Morning broke with a brittle chill. The mist still hung in the ravine like an old habit refusing to lift, but the hearth inside the homestead crackled with new life. Stronric stood by the table, shirtless save for the bandage across his ribs, his skin still streaked faintly with the grit of yesterday's dig. He stared at the stones he had mined, four jagged shards, now cleaned and laid out like sleeping blades upon the stone table.

Each one still whispered. He could not hear them, not quite, but he felt them. A breath behind the ear. A weight behind the breastbone.

Dovren entered the room in silence, or near enough, his translucent robes did not rustle, and his feet made no sound, but a breeze always seemed to follow him, as if the room itself shifted to accommodate the ghost.

"You didn't sleep," he observed.

Stronric grunted, arms crossed. "Didn't need to."

"You will," Dovren said mildly. "Rune carving isn't just craft. It's strain on mind and muscle both. But today, we won't be carving those." He nodded toward the four resonant shards. "We start smaller."

Stronric raised an eyebrow. "Thought ye said the stone remembers."

"It does," Dovren replied. "Which is why you mustn't teach it to remember failure."

With that, he drifted toward the back wall. A shelf built into the stone bore several decaying scrolls, a broken scale, and a small ironwood chest. Dovren reached for it, hesitated, his hand hovering over the lid as if bracing himself, then opened it with care.

Inside, nested in cloth worn soft with age, lay a set of carving tools. Not the miner's pick and chisel from before these were finer, smaller, elegant. A narrow engraving chisel with a hawk-feather grip, a burnishing hook of polished bone, a metal point stylus with a hollow tip, etched with tiny runes of its own, a grinding block, shaped like a rune stone itself, and last of all, a folded square of thick vellum sketches and stencils marked on it in a hand long faded but still precise.

Dovren set the chest gently on the table and opened the cloth, revealing each tool like a relic.

"These were once… important," he said.

Stronric didn't ask. He felt the weight in the words.

Dovren pointed to the stylus. "This is for sketching runework. No rune begins with the chisel. It begins with the line. Inkless, drag the tip across stone, and it will leave a memory the rock can feel, but not see."

He pointed to the feather-handled chisel. "Once the lines are right, you cut shallow. Never all at once. Runes are not trenches. They're veins. Too deep and you bleed the meaning out."

Stronric studied the tools, nodding slowly. "And the burnisher?"

"Ah," Dovren smiled faintly. "That's the gentle part. You polish the line. Feed it heat, breath, and pressure. You convince the rune it belongs."

Stronric snorted. "Convince rock?"

"If you're lucky," the ghost said, "you don't force a rune into stone. You introduce it."

The dwarf rubbed his jaw, gaze returning to the sketching vellum. "So what do I learn first? What rune?"

Dovren turned the vellum over, revealing a grid of crude symbols, curved lines, sharp angles, dots and anchors, each marked with faded dwarvish script beneath. He tapped the first row.

"These are foundation runes. Not the ones that hold power, but the ones that hold structure. Anchors, hooks, stabilizers. Without them, even a simple light rune will collapse. You'll begin by carving 'Rin-kor.' It means Stillness. It's what holds everything else in place."

Stronric raised a brow. "Stillness?"

"You're not carving fire yet," Dovren said. "You're learning to hold still. To make something last."

The Stronric exhaled slowly and nodded. "Alright then. Let's learn to make it stay."

Dovren nodded at Stronric, "Head into the yard. There are stones enough for practice. By the door, you'll find pieces my last student carved before he left. Sometimes one must be alone to understand what it means to be still."

The sun barely pierced the mist, but the sky had brightened enough for work. Stronric stepped outside with the rune tools bundled carefully under one arm and a handful of practice stones nestled in a wooden bowl. The yard was damp, the moss slick underfoot, but the stone bench near the old fence was dry enough to sit.

He set the tools out in a neat row stylus, chisel, burnisher, cloth then placed the stones beside them. Not the deep vein shards, not yet. These were creek stones and garden castoffs, unremarkable and unimpressive, but they'd do for practice.

