Archive of Our Own ^beta

The Tales of Drundar

— Ilven Tal’Karesh

“Not all stone is cold; some waits, warm with purpose, beneath the mountain’s silence.”
— Durvok Ironbrow, Fourth Philosopher-King of Varnhull

Acknowledgments

To my wife, Maerila,
Thank you for listening to every half-formed thought, every fevered theory, and every tale told over half-burnt tea. You reminded me to come home—even when my mind wandered to distant ruins and sunken halls.

To my children, Thalen and Ivvra,
You are the light I return to. May your world be better for these stories.

— Ilven Tal’Karesh

Author’s Note
Why This Compendium Exists

For twenty-three years, I worked behind the same desk at the East Lanes Bank of Kael’thara. My days were filled with ledgers, grain loans, and export permits—honest work, but quiet and repetitive. It was during a lunch break, hunched over leftover stew, that I first read of the Archive’s awakening. Something ancient had stirred beneath the earth, and for the first time in decades, I felt something stir in me.

With the patient blessing of my wife and some careful budgeting, I stepped away from the counting house and into the world. What I sought wasn’t power or renown. I wanted to listen. I wanted to walk the ports and patrol roads, to sit beside strangers and hear how the world had changed—or hadn’t. I wanted to make a record not of kings or scholars, but of the lives lived in the shadow of the Archive.

This compendium, Tales of Drundar, is my attempt to preserve a snapshot of our world—flawed, vibrant, frightened, and hopeful. I have spoken with potters and shipwrights, guardsmen and merchants, dissidents and dreamers. Some of the names have been changed to protect their anonymity. But the emotions are real. The choices, the compromises, the regrets and small triumphs—they are real.

I offer this to future historians not as a textbook, but as a lantern in the fog. May you remember that those who lived through these days were not merely figures on a timeline. They were people. And they did the best they could.

— Ilven Tal’Karesh,
Kael’thara,
Five years after the Archive’s awakening

Kellan’s Morning
As told by Ilven Tal’Karesh

The sky was still dark when Kellan stretched awake in his narrow cot, bones stiff and knees crackling in quiet protest. The scent of yeast clung to his fur—permanently, he claimed, as much a part of him as his name—and his back ached in that dull, familiar way it always did when the night was damp. But still, a smile tugged at the corners of his muzzle.

He’d beaten the sun again.

Outside, the wind rasped softly against the wooden shutters. He paused there on the edge of sleep, listening: no gulls yet, no creak of carts, no laughter from the children who would soon race barefoot down the cobbled lanes. Just the deep quiet of that sacred hour—too late for dreamers, too early for the busy. Perfect.

He swung his legs down and touched the floor with calloused pads, the chill of the flagstones grounding him. One deep breath to shake the cobwebs, and then he made his way to the hearth. He did not light it with magic—though he knew enough of it to try. There were no rune-scribed stones tucked beneath his stovetop, no elemental bursts dancing at his command. Just kindling, flint, and patience. He liked the crack and pop of honest flame. It spoke to him in a language older than ink.

He was a baker, after all. Flame was his trade.

The embers caught slowly, casting a warm orange glow against the stone walls of the cottage. Above the hearth hung his copper pans, scrubbed so fiercely they gleamed like polished suns. On the far table, three loaves waited to be kneaded again before their final rise. He would start with the Renth Millet, let it soak in the heat while he steeped the tea. Not too long—the Renth Millet was moody in spring.

Behind the house, the orchard still slumbered beneath the morning fog, and the chickens had not yet begun their senseless chorus. It was here, in this quiet rhythm, that Kellan found his purpose.

And it was here, in this small village nestled among the gentle Kael’tharan hills, that I—Ilven Tal’Karesh, failed alchemist and part-time historian—decided my journey would begin.

Not with empires or warships or ruins torn open by scholars. But with a baker, rising before the sun.

Because if you truly wish to understand the world before the archive was found—its dreams, its fears, its heartbeat—then you must first understand what it meant to rise in the still-dark, with flour on your hands and no one watching but the fire.

Interview with Kellan, Baker of Orlin’s Hollow
Notes transcribed by Ilven Tal’Karesh

By the time the coals glowed warm and steady, the scent of cloves, crushed root, and rising yeast filled every crevice of the little cottage-bakery. Kellan had his sleeves rolled high, forearms dusted white with flour and a smudge on the tip of his nose that he either didn’t notice or chose to wear proudly.

I sat across from him at the worn breakfast bench beside the oven, quill in one hand, mug of chicory tea in the other. He was shaping dough with practiced, loving gestures, and I took the opportunity to begin our conversation. He didn’t stop his work. Didn’t even slow. If anything, my presence just gave him a new rhythm to move with.

“Why do you do it?” I asked simply.

He chuckled. “Bread’s cheaper than therapy,” he said first. Then, after a moment of kneading in silence:
“I suppose it’s ‘cause it stays done. You shape it, you bake it, and it’s finished. You don’t get that with much else in life. Politics go on forever. Prices climb no matter what. But bread... bread ends. And when it ends right, it feeds someone. That’s a good thing to spend your life doing.”

“Do you think much on what’s happening beyond the village?”

He blew air through his lips like a tired draft horse. “Only when I read the broadsheets. Lizardfolk raids. Dwarves taxing the crystals again. Fifth Unification.” He pinched a fold of dough and shaped it like a boat before setting it aside. “Too big to chew on. I don’t ignore it—I just can’t feed my neighbors with worry.”

“What did you think when the Archive was discovered?”

“Magic folk getting more magic,” he shrugged. “Didn’t change my flour supplier, so I didn’t think much of it. But I suppose… I suppose it felt like something turned in the world, didn’t it?” He looked up at me then, just for a moment. “You ever felt a storm before it shows up? Like the air goes tight? That’s what it felt like.”

“Do you ever wonder what it means? The archive, I mean.”

Kellan cracked an egg one-handed over a bowl, whisking briskly as he spoke. “Not in the way you mean. Some folk spend their lives thinking on what the world means. I just think on what the world needs. And it needs bread, Ilven. It needs warmth. It needs a crust that cracks just right when you tear it open.”

He grinned at that, pleased with his answer. So was I.

“Last question,” I said, watching him now as he set the first tray of scones into the glowing mouth of the oven. “What do you hope people remember about this time, years from now?”

He paused then, truly paused. The heat from the oven shimmered in the air between us.

“I hope they remember we weren’t just waiting for war. We weren’t just building machines or muttering about who had the most magic. I hope they remember we lived. That we loved. That some of us still rose before dawn and made something warm for someone else. That has to count for something.”

And with that, he wiped his hands on his apron and pulled a fresh loaf from the shelf beside me.

“Try this. It’s the Thalgrain. Wheat from Urthagresh. Took me a week to get it right.”

It was the best thing I tasted that month.

Addendum to the Kellan Interview — Orlin’s Hollow, Kael’thara
Notes and Observations by Ilven Tal’Karesh

With Kellan’s blessing (and a fresh redfruit scone in hand), I stayed through the day. I set up quietly in the corner with a cup of bark tea and my journal, tucked between sacks of flour and jars of Dawnberry glaze. Kellan called it “the flour scholar’s seat.” From there, I bore witness to the heartbeat of the village—one loaf at a time.

The first customer was old Haffra, wrapped in three shawls despite the warming morning sun. She clucked about the price of butter as if the gods themselves had set it, and grumbled that the Millet bread was “half the size it used to be.” Kellan nodded patiently, handed her the same crusted rye she bought every week, and tucked in a second one for free.

Haffra noticed. Said nothing. But her wrinkled paw lingered on his wrist for half a breath longer than usual.

