Where gods whisper and empires rot.
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The Fall of Ghor´Nazruk
Deep within the mountains of eastern Astravara, where the veins of the world pulsed with magma and stone, lay the eternal halls of Ghor’Nazruk—a subterranean city of dwarven splendor. Its forges burned without pause, echoing day and night with the ringing of hammers against steel. Sparks danced through vaulted corridors, lighting the paths of smiths who shaped not only weapons, but legacy.
The walls of Ghor’Nazruk gleamed with sacred runes, glowing softly with celestial energy—tributes to Tianara, goddess of harmony, and Vulkanar, the god of flame and creation. These divine symbols were more than decorations; they were living vows, etched into the stone to remind every dwarf of their sacred duty to build, to endure, to create.
In every corner of the city, pride thrived—not arrogance, but the earned pride of a people who had shaped mountains into monuments. Ghor’Nazruk was not merely a fortress—it was a living heart, beating beneath the skin of the world.
Though carved in stone, Ghor’Nazruk was anything but cold.
The rhythm of dwarven life pulsed through its halls like blood through ancient veins. In the upper levels, children chased one another between granite pillars, their laughter echoing through wide tunnels as elders watched with amused pride. The scent of baked roots and mushrooms drifted from communal kitchens, mixing with the ever-present aroma of coal and molten metal.
At the heart of the city, the Grand Forge blazed like the sun trapped beneath the earth. Smiths toiled with reverent focus, their beards tied back and brows beaded with sweat, as they shaped blades, gears, and ceremonial tools. The clang of hammer on steel was not merely labor—it was a sacred chant, a daily devotion to Vulkanar. Near the Forge-Temples, stone-cloaked priests offered quiet prayers, tracing divine runes across anvils before each workday began.
Dwarves sang as they worked—old songs, deep songs, stories woven into melody. They sang of dragons slain, halls built, and lineages honored. These were not a people who feared the dark. They had mastered it.
But even in such harmony, shadows began to stretch long and cold.
It started subtly—a miner slipping on stone he swore hadn’t been there before, or a child waking from sleep claiming to hear someone laughing in the walls.
Small tremors would sometimes ripple through the lower districts, dismissed by engineers as natural settling. Yet among the miners who delved deepest, whispers passed uneasily over mugs of mushroom ale: tools vanishing from sealed chambers, lanterns flickering without cause, echoes that returned too slowly… or too quickly.
Some spoke of a strange pressure in the tunnels, a weight not of earth or rock, but of eyes. Unseen. Watching.
Still, the pride of the dwarves was not easily shaken. Ghor’Nazruk had stood for over a thousand years. No enemy had ever breached its gates. No army had ever descended its depths.
What was a whisper, compared to all they had built?
In the quietest tier of Ghor’Nazruk, where the lanterns burned dimmest and the halls narrowed into the deeper mines, a small boy sat alone near the edge of a shaft. His cheeks were smudged with soot, and his fingers were raw from hours spent hauling buckets of ore for the older miners.
Clutched in his hand was a chisel no longer than a finger, and before him, the smooth stone wall bore a series of rough etchings. Not the elegant runes of the priests—these were crude, childish marks: a flame, a hammer, a watchful eye.
He whispered as he carved, voice trembling.
“Keep ‘em away. The bad things. Papa says they ain’t real. But I saw them. Eyes in the dark.”
A gust of cold air brushed past him, though no wind should’ve reached that depth.
The boy froze. His chisel clattered to the floor.
Far below, in the black, something moved.
At the summit of Ghor’Nazruk, beneath the adamantine dome of the Throne-Hall, King Reikal Thrun stood before a massive stone table inlaid with glowing lines of rune-script. Maps and scout reports lay spread across its surface like battle-scars, but the king’s attention had begun to drift.
Despite the disturbing reports from the lower tiers—talks of tremors, of unusual goblin activity—Reikal’s focus remained fixed on the approaching Festival of Flame.
“The reports are vague,” he said, waving a heavy hand. “Goblins are always digging. Miners see shadows where there are none.”
Around him, the Council of Stone murmured in uneasy agreement, though some faces were etched with deeper concern.
Durmak, the king’s aging advisor, cleared his throat. “With respect, sire… the scouts speak of goblins bypassing natural tunnel routes. Of cooperation with orcs. That is—unheard of.”
Reikal’s eyes narrowed, but his tone remained composed.
“And that is exactly why I believe it to be exaggerated. Goblins and orcs fight over moldy bread, let alone territory. A shared invasion force? Pure fantasy.”
He turned toward the high dais, where young apprentices were placing ceremonial banners along the walls in preparation.
“The Festival of Flame draws near. Our sons will stand before the forge alone and offer their creations to Vulkanar. Their moment of ascension into adulthood. That is where our attention belongs. That is where our future is forged.”
The other councilors nodded—some out of duty, others out of genuine reverence. The Festival was sacred: a test of a dwarf’s craftsmanship, spirit, and devotion. Each boy would enter the Forge of Trials alone, emerge with what he had built or forged, and present it before the priesthood. Their creation would determine the name they would carry into adulthood—a name that could only change again if they achieved greatness in war, invention, or sacrifice.
It was a rite older than the kingdom itself.
Yet not all eyes shared in the king’s calm.
The high ceiling of the Hall of the Council, lit by suspended braziers that burned with smokeless flame, cast long shadows across the runed marble floor. King Reikal Thrun, adorned in regal crimson and obsidian armor, paced before his advisors with deliberate calm. Behind him stood the immense doors that led to the Forge of Judgment, where preparations for the Festival of Flame were reaching their crescendo.
At the foot of the steps stood Thargrim, Captain of the Royal Guard.
Tall for a dwarf and grim even by their standards, Thargrim’s braided beard was bound in iron rings, each one etched with a name—names he no longer spoke aloud. As one of the first of the extinct order of Death-Forsworn, the elite warriors who abandoned clan, title, and hearth to hunt the horrors in the dark, he had seen things others refused to believe. But here, he stood again as a father, a contradiction that weighed on every word he now spoke.
“Sire,” he began, voice like gravel sliding over steel, “the tunnels beneath the southern aqueduct have collapsed. Three miners never returned. Their blood was found, but no bodies.”
The murmurs in the hall died down.
“And yesterday,” he continued, “we found a scouting party gutted. No goblin would risk the upper caverns. Not unless something stronger drove them.”
Reikal frowned. “What are you suggesting?”
Thargrim stepped forward. “That the threats we’ve heard—goblins allying with orcs, foreign tunnels breaching protected ground—they are no longer rumors. They are patterns, and they are closing in.”
