Dwarves all over the world are known as the friendliest, kindest, people one could ever have the pleasure to meet. You want a drinking buddy? A dwarf’s the best you could find! You need to smuggle something that’s extremely illegal only ‘because the churches say so’? Well, that dwarven ship’s transporting several tonnes of rock and marble for trade and the inspectors usually don’t ask them to move the cargo around. You’re looking for a short [Barbarian] who can reliably go for the enemy’s knee or knee equivalent? Well, you probably won’t find a dwarven [Barbarian], but there’s a surprising amount of [Axe Warriors] around the world. They also don’t backstab their companions for loot!
You looking for a good natured [Rogue]? Yeah, no, look somewhere else, you won’t be finding dwarves with that Class… ever. Shortness may be good for their Class, but their bulkiness does not help with it. At all.
Another thing you won’t be seeing around often, if at all, are dwarven [Mages]. For some unknown reason the short folk don’t have a lot of mana in them, rendering them mostly useless in terms of casting. Naturally they found a workaround to that problem a long time ago: runes. Just carve a specific pattern in one of the dead tongues of magic and you can do anything a [Mage] can without the need for mana or mana pools or risking mana drain. It’s not an easy art, not by a long shot, some even go as far as advocating that rune carving is one of the most mind numbingly complex practices to ever come out of a magically aligned mind.
But we’re changing the subject.
In short, dwarves are some of the best people to ever exist in Creation.
That’s why a [Necromancer] was currently skulking around fearlessly on the slopes of Mount Robiras, one of the many peaks that formed the Arborges Mountain Chain. In ancient dwarven it could be translated as ‘Obsidian Peak’, although nowadays it was better known to the common folk as the ‘Mountain Cemetery’.
Why? It’s simple, really: because the entire mountain was one, great, cemetery. Hundreds of generations of dwarves lay buried in its rocky ground, the only reminder of their existence being the markers for their tombs. Once upon a time, traditionally, dwarven tombstones were carved out of obsidian, so that no matter what happened, no matter which disaster struck them, the tombs would stay there, leaving something to remember them by. That’s where the name came from.
Nowadays tombstones were made out of other materials too, naturally, but that is another matter.
What mattered right now was the young [Necromancer] wandering among these tombs, muttering to himself.
“Three golds for a corpse, they say. Just pay the price and you can get one, they say. Well, fuck that, what do they think I’m made of, gold?”
The current reason for his grumbling was that he had attempted to obtain a corpse off the dwarves.
Necromancy was permitted all over the world nowadays, with [Necromancers] working in armies to give support, as medics and, most important of all… as dentists. Yes, you didn’t misread that. Can you imagine how good it is to have someone who can fix your teeth with a flick of their hand or, if they feel like it, downright give them an upgrade? No more fear of cavities!
Back to the young [Necromancer]: since his particular brand of magic wasn’t forbidden, their people had any legal, easy, and surprisingly cheap, ways to obtain the corpses required for their job. The easiest way was to work for the army: there you got to use all the corpses of your fallen comrades (and enemies) for anything that didn’t go against the Collegial Agreements. Meaning they basically couldn’t create Corpse or Bone Amalgamations and ghosts. Anything else was ‘free real estate’.
Alternatively, a young, intrepid, independent [Necromancer] could quite easily obtain the body of a citizen who had agreed, prior to their death, to donate their corpse for such a cause. These days it happened more often than it used to but… it still wasn’t quite the norm.
Finally, if the aforementioned enterprising [Necromancer] wasn’t feeling like buying for a few silvers someone’s body, they could just get any old monster’s corpse they could kill. In short, they could become adventurers, which came with all the advantages and disadvantages of the job.
Oh, and then there was grave robbing.
Which was exactly what this [Necromancer] was about to do. “Three gold pieces! Fucking Airm, that’s downright robbery.”
You know, it was funny, in some absurd way. There was a time when anyone in his position would have thanked all the gods of the pantheon for such a possibility: just… being able to buy a corpse to pursue their art in peace. There was a time when being even suspected as a [Necromancer] could get one killed on the spot.
And this young man was complaining about it. Oh, how times have changed.
“And it’s not like dwarven corpses are any better than others! They’re not more magical than elven bodies, they’re not tougher than those of some beastkin. They’re just bodies! Why do I have to pay them so much?”
There was one thing to be said about this poor sod: he wasn’t normally like this. But he had fallen in poor straits, penniless and undead-less after a failed quest for a guild from a nearby city that had ended with his party dead and his left arm down a sandworm’s gullet.
“Three whole gold pieces.”
It had happened the same way things like this happened all the time: overconfidence. A silver ranked party of adventurers taking on a job that was for gold rankers. Sure, lower end gold rankers, but still gold, and they’d forgotten a very simple rule about adventuring guilds: their rankings existed for a reason.
