17th of the Gormaunudor, 2172 of the Tenebrarium Age.
The unified cacophony of dwarven mages echo through the vast section of the mine, the forepart of their arms and legs turned stone with cracks decorating the earthly texture as Terrana flows into them. The wall of jagged stone in front of them slowly crack open shaking the ceiling revealing a dim darkness where most dwarves of the Tenebrarium Age could not see unlike their ancestors who lived and thrived in the darkness of the underground world of Nidavellir.
“Good work lads, you can all rest your arses now.” a middle-aged dwarf with bushy long dark beard contrasting his light toned skin tanned by not hard work, but by the luxurious lifestyle he enjoys thanks to his family’s mining company yells to the dwarven mages working for him, his booming deep voice with a lighter accent of theirs reverberates through the large section. His name is Noramratir of the Mythrille family that is still famous for the discovery of the Mithril Metal which then quickly started the age of Mithril a few millennia ago.
He walks to the opening, caressing the top of his head lacking in hair that once was lushly draped over the shining top, now only remaining on the sides and the back, even those showing signs of falling out. “We’re so close” he murmurs to himself as he infuses his vision with a spell that renders the darkness a bit more visible, a straight and narrow pathway appearing going far in to the distance.
“Let’s return to the surface now Noram” Heldruni a stoic looking dwarven woman says whose beard is thinner compared to her boss’s, naturally tinted in a much lighter and vivid color reminiscent of mud after the rain stops. She is dressed in a similarly brutish yet still elegant dwarven designed suit with a whitish shirt and skirt combination while Noramratir choose a golden shirt with the collars folded out, spreading to the sides with a rough looking tie loosely tied around the collar. Her deep feminine voice pierces the mind of Noramtir, whose excited look changes to a much more reserved calm look. “Yes, you are right. Patience creates mithril as my family tends to say.” He says with monotone calm tone as his body turns around in a sophisticated manner heading towards the elevator with Heldruni in tow.
Before he steps inside, his body stops for a mere moment, his head turning ever so slightly to the right, sharpening his ears to hear the sweet serene tune coming from the opening, beckoning him on a subconscious level, but then the tune gets quieter with each passing second till only the sound of the elevator and Heldruni’s gentle voice remains.
**
“I’m proud of you son!” a dwarf with completely grayed out beard and a head which’s wrinkles are in full view thanks to the lack of hair gently touches the bulky shoulders of Noramratir and with a deep raspy voice compliments him, the sun shines through the tall narrow windows adoring the robust, lavish walls creating ethereal scenery in the otherwise mundane dwarven room of someone at the top. “You finally became the fven I wished for.” the well-dressed old dwarf, who is his father continues on walking and leading Noramratir towards the window, the two gently staring out noticing his mother with grayish white long hair and dense whiskers running under her large and wide nose, beside her standing is her wife Heldruni who is even more beautiful to him, both women dressed elegantly with various minerals adoring their expensive dresses.
The next moment they turn their heads at the sound of children laughing and two boys the size of their mothers run towards them in the mineral garden to the mithril gazebo they are standing on. The two fvens watch as the boys run to their mother and grandmother who both welcome them with gentle motherly smiles on their faces, under their feminine beards.
“Now there is one more thing” his father voice turns from one filled with joy to a calm almost monotone one as he turns his head looking at him. The next moment the scenery of the ethereally warm room changes to the dark and cold section with the gap opened by the workers of their family company. “What is it father?” Normaratil asks calmly, not bothered by the strange phenomenon at all. “I want you to...” But before his father could finish his sentence his eyes shot wide staring at the ceiling of his large double bed with a tenebrarium frame and refined woven sheets decorated with etchings of his ancestors blessed by their patron god Hephaestus.
“Good morning Noram” Heldruni’s voice is the first thing she hears, a strange warm feeling filling him which he subconsciously tries to fight back against with little to no success as he gets up from the bed greeting his secretary with a warm smile under his beard the sunshine entering the spacious lounge of a room dresses Heldruni in a god like grace in his eyes. “Morning Hel.”
**
The deep throat singing of the seven dwarven workers through the tall gap extending up towards the ceiling of the mine opened the day before. Noramtaril and Heldruni watches from a few steps away from the hole, Heldruni’s face plastered with anticipation and excitement after many years of waiting for a new metal to be found somewhere in the Skjoldrion mountain range. On the other hand, Noramtaril face is empty of that while deep inside expectations are high inside of him too, but a different kind, a result of the serene tune he faintly hears through the chanting of his workers coming from the end of the pathway.
“Aren’t you excited Noram?” Heldruni asks as she turns back to her boss with a gentle forming on her lips. For a moment Noramtaril stares into the opened gap on the wall, focusing his mind on the serene tune that feels cold yet it warms him, a feeling coming back to him he felt during his dreams recalling the image of his father speaking to him. “Oh yeah, I am.” He says, his voice sounding a bit tired.