Councilor Durmak scoffed. “You speak as if we are under siege already. Surely we would see their banners at our gates!”
“Not if the enemy comes from within, Durmak,” Thargrim snapped. “Not if they dig beneath our boots.”
He turned back to Reikal.
“My king… shut down the secondary galleries. Seal the under-passages to the lower wards. Post guards at every sealed threshold, and prepare the Deepward cannons.”
Reikal’s jaw tightened. “You ask me to cripple our economy on the eve of the Festival. To seal our lifeblood—the veins that feed our forges. We would look weak before the Clans.”
Thargrim hesitated. Then bowed his head. “I ask you to save lives.”
There was silence. At length, Reikal descended a single step.
“You are a trusted captain, Thargrim. A proven blade and a dear friend. But the Festival must proceed. The people need strength. Not fear.”
Thargrim’s expression did not falter, but something in his shoulders slumped.
“As you command, my king.”
As he turned to leave, Reikal’s voice halted him.
“Your son… he is among the initiates this year, is he not?”
Thargrim looked back. “Yes. Bronn Thargrimsson. He will present his creation before Vulkanar at dawn.”
Reikal offered a rare smile. “Let him show the fire of your blood. It is the first time a child of a Death-Forsworn has forged in the Festival, is it not?”
Thargrim gave a slow nod. “Aye. First… and perhaps the last.”
The forges had cooled for the night, but Thargrim stood in silence at the entrance to his home, staring at the warm glow spilling through the doorway. Inside, the sound of hammering echoed rhythmically—precise, eager, hopeful.
He crossed the threshold and found Bronn, his son, working beside a small anvil. The boy was lean, not yet hardened by years of war or labor, but the strength in his arms and the focus in his expression showed promise. Sparks lit his youthful face like constellations.
“Still at it?” Thargrim asked, setting down his helmet with a quiet clank.
Bronn looked up and grinned. “It’ll be ready by dawn.”
On the worktable lay a curious construct—part shield, part hammerhead—bound together with intricate joints and embedded channels for molten flame. It wasn’t perfect, but it was ambitious.
“You plan to offer this to Vulkanar?” Thargrim asked, walking closer, his voice thick with disbelief and—though he wouldn’t admit it—pride.
“It’s not just an offering,” Bronn said. “It’s who I am. I want to protect like you do. Maybe even better.”
Thargrim scoffed, but it was more a sigh than judgment.
“Being better than me isn’t difficult. Just don’t lose yourself doing it.”
“You sound worried.”
Thargrim paused. His eyes lingered on the forgefire, dancing behind the protective lens of the boy’s visor.
“There are things coming, Bronn. The stone speaks to me… and I don’t like what it says.”
Bronn shrugged, wiping sweat from his brow. “If something comes, we’ll fight it. Isn’t that what we do, Father?”
The words were light, hopeful. But to Thargrim, they stabbed deeper than any blade.
He reached out and clasped the back of his son’s neck gently—a rare gesture of tenderness from a man of war.
“You’re all I’ve built, Bronn. You… and the oath I swore.”
Bronn gave a faint smile, not quite understanding. “Then you’ve built something strong.”
Days Later — The Festival of Flame
Ghor’Nazruk stirred before dawn. The streets gleamed with banners of bronze and crimson, and the smell of incense mixed with the ever-present tang of hot steel. Citizens in ceremonial garb crowded the balconies of the Promenade of Fire, chanting songs to Vulkanar as the flamebearers marched past in synchronized rows.
That morning, Ghor’Nazruk shone brighter than ever.
All across the city’s central tiers, balconies were draped in crimson and gold. Columns were wrapped in silver thread, and the air hummed with the rhythmic pulse of anvils beating in ceremonial unison. The ancient Festival of Flame had arrived—an event held once every twelve years, where the sons of each clan crossed the threshold between youth and adulthood.
Across the Great Promenade, families stood shoulder to shoulder, dressed in their finest tunics, their beards braided in complex clan patterns, adorned with iron charms to bring honor and good fortune. Priests of Vulkanar burned incense over long trenches of molten rock, sending trails of shimmering smoke toward the cavernous ceiling above.
The Chamber of Becoming, a vast forge-sanctum carved in the oldest layer of the mountain, had its doors polished to a sacred shine. No one but the initiates would enter once the rite began.
One by one, they were to enter the Chamber of Becoming, where they would forge their offerings in solitude. No one, not even family or guards, could interrupt the sacred ritual.
But Thargrim’s heart was not in celebration.
His steps echoed uneasily along the upper corridors as he passed ranks of soldiers he had personally ordered into position. He had no authority to place more, but he’d rotated loyal guards from his old warband into the lower galleries, bribing them with leave time and favors. It was barely enough.
The tremors had grown stronger, more frequent, and always worse in this quadrant of the city—right beneath the Festival grounds. Yet the King had forbidden any mention of danger.
“No panic,” Reikal had said. “No fear. Let them believe in strength.”
Now Thargrim stood fully armored, helm under arm, at the edge of the Hall of Firelords, where the king’s dais overlooked the ceremonial platform. Reikal stood radiant in obsidian regalia, surrounded by priests and artisans.
“You should be among the Forging Halls,” Reikal remarked without turning. “But today, your place is here. By my side.”
“Of course, my king,” Thargrim replied automatically, but his eyes kept drifting—downward.
He longed to be by the bronze doors, to watch Bronn step forward with pride… or to intercept what his instincts screamed was coming. But he bowed his head and took his place beside the King.
The drums of the Festival began to sound.
Above the crowd, at the top of the Flame-Arch dais, King Reikal Thrun appeared, flanked by priests, guards, and the Flamebearers who would escort the boys to the threshold.
His armor gleamed obsidian black, and the Crown of Cinders—forged from the embers of the First Forge—rested heavy on his brow. But his eyes burned with pride.
The crowd fell silent.
The king raised his hand.
“Sons of stone and fire,” Reikal called, his voice echoing with regal force, “today, you do not simply take up hammer and chisel. Today, you place your names in the ledger of our people. You are the breath of our future. The flame that will carry our kingdom into the centuries yet to come.”
“We are children of the mountain. We are not given our names. We earn them. With sweat. With steel. With fire. What you craft today, alone, without guidance or comfort, will mark who you are until your last breath. And only greatness may alter it.”
He paused, letting the weight of his words settle.
“Ghor’Nazruk has stood for over a thousand years. Never breached. Never bowed. You stand atop that legacy. You walk in the light of Tianara and the fire of Vulkanar. And so I ask you—forge not only steel. Forge purpose. Forge strength. Forge honor.”
“Go now. And return with your name.”
