Legend of the Runeforger: A Dwarven Progression Fantasy

That is what it looks like, a flash of darkness over the forge—yet instinctively I know that the shadows cast as I touch the frozen metal to the rune are not alike to the deep darkness. They are not blandly physical, but rather personal. They extinguish life alone, leaving light, sound, stone and bone untouched.

In that dark gray flash, my drive to live ebbs away. For a moment I feel as if there is nothing of worth in world. When the hour of my death arrives, my experience of everything, my joy and hope and sorrow and rage will vanish—thus they have no meaning.

And even after the shadows fade, a hint of this feeling remains.

I step back heavily. There can be no mistaking the strength of this script now. The rune of death emanates a cold, invisible power. Trembling, I force myself to step back in and look closer. No—it's not so much emanating power as draining it away. It is like Nightcutter or Heartseeker so long ago. This rune is hungry. It does not put out into the world; it takes away.

I shiver. It is strange that all my strongest crafts have this kind of effect. Strange and frightening.

Yet if there exists a power I can slay hated Uthrarzak with, surely it is this.

I put the rod back into the freezing bath, lay on the reagent for the next rune. With another frozen rod, I graft it. A sense of death flickers through the forge once more. Now for the next rune, the next, and so on and on and on.

With each diminishing of life, my hands move a little slower. The reagent mix is even more effective than I anticipated. According to the fragments of notes accompanying the recipe, it was created by a runeknight who wished to change the meaning of his runes, make them opposite what they actually said. I could not quite understand if he succeeded at this or not—bar the recipe itself, the text was difficult to decipher, rambling and ungrammatical.

But for runes that kill, I predicted that there could be no better option than to somehow use salterite. And with each touch of the frozen metal rods I am proving myself correct. The cold drawing-in of life becomes more intense with each stanza I complete. The warm glow of the lantern-lamps becomes drained of color, the very metal of the anvil dull like dusty stone.

Halfway through the process, I slump down beside the anvil. How long have I spent in here? I look around in vain for some kind of clock, but can find none, of course. Time is not meant to concern me anymore. This precept I've kept to for so long now seems strangely foolish. We have so little time. Should we not spend it in better ways? But then again, maybe time is meaningless after all. Everything comes to the same result.

I bite down on my lower lip until I taste blood. Pain bursts. I must go on—I have a duty to. This feeling, this despair is an illusion, I tell myself. An illusion! My ruby burns into life. I must fight!

I struggle onward. The stanzas diminish in length. Finally I reach the final sliver-small section of blade. Along the line I go, to the very last rune, fro-dar, the negation of existence, nothing, the ultimate form of death.

Finished—yet not so. The poem is done yet the craft is not. I groan. Until now, the final grafting of the last rune always signaled completion. But from now on, there will be an additional stage, that of putting the layers together.

And I do not feel confident. Far from it. I feel the dread of sure failure.

I put the enruned plates away from me, at the back of the shelves, and prepare.

The first task is to make the welding-powder, an even mix of titanium and magnesium—a volatile, white-burning metal—plus a touch of incandesite. From my vast funds I have purchased a special tool to help me, a kind of spinning file and spring-mount in an enclosed cylinder.

I fix a small ingot of titanium to the mount and close the lid. It makes a metallic click. I proceed to turn a handle on the side. The device begins to vibrate as the file within spins as the spring-mount forces the metal against it. I continue to turn until my palm grows numb, then open the lid to check how much progress has been made. Barely any, only a sliver of the ingot has been turned to powder.

I close the lid and resume the turning. The machine is emitting a stead hum-squeal. I start to feel cold and tired. My hand begins to slow and my wrist begins to ache. The craft, though half-completed and far away at the back of the forge, is sapping my willpower. I stalk over to it past the shelves laden with metal, reagents and gems, cursing my weakness, and toss a leather apron over it. This seems to have no effect, for when I return to grinding, it is as difficult as ever.

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Time for a break, I decide. I head on up to the main hall and sip some wine, have some hot pork brought to me as well. My stomach fills and my mood improves. I go to the window overlooking the mine and spot some of my dwarves training on a section of ruined stone beside it. They are juniors, practicing simple strikes with their axes, swords and hammers. There is force behind their blows. Their guildmaster, standing in front of them, is vigorous and encouraging.

I remember the guild's name: the Iron Hammers. They've taken my orders to heart, it seems.