Later, a wave of schoolchildren burst in with the energy of bottled lightning. Their eyes darted to the trays of sweetrolls, steaming and golden. Kellan raised a brow and asked each of them their favorite constellation before giving them their pastries—with extra cinnamon and strict orders not to tell their parents. I asked one little Sceadugenga girl, Telli, what she wanted to be when she grew up. She answered: “Someone who makes the stars sing.” I didn’t press.

A young woman with soot on her coat and calluses on her fingers came next. A metalsmith’s apprentice, judging by her badge. She asked for loaf of Sourdough, muttering about needing strength for the day’s forge work. When I asked if she'd heard of the Archive, she blinked. "Sure. Makes for good tavern talk. But none of it’s helping me learn how to temper steel."

By midday, a traveling merchant with wind-chapped cheeks swept in, shaking salt from his cloak. He’d come from Urthagresh by way of the inner coast, bartering tools and glassworks. “There’s stirrings in the north,” he said between mouthfuls of sourdough. “More ships than usual. Fewer answers. Heard someone say they saw lightning in clear skies, far out to sea.”

He laughed then, like he didn’t believe it. But he didn’t sound quite convinced either.

The last customer of the day was one of the local apothecaries—a gentle-eyed Sceadugenga named Lherin. She took half a Millet loaf in linen and offered Kellan a jar of Emberroot salve, for pain, in return. Their exchange was quiet, familiar. The kind that says more in silence than it ever could aloud.

As the stars blinked awake in the sky, I helped Kellan bank the fire low. He moved slower now, stretching his back with a soft groan. The day's warmth clung to the stones, and flour lingered in the creases of his apron.

Before I left, I asked one final question—off the record.

“If you had the chance to do it all over again—become that astromancer—would you?”

He looked at me for a long time, the lines around his eyes etched deep with memory.

“No,” he said. “The stars are beautiful. But they never fed a soul. This,” he gestured around the bakery, “this gave me purpose. And I gave it love.”

He placed a warm loaf into my hands then. “For your travels. And for your wife. Tell her it’s the good kind. The kind that forgives you for coming home late.”

I did.

And Kellan’s bread kept its warmth long into the night.

Interview Log – Ilven Tal’Karesh
Location: The Steep & Steam Café, Capital District, Kael’thara
Interviewee: Rhaelya Sen’Vahr, Proprietor and Chief Brewwright

The capital city of Kael’thara is not so much a place as it is a rhythm. From the first chiming bell of morning to the muted footfalls of night watch patrols, the city breathes. South-facing windows catch the warm winds off the ocean, and the gulls cry as if gossiping about dockside scandal. Here, in the heart of commerce and culture, you can find anything—if you know where to look.

I found The Steep & Steam tucked into a side street between a Sceadugenga tailor’s guildhall and an aging secondhand bookstore with too many cats and not enough shelves. The scent of roasted beans and clove syrup practically lured me inside.

The café is narrow but tall, with polished wooden beams, hanging lanterns shaped like crescent moons, and a half-wall of stained glass that catches the morning light just so. Behind the counter stood Rhaelya—silver-gray coat brushed smooth, eyes like obsidian, and a posture that suggested she could run a palace kitchen if she ever got bored of espresso.

She offered me a cup of her house blend (sharp, smoky, with a whisper of dried cherry) and gave me a look that suggested she’d humor a few questions—but not stupid ones.

“So,” I asked over the rim of my mug, “what was life like before the Archive?”

She leaned on the counter, whisking milk with one paw. “Calmer. Slower, maybe. Not quiet—but the kind of busy you can predict. People came in, had their brew, grumbled about trade disputes or the weather. And I made a good living keeping the kettles full and the gossip hot.”

“And after?” I asked.

Her whisk twitched. “After?”

She nodded toward the window, where the towers of the city shimmered in the heat. “There’s always noise now. Not just sound—noise. Everyone’s talking about advancements, breakthroughs, the next big thing. It’s all ‘tech this’ and ‘crystal that.’ And sure, that brings people in. More folks. More coins. I’m not complaining.”

She set the cup down and gave me a dry look.

“Well. I am complaining. Just a little.”

“What changed?”

Rhaelya pulled a ledger from under the counter and flipped it open. Neat script, precise columns.

“Synthetic Aether crystals,” she said. “Rudimentary ones, barely stable. But cheaper, easy to make. That drove the price of impure natural crystals down—would’ve been good news for someone like me. I use low-grade Aether dust to keep the kettles running without wood. Cleaner, faster, better for the beans.”

She snapped the ledger shut.

“Then the government stepped in. Said the drop would ‘destabilize the fledgling synthetics market.’ So they subsidized impure crystals. Raised their price again.”

She spread her arms, as if laying out a corpse.

“Now I’m paying more than ever for worse quality dust, because the Crown wants to coddle new industries. I’m a shop owner, not a court alchemist. Let me boil my water in peace.”

“Have you considered switching fuels?” I asked.

She looked at me like I’d just suggested she switch to boiling water with her tears.

“Do you know how hard it is to recalibrate a copper-leaf kettle for combustion heat?” she snapped. “Three years ago, I could hire someone to do it for a pinch of silver and a muffin. Now the only folks who understand that kind of work are halfway into the damn Archive project or drafted by the navy.”

There was a pause as we both sipped our drinks.

Finally, Rhaelya sighed, ears relaxing slightly. “Don’t get me wrong, Ilven. I’m proud of what we’re doing. The Sceadugenga are leaping forward. But I’m also tired. Some of us are just trying to make good coffee and keep our windows clean. The Archive changed everything, but not always for the better.”

She handed me a satchel of beans as I left—“for the road,” she said, “and because you asked better questions than most.”

I thanked her, stepped out into the capital’s glare, and took a deep breath of ocean air and steam-roasted clove.

The world turns. The coffee gets stronger.

Field Journal Entry – Ilven Tal’Karesh
Location: South Wharf Notice Board, Kael’thara Harbor
Date: Midmorning, 18th of Verenth, Year 488

The harbor was alive with the usual cacophony: gulls circling like bickering philosophers, ropes slapping against masts, the low hum of spell-bound cargo lifts groaning under crates of spice, ore, and fresh parchment from across the sea. It’s here, between the scent of salt and the clang of metal, that one finds the pulse of the world—not in the royal chambers or academic halls, but on the cracked planks of a dock and the weather-worn boards of a public notice post.

I lingered by the harbor’s main bulletin—charmed against rot, though the ink still runs in sea mist—and copied a few of the more curious listings into my journal. It’s a habit of mine. What the adventuring class is being asked to do often says more about the state of a nation than the papers ever will.

Below are three such postings I found illuminating:

1. “Serpent at Sea – 900 Gold Reward”

Posted by: Admiral Hrethgar, Fleet Command
Summary:

“Merchant ships en route from Unarith report repeated attacks by a massive sea serpent. The beast has damaged two hulls, dragged an escort vessel under the waves, and is believed to lair somewhere near the Pelicross Ridge.

Adventurers capable of slaying the creature and returning with its head—or another unmistakable trophy—will be compensated with 900 gold and a formal commendation from the Kael’tharan Navy.

Must provide own vessel. No fleet ships will accompany freelance hunters.”

Additional Note (scrawled at bottom):

“Preferably alive… but not too alive.”

I underlined this one twice. The frequency of deep-sea threats is growing, especially in the wake of… well, everything. One wonders if something has stirred below besides currents and kelp.

2. “Hired Muscle Needed – Varnhull Haul”

Posted by: Hadrin & Co. Shipping Consortium
Summary:

“Seeking two to four reliable warriors, spellcasters, or battle-certified individuals to provide security aboard a freight vessel en route to Varnhull. Route passes within potential range of Vossikari privateers.

Pay: 15 gold per day, hazard bonus of 150 gold should conflict occur and the vessel survive.

Meals and sleeping hammocks provided. Must be seaworthy and able to follow commands under pressure.”