Thunderous cheers followed. Parents wept. Songs rose.
Then the Flamebearers began to call names, one by one, and the initiates stepped forward.
Among them walked Bronn, son of Thargrim, eyes filled with focus, clutching the blueprints of his creation tucked inside a leather scrollcase. He turned once, searching the crowd. He met his father’s gaze.
Thargrim raised his fist—short, sharp. Bronn nodded once and disappeared beyond the gates.
After hours since the festival had begun and the iniates took plance behind the bronze door, the crowd had dispersed and most people diverted their attention to other attractions. Most of the music toned down but the drums of the Festival still echoed across the vaulted halls when the mountain roared.
A seismic shock tore through the foundations of Ghor’Nazruk. The floor cracked beneath noble boots. Stalactites shattered in sacred chambers. For a breathless second, time stood still. Then the screams began.
From deep fissures in the stone, goblins surged forth like rats bursting from rotted grain, their eyes glowing with cruel malice. Behind them, orc warbands emerged, larger than any the dwarves had ever seen inside their own walls. Where walls had once stood, now were smoking holes. Where celebration had reigned, now came slaughter.
Civilians were cut down in the streets. Others were seized, dragged screaming into the shadows. Craftsmen with hammers became soldiers in an instant, but the enemy was already inside the heart of the city. No warning. No mercy.
In the Hall of Firelords, Reikal Thrun staggered as debris fell from above. A royal guard was crushed under a falling column. The king looked to his side, eyes wide with disbelief.
The invasion had come like a blade in the ribs.
Smoke and screams choked the once-proud halls. Fires burned where no flame should’ve touched. Ancient statues of Tianara and Vulkanar crumbled under falling rock. The ringing of forgehammers was replaced by the clang of blades, the roars of orcs, and the shrieks of goblins in bloodlust.
At the edge of the shattered promenade, King Reikal Thrun struggled to rise from beneath a fallen brazier. A shallow cut bled across his brow.
Then Thargrim appeared—a storm of iron and rage.
“Up! We move now!” he barked, already cleaving through a goblin that had charged too close.
He didn’t wait for orders. He grabbed the king by the arm and shoved him toward the broken corridor that led to the inner vaults. Behind them, a handful of guards tried to form a protective wall, but the onslaught was chaotic.
Thargrim’s axe moved like a flame across dry straw. He fought not with the poise of a royal protector—but with the desperation of a father.
For every step forward, he glanced toward the forge tier below, where the Chamber of Becoming lay sealed.
He wanted to break away. Every instinct screamed for him to go to Bronn. To cut down the cowards blocking his path and carve his way to his boy. But his grip on Reikal never faltered.
“This is your damn fault,” he growled under his breath, slamming the king against a pillar to avoid a falling beam. “You let them come through the mountain.”
“And yet you still shield me,” Reikal answered, wiping blood from his eye. “You always do.”
They ran again—stone collapsing behind them—until at last they reached a vaulted storage hall, reinforced by runic locks. It had been prepared for such emergencies centuries ago.
Thargrim slammed the door shut behind them and placed the bar himself.
His armor was smoking. His face streaked with soot and orc blood. His hand trembled.
Inside the hall, priests began tending to the wounded. Scouts scrambled to relay messages. The worst of the attack had passed.
“Commander,” a young scout reported, “it was no full invasion. A raiding force. Likely a probing strike. They breached through the southern shafts and the lower galleries. We are… reclaiming ground.”
Thargrim didn’t even turn to face the boy. His gaze was fixed on the sealed corridor outside.
Reikal stepped beside him. He didn’t speak for a long time.
“They sealed the forge chamber before the attack,” Thargrim finally said, voice hoarse. “He’s in there. My boy’s in there.”
Reikal placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder—rough, calloused, real. The king’s voice was gentler than it had ever been in council.
“He’s a Drakenshield. He’ll fight. He has your fire.”
Thargrim’s jaw clenched.
“That fire might already be ash.”
A long silence.
Then Reikal gave a nod—kingly, but also personal.
“Go.”
Thargrim turned slowly. “What?”
“Go to him, old friend. Before duty kills what honor hasn’t.”
Thargrim looked into Reikal’s eyes—and saw not a king, but the brother-in-arms who had once pulled him out of a burning tunnel, thirty years before.
“I need you back soon,” Reikal added. “Ghor’Nazruk still stands. But I don’t know for how long.”
“I’ll return,” Thargrim said. “Even if I come back dragging the whole mountain behind me.”
“You always do.”
The two clasped forearms—not as ruler and subject, but as comrades who had bled on the same stone, who had carried the same weight for too long.
Minutes later, deep beneath the city in the old forge galleries, Thargrim arrived breathless before the Chamber of Becoming—the ceremonial forge-chamber where the young initiates had entered hours earlier.
The great bronze doors remained shut.
Dozens of parents stood outside, sobbing, screaming, pleading. Guards held them back with pikes. Priests chanted rites of protection, trying to maintain calm. The law was clear: no one could interrupt the sacred ritual. Not even in war.
“They’re in there!” cried a mother. “Let me through! That’s my boy!”
“We heard them screaming—there were sounds, something tore through the stone!”
Thargrim pushed forward. The guards straightened instantly at the sight of him.
“Captain Thargrim,” said one, voice shaking, “we can’t… we’re forbidden. The rites—”
“I wrote the rites when your fathers were still learning to hold a shield.”
Thargrim’s voice was quiet, but sharp as a blade.
“Open this door.”
“If we break the seal—if you cross that threshold—you’ll be branded a heretic.”
Thargrim stared past them at the massive door. The sound of faint metal clashing, distant shrieks, and stone cracking echoed from within.
“So be it.”
He shoved past the guards and raised his axe.
With a blow that shattered the ceremonial seal, Thargrim entered the chamber.
What greeted him was hell.
The forgefires were dying, casting a sickly glow over the bodies of the initiates, sprawled and broken across the ground. Weapons half-forged lay in ruin. Blood soaked the stone. Workbenches had become barricades. Bronn’s strange hybrid weapon lay shattered beside another boy’s body.
Goblins twitched on the floor, cleaved in half or skewered—but many had escaped.
“Bronn?” Thargrim called, voice cracking. “Bronn!”
No answer.
He limped across the room, searching each face, turning over corpses, his breaths growing shallower, his pace more frantic. Every heartbeat screamed he’s gone. But his son wasn’t among the dead.
Behind a collapsed wall of stone and brick, he found it—a tunnel, narrow and recently carved, descending into the deeper dark.
The mouth of it had collapsed, intentionally destroyed.
But there were tracks in the dust—signs of something dragged. Boots. Claws. Struggle.
