Legend of the Runeforger: A Dwarven Progression Fantasy

Return to Darkness 35: Insufficiency


For once, though, I find myself at a loss for what to compose. Light reveals truth, yes. But in what way? What metaphors shall I use? Also, since I am going to have to make a new rune for every single word I want to use, a heavy toll will be extracted from both my spirit and my body. I should have asked a guild member to stand by with chains and water.

But I'm in the magma now and cannot retreat. The power has already begun to flow through me; I cannot shut it off so easily.

Two sides to the blade, two stanzas. That'll be the structure, I decide. The first: how light blasts away the darkness of a cavern, revealing the precious treasures within. The second: how light shows the true power of those treasures, their color and every detail.

I begin. Each rune I create, I think of how it can be related to light, and these connotations make their way into the symbols. Each is alike to that of the first rune I made of this script, the rune for my own name: they are composed of circles and lines bursting from them. Like the surface sun and its rays, or just light shining out from a lantern.

My task is difficult. I feel that my skin is already flushing. There is water beside the anvil, which I used to quench the blade, but no one to throw it over me. This is dangerous—I make sure to control the power carefully.

My progress slows. What line to write next? The blackness is torn away by light, but what is the source? Light always has to have a source. A daycrystal? The metaphor doesn't quite fit, somehow. Perhaps a dwarf carries a lantern, or a torch. Yet how can I relate the meaning of dwarf to light? Something that sees? But my theme is of the light itself blasting away the blackness.

I relax my grip on the power a little. Usually that brings inspiration, but none comes.

I just can't think! What runes should come next? Come on, come on! There must be something. Did I spend all that time staring into brightness for no reason at all? Light shimmered on the water, showing the mosaics. It showed the buildings, the dwarves, everything. Back in the battle against the darkness, it threw that evil force away. It shone over Fjalar's hidden storeroom, revealing his innermost secrets.

A dwarf does wield the light, I decide. He rips away the darkness with his lantern like it's a black cloth. Glittering, precious gems and gold are revealed. He'll use them for his crafts, crafts which will be beacons among those of his fellows. Light to attract those frightened of the dark.

But I've written only one stanza. I haven't thought of enough material. I go back, go over the runes I've created, shift them around and add more. The light rays become stronger, the gold deeper in color, the treasured gems more complex in cut and color. The gold is all true metal, I write. The most powerful metal.

I reach the end and force the power away. But rather than trying to surge through and make one last attempt to incinerate me, it peters out like a drying stream.

The heat vanishes with it and I'm back in the forge. Sweat is dripping from me, but there's no pain. I feel like I've recovered from a heavy fever, not walked through an inferno.

My fingers have twisted the runes into being, but the reagent remains untouched. I'll have to graft them myself—or not.

For I look over the poem and decide it's worthless.

It's confused, full of mixed-metaphors, inane similes, and its overall structure can be at best be called meandering. As for the runes, they feel weak too. I pick one up. It's expertly twisted, perfect in form, yet all the same, completely lacking the strength that emanated from the runes for my name.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

I curse loudly, gather the platinum into my hand, crush, and scatter the failed letters across the room. They glint as they bounce. Useless! I've just declared myself to be the Second Runeforger—in front of a hundred runeknights who all but worship me—and these are the best I can create?

Useless!

I sit down, breathing heavily. The power in the sphere felt weak this hour. Am I losing my touch? Losing my abilities? But no, that can't be right. The runes I created in front of my guild had power. They shone with power even though they were but painted on paper, which is nothing but mashed wooden splinters.

My understanding of light is simply too poor for me to be able to create an entire poem. That's the reason for today's failure. I shouldn't be surprised, really. Looking back at my studies until now, they've been inadequate. I've peered at lanterns and armor, the bustle of a city, ordinary things, when I want to compose poetry about uncovering priceless treasures and hideous secrets from the darkest of caverns.

It's just like my first attempts at runes of ice, when I attempted to understand the material by going to an exotic eatery, of all places. Well, my armor of ice was good enough for a fourth-degree. But now I'm trying to become a first-degree.

I must find a better method of study.

The caves above the fortress and to its sides are all but unexplored. The deep dwarves, focused fully on the threat from below, rarely ventured into them—and if previous owners of the fort did, they left no maps for posterity. As a result, what lies within the web of hundreds of miles of tunnels is nearly completely unknown.

It is through one of these passages that we now walk. The only light is from my lantern, and I have adjusted its shutter so that only the tiniest brightness escapes.

This quest is to be my study. I am going to uncover the truth of a place untrodden by dwarves for who knows how many thousands of years.

"I still think," whispers Hayhek, "that we should have brought along more."

"You're the strongest we have," I whisper back. "I don't want to risk the lower degrees."

"If something goes wrong, all our best will be dead."

"So will I, and then there will be no guild. But that's not going to happen."

"Exactly," says Ithis, a little louder and with clear confidence. "With the Second Runeforger leading us, we are unstoppable. We follow a path set by destiny herself."

Ugyok and Rtayor, the two strongest from the now disbanded Salamander Coats, stay silent. They are unused to this darkness, this moisture.

Our objective is simple enough: Runethane Halmak wishes to know more about the caves threading through his realm. Thus, he's had jobs put out for mapping them. All we have to do is head along one for as long as possible, noting down any branches, ruins and other unique features we find. These will be checked by Red Anvil members later, and then we will receive a hefty sum of gold.

The further we go, the more we will earn. If we bring back the head or other distinctive body-part of something particularly nasty, we will earn a bonus.

Ithis camped out in the questing hall for many short-hours, waiting for the posting of such a quest. It wasn't he who found this job, though, but a more junior runeknight. He has several sitting in every questing hall there is, waiting for the juiciest and most enticing offers.

Gold will begin to flood in at any moment, he promises me, and I believe him. Every member of the guild is hard at work—separate groups are making their way through other tunnels.

The passage twists upward suddenly. This is something of note, and Hayhek marks it down.

"Can you turn the light up a little?" he asks. "This wall is a slightly different color."

"Where?"

"Just here."

I peer closely at it. I hold the lantern up to it, trying to imprint the colors into my vision. It's an expensive lantern, burning with a pure white, almost smokeless flame, so I am sure that the color of the wall is unaltered by it.

There seem to be patterns. I turn up the brightness and watch closely how the light expands over the wall, revealing each symbol in turn. They are not symbols, though. Just natural specks of rock, arranged through some obscure geologic process into an odd pattern.

"Nothing interesting," says Ithis. "But let's mark it down anyway."

I turn down the brightness again. I can't make things too easy for myself, I've decided. If I'm not straining, not training my eyes to see the smallest, dimmest detail, then I will have no chance at being able to compose lines where light battles fiercely against the darkness.

We move onward. The passage curves, keeps curving. We're spiraling upward.

I feel a cool rush of air and the walls vanish. There is an earthy scent here, almost like that of the surface, yet it has a great age to it. I strain my eyes but can see nothing.

Slowly, I begin to adjust the shutters of my lantern once again. The white glow expands, illuminating our new surroundings.

And what surroundings they are.

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