The first stone was wide and flat, about the size of his hand, pale gray with a thin fracture line across one edge. He ran the stylus gently across it, tracing the rune Rin-kor, three anchor lines, one vertical stroke, and a pair of dots at the lower corners. Simple in form, Dovren had said, but its power was in precision.

Stronric's brow furrowed. Every rune had to be correct in scale, spacing, and rhythm. Not just the symbol, but the intention behind it. Dovren had called it "binding stillness to the world." Stronric didn't know what that meant. He only knew that his hand had to hold steady.

He exhaled slowly and pressed the stylus to the stone. It hissed faintly as it dragged, leaving no mark, only a shallow memory the stone could feel. Stronric gasped when he lifted the Stylus. He felt his soul being drained, the feeling was more intense than when he activated his abilities. Stronric swore a curse under his breath.

"Of course, I was a fool to think that there would be no cost to carving runes."

Stronric mentally entered his inner forge, walking over to the forge he picked up flint and iron and struck the forge alive. As his inner forge began to wake he took a forge shovel and shoveled the old debris out placing it in a bucketHe

He had been too drained and busy in the dungeon to use his inner forge and coming back now he could see his neglect. He went to the forge, picking up flint and iron and struck the forge to life. He lit a small fire in the corner and set to work cleaning. He shoveled out the old debris of the forge, placing it in a bucket. A hand brush appeared in his hand, and he set to work sweeping the forge's hearth and removing the ash from the forge. Once satisfied, Stronric rotated the lit coal over to the cleaned area and added fuel to build the fire. As the fire built to form his coal bed, he cleaned the area where he started the fire. The bucket that held the ash and waste disappeared along with the hand brush as Stronric felt satisfied with the state of the forge. He again added more coal and wood to the building fire before he sat back and clapped his hand. He returned to the outside world. The breath he took as he opened his eyes was steadier. The cold of the mist returned to his skin, but the heat of the forge still lingered behind his ribs.

He reached for the chisel; his fingers curled tightly around the grip and his knuckles whitened. He lifted the hammer and the ting of metal on metal rang thought the air.

The first strike was too hard.

A sharp crack split the stone in two, right through the line he'd drawn. He blinked, surprised not at the failure, but at how easily it had come and gone. There was no resistance, no warning, just a snap and the rune was gone. Stronric felt the pull of his soul's energy, but the inner forge quickly recovered.

He stared at the fragments, then sighed and tossed them into the weeds beside the bench.

The second stone, he was gentler. Although he was careful, he rushed the vertical stroke. The line skewed at the end, tilting just off-center, throwing the anchor dots out of symmetry. He tried to correct it by pulling the blade lightly to even the stroke. The blade caught and skipped causing the whole cut to waver. Another ruined rune. He frowned and placed the stone beside the first.

The third stone, he approached too forcefully again. His grip was tighter, his jaw clenched, and he held his instruments rigidly, before making his next strike. He was not angry, not yet just frustrated. It was like instead of feeling the freedom of flight he was braced for impact, hand and rigid. It dulled his ability to work fluidly and again he gouged the stone too deeply, taking out a chunk of stone along with his line. He half-heartedly tried to correct his mistake.

By the time he finished, it looked more like a broken letter than a rune.

A warrior's instinct wanted to force the cut, make it yield. That worked in battle, but it seemed it would not work here.

He set the third mistake beside the others.

The fourth stone he didn't even carve it. He held it in his palm and stared at it. Hs chest rose and fell as quiet frustration boiled just beneath the surface. He felt ridiculous sitting on a stone bench with a handful of tools, unable to get the shape of a basic rune right.

His muscles still remembered how to throw a hammer, how to split bone with an axe. He knew how to plant a shield and become an immovable wall. But here? He was fumbling with a bit of bone and feather like a beardling learning to whittle. He caught himself before growling aloud and tossed the fourth stone aside. He reached for the fifth. His hand shook slightly. Then, in the stillness, something whispered not from the yard, not from the trees or mist, but from within:

"Hold, boy. Ye think ye are stronger than a orc? The mighty Stronric able to out wrestle a troll? Ye a fool."

Not Dovren's voice. Not even his own. He felt a smack on the back of his head.