An extermination quest for a sandworm nest that had been located near the edge of the desert, probably filled with eggs or younglings. They’d thought it would’ve been easy: after all, it was the middle of winter, not long after the end of the breeding season, when the sandworms would’ve already gone into hibernation. So they’d geared up, brought along enough [Fireball] Scrolls to destroy a small army, confident that the reward of gold for the quest would’ve more than covered for such an expense, and had promptly ended up on the other end of the extermination.
“I don’t need much. Just… a dozen, yes, a dozen corpses, and when I’ve made the money for it I’ll come back and pay for them. Yes, it’s very reasonable.”
When he’d come back from the journey, wounded and delirious, he’d been put back on his feet by the Guild, but that had taken all the money he’d had left.
But here’s the thing: dwarves valued their dead as much, no, maybe even more than their living. That’s why you could still walk towards the top of Mount Robiras and see ancient obsidian tombs that were still in pristine conditions to this day, thousands of years after they’d been put in the ground, the names on them still readable, the dates clear, their greatest deeds written near the bottom in excruciating detail, perfectly legible. That’s why dwarven corpses cost so much: they cared too much for their dead to just… sell their bodies. And yet there were some, among them, who wanted to help, even in that small way. It was ridiculous, senseless, a disliked practice, but it was something one of their own asked for on their deathbed, and so their wish was granted, because nothing, not the mines, not the Projects, not even
the Grandfathers themselves were more important, more sacred, than a dead man’s last wish.
So they did it: they sold the corpses of their loved ones, because that’s what they’d asked. But the price for them was high, extremely high for what amounted to a dead body.
Three whole gold pieces.
It stands to reason, then, that the dwarves had people among them who lived for the sole reason of caring for their dead: their [Graveyard Keepers]. A small army of dwarves who spent their existence caring for the tombs of their dearly departed, patrolling the mountain that was their graveyard day and night, repairing any damage done to the tombstones or decorations and, in the few times when it was required, even going as far as defending it from an actual army.
Or, in this case, defending it from a grave robber. It started slowly, feebly.
Words.
A song, one as old as the dwarves, known only to them and the Dream – not the [Dreamers] though, not anymore.
They came from a distance and made the young [Necromancer] nervous. His eyes jumped every which way as he thought the song was coming from a distant dwarf doing his job, one that hadn’t noticed him yet. Still, he moved low, trying to hide among the rocks and tombstones.
“Gotta find the fresher ones, skeletons are no good.”
They’d been his speciality: agile, light on their feet, capable of offering support from a distance or, in a pinch, even charge right into the fray wielding light weapons. His choice of undead had been his and his team’s unmaking.
So, obviously, if skeletons weren’t the answer, then zombies had to be! Surely some extra raw strength in the form of reanimated flesh and muscles could’ve helped them better during that quest.
The words reached his ears and, this time, he could understand them. It was a simple rhyme, repeated over and over again, but one with a clear message.
Underground, underground, leave them underground.
Over and over.
And the voices were getting closer.
His eyes widened, his head whipping around, trying to pinpoint the source, wand raised to cast any one of the necromantic Spells he’d learned that could easily kill most lower level monsters: [Necrotic Lance]. The dangerous part of that one wasn’t the ‘lance’ part so much as the ‘necrotic’: it made all the flesh near the damaged area rot. Enough of these could take down pretty much anything, but they had a problem: they were extremely Mana intensive. Which normally wasn’t too much of a problem for a [Necromancer] if they were in a fight surrounded by enough dead bodies and undead that emitted Death Mana, but outside that? He had probably enough in himself for two [Lances], three if he wanted to suffer from Mana Drain.
Finally, he saw the source of the song.
A single dwarf, advancing slowly towards him. His face was shrouded by the shadow of a wide brimmed hat, clearly made to protect his head from the ever scorching aknian sun. He wore sombre white clothes that he probably spent an exceptional amount of time keeping fastidiously clean. In one hand he was carrying a broom, while, hanging from his back, he could see a sharpened shovel.
The dwarf was clearly moving his way, still singing that sinister, old, song, the words reverberating in the young [Necromancer]’s bones, making him feel guilty for some reason.
Underground, underground, leave them underground.
But he needed the bodies, he needed them to start anew, to avenge his companions, to be better.
The song didn’t stop, but still he heard someone speak to him: “Leave our dead alone.”
He whipped his head around, trying to understand who could’ve spoken. And then he saw them: four more dwarves. Surrounding him.
The song grew louder as he opened his mouth to say something, anything, although he himself didn’t know what exactly to say: should he protest? Should he beg?
The decision was made for him as the first dwarf he’d seen stopped, pointing a finger at him, nightmarish words leaving his mouth: “[The Earth Claimed Him as it Claimed Our Own].”
