What being a dwarf is all about! (Desmodus)

[Korgar Kinslammer]

Timestamp:Second Cycle in the Month of Imperos, Season of Autumn, Era XIV

The tattered silhouette of Zerdargia loomed behind him, bidding one of its many sons farewell as he trudged across the wind-swept plains, his heavy boots stamping a trail of prints in his wake. Korgar Kinslammer, the heir to the considerably downgraded Kinslammer Clan, neither looked back nor regretted the lonely road that beckoned him. Although this was his first time away from the city that he labeled home, he understood the importance of his perilous journey. It was not one inspired by necessity, but rather symbolism. As the son of the clan’s laird, Draegar Kinslammer, Korgar naturally possessed the entitlement to the family’s deeds, property, and small wealth. But respect was something that he could never purchase –not with all the mines of Zerdargia and Dargis combined.

To become the celebrated laird that his father was, Korgar needed to experience the world and all its trivialities. He was sheltered, according to his father, and unfit to be a leader so long as he loitered under the extended wing of his clan’s reputable name. But the young dwarf was determined to dispel the languid myths that surrounded him, or at least, the ones conjured by Draegar himself. He was going to be stronger than Draeger was, stronger than he had ever been. Korgar did yet not possess the wisdom that ennobled his father above many of the other dwarves in Zerdargia, but he was armed with undeniable conviction.

Classified more towards the larger end of typically-sized dwarves, Korgar also stood a head above the archetypal Zerdargian. His immense carriage, bulky and heavily muscled, was oftentimes mistaken for a blacksmith’s despite him not possessing any knowledge about metallurgy or metal-working. As a child Korgar’s colossal frame worked for him in that he was stronger and tougher than his playmates, but as he grew older it became his Achilles’ heel. Draegar was always lecturing him about his lethargy, about how he could not forever rely on sheer strength to save him from a goblin’s spear or an orc’s brain-rattling mace. “Ye need this first!” Draegar would say, thrusting a stubby finger against his temple while he admonished Korgar for not practicing his fighting skills enough.

Korgar grimaced. With his dark eyes he captured the uneven, shortened length of his frizzy black beard –complements of Draegar’s wildly swinging axe during their last practice session together. That dismal mishap reminded Korgar of the purpose of his journey to Primus Gaudeo. He was going to return to his roots, as Draegar had said, and experience for himself what true dwarven living was all about. Korgar did not know what to expect, but he knew that he would not return home until he learned what being a dwarf was all about.

[Desmodus]

Korgar's path took him West-by-Northwest along a road that skirted the northern edge of the Dolwood. For the first couple candlemarks after he set out from the dwarven ghost town, he would see very little that would motivate a name like "Dolwood", however. The land had been cleared, heavily timbered by the dwarves of the city. Then, as the walls of his ancestral home sank beneath the eastern horizon, and he made his way farther into the heart of Centripax, the terrain became more sparsely populated, more hilly, and more thickly-wooded.

About mid-brightening, the dwarf thought he heard a sound; it sounded like a high, faint, quavering voice, from somewhere among the trees.

"Ooooooh" said the voice, "Oooooooooh! How could you dwarves doooooooo this to my wooooooooods?" The voice might have been more terrifying had it not been so ridiculously high-pitched, but it sounded eery enough.

[Korgar Kinslammer]

The dwarf’s stocky legs revealed no trace of wear as he continued his march over the hills surrounding Zerdargia. Its fleeting silhouette, vividly imprinted in his mind, was the last image that he was going to see of his home for only Cetheron knew how long. But he would return –eventually. The thought mildly sedated him, but it was shortly supplanted by an immediate longing for the comfort and haven that Zerdargia had provided to him since childhood. He could still feel the gleaming, chiseled stone of the walls against his fingers, and the smell of burnt metal from multiple forges continued to tickle his bulbous nostrils. The son of Clan Kinslammer knew that all of these sensations were mentally conjured, but they helped him to pass the time anyway.

Shortly after the two suns of Telath initiated their gradual descent behind the evening clouds, the dwarf warily attuned to a peculiar voice singing above him. The noise was coming from the trees, or rather, from within a dense and widespread blanket of leaves that concealed many of the forest’s branches. The Zerdargian paused in his boot-tracks, his dark eyes narrowing suspiciously as he scanned the tree-line to discern the source of the squeaky voice. Unlike dwarven enunciation which was generally hoarse and low pitched, the one that Korgar listened to was greatly slurred and whiny –certainly not a dwarf’s voice.

