As Nazak crawl-swims through the molten stone, he wishes that one of the demons would come upon them and so break the irritation of his own thoughts. Heavy heat crushes down on every inch of his armor, bringing sweat bubbling from his skin as if he is being boiled. Yet his memory of Zathar's words is heavier, and the anger they bring forth hotter.
To compare runeknights to miners! To claim that the pursuit of true metal is akin to mining! Does he not know what it is he was speaking of? He has uncovered the true metal, the substance that first degrees and Runethanes, those dwarves who play the greatest part in protecting innocents from the horrors of the caverns, gain such great power from.
If not for the true metal, how many would have survived the flight from the black dragon? Vanerak won many victories on the descent to Allabrast, against trolls, salamanders, a horde of troglodytes and worse. If not for the true metal, he could not have won. All would have been slaughtered.
Nazak lost his brothers on the descent to Allabrast. How many more families would have been rent apart if not for the true metal? It is possible that every survivor would have been killed in the caverns below, if not for the power in Vanerak and his first, second, and some third degrees' crafts.
For Zathar to gain access to this secret, and then spit on it!
Nazak's rage grows further. He would never criticize his Runethane openly, but deep down he now believes it has been a mistake to allow the traitor such freedom, and free use of resources. The traitor does not deserve them, and besides, they already have all the runes they need from him. They are defeating the demons, are they not?
He should certainly not be allowed to create any more true metal—his skill has progressed greatly. He might even be able to make use of it. He should be locked up in isolation until a new script is needed. What is Runethane Vanerak thinking? Is he becoming greedy—pursuing the creation of runes with no heed to what the consequences of Zathar's further growth could be? Or is he just too deep into his forging to care about anything other than the metal he works for his rumored crown?
Zathar's runes have saved the campaign against the demons. But his latest outburst proves that he remains what he always was: a traitor, and no true runeknight.
One of the second degrees points to the front-left. Nazak focuses his heat-sense in that direction and not-sees the spark of heat flying toward them. There seems to be just the one, which is a relief—a hint that his plan to approach the city from this particular angle was a good one.
With a quick hand-signal he tells his party—one other first degree, five seconds, and eight thirds—to keep going ahead. He himself ups his speed, pulling his way through the sticky, heavy, sweat-bringing magma with maximum exertion.
Their demon-slaying blades and points may be effective, but if you miss that first strike the demons remain as dangerous as they ever were. Even since the adoption of Zathar's distorting runes, many a runeknight has fallen to possession and been burned apart from the inside. Nazak is the strongest here and thus it is his responsibility to take on the danger. The demon keeps its course. It grows larger in his heat-sense, and a little hotter. Nazak readies his jagged axe. It is double-edged, so that it can cleave backward through the magma quickly, and it is hotter than the magma too, turning the molten rock thinner for even more striking-speed.
The demon is nearly at him. It changes direction, darts to the right at a right-angle. But Nazak was expecting this; he lunges forward and slices without delay. His axe only clips the demon, yet even this shallow blow is enough. The demon's form distorts, slows, and the second degree it was darting for stabs it through with his barbed spear. The demon's lines of heat unravel and disintegrate.
Nazak motions his runeknights onward with no delay. More demons may come. This one might have been a scout. They have to hurry, lest a swarm descend on them, like several past frontal-assaults have met with.
Cold rubble thickens around them. The floor rises to meet them, of the same cold stone, and in some places the magma has congealed and frozen. They are in the outskirts of the city now. Nazak leads them onward, warily. The relative coolness of their surroundings reduces the effectiveness of their heat-masks somewhat. This will make a demon stand out more, but there could also be other things lurking here.
They come to a clear area, devoid almost totally of the cold stone. Just a few minutes later, a series of smashed obelisks looms on their horizon. At first the size of the blocks is not apparent, but as they approach, Nazak realizes just how massive they are. He gets the impression that they must extend right up to the sea's surface. The remnants of city walls, perhaps? Did this city use to stand like Thanerzak's in the midst of a cavern?
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The great, cold stones appear almost natural in shape. Maybe they were once cavern walls, hardened somehow by the odd stone runes—of which many are written on them, and also reliefs that might depict battles, though it is hard to make the details out using just heat-sense.
No one has come this far before, Nazak realizes. He would have received a report about this place if they had. He signals for his dwarves to pull closer together and leads them through a crack between two of the great obelisks. As he passes through, he feels tiny, like a fungus mite crawling through the bricks of a shattered castle with no conception of where it is nor the function of the place it intrudes into.