The ground underneath his feet erupted upwards, shards of rock rising as high as his face, causing small cuts that began bleeding profusely. He looked down, his mind whirling between horror and confusion like a child’s spinning top. Then hands grabbed at his legs, beginning to tug down.
A scream left his throat, followed by him pulling furiously at first one, then the other leg, trying to dislodge himself from the impossibly tight grip of, he could see them now, earthen hands – not skeletal, a small part of his mind noticed.
But of course they weren’t skeletal hands: those had to come from something, corpses most of the time, but that would mean disturbing their dead, something unacceptable.
He screamed, begging for forgiveness, asking to be let go, even going as far as attempting to raise a few of the bodies buried underneath the ground, but the moment his magic touched them one of the dwarves stepped forward, taking the shovel off his back and approaching him menacingly at the same time as he felt his own magic simply… dissipating into nothing.
Underground, underground, leave them underground.
He screamed as the hands finally reached his shoulders and in one, final, yank dragged him under the earth.
The last thing he heard was that old song.
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Darkness.
Air.
Fresh air.
With a gasp, he opened his eyes.
He was in a small, undecorated, room, sitting in front of a stone table, on an equally stony chair, although he could feel a comfortable cushion underneath his backside.
Opposite from him sat a dwarf: his hair was graying around the edges and well groomed, the big and equally graying beard underneath braided with many small gems that shone in the lamplight. His eyes were a deep, dark, gray, bordering on black, reminding him of the tunnels underneath the earth where so many of the monsters he’d hunted hid. He was wearing the same white clothes as the dwarves that had attacked him in the cemetery and, as he glanced around the room – still taking deep, calming, breaths – he found that same long brimmed hat hanging from the wall beside a stout, wooden, door. Right underneath, propped up against the rock, was the shovel.
They sat like that, waiting for a few minutes, the silence broken only by his steadily calming breathing.
Finally, the dwarf spoke: “So, you learned your lesson?”
The young [Necromancer]’s eyes widened as he nodded his head so fast he feared it’d fall off.
“Good, good. The name’s Mramur. I’m one of the Elders around here and one of the [Graveyard Keepers]. And you are?”
The way he was talking it was almost as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn’t just been swallowed by the earth after receiving the greatest scare of his life.
“M - my na - name’s –”
“Calm down boy, deep breaths, deep breaths. I won’t have the earth eat you up again, promise.”
So the [Necromancer] took another few minutes to calm his racing heart, taking deep breaths all the while and being extremely thankful to Provos, the God of the Afterlife, for being able to do so.
When, finally, he felt able to speak without stuttering, he answered the dwarf: “My name is Fairuz and I’m a [Skeletal Necromancer]. I… I used to be a member of a small adventuring team but… I’m the only one left.”
The dwarf nodded solemnly at that, his hand raising to make a strange gesture in the air, placing his closed fist first on his mouth, then on his heart, and finally back up to his forehead.
“I’m extremely saddened by this news, Fairuz. May their souls rest in peace for the rest of eternity.”
It wasn’t anything new to him: adventuring teams often ended in that way. They took on more than they should because they needed or wanted money – or fame – and died in some horrible fashion at the hands of some monster or other. A sad truth of the job that wasn’t talked about often enough. For every successful adventurer there were two dozen who either never went higher than silver rank or just died.
“Let me guess: you don’t have a copper to your name, so you couldn’t afford to buy the corpses you needed for your magic, but you didn’t want to give up, so instead you decided to rob a grave.”
The dwarf sighed, shaking his head: “I’d like to say that it’s understandable, but it isn’t. You were about to commit what’s probably the only crime we have capital punishment for. You can call yourself lucky that we caught you before you’d started digging.”
Silence. Heavy like a wet blanket, more suffocating than a roomful of smoke, and twice as embarrassing as being caught naked outside the bathroom. Fairuz felt his cheeks heat up as desperation filled his being and, in the end, he just deflated, putting his head in his remaining hand and rubbing as his face and hair, trying to somehow remove the stress that was plaguing his being with the simple motion.
“What now?” asked the dwarf.
He didn’t answer, because he didn’t know. “Will you give up?”
Another question he didn’t know the answer to, so silence was all the answer the dwarf got – and needed.
“What if I told you I have a proposal? A way to fix some of your problems, at a cost.”
A chuckle: “I think I already said it, but I don’t have any money.”
“Come on boy, you know better than me that I wasn’t talking about coppers and silvers. We have no need for money, but talent? Talent we need plenty of.”
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Fairuz raised his head: “I’m listening.”
“We need [Mages] in the deeper mines. Not the deepest, you wouldn’t survive down there, but middle depth? You could work there.”
The young [Necromancer] raised his arms, the sleeves of his ruined robes falling back to show how little muscle was there: “These arms won’t be doing much mining, I’m afraid.”
