The welding goes about as well as I feared—very poorly. At first I attempt to use precisely arranged rings of incandesite. They do not ignite evenly enough, even after I spend close to an hour prodding each individual grain into place. I then attempt to weld using a soldering rod, but it is not hot enough to heat the base of the tungsten rods all the way through.

And after each failed trial, I must remake both rod and base strip. It is infuriating. If I was not under so much pressure, I would be cutting corners. Just how many long-hours have I spent on this thing? And I haven't even gotten to carving the gems.

Yet I am under pressure. I cannot anger Vanerak again. The mere thought makes my stomach roil. I see Helzar's barbed spear enter Pellas.

I shake my head. I cannot think of that. This is my world of metal. It is an escape from the terrors outside. Why should I be unhappy about spending time down here? And my patience is something I must perfect just as I perfect my crafts. Each failure is another tempering of it.

The method that finally works is the most simple one: I heat both rod and strip to blazing white, and press the rod against the surface hard. The end—curved slightly for perfect contact—becomes one with the strip. One by one I place the other nine, telling position through sound rather than sight, and I make no mistake. A few more rounds of heating in the forge and they are fully bonded.

I wipe sweat from my brow. The metal is done. Now for the gems.

But before I leave my quarters for the forge on what is to be my first session cutting rubies, I am told by Nazak:

“A further dozen runeknights have attained seventh degree. More cable must be made, and our Runethane has expressed interest in if your runes can improve their performance.”

The sudden mention of Vanerak unnerves me. I resist the urge to back away.

“Of course, honored runeknight Nazak,” I say calmly. “If our Runethane desires this then I will naturally obey. Though, I have never yet made one before. Neither did I have enough time to examine the one I did breathe through in depth.”

“That's no issue. Some originality may be useful to us.”

“All the same, I would be ashamed and upset if my cable was to fail another dwarf.”

“Would you now, traitor?” Nazak sneers. “You have never cared before if your actions resulted in the deaths of others.”

“I have always felt guilt for my actions, honored runeknight. And it grew further each day—and continues to do so.”

He scowls. “Just do as you're told. Have you made healing chains before? The process is similarly industrial. You will be provided with pre-shaped metal. Enrune it to the best of your ability.”

“Yes, honored runeknight Nazak.”

My fear fades as we make our way down the corridors, a growing sense of annoyance replacing it. I was in the middle of my own craft! And, pre-shaped metal!

So, the breathing-cables are treated like healing chains—the most prominent example of our taboo against making crafts for others being broken. The breaking was out of necessity—there is a great demand for them and not enough supply. But even though we are grateful for their existence, for their fixing of our ruined flesh after armor fails us, creating healing chains is still not a particularly honored job. A millennia ago—a rough hundred and twenty thousand or so long-hours ago, by normal dwarven reckoning—runeknights had to make their own. Most did not wish to sink the time and resources into creating them, however. Why create a craft to heal you when you could instead put that effort into armor to prevent injury in the first place?

But the taboo softened over the centuries. Partly this was in response to losses suffered in battles with Uthrarzak's forces, who, as I have seen for myself, honor collaboration, and had an abundance of the items. Their armies swelled while ours shrunk. Now, in Runeking Ulrike's realms, the crafting of healing chains is a job most runeknights will at least consider if strapped enough for gold. A few even take to it wholeheartedly, making it their profession or their obsession. They are not even particularly despised for this.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

When I arrive in the forge, a coil of the long, thin cable and what must be several hundred sections of thin tungsten have already been prepared for me, neatly arrayed besides my anvil. I kneel down to examine them. They seem decent enough quality—but that is not good enough for me anymore. I can see plainly that my runes will not take well to their roughly molded surfaces.

What is more—the length! There must be more than a hundred meters of cable here. I ask Nazak for the exact measurement.

“Two hundred,” he replies. “These ones will not take the new runeknights so deep. They will be used for exploring the midway hill.”

“The midway hill?”

“A rise in the unmolten rock beneath the sea. It marks the quarter-way point of our efforts.”

“I see.”