Bronn had been taken.
Thargrim stood at the blocked tunnel’s edge, breathing hard, his axe trembling in his hand.
He had disobeyed orders. Broken holy law. And still—
Still, he had been too late.
“You were right, boy,” he whispered, staring into the black. “You were stronger than me.”
Around him, the sacred chamber stank of death. The flame of Vulkanar, once the city’s pride, flickered low—fighting to burn in a room drenched in blood and sorrow.
He fell to his knees.
Not as a captain.
Not as a Death-Forsworn.
But as a father who had failed.
Thargrim emerged from the ruined Chamber of Becoming covered in blood and soot, his expression carved in stone. Behind him, the sacred chamber lay in ruin. The corpses of the initiates, the scent of scorched iron, the collapsed tunnel—and the truth: Bronn had been taken.
He didn’t speak to the guards. He didn’t answer the parents’ desperate questions. His eyes were empty of words and full of one, single purpose.
He was met by a squad of the royal guard, who approached him not as allies, but as enforcers. At their head stood Marshal Yorin, eyes downcast with shame.
“The King requests your presence… immediately.”
Thargrim didn’t protest. He handed over his axe, the haft still wet with goblin blood. No resistance. No apology.
“Take me to him.”
In the Obsidian Chamber, far beneath the royal palace, King Reikal Thrun stood alone before the Flame Altar of Vulkanar. The ceremonial crown had been removed. His cloak was torn, one arm bound in cloth from a graze. When Thargrim entered, the guards closed the doors behind him.
For a long moment, the two stood in silence.
Reikal did not sit upon the throne.
“You broke the seal,” he said. Not a question.
“I did.”
“You defiled the most sacred rite of our people.”
“I did.”
“You abandoned your oath.”
“I did.”
Reikal turned. His voice cracked—not with anger, but grief.
“And did it save him?”
Thargrim looked down. His jaw clenched. His voice barely rose.
“No. I was too late.”
Reikal stepped closer. His gaze heavy with the weight of decades.
“Do you remember when we were boys?” he said softly. “The avalanche on the Black Stair?”
Thargrim blinked. The memory struck like a hammer.
“We were trapped for two days. You lifted a stone twice your weight to dig me free.”
“And you said,” Reikal continued, “that if I ever became king, I’d better be worth the stone I cost you.”
He smiled faintly, painfully.
“I fear I’ve failed that promise.”
“No,” Thargrim replied, his voice hardening. “But I can’t be your guard anymore. Not while he is out there.”
He stepped forward, standing tall—not as a subordinate, but as a man who had burned through the worst pain imaginable and come out the other side forged anew.
“I accept exile. I accept the judgment of the law. Strip me of name, of title, of clan. I ask only one thing in return—let me serve still. Let me go beyond our walls. Let me become what our people will one day need.”
“Let me be the first of a new vanguard. Let me be the sword in the dark.”
“Let me be the first Death Warden.”
Reikal stared at him.
He was no longer looking at a friend—but at something ancient and terrible: a father forged in fire and failure, who had lost everything yet refused to bend. A warrior without name. A soul without shelter. But not without purpose.
The silence stretched. The weight of tradition pressed down on Reikal like a mountain.
To accept this meant breaking centuries of custom, weakening the grip of the priesthood, giving power to those who chose service beyond the law.
To deny it meant breaking the last thread that bound him to the only man he trusted.
Before he could speak, the doors slammed open.
Three scouts stumbled into the room—two half-carrying the third. Their faces were ashen, eyes wild. They had run through fire and ruin to bring what they had seen.
“Sire!” one of them gasped, barely able to form words. “The eastern peaks—”
“We scouted beyond the perimeter—past the old watchposts—there’s…”
“There’s an army, my king. Not a warband. Not a raid. An army. Orcs. Goblins. Things we don’t have names for.”
“The ground shakes with every step they take. We—we couldn’t even count them all—”
The third scout vomited from exhaustion, collapsing to his knees.
Reikal paled.
Thargrim didn’t move.
“How long?” the king asked.
“Less than three days. Maybe two. They’re coming.”
The chamber fell into silence again—but this time, it was not the silence of grief.
It was the silence before the mountain breaks.
Three days before the daemon horde would reach the gates, beneath the lowest sanctum of the Obsidian Palace, the ancient chamber known as Vulkanar’s Silence was opened for the first time in over five centuries.
The room was bare of banners, silent of song, and lit only by a single brazier of black flame, said to be taken from the forge of the first king.
There, the volunteers gathered—each one a veteran, warrior, scout or smith who had lost family in the raid or who no longer believed survival lay in holding tradition sacred.
At the center stood Thargrim, no longer bearing his house sigil, his beard now bound in black iron. Behind him, seven others stood silently, ready to abandon not only their names, but their place in society.
Each warrior stepped forward, one by one, and placed their ancestral rune-stones at the base of the flame. In dwarven culture, these runes bore the bloodline, honor, and soul of their family.
“From this day forth,” Thargrim intoned, “we are not fathers, sons, or heirs. We are shadows in the stone. We are the flame that moves unseen.”
“No name. No claim. No fear.”
When his turn came, Thargrim took his own rune—marked with the line of the Ironshield Forge and the blood of Bronn—and placed it with trembling hands upon the brazier. The stone cracked, and the black flame hissed as if mourning.
“I am no longer Thargrim,” he whispered. “You may call me… Wound-Eye.”
The others followed, choosing names based on deeds, traits, or scars: Ash-Tongue, Broken-Hand, Ember-Foot, Deep-Bite, Steel-Mouth, Shade-Mane, and Hollow-Song.
Together, they donned obsidian black mail, runeless, plain, etched only with a single jagged line across the chest—a mark representing the divide between the world of law and the world of survival.
Thus, the Death Wardens were born.
Later that evening, in the royal war chamber, King Reikal faced his council.
Many of the high priests and noble clan lords stood aghast as he declared the temporary legitimization of the Death Wardens as a paramilitary force. Their mission: sabotage, assassination, scouting, and rescue.
“They are not bound by your rituals,” Reikal said, voice hard. “Not until this war is over. They serve the mountain. Not the stone tablet.”
“You undermine centuries of our law!” snapped High Rune-Priest Varnek. “This order will inspire chaos—others will follow!”
“Then let them,” the king answered. “Better chaos than extinction.”
A grim silence fell.
“And what if they fall to the same darkness we fight?” asked Lord Brenn, a noble of the upper houses.
Reikal turned to the map.
“Then they fall nameless. But they fall trying to save your children.”
No one argued again.