“But they can do a lot of casting, I’m sure.”
He sighed, sitting forward, looking Fairuz in the eyes: “Let me get straight to the point, boy: there are things underneath these mountains, monsters of flesh and bone that have turned the earth itself into their nests, making it exceedingly dangerous to mine. We’ve been fighting and culling them for the last…” he stopped, his eyes glazing over, as if someone else was talking to him at that moment. Then he was back, “I think ten thousand years, give or take a few centuries. If it wasn’t for us the damned things would’ve probably already invaded the surface. But that’s beside the point: we’re not looking for recognition. We’re looking for something of ours that has been trapped underground since the day those monsters appeared.
“You won’t be looking for that though. You’ll come along with the dwarves at mid depth who work there to simply mine. Your job, if you decided to accept, would be to help miners escape in case of an attack. The basic pay is good and there are bonuses for every one of the creatures you kill – don’t worry about tallying that, we can tell how many died at your hands. You will have food and a home to stay at as well. You will, also, be provided with the necessary bodies to perform your work.”
Immediately the [Necromancer]’s adventuring-inclined mind went for the most obvious question: “What’s the catch?”
The dwarf smiled: “Apart from the constant risk of death? You won’t be allowed to leave Mountainhome if you accept. At least, you won’t be allowed to leave until we can be certain about your loyalty.”
“...That’s it?”
“That’s it. Trust me, some of the people we made this proposal to in the end said that it still wasn’t enough considering the things they’d seen and done but… well, I’ve told you clearly all there was to be told.
“Naturally you still have the choice to get out of that door and leave. I won’t stop you, but we won’t help you if you choose to go: you were going to rob our graves, after all.
“It’s up to you now.”
It took him a few minutes to come to a head but, in the end, the choice was a no brainer.
He began his training the next day.
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[King] Carmine woke up that day in a good mood.
The arachne was gone from his city and, if his spy network was to be believed, she was gone from his kingdom entirely; plus, an incredibly dangerous subversive member of the Greatest Game was gone, dead, his body burned to ashes that were then thrown into a river.
Sure, he’d lost a lot of good men in doing so, a group of undead had also gone crazy and started attacking the city, plus many members of the Game were dead, which had required him to pay off the damned leeches so that they’d get off his back, but all of this was nothing compared to the knowledge that the arachne which had plagued his city was now finally gone.
So he rose from his bed, allowing the [Servants] to help him into his regal garbs as a minister walked in and began telling him the plans for the rest of the day, from the meetings in the morning with various dignitaries and nobles from all around the kingdom to a few ambassadors from neighboring countries in the afternoon.
One of them, though, immediately caught his attention: “One of the dwarven Elders is coming here? In person?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. They haven’t specified the reason for them requesting this meeting but, if I had to take an educated guess, it may be about the dwarven traitor that massacred our local Adventurer’s Guild.”
“Ah, that one, yes. Well, we shall see. Move that meeting up on the schedule… and make it private.”
“As you wish, Your Majesty.”
And that was how he found himself staring down at the dwarf in front of him. The small man had graying hair and beard, which, for a dwarf, was a sign of old age. This one was probably four hundred years old, maybe more, which, in a sense, wasn’t much: he knew for certain that the oldest among the Elders was around seven hundred years old and could barely move – if the rumors were to be trusted, which he didn’t care about because the dwarves were in Aknos and he was in Irevia.
The Elder wore simple white clothes that had been recently starched, their color bright as the day they’d been given to him. Beside him, loosely hanging from the chair, was an equally white wide brimmed hat. He’d been told that he’d come carrying a shovel of all things, which he’d been forced to leave behind before this meeting.
“It is an honor to meet you, Your Majesty, [King] Carmine, Ruler of Tedam and all the cities existing under the aegis of the Kingdom of Scasce.”
Say what you will about the dwarf’s peculiar taste in clothing, but he knew how to properly greet royalty.
“It is my honor to be in your presence, Elder Mramur of the dwarves. I, sadly, know not of any of your other titles, the information was not shared.”
The dwarf waved that off: “No titles for me, Your Majesty. I’m just an old dwarf doing his job.”
The king nodded, leaning slightly forward and joining his hands: “Then, may I inquire to the purpose of your visit, Elder Mramur? I couldn’t help but notice that you did not specify this when you requested this meeting”
Mramur took his time getting comfortable on the chair, moving this way and that, as if unused to the comforts of royalty. And maybe he truly wasn’t? Carmine, like many others, knew close to nothing about the dwarves’ ways of life in Mountainhome. No matter how many [Spies] were sent, no matter how many times they tried to scry the underground city, and, most of all, no matter how many madmen had started a war with them, nothing was ever gleaned. The most someone ever managed to get out of the place was the recipe for what was, to this day, one of the most popular beers in the world.
