The great halls of Kjhandurall were the first of the many dwarven settlements built in the 100th year of the First Age, a hundred years before the dark elves themselves arrived to Mount Dhaugrúz. Kjhandurall were the first seat of the then dwarven King Mutmarlig Mythrilite, the younger brother of the Queen of the Aereum Mountain range in the south. For unknown reasons, mostly lost to history because dwarves before being swallowed into the Elven Empire tended to not keep records on their affairs, was exiled with his personal cult to the north. Allegedly it was because they abandoned the worship of their Gods, and sought the forbidden knowledge of death and disorder with the aim to progress their war machine as the elves to the south western island of their started expanding, colonizing the nearby regions.
While at the time, their destination wasn’t questioned, everyone though they were just hoping to get as far away from the elves as possible, later through imperial spies they learnt that dwarves were told by an entity of death on the unnatural riches laying undiscovered deep in the great, sinister mountain of the north. They learnt about the properties of Dhaugrite and how to process it so armors and weapons made from it could be worn by the living without sapping their life forces. They found ways to instead reverse its negative effects, making them pseudo undead without their knowledge. Then as the decades passed, their once fair skin slowly darkened, just like their souls while they still remained somewhat loyal to their former Gods. But then in six hundreds of the First Age, they dug too deep, an age old saying from their old world where they tended to excavate things meant to kept in the deep.
While on the exact thing they dug out was never discovered by either the neighboring dark elves, or by the Kingdom of Virdr, one thing was sure. That in a few years later the dreaded elder dragon Deadfire changed his course, from the southern colonies of the Empire to the north with the Horde following after him quickly engaging with the remnants of the ravaged kingdom of the north.
The dragon continued its rampage in the deep, burning the Eviscai Kingdom to the almost same smithereens alongside a few Dhaugrian Conclaves, the less insane ones whose minds started to heal through the ages, trying to fight back against the winged terror alongside their old friends. Kjhandrurall opted to not engage with the Deadfire, when sought for help against the Dhau-Íssz following after their God, they remained silent, whispering that it is not the time yet.
“So how is my little brother?” Galeldeth asks the two scouts, Dekni and Domuna, while humming in harmony with the thrumming creating soft tremors below their feet. Her head similarly shaking left and right trying to match the rhythm.
“Is he still adorable ball of flames? Or did it get worse?” Before they could answer, she continues bombarding the two with questions, her eyes gleaming with shifting affection, alternating between anger, joy, sadness and longing.
“He has calmed down in recent weeks.” Dekni says after Galeldeth goes silent for several minutes as they head down the stairs deeper into Kjhandurall.
“I see, see.” She says with a calm voice while slightly tilting her head backwards the young dark elf, a smile curving onto her thick lips that sends a shiver down her spine.
Then the trio stops in front of an enormous gate on the bottom. A large tree carved into the middle with great care and precision the dwarves are known for, with a seemingly recently added tendril slowly wrapping around, slithering towards a point in the top with clear aim. Galeldeth raises her staff, and the eyes all turn in the same direction, their myriad pupils turning towards the point the tendrils gathering towards. A coldness creeps in, replacing the warmness that were exhumed by the underground forges below and the gate slowly creaks open with accompanied by a warped howl of some beast.
“Come!” Galeldeth beckons the two while leading, entering into a great hall where hundreds of dwarven warriors line up, holding great shields in their left hand, a long spear thrice the size of them. Each one clad in shimmering mettalic gray dhaugrite armor with flared helmets with a skull mask, smooth chest and shoulder plates with ebon black trimmings and lightless crystals honed to perfection.
“You two are just in time.” Galeldeth exclaims while they walk in between the silent warriors. Then as they reach the end of the hall, the armored dwarves move in perfect unison, starting their march out.
“Where are they heading?” Domuna asks as they head further inside the dwarven fortress, the marching of the warriors dampen as they get further and further into.
“First they regroup, then take back the entrance to the Middle Stratum.” Galeldeth says without hesitation as they take a turn towards what appears to be her residence. The feminine dhaugrians clad in robed armor somewhat similar to hers bow before standing out the way. “Now, stay here for a bit. I notify the Matriach and the King of your arrival. Then we can talk.” She says after the two walk around aimlessly in her quite spacious living area, in an eerily composed manner. They nod in understanding and the Galeldeth bows as she heads out in an, jumping in joy as she heads towards the stair, where the thrumming starts intensifying.
