Legend of the Runeforger: A Dwarven Progression Fantasy

My breastplate and backplate will be the keystone of my armor's defense. The poem I create for them is the climax of the war of stone rain and icy plain. No longer are the stones mere pebbles, but mighty boulders. The ice is many dozens of feet thick, and it's old and blue and very cold.

I've got over the apprehension I felt when I burned my fingers a few hours ago. I've no choice but to go all in on cold. That's what I was always aiming to do, wasn't it? Human bandits and enemy dwarves will recoil at my armor's touch, especially those in thinner plate. The black dragon won't notice it, I don't think, but it'll reduce the heat of its fire by at least a little.

In the final main stanza on my breastplate, the stone rain turns molten. Boulders glowing red shatter upon the ice, expending their vitality in attempts to crack it asunder, and they fail utterly. In the epilogue stanza, the world has become colder than it ever was before.

I focus my power and twist the palladium into runes. Cold, I mutter to myself. Colder and colder, and colder. My runes take on my will. Even lying on the anvil, inert—supposedly—they make my skin feel chill.

I graft most of them. The forge flashes red and blue and white. I step back from the breastplate and backplate, laid open on the anvil, and smile grimly. Even without the key runes grafted, the piece is almost too cold to approach. My back, to the furnace, burns, yet the tip of my nose and the tips of my fingers also are numb. Once I'm finished moving the plates off the anvil, my thickly-gloved hands have gone numb up to the wrists.

Now for the part I'm most nervous about—refining the hytrigite. I recall how much of it Hayhek and I wasted before our quest to defeat the lava trolls. If you don't treat it with the proper respect, it blasts itself apart. It almost has its own thoughts and feelings.

And just because I've worked with even trickier since, doesn't mean I'll be able to get this right on my first attempt in fifteen or so years.

Ordinary heat isn't good enough for hytrigite. I get some stone and heat it in the crucible until it becomes magma. Then, gently, I submerge the first sphere for three seconds—I count carefully—there's a bang. Magma explodes out, spattering my arms and chest. I drop the tongs and fall back, screaming curses.

“Fucking bastard! Fuck!”

I was so sure I got the timing right. Did I misremember? I take another look at the hytrigite spheres. Maybe they're a little smaller than the ones Hayhek, Dwatrall and I found.

Ignoring the burning spots of pain, I retrieve my tongs and grab another sphere. I put it down. I can't rush. I need to be exact. I add more stones until the magma is at the same level it was before. I wait for it to melt fully. Only then do I pick up the next sphere and lower it into the magma. I count two seconds. It feels about right.

I pull out the sphere and set it down on the anvil. I strike. One hit, two—it's flattening—then there's suddenly resistance, a flash of bright blue, and splinters of it are in my skin.

One I pull from my eyelid. If I hadn't shut my eyes just in time, I'd be blinded just as sure as if I'd failed with almergris.

I force myself to breath, to calm down. I know why I failed—I forgot to treat it with respect. I was in the wrong mindset, hurrying, thinking only of my needs instead of thinking of me and reagent as equals.

I pace around the forge three times. I take fifteen deep breaths. I take another fifteen breaths. Only then do I, very carefully, pick up the next sphere and submerge it. Two seconds exact. I place it down on the anvil, strike with my hammer. It flattens. I open the tongs and strike again.

We'll do this together, I'm thinking at it. Through harmony, we'll make a suit of armor that's the envy of the entire guild.

Ten strikes later and it's a clear blue circle as wide as my palm. I cut it into slivers and layer them under the main runes of the backplate. I heat and the forge flashes deep blue. Cold mist pours upward. I snatch my hands away.

I refine another sphere and graft more runes onto my breastplate. The aura of cold is almost visible. I already feel as if I'm standing in the icy wastelands of my poem, and the full suit isn't even complete yet.

Yet I can't help but feel a little disappointed. I've only three spheres of hytrigite left. My gauntlets, boots, and helmet aren't going to be quite as magnificent as I've been envisioning.

Well, that can't be helped. I always knew this wasn't going to go perfectly. Nothing in the forge ever does.

“What's this?”

“A letter from the New Dynamium Guild.”

“What does it say?”

“I didn't open it.”

“Of course, of course. Hand it over, will you?”

“Shit. Shit!”

“What is it?”

Xomhyrk hands the letter back to Gollor.

“Quite bad news.”

Xomhyrk shakes his head. “No. It's very bad news. Horrible news.”

“This'll slow us down by weeks, won't it?”

“Maybe up to a month.”

“They're that worried about provoking Runeking Uthrarzak?”

“Wouldn't you be?”