“Whose there?” he called out, spinning curiously in place. His battle axe, strapped onto his backside, casually bounced against him as he turned, but he made no motion to retrieve the weapon into his large, hairy hands. The speaker, regardless of how annoying his or her voice was, did not articulate in the manner that was usually indicative of a belligerent person. If Korgar didn’t know any better, he suspected that the speaker was almost lamenting about something.

[Desmodus]

Korgar could glean no indication of who or what the source of the voice was. Straining his hears to determine direction, he could sense that it was to his right, and not too far off. Beyond that he could not tell.

"Oooooh" warbled the squeaky voice again. "I am the spirit of the wooooods. I speak for the treeeeees, and am most displeeeeased. Oooooh!"

Then, suddenly, the voice seemed to issue from a slightly different direction, and seemed to lapse into something of a singsong: " I speak for the treeees, for the treeees have no tongues. I speak for the trees, who were felled far too young. I speak for the trees that your dwarf-kin have felled. I speak for the trees that they've stolen and selled. Ooooooh!"

At that moment, something small and light but hard hit Korgar on the forehead and fell to his feet. It was an acorn. A moment later, another acorn hit his head, seemingly strking from a different angle. When the voice resumed, it came from the other side of the road, still in a sing-song warble.

"You must make amends, dwarf; you must plant this seed. With great skillful skill and with great speedy speed. You must plant this seed, or you will regret that the spirit of this woods is a spirit you've met. Ooooooh!" A third acorn struck him, this time in the back of the head.

[Korgar Kinslammer]

The dwarf spun in a complete circle, his head twisting all around as he searched the tree line for the speaker, or rather, the likely speakers. Unable to discern the owner of the melodic voice, Korgar’s mouth was about to open in protest when several acorns assailed him from multiple sides. “Ow! C’mon!” the dwarf grumbled resentfully, rubbing the back of his thick head as he reached down and plucked one of the acorns from the grass.

“Spirit of the woods? Ye gotta be kiddin’ me.” Korgar said, smirking in disbelief as another acorn bounced against his forehead and plummeted to the grass. “C’mon! That hurts!” He griped, shaking a big, clenched fist above his head as if the gesticulation would intimidate his assailants; it wouldn’t, he knew, but that did not stop him from angrily pumping his hand in the air.

His other hand reached over his shoulder, unwisely removing the battle axe from his back and raising the weapon ominously in front of him. “I ain’t kiddin’! Stop it or I’ll…” the dwarf’s words fell short as he realized that he didn’t even know who he was talking too. His threat was as hollow as Zerdargia was now. Korgar frowned as he listened to the voice again, this time commanding him to recompense for the wood ‘stolen’ by the dwarves –his people.

The son of Clan Kinslammer couldn’t argue that fact.

“I dunno the first thing about plantin’ plants, ye hear?” he said confusedly, gathering the acorns in his big hands and gaping at them dubiously, “Where would I put ‘em?” He asked, suddenly forgetting the absurdity of it all. Despite his bamboozlement, the reality was that Korgar, like many dwarves, was superstitious. Whatever was talking to him hadn’t harmed him, not too bad at least, and thus the dwarf suspected that it might be within his best interest to perform this little task and be done with it. He wouldn’t want the forest harassing any of his traveling brethren in the future, after all.

[Desmodus]

The dwarf's impotently angry bellowing seemed to greatly amuse the spirit of the woooooods, for a high, merry, laughter echoed from the trees to every side of him. Finally, when he asked about where to plant the seeds, the laughter gradually began to subside.

"Ooooheheheooooh!" the voice called out, trying with only partial success to regain its earlier gravitas and eeriness: "The spirit of the woooooods will shoooow you where to plant the seeds. The spirit knows a place. I know all places here."

It fell into a chanting tone once more: "The spirit is here".

"The spirit is there" the voice continued, seeming suddenly to issue from another point in the woods.

"The spirit's in every stoat's soft, fuzzy, hair," said the voice from yet a third spot, behind the dwarf from roughly whence the third acorn had struck him.

"I know every rock." it said, once again from the first spot.
"I know every tree," from the second once more.
"I know every place that stoats like to go pee."
"Now come, if you dare."
"And follow with care."
"The spirit shall tell you as soon as you're there."

There was a brief silence, and a silence it was. The dwarf, no matter how he strained his ears, could not pick up any hint of what the spirit speaking to him was doing until it spoke once more. "This way, with your ax!" it said, now seeming to come from one consistent direction, one which led off the road and into the trackless forest: "This way with your packs! This way with your slashes, your chops and your hacks! This way with those seeds! This way with your needs! This way is the way where you must do your deeds!"

