Dear spellbook volume 2.., p.10
Dear Spellbook, Volume 2: Wizard - A Time Loop Progression Adventure, page 10
Illunia 10th
Ferret Tal asked me to write about the events of Illunia 10th so that he can properly document the downfall of the Hardune. I suppose it is my duty to fulfill his request. I have failed the Hardune in much, but I can at least do this.
The Hardune are were a sect of dwarven society tasked with containing the threat that Primordials and beings from other realms pose to Kaltis. We aimed to embody our god in all things; as Torc gave all of himself to contain Faust in the creation of the world, we gave all of ourselves to help in the effort to keep him contained.
When the gods left and the terrors they had kept at bay resurfaced, the Hardune dealt with them to safeguard the prison. When Faust turned the Primordial of Fire into his Avatar, it was the Hardune that captured it, and it is that horror I fear will soon escape. Well, soon if time ever resumes.
My name is Dagmar Har’Tokar, and Illunia 10th was the worst day of my life.
I guess I should explain that as well. Among the Hardune, Har was my rank. I earned it at the completion of my time as an initiate under my father at the age of thirty, the youngest any Pen [1] had been raised in two generations. I grew up reading the legends of the Hardune of old. Of Haset the Binder and Kintat Stoneblooded and their battle to bind the Avatar in the face of the united forces of Faust.
I read them all and longed to partake in their grand and noble cause. Driven by that dream, I pushed myself to my limits and beyond in all the training, completing all the trials and tests put before me. I vowed to join the forces of the Hardune and push back the tide of the forsaken. I would devote my life to safeguarding the terrors they had contained. I had no equal in my studies or training, and it was expected that I would rise fast in the Hardune.
But I did not.
I joined the Hardune at thirty, and forty years later, I remained a Har. For the first decade, I tried hard and continued to apply myself, standing ready and always vigilant for the next incursion that never came. The battle lines against the forsaken were far from my assigned outpost. All of them were.
In the aftermath of the Flood, the dwarven kingdom, supported by the Hardune and the gnomes, had pushed the forsaken out of every tunnel that led to the Torack. The real fighting took place at the boundaries, where flooding remained a constant threat and the forsaken scrounged desperately to survive. Here, the elite of the Hardune and the Totin Intis [2] protected the Torack and the Torwaa Har [3] above from the forces of darkness.
The life of battle and glory I had envisioned was one for a pre-Flood Hardune. Back then, before the waters had brought low the forsaken and turned them from powerful foes to desperate scavengers, we’d been warriors. By the time I joined, the containment sites not lost to—and thus preserved by—the floodwaters were safely deep within the bounds of the Torwaa Har. When the Flood began, the children of Torc ceded all our outposts to the forsaken and retreated to what would become the Torack. While they battled over our leavings, we sealed tunnels and low mountain passes to create both the Torack and the Torwaa Har.
When the tunnels began to Flood, the Badaken [4] and his forces held the forsaken back as they scrambled to take what we had built, but sieges cannot succeed when the invaders are on a clock. When the water ceased rising and the front lines became fixed, the forsaken had no foothold to approach the united dwarven kingdom, let alone the outposts of the Hardune. With the constant threat of attack gone, the bulk of the Hardune had been reduced to an elite squad of custodians.
My service was not what I had hoped for and was nowhere near my dreams. The years of inaction ate away at me. At first I did my duty, but over time, it fell second to other calls.
Duty. What is a dwarf without duty? Duty to your brothers, your sisters, your clan, the kingdom, Torc, Bild, Kaltis. We are a people with an identity forged from responsibility and tempered by obligation. What is a little sacrifice compared to our debt to Torc? How could we resent being born to serve when Bild willingly stepped into a prison shortly after his creation? Duty is the bedrock of dwarven society, on top of which the world thrives, oblivious to our toil. To shirk one’s duty is to renounce Torc and no longer be a dwarf.
What am I, then? I should not call myself a dwarf. I failed them all.
