The sun beat down on a team of labourers who worked tirelessly, tearing creeping vines from a steel grey stone wall. They wore wide brimmed hats and thick leather gloves, to protect their hands from the vines’ thorns. Following after them were more labourers, who swiftly slathered mortar on the small holes left behind by the creepers’ roots.

A young girl of fourteen pushed a strand of dark hair out of her eyes as she took in the Wall. Words didn’t do it justice. It stood over eighty feet tall and stretched over three miles wide, and from the sections the labourers had cleared, appeared to be made from a single, enormous slab of stone. However, almost the entire side of the Wall facing dry land was now carpeted by brambles. The workers looked to her like so many ants as they toiled tirelessly to clear the wall. Their work seemed futile. She had been watching them for hours and they had cleared only the tiniest fraction of the wall.

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just set them on fire?” she asked out loud. Her name was Lisa Hanley, and despite this being her first trip out of the capital in years, she had spoken out of boredom more than anything else.

A dwarf, who had been deep in conversation with a woman, paused and flashed her an impish smile. He was an inch shorter than Lisa, but more than twice as broad at the shoulder with a girth to match. He sported a luxurious beard that was the colour of iron, and sharp blue eyes danced mischievously as they sized her up, and Lisa couldn’t help but feel like she had fallen into a trap.

“The recent rains have made that difficult, to say the least,” Sorlan Dakrini, remarked. He was the Wall’s foreman, in charge of its upkeep. “Besides, these creepers hold a lot of water and don’t burn easily during the best of times. It is far quicker for us to tear them out by hand.”

“Why not let them be, then?” Lisa asked as she watched men work on the scaffold overhead. The scaffolding only came up to half the wall’s height and more men worked from cradles that were lowered from the top of the wall. “The wall looks much prettier with them around.”

The dwarf’s eyes twinkled as he plucked a brilliant indigo flower from one of the dead vines the labourers had left at his feet. “Rock vines are pretty, I’ll give you that. However, if left unchecked, they’ll grow their roots deep into the wall and weaken it.”

Sorlan paused to tap on the wall with his meaty fist. “Besides, this is no wall. This is an arch dam, the largest in the world, holding the mighty Lengan Sea from reclaiming this bay that we snatched from it.”

Lisa rolled her eyes. “The vines seem to be growing faster than you can tear them down. Your work will never end.”

The dwarf grinned ruefully as he rubbed the back of his head. “Isn’t that the truth, young lady?”

“It doesn’t matter how water logged they are, the old lady could burn the vines down in a matter of days,” she sniffed as she cocked her head at the older woman. “All it would take is a word.”

“That’s just what I was discussing with your mother, young lady,” the dwarf sighed as he glanced over at the woman. She sported a head full of auburn hair that burned like fire under the midday sun and like Lisa, wore stained travelling clothes.

“Unfortunately, with the wall this overgrown, there is a danger that the fire could blaze out of control if we could get it to catch,” Edith Arlight began as she glanced east. “It could endanger the town, and the high temperatures could weaken the wall’s structure.”

Lisa looked towards the town of Iron Sands and made a face. It had been built on the seabed after the wall was erected, cutting Iron Bottom Bay from the Lengan Sea, and the water pumped out. However, the seabed had proven unstable, and the entire town had to be built on stilts that ran all the way to the bedrock deep below the surface.

The buildings were clustered around a large flat roofed building that was topped by a tall chimney that just about cleared the top of the wall. It was the town’s forge, and it belched thick black smoke around the clock as it turned the iron rich sands of the bay into iron. Over the years, the townspeople had dug up tons of sand to fuel the forge, and the town now stood over ten feet above ground level. The iron sands and the forge had turned the fledgling town that had been carved out of a bay into the kingdom’s most important industrial centre in the blink of an eye.

“Perhaps it would be better if this whole wretched place was drowned,” she sniffed. “What an eyesore.”

“I’d be careful about saying that out loud,” Edith said with a wan smile, conscious of the angry glares Lisa was attracting from those who had heard. Many of the labourers had lived in Iron Sands for generations, and they were proud of their hometown. “It is not an exaggeration to say that this is the most important place in the whole kingdom.”

Lisa began to pout and Sorlan broke into a hearty laugh. “Well, as I was saying, there is nothing you can do for the time being, Edith. Not here anyway.”

The dwarf turned towards the Sentinel, a square sided tower that was built over the exact centre of the wall. It stood over a hundred feet taller than the wall that was built from the same iron grey stone. The large belfry stood on top of the tower which was topped by a domed roof. Placed on top of the roof was the bronze statue of a man looking defiantly out towards the sea. He held a flagpole in his hand, at the end of which was a yellow pennant emblazoned with a red lion that fluttered proudly in the wind.

Stolen story; please report.

“Despite how it looks, I have the situation here under control,” Sorlan continued. “Besides, the Marquis is expecting you.”

It was Edith’s turn to make a face. “That pompous buffoon can wait. Besides, I’ve never seen the wall so overgrown before. Is this normal?”

“Well, all the magi save for old Danforth were called back to New Heath,” Sorlan said as he cast a worried eye at the wall. “The old magus isn’t able to leave the tower very often, and our patron fears that he may not be able to man the defences should an attack come.”

“There has been no attack since Naglan’s Wall was built,” Edith snorted. “Which is why the magi were recalled. They are badly needed elsewhere.”

“So I’ve heard.” A shadow crossed the dwarf’s face, but he quickly covered it with a forced smile. “But don’t fret, I’ve summoned help from New Heath, and once it gets here, we should be able to get on top of the problem.”

