Bakru was born in Fife nearly a decade and a half before its fall. As he was not born within a clan and able to receive general training, Bakru was taught the technical skills and knowledge of the engineers from a young age. His mind was molded to think through diagrams and crafting schematics. While he was raised around humans and dwarves, the excitable dwarf had never seen any other races and was eager to attend the council. In his haste, the out stuck, and dreadfully hairy, big toe of his left foot rammed into a dislodged stone and sent him toppling into an expanding puddle. The splash kicked up into the air and caught a passing dwarf’s tunic. Bakru leapt to his feet and gave a hearty apology to the dwarf but was met with a deep bellowing chuckle.
“It seems there still be more rain on the stones than me, lad, so no foul was done.” Bakru’s eyes adjusted through the hazy mist drifting into the hall and noticed the knotted beard of Mert Graveltongue.
“Great Tamer, I did not realize it was you. I give you my sincerest apology if I have delayed your travel to the Council.” Bakru paused realizing that Mert had been moving in the opposite direction of the meeting chamber. “Are you not attending?” Mert shifted his weight entirely onto his twisted walking cane and tapped a pair of small cymbals on his thumb and middle finger together. A young grey eagle swooped through the mist outside and landed in the tangled knots of Mert’s grand beard. Mert made a melancholy stride over to the nearest mail pillar and scooped the eagle out of his beard.
“To Fife.” He whispered to the eagle in a voice befitting that of a morning’s birdsong. Bakru moved closer to examine what the bird had clutched in his talons but could only make out the glint of a silver chain as the creature took off like a crossbow bolt. “I would hurry if you wish to make the meeting.” Mert gave Bakru a soft pat on the side of his arm and made a brisk stride down the hall towards the Warforge.
Bakru made a sharp turn on his heels to face the Glassworks District. The entrance to the district was a towering steel doorway with mosaics of the original dwarven kingdoms adorning the frame. Light cast through the freshly parted clouds to bounce off the crown jewel of the Magistar Kaelden in the mosaic of the Whitemanes. Bakru gave the door a quick shove with his shoulder and a crimson glow cast across his figure. Smiths were heating thin cylinders of glass within large blast furnaces with the assistance lumbering constructs. Spider-like constructs carried buckets of molten metal within their gyroscopic core and scaled the walls to reach the workers in the scores of workspaces throughout the room. Plumes of smoke drifted towards the ceiling and danced in and out of the upper workspaces.
Bakru sidestepped the skittering constructs and bustling workers to make his way to a chamber in the back of the Glassworks. He pressed his thumb into a small button on the slide of his glove and a key sprung out of a mechanism on his index knuckle. The key fit into a crease between two stones and Bakru angled it until an audible click sounded behind the wall. A panel slide away from the wall and a grate platform was revealed. Bakru shimmied inside and gripped an overhanging rope. With a harsh tug, the grate opened and Bakru began to plummet down to the darkness below. A torchlight flickered softly in the eye of abyss below and Bakru focused intently on swaying side to side on the rope, skidding against the wall, as he descended to lessen the impact. As the eye of light spread to the edges of Bakru’s view, the dwarf tugged a second rope dangling from the contraption falling with him. A jet of flame shot from overhead and scorched Bakru’s amber hair to charcoal. A large tarp shot out and swelled against the walls of the chamber slowing his descent. Bakru’s foot gently tapped the cold stones below and he quickly released his grip on both ropes. A parchment was nailed beside the torch that Bakru had focused his gaze on. He dug deep into his satchel to remove a large hunk of coal and scratch a thick black line under the words, “Attempts without dying.”
The chamber had a single wooden door that Bakru could push open easily. Outside was a cramped alcove with a grated wall. Bakru pressed himself against the wall and peeked out to view the atrium below. Rows of diplomats and high-ranking specialists filled the coliseum at the base of the atrium. A marble meeting table spanned the pit of the coliseum. Bakru glanced the shining headpiece of Magistar Kaelden and beside him was Chief Engineer Phorsten with his hefty chromium arm. An enclave of Imperium Starcharters sat across them accompanying a slender archduke by the name of Varmos. Bakru could not make out the faces of any other members of the table but could hear their voices warf through the grates.
“The Selendari have yet to respond to our summons and most likely are to be considered enemies of the mountains.” Phorsten nodded in agreement of the speaker, clearly a dwarf from the booming tone.
“Sea elves never sat well with me anyways.” Kaelden grumbled as an aside to Phorsten who shook him off. “Have the final summons been made by your Great Tamer, Phorsten?”
“Aye. Graveltongue has sent out the final summons. Any not in attendance will be counted as enemies and fired upon by the ballista provided the Imperium will send a detachment or two.” Varmos nodded to Phorsten to reassure him. “Good. Then we shall have the armies of man and dwarf to fortify our position and the resources of the Plainstriders to sustain ourselves while isolated.” Bakru caught a glance at an extended talon clinking against the marble tabletop across from the dwarves.