[Korgar Kinslammer]

Korgar paused in place, driving both of his heels into the dirt as he surrendered his attempt to locate the speaker. His failure suggested that the alleged ‘spirits’ were, in fact, exactly that: spirits. His father always told him that such intangible essences existed; dwarven-kind candidly believed it too. Subsequently, the son of Clan Kinslammer, despite his hesitation, had little reason to suspect that the speakers’ were lying to him, and he knew that he needed to comply with them if he wanted to make it to the other end of his journey and back alive.

“A’right a’right I’m comin’,” Korgar grudgingly agreed. Lowering his battle axe, the dwarf’s other hand steadied the straps of the bag on his shoulders, securing it as he trotted in the respective direction of the most consistent voice. He did not know what to make of the spirits’ previous verses, but he trusted that they would lead him to the appropriate site, or maybe, the place where the stoat supposedly peed. What in Aeternia was a stoat, Korgar thought suddenly, frowning beneath his black beard as his short, stubby legs carried him towards the forest.

As the two suns of Telath disappeared, separated by the congregation of trees, the dwarf’s steps slowed progressively as he realized that he was veering off the road, one that he’d never left before. Unlike most of his brethren, Korgar was not well-traveled. This was his first time outside of Zerdargia and he hardly knew the way, but he also understood the imperativeness of his ascribed mission. He would plant the seeds, respect the spirits, and hightail it out of there as soon as possible.

The night was never a safe place for a lone traveler…

“Can ye speak a lil’ louder?” the dwarf muttered beneath his breath, rolling his eyes upward as he awaited further instruction from the various voices. “And ye sure its safe? It's kinda quiet…too quiet…an' ye better show me back when I'm done!” Korgar stingily demanded.

[Desmodus]

Tinny, barely audible laughter echoed among the trees again in response to the dwarf's shouted questions. Whatever was leading him did not respond with words for a while, guiding the dwarf farther into the woods only with recurring peals of faint laughter until he had lost sight of the road. When the voice spoke again, it was in a falsetto-deep tone, the sort a child would use when imitating its father:

"Yar, I kin speak a l'il louder" it chanted, mocking the dwarf's accent,
"Since ye dwarf ears be a'full o' chowder
Yer safe here if ye do not bellow
As sure as aspen leaves are yellow"

The laughter came again, then, after a few moments, the voice resumed its high-pitched spooky warbling:

"Ooooooh! Come come, dear dwarf, it is not far
The first acorn goes in right thar. Ooooh!"

At that moment a sparkle of light appeared in front of Korgar, bobbing up and down atop a particular spot of ground, then it came to rest on it, glowing for a moment like a dying ember spit from a fire, just long enough for the dwarf to mark its location.

He was at the edge of a clearing, if it could be called that. The trees around here had been cut here in such a wanton, jagged fashion that the swath resembled a tornado strike more than a clearing. No dwarf or elf would have done such a thing, and few men.

"Oooooh!" sang out the voice again:

"Now take your knife and dig a hole
Deep enough to foil a vole
Into that hole, drop acorn one
I'll say what's next after you're done."

The woods fell silent again, and the spirit would answer no further questions, apparently waiting for Korgar to do what it had asked before speaking further.

[Korgar Kinslammer]

The dwarf’s face flushed a deep red as the voice patronized him with an accent that resembled his own. Korgar wanted to swing at the speaker with his axe and bop it in the head, but he’d only be swinging at thin air as the voice’s owner continued to hide among the trees. Nevertheless, the dwarf suspected that his planting mission would soon be over and that he’d be able to continue on his way within a short matter of time.

It wasn’t like he was on a schedule anyway.

“Yea I see it,” Korgar mumbled, his keen eyes focusing upon a sudden light materializing further on. Looming over the marked site, the dwarf’s big eyes widened agape as he glanced to the tree line. “Yikes mate, how’d ye do that?” He candidly asked, scratching the curly black hair atop his head as he stooped downwards to inspect the ground. Magic was as foreign to the dwarf as growing a garden.

It was a good thing Draegar wasn’t here. The mighty dwarf laird would have slapped his son in the back of the head for wasting his time.