"Father?!" Stronric breathed aloud.

Another phantom smack.

"Ye gonna lose yer damned head if ye don't shape up," came the old growl. "Now get into form, loose, from yer fingertips to yer toes. The blade's sharp. Ye don't need to muscle it. There's a time for strength, this ain't it. Remember yer breath. It's like a dance, Stronric. The dance of death can't be forced. Follow the rhythm of the battle. Don't fight the song."

Stronric set the fifth stone in place. Slower this time he raised his tools. He breathed deeply, in and out. The world narrowed to stone, steel, and silence.

He took the stylus and drew the rune again. Three lines. One stroke. Two dots.

The air seemed to still around him.

He reached for the chisel, placing the blade gently. He put no weight on the tool, not yet, focusing more on the balance.

Tink.

Stronric didn't know when such a small should could make such a loud impression, but as he looked down he saw only a clean mark.

He moved to the next line. Paused. Tink.

He let each stroke settle before moving on, adjusting his grip only when the cut required it. The muscles in his arms begged to flex, to push, but he denied them, this wasn't a fight. It was a slow dance.

The final dot was made with the tip of the stylus as he turned it in his fingers just so. The tiny divot took perfectly. He ran his finger over the groove, it wasn't deep, but it was clean.

The rune was rough, uneven in depth, but it was intact. It was complete. It didn't glow. It didn't sing, but it didn't crack either.

Stronric stared at it for a long moment, then nodded once, quietly, to himself. He set it aside and picked up the sixth stone.

The next one, he carved a little better. The next one was better than the one before. By midday, a small line of rune-stones sat along the bench, some broken, and some botched. But a few, just a few, looked like they belonged. He ran his finger along the grooves of one and felt the quiet catch of stillness.

Still shallow, still uncertain, but no longer angry and no longer wrong.

A quiet shape caught his eye at the far end of the yard. The Mountain Canary stood beside a bush, head tilted, watching. The mighty bird did not look with hunger in its eyes, nor with curiosity, and Stronric realized it stood with stillness. Like a dew drop on a leave before gravity pulls it down to fall. The bird, too, stood watching, as if it understood something had begun here.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Stronric picked up the final practice stone from the bowl. The tools no longer felt foreign, and he made slow, deliberate cuts, be mindful of every stroke and line.

He was beginning to understand and speak in the stone's language. The light had shifted by the time Stronric set the final practice stone aside. His shoulders ached in that dull, forging way, not the sharp fatigue of battle, but the slow pull of effort repeated with care. He stretched his fingers, one at a time, and let out a breath that steamed in the cool air.

He needed a break. Not from the work itself but from thinking about the work.

He grabbed the woven satchel from the wall hook, slung it over his shoulder, and made his way back into the mist veiled woods. His axe remained behind. This was not a day for blood.

The trees greeted him with silence. Roots curled across old trails, and low hanging branches tugged at his hair as he ducked beneath them. He moved quietly, boots crunching over damp pine needles. Even the Mountain Canary, who had lingered at the edge of the yard, did not follow.

He wasn't sure what he was hunting for. Food, perhaps, but it seemed more likely he was still chasing the stillness of the world.

A squirrel darted through the underbrush to his right. He didn't move to strike instead he just watched as it scurried on by. Further into the woods, past a shallow bend in the terrain, he found what he was looking for—a patch of bitterroot. Its wide red veined leaves just poking through the moss. He knelt, brushing aside the debris, and plucked the thick roots carefully. He collected two handfuls, enough for a pan fry.

Nearby, he spotted wild chives and a scraggly cluster of woodmoss clinging to the rocks like forgotten beards. These he gathered as well. The rhythm of foraging settled him in a way that even rune carving hadn't yet. It didn't demand precision, only attention. No lines to follow, no invisible cost.

When the rabbits revealed themselves, a small pair chasing each other near a log, he took a knee and waited. He didn't need to run; he just needed a stilling breath.

The slingstone was swift and silent. Two clean strikes and they'd feed him another day.