Then the serene tune abruptly stops at the same time as his workers stop their chant, the shaking of the ground stops and for several minutes the two stand in the well-lit section of the mine waiting for any of the workers to show up in the opening. The first to appear is the tallest dwarf at 159 centimeters with long dark hair flowing down onto his hulking shoulders, a result of years of service in the mines before he was promoted to be amongst the Stone-Singers of the Mythrille Company.
“We’re done for today boss… and Madam Heldrun.” The tall dwarf yells at first before he regulates his tone, affection appearing in his deep voice. “We reached quite deep, and there is definitely more down there with a cold entering the path from somewhere.” He continues on turning to Noramtaril, turning his head down a bit to face his senior boss. “Oh, and we did find this.” He reaches into his vest’s pocket pulling out a rock so dark it looks more like a black hole appearing in his hand, the light around it gradually darkening while occasionally emitting a crimson light.
For a moment the serene tune starts playing in the ears of Noramtaril, much louder and clearer than before, a weird calmness invades his being with a relaxed smile forming under his dark graying beard while a single tear forms under his right eye. “Good work” he says genuinely as he takes the stone and starts walking towards the gap walking through the seven Stone-Singers forming a wall around them, each fawning over Heldruni who focuses on Noramtaril whose head is filled with the serene tune that becomes clearer, a thousand voices united in an eerie cacophony.
**
The sound of water droplets falling on the jagged rocks on the side glowing in ethereal warm glows fills the long path, Noramtaril’s steps silent as the night itself. The rock in his pocket thrumming invisibly with it’s pitch black darkness radiating through his suits hard surface etched with his kin’s runes to extend his stamina beyond his normal limit. With each step toward the open pathway hundreds of meters in front of him illuminates in a crimson light. The dark featureless figure slowly forms in the middle of it, holding its hand out to Noramtaril.
A hunger, not for food but for something else, something that cannot be touched by mortal hands rises within Noramtaril, getting stronger with each step he takes towards the figure whose soundless voice reaches his ears, whispering promises of freedom into his ears. Freedom from expectation, freedom from the cage that binds all life. As he gets closer to the ever-growing figure and the open pathway at the end of the underground trail, he starts making out small features like eye sockets filled with nothingness, a wide mouth formed into a closed smile that radiates familiarity, the faint vein outline of an upside tree letting the crimson light through itself.
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As his right and left foot steps over the boundary, the dark scenery changes into an idyllic one. Noramtaril quickly realizes that he is in the back mineral garden of his mansion. For a while he fervently searches for the dark figure but quickly calms down just as he hears the laughter of kids. “Papa” a child the same size as him but still not possessing the muscles his kind is gifted with, runs towards him, the shadows of the gazebo’s ceiling gently falling over them.
“Let’s go Papa, Ma and Grannie is waiting for us!” the kid exclaims it while grabbing onto the left arm of his father, dragging him with himself towards the back entrance of the five floor mansion with walls painted gold and white as the snow that rests atop mountains. As they enter the scenery shifts once more, standing in the room filled with an otherworldly warm light, his father standing at the window with half of his body coated in gentle shadows.
“I am proud of you son” his deep, hoarse voice fills the room full of gentle warmness making Noramtaril feel happiness, one that he hasn’t felt in a very long time. Memories of his father’s harshness assault his mind for a second. He starts taking deep breaths as an awkward hotness spreads from his legs and chest. “You have finally become the fven I always wanted.” as he hears this sentence, he feels the hotness poking him inside subside gradually until it is completely replaced with the happiness it pushed out.
For a moment his father stands still staring out into vast emptiness that exchanged the previous scenery of the mineral garden. His wrinkled previously tanned wrinkled old skin now white as porcelain with vein like cracks spread all over him. While most people would find it weird Noramtaril remains calm, the previous happiness still present ever so slightly though. Then his father turns around, the same empty eyes as the dark figures he saw, opening his mouth filled with the gapping emptiness of the void. His voice no longer his, but the voice of a hundred that soflty caress the eardrums of Noramtaril as he starts speaking. “I want you to…”
**
“Be cautious madam.” Heldruni follows the leader of the Stone-Singers in the narrow underground trail, their only source of light is her staff emitting a faint cool light, the stones gently scratching their clothes. “Were there no light glowing from these during the day.” She asks while walking in a quick pace behind the Stone-Singer.
“Yes, but often these stones rest, so to speak like us” He answers while keeping a watch forward, moving the stones that fallen down blocking the path. The two came down after Heldruni found the bed of Noramtaril empty. Using a certain low level time aspect spell, she managed to trace his path leading down to the mine from their camp. After staring into the pitch-black darkness of the gap she decided to ask for help from the leader of the seven Stone-Singers, who fallen under her high level charm she advanced through her lifetime.
While she doesn’t have to, as practice she holds back the anger the swollen up inside her after Noramtaril seemingly wandered off, even though he was under a mind sub-aspect spell that should have kept him in place during the night, assaulting him with dreams that would slowly lead him into the arms of the dwarven witch. Years of work seemingly thrown out the window she thought for a second when she saw the empty bed while figuratively gritting her teeth.