Illunia 10th was the culmination of decades of my dereliction of duty. My watch shift to inspect the Kituh [5] wards started as usual. I unloaded the rune maintenance gear from my pack and filled it with whatever alcohol I’d managed to smuggle out of the stores; that day, I had a mushroom stout.
I rode the cart to my assigned region of the tunnel. The trip took an hour, which I spent thinking of ways I could complete my task faster in order to have more time to sit and drink. My assignment was to inspect the runes that made up the wards for damage. To do this, I had to power each ward with my Will, imbued with a diagnostic intent, and then immediately read the intent in the Will before it decayed.
Each day, the wards of the entire Kituh were inspected and repaired. All 1,214 miles of it. My task for that day was to inspect two of those miles. When done correctly, it takes eight hours and drains you entirely of your Will by the end. When done incorrectly, it takes two hours and gives you six to drink and dream of a different life.
The wards were a complicated system of detection runes that would activate defensive measures if the tunnel was breached. If the trigger was set off, that section would be sealed, and water would be allowed to flood it. In addition, the wards were embedded with runes that relayed limited communication between the Hardune outposts.
As I disembarked the cart, the Har I was relieving stood waiting to board. He didn’t give the passphrase of the day, which was “Olive Salt Ant,” but I recognized the man and just waved and walked past him. Preoccupied with not giving a flood, I didn’t notice all the red flags I now see.
How is this so clear in my memory? Tal always said his diary helped him remember. Is this what he meant? The man, Tarvi Har’Donir, looked uncertain, as if he expected me to attack him. His armor was secured loosely, not according to regulation. Tarvi was a true dwarf, proud of his charge and faithful in his duty; this sloppiness should have put me on alert. Instead, I just waved and walked on.
It took me an hour and forty-eight minutes to complete my “inspection,” a new record. Instead of performing it as required, I simply walked down the tunnel, visually inspecting the wards. Light runes on the ceiling illuminated my way. In my mind, I didn’t see the harm in performing “below protocol,” as my performance reviews called it. The next day, I would be on a different section, and someone else could check this one. No ward would fail in a day. Besides, no one had attacked the Hardune in decades.
Nothing looked amiss, so I returned to the pickup point to begin my day of drinking. After six hours of nursing my stouts, it occurred to me that something was wrong. My years of drinking on inspection duty had taught me to pace myself. Usually, when the time for pickup arrived, I had enough drink remaining for a nightcap after dinner. That day, I drank all I had and still waited for a pickup that never came.
Long-dormant instincts hammered into me over decades of training moved me to action. Among the Hardune, a cart was never late, and a watch was never missed. Even I, in my dereliction, maintained the schedules. Something was wrong. I ran down the tunnel and reached an emergency station. There, I activated a rune release and removed a four-foot square metal plate inset in the wall. Placing it on the runed path, I sat on the plate and imbued it with my Will, activating the runes.
The emergency plate lurched forward at incredible speed, and it took me only twenty minutes to return to the outpost. I stopped some distance away from the security checkpoint to approach on foot, disabling the overhead lights as I snuck along the tunnel wall. No guards were visible when the outpost came into view. Another sign of the impending disaster.
The late cart could be explained as a once-in-a-lifetime failure of redundant systems, but that coupled with the missing guards confirmed it. Something terrible had happened.
The outpost has been compromised.
I ran through the possibilities.
Is it from the surface or the Torack? Forsaken or the dragon cults? How deep are they into the outpost? Have they triggered the fail-safe? Is my boy alright?
My life as a Har had been nothing but disappointment, save for one small patch of light. A mushroom growing on the steaming pile of wombat dung that was my life.
When I was fifty-five, as any unwed dwarf is, I was paired to have a child. Ket was a Har tasked with the education of children. There was no love between us, but nor was there hate or resentment. We did our duty, and from it, I bore us a son.