By the time he returned, the satchel hung heavy with food. The sky had grown darker, though the fog made it hard to say how much. As he approached the homestead, he saw Dovren sitting on the stone bench outside, a ghostly journal hovering just above his translucent palm.

The ghost looked up, smiling faintly. "Still gathering for two, I see."

Stronric shrugged and held up the rabbits. "Force of habit."

"I hope you like bitterroot," the ghost said. "That's all this ridge grows."

Stronric dropped the satchel beside the door and sat beside him. The bench creaked under his weight. Dovren, of course, made none.

They sat in silence for a while. It was not the awkward silence of unentertained guests, it didn't hand heavy about them either, instead it was the quiet of acceptance, of understanding.

Finally, Dovren spoke. "How did the stones treat you?"

Stronric scratched his beard. "Like a drunk uncle. Swung at me more than once."

The ghost chuckled. "That means you're doing it right."

Stronric pulled a practice stone from his coat pocket and handed it over. "This one held."

Dovren hovered a hand above the carved rune. "Rin-kor. Stillness. The lines aren't perfect, but they're present. And more importantly, they're settled."

"I don't know what that means," Stronric muttered.

"It means the rune didn't reject the stone," Dovren replied. "Or you."

Stronric didn't answer at first. He watched the mist drift along the yard, curling like smoke from a pipe.

"I'm used to being good at things," he said finally. "Fighting. Reading terrain. Leading in a fight. Even when I had to learn it the hard way, it came fast. This… doesn't."

"No," Dovren said gently. "This was never meant to."

The ghost leaned back, arms crossing behind his head. "Rune Smithing wasn't made for speed. It was made for memory. It's not just the stone that remembers, but It's also you. That's why the soul stirs when you shape them. That's why you felt it."

Stronric nodded slowly. "It pulled at me. Like lighting a forge inside my chest."

"That's your soul reshaping to fit what you're building. The price of writing permanence." Dovren said his voice caring the weight of memories, Stronric couldn't understand quiet yet.

The dwarf frowned, squinting toward the line of misty trees. "Feels wrong, somehow. That carving letters should cost more than breaking bone."

"It does," Dovren said with an easy chuckle, his eye brightening again. "Because bones mend. Words stay."

Stronric grunted, seeming unimpressed by the ghost implication. "That's a grim way to say I've been carving like a beardling."

"No," Dovren said, smiling. "That's my way of saying you've carved like someone who cares."

The wind shifted slightly, carrying the scent of sage and pine through the yard. Stronric reached down and pulled a bit of moss from the bench, rolling it between his fingers.

"I don't know how long I've got," he said quietly. "My kin… they're still out there. Fighting. Bleeding. And here I am playing at runes."

"You're not playing," Dovren said sternly. "You're arming. You just don't know the weapon's shape yet."

Stronric stared at the horizon for a long time. Night crept in slow and silent, seeping into the corners of the homestead like smoke through old stone.

Dovren stood, "The night grows dark, I will be inside if you need anything Stronric."

Stronric watched for a moment as the ghost glided back inside. The old ghost was outlined by the faint glow of the embers burning in the hearth. The comfortable room was cast into the glow of warm shadows. Around him the wind whispered against the shutters. Stronric sat leaning his back against the stone wall and looked at the stones he carved earlier, before heading inside to the worktable. He laid he carved stones out in an arch around the four resonant stones he dug from earth. They were laid out like sacred relics.

He didn't know how long he sat there simply looking and listening. His fingers hovered above mined resonant stones, calloused and blackened from the day's work. He hadn't reached for them, not yet. He simply listened and let the continued silence settle. He let the breath come slow. Dovren had gone quite some time ago, retreating into one of the back rooms, either reading or letting Stronric find his own way, maybe both. It didn't matter now.

This wasn't for the ghost. It was for the stone. He reached out and touched the first shard. It was cold and sharp-edged. Its surface felt smooth but somehow unfinished, like the mountain had shaped it only halfway. The second was heavier, and it felt more grounded somehow. It felt as if it resisted his touch, subtle as it was. The third was too small. The fourth…

The fourth pulled at him, not violently or urgently, but with certainty. He set it on the table before him, cleared the tools, and unrolled the vellum guide. Rin-kor again, stillness. It was not the most powerful rune, but it was the first step. Tonight, it would be carved into something real.