So who knew? Maybe the man was used to sitting on rocks for all he knew.
Which… wasn’t too far from the truth. He rarely went back inside Mountainhome, spending most of his time on the surface with the other [Graveyard Keepers], doing his eternal work. It was a choice he’d made, one he didn’t regret.
Finally, he spoke: “I believe you already have a good idea, Your Majesty. After all, you and your ministers are quite intelligent and diligent.”
Most of the time, thought the dwarf without saying, masking his thoughts with pleasantries.
“I’ve come to bring back the body of a dwarf who died here. His name was Dorian Ironborn and he was killed after attacking the local Adventurer’s Guild.”
The king’s mood immediately soured at that: “That traitor?”
Mramur’s face remained unchanged but, inside, he seethed: how dare this simpleton call one of his own, a dwarf who had sacrificed everything in the name of a debt older than his grandfathers, a traitor?
“Yes, exactly him. I would like his body to be given back to me so that I may perform the funerary rites as per the traditions of my people.”
Carmine shook his head: “That is unacceptable. This man was a traitor against the whole of Creation: he attacked and killed twenty one adventurers and gravely injured a dozen more, foremost among them the Guildmistress. Do you have any idea what repercussions me giving you back the body would have on my image?”
Politics, always politics. If there was one thing he loved – among many, really – about dwarves it was their distaste for politics in general. One of the many advantages of being an isolationist species.
Still, there was one thing he had learned long ago: money could grease the machinations of politics with great ease.
“Naturally we understand your sentiment, Your Majesty, so I haven’t come empty handed: we are capable and willing to repay all damages caused by our kin, together with payments to the families of the dead adventurers and those that won’t be able to perform their jobs with ease anymore.”
The [King] raised an eyebrow, feeling more amenable. “In short: say a number,” finished Mramur.
They had cut off his head and immersed it in tar to help conserve it for longer, then leaving it to hang off the walls over the main entrance to the city. Showing it off like a prize, like a [Hunter] hanging a boar’s head on his cabin’s wall.
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Monsters, uncivilized mistakes, the lot of them. Mramur had a lot more choice words for these people, but he’d rather not waste the time to do it.
“Master Mramur, what are we to do?” asked his apprentice.
She was a relatively new [Graveyard Keeper], barely Level 20, but he’d seen something in her, the spark of patience that told him she’d be able to do this job for centuries to come. He had a feeling that she’d take his place as an Elder, one day. But that was still in the distant future – although he had amended his will, requesting that she be the one to bury him when the day came.
“Now you stitch the head back in place while I stitch his soul back onto this plane and see to it that he gets his choice like everyone else did before.”
They’d commandeered the local [Keeper]’s workshop for this, something the old man had gladly allowed them to do at no expense, giving them permission to use any and all of the substances he had at his disposal to maintain the bodies fresh as long as possible. That wasn’t going to be necessary in this case: most of the poor fellow’s body had already started to rot.
“Savages,” he heard his apprentice whisper.
“Less talking, more stitching. We’ll have the whole of the return journey to lament the barbaric ways of these people.”
And with that the room fell in a nearly religious silence – nearly, for the dwarves no longer prayed to any of the gods, not after what had happened during the Silken Wars.
The apprentice, Gravia, started stitching, her hands’ movements slow and methodical as her gloved hands began searching for the blood vessels, using a very small needle threaded with an even thinner thread to stitch those back in place. Her efforts were admirable, but there weren’t many of those left in a good enough condition to do that sort of work.
“Don’t concentrate too hard on that, the damage is already too advanced.” She nodded, finishing the last stitch on the artery she’d been working on and, carefully, joining the head to the neck, beginning to work on connecting the two.
Meanwhile Mramur rummaged in his bag of holding, taking out a small wooden box, intricately carved with designs reminiscent of ores and gems. It was, perhaps, the fanciest thing the dwarf possessed. Inside, stored on a velvet cushion, was a simple looking needle, longer than his hand. If one were to look at it with their vision greatly enhanced they would notice some… writing, carved in the metal. And then, when trying to read it, they’d see that it was not, in fact, written in any known language, for those were runes. Runes for a type of magic that was forbidden all over the world: Soul Magic.
Mramur got to work, channeling the ambient Mana into the needle, mixing it with his limited supply to leave an imprint in the runework, a way for the carved magic to understand what type of soul he was trying to get in touch with: the soul of a dwarf.
He stabbed the index finger of his left hand, letting the drops of blood flow down, soaking the carvings, where they stayed, making the needle shine with a kind, red,
glow. Most people liked to think that Soul Magic was an evil art, made only to corrupt and change others, bending them to your will. And, while that was certainly true… it wasn’t the whole of it. Soul Magic could also be used to contact the souls of the dead, for example.
