Nature, I would like to speak to your manager.
Or, A Tragedy of the Wind
As I work, I feel the Fire of the forge, the Earth of the iron, and the Water in which it is tempered. This is well known among Weaponsmiths. But of late, I have also felt the stirrings of Air and the whisper of Wood. Knowing that these were secrets of myself that required unlocking, I sought out Dorsha Mennanir, with whom I had become acquainted on our expedition to raise the T'skrang riverboats.
As I am a dwarf of good standing and she is a respected citizen of Throal, she accepted my request for her guidance and advice. But to earn the rights to her secrets, I had to follow up on a quest she had undertaken. There was some strangeness involved with her recent expedition to a True Air node, which her apprentice Thraggol Smeltheart had also gone to investigate.
Somewhere in the Throal mountains was an elemental in distress, and the path to that elemental involved caves that were poorly explored and inhabited by strange Storm Bats.
I gathered some of the friends I had made in my travels - Zil, for his knowledge of the Elements, Dubhan for his mastery of Magic, and Xeviouz because I am legitimately afraid of being the only front line fighter. Mock me if you will, I say it is just good sense.
The first half of our travels were uneventful, and sodden. It is the rainy season in this region and it makes for unpleasant journeys. Fortunately, the company was good.
We met with the Trolls of the Broken Spear moot who, despite their fearsome reputation, were quite reasonable (when engaged at a distance). One Hakalai No-Tooth was particularly talkative. Once I explained that we were here to clear out the Storm Bats and to give peace to an elemental spirit in distress, he was very cooperative, and gave us clear directions to the caves in question. He also warned us to avoid engaging the bats in the rain - valuable advice, indeed!
To take advantage of that piece of wisdom, we had to predict the weather. And Zil turned out to be downright oracular in this regard. He was able to predict periods of rain down to the minute. This is what it is to be a skilled Elementalist! With Zil's suggested timing, we were able to battle dry, which was good. On the other hand, we were ambushed, which was bad.
Storm Bats, indeed. How are such oddities even a thing? The bite you, but there is lightning in their maw. I am not too proud to admit that they nearly had the better of us, even without the rain. The bats had, in addition to their electric bites, stingers filled with deadly poison. And they were joined by swift and shadowy wolves. It was a close thing, but we were able to win free.
Wounded and nervous, we made camp in the rain and slept the night. It would have been a cold and lonely night were it not for the grace of Garlen, which we all felt infuse us with strength and purpose. We woke renewed, our wounds healed and our spirits ready for what lay ahead.
We found the caves as Hakalai had indicated and we ventured into the darkness. There we found truly Horrible things. Creatures that looked like 15' long snakes, but with many clawed arms and mouths that were just grinding rings of terrible teeth. Teeth that shredded armor. And the sound they made. It was barely a sound at all but rather an almost inaudible perturbation of the air. It shuddered through our bones and our bowels and left us trembling with fear.
Still, we soldiered on. Even when the Gnashers came in numbers, we soldiered on. There was a point when I thought we would be overrun. Xeviouz was wounded, I was near to fainting, and even Zil and Dubhan were blooded. But in the end, we were victorious.
In the wake of the battle, I found gauntlets well lodged in the guts of one of the serpents. And together, we found the unfortunate distressed Elemental.
It was an Air Elemental, bound in a cruel prison of crystal spikes, and had lingered there half-mad from pain for centuries. It had been caught by a Horror and marked and tortured. It asked us to free us in the only way that was possible - to kill it. And so, with heavy heart, we did.
It was a difficult and heart-breaking venture, but it is the cold water that tempers the spirit. We did what needed to be done, and once again tamed nature with the sharp edge of civilization. We are stronger for it, and the mountain area is better for it.
Now, I must attend to the studies that Dorsha has assigned me.Statistics:Posted by bronzemountain — Fri Apr 17, 2020 2:35 am
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