By torchlight, the Death Wardens gathered at the collapsed tunnel Thargrim had found—the one the goblins used to retreat with the abducted initiates.
Repaired hastily by engineers working tirelessly, the tunnel was now barely large enough for movement. But it was functional. And beyond it… the unknown.
Thargrim—now Wound-Eye—stood at the mouth of the descent, fully armored in black steel, his axe sheathed in silence, his eyes burning.
“Our mission is twofold,” he said. “We find the boys, or what became of them. And we take the heads of every cursed wretch who stands between them and us.”
His voice was no longer that of a royal captain.
It was the voice of the dark flame.
“We return in three days. Or we don’t return.”
One by one, the Death Wardens entered the narrow path into the black belly of the earth, each vanishing like a flame caught in wind.
Above them, the mountain groaned.
And far away, the sound of drums began to echo through the caverns—deep, rhythmic, inhuman.
The daemon army was marching.
For two days, the Death Wardens pushed deeper into the earth.
The tunnels twisted like veins of corruption through the ancient stone, lined with damp moss and the stench of rot. The walls, once etched with dwarven mining records and ancestral runes, were now defiled with warped sigils, burned into the rock by sickly green flames. These were marks not of artisanship, but of blasphemy.
Wound-Eye — the name Thargrim now bore — led the company in absolute silence. Each step was measured, each breath shallow. Their only light came from blades laced with dark enchantments — forged in the broken forge-altars of Vulkanar, designed for those who had given up their names.
They passed makeshift altars made of bone and blood. Tools made from dwarven limbs. Signs that the enemy did not simply kill — they repurposed.
On that night, they encountered the first abominations.
The goblins who emerged from the shadows were not like those known to surface wars.
They were taller, broader, with eyes like milky orbs and veins pulsing with green corruption. Their limbs were muscular, their posture unnervingly upright. But the most horrifying detail were the twisted runes seared into their skin — runes that mimicked dwarven craft, but bent and blasphemous, as if a mad god had redrawn their meanings.
“They have dwarven blood…” murmured Ash-Tongue, voice tight with horror.
“No,” spat Steel-Mouth, “they’re something else. Something stolen.”
The battle was violent and disorienting. These creatures fought like dwarves, with discipline and strength, yet with the savagery of goblins. When slain, their bodies melted into pus and ash, as if they had no right to remain in this world once unmade.
Wound-Eye’s axe split skulls, but with every fallen foe, a seed of dread grew.
They were making these things.
They followed the tunnels until they reached what must once have been an ancient hall — a cathedral-like vault, now desecrated beyond recognition.
At its center stood a massive pit of rotting corpses, some still twitching, others breathing in ragged moans. The walls pulsed with sick green light. On broken pillars, effigies to Thanarok had been erected — made from bones and dwarven armor, bound by sinew and rusted chains.
Surrounding the pit, scores of hybrid creatures knelt in mindless worship. Warped goblins. Orcs clad in black armor etched with the cruel runes of Mordhekan. And worst of all — dwarves, or what remained of them: slack-jawed, chained, branded with rune-burns across their faces.
“They’re turning our people,” whispered Shade-Mane. “One by one…”
“This isn’t war. It’s… harvesting,” said Hollow-Song.
Wound-Eye gave the order: no wide engagement. Observe. Map. Kill only what stands in your way.
The Death Wardens crouched in the shadows of the defiled chamber, half-hidden behind collapsed statues and decaying bones. The stench of rot mixed with molten iron, and every flicker of the sickly green fire cast monstrous silhouettes on the walls.
Then it happened.
From a side corridor, a group of armored abominations marched into view — larger, stronger, more disciplined than the slavering beasts worshipping at the pit. These were dwarves once. Now… twisted constructs of flesh and iron, shaped by cruel hands and warped rituals.
And leading them…
Wound-Eye froze.
He knew that gait. That hesitation in the left foot. That slope of the shoulders. That half-forged weapon on the back — the hammer fused with a shield, still bearing the shape of something proud and impossible, now twisted and deformed.
His hand lowered.
His breath stopped.
“Bronn…”
One of the creatures staggered in mid-step, as if the word had struck something deep. Its head turned with painful slowness. Its mask — fused to the face with metal seams — hissed and cracked as it tilted.
And then came a sound.
A voice not meant to speak anymore.
A whisper that scraped against the soul.
“Faa…ther…”
Wound-Eye stepped forward, his brothers calling after him in hushed horror.
“Wait—no—”
But he was already walking. Drawn like a blade from its sheath.
“Bronn. I’m here. It’s me. You’re safe now, lad.”
The creature trembled, its runed fingers twitching as if resisting invisible strings.
“It… hurts. Father… it… hurts so much…”
“Come back to me. Please. Fight it.”
Wound-Eye removed his helmet, his face soaked with tears, eyes burning.
“You’re stronger than this, son. You’re mine.”
The creature reached out — not to strike, but to touch. For a moment, it was as if a soul flickered within.
But then, the other hybrids turned.
The chamber awoke.
With a guttural scream, one of the hulking orc-commanders barked in Daemonic Tongue. The creatures surged forward.
“To me!” shouted Wound-Eye. “Form the blade!”
The Death Wardens dropped their torches and closed ranks, forming a crescent around the center of the hall. Blades of obsidian and darkfire clashed against bone and corruption.
The twisted dwarves attacked with terrifying precision — they remembered tactics, flanking, formations. But they felt no pain. No fear.
Bronn turned too.
He screamed — a sound between agony and rage — and charged his father. Wound-Eye parried once, twice, each clash of their weapons like a hammer driving nails into his soul.
“Stop… please… fight it!”
“I’m not… me…”
And then, the words that broke him.
“It’s still me… Please… let me go.”
It was begging.
“End… it.”
Wound-Eye drove his axe into his son’s chest.
The creature dropped to its knees. As its breath fled, it whispered once more.
“Thank… you…”
And collapsed.
Wound-Eye screamed into the void — a raw, primal roar — then rose, face dead of emotion.
“Burn it all.”
With warcries echoing, the Death Wardens fell into retreat formation. Ember-Foot and Hollow-Song planted blackfire charges on the support pillars. As the Warden line withdrew under waves of advancing enemies, the chamber began to collapse in thunder and ash.
The pit, the altar, the grotesque hybrids — buried under stone and flame.
They sprinted back through the tunnels, wounded, bloodied, burned, with Wound-Eye carrying the shattered handle of Bronn’s forge-weapon — the only piece that hadn’t turned to sludge.
Behind them, the mountain screamed, and the echoes of war-drums resumed.
They had learned what they needed.
But they were late.