Like he was doing now.
He began moving the needle, threading the air over the body’s heart as he chanted one of his Skills: “[In The Name of a Promise, I Call Thee]. Come, Dorian Ironborn, and make the choice your predecessors gave you the chance to make.”
The needle shone brighter while his apprentice finished stitching the neck and head back in place. She’d done a good enough job.
And then, suddenly, the needle caught onto something, the point seemingly stuck in the air, trapped in place.
“Help me, apprentice,” he said as he began to pull with all of his strength. Hopefully he’d caught the right soul: too many times in the past things other than his kin had attempted to find a way onto this plane of Creation through this simple yet nuanced rite.
He felt his apprentice’s hands grab onto his arm and pull with him.
It took them an entire minute but, in the end, without a sound, the needle moved and, suddenly, there was no resistance. They stumbled back, his assistant falling on her back, the thunk of flesh on stone the only sound in the room.
Now, though, there were three people in the room.
Or… two and a half? No, still three: not having a physical body didn’t mean you weren’t a person anymore.
A smile, the first one in a few days, formed on the Elder’s face as he bowed: “It is an honor to meet you, Dorian Ironborn.”
The soul of a dwarf, looking like a ghost from the tales of old, floated there, over his own body, looking around with clear confusion written all over his features. Then he looked down at Mramur, seeing his smile, and he smiled back himself.
“Well, I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting this.”
A low chuckle accompanied these words, together with a tired smile. “Why am I here?” he asked.
Mramur sat down on the ground, patting his apprentice’s shoulder as she tried to get the world to stop turning and twisting.
“You’re here to make a choice.”
Another chuckle, this one bitter: “I already made a quite final choice, Elder Mramur. I’m dead. People like me don’t get to choose much.”
“Our dead do,” was the answer he got.
Silence, blessed silence, hateful silence to Dorian: he’d been trapped in a silent, dark, place for a very long time. He’d become so used to the constant rambling of his friends and the other adventurers that the sudden lack of it had been worse than the – wrong – knowledge that what he’d done hadn’t been enough.
“She’s alive,” said Mramur, looking up at the spirit, “I don’t know how Miklish knows it, but she’s alive. Your sacrifice wasn’t for nothing.”
The spirit’s head whipped up at that, surprise clearly visible in all his features: “Really? She made it?”
He nodded: “With your help and that of others, I imagine. I don’t know all the details but, apparently, a retired Player of the Game helped her out. Like you, he paid with his life.”
Again they stood – and sat – there in silence, letting the information sink in.
Then Dorian spoke: “I was in Airm. I can remember it. There was fire, and pain but… it all feels so distant now. Like a bad dream.”
Mramur nodded: “I can only imagine, and I’d rather not. But… let me tell you of the choice in front of you now. Listen well, and make sure you won’t come to regret it, for you won’t get a chance to change your mind.”
Gorizia checked the rune around her neck for the umpteenth time that day. She knew that it would start to vibrate if someone attempted to communicate with her, but she was nervous and couldn’t help the gesture.
Her eyes rose towards the literal tower of paperwork that had accumulated in the last week. She’d tried to get through it in the last two days, but every time she managed to get the letters to stop moving around the page she just couldn’t concentrate on them, being forced to read and reread each and every passage multiple times only to at some point forget it all, needing to start over.
Needless to say, not much work had been done and, for the first time in the decades she’d worked as the [Secretary] of the Guild of Assassins Guildmistress’ she understood why the woman hated paperwork so much, especially because she knew just how useless most of it actually was. Nobody cared about the number of recruits who’d taken the easy way out of training and swallowed some poison!
She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly afterwards. allowing her mind to settle down: stress would get her nowhere, especially because, until she was told otherwise, she couldn’t help in any way.
The rune on her neck vibrated lightly, causing her eyes to fly open as she fumbled the little piece of stone, her mind noticing just how warm it had become by staying in contact with her skin.
She pressed on the rune, channeling a small amount of her limited mana, initiating the connection with whoever was on the other side.
“This is Gorizia Everburn, Undersky Identification Number 38451. Who am I talking to?”
A rough, familiar, voice answered from the other side: “This is Elder Mramur speaking, no Undersky Number. The safety code is: ‘Baron-Lagoon-Magmatic-Twenty Seven-Irevian Cupcake’. Do you confirm.”
Gorizia immediately recognized the code her old mentor, Elder Mramur, had forced her to memorize before allowing her to leave Mountainhome. Unlike so many other dwarves before her, she’d decided to leave her homeland not as a ‘vacation’, but because she’d desired to expand her horizons. People like her were rare in the old underground city and treasured beyond measure.
“I confirm. Elder, what’s the status of your mission?”
“You can stop worrying, Gorizia, dear. The [King] gave us back our comrade’s body after I promised a big enough payment.”
