“Wake up my little Gold Nugget. Your father is about to leave and you want to see him before he goes don’t you?” Kat cooed at her sleeping son. Thoric grumbled and rolled back over pulling his covers up tighter. She grinned thinking that her son could sleep thru anything just like his father. She walked around the bed tucking the covers in extremely tight making sure that he couldn’t easily get up. Reaching into her belt she produced a cold stone. The cold stone was a naturally mined stone that radiated near freezing temperatures which the dwarves used them as a base plate for stone boxes to store food it. She shook her son one more time, without success, in an attempt to rouse him. Quickly she lifted the sheets and shoved the cold stone against his little butt and pulled the covers back down holding him in the bed.

Thoric’s eyes shot open. And he started scrambling and fighting to escape. His mother was cackling and she had tears in her eyes as she released the cover. Thoric shot out of bed quickly looking around and realizing what had happened. “Mom! I would have got up. You didn't have to freeze me.”

Kat grinned, “You know the rule son. You get two chances and always suffer the consequences on the third try. Now hurry up and get dressed your father is finishing breakfast after which he has to leave. Don’t you want to say goodbye before he leaves on his patrols.”

Thoric grumbled as his mother left the room. Thoric had mastered more of the dwarven language or at least enough to begin speaking more after he turned 7. Even though after 2 years he sometimes had trouble when he got excited replacing his r’s with w’s, he had managed to speak fairly eloquent with his limited vocabulary. At just over 2 feet tall he was a quite tall for a dwarf however he wasn't near as broad and rather lanky. His hair had come in a brilliant sunshine yellow, his eyes had darkened a bit and were the color of burnished gold.

Just a few months ago he had taken his first steps and quickly began learning to walk again. It was amazing how strong his little legs were although apparently, dwarves walked long before they could speak. He was still uncoordinated and would often fall or crash into things, but regardless he could run which had led him to discover he loved to run. Of course, his parents scolding him quite a bit usually after breaking something resulting from a head-on collision with some piece of furniture.

Today was the day his Grammy took him to his first class to start learning things. His mother had recently begun speaking more in gnomish intermixed with the common tongue and Thoric was learning that languages were coming easily to him, much more so than his Earth days. He wanted to learn to read desperately. After so many years of stone, and more stone something different was beckoning to him. The written dwarvish language looked like a wild three-way between Nordic runes, Chinese characters, and an ugly half blind Russian alphabet.

He quickly dressed pulling on his pants and tunic synching them all together with a piece of leather. He rarely wore shoes anywhere nor did any of the other children. Apparently leather was too valuable to waste on children's shoes who outgrew them every few years and plus underground here it mostly stayed the same temperature. His pants and tunic were made of quality woven mushroom roots. Even though his father was a nobleman he still believed in living well below his means. He outfitted the servant and guards children in almost the identical same thing that I wore because as a growing child it was a waste of money to buy anything nicer. He knew part of his clothes were even hand me downs from some of his mom's friends whose children had grown too large for them.

As he had grown older and learned more of the language he had discovered a lot about his new existence. Vorin stood at just over 5 feet tall with broad shoulders and a long black bushy beard. His father was a minor noble who was in charge of a large mining operation that helped supply the dwarven kingdom with most of their ore. Apparently, his mines were one of only 2 in the entire kingdom that had veins of mithril, whatever that was, running thru them. He also was in charge of an annual deployment into the outworld as escort for caravans and diplomats on the kings business.

His mother was in charge of helping the community grow food. As a gnome, she had mastery over light magic, water magic, and to an extent air magic. Every day she would create a phantasmal illusion of a blazing sun in the garden complex. Even though it was an illusion it supplied the necessary light to allow for photosynthesis and the growing of plants. Both of his parents were loving and caring rarely raising their voices at him or each other. They had told him about Elizabeth and he both cursed the gods for taking her from him but praised them for giving him Kat.

Grammy was an elder on the ruling council that advised the king. She was really old and Thoric thought he heard someone say she was close to 1000 years old. She walked with a cane and was near blind but no one disobeyed her when she said to do something. As a high priest of Brigid, she had immense magical powers. Grammy always managed to sneak him some treat though when his parents weren't looking every time she came over. Since he didn’t get sugar except rarely it had an exaggerated effect on him causing hours of hyperactivity. Usually, she would slip it to him and watch him eat it and with a twinkle in her eye, she would leave Thoric to his parents in his jabbering and hyper state.

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Apparently, from what he could pick up from his father, this world was much less populated that his old world. The dwarven kingdom consisted of less than 60 thousand, his father said the elves only had about 45 thousand, and the United humanoid kingdom had almost a million souls in it. From stories his father told him the closest dwarven enclave was a full week away, the closest elvish city was 2 months overland, and the humans about the same. The wilds were teaming with monsters and that's why it was rare for the races to meet and all caravan’s and diplomatic trips were planned years in advance. Grammy told him when she was young it took almost a year to reach any of the other lands.