Handwritten Addition:

“If you’re the type who asks too many questions, don’t bother.”

This posting carries a chill. The Fifth Unification hangs like thunderclouds beyond the horizon—close enough to hear the rumble, but not yet striking. Still, even logistics companies are bracing for storm winds. And they're willing to pay for protection.

3. “Escort Required – Westward Through Verdant Path”

Posted by: Merchant Faln Dorrik
Summary:

“One merchant caravan seeks capable escort on route through to the Verdant Path through the Western trading posts which run near Vossikari territory. Route includes light jungle travel and exposure to wild magic zones. Caravan will depart at dawn four days hence.

Pay: 80 gold for the journey, plus an additional 20 gold bonus if all wares and beasts arrive intact.

Must be familiar with basic Weave anomalies and possess own camping gear.”

Contact: See attendant at Harbor Guildhall, stall 3F

This one feels ordinary on the surface—but the mention of wild magic zones sets it apart. The Verdant Path was once considered safe for light trade. Something has shifted. Perhaps the Weave stirs uneasily, even here.

These slips of paper flutter on wind-charmed nails, waiting for someone desperate, brave, or foolish to take hold. I wonder who will answer the call. Perhaps it will be one of the same names whispered in taverns and sung by traveling bards.

Or perhaps, as is so often the case, they will be names we never know—only remembered by the coin spent and the songs never written.

Field Journal Entry – Ilven Tal’Karesh
Location: The Stoneflask Inn, Capital City of Kael’thara
Date: Evening, 19th of Verenth, Year 488

The Stoneflask Inn was thick with laughter, pipe smoke, and the clatter of tankards by the time I arrived. A few dozen patrons had gathered close around the low platform where the bard performed, many of them already leaning into the rhythm like leaves caught in a stream. I’d heard the name before—Kassadoren, the Urthagarn bard of the southern coast. At first glance, he looked more like a war champion than a musician. His voice, however, had the kind of gravity that pulls a room into orbit.

Tonight, he opened with something new.

“A Song for the Dimming Light”

Transcribed by Ilven Tal’Karesh

When the drums of war are far but loud,
And smoke curls soft beyond the cloud,

When banners rise though none yet fall,
And whispers pass through timbered hall—

Then plant your feet, oh child of stone,
And know the dark won’t stand alone.

For in the breath ‘tween peace and fight,
Still burns the forge, still walks the light.

We may not halt the breaking tide,
Nor mend the stars the fates divide—

But even as the storm draws near,
We drink, we sing, we hold to cheer.

So let them come with steel and flame,
We’ve kept the hearth, we’ll do the same.

For hope’s not born from easy years—
It’s hammered sharp, and quenched in tears.

The inn roared with applause by the final verse. Kassadoren gave a bow so low his muzzle brushed the stageboards. He followed it with a few crowd favorites—songs I won’t transcribe here, as they’re well-known across Kael’thara. Rousing battle chants, drinking ballads, and the occasional bawdy tune that made the waitstaff blush.

Once his set ended, he made his way to a corner table with a mug that looked comically small in his massive hand. I approached carefully, introducing myself and asking if he’d allow a few questions.

He grinned wide, white teeth gleaming against his dark fur. “Of course, little scholar,” he said in a voice like river stones rolling downhill. “You bought my song with your silence. I’ll trade that coin for a story.”

Interview Excerpt – Kassadoren of the Southern Range

Ilven: “You’re a rare sight. An Urthagarn bard. How did that come to be?”

Kassadoren: (chuckling) “My ma says I sang before I walked. My da says I never stopped talkin’ long enough to swing a hammer proper. So they set me to music instead of masonry. I still broke a few stages along the way.”

Ilven: “You sang tonight of hope—even as war looms. Do you believe in the message you sing?”

Kassadoren: (leans forward, suddenly grave) “Hope’s not a thing you believe in. It’s a thing you do. We can’t all be scholars or smiths or soldiers. But we all shape the world. One chord, one verse, one heartbeat at a time.”

Ilven: “Do you fear the Vossikari?”

Kassadoren: (pauses) “Yes. But not for myself. I fear what hate makes us forget. I fear what war will make of young hearts. That’s why I sing.”

Ilven: “And if war does come?”

Kassadoren: (nods slowly) “Then I’ll sing in the trenches, and under firelight, and over the graves. Because that’s when songs matter most.”

He allowed me to sketch a quick likeness in my notes—broad shoulders, bone-beaded braids, a half-cracked lyre carved from icewood and strung with metal cords. A bard of unusual shape, yes, but not of unusual soul.

As I stepped back into the cool night air, the streets of Kael’thara still echoed faintly with music, and the stars above looked just a little closer.

Field Journal Entry – Ilven Tal’Karesh
Location: En route to the Verdant Path
Date: 27th of Verenth, Year 488

The morning I left Kael’thara’s southern capital, the city was beginning to stir—its tall towers catching the early sun like catching flames in glass. I’d packed light, with little more than my journal, a small chest of coins, and a promise to my wife that I wouldn’t die doing something foolish. She gave me a kiss on the cheek and a sack of hard biscuits that still taste like home, even after a week in a dusty pack.

The caravan was already assembled in the northern market square: eight wagons, three dozen travelers, and one very overworked logistics officer shouting about spacing and wheel greasing. The destination was the Verdant Path, a wide crescent of fertile land that now served as a haven for Vossikari who’d renounced their clans or fled persecution. The Empire claimed the land five years ago, not with swords, but with ink—an agreement signed decades ago when the Civil war ended and king Durgrim began his reign as emperor. Most call it a peacekeeping gesture. A few call it a powder keg waiting for a spark.

I just call it curious.

The merchant wagon I joined was run by a Sceadugenga named Linaris, a stout woman with gray-dappled fur and a laugh like cracking cinnamon sticks. She traded in dyes, fabrics, and small charms pressed from river jade. After a few miles of dust and silence, she agreed to speak with me.

Interview Excerpt – Linaris, textile merchant

Ilven: “You’ve traveled this road before, I take it?”

Linaris: (snorts) “Three times last spring alone. You don’t forget the bumps once they knock a crate of glass beads into your lap.”

Ilven: “What draws you back?”

Linaris: “The coin. The people. Sometimes the peace. Verdant Path folk don’t haggle like city rats. They pay what it’s worth, and they mean their thank-yous. You don’t always get that in the capital.”

Ilven: “Do you ever feel unsafe? With the tensions?”

Linaris: (shrugs) “Sometimes. But it’s the same everywhere now, isn’t it? My brother’s apprentice got drafted into the Order of the Guard just last week. He’s barely had time to grow a proper mustache. Makes the hills feel calmer by comparison.”

Further back in the line, I met a dwarven cartwright named Rulik, escorting replacement parts for irrigation engines used along the Path’s riverbanks. He was younger than most dwarves I’ve met in his line of work—barely 25, by his own estimate—and was less interested in political chatter than he was in perfecting axle tension.

Interview Excerpt – Rulik, mechanical contractor

Ilven: “Do you think the Empire’s doing the right thing with the Verdant Path?”

Rulik: (wiping his brow) “Doesn’t matter what I think, long as the crown keeps payin’ for new pump blades. I fix ‘em. They break ‘em. It’s the great cycle of public infrastructure.”

Ilven: “You’ve spoken with Vossikari settlers?”

Rulik: “Aye. Got no horns, but most’ve got good hands. They build. They plant. Most just want to stop runnin’. I can’t fault a soul for wantin’ quiet.”

There’s something haunting in the way the road changes as you approach the Path. The soil darkens, richer, almost loamy. The trees are spaced like fingers reaching from the land itself, and small fields break into long, narrow strips where new houses rise—some with curved Vossikari roofs, some with imperial stonework.