Money wasn’t really much of a problem for dwarves: one of the advantages of having a closed economy, you could say. The gold that moved around Mountainhome proper was pretty much the same, give or take, while the money they gained from selling to the people outside was hoarded and kept for emergencies.
Like this situation.
“I contacted his soul and explained things. He made his choice. You can stop worrying about the contingency plan.”
Gorizia took another deep breath, feeling an enormous weight leaving her shoulders. “That is good,” she finally managed to say after a while.
“Rest, Gorizia. If I know you, you haven’t slept in the last week while thinking about who to send over in case the negotiations didn’t end well.”
A small, bitter, chuckle escaped her lips unbidden: “The lack of sleep is the last of my problems, Elder Mramur. I once spent near on three weeks awake helping the Gardener manage a crisis that could’ve gotten the Guild destroyed. No, the lack of sleep wasn’t a problem.”
“Still, you can rest easily now. As for me, I’m glad the return journey will be on foot and by boat: teleportation always messes up my stomach too much.”
“The problems of old age, Elder.”
“Now don’t you start getting witty with me.” They both chuckled at that.
“Goodbye, Gorizia. I hope the next time we have a conversation it’ll be in person and not in a situation like this.”
“I hope that too, mentor. Goodbye.”
The connection cut off and she sighed, sinking deeper into her chair.
“Well, time to sleep,” she told herself in the end, hopping off the chair and promising herself that tomorrow morning, bright and fresh, she’d get that pile of documents done.
And then a little girl appeared seemingly out of nowhere right in front of her desk. The dwarven woman immediately stopped, recognizing her: Ama, one of the three survivors of the Devil’s Claw Family and, more recently, the Gardener’s new protegé.
“Hi Ama. What are you doing here?”
The little girl had been with them for nearly a week now and most of that time had been spent grieving the loss of her family.
Behind her, timidly, stood a little devil, red skinned with itty bitty little horns sprouting from her scalp, her big, blood red eyes staring at her murderously. It was a strange combination, really, one that made the dwarf smile while also desiring to pet the life out of both of them – because, Stars above, was it cute that that slip of a girl was trying to intimidate a woman who worked for one of the most dangerous and
powerful people in the world and talked back to her on a regular basis.
“The Gardener said to come when I felt like talking again,” she answered in a small voice, the barely repressed emotions in her tone making the dwarf’s heart ache.
“There’s no urgency, dearie. The Gardener’s been around for over a thousand years, she can wait a few extra days.”
Ama shook her head vehemently, her long hair whipping around behind her, nearly hitting the little devil behind her: “No! I can’t wait! Mama and papa always taught me to keep moving forward, to never give up! I… I can’t keep staying locked in my room, I have to do something!”
She was nearly screaming near the end, her eyes shut so forcefully that tears were beginning to form in the corners.
The door to the Gardener’s office opened, a figure stepping out. She was a striking woman, even beautiful by many standards: that is, if you liked the idea of a rugged elf with more muscle than fat on her body and an agile figure that seemed to cut the air wherever she walked. Her hair was black and kept short in a butch cut, a masculine look that was counteracted by her not-too-big… frontal endowments. Like usual she wore black, form fitting clothes, making her look ready to go on a mission in a matter of moments. The one, most striking, feature of her, however, were her eyes: they were green, greener than the most verdant tree in the jungles of Eva. She liked to joke that they were the concept of green brought to life. Gorizia knew that was an effect of one of her Skills, although she couldn’t even begin to guess which one could do such an apparently useless thing.
“Ama, dear, are you ready?” she asked, bowing her head deeply in greeting.
The girl, too, bowed deeply: “I am ready to hear your proposal, Gardener.”
The elf nodded, motioning the girl into her office: “Gorizia, would you kindly get us some refreshments? This will take some time.”
She nodded, immediately moving towards the kitchens to gather something tasty and simple to eat, something even a kid could’ve liked. It took her five minutes to get back and knock on the office’s door.
“Come in!” she heard her employer’s voice from inside.
She walked in, carrying the tray with the refreshments, and was greeted by an unusual scene: the Gardener, standing by the window overlooking her expansive garden, her hand on the little girl’s shoulder, while on the other side she stroked the small devil’s hair gently.
“My offer is simple, dear. I will help you avenge your family: I’ll teach you all I can, give you the required resources to do what needs to be done, and when all that is said and done, you’ll be given a choice: follow in your parents’ footsteps, or be free from the Guild completely.”
Ama nodded her little head, a hand rising to touch the glass wall: “You already know I’ll accept.”