“It doesn’t seem natural for these vines to grow and spread so quickly…” Edith frowned. She picked a dead vine up and gasped when it pricked her finger.

“Be careful with those,” Sorlan warned. “Their thorns are razor sharp.”

“Yes, so I’ve noticed,” Edith said as she sucked on her finger. “I didn’t know rock vines had such sharp thorns.”

“They don’t normally…” Sorlan began but was cut off by a shout from one of the nearby crews.

“What is it?” he asked as he hurried over with Edith and Lisa close behind.

A labourer gestured at what appeared to be a root that was embedded in the wall. It was as thick as Lisa’s arm and pulsed in a fashion that turned her stomach.

“We couldn’t dislodge the vines close to this no matter how hard we pulled, so we cut them away and found this,” he said as he mopped the sweat from his brow with the back of his arm. “What should we do about it?”

Sorlan frowned as he pulled a glove off and touched the root with his bare hand. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

He stared at it for a moment longer before turning to Edith. “Any thoughts?”

The woman touched the root and frowned. “I sense druidic magic.”

The dwarf’s bushy eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Do you think the vines are their doing?”

Edith took a step back and took in the rest of the wall. “They could be…”

“Well, a group of them showed up in town a few weeks ago,” Sorlan remarked.

“Is that common?” Lisa blurted. “I wouldn’t think that they were interested in a place as removed from nature as this.”

“This wall was created through a combination of druidic and elemental magic,” Edith explained absently.

“This wall wouldn’t have stood for a minute without dwarven engineers to design it,” Sorlan sniffed. “And would have collapsed within a decade if we didn’t work tirelessly to maintain it.”

“I’m sorry, of course your people’s efforts were a vital component,” Edith smiled. “At any rate, this wall is a wonder, the results of what druidic magic, elemental magic, and dwarven engineering can accomplish when they work in harmony. It’s not unusual for scholars of each discipline to come and gaze upon it.”

“They probably think they’re helping strengthen the wall by doing this,” Sorlan grunted. He grabbed the stone around the root and pulled on it. To Lisa’s surprise, it crumbled away from the force. “I should go down and explain…”

“No, I don’t think that’s the case,” Edith said.

Sorlan looked up at the woman in surprise. “Then why?”

“You might not have heard, but Fengor has left the Eldrath Commune,” Edith sighed. “Harla, his replacement, has a rather different view of Naglan’s Wall to her predecessor.”

“I suppose that does explain their hostility when they came by to visit.” The dwarf remarked. “So, do you think they are attempting to sabotage the Wall?”

“I am not qualified to make such a heavy accusation,” Edith replied as she looked into the town. “Though I will report this matter to those who are. Where are the druids staying?”

The dwarf shrugged. “They didn’t say, and I didn’t care to ask. I was just happy to see them gone. It shouldn’t be too hard to find them, though. They stand out after all. What should we do about this?”

“Remove it,” Edith replied.

“That should be easy enough,” the dwarf sighed as he removed a small hammer from his belt and began to hammer away the weakened stone from around the root.

“Is that safe?” Lisa asked worriedly.

“The wall is almost four hundred feet thick here at the base,” the dwarf replied as he carefully dug around the root before pulling it out. Lisa looked at the cavity it left behind worriedly. “We’re lucky we found this before it managed to burrow in too deep.”

“What should I do with this?” Sorlan asked as he weighed it in his hand.

“Send it to the Sentinel,” Edith said. “I’ll write a letter to accompany it.”

Sorlan grunted. “I get the feeling you won’t be going yourself anytime soon.”

Edith looked down at the dwarf and grinned slyly. “Getting sick of my company already?”

“Hardly,” the dwarf chuckled. “In fact, I’m relieved you’re here. You can help us with repairs.”

“I’m glad to,” Edith said.

Sorlan barked an order, and almost at once, a dwarf arrived pushing a wheelbarrow that was filled with loose stones that were the same colour as the wall. As the labourers filled the rocks into the hole, Sorlan picked one up and handed it to Edith.

“Heat it up, please,” he said. “I’ll tell you when to stop.”

An amused smile crossed the woman’s face, and she touched the wall with her other hand before beginning an incantation. Lisa felt elemental energy swirl around her as Edith gathered it into her hand. Soon, the rock began to glow red hot. Then, it began to melt. When it was roughly the consistency of molasses, Sorlan smiled.

“Yes, that’s the temperature,” he said before turning to his men. “Give the magus some room, eh, lads?”

“Alright,” Edith’s voice was strained from the effort. Lisa stepped forward and was about to offer her help when she was stopped by a look from the older woman.

“I can do this,” she declared and placed her hand on the filled in hole.

She took a deep breath and began to concentrate. The stones around her hand glowed bright red and began to turn into sludge and fuse together. Sorlan eyed the red hot stones with a careful eye, and at length declared. “That’s enough.”

Edith sighed and removed her hand from the wall while Sorlan rapidly began to scrape away at the still red hot stones so that the patched area blended in with the rest of the wall.

“Good as new,” he beamed, before quickly correcting himself. “Well no, that’s not quite accurate.”

“Is the strength compromised?” Lisa asked worriedly as she stared at the wall, knowing that it alone was holding back the weight of the sea.

“Slightly, but it is still more than strong enough to stand for another thousand years at least,” Sorlan said confidently.

Lisa’s reply was interrupted by more shouts from further along the wall announcing the discovery of more roots. Lisa looked down the wall at the vines and wondered just how many more roots were burrowing their way through the wall, weakening it with each passing moment.