**
“Thanks!” The Upper Stratum’s wind gently breezes his hair as he rests on the cold, grayish black rails of the balcony facing into the distance. Griggorn thanks the small cup of tea brought by Acniss, coming out in a somewhat unintelligible mess which is a bit unusual for him.
“It’s the minimum for helping with my studies!” The young Acniss replies chuckling at her flustered friend. This intercourse was nothing new to the two, Acniss was still enjoying these hiccups, finding them amusing as she stared at his flustered, reddened cheeks that just started showing sharper features as he gets closer to his hundreds.
“Without you I wouldn’t even understand half of that.” She says with a sigh, Griggorn noticing how good the academy’s uniform fits the slender form of Acniss. The long, silken robe of dark violet shimmering even in the shadows with golden trims and a narrow, high collar that zipped down curls down like the petals of a certain carnivorous plant native to the Upper Layers of Mount Dhaugrúz, revealing enchanting dark neck as her hair is braided into three, knotted by liquid shadows. Something that he found strange to an extent, using magic for such a small thing, but Acniss always cared about looks, specifically her own looks.
“Don’t say that! I’m pretty sure the Great Acniss could reach greater heights than this lowly me.” He says after mustering his strength, to both manage to keep his voice even and to slowly lock his hand over Acniss’s vulnerable, soft hands.
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“The Great Acniss, how imaginative.” She says with a mocking laugh, warming his heart instead of aching it.
“Well, still have time to think about it once you’ll own all this.” He says pointing at the distant cityscape of the capital and the what lies even beyond its enormous walls keeping wandering giants out. “Just don’t skip on the mental studies. Better to build a stronger fortitude now to avoid being controlled by others.”
“Rest assured I won’t, Great Magus Griggorn.” Acniss slowly wraps around his left arm, resting her head on his shoulders. Her sweet scent fades away slowly as distant cries bring him back to the present.
“Where?” He asks while turning to Erori. “South west.” She quickly replies after getting a mental message from the respective chief.
“Stay here, and keep a watchful eye.” He orders her and disappears as he teleports to the fer end of the marching army.
After the ambush two days ago erected stronger wards around their encampment while remaining on watch. Thanks to his undead nature remaining even after receiving the blessing of the Nightscale, he did not need food or sleep, even though he still preferred to rest every now and then, just to dream of the past. Zhug, his left hand offered to stay up with him, but he sent him back to rest, a tired general can spell the doom of an army. And he can’t afford it. Not with an enemy he knows little off, and not when his new overlord watches him.
For a few moments Griggorn hovered above the wide path where the troops stopped in their march, waiting for the orders to climb the cliff on the north to them to help their clans-kin fighting on the top. He hesitated to fire into his own forces, it would be foolish to lower their moral before the actual battle as the undead already pushed into his forces, making it harder for the mages to shower them in their magic.
Consequently, he opted for enhancing the Dhau-Íssz warriors’ physical prowess with his aspectless magic while searching for the construct that is possibly leading the undead. He quickly found it, a quadrupedal reptilian horror, haphazardly fused together combination of a basilisk, a hydra and some of the mages belonging to the reinforcements it attacked. Their faces still showed the terror of being consumed, both physically and transcendentally as their exposed flesh under the ivory armor with the blunt robes beneath melded brutally to the wiggling scaled neck that stopped halfway through its long process of decay.
“Seem their vision isn’t lacking either.” Just as he starts chanting to incinerate the construct in one go, he feels his arms and throat tighten, stopping his chant midway through. He quickly evades the flame element spell empowered by an air one, increasing its speed and size. Then he grunts as whirlwind assaults his body from above him, sending him down to the ground.
A group of undead marching towards the battle raging behind him change their trajectory and surround him. Before they could cut him down through, flames erupt them and while Griggorn slowly gets up, leaving his mask on the ground.