We camp tonight just beyond the final checkpoint. Tomorrow, we cross into the official boundary of the Verdant Path.

I find myself wondering not what I’ll see, but who I’ll meet.

There are always stories in borderlands.
And always more questions.

Field Journal Entry – Ilven Tal’Karesh
Location: Caravan route, approaching Verdant Path’s northernmost settlement
Date: 29th of Verenth, Year 488

We crested a low hill this morning, and there it was.

The northernmost settlement of the Verdant Path—Raal’s Ford—came into view like an ember slowly glowing to life. Smoke curled gently from cookfires. The rooftops were low and sloped in the Vossikari style, but I could also see stone-cut chimneys and Empire-standard lampposts lining the main road. Even the trees seemed oddly spaced, pruned with some forgotten intention.

Before we arrived, I managed one last conversation—with a merchant named Jorrin Halvek. A thin, wiry man with sharp green eyes and sharper teeth, Jorrin hauled small metal tools, woven cords, and some rare plant extracts grown along the Path. He walked beside his mule cart, sipping from a clay flask that smelled like mint and clove.

Interview Excerpt – Jorrin Halvek, merchant

Ilven: “You’ve done this run before?”

Jorrin: (grinning) “Fifth time this season. The Path’s busy lately. Folks fixing roads, planting winterroot, rebuilding the old meeting hall.”

Ilven: “Do you think of it as part of the Empire?”

Jorrin: (snorts) “The taxes say aye. The people say... sort of. Verdant Path's its own place. No banners hang over doorways. They’ve got their High-Speaker now—a Vossikari elder named Tarn Vel’Tak. Speaks with the Crown’s envoys, runs the council meetings, keeps the peace.”

Ilven: “That’s fascinating. Why isn’t this common knowledge?”

Jorrin: (stopping to look at me sideways) “Would you believe it if you didn’t see it?”

Ilven: (laughing softly) “No. I suppose not.”

Jorrin: “Exactly. Folks in Varnhull or Kael'thara hear ‘Vossikari’ and think war paint and bone clubs. But you walk through the Path long enough, you’ll see kids learning arithmetic, farmers swapping spice seeds, smiths building hinges instead of halberds. It’s life, Ilven. Not a storybook.”

I thanked him for his time, and he waved me off with the kind of nonchalance that only the well-traveled possess. That single line stuck with me: “Would you believe it if you didn’t see it?”

Maybe that’s what this whole compendium is really for.

To show it.

Excerpt from Tales of Drundar, as recorded by Ilven Tal’Karesh
Entry: “Ash and Thread” – A Tale from the Verdant Path

"Not all peace is born from stillness. Sometimes, it is forged through fire, grief, and the slow, aching courage to walk a different road."
—Vaeric Hammerdeep, Philosopher of the Second Line, Dwarven Empire

When I first arrived in Raal’s Ford, I did not expect to be approached. I’m a quiet man by nature and had planned to spend a few days walking the terraces, gathering observations, recording subtle details—never intruding, only noting.

But on my second evening there, beneath a swaying curtain of dyed thread hung in a stone archway, a Vossikari woman found me. She spoke softly, but directly, and asked if I was the one writing the book.

I said I was.

She told me she had a story I needed to hear.

Not to publish under her name. Not to record as fact. But to understand. To share in a different form. She told me everything—her beginnings, her burdens, her escape, and her arrival here in this strange, soft-spoken sanctuary that seems to rest between breaths.

What follows is not a transcript.

It is a story, woven from the fabric of her truths.

I have changed no details. I have omitted no part. The only thing I have done is honor her request to let the words flow not from her mouth, but from my own pen.

This is her tale.

I call it: Ash and Thread.

"Ash and Thread"

The market square baked in the midday heat, the sun high and unrelenting as it poured its weight down onto the stone-paved neutral zone at Daruun’s Cross.

Lazari shifted the bundles of dyed linen on her shoulder, adjusting the weight before it bit too deep into her scales. Her tail flicked behind her with impatience she didn’t voice. Not yet.

Voicing things rarely helped.

The square was already full—Urthagarn traders haggling in low, rumbly tones; Dwarven merchants clinking coins and talking like they owned the dirt; and travelers from the coast picking through stalls as if touching fine thread somehow made them worthy to wear it.

Lazari’s stall was set beneath a stretched hide, its edges frayed from wind and sun, its poles reinforced with scavenged ship planks. She laid out the fabrics carefully—red-threaded shawls, blue-dyed skirts, vine-patterned sashes woven by her sister’s hand.

Each piece bore the marks of her kin. Each one cost her blood, sweat, and time she would never get back.

She smiled anyway.

Even if her teeth didn’t mean it.

A dwarven couple passed by, pausing at her wares. The woman ran a hand over the fabric—rough fingers used to stone and thread.

“This is kalaa silk?” she asked, eyes squinting.

“Blended with moss-fiber,” Lazari said. “Kalaa don’t sell their silk direct. We trade for scraps and weave it ourselves.”

The dwarf made a face, mumbled something about price, and moved on.

Lazari said nothing.

She never said anything.

Because what was the point?

Her life was wake before sunrise, soak thread, boil dye, braid, stretch, cut, sell, smile, grin, go home, stitch her fingers raw by lamplight, and start again. There was no time for rest. No time for thought.

Her father used to say that rest was for those born into good karma.

She must have been a murderer in a past life.

Some nights, when the wind was quiet and her sister’s breathing steady in the next room, Lazari would stare at the rafters and wonder what it would be like to wake up somewhere else. Some someone else.

But then the sun would rise.
And the pots would need boiling.
And the loom would need feeding.
And the coin purse would still be light.

That was the way of it.

She tugged her shawl tighter and turned back to the crowd.

An Urthagarn hunter stopped by and bought two strips of cloth—one for a belt, one for a headwrap. Paid honestly. Nodded politely.

She thanked him in his own language. He looked surprised. Then pleased.

She could leave. She’d thought about it. There were cities to the south. Islands to the east. But what would change? One life traded for another. More cloth. More hands. More war.

And still—still—the five clans bickered like hatchlings over bones, dragging their people into raids and feuds and righteous declarations about territory and tradition. Enlightenment? How could one rise above the cycle when your cousins were dying in border skirmishes and your uncle had been drafted into the Bone-Spine conflict three winters ago?

Maybe that was the trap.

Maybe the cycle was the punishment.

Still. She’d heard whispers—rumors from merchants. That in the Dwarven high cities, a few Lizardfolk had risen to sit on guild councils. That one had become a rune-lecturer. Another had married into a foreign family. No clan. No blood ties. Just... a life.

She dared not hope.

But she listened.

At sunset, she packed what hadn’t sold. Not much. The greens never did well this time of year. People wanted warmth, not cool.

She slung the bundles over her shoulder and walked back to the ramshackle hut she shared with her kin, passing the temple-square on the way. A few elders sat in silence before the shrine fire, eyes closed, tails still. Seeking stillness. Seeking wisdom.

Seeking release.

Lazari didn’t stop.

She didn’t have time to be wise.

But as she walked, she whispered, just barely aloud: “Maybe next life.”

And somewhere, deep in the stillness of the stone, the gods said nothing at all.

The heat was unbearable that day.

Even in the shade of her sun-warped stall, Lazari could feel it pressing against her scales like an accusation. Sweat beaded under her shawl. Her water jug was nearly dry, and her sister had taken the good bucket back home to boil dye. It was the kind of day that made time feel slower. Heavier. More cruel.

That’s when he arrived.

Tall. Broad. Covered in shaggy white fur braided in long ropes at the shoulder. An Urthagarn—easy to spot, harder to mistake. His steps were slow and deliberate, the way all their kind moved. As though the ground didn’t dare argue with their weight.