Stronric lit a stub of tallow candle and set it in a stone holder to his left. Then he picked up the stylus. The iron tip hovered above the shard. He didn't touch it right away. He took a breath first and then another. He let the world fall away. It was just him, stone, and the breath of the forge in his soul.

He pressed.

The stylus slid across the stone's surface, whispering its memory into place. The lines were invisible, but they were there, etched by intention rather than mark. He moved slowly. Each choice measured and each line precise. He followed the diagram exactly. When he lifted the stylus, he felt it again—that faint, almost imperceptible tug at his soul, like someone had drawn a line through his chest and whispered, remember this.

He set the stylus down. He reached for the chisel and paused.

He could still hear his father's voice. He could feel the phantom sting of that old training smack.

"Be loose. Let the blade work. You ain't carving a grave, ye're writing a truth." The familiar voice called.

The chisel kissed the stone.

Tink.

A faint sound. The barest of grooves, but it held. It settled. Stronric exhaled through his nose and moved to the next stroke. The rhythm returned. This was not like battle or smithing, it was something in-between and more. It was something older and deeper, like tapping out the heartbeat of the stone. Each mark asked for balance. Each line bled just a touch of his soul. He could feel it draining, trickling out like sweat during the forge's heat, but now that forge burned clean. The inner furnace he'd stoked earlier held steady.

He didn't rush.

He didn't force.

He followed.

By the time the final dot was placed, the candle had guttered low. Wax pooled at its base. The chisel in his hand was warm. The shard before him glinted faintly in the firelight, nothing bright, no magical hum, but he knew something was different.

He ran his thumb across the grooves and felt a subtle resistance, like the stone had closed around the rune, cradling it rather than wearing it.

Stillness.

The room quieted more than before, as if the very air acknowledged the shape carved into that sliver of mountain bone. He stared at it for a long moment, unmoving. He knew he did not fail so he took a moment to just be present in his achievement. This was not like winning a hard-fought battle that called for shouts or glory. It was a moment of learning, of peace in completing a task seemingly outside his reach. Then, with great care, he set the shard back down, wrapped it in cloth, and placed it in a carved wooden bowl separate from the others.

It was no longer just stone.

It was a vessel.

The first of its kind.

He stood, cracked his neck, and stretched his sore arms. The hearth had cooled, but he didn't stoke it. He let the silence hold a little longer.

Before bed, he looked once more at the stone. It did not glow. It did not speak.

But in the hush that followed, Stronric felt something deep within himself settle. Like a hammer coming to rest on an anvil. He sat down again, hands resting on the table, and said quietly, "Then I'll keep carving, until I find it."

Dovren's voice came softly from the shadows, where the ghost had returned unnoticed. "Speaking of carving… you changed after the first stone. There's something radiant coming off you now. What is it?"

He asked the question lightly, almost lazily, but Stronric could tell, he was being watching closely.

Stronric hesitated, jaw tightening as he debated whether to speak the truth. Then he sucked in a breath through his teeth and let it out slow.

"I don't know exactly," he admitted. "It's… like a forge. Inside me. Some kind of other world. I can go to it inside myself. I can tend it like a smith would. I can clean it, stoke it, feed it coal and breath. I can draw in energy from around me, from life and death and shape it like I would ore and steel into something else. I can shape it into power or strength, maybe into these runes or who knows what else." Stronric ran a hand down his beard, looking at the ghost then down to the carved shard before him. "Its not so different than what we're doing here really. It's just … deeper with in me."

For a moment, Dovren's expression shifted. The aloof mask he wore cracked just a sliver. His ghostly eyes flared, blue flame swirling behind their glassy depths.

The ghost's spoke, "I've heard of something like that once, but I thought it was a myth." He continued and his voice spoke not of fear, but with wonder. "I was unable to find anything written about it, not in all my studies. Not in any of the great vaults. My family once said they knew someone who had a forge of the soul..."

Stronric didn't answer. He didn't need to.

The stone already had.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.