Using the butt of his axe like a shovel, Korgar pounded into the earth, loosening it enough so that his other hand could scratch and claw at the dirt and pry enough of it upwards to plant one of the acorns. As he didn’t have a knife and didn’t want to dull the edge of his battle axe, he supposed that the handle was his best instrument for the task at hand.

“This deep enuff?” he asked, feeling completely idiotic as he talked to the invisible speaker. Staring into the small hole he’d created, he would set the acorn gently atop the soil and await confirmation before scooping the dirt back over it. He’d rather not have to re-dig the hole again.

It was during this moment that he stole a glance at the surrounding area, noticing for the first time that the clearing was, in fact, clearer than the outskirts of Zerdargia where the dwarves gathered lumber for their creations. Tilting his head inquisitively as he inspected the handiwork of the ravaged area, Korgar frowned. “Sorry ‘bout that…no wonder yer havin’ me plant all this stuff…what happen’d ‘ere?” He asked, glancing to the stumps or whatever else that was left of the glade. Korgar was no naturalist, but even he was finally beginning to understand the necessity for the acorns to be planted. At whatever rate the forest was being obliterated, it seemed that it wouldn’t be long until there was no forest left at all.

[Desmodus]

Korgar's queries met with little other than the faint laughter. Apart from that, and the sounds he himself made, the woods were silent, even ominously so. The dirt was fairly loose and easy to excavate, even without proper tools. It was almost as if the spirit had known how to choose a suitable spot. The process took a bit under half a candlemark, and when the dwarf finally placed the acorn in the hole, he was rewarded by a scattered, subdued, mock-polite pattering of applause from the trees around him, a clap he wouldn't have a name for since golf hadn't been invented yet in Aelyria.

"Oooooh! Yes that's deep enough." said the voice once more, breaking its silence at last. "Now cover it up with the dirt again. Oooooh!"

Assuming the dwarf moved to comply, the voice would start its sing-song again as he moved the dirt back into the hole.

"Next we shall go to another spot.
A spot that's there, where here is not,
where another hole's to be dug and filled
another spot where trees were killed.

Go there and bury number two
-the acorn, I mean, not your poo-
From there, to where you bury three
Finish the task, and you'll be free!"

[Korgar Kinslammer]

An unexpected smile brightened the dwarf’s rugged features as he set the acorn delicately into the hole. Rising excitedly to his feet, he bent over and shoveled the exhumed pile of dirt between his legs, covering the acorn and ensuring that its growth wouldn’t be hindered –at least not until it sprouted from the ground. Whoever was ravaging this portion of the glade was likely to return again to repeat their previous plunder, and Korgar, to his surprise, was partially angered by the thought. He’d planted the acorn, after all.

All of his hard work might go to waste…

Clapping his hands of the remaining debris, the dwarf hurriedly gathered his gear and straightened to full height. Accepting the fact that he’d might never know who was speaking to him, he merely cupped one of his large hands behind an ear and listened for the melodic spirits to guide him to the next planting site.

“Ye gotta be a lil’ more specific than that,” Korgar grumbled, spinning as he re-shouldered his axe and set off in a haphazard direction of the forest, waiting to be corrected or redirected by the spirits. The dwarf didn’t know where to go, but given the nature of his trip thus far, he knew that the speakers would steer him the right way -eventually.

And thus he listened carefully for their next directions, directions that would take him to another area in desperate need of new trees. Who knew? Maybe a whole other forest would result from his endeavor? Strangely, despite his earlier resentment of being ordered around, Korgar was somewhat fascinated by the prospect.

[Desmodus]

In response to the dwarf's question, the voice laughed, the sound coming from, at least for the moment, one discernible direction. When Korgar looked that way, he could see a slight gap between the trees: a narrow footpath.

"If you follow me this way, and follow me that," chanted the voice,
"I'll take you to where you shall be where you're at
That's where you are at when you're where you're to be
So follow this woodpath, and follow quickly!"

The woodpath would have been easy enough to follow even without the laughing voice to lead Korgar on. It went perhaps a few hundred paces until the dwarf could see ahead another clearing.

The voice, when it spoke again, sounded very close to the dwarf, not more than a few feet away, seemingly from a tree. It sang in a near-whisper now:

"Now be very wary, dwarf, be very chary
The danger ahead is both deadly and scary
There's more to your task, dwarf, than just planting seeds;
There is slaying of slayers and doing of deeds
Now go, at your peril, dwarf! You have been warned.
If you do this and live, then you will not be scorned."

From where he stood, Korgar could see only that the forest seemed to clear ahead. He could not see any details of what might be in the clearing, nor could he hear any noises.