He was clearly not from here. His nose twitched in disgust at the dust. His cloak was too thick for the desert sun and soaked dark with sweat.

Lazari didn’t even bother smiling when he approached. She simply nodded.

“You look like you’re melting,” she said flatly.

“I am melting,” the Urthagarn growled, removing his hood. “Your lands are cursed. The air here bites with fire.”

She snorted. “Try being born in it.”

He squinted down at her stall, then reached out and picked up a bolt of light-threaded cloth, the edges still warm from the sun.

“This one. Good for a sun-drape?”

Lazari examined it out of habit. “Breatheable. Tight weave. Won’t stick to your fur. Three coins.”

He grunted, dropped five into her dish without comment, and started folding it across one shoulder.

She raised an eye ridge. “Generous for a melting bear.”

“I’m a poor haggler and too hot to pretend otherwise,” he muttered. Then—after a pause—“And it’s well-made.”

That earned the faintest lift in her brow.

“You a merchant?” she asked.

“Adventurer.” He said it like the word had weight. “Fix things. Find things. Deliver things. Been nearly everywhere that sells ink or bread.”

“Even the dwarf cities?”

“Aye. Varnhull. Geddrek’s Rest. Even down to Dros Thirun.”

That made her still.

She leaned a little closer, tone suddenly soft. “Have you heard the stories? About Lizardfolk living there?”

The Urthagarn’s eyes, dark and knowing, crinkled with a quiet smile.

“Yes,” he said. “I have.”

Lazari’s throat felt tight.

“They say,” the Urthagarn continued, “it’s a separatist clan. Left your people long ago. Over a thousand years past, if the archives are to be believed. Got tired of fighting. Tired of bloodlines and oaths and teeth-for-teeth.”

She stared at him, mouth just barely open.

He adjusted the cloth over his shoulder, sighing at the relief.

“They made a life in the empire. Far south. Almost a world away. The dwarves weren’t welcoming at first, but over time... things changed.”

She was quiet a long time.

Then: “Do they fight?”

He shook his head. “They study. Weave theory. Trade. Diplomacy. Some are smiths. Some are sages. One even teaches runes to apprentices. They call themselves the Verdant Path.”

The name hit her like a stone dropped into still water.

She looked down at her cloth—red thread, hard-earned. Her fingers were stained from dyes and calloused from rope burns.

And she imagined, for just a moment, what it would be like to dip her hands in ink instead of pigment.

To wake without fear of patrols, or border skirmishes, or cousins dying in pointless feuds.

To wear a name unbound by clan.

The Urthagarn had already turned to go, grateful for his shade. But Lazari called after him, suddenly.

“Do you know how to find them?”

He paused.

Then turned, his voice gentle.

“No. But I know they exist. And sometimes… that’s enough to start walking.”

She didn’t respond.

But she watched him go, disappearing into the haze of the road, the fabric draped across his shoulder glowing in the light.

And in the quiet after, she didn’t go back to sorting her cloth.

She just sat for a moment, head bowed, heart open.

And dreamed.

Day One

Lazari couldn’t sleep.

She tossed beneath her blanket, the fire pit long gone cold, her sister’s slow breathing a steady rhythm in the dark. But her thoughts were noise.

The words kept circling. Verdant Path. A world away. Dwarves. Freedom. Sages.

She pictured the Urthagarn’s quiet smile. The way he said, They left the bloodshed behind.

She had never heard of a Lizardfolk leaving their clan and not being hunted.

But they did it. Somehow.
They did it.

She rose quietly, padded barefoot to the doorway. The wind outside whispered through dry grass and cooking fires, carrying the night-howl of a distant watch-beast.

She whispered, “I can’t stay.”

Not one more day.

Day Two

She told her sister nothing.

She went to the dye pots, stirred them like always. Bartered with a merchant for more binding twine. She even smiled when a familiar customer haggled for a belt wrap.

But her heart wasn’t there.

When her sister talked about gathering fibers next week, Lazari only nodded. Her eyes were watching the horizon.

That night, she sat alone at the riverbank behind their hut. She took her satchel and began to sketch a map—not of cities or roads, but options. She marked where she’d been, who she could bribe, which roads carried guards and which ones did not.

She was going to run.
And no one could follow a ghost.

Day Three

She snuck into the bone-chamber after market close.

She took a chicken bone, scraped it clean, and soaked it in dye. A family relic, she would say. One to burn.

Later that night, she tucked her satchel beneath the floorboards and gathered dry wood.

Day Four

Lazari woke early. Earlier than her sister. Earlier than the sun.

She brewed tea. Set out cloth to dry. Kissed her sister on the forehead.

And then she went to the outer edge of the neutral zone, where the refuse piles were burned.

She placed her dye-stained bone inside a small heap of old rags and set them alight.

The fire was weak. Small.

But it would be found.

And when her sister came running and found the bone in the ash, blackened and smelling faintly of burnt dye…

She would weep.

She would think Lazari had been robbed. Murdered. Taken.

Lazari would be gone.

That Night

She wore no jewelry. Took no woven cloaks. Just her rough traveling belt, her old water satchel, and the hidden pouch of coin she’d been saving for five years without knowing why.

She didn’t look back.

She walked until the fires of her village were gone, until the dust gave way to cracked stone and the stars were sharp enough to hurt.

At sunrise, she buried her family pendant beside a rock.

Not for hate.
For mercy.

It would slow any scrying. Disrupt blood rites. Keep trackers confused.

She whispered, “I love you. But I can’t live like this.”

And then she turned south.

Toward a place that might not even be real.

Toward the Verdant Path.

The third night on the road was the hardest yet.

Her water skin was nearly dry. Her feet ached from rocks hidden beneath sand. The wind howled across the dry flats like a dying thing. She hadn’t eaten in two days—not really. A handful of stale nuts and a bitter root she’d chewed halfheartedly.

She should’ve turned back.

But she didn’t.

Because ahead—far ahead—there was possibility.

She crested the next rise with limbs like stone. Her breath came ragged. And there, down in the shallow basin between two dunes…

A flickering light.

Fire.

She dropped to a crouch, instincts flaring. But as she watched, she saw it: a large tent, dark green and patched with hide. A flagpole stuck into the dirt with a faded Urthagarn family crest. And beside the fire, a broad-shouldered figure resting cross-legged, turning a spit.

Her eyes widened.

Him.

The Urthagarn from the market. The one who first said the words Verdant Path.

He looked up.

Brows raised.

“Well,” he said, smiling as the firelight caught the edge of his tusks, “I’ll be damned.”

She told him everything.

Over bread, water, and seared lizard meat, she explained what she’d done—faked her death, left her sister behind, walked alone for three days across heat and silence with nothing but the taste of dreams in her mouth.

He didn’t interrupt. Not once.

When she finished, she expected judgment. Disbelief. Maybe even a lecture.

Instead, he just nodded, slow and solemn.

“You did what your heart screamed for,” he said, poking the fire. “That’s how most good stories begin.”

She laughed softly, bitterly. “It’s not a story. It’s a mistake I can’t undo.”

“Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe it’s the first true choice you’ve ever made.”

She stared at the fire a long time.

Then she whispered, “I’m still scared.”

“Good,” he said. “Means you still care what happens next.”

The Journey

They walked together the next morning.

His name was Dren. He'd hunted glass-beasts in the salt valleys. Fought cliff-kin raiders up north. Lost an eye once, but it had grown back crooked.

She told him about dye pots and cloth-weaving and border taxes. He listened like every word mattered.

He showed her how to filter brackish water through moss and bone. She showed him how to patch a boot with vine-thread without it fraying in sand.

At night, they slept under a shared canopy—separate corners, same fire.

He told stories. She laughed for real.

And slowly… the guilt didn’t vanish. But it dulled.

He never pushed her. Never asked if she regretted it.