As he finished dressing his mother called him from the other room, “Thoric “sleep all day” Steelsould get your butt out here and eat with your father and say goodbye before he leaves. Also, you better be ready when Gramgram picks you up for your first day of lessons.”

Rushing out of his room at a full run he crashed into a stand in the hallway knocking the vase onto the floor with a loud crash. “I didn’t do it! It just fell on its own,” he screamed as he tore off toward the kitchen.

“Son!”, his father admonished, “Always admit when you do something. You have been warned the next time I hear you lie you will get switched in the yard in front of all the other children. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes dad”, Thoric says with an apology in his voice. “I am sorry for knocking over the vase.”

“Anyway, son, I am leaving today and will be gone much longer this time around. We travel to the human lands and then onto the elf lands to escort the rulers from the other kingdoms to our kingdom. This is the first time in a couple of centuries that the dwarves will host the conference. It will take us almost a full year to return and in that time I want you to learn. Remember I love you son. While I am gone you watch out for your mother and make sure to behave. When I come back I had better not hear about you not giving your all or lying. You're still young but intelligent thus I know you know better. I love you son.”

Vorin reaches over grabbing Thoric into a bear hug. Suddenly he starts tickling his son who burst out laughing like crazy. After a few minutes of horseplay, a knock on the front door occurs and Captain Fireore comes into the kitchen. “Vorin, are you still stuffing your face. The king wanted us gone hours ago!”

“Listen Brimhild, its all my son's fault.” his father says while pointing his finger comically at his son.

“Nunuh Aunty Fire, it wasn’t either” Thoric replied.

Captain Fireore reach down and ruffled his hair, “You make sure to take care of your mother and my little Ava while I am gone.” she says. Ava is her youngest daughter and the children are often paired together to play. Ava still hasn’t learned to talk but when she gets mad she throws a mean right hook.

After dad leaves Kat sighs and turns to Thoric. “Well, little one its just us again for the next little while. On the plus side, your grandparents will be returning with your father. That's my mom and dad. They can’t wait to meet yo…” his mother was interrupted as the telltale sound of a thumping cane is heard from the living room.

“Kat, get that hellion of yours ready. It's time for his first day of classes.” Breldra said as she walks into the kitchen.

“Grammy!” Thoric screams as he jumps up and hugs her. “Got any candy!?”

Chucking she thumbs him on the head with her cane, “Oh no you don’t. I have to watch you today so no candy. Kat grab me some tea before we walk over. I want to talk to him a bit.”

“Okay grandmother,” Kat says as she leaves to go to the food storage to get the tea leaves and grinder.

“Okay. Let’s me and you talk Thoric. I know you learn exceptionally fast and am confident you will pass the others very quickly. What do you want to learn first?” Breldra says.

“I want to read and write. If I can read and write I can learn other things but I can also help mom and dad get their work done so we can play more.” Thoric said. It was hard to believe that Thoric wasn’t acting at being a child he truly had embraced being a child this go around. He felt emotion, had love, was ignorant of the world, and actually loved to run and just let his imagination run free. Other than incredible knowledge of how to actually do things he felt like a child and loved it.

Breldra pats him on the head. “We also are going to start training you to learn to control your mana channels a bit. Much longer and I fear that the bracers will stunt your mana growth. I don’t know but we do know that prolong use isn’t good for a mana user. Now go finish getting your things together for school while your mother and I talk.”

“Okay, Grammy!” Thoric shouts as he stands and tears out of the kitchen in a sprint.

Kat sets a steaming cup of tea down next to Breldra’s hand. The high priest turns and says “The king wants your child out of those cuffs as soon as possible. Not only can they damage him someone saw them and reported your family for abuse. They do after all look like prisoner bands. I believe myself and a few other priests can at least teach him to control the mana if we can't teach him to use it. We all have to channel mana from the gods as we make spells so there is hope.

We need to find something to occupy his body, as well as his head or that energy, will get him in trouble. That’s his impatent human nature showing thru in your son Kat. Dwarves are slow and steady but your son can’t seem to contain his energy. Over the next few days, I am going to introduce him to a few smiths around. I know he can’t really do anything yet but I figure watching them will teach him something and they always can use a little ball of energy to run messages and small things around the area. Now, where is he? Thoric lets go now!” Breldra mumbles a few words and her voice vibrates the house.

“Let’s go Grammy. I was just picking up another of mom’s vases I broke this morning. Oh, mom I also broke the leg on the little table in the hallway. Grammy you heard me tell the truth. Dad said I better tell the truth!” Shaking her head Kat leads Breldra and her son to the door. It was going to be a long year.