I cannot help but wonder why it is called 'midway' hill, then, but I do not want to prolong our conversation. I begin to unroll the coil. I want to get this job over with as soon as I can. It's not as if I'm going to be using this craft.

The tungsten wires that make up the cable are remarkably soft. I examine the shine of the metal carefully. Nickel and iron has been mixed in—almost a necessity for making tungsten into wire as fine as this. I look down one end of the wire too, and see that there are rings of hardened tungsten-cobalt alloy inside to maintain the cable's hollow structure.

I dread to think how much all this cost. Just the materials would have been expensive enough, plus the metalworkers' fees would have been tenfold that price for a job so precise as this. Just how rich is Vanerak? How does he make his money? And how is so much metal imported, and from where?

The thought of Vanerak nearly makes me imagine Pellas' body again. I focus on the tungsten sections that I will have to bind to the cable. I can see the marks of a saw on their edges. Whichever metalworker made these did not have anything as capable as my single-gem diamond cutter.

“How long do I have for this craft?” I ask Nazak.

“Do not keep our Runethane waiting, traitor. But do not compose poorly either. A runeknight's life is going to rely on this.”

“I wish to remake these sections. They are not fit for my runes.”

“If you were to spend too much time on that, our Runethane would be displeased.”

I bow my head. “Very well, honored runeknight Nazak.”

“The flotation section you will create to the best of your ability, however. It is too important to be composed of shoddy metalwork.”

“Very well.”

“But do it last. The poem should start from the lowest part of the cable. It is to preserve life—it must start close to life.”

“Yes, honored runeknight Nazak.”

“Get on with it then, traitor!”

I have brought several sheets of paper down with me. On one are scribbled some draft ideas, but they are more or less unusable. The sheer scale of the project is far greater than I anticipated. If there is to be one stanza for each section of tungsten, then my poem will be the greatest epic I have ever created.

My fists clench. And I am not even going to be the one to use this!

I will create one for myself eventually. I calm my breathing, relax my hand. This is just a test for that one, an early trial.

One stanza per section would be absurd. I try to remember the look of the cable I breathed through on my dive. The sections were not so thickly enruned. The lines crossed multiple sections, I remember glimpsing. This would have worked to bind the whole craft together.

Yes, this cable is different to armor. Most armor is made piece by piece—for economic reasons more so than practical. It is cheaper to upgrade one piece at a time than a whole suit at once, which you would be forced to do if you made one poem for its entirety.

This cable is one piece though. The different sections should be closely linked. I take inventory of exactly how many there are: four hundred and one. I take four sheafs of paper and divide each into a hundred sections, plus one on the last. Then I kneel before the anvil, rest my elbows on it, rest my chin in my palms. I think.

I will not be overly ambitious. If my runes go wrong, I do not want some poor seventh degree to have to suffer their ill power. A simple poem, of drinking in life amid a sea of burning lifelessness will suffice. I also need to work in a secondary theme of quickness then calming, and of rhythm in time with a dwarf's breathing, so that the air can be inhaled and expelled at the proper pace.

So I plan out a tale of a dwarf buried deep in the essence of heat. Above him is life, yet he is unable to reach it. He has made a promise to stay in the heat. He is loyal to his orders. To live, he pulls the life through, and it miraculously makes its way through the heat unharmed, arriving at his lips gently, as if it has faced no trials.

The cut-away points, where a line is cut in two by the end of a segment, pose a very tricky problem. The rune chosen must be one with strong runic flow, preferably one or two-way. Yet it must also fit the poem, not break the flow of the story. And I must rack my mind with this question four hundred and one times.

After several short-hours, I am finished. My head is aching. I take a drink to clear my head and read through the poem once more. I groan. It is bloated—repetitive. The length I've been given is simply too long.

I glance at Nazak. He has a smirk on his face. He is eager to see me fail. I will not ask him for advice.

My power might save it. The awkward flow—if I draw through enough of the power of the world's blood, whatever force of genius is hidden within me will show. The runes will be perfect.

No! I shake my head. I cannot lose control of my runes. Yet Vanerak will be able to tell if I do not create to the best of my ability. I swallow. I'm going to have to do this.

I give the poem one final read, then shut my eyes and fall into my first runeforging trance since my confinement.