But one night, under stars so bright they seemed to listen, he asked:

“When we get to the empire… what’s the first thing you want to do?”

Lazari thought for a long moment.

Then: “I want to read a book. One nobody else told me to read.”

Dren smiled and passed her the last strip of dried meat.

“Well then,” he said, “we’re halfway there already.”

They crested the last ridge just before dusk.

Below them, the land opened into a vast flat plain of golden grass, broken only by a looming black shape on the horizon—a wall. Immense. Towering. Etched with glyphs and reinforced by old iron and rune-carved granite.

Lazari stopped walking.

Her feet hurt. Her back ached. Her mouth was dry.

But her heart was louder than all of it.

“That’s it,” Dren said beside her, his voice low. “Stonebarrow Gate. Northern reach of the Dwarven Empire. Built after the Scorch War. No one's ever breached it.”

Lazari swallowed. “Will they let me through?”

Dren looked down at her. “Only one way to find out.”

They reached the gate just as the watchtorches flared to life.

There were six dwarves on duty, clad in scaled mail and crimson sashes—border-wardens, eyes sharp beneath heavy brow-ridges. Runes shimmered faintly on the stonework around them, anchoring the wards.

As Dren approached, two stepped forward.

“Name and purpose?” one asked, his beard ringed in silver bands.

“Dren of Broken Horn, returning from contract in the northern flats. She’s under my escort. Civilian,” he added, nodding toward Lazari.

The dwarf’s eyes narrowed as he looked her over. “Lizardfolk.”

Lazari stiffened. Her claws flexed at her side.

But then—unexpectedly—he sighed.

“Fifth one this week,” he muttered.

That stopped her cold.

“What?” she asked.

The dwarf looked up at her, voice matter-of-fact.

“You’re the fifth to flee north in the last eight days. The other gate’s been busy too. We’ve started keeping count.”

Lazari stared, her tongue caught behind her teeth.

“I thought… I thought your empire hated my people.”

The dwarf snorted. “We hate your leaders. The ones who send hatchlings to die on cliffs for clan pride. The ones who raid our outposts, then pretend they didn’t. You’re not them.”

She blinked, eyes stinging for reasons she didn’t understand.

“You mean… I’m allowed?”

The other dwarf, younger and less severe, smiled slightly. “You're not the first. You won’t be the last. The Verdant Path is real. Been part of the empire nearly a hundred years. Full citizens. Scholars. Traders. Even a poet, I think.”

Lazari's breath caught.

“They live…” she whispered. “They really live free.”

“Aye,” the older guard said. “Far to the south. Half a month’s travel if you’re quick. But no one’ll stop you on this side of the wall, so long as you behave.”

He stepped back.

“Gate’s open. If you’ve come to build, not burn—you’re welcome.”

Lazari looked to Dren.

He just gave her a small, proud nod.

And so, with the weight of her entire past pressing behind her, Lazari stepped forward.

Through the gate.

Into stone halls lit with amber runes. Into a land of law, of order, of something new.

She walked like someone unsure if the ground beneath her was real.

But step by step, she kept going.

It was the fourteenth day since she crossed the gates of Stonebarrow.

The road had curved gently south, becoming less barren with every step. The air turned crisp, fragrant with green things. Small shrines dotted the hillsides, carved into old tree stumps and nestled under mossy boulders. No war cries here. No guard towers. Just the whisper of peace.

Lazari stood now at the top of a hill, travel cloak fluttering in the breeze, her worn boots coated in the red dust of the last road she would ever walk alone.

And there it was.

A valley of soft terraces carved into the hillside like steps for the gods. Waterways trickled between the paths, feeding small gardens. Tall trees arched overhead, their trunks strung with silk banners of every color—each bearing a different mark: a clan left behind. A life surrendered. A self chosen anew.

Stone buildings curved like shells into the hillsides, their walls alive with moss and etched names. Lizards—her people—moved freely in the open. Some wore scholars’ robes. Others carried woven baskets of herbs or spoke with Dwarves in soft, melodic dialects.

No one looked over their shoulder.

No one carried weapons.

No one bowed.

They walked upright, heads high, eyes clear.

This, she realized, is what freedom looks like.

Her feet moved without thinking, carrying her down the stone steps and into the village proper. A child scampered by, laughing in two languages. A group of elders meditated beside a lotus pond. There was no tension here. No cycle. Only a shared, chosen peace.

As she passed beneath an arched gateway wrapped in flowering vine, a tall Lizardfolk male greeted her, eyes warm, scales the color of rain-washed stone.

“You’ve come far,” he said gently.

Lazari could only nod.

“We’ve been expecting you,” he added, stepping aside and motioning her forward. “We always are, when someone chooses the path.”

She blinked. “You knew I was coming?”

He smiled. “No. But we hope someone like you is always coming. That’s why we leave the banners out.”

She followed him deeper into the community, past a wind garden that chimed softly as the breeze passed through hollow shells. A few Lizardfolk stopped to bow their heads to her—not in subservience, but in welcome.

A woman handed her a bowl of fruit and grain, warm and sweet.

Another draped a soft green sash over her shoulders, embroidered with no sigil—because she had yet to choose her name.

“Until you find your truth,” the woman said, “let this be your comfort.”

Tears pricked at Lazari’s eyes.

She hadn’t cried in years. Not even when she fled. Not when she burned the bone.

But here?

Now?

She sank onto a bench near the edge of the lotus pond, bowl in hand, green sash over her shoulders, and let herself feel everything.

Not guilt.

Not fear.

But release.

The weight of before fell from her shoulders like old thread.

And as the wind whispered through the banners, she looked up at the sky and breathed, for the first time in her life, as someone free.

Week One

The silence was the first thing Lazari had to get used to.

Not the absence of sound—there were always birds in the trees, laughter in the wind, flutes played at dusk.

But the silence of tension. Of fear. Of waiting for the next border raid, the next food shortfall, the next cousin called to fight for a strip of sand.

It was gone.

Here, people woke because they chose to. Not because they had to.

Here, Lazari woke to the scent of tea and loam and the rustle of leaves.

She spent her days in the weaver’s terrace at first, helping where she could. She didn’t speak much. Just watched. Learned. Let her hands move the way they always had.

But the weavers did something different here.

They wove stories, not just garments. Sashes meant to represent dreams. Shawls dyed to show the journey from silence to voice. A blanket made for a new scholar bore the colors of ink, bark, and ash—not for war, but for rebirth.

And they invited her to add her own pattern to the communal cloth.

She chose green thread and a single looped strand of red—a nod to the life she had lived, not an anchor to it.

Week Two

She joined the language circle.

Each morning, a scholar named Sevan taught reading and writing to those who had come to the Verdant Path without it. Not as a mark of shame—but of opportunity.

Lazari had never held a stylus.

By the third day, she wrote her name. The old one.

She stared at it for a long time.

And then crossed it out.

Week Three

She began to speak more.
She laughed once and didn’t apologize.
She asked a question during a philosophy discussion and wasn’t mocked.
She woke one morning to find her breath steady, her heart light.

The dream of freedom was no longer a hope.

It was hers.

The Ceremony

It was held at twilight.

The banners swayed gently in the wind, their threads whispering past names and old identities—marks of who they’d been, honored but not clung to.

The community gathered near the still pond, lanterns lit and placed in the water one by one. Each light bore the name of someone who had become.

When Lazari stepped forward, she carried no title. No clan name. No blood allegiance.

Only a strip of cloth she had woven herself.

Green, red, and soft gray—colors of growth, pain, and peace.

She stood before the naming stone, etched with hundreds of chosen names across decades.

The scholar Sevan spoke.

“You have walked from fire into ash, from ash into breath. What name do you offer to your future?”

Lazari took a breath.

Closed her eyes.