And now they have entered the city proper. A heatscape of towering rubble greets them. There are broken chambers, shattered houses, sections of spiral-stairs laid horizontally, parts of domes, holes that might have been windows—all of the near-invulnerable stone.
A thrill runs through Nazak. They are here! They have done it! This circuitous route has led them to the beginning of their victory. Somewhere in the heart of this will be a clue to the translation of the stone runes. There has to be—how could there not be? Many of the broken walls are thick with writing. Some of the writing is below pictures—surely meaning could be derived from these ones, not easily derived, but derived nonetheless.
He leads his dwarves onward. They sight no demons just yet—some theorized that they would be living here, populating the city like ghosts, but that seems not to be the case. The rubble grows thicker and still none appear. Neither do any salamanders approach. A roof looms at them—Nazak motions for everyone to swim upwards. It would be problematic if their cables became tangled on something above.
A few minutes on, and they meet a wall. It has a row of five doorways cut into it, with jags of broken floors leading out a few feet from each. Their cables prevent them from passing through, so instead he leads them up the wall. Above, a plane of blank cold comes into view. They are nearing the magma's surface. Some of the walls and pillars pierce through it.
The city is more intact than he expected. It had to be, though—if parts of it did not rise above the magma, Halax would never have spotted it through the shifting fumes.
He holds up a palm to stop his dwarves. They have come far enough. The fact that no demons have come to them yet is beginning to disturb him. He worries that in his excitement he has made an outright mistake.
The demons' tactics have grown more advanced of late. Could it be that they have come into a deadly trap?
He motions down, for them to return the way they came, and the trap is sprung. From the five broken doorways pour five lines of demons, each following the path of its leader with mathematical precision. They are bearing directly for Nazak and his runeknights, and as they move they accelerate. A forefront of heat precedes them, a wave boiling up. It thins the magma around Nazak's armor and he feels like he's suddenly been plunged into water; he sinks abruptly. The sense of vertigo shocks him.
Into his armor he yells a curse. He makes no signals with his hands—there are no orders he can give now. Everyone knows what they must do: fight.
----------------------------------------
How much metal does it take to create a weapon? A few thousand grams or so. Sometimes a fair bit less. Armor weighs more, maybe up to twenty thousand grams, or far more if its crafter plans to utilize runes to reduce it while still keeping the benefits of its thickness.
I imagine, for example, a longsword. It weighs but one thousand and five hundred grams. Yet if I were to craft it out of true metal, I would need a thousand grams of mundane metal for every single gram and a half of true; I would need a thousand times a thousand grams to have enough.
A million grams! A tonne! The number astounds me. Most runeknights use less than that throughout their entire lives of crafting. Such an amount could equip an entire army of runeknights, and would cost a small fortune to acquire. That a tonne might be used on only one craft is nearly beyond belief. And of course, a runeknight does not make only one craft. A full suit of armor would take many tonnes to create.
Does even Vanerak have access to such stores of metal? For his army he might, but for his sole personal use? Surely only a Runeking could command such resources. When Runeking Ulrike said I could not begin to imagine the materials he uses to forge with, he was talking about the true metal. And he was right that I could not imagine it. I still cannot.
Lesser dwarves must work it into ordinary metal somehow. Yet, will it not lose its magic through this? Blended back into the mundane, surely it will lose all effectiveness.
I need answers, but none are forthcoming:
“Will it not revert to being mundane if I blend it into ordinary tungsten, honored runeknight?”
“I cannot tell you,” says Halax.
“Can it be welded to mundane tungsten, honored runeknight?”
“I cannot tell you.”
“Should I instead use it to create runes from, honored runeknight?”
“I cannot tell you.”
“I have already uncovered the secret, honored runeknight. So why can you not tell me? Surely the Runethane would be pleased if I could forge my runes out of the true metal instead!”
“A runeknight must find his own way in this most noble task beyond even any other craft, or his works would not be his own. The true metal does not abide dishonesty within the forging, runeforger.”
“So I must work it out by myself, honored runeknight?
“Indeed.”
“But that way I might waste our Runethane's metal.”
“You cannot ruin true metal, if that is what you are worried about. Just try not to be so foolish as to let even a single, invisible grain of it slip through your palm to be lost in the furnace.”
“What do you mean by saying I cannot ruin it, honored runeknight?”
“You have already made me say too much. Your questions are wily, runeforger. I will not reply to any further ones.”
My subsequent questions are met with cold silence. What the true metal is, and how I am to use it, it seems I must discover for myself.