“My ilk will bring bundles of dry goods under the mists of the Fifth Cycle and wet goods when the clouds form in the Sixth.” The speaker had a low chirp to every other word.
“And what of the enemies closing closer to your doorstep with each passing moment?” The voice was likely human and came from the rows of diplomats looking on.
“We will only stay within the halls of Northwind Cairn until the completion of our project. Once it is complete, we will be gathering as many engineers as we can and departing. Any detachments your kingdoms provide will be given priority.”
“Let them perish. The legions of my kingdom know the cost of enlistment, they live and die by the cold steel of Archaos.” Varmos handed a scroll off to the hoard of Starcharters and began inking new diagrams onto a fresh roll.
“My men are of the strongest dwarven blood, Stoneskin, and will protect any of the non-exiled clans. My army will cover the escape.” Kaelden raised his mug and took a furious sloshing gulp.
“If all goes according to plan, there will be no need for an armed retreat.” This was the voice of Regent Emberheart. “I have personally consulted with the team on the Fyrescream and the ifrits provided by the elementalist will heat the cores for an initial test.” Murmurs echoed throughout the coliseum and Era slammed her hand on the marble, leaving a scorched handprint in her wake.
“The temper of a flame dwarf knows no bounds. Era, I think it’d be best if you waited this discussion out.” Kaelden did not move his glare from the location Era must have been seated. Era clapped her hands together and chuckled deeply.
“Oh, Old King Kaelden, without my Flamespeaker ties we would have been set back months to get the cores properly and constantly maintained.”
“But can it be made profitable?” The unidentified human speaker tossed a sack of Imperium Daelus, a currency within the kingdoms of men, and severed the cord closing it with a razor sharp cutlass.
“Captain Urleno, it is impossible to tell at this stage if the process can be replicated without the usage of ifrits and we require one initial run to determine such. My understanding is that human scholars are working on rift magic and manipulation, Varmos?”
“Yes, Era. We believe that we can construct a consortium completely accessible from rifts to reduce the need for military presence in our research centers. With time, we could create permanent rifts between the capitals of all human kingdoms and their allies. However, rift magic is an unexplored field beyond rogue astronomers working with chaotic forces in the Glossenmirror.”
“So you might summon foul aberrations from beyond?” Urleno growled towards his counterpart.
“Indeed. Nevertheless, the magic at play would require an empty vessel to fill. This vessel would have to carry immeasurable amounts of power or such sheer quantity of raw energy that seeking it out could level cities.” Varmos gave a final flourishing scratch at the diagram and tossed it haphazardly backwards to his starchanters. “Might I inquire what your crown jewel is made of King Kaelden?” Varmos aimed his quill like a crossbow at the king’s jeweled circlet.
“You might inquire away but I wouldn’t likely give away that information without assurance. The fact that we all sit in this mountain means we all share a means to our goals but it doesn’t yet mean we share the same goals.”
“I merely seek to escort the good men of our combined kingdoms to safety when the savage march meets these doors. If your crown jewel contained material sensitive to aether or starscrying then we might establish a rift portal to allow safe haven.”
“We would go the way of Glossenmirror, Varmos, and you know it too. Archaos would surely bring damnation and ruin upon the halls of this fortress.” Silence gripped the council. Bakru, with his face still pressed to the grate to scan for unfamiliar faces on the council, had reached into his pocket and removed a squirming metallic creature. The dwarf had taken note of the diagram Varmos had been sketching, although with a slightly blurry vantage, and knew it to be a map of the outer sections of the mountain fortress-city. The small worm creature was a common device used by engineers and mechanist to transport information quickly across cluttered workstations or down layers in the Glassworks. Bakru murmured to the messenger that Varmos was acquiring a lay of the land and then placed it carefully on the outside of the grate. The construct quickly wiggled down the bar and made its way through the rows of diplomats and specialists and towards Phorsten. It crawled up his back and onto his shoulder without the sturdy dwarf feeling the slightest tickle.
The construct careful positioned itself over Phorsten’s ear and whispered the information it had been provided. The dwarf listened casually, attempting to appear enthralled by the argument between Varmos and Urleno over the ethics of rift magic. As the creature finished its message, Phorsten sat forward in his chair to glance at the parchments in the starcharters’ bags. He slowly leaned back into his chair and cupped the worm with his chromium hand. Three knocks sounded at the entrance to the hall and Phorsten quickly crushed the messenger on the third knock to muffle its failing servos. Bakru let out a gasp and quickly bit his tongue in a panic to stay quiet.
The massive stone doors to the coliseum swung open and Mert Graveltongue took a short hobble into the room. “Mert, have the final summons arrived?” Phorsten rose to greet the Great Tamer but found his face growing pale as the warm smell of ash rose behind the Great Tamer and tufts of matted auburn fur caught the candlelight. The glow of the flames danced off the dark tips of the fur and three pale yellow eyes pierced the darkness of the halls behind Mert.
“We’ve been betrayed.”