And said:

“I am Alari.”

Sevan nodded.

“Then be welcome, Alari, child of your own choosing. From this day forward, your path is yours. You are no longer bound by the cycle. You walk free.”

She pressed her new name into clay, sealed it onto the stone, and placed her lantern into the water.

It floated gently outward, joining the others.

Alari watched it go, and for the first time in her life, she felt no need to chase it.

She was not lost.

She was becoming.

And she was home.

Entry: “Ale and Ashes” – A Tavernkeep’s Tale from Raal’s Ford
As transcribed by Ilven Tal’Karesh

If there’s one thing you can count on when traveling Drundar, it’s that every village—no matter how remote or strange—has a place where weary souls gather, break bread, and forget the world for a few hours at a time.

In Raal’s Ford, that place is The Crooked Banner, a low-slung inn with timber beams darkened by age and a taproom that smells perpetually of smoked herbs and spilled ale. The locals speak highly of its keeper, a broad-shouldered Vossikari named Marn, whose horns are dulled by age and whose wit is anything but.

Marn agreed to speak with me the night before I left. We sat at a corner table by the hearth, his great clawed hands cradling a tankard, his eyes sharp but amused.

I began simply.

“How’s business?”

He snorted into his drink. “Steady. Folk don’t stop needing drink just because the sky’s changing. In fact, the more it changes, the more they come.”

“And how is it, living here? Within the Empire’s borders?”

That earned a dry laugh. “Ah. So you’re one of those thinkers. Don’t worry, I don’t mind.” He leaned back, tapping a claw on the edge of his cup. “They mostly leave us alone. Paperwork’s a pain. Tariffs sting a bit. But no patrols breathing down our necks, no conscription officers sniffing around. We get to run our affairs, pick our high-speaker, argue at town councils like civilized people. Call it a win.”

“So the Empire gives you freedom?”

“Freedom’s a funny word,” he said, swirling his drink. “We’ve got structure. Roads. Trade. Quiet. You ever lived without quiet?” He raised a brow. “No? Then don’t knock it.”

“And the archive? Has it changed life here?”

At that, Marn actually barked a laugh. “Changed life?” he echoed. “Not a damn bit.”

He leaned in, setting the tankard down with a soft thunk.

“Oh, the scholars squabble over crystal prices. Guilds send letters with too many stamps. Some fool up north thinks synthetic Aether will make him a king. But here?” He jabbed a thumb toward the door. “Folk still plant grain. Still mend nets. Still burn driftwood and gossip over spiced wine. The archive’s a curiosity. A nuisance, even.”

“A nuisance?” I prompted.

“Of course it is,” he grumbled. “Set off a race. Not just for knowledge, but for power. That never ends well. I’ve lived long enough to see good things turned sour the moment men start chasing advantage. Let the dwarves tinker and the Sceadugenga dream—I’ll serve ale, fix chairs, and hope the next war skips my doorstep.”

He raised his mug in mock toast.

“To staying small,” he said. “And staying out of history’s way.”

I drank with him.

And I wondered, silently, if that would be possible for any of us, now.

Entry: “Two Songs at Sundown” – A Bard’s Farewell

As transcribed by Ilven Tal’Karesh

It was just past dusk when the lanterns were lit in The Crooked Banner, casting their low amber glow across the faces of patrons nursing their evening drinks and murmuring about crops, shipments, and the latest merchant gossip from Kael’thara. Marn had returned behind the bar, grumbling about a dented keg, and I was making notes in my ledger when the room grew hushed.

She stepped forward without introduction. An older Vossikari woman—perhaps seventy if I had to guess, her scales faded like weathered jade and her frame wiry with the resilience of age. She wore no jewelry save a single brass ring woven into the base of one horn. Her eyes were kind. Tired, perhaps. But kind.

She sat with her back straight, plucked the first notes from a long-necked stringed instrument I didn’t recognize, and began to sing.

The first song was slow. Haunting. Carried in a low, melodic tongue not often heard outside of Vossikari lands. When she shifted into the trade tongue, she sang:

“Ash Cycle”
Translated and preserved in rhythm and tone

We are born with blood already owed,
Carved from the ribs of ancestors who screamed,
Into a world of cracked stone and silence,
Where peace is a prayer drowned in drums.

We walk the cycle—again and again,
Sons of war, daughters of grief,
Names inherited like debts unpaid,
Bound to the wheel that never breaks.

But some of us dream in stillness,
Some of us weep for more than our kin.
We carry fire not to burn, but to warm,
And we whisper to the wind:

“Let this be the last turning.
Let this be the birth that breaks the blade.
Let this be the life where we walk free.”

The tavern was still. Not in reverence—though there was plenty of that—but in recognition. Heads bowed. Eyes misted.

But then her fingers danced, her tone shifted, and her second song rose light as dust in a sunbeam.

“Still, the Flowers Bloom”

I’ve lived through wars and weathered years,
Lost lovers, friends, and half my hearing,
I’ve limped through frost with broken gear
And cursed the sun for being searing.

But still—I danced when thunder sang,
I kissed beneath the springtide rains,
I drank with fools, and oh, we rang
The skies with songs and tavern strains.

I’ve watched a thousand sunrises fall,
And every time, I thought: not bad.
I’ve laughed at life’s most foolish call,
And wept for joys I never had.

But still—the flowers bloom each spring,
Still the winds know how to roam.
And I, old bones and all I bring,
Am grateful just to call this home.

So raise a glass to what’s ahead,
To roads we’ve yet to wander down.
The gods may keep the books we’ve read—
I’ll write the rest without a crown.

When the final chord faded, no applause came—only silence, then the soft clink of mugs lifted in toast. The bard smiled gently, bowed her head, and returned to her corner near the hearth, where her drink had gone cold.

I closed my journal, heart full, eyes damp. And I realized, with no small certainty, that no archive, no scroll, no recorded history could ever truly explain the soul of this place.

But perhaps these two songs—sung low in a lamplit inn—were the closest we’d ever get.

And if, dear reader, you’ve never heard a Vossikari bard…
May you be so lucky someday.

Entry: “Three at the Crossroads” – An Unexpected Encounter

As recorded by Ilven Tal’Karesh

The northern road out of the Verdant Path sloped gently into the high plains—open country, wind-stung and wide, where the sun hung low and stubborn behind gray-veiled clouds. The grasses here whispered like old secrets. I had walked most of the morning in silence, letting the dust cling to my boots and my thoughts roam freely.

That was when I saw them.

Three shapes atop the rise ahead—travel-worn, unmistakably armed, and pausing beside a low stone marker carved with age-worn glyphs. A glance at their bearing and silhouette, and my heart gave a curious leap. It couldn’t be.

But it was.

Sora of the Flame-Ward.
Branvar Half-Tusk, the Bear of Halfrime.
Garin Stonebrow, son of Harkin, last of the Silent Forge.

I nearly tripped over myself making the approach. They had clearly seen me and were already eyeing me warily when I called out—somewhat breathlessly, “You wouldn’t happen to be who I think you are, would you?”

Sora, the Vossikari, turned first. He stood nearly a full head taller than the already-imposing Urthagarn beside him. His scales were a deep bronze-green, robes half-slashed with travel dust, and a crystal blade slung across his back. He studied me with narrowed eyes before asking dryly, “Depends who you think we are.”

I introduced myself quickly. Ilven Tal’Karesh. Archivist, chronicler, and occasional footnote in better books than my own. Their expressions shifted from caution to mild amusement.

“You’re that scribe from Kael’thara,” said Garin, his beard braided tightly and ringed with soot-capped runes. “Didn’t you write the essays on the weather-engine ruins outside Malkur’s Hollow?”

“I did,” I said, somewhat sheepishly. “Though they’re more footnotes than essays now.”