My will to live restored somewhat, I return to my work, and grinding away the rest of the titanium bar into pale and glinting dust does not seem to take so long. There is a little left, attached to the mount, which I must file into powder manually. This proves no trouble. Now for the magnesium. After affixing it and clicking shut the lid, I begin to turn the wheel slowly and carefully.

The vibration of the mechanism is slower, the hum it makes lower. Some of the sense of despair returns. I become acutely aware of the presence of death upon the back shelves. It is the same as if there was a corpse lying there, the corpse of someone I once knew and cared for.

Still, the remnants of wine in my belly carry me through the task. I empty out the powder mix into a small chrome-steel bowl. Next, I prepare the incandesite. Into a mortar I gently crack a ten-gram chip of it. I grind with a pestle and the color, of glowing coals, intensifies as I turn the reagent to sand then dust. Always I move slowly, knowing that a single too-vigorous movement could turn everything to burning disaster.

Once finished, I mix the incandesite into the metals thoroughly. I grit my teeth. The next task is going to be the most precise of the entire process.

I retrieve the enruned plates and, with quick, jerky movements, desiring to touch them as little as possible, I lay them out in order. I take a deep breath. Now to start. Onto a slab of white ceramic I place the first layer. I weigh out an appropriately tiny amount of powder, tip it onto the metal, then very gently brush it around. I have my runic ears equipped, and listen to the texture of the metal for any uneven parts, where the sound is not absorbed so much. There are many, and I brush grains around until they are no more and all is even.

I place on the next layer of metal and brush the next dash of powder over it. Then I do the next layer, and the next, painstakingly. The craft begins to look like the strata of different kinds of rock one sees on some cave walls.

A vision comes to me of being in such a cave, one littered with skulls and decaying things. I curse my weakness of mind and banish the thought. I cannot let despair master me, not while engaged in this most difficult task. Every layer must be even, everything weighed out exactly. There is no margin for error.

I reach the halfway point and step back. My hands are aching and shivering. My fingertips feel cold, my legs weak. My shoulders hurt as if stiff from too much sleep on a hard floor. Memories assail me, memories of being a miner. I remember the endless stretch of misery that I knew my future would be, if I could not escape the drudgery. That was a kind of death, then, a living death, made all the worse for knowledge of how life could be.

I must continue. I must. I build up the next layer, and the next, always slowly and carefully. But my concentration is not constant. I cannot quite enter the world of metal, my place of peace, for the power in the runes tells me that even it must die one day.

Finished. I gasp and take two long steps back. I am chilled all over. Just one more task to go, and everything will be complete and I can escape this place. Just one more! I stagger over to the furnace and switch it on. Heat blooms from it, dry and harsh. The fire within looks violent, like churning hell. For how many dwarves has fire been the last thing they saw, their last moments the terrible pain of burning? Shall mine be such, too?

Into the furnace. I must put my craft into the furnace. I seize the ceramic plate with both hands and slowly insert it. Now to wait. It will melt partially, then the layers will burn together, the runes helping to keep the desired structure. After that, bar some sharpening, my knife will be complete.

The metal begins to glow. White flares—then vanishes. A dark colors grow between the layers. I hold my breath. Is this going wrong, or right? And which way do I want it to be going? Do I really want to clutch runes of death in the midst of bloody battle?

The knife begins to tremble. I hear a peculiar keening in my runic ears, like far-off screams. The dark glow intensifies.

The flames at the back of the furnace diminish and die—but the layers of the knife haven't fully melded. I curse, rush to the back of the furnace and try to restart it, pulling on heavy levers and turning wheels. Nothing seems to work.

A shout rings through the forge, a shout of rage and terror. So loud and ghastly is it that I clutch at my runic ears and pull them from my head. A moment later, a gout of ghostly gray fire erupts from the front of the furnace, a tide of decayed flame. It engulfs the anvil then spreads across the floor, hissing and groaning. I yell out in terror and rush back as it comes toward my feet. It nearly touches them, then vanishes like smoke.

I stand there, shaking. Something has gone wrong, horribly wrong. Mechanisms inside the furnace grind and crunch, then are silent. The gray fire has killed it. Killed the machine. I have never had anything like this happen, never. It makes me want to run.

But I am a Runethane. I do not run. All that should concern me is the state of my craft. I compose myself and walk around to examine what is within the furnace's mouth.