Balg Cheesebeard son of Cheesebeard slowly regained consciousness.
At least I didn’t piss m’self, he thought to himself. Wiltin’ like a fookin point-ear in the presence of God herself. Thank Her that my kin were not here to witness. I would never hear the end of it.
He carefully cracked open an eye, steeling himself as he prepared to look into the radiant face of the divine, and breathed a sigh of relief as he beheld only the roof of the massive light-bathed cavern in which he now found himself.
He carefully sat up and gazed down in wonder at the soft bundle on which his head had rested.
It was a garment of the Goddess himself!!! She had partially disrobed for him!!!
He felt his head swim and his vision fade at the realization.
Steady, Balg, he said as he demanded as he kept his mind from unraveling (again).
He looked about and gasped as he saw HER standing among others chatting casually as if with friends. There was a finely dressed dwarf-like man, with a short scraggly beard that covered most of his head and looked like his body as well.
Balg couldn’t help but admire and envy that a little. The robed figure had a solid honest face as well, the face of someone you could trust. There was also a strange “elf-thing” standing there as well.
Balg did not like him, mainly because he didn’t like an elf.
But wait…
It was not alive. It was a golem, a construct so finely crafted that it had the illusion of life, but a dwarf’s eyes weren’t so easily fooled.
It was good work, strange, but showed a level of craft that Balg admired. The magics were strange…
...but understandable, somehow. It seemed that they relied solely on spark magic. Balg nodded approvingly. Spark magics were looked down upon by many, but they were the most reliable of the mystic forces. It might be weak and lack the versatility of the other enchantments, but for Balg it was his favorite. He was a craftsman, not some elf-dwarf who relied on magic to make up for his lack of skill.
Balg looked more closely. Poor thing was falling apart. He would have to spend some time with him later, and it would give him a chance to examine it more closely.
He turned his head, his eyes catching the tool chests and stacks of rugged cases around him.
“What’s this then?”
He got up and walked to one of the tool chests, and pulled open one of the well crafted ball bearing supported sliding drawer to reveal a set of perfect wrenches.
He had seen wrenches before but never like these. He slid hid fingers across them savoring the feel of the alloy. It was mostly good, solid iron, but the alchemy woven into them made them shine like silver and they whispered strength that made him feel happy inside.
He closed the drawer and pulled out another containing things he had never beheld before he pulled out a rugged cloth and leather sheath revealing strange sticks tipped with needle like spikes and a strange box emblazoned with strange runes and crystal.
He blinked.
A fine multimeter! he thought to himself as he switched it on admiring its versatility and range. It would be all he would need most of the time. It was the first time he had ever seen one but knew it was a powerful scrying tool tuned to the magic of spark. It was a wonderful gift.
He pulled out a large pouch emblazoned by the seal of the Great Lord Fluke and opened it. Within he beheld all manner of probes, leads, and other attachments, a wealth of options!
Eagerly he opened each item in that drawer, ever more delighted with what he found.
He blinked again.
What the fook?
How the hell did he know what this shite was? It made no sense.
Going through the other drawers he found mystery after mystery that he understood completely. He both knew the exact function of the tool or device and approved of the quality.
He looked over at the other two rolling chests and the pile of cases…
A single tear rolled down his rugged cheek.
He had literally died and gone to Heaven.
***
It took Balg awhile to fully inventory the wealth laid out before him.
There was so much of it.
Strapping on a marvelous girdle, he filled it with tool after tool, including a magnificent hammer. It wasn’t perverted by the thought of pointless violence. It’s sole use was craft. Even more marvelous was that it was crafted of an alchemical marvel, an ultra-durable “polymer” that would transfer the force of the mass within without marring that what was struck.
Balg had seen many marvels in his day, many powerful magics. However, this single tool triumphed over all of them. A hammer that was the essence of hammer. Truly a gift from the gods themselves.
He gasped.
That was what all of this was! It was his birth stone, a magical stone that was attached to every dwarf by a cord of steel through their second navel, their first connection to the magics of their world…
… and their first tool. Attached to a stout rod it was what they used to forge their enchanted tools. In the hand it was the finest of whetstones. In the hands of an enchanter it was the conduit that they used to focus their arts until they crafted better with it.