“I suppose. But what do we do? Do we leave early?”

“I don't think we can risk it. We'll have less dwarves, worse equipped. When we get to the dragon they won't be enough.”

“Just us has always been enough before. Maybe this time we should prioritize speed over power.”

Xomhryk laughs bitterly. “I visited Runethane Thanerzak's realm a couple years after its ruination, you know.”

“I remember.” Gollor is a second degree, wielding a spear of force, and has been with Xomhyrk since the beginning, several hundred years ago.

“I'd never seen anything like it. Still haven't.”

“You say it can't keep up that power, though. That its breath then was an outburst of all the heat it couldn't digest.”

“When a dragon devours its fellows, that power is hard to control, so yes, it couldn't keep up that power. Now it has the treasures of an entire kingdom in its lair. Runic power is more solid, longer lasting. It sinks into the dragon's bones.”

“Dragons don't have bones.”

“It's a metaphor. Into their essence.”

“So your saying it's back to its full strength?”

“Probably it's stronger. Apparently the mountain's hollow now, and the earth for miles in front of it is a smoldering wreck of barely-cooled lava.”

“Might Runeking Halajatbast have injured it?”

“I imagine he and his Runethanes and first degrees got a few good blows in.”

“All the more reason to move quickly, before it's recovered.”

Xomhyrk shakes his head. “No. We need power or we'll never get anywhere. We won't even get to it.”

“Yes. We can't bypass the humans anymore, can we?”

"No."

After drafting the poems for my boots and gauntlets, I refine the rest of the hytrigite and adjust the runes accordingly. I sigh. The poems have lost a lot of impact. They won't slide as fast, won't grip as hard. I'm not going to be as mobile and deadly as I hoped.

Can't be helped, I tell myself. After the quest I'll reforge them.

If I survive it.

The poem for my boots is of a dwarf gliding down a hill of white ice. He's charging at an iron troll. It swings a mighty club at him. The dwarf ducks then, with perfect control, turns. He angles the edges of the boots into the ice to grind to a halt. He strikes quickly and accurately. Blood sprays. The troll swings in a rage.

The dwarf slides out the way and cuts it down.

Speed to perfect control, to sliding speed again. These boots won't provide much protection, but they'll make me fast. I'll close and strike before the black dragon even has time to recognize me.

My gauntlets focus on the gripping power of ice. Ice doesn't have to be frictionless, after all. It can cling to rocks for long millennia, digging roots of cold deep. Clutch ice with your bare skin and it'll tear your hand apart. The dwarf in my poem presses his hands to a frozen wall, and when the windstorm comes, he whispers to the ice to hold him fast, and it does so.

Now to twist the runes. I shut my eyes, sink into the magma sea. I see the sphere and brace. I'm in it—the black shadows are darker, more vivid than ever—I don't have time to ponder what this means—I focus on how I want to twist the runes.

Angles sharpen or widen. Lines vanish or are added. In the first poem, the cold wind tears at the dwarf as he flies down the slope. The iron troll roars and the force of its blow throws snow into the air. The ice screams and sparks with frozen power as the dwarf turns, stops. He strikes. Blood turns the ice red. The troll counter-strikes—and then is cloven in two, and its ruin freezes into crimson crystals.

Now for the gauntlets' poem. The dwarf against the wall melds into it. Encased, he remains there for a decade as the winds seek to tear him out. When the ice releases him, he's half a corpse, yet he's protected.

Ah, shit. I think I've gone too far with this one. Might these gauntlets never let go of my weapon? But all the palladium I have left has to go on my helmet. Besides, with my limited hytrigite, the power of this poem won't be that pronounced.

I graft, and as soon as I'm finished, I put the gauntlets on. I flex my fingers. They seem to want to grip something, so I pick up my hammer. Tiny crystals of ice fan out from where titanium touches wood. The crystals are only millimeters in length, but very cold. Deathly cold.

Something makes me smile. My war-pick isn't the only weapon I have anymore. Xomhyrk said that he killed dragons by plunging Icemite into their hearts and freezing their blood solid. Perhaps my fingers, plunged into a wound opened by Gutspiercer, will have the same effect on the black dragon's blood.

I try on my boots as well. A few steps and I nearly fall over. I try again, to run, then I glide, then I flick the switch inside them to change the friction. I halt and my momentum throws me flat on my face.

It's going to take a lot of practice in the sparring yard until I'm able to fight while sliding. Still, the surface is earth and carpets of fungus, not stone. The sliding effect won't be quite so pronounced.

Satisfied, I take the boots off and put them with the rest of the armor.

Now all that's left is the helmet.