Gorizia remembered meeting the girl before… well, before her family’s massacre. She’d been so cheerful, so… innocent. One would’ve been hard pressed to even think she’d been raised by a family of [Assassins]. Now though? The signs were there. The decisiveness in her tone, the unyielding look she could see in her reflection’s eyes… she wasn’t a little girl anymore, for all that her heart was still shredded to pieces, and she hated it.
“Very well. For the next three months you’ll be staying with me: no interactions with the people outside other than Gorizia here will be allowed. It would only complicate matters with my Skill. The good news is, the cost for this will be set completely on my shoulders: you won’t lose a single second of your life. The bad news… well, I’d like to say that you won’t get to live through your youth, but I get the feeling you won’t care.”
The little girl shook her head, turning towards the Gardener: “Do it."
The old, so very old even by dwarven standards – but probably middle aged by elven ones – woman smiled bitterly, falling to a knee and looking Ama in the eyes: “I’m sorry, little one. I’m sorry this had to happen.”
She took a deep breath.
And the next thing she said shocked even Gorizia: “[Like a Flower, She Matured].”
Ama began getting older.
----------------------------------------
Dorian opened his eyes.
And this time found that he could feel his body, unlike when he’d been a spirit in Elder Mramur’s presence.
He could feel on himself the weight of his clothes, the rough leather grip of the axe in his hands, together with the presence of the ceremonial drinking horn around his neck.
A shadow hovered at the edge of his vision and he blinked, trying to focus on it. Then the shadow came closer, its figure resolving in a smiling, round, face.
“Ah, a new one! Welcome to Airm, friend. It’s been a while since anyone’s joined us down here.”
Dorian tried to sit up but the figure put a hand on his chest: “Now now, no need to be hasty: this stronghold is well defended and deep in our territory, you can take your time. Let your weary soul settle and acquaint itself with its newfound physicality of a sorts.”
The hand disappeared, but the man, the dwarf, didn’t, sitting by his side if the scraping of a chair on stone was anything to go by.
“I trust that everything was explained to you, yah?”
He nodded. Of course everything had been explained.
Elder Mramur had told him he had a choice to make: either he allowed the old dwarf to trap his soul in what was, basically, a soul cage, where he’d be ‘asleep’, put in stasis, allowed to rest for the rest of eternity or until things became better;
Or… he could join his many comrades who, before him, had chosen to walk the soil of Airm.
Why?
But of course, in search of their old friends: the arachne.
They were certain that their souls had been sent to Airm. It was a natural assumption to make, seeing how their very existence was a sin in the eyes of the gods. So… they’d decided to help them just as the arachne had helped them.
They’d given up everything for them in life, it just… didn’t seem right to leave them to rot and suffer for all of eternity in Airm. And, since they were already all condemned to that place, well, they told themselves, ‘may as well make the best out of a bad situation’.
So they’d started a crusade on endless armies of devils of Airm, all to look for their friends, all in the hopes they could ever feel like they’d done enough to repay their debt.
They didn’t, couldn’t, know that the arachne, their beloved friends and companions, more so than any other species in the world that had ever existed, weren’t in Airm. They were someplace else, in Death’s warm embrace, resting after a life of fighting a battle they hadn’t started. They didn’t know the sacrifices being made by their old friends and, even if they had, they couldn’t have told them.
That… That…….
…
That is perhaps the most bitter thing about the dwarves.
For a friendship, for a sacrifice that had saved their entire species, they were doing all of this. Hoping against all hope that, at the end of it all, they’d be allowed to meet their friends again one more time, hoping that they’d be able to feast together with them once again, hoping that they’d hear them laughing raucously at their bad jokes, hoping that they’d be able to embrace each other and have fun with their spiderlings (so many of those had died…), hoping… hoping.
It was all about hope.
Not the debt. That was, maybe, an excuse given to the gods and the System and everyone who could’ve ever asked. They cared not for the debt itself: they only cared for their friends and the good times they’d once been able to spend with them. And for those memories, for those smiles and chuckles and laughs, for those chitters and hisses made by their young as they attempted and failed to talk, for all of that, they went to war against the will of the gods themselves.
A useless war that wouldn’t get them what they wanted, in the end.
…
Dwarves all over the world are known as the friendliest, kindest, people one could ever have the pleasure to meet. You want a drinking buddy? A dwarf’s the best you could find! You need to smuggle something that’s extremely illegal only ‘because the churches say so’? Well, that dwarven ship’s transporting several tonnes of rock and marble for trade and the inspectors usually don’t ask them to move the cargo around. You’re looking for a short [Barbarian] who can reliably go for the enemy’s knee or knee equivalent? Well, you probably won’t find a dwarven [Barbarian], but there’s a surprising amount of [Axe Warriors] around the world. They also don’t backstab their companions for loot!
Dwarves all over the world are known as the most cheerful, happiest, race of them all.
Unbeknownst to everyone, even to the dwarves themselves, they may be the most tragic race of them all as well.