By the time the Death Wardens emerged from the hidden tunnel beneath the forge-tier, smoke already filled the upper halls. The city was on full alert. Bell-horns called every warrior to arms.
Wound-Eye approached the king’s chamber without removing his armor. He entered the war room, helmet still on, blood still fresh on his pauldrons.
King Reikal stood by the war-table, surrounded by captains.
When he turned, his face twisted in silent horror.
“You’re late.”
“They took our sons,” Wound-Eye said. “And they’re turning them into weapons.”
He tossed the broken handle of Bronn’s creation onto the table.
“We buried them under a mountain of fire. But it won’t stop what’s coming.”
Reikal clenched his fists.
“They’re here.”
Wound-Eye looked toward the ceiling, where the faint rumble of siege towers and distant roars echoed through the stone.
“Then let them come.”
“Death Wardens,” he turned to his brothers. “Armor up. We make our stand above.”
When the daemon host arrived, the world itself seemed to shudder.
The mountains trembled under the march of ten thousand war beasts. Siege towers of black iron creaked with infernal gears. Goblin sappers scuttled through the outer cliffs like locusts in the stone. Orcish warbands, branded with the runes of Mordhekan, howled beneath banners woven from skin.
Above it all, a corrupting mist swept over the peaks — the silent touch of Thanarok, blighting the rock itself.
Ghor’Nazruk stood.
The gates were sealed. The catapults roared. Thousands of warriors stood shoulder to shoulder atop obsidian walls, singing the battle-chants of their forefathers.
And when the first wave struck, the dwarves met it with steel and fire.
But it would not be enough.
While the surface burned, a darker assault unfolded below.
From forgotten shafts and ancient mineroads, daemon-forged goblins and twisted dwarves emerged in waves, ambushing patrols and igniting inner districts in flame. No line was safe.
Every night, another street fell.
Guards were stretched thin. Civilians barricaded their homes with furniture and prayers. The Death Wardens, immune to tradition and mercy, became the only force able to intercept, assassinate, and sabotage deep within the city’s infected zones.
Wound-Eye fought on four fronts in three days, never sleeping, never speaking outside commands.
By the seventh day, the city was a bleeding fortress, besieged from the outside and rotting from within.
In the Citadel Hall, King Reikal stood before the great war-table, watching his realm carved away inch by inch. The mountain screamed. The people wept. The walls cracked.
“They are dismantling us,” he said to Wound-Eye, his voice hollow. “Not with fury. With patience.”
“The reinforcements won’t arrive in time,” Wound-Eye answered. “Even if they come, they’ll find bones and ash.”
Reikal’s hands trembled. His beard was singed. His armor dented from the last defense at the second wall. He stared at the miniature of Ghor’Nazruk carved into the stone table.
“This city was our crown. Our pride. If we leave it… we abandon our soul.”
“Better a soul with breath than a crown of corpses,” Wound-Eye replied coldly.
A long silence.
Then the king whispered:
“Do we have a path?”
Wound-Eye nodded.
“We found a forgotten channel beneath the third forge-tier. Old lava tunnels. Deep. Stable. We can move our people.”
“How long?”
“Six days. Five if we’re lucky. The Wardens will secure the route.”
Reikal exhaled. His shoulders dropped, heavier than they had ever been.
“Then begin the evacuation.”
The message went out in secret. Families packed silently, holding onto heirlooms and hopes. The Death Wardens cleared the path inch by inch, sealing doors behind the convoys to slow the pursuing filth.
But the warriors remained.
Reikal would not leave. Nor would his captains. Nor Wound-Eye.
As the people fled, the king retrieved the weapon of legends: the Hammer of Vulkanar, now reforged and awakened by the high priests in desperation. Its head shimmered with golden runes, weapons forged from divine flame, fueled by the wrath of an entire people betrayed by the god of war.
“We’ll buy them every hour,” Reikal said, strapping the hammer to his back. “With our bones, if we must.”
“No name. No retreat,” said Wound-Eye. “Until the last gate falls.”
On the twelfth day, the outer walls collapsed.
Daemon siege-beasts, massive constructs of flesh and iron, shattered the obsidian barrier with coordinated strikes. The enemy poured in.
What followed was not a single battle — it was a war of attrition waged street by street, hall by hall.
Fires raged through the market tiers. Sacred halls were flooded with poison mist. Noble houses became bunkers, then crypts. Corpses of defenders were used as barricades. And always — always — came the sound of drums, and whispers from the fog.
The defenders split into cells, commanded by wardens, captains, and iron-blooded veterans. Each zone became a fortress, defended to the last dwarf.
The Citadel Hold was the heart of the resistance. Reikal led charges himself, his hammer breaking daemon armor with a single blow. Each swing burned brighter. Each step grew heavier.
By the fifteenth day, only four districts remained.
The enemy had begun resurrecting the fallen — not as soldiers, but as corrupted mockeries, sent to demoralize those still fighting.
“We are running out of time,” said Ember-Foot.
“Then we’ll hold it by the throat,” Wound-Eye answered.
Days after the first assault, the Citadel Hold was silent.
Not the silence of peace — but the kind of silence that only comes before ruin. The last hundred of warriors of Ghor’Nazruk rested where they could: beneath cracked pillars, beside cold forges, among the bodies of brothers too tired to bury.
Eyes hollow. Wounds untreated. Armor barely mended.
But none had abandoned their posts. Not one.
Wound-Eye stood alone atop the eastern balcony, where once the banners of the clans fluttered above celebrations of new forges and newborns. Now the wind carried only ashes and distant screams.
Behind him, King Reikal approached, wearing his royal breastplate, battered and blackened, the Hammer of Vulkanar slung across his back.
“Even the forge-fires are silent tonight,” the king said.
“They burned too hot for too long,” Wound-Eye replied. “Like us.”
They stood together, side by side as they had in their youth — two boys who once dared climb forbidden stairs to see the sunrise over the stone peaks. Now they watched the embers of a dying world.
“I’ve been thinking,” Reikal began, “about the first time we fought side by side. That goblin nest near the River Cinder.”
“You nearly lost your foot to a trap,” Wound-Eye said.
“And you carried me half a mile to safety.”
“No,” Wound-Eye corrected. “I threw you into a cart and cursed you the whole way.”
Reikal chuckled — the first true sound of joy in days. But it faded quickly.
“This was never supposed to be our end, Thargrim.”
Wound-Eye didn’t correct the name.
“It’s not the end,” he said. “Only… a new carving in the mountain.”
Reikal sighed, deeply.
“You were always the better of us,” he said. “Fiercer. Sharper. I had the crown, but you… you had the weight.”