[Korgar Kinslammer]

Grinning excitedly as the next path loomed before him, Korgar trampled across the grass and proceeded a significant distance until he entered another clearing. At the spirit’s urgent bidding, the dwarf’s legs churned mightily as he hurried along the trail, swinging his arms enthusiastically by his sides as he maintained firm grips upon both the acorns and his heavy battle axe.

Pausing as he observed the ravaged scene, one similar to the previously devastated glade, he almost jumped out of his boots when the spirit whispered to him as if it were leaning over his shoulder and up into his ear to do so. “By Cetheron’s beard mate, dun freak me out like dat…” he uttered angrily, his chest heaving up and down as he labored for air.

Despite the surprise induced by the spirit’s sudden interjection, its warning was not lost upon the young dwarf. “I dun see nothin’ ta be slayin’…” Korgar said, arching a bushy eyebrow skeptically as he peered about the open area. Frowning, the dwarf clutched his axe tightly with one hand as he slowly proceeded into the allegedly dangerous area. “Just ye tell me where ta put these durned acorns 'n tell me if anythin’s comin’, ye hear?” He demanded, instinctively looking to the nearest tree as that was where the voice seemed to have come from.

Breathing softly as to reduce all of his noise, the dwarf puffed out his broad chest and cautiously continued.

[Desmodus]

Initially, all the dwarf got in response to his demands was silence. The tree he was talking to did not seem to have any idea where Korgan was to plant the second acorn. When he did hear a sound, it was not a high-pitched voice reciting bad poetry, nor laughing. It was an irregular rustling noise, like a large creature stirring in the underbrush.

As the dwarf looked around the wasted clearing, he could see a form moving on the ground. A large, ugly, green form. It was prone, stirring occasionally but sluggishly, and occasionally emitting a low, rough, incoherent groan.

As soon as Korgar had seen the creature clearly, the voice came again. Although it still chanted in its sing-song, its tone this time seemed more serious, and he could hear none of the tittering laughter he had heard earlier.

"Here is a creature that must be cut down
You can see what it's done to make wood-spirits frown
I've subdued two of them with wood-spirit arts
But one is still standing, and I'm out of darts

"Now strike it down quickly before it awakes
Or its partner comes back with its hammers and rakes
Show it the mercy that it showed a tree
Which is the same mercy that it would show thee!"

The creature in question, in case there were any doubt left, was an orc. It lay on the ground, its back pincushioned with tiny arrows which looked barely long enough to pierce its thick skin. It appeared to be disoriented, barely conscious and able to move. It moaned inarticulately and showed no sign that it was aware that a dwarf with an ax was standing near it.

[Korgar Kinslammer]

Korgar’s breath escaped in speedy increments as he tried to contain his nervousness. Bringing the battle axe defensively in front of him, he crept across the wind-swept grass with all the stealth that a dwarf could muster which, admittedly, was not very much. He was fortunate, though, that his quarry was a slumbering, filthy green-skin with enough quarrels in his back to fell an elephant. Glancing around for the orc’s alleged companion, Korgar swallowed the tangible lump in his throat.

An orc…

Although Clan Kinslammer was a violent family by nature, they did not generally slaughter beasts when they were most vulnerable –but this orc was an exception. Standing quietly over the sleeping abomination, the fires danced furiously in the dwarf’s eyes as he recognized the vile creature for what it was –and what it represented. Indeed, Zerdargia had seen its share of orcs during the undead invasion. But this one wouldn’t lay eyes upon the city ever again.

In tandem with the spirit’s encouragement, Korgar maneuvered his hefty axe high over his head, locking his jaws readily as he brought the weapon slamming down atop the unconscious creature’s skull –just as Draegar, his father, had shown him. Korgar’s eras of bottled anger was sublimated through that chop, one that he would never forget in the ages to come. This one was for Zerdargia…

When the deed was finished, the dwarf crouched low and glanced around, listening intently for the sounds of treading feet that would betray the arrival of the murdered green-skin’s companion. Although Korgar had been nervous at first, the sight of the quarrels in the dead orc’s body comforted the dwarf considerably –it showed him that he was not alone on this crusade. Whatever spirit was helping him was apparently quite adept at using a missile weapon of some sort. Korgar didn't know exactly how such a feat was being performed by a supposedly intangible entity, but he wasn't concerned either. The main point was that he had some backup.

“What now, mate?” he whispered under his breath, instinctively glancing to the nearest tree for advice. “Where’s da other one?”