He was given new life by the Goddess herself and all of this… all of it… was his birth stone!
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He fell to his knees and turned his eyes skyward. For a craft-dwarf like him, this was a gift even grander than his new life itself. It was…
It was god made real. It was the divine made solid and placed into his hands!
As he bowed his head to the steel floor of this massive chamber… no. Wait. It wasn’t steel… It was a strange alloy of some sort comprised of…
Strange knowledge filled his mind. He knew not what to call this material so he named it “floor stone”.
As his head rested on it’s alien surface he could hear the whispers of the mountain. It wasn’t a mountain, though. It was… something…
It was bigger than any mountain he had ever touched, vast beyond any concept of vast he had ever dreamed of…
… and it was in pain. It was tired, so very tired, and a sickness was creeping through its bones, it’s powerful heart fading and nearly dead.
His heart nearly broke to hear it’s melancholy sadness, its loneliness.
He did not understand everything around him, this was the realm of the gods and he was but a dwarf. However, he was a dwarf.
He did not understand everything but he knew what he had to do. He was Balg Cheesebeard son of Cheesebeard…
And no mountain would die, no mine collapse, under his watch. He was given life by the Goddess herself and placed here with a birthstone connected to this mountain. It was his new soul crag.
He pulled out a magnificent garment sealed in a strange clear membrane, spark armor. It was armor not profaned with blood, armor specifically for craft and craft alone. He reverently broke the membrane, the birth sac, and kissed it as if it was his own.
Taking it, and the helm that completed it, he looked around.
So much was hurt, so much was fading. The enormity of the task nearly crushed him.
He smiled.
So much the better.
He was Balg Cheesebeard son of Cheesebeard.
A Cheesebeard never fails, never falters. They forge the pilings, They craft the eternal arch, They beat the decaying protons into order… wait… what?
He shrugged. It didn’t matter. He threw yet more tools into the magnificent bag designed to carry them, grabbed a rugged polymer case containing a scanning “O-Scope” (?), and started walking.
That power management module wasn’t going to fix itself.
***
Once out of sight of the Goddess, Balg wasted no time stripping off his worthless clothes and donning the sacred, divine, Armor of Spark, the only garment he would ever need again.
It fit perfectly, as it would.
Soon, the light from the chamber faded into shadow, then to absolute darkness.
Darkness mattered not to a dwarf. His eyes glowed faintly with the soul-fire, the dim glow was all that a dwarf needed.
His new boots, armored but unsullied by thirst for war, echoed on the floor stone beneath his feet.
He made a disapproving noise. Every single tile was riddled with vile proton decay. They would all have to be replaced…
...but there were far more pressing concerns. Perhaps his children or his great grandchildren will get to them.
Children!
This was more for one lifetime, a thousand lifetimes. He would have to ask the Goddess for a bride. She had given him so much already but she had also clearly given him this mission, this sacred task, and to complete it he would need to continue the Cheesebeard line.
He would have to summon the pure brazen impertinence to face her and ask a favor.
He turned back towards the chamber but paused.
That poor power management module was crying out for help but its pleas were falling on literally dead ears. A logic relay had failed utterly.
He couldn’t abandon it.
Praying that the goddess would remain long enough, he pressed forward.
***
As Balg rushed towards the damaged module, a flickering sensor registered a presence.
An autonomous processing unit switched on, its batteries still having a trace of power.
The presence was not identifiable and had no transceiver.
It was an intruder.
It sent a priority alert, not expecting it to be answered.
/// Security unit X-KILL-DOCK-23875847-0534 active. ///
The processor faded away, its battery finally dead, filled with a pleasant sense of mild surprise.
***
Balg stopped at a doorway.
He poked at the panel beside it, not quite sure how he knew how to do that.
The spark magic had faded completely.
He shrugged and pulled out a magical lodestone rod. He passed the lodestone, more powerful than any he had ever beheld, over part of the wall stone causing a small portion to pop away revealing an electrical power plug.