Branvar let out a deep-chested laugh that sounded like a rockslide wrapped in wool. “Well I’ll be dipped. We’ve got a scholar in the wilds. Come to chronicle us like some bard?”

“If you’ll allow it,” I said, pulling free a fresh sheet of parchment. “It’s not every day I stumble across legends with muddy boots.”

Sora grunted. “Legends, eh? Careful. That word gets folks killed.”

But he didn’t object to the questions.

Ilven’s Interview, transcribed over mid-road rest and pipe smoke

Ilven: Let’s start with the obvious—what brings three famed adventurers this far south? Trouble on the horizon?

Garin (chuckling): No more than usual. We’re heading to Stonebarrow for supplies. Might pick up a contract along the way, might not. Sora says the roads are stirring. He’s usually right about such things.

Sora: There are more scrying circles lit than usual. Too many messages flying northbound. That’s never a good sign.

Branvar: Also, Garin left his favorite hammer behind last trip. We had to turn around. (He grins. Garin mutters something about “precision tools” and “not replacing runes lightly.”)

Ilven: People still speak about the Skyglass Incident as though it just happened. Any regrets?

Sora: Plenty. But regret is a luxury for people with short memories. We did what we had to.

Branvar (serious now): We lost a good woman that day. She saved us all. I’ll never forget her name.

Garin: Aye. Her name’s carved into the handle of my hammer. And every time I swing it, she swings with me.

(They fall quiet a moment.)

Ilven: What do you make of the Archive’s awakening? The world is changing fast.

Sora: Too fast. The archive didn’t change the world—it reminded us how fragile it is. We’ve lived with sharp steel for a thousand years. Now everyone wants to trade it for lightning in a bottle.

Branvar: I like the lightning. But I miss knowing who was in charge of it.

Garin: It’s like giving fire to children and asking ‘em not to burn the barn down.

Ilven: And yet, you carry on. Still take contracts. Still walk the roads.

Sora (quietly): Someone has to. The old threats haven’t gone anywhere. They just wear new faces.

Branvar (grinning again): Also, we get bored easily. And Garin keeps losing things.

Garin: I swear, I will leave you on the next boat back to Halfrime.

They shared food with me before moving on. Branvar handed me a strip of salted snowbeast jerky “for the road,” and Garin offered a nod of respect that felt heavier than gold. Sora simply said, “Write it true.”

And so I have.

Three heroes. Not in gleaming armor or astride radiant steeds—but dusty, weathered, and laughing like the world wasn’t collapsing just beyond the next bend.

If you ask me, that’s the kind of story that matters most.

His name had once been Sorrak of the Broken Reed, a title steeped in clanline and dust-wrought legacy. But none spoke it now. Not truly.

To most, he was just Sorrak.

And to those who remembered the Battle of Shatterfold Ridge—The Butcher of the Fourth Line. A name murmured with unease, half in dread, half in a soldier’s reluctant reverence.

He had long since lost count of how many he’d slain.

And, truth be told, he no longer wished to remember.

The faces blurred in his mind—twisted in pain, contorted in rage, or hollowed by fear. Blades flashing, hands reaching—too many of which resembled his own.

—

The barracks were a low sprawl of sun-bleached stone and cracked tile, soaked through with the thick musk of sweat, leather, and old blood. A hundred warriors packed shoulder-to-shoulder in the heat of a southern summer.

The sun glared overhead, harsh and unblinking—a white, pitiless eye that had watched Sorrak grow from hatchling to war-beast.

Now, he sat in the shadow of the practice yard, his back to the stone wall, a whetstone rasping down the edge of his glaive.

Schhhk. Schhhk.

Again. And again.

Not because the blade was dull.

But because still hands might start to tremble.

Because if he paused too long...

He might begin to remember.

He used to love beetles.

As a boy, long before the iron of duty had found him, Sorrak would crawl through the river reeds near his home—muddy, small, and full of wonder. He’d lift stones and peel back bark to watch the shimmer of their carapaces catch the sun. Beetles with emerald shells. Beetles with horns. Beetles that clicked when they walked or spun in frantic circles as if chasing dreams.

He named them.

Spoke to them.

Kept them in hollowed gourds strung with twine, feeding them honey-water and whispering stories in the twilight.

That was before the drums.

War again, the elders had muttered.

The Blood Calls, the banners proclaimed.

He remembered the moment like a bruise—his father’s heavy hand pulling him from the reeds, armor plates strapped across a chest still growing, a spear pressed into his palms like a second spine.

“You are of the warrior caste,” they said.

“You are born to fight.”

No one asked if he wished it.

—

Twenty years passed like a march with no end.

Now, Sorrak stood seven feet tall, carved from muscle and scar, faster than most, stronger than nearly all, deadlier than he’d ever asked to become.

And gods help him—he was bored.

Not from idleness. No, the days were full: drills, sparring, patrols, gear maintenance. The same rhythm played endlessly.

Fight. Sleep. Eat. Fight again.

Each sunrise indistinguishable from the last. Each young conscript watching him with reverence, or worse—fear.

The cycle, he thought bitterly.

Always the cycle.

Born. Fight. Die. Return.

The only escape: enlightenment. A clean soul, shed of blood, able to ascend from the wheel of rebirth.

But what hope had a butcher?

What peace could a man of death expect?

He imagined himself trapped forever, reborn again and again—each time heavier, weighed down by memory and sin.

Perhaps as a serpent.

Perhaps as a worm.

Or perhaps—fittingly—as a beetle beneath a stone, crawling in silence until crushed by some careless heel.

Maybe that was justice.

A shout broke through the haze of memory.

“Sorrak! Sparring pit! Now!” came the bark of Drillmaster Varru, voice sharp as a blade’s edge.

Sorrak rose, slow and steady, like stone shrugging off time. Dust sloughed from his scales in dry clouds, and the weight of routine hung about him like a second skin.

The others stepped aside.

He was a mountain among foothills—broad, scarred, indomitable. His tail dragged behind him in a slow arc, carving a groove in the packed dirt of the yard.

The younger warriors watched him pass, nervous and uncertain.

Some stared with awe.

Others with sorrow.

He had long since forgotten how to tell one from the other.

—

The pit waited.

He stepped in without ceremony and faced his opponent—a youth, barely seventeen summers, lean with new muscle and eyes too bright for the blood they’d one day see.

Sorrak remembered being that.

Once.

The boy lunged first—quick, eager, unrefined.

Sorrak’s body moved on instinct. A step to the side. A parry without thought. His glaive sang through the air—not to harm, but to end it swiftly. A twist, a counterstroke, a measured flick of haft and edge.

The boy went down hard, choking on dust and surprise.

A cheer rippled through the watching crowd.

Sorrak said nothing.

He extended a clawed hand.

The boy hesitated. Then accepted.

Their fingers locked briefly.

And in that moment—the boy’s wide, breathless eyes meeting his—Sorrak didn’t see a challenger, or a soldier, or the next link in the endless chain.

He saw a child.

One who might have once loved beetles too.

The day ended as so many did.

Supper was a ladle of stewed stone-potato and thin-sliced river bass, salted just enough to keep the rot at bay. Torches guttered along the walls, casting long shadows across the rows of armor laid out for repair—straps tightened, plates hammered back into shape by tired hands.

In the bunks, the warriors lay shoulder to shoulder, the air thick with sweat and the soft hush of weary breath.

Sorrak did not sleep.

He stared upward, past the rafters warped with age, past the beams gone dark with smoke. In his mind, he chased the stars that once sang above the river reeds. He pictured them clearly—the beetles with their jewel-shells, the cool rush of water on scaled feet, the hush of wind through green things.

He closed his eyes.

Tomorrow, he would sharpen his glaive again.

Tomorrow, he would drill until the sun ached in the sky.

Tomorrow, he