He reached into his belt and drew a sealed letter, marked with the royal sigil and the sacred rune of the Dwarf-Kings’ Council.
“If I fall… if this truly is the end… I need you to do what I cannot.”
Wound-Eye took the letter slowly.
“What’s in it?”
“A call. Not to vengeance. But to unity. I’ve written to the other kings, but also beyond. Elves. Humans. Gnomes. Even the beastkin. If the Daemons can twist goblins, orcs, and even dwarves… then we can no longer afford pride. We must unite.”
Wound-Eye blinked slowly.
“They will spit on this, Reikal. Spit on your name.”
“Then they spit on my grave. But you will carry the truth. You must. Not as my guard. Not as my brother. But as a son of the mountain. Swear it.”
A long silence.
Then Wound-Eye bowed — not in formality, but with reverence and grief.
“I swear it. On stone. On forge. On my son’s grave.”
Reikal placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Then all is not lost.”
Moments later, a captain approached, bloodied and panting.
“My king. They’ve breached the lower cistern. The main gate won’t hold another hour.”
Reikal nodded.
“Gather them. All of them.”
Within the Hall of Stonehearts — the final bastion — the last defenders of Ghor’Nazruk stood in a broken circle. Some wore full armor. Some wore none. Some held family blades; others gripped mining picks or forge hammers.
They were not soldiers anymore.
They were dwarves.
And before them stood Reikal Thrun, King of Iron, Hammer-Bearer, Last Flame of Ghor’Nazruk.
“Brothers. Sisters. Sons of stone.”
His voice echoed through the hollow space, louder than the war drums outside.
“The enemy claws at our doors. They scream for our flesh. They hunger for our souls. They say this is our doom.”
He lifted the Hammer of Vulkanar, and the runes along its head burned with golden fire.
“But listen! Listen to your hearts! Listen to the mountain!”
“We do not fall screaming. We do not die forgotten. We stand, and we burn so that others may live. Let the tales be told! That Ghor’Nazruk was not broken — it was sacrificed!”
“Fight, not to survive — but to carve a space for our people in legend. For every fallen brother. For every stolen child. For every flame extinguished.”
He slammed the hammer against the stone floor.
“When they break through, show them we are not ashes. We are fire!”
And the warriors roared. A final time.
The doors began to tremble.
Daemon hounds howled beyond. Runes of unmaking glowed red through the cracks.
The Death Wardens flanked the entrance. Wound-Eye stood to the king’s left, blade in one hand, oath in his heart.
The stone cracked.
Then, the final charge began.
And Ghor’Nazruk burned.
The gates of Stonehearth Hall shuddered one last time. With a thunderous crack and a gust of corrupted air, they collapsed inward, crushed beneath a siege-titan’s cleaver forged from daemon bone and molten metal.
And the enemy flooded in.
Orcs bearing the mark of Mordhekan — flesh engraved with brands that bled with every heartbeat — charged first. Behind them came goblin hybrids, twisted dwarves, and hulking daemon-warped beasts. Smoke and screams followed.
But the dwarves stood.
Eighty-seven remained.
Some too wounded to lift a weapon. Some blinded. Some already bleeding out. But they stood.
“No name. No fear,” the Death Wardens growled.
“For stone! For forge!” the others roared.
And they met the tide.
The battle was not elegant. It was savage, intimate, and filthy. Blades clashed with teeth. Shields were shattered under claws. Helmets cracked like clay under warhammers.
Wound-Eye fought as a revenant — an echo of vengeance. His axe sang as it tore through goblin flesh, severed heads from shoulders, and dug into the bones of traitor-dwarves who screamed in forgotten tongues.
But even his fury was not enough.
The enemy was endless.
Dwarves fell, one after another — crushed, burned, consumed. Friends died beside each other without time for last words.
Until a deep horn blew through the shattered hall, and a silence fell like death’s cloak.
Through the smoke strode a giant.
Twice the height of a dwarf, thick with sinew and daemon armor, bearing a twin-bladed greataxe and wearing a crown of broken dwarven helms. His skin was scorched black, veins glowing beneath like magma.
His voice was a growl in perfect Dwarvish.
“I am Varkhul the Binder, born of Mordhekan, forged in Thanarok’s pits.”
“You have fought well, sons of stone. But the fire is dead. You will kneel now — or burn like your king.”
He pointed the axe at Reikal.
“Come then, false king. Let us finish your song.”
King Reikal stepped forward, alone, drawing the Hammer of Vulkanar.
“You speak our tongue, monster. But you do not understand it.”
He raised the hammer high.
“Each word is a legacy. Each swing is a prayer.”
And they clashed.
The sound was like gods battling beneath the earth — hammer against axe, fire against rot. Sparks flew, stones cracked, and warriors on both sides were thrown back by the sheer force of their duel.
Varkhul was relentless, pressing the king with brute strength and cruel speed. He laughed with every strike.
“Where are your runes now, king? Where is your god?”
Reikal bled from a dozen cuts. His armor cracked at the chest. The hammer grew heavier with each block.
But he did not yield.
Varkhul knocked the king to his knees with a blow that dented the floor. He raised his axe high for the final strike.
“I will wear your skull as my crown.”
Reikal looked to the surviving dwarves — barely a dozen still standing, Wound-Eye among them.
He whispered one final time:
“Vulkanar. Forge me into your fire.”
He stood, lifting the Hammer of Vulkanar with both hands, and with a war cry that shattered the stone around them, he charged.
“FOR THE FLAME!”
The hammer blazed like the heart of the sun.
The impact struck Varkhul in the chest — and fire erupted from the blow, a storm of divine heat and molten fury. The daemon general screamed as his body ignited from within, runic armor melting, soul torn from flesh.
The explosion consumed half the chamber.
The last of the invaders were vaporized. The pillars cracked. The ceiling groaned.
And when the light faded—
King Reikal was gone.
Only the hammer remained, glowing white-hot, embedded in blackened stone.
Wound-Eye, coughing smoke and blood, stumbled forward.
He knelt before the hammer, pressing his forehead to it in silent grief. Then, with trembling arms, he lifted it.
“Your fire lives on.”
The surviving Death Wardens gathered the last defenders — only twelve still breathing — and made for the escape route, dragging the wounded.
Behind them, they planted blackfire charges, enchanted to bring down the very foundation of the entrance of the Citadel.
As they reached the end of the lava tunnels, Wound-Eye turned for one last look.
Ghor’Nazruk — the City of Flame, Jewel of the Deep — stood silhouetted in the distance.
He whispered:
“Stone remembers.”
And pressed the trigger rune.
The tunnels collapsed in a thunder that echoed through the mountains. The smoke plume was seen from a dozen leagues away.