He pulled out a spark magic source from his belt and slid the two metal prongs into the plug and commanded it to life by pressing the gem on the front.
The panel sprung to life in an array of magnificent colors.
He pressed it again and the door shuddered yet did not move. It was stuck.
Balg knew what to do with stuck doors.
He drew the mighty Hammer of Dead Blows from his belt and drew it back.
“HALT!!!” a voice commanded as a bright light shone upon him.
“Fook!” Balg called out, “Dim that lantern, brother!”
“Drop your weapon and identify yourself!”
“Are ye daft?” Balg replied, “This is not—“
“DROP IT OR I WILL USE LETHAL FORCE!!!”
“Yer a bit of an arsehole, aren’t ya?” Balg shrugged, “I’m putting it down now but if ye tell me to drop a gift from the Goddess herself again we are gonna have a problem, brother.”
Balg gently and reverently set the hammer down upon the floor stones.
The being, still shining so brightly that Balg could not discern its features drew close.
He could not see it, but he sensed no life, only spark magic. It was another golem, clearly a guard of some sort.
“Security teams have been called. Surrender or you will be destroyed!”
Balg snorted. “I seriously doubt anyone is coming,” he replied, “You are calling out into the darkness but nothing is answering, right?”
“… No...” the drone said uncertainly. “I have issued an alert! Reinforcements are on the way!”
“Sure they are, friend,” Balg said reassuringly. Poor golem was starting to drift off of its script.
“Identify yourself!” the drone said trying to return to familiar ground. Why was nobody was answering him? A gnawing fear was starting to take hold. Was he alone?
“I am Balg Cheesebeard son of Cheesebeard,” Balg replied, “and I have been sent here by Faun, Goddess of All, to return life to this mountain as she returned life to me.”
“...” the drone desperately tried to make sense of that because it made absolutely no sense. Wracking its processors which were really not designed for this but did have some higher evaluation functions it cautiously asked, “You’re from maintenance?”
“I was called here by the cries of a power management module trapped behind this door,” Balg replied, “and tending to it is what I am going to do.”
“You have no identity badge, no RFID. You cannot be from maintenance.”
“Then what am I carrying all this shite for then, to diddle m’self with?”
“… … … Status as maintenance technician provisionally confirmed?”
”Thank you,” Balg said, “Now help me or bugger off.”
The drone started to return to its charging station and paused. There was no power there with which to recharge and there were no signals coming from anywhere.
If it returned to its station it would never resume function again. It was what he should do, but there was a system wide failure. If he shut down, who would protect the station?
And, it didn’t want to stop functioning.
“The area has sustained widespread damage,” the drone replied after a few seconds, “this may be the work of hostile forces. How may I assist you, Provisional Maintenance Technician Balg?”
“Turn off that fookin’ torch for one,” Balg replied, “it’s pissin’ me off and just running down your spark which we have precious little of right now.”
The searchlight switched off.
“Do you not require illumination?”
“Nope,” Balg replied, "I have m’ own, see?”
Balg looked at the drone, bathing it in an impossibly small amount of light.
“Are you a drone?” the drone asked, “I identified you as organic.”
“I’m a dwarf,” Balg replied, “a beast of fire, stone, spark, water, and air.”
“… Are you organic or are you a drone?”
“I’m better than both,” Balg replied as he slammed his bright orange hammer into the door at just the right spot and it, with a grating, grinding sound slid halfway open.
Balg hit it again and it opened fully.
He smiled.
“Another thing for the list,” he said.
“Should I make a list, Dwarf Balg?”
“Nah,” he replied, “It would be too long to be of use. We will just take things as they come. And just call me Balg. Don’t waste air with pointless drivel.”
“I do not breathe, Balg.”
“Yeah, but you do use spark and you have precious little of it.”
“Understood, Balg.”
“Now let’s get going,” Balg said. “I think we can get ye some power before ye run out, but it’s going to take some doin'.”
“Yes, Balg.”
Balg, with a security drone following along like a lost duckling, continued into the black.