Dantin was fifteen on the day of my failure. He showed the promise to do everything that was expected of me but in which I had failed. He excelled at all his lessons and longed to join the Hardune, but he didn’t seek service for the sake of glory. Dantin was a true dwarf. He sought service for the sake of duty, for he saw the fulfillment of duty as the surest route to glory.
My thoughts went to him the moment I realized the outpost had been breached. Protocol dictated that I run to report the breach to the other outposts through the communication wards, but duty hadn’t been a priority for me in years. I needed to find my son.
I retreated down the tunnel to a secret access route for the base. When imbued with the correct intent, the door opened to reveal a secret passage into the outpost. An incorrect pattern or breach would cause the tunnel to flood with water.
The secret tunnel was barely big enough for a dwarf and was unlit, but even in the pitch blackness of the deep, a dwarf can still make out surfaces. It led upward to the top floors, with doors spaced intermittently along the path, all with their own rune-locked passcodes. I ignored each door until I reached the last and highest one.
At the top of the secret passage, I listened at the door and could hear fighting beyond. I placed my hand at the ready on my sword, unable to draw it in the tight confines, and burst through the door.
Beyond, the invading forces stood with their backs to me. A dozen dark-skinned duergar stood shoulder to shoulder, locked in combat with half their number of my brothers. I looked at them and then to the left, where the tunnel led to the civilian quarters. Not for the first time that night, I shirked my duty and fled the battle to see if my son was safe.
In the months since, I’ve told myself that I agonized over the choice, but that’s a lie. I see that now, with this book’s magic. I gave those dwarves no thought; the need to find my son had been all-consuming.
Signs of fighting littered the hall as I ran. Dead dwarves and duergar alike lay everywhere, blood coating the normally immaculate stone surfaces. It pooled in perfect circles, for the ground was level, without grooves or flaws. Among the dead were soldiers and civilians who crewed the outpost.
I was now on the top floor, and the kitchen sat below. But I found a baker dead up there, a bloodied ax in her hands. While not all dwarves are tasked with the duty of combat, all fulfill it when it is thrust upon them. All save me.
Ignoring the dead, I ran down the hall to the children’s quarters. The bodies of defenders and invaders were piled high around the door, but there were no shortbeards to be seen.
Dantin wasn’t among the dead, and that was all that mattered. I’d spent the last thirty years of my life alongside each and every dead dwarf I’d seen, but the thought of grieving them never even registered, so focused was my need to find him. Even the guilt that had been my constant companion those same thirty years had been buried—temporarily, at least.
I ran through the door, breaking it from its hinges, and saw a trio of duergar holding a group of children hostage at swordpoint. Scanning their faces, I didn’t see Dantin among them. To my shame, my instinct was to turn around and leave, but one of the children made eye contact with me. I may have been a dwarf unworthy of the name, but I was still a mother, and I couldn’t allow these shortbeards to be killed.
The duergar turned to face me, aware of my presence from my destructive entrance. The first to register me as a threat threw a dagger at me. I batted the weapon out of the air with the flat of my blade and charged the trio, activating the runed head as I ran.
The first duergar lifted his pitted sword to block my swing, but the runes on my Nerestet [6] weapon cleaved through it along with his torso, bisecting him at the waist. The other two jumped back in surprise.
I released my sword, letting it fall into the gore, and threw two darts from my bandolier, powering the runes of each as I threw them. One landed true and passed through the duergar’s skull as if it were a paper lantern, embedding itself deep in the wall behind him. My aim was off on the second, but it went through the intruder’s throat, slaying him all the same, even if it took longer for him to die.
I gave the children a nod that was meant to be reassuring, but the blood on my face ruined the effect as I picked up my sword and fled. With their foes dead, I felt comfortable leaving them to their own devices.
Being dwarven children raised in a Hardune outpost, they may not have been able to fight the intruders, but they knew what to do in a crisis. Before I even left the room, they were busy stripping the bodies and accessing the secret door in the back of their room.