His head rings from the fall while using his staff to balance his body. Then the shouting makes him turn around, noticing a group of Dhau-Íssz warriors pushing towards him.
“Get out of the way.” Umefri’s shouts as he pushes the young Griggorn out of his way as he rushes in front of Acniss. He jumps in front of her just in time, his body crumbles to dust as it enters the range of the fully matured basilisk’s gaze. Even is dark, menacing armor inherited from his elder brother corrodes rapidly, shattering into thousands of pieces.
In that moment, Acniss’s dread filled face contorted into a wicked smile, as if she just climaxed, which made him understood her friend’s true nature, something that he found weirdly alluring. He teleported in front of her out of instincts to protect her against the next attacks, but then as he felt the repulsing feeling of control in his mind, instead of using his own body as shield, he erected a ward, blocking the necrotic energies of the gaze from reaching him.
“Don’t just stand around. Griggorn cast enchantments on those two.” Acniss yells, ordering the two classmen part of their group.
“Yes milady!” “On it darling!” They reply in unison, their eyes gleaming with obsession aimed towards Acniss. The shaking stops as they rush towards the basilisk, diverting his attention at the two rushing at it without a care in the world.
“Do it now!” Acniss whispers in his ears, her sweet hot breath awaking strange feelings of attraction within him. He starts chanting, using his talent to place the source in the two. The first, a young maiden clad in dark leather like armor disintegrates before reaching the basilisk, while the other thanks to Griggorn’s ward in front of him delays his doom. Reaching the basilisk, he starts swinging down at the basilisk, aiming the sever its head in one go. Before that could happen though, his body brightens as magical runes engulfs his body which then explodes in a raging fire that also consumes the front half of the basilisk, killing it in one go.
“Let’s go home” Acniss says with a smile as her face is drenched in sweat after her legs gave in to the fear that just registered in her.
As the warriors slowly approached him, he teleported them close to himself, before leaping into the air, using an air spell to keep himself hovering. The four warriors quickly understood what happened, and rushed towards the Hydra Construct.
Two manage to reach close to the it, while the young orc on the far-left gut flattened by the clawed hand of the Hydra Construct, the other an older human died suffocating as one of the bodies joined to the neck encased it in a whirling bubble of air, slowly lifting him up while air got sucked out of his body.
The other two clash with the Hydra Construct, puncturing its scaled torso which it seems to ignore. Still their attention is still on the two, one sending down a cone of flames from its withered right hand, while the other attempts to suffocate the same way the other remaining warrior.
Griggorn raises his staff and aims its draconic head at the Hydra Construct while his other arm is held out in the air with his palm open. He starts chanting, and in the next moment the two feel their power growing, while their weapons get engulfed in flames. While initially he planned to use them as sacrifices like his former classmates he just recalled, he decided against the idea. While in the end he does not care whether they live or die, its better for the overall moral for them to not die by his hands. Its fine if they die while fighting the construct.
While these thoughts go through his head, the half-elven head of the construct manages to lift the Dhau-Íssz warrior in the air, slowly suffocating him with an all too familiar expression on his grotesque rotting face veiled under his hood. Griggorn blasts that head to chunks quickly, using a minor aspect of air spell to send the warrior down to the ground while also allowing him to quickly sever the other head’s head seemingly decreasing its sight.
The flames on that wound spread down onto its body, elongated neck prompting a soul shaking scream from it. It proves enough to frenzy the two warriors, giving it the opportunity to crush the one still fighting down, the other two be burnt to a charred corpse with his scaled armor melted onto his cadaver.
Griggorn watched all this unfold with a grin before pushing the warm feeling down, realizing that the scream reached far in the back. Multiple warriors and even mages froze in fear, allowing the undead to end them, in a chain reaction the losses started racking up. He sighed then the construct’s hydra body exploded into putrid burning pieces after his chanting finished.
“Maybe I was too generous.” He mumbled as feeling a bit dejected at how easy it was to kill it compared to the Skeletal Construct. He then turned around and rained down lightning on all the undead still fighting, locking onto their muffled presences. This time he didn’t want to leave any to escape in case they regroup with the other and ambush them once more. Before the survivors would notice him and erupt in cheers, Griggorn teleported back to his position in the middle.