“We’re almost there.” After walking for what felt like to them an hour, they arrive at a large section with a single path going deep in a swirly fashion, large jagged spikes resembling the teeth of a mountain wurm stand unevenly beside each other, going around in a circle at the walls oozing with a dark liquid that eats away the dim magical light of Heldruni. “Let’s continue on.” Heldruni says, impatience showing clearly in her voice while a faint feeling of dread rising within her. She pushes the faint feeling back while imagining the various nightmares she will assault Noramtaril’s mind with when they get him back.
“Are you sure, I can go down and bring him back.” The stoic, relatively young looking dwarven Stone-Singer says while turning back his head a little, the cool light illuminating his face which’s lower part is covered by a lush dark beard that reaches down to his chest. “It’s better if I go down too.” Heldruni says while infusing her voice with Phrenna ordering the Stone-Singer practically whose face turns completely motionless as the spell invades his mind giving complete control over to the impatient Heldruni.
The two take the rest of the path down to the deep in silence, Heldruni conjuring warmness around herself as the cold of the deep starts getting unbearable for her. “What in the Abyss is that?” she murmurs as they reach the high-ceilinged natural section, looking down what seems like a wound in reality oozing the darkness out, turning the stone and mythrillite around them dark from its natural dark silverish color.
“Noram, my sweetheart you scared me to death.” She yells down as she spots Noramratil down on his knees under the wound, the dark ethereal ichor completely drenching his body. “Huh?” then in the next moment she falls down a few meters away from him, pushed down by the Stone-Singer who then kneels down himself, his forehead touching the ground while starting to chant, his hands and forearms losing their fleshiness, turning to resemble the dark stone that the ground became.
As Heldruni gets up hearing the chanting of the Stone-Singer she sees the path leading up rising out of the ground and connecting above. After it finishes the Stone-Singer stands up and leaves the two. “Hey, what is the meaning of this?” Heldruni screams after him, but no answers come back. “Damn it.” She turns around cursing the Stone-Singer in her mind, then she notices Noramtaril missing, leaving her alone in the weirdly clear darkness.
She stares up at the pulsing reality wound drooling the consuming cold darkness out of itself, the feeling of dread she felt getting more intense with each beating and step she takes unconsciously towards it. In her morbid curiosity that took her over, she reaches her hulky hands upwards in the air. Her hands starting contorting uncontrollably with their ends slowly sucked into the wound pulling the rest of her into the gaping darkness.
In the next moment she feels her body fall with great velocity towards the sea of nothingness below her, dread and excitement mixing together within her until she spots waves clad in a dark light with a slight hint of ominous red light shining from its seemingly endless depth, the top faintly reaching the border where the sea ends and the empty space starts. Her body silently slams onto the surface, the pain she was readying herself nowhere to be found, or more like felt.
She pushes herself up, slowly standing while her shake as she feels the lack of balance, like when someone unexperienced starts walking through a long line of rope connecting two skyscrapers for the first time. After minutes of trembling she finally manages to convince her body to stay still and stop shaking with a little bit of magical help. She looks around, trying to find something that would help her gripping onto to explore the vast nothingness. Then as she turns to her back, she notices an enormous wave closing on her in frightening speed.
Heldruni starts sprinting in a direction, her pace gradually quickening with each silent step and after seconds of sprinting she turns her head slightly to the right noticing the wave towering over her only a few steps behind her, seemingly following her like a pack of starving wolves. She empowers her leg muscles to fasten herself beyond her limits, but then she sees the transparent liquid coursing through her like air before continuing its way into the dark distance making the puzzled Heldruni stare at it. She also notices that after running for what felt like half an hour, she doesn’t seem to be out of breath or tired at all.
She looks at her hands, pulling her expensive shirts sleeves back, a feeling of excitement coursing through her as she notices the lack of sweat on her rough skin, laughing out then looks back. The dwarven mind witch notices the faint reflection of an indescribable light that is both warm yet cold at the same time appearing on her skin and clothes. She looks up and notices the enormous tendrils spreading into the distance like the roots of certain trees in her home world, a patch of darkness spreading cracks all over appearing slightly close to where the roots begin matching the form of the gaping wound in the mine making her realize that she passed beyond the boundaries of her world.
This realization makes her laugh out even louder, her knees giving up falling onto the surface of the empty sea. As she stares up trying to come up with anything to return home, she feels the ominous red light getting more intense, penetrating her skin and even being. She slowly tilts her head down, the dread that she felt faintly increasing and spreading within her as she notices thousands of solid yet hazy dark jaws circling like sharks within an enormous circle. She gets up instantly as she notices the red light focusing within the circle and starts sprinting towards the not too distance edges.
At the same time the hard liquid texture of the now red sea slowly descends towards the depths starting from the middle, slowly forming into a whirlpool with strange elongated shapes forming smaller maws shooting out from the raging waters, grappling towards Heldruni who almost managed to reach the edge. Her screaming echoes through the void as she falls towards the bottom of the endless whirlpool dressing her in red until nothing remains of her to be seen.
Then nothing remains. No screams or laughter. No sea of nothingness. No roots, no wound on the bottom surface of the ethereally colored object, no hope. Nothing, just the calm silence of the endless void, and his empty unseen eyes watching in anticipation.