Ghor’Nazruk was lost.
But in the dark, the fire remained — in the hands of Wound-Eye, bearer of the Hammer of Vulkanar, and the letter that would change the fate of all Astravara.
The war was far from over.
But the flame had been passed.
The road to Durath’Khar was long, cold, and cruel.
The last survivors — twelve in all — marched in silence through the Deepways, the hammer of Vulkanar clutched in Wound-Eye’s arms like a dying ember. Behind them, the tunnels groaned with the weight of destruction.
Three days into their march, they encountered the reinforcements.
Five companies of iron-clad warriors stood in grim silence as the survivors approached. When they heard the words — “Ghor’Nazruk has fallen” — even the bravest among them lowered their weapons.
“Too late,” said Wound-Eye, without blame.
The commanders bowed their heads. Quietly, they began placing defensive bulwarks in the deeper passages, not to reclaim what was lost, but to contain what now stirred beneath.
Durath’Khar, the Mountain Jewel, greeted them not with celebration, but with silence.
Word had spread.
When the gates of Durath’Khar opened, the sight that met Wound-Eye and his surviving Death Wardens was not one of order or preparation.
It was a city unraveling under silent fear.
The plaza outside the inner gate overflowed with refugees — miners, artisans, mothers with infants swaddled in soot-stained cloth. They had fled the outer settlements when word of Ghor’Nazruk’s fall reached the sentries. Now, huddled against stone walls under makeshift tents, they wept, murmured prayers, or sat in silence too exhausted to mourn.
Children cried from hunger. Healers wandered with empty satchels. Some carried the wounded on planks, their blood trailing across ancient stone as they passed murals of dwarven victories now long-forgotten.
Soldiers lined the perimeter, but they too were uneasy. Their eyes darted toward the tunnels behind the arriving Wardens, half-expecting the daemon horde to emerge from the dark at any moment.
When Wound-Eye and the other eleven approached — armored in blackened mail, weapons broken, blood-crusted, dragging the Hammer of Vulkanar — a hush fell across the square.
The people parted.
A girl dropped a toy shaped like a pickaxe. A mother clutched her son tighter.
The Death Wardens were specters — not heroes.
And Ghor’Nazruk was no longer a city.
It was a funeral name.
The survivors were brought directly to the Throne of Ironflame, a great council chamber carved into the heart of Durath’Khar’s highest peak. The air smelled of incense and old oaths. Eight thrones encircled a fire-pit fed with runes of truthlight — a fire that had not dimmed in over a thousand years.
The kings were assembled: monarchs of the Seven Strongholds, each dressed in ceremonial armor, some decorated, some weathered by age. Thurog Durn, High King of Durath’Khar, presided from one of the central seats. His gaze was heavy with the burden of what he feared had come true.
Wound-Eye stood alone in the center, the Hammer of Vulkanar slung across his back, a letter clutched in his gauntleted hand.
He removed his helmet.
His hair was gone. His face was burned. His eyes hollow — and yet beneath it all, unbroken.
“My name… is Wound-Eye,” he began.
“But I was Thargrim. Captain of the Iron Guard. Shield of Reikal, King of Ghor’Nazruk. And I carry his last words.”
He placed the hammer and letter before the council.
“The city is gone. Our kin are ash. The walls we thought eternal have been swallowed by darkness.”
“I bring not warning. I bring witness. I saw our sons twisted into beasts. I saw Reikal die with the hammer in his hands. And I tell you now: they are coming for us all.”
The kings stirred. Some whispered. Others clenched their thrones. One demanded, coldly:
“Why should we believe you? You wear no house crest. You claim no name.”
Wound-Eye turned to face them all.
“Because I buried my son with my own hands, and what he had become should never be seen again.”
“Because your cities still burn hearth-fires while ours were devoured from within.”
“Because Reikal — your brother in stone — gave his life so that I might bring you this.”
He held up the sealed letter, then slammed it down beside the hammer.
“He asks not for vengeance. He begs you to set aside old grudges. To look beyond dwarves. To the elves, to the humans, even to the wild tribes of the beastkin.”
“They are flawed. So are we. But alone, we will fall like Ghor’Nazruk.”
The firepit crackled.
The council sat in stunned silence. For the first time in living memory, the hall was not a court of law or lineage — but a tomb of pride.
Thurog Durn rose slowly from his throne.
He picked up the Hammer of Vulkanar, cradling it in arms that had once trained with Reikal in their youth.
“This… was never meant to be seen here,” he whispered.
Then, to the others:
“What more proof do we need? One of our own cities is gone. Our blood runs on the stone, and the horde beneath still grows.”
“The Daemons are united. If we are not… we are dead.”
There were murmurs. One king wept. Another stood in solemn agreement.
At last, Thurog declared:
“We will honor Reikal. We will answer the fire.”
That evening, the Sacrosanct Inquisition of Divine Flame was born — not as a kingdom’s decree, but as a necessity for survival.
Riders and skyships were dispatched to elven Viridiana, to human Eldoria, to the gnomes of Ravelspire and the halflings of the Westfold.
Messages were carried by embers in rune-sealed steel, bearing a call not to kneel to dwarves — but to stand with them.
The dwarves knew they would be viewed with suspicion. But pride was no longer their greatest trait.
Now, it was resolve.
In the following days, messages were forged in gold, sealed in obsidian, and carried on gryphons and riders to the far corners of the world.
The dwarves, ever proud and cautious, still viewed the other races with wariness:
The elves, with their ancient arrogance.
The humans, ever-changing and untrustworthy.
The gnomes, clever but selfish.
The halflings, too peaceful to be roused.
The beastkin, fragmented and wild.
But pride had a new rival: necessity.
Astravara had seen its first great fall. The war had only begun. And if the fires of creation were to endure, they would have to burn as one forge.
In the depths of Durath’Khar, as dawn rose over a world forever changed, Wound-Eye stood before a newly built statue of King Reikal — hammer raised, eyes set on the east.
And he whispered:
“You burned so others would stand. I will carry your flame.”
That evening, the Sacrosanct Inquisition of Divine Flame was born.
In a quiet hall, lit only by the golden light of forge-fires, Wound-Eye watched as young scribes penned copies of the king’s letter. The hammer rested beside him, its glow faint now, but steady.
An acolyte approached, hesitating.
“Sir… what should we tell the elves? The humans?”
Wound-Eye stood, back straight despite the pain.
“Tell them that Astravara is burning.”
“And if they do not help us, then soon they will burn with it.”
The Song of Ghor’Nazruk is ended.
But the War of Flame and Shadow is only beginning.
Chronicles of Astravara 
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