools haphazardly jammed in over it, draw out my sapphire.

My eyes widen. It's scratched. It's been torn violently from its setting. I reach into my shirt and clasp my hand around my amulet. I draw it out.

Set into the metal is my ruby. It throbs warmly on my palm. My face, reflected in its facets many times over, is colored bloody.