If my son wasn’t in his quarters, he would be in the training hall. He was always practicing something. On the way, I passed the runic communication hub. I almost ran past it, but the last shreds of my duty, or maybe my shame, compelled me to enter. The status lights on the stylized map of the Torwaa Har showed that every outpost was either red, reporting an infiltration, or yellow, signifying a broken connection.
I didn’t bother sending a call for help.
The flow control runes also lay in the room. Protocol dictated that in the event of a breach, we were to flood the fortress to prevent the flow of the river from being cut, but I had no plans to make a sacrifice of myself or my son for a greater good. With every outpost fallen, our sacrifice would buy nothing.
Instead, I went to the runes that controlled the flow of the river and set them to open completely before destroying the runes to lock them in place. The forsaken could repair the runes and block the river given enough time, but this would slow them down.
My last small act of duty.
Signs of recent violence filled the tunnel to the training hall. As I drew near, I heard combat again. Judging by the bodies on the floor, the battle had gone on for some time. Four dwarves faced off against four duergar. The dwarves were Pen but held their own against the invaders, who seemed as poorly trained as they were equipped.
I threw my remaining two runed darts, killing a duergar with each, and the Pen capitalized on the surprise of the other two to end the fight. One of the surviving shortbeards was familiar—I recognized him from Dantin’s training group.
“Where’s my boy?” I shouted desperately, scanning the faces of the dead.
One shortbeard answered as they began working on opening the secret passage, “Dantin went to help at the rail station! He knew a cargo shipment was due and wanted to warn them.”
My heart sank at the words. The outposts on either side of us were lost. Any train coming in was as likely to be foes as friends. I backtracked, running as fast as I could back the way I’d come. The dwarves I’d seen fighting when I left the secret tunnel lay dead along with most of the duergar they’d faced. I didn’t think I could feel any lower, but every moment surpassed the last.
This was the day I’d trained for, dreamed of, longed for. It had all been my fault. I’d let them in. I hadn’t raised the alarm, and now I was sneaking around as my ka [7] died.
“Flood to them,” I cursed, committing to my course. “I have a son, and there’s at least hope of saving him.”
I ran through the secret passage and exited on the ground floor, nearly sliding down the incline in my haste. The station was silent as the battle for it had already ended, and the echoes of the fight inside didn’t reach here. The signal runes warning of an inbound train were lit, and there were a dozen duergar milling about, rummaging through crates.
I saw Dantin as the air started to move, heralding the imminent arrival of the cargo shipment. He and a dozen other dwarves jumped from behind crates and charged the unaware duergar.
Dantin killed his first foe with a war pick strike to the back and was turning to his second when the train pulled to a stop and blood orcs leaped out. I was halfway to Dantin when I saw him fall to a blow to the head.
“Dantin! No!” I screamed.
Rage and grief warred within me. I wanted both to kill everything and to collapse into a ball and let them take me as well. The rage won out, and I charged the remaining duergar.
Dantin’s attacker saw me running at him and threw an ax at me. I sidestepped the throw and closed the gap. Weaponless, the duergar fell to a downward blow from shoulder to groin, my runed sword cutting through the poorly armored flesh and bone as if it were rotting fruit.
Only two duergar remained, but all the dwarves lay dead or dying. The last two closed in on me, keeping me from my boy. These were more skilled than the rabble I’d faced till now, and I couldn’t get past them. And the orcs, who only now noticed the commotion, were heading this way.
I did many things that night that still haunt me, but nothing so much as what I did next. I couldn’t get to my boy’s body, and as much as I wanted to die in that moment, something inside me refused to let them take me.
So I fled.
I ran for the tunnel I had just exited and could hear the orcs giving chase. I was near the exit when I heard the first blood orcs trying to squeeze in, but a tunnel just large enough for an armored dwarf was far too small for an orc. I made it to my discarded transport plate and could still hear the orc’s struggles echoing down the passage as I escaped into the darkness, tears streaming down my face as I wept.
At the halfway point between outposts, I got off my plate. There was an access tunnel to the Torack along with an emergency supply cache. Taking everything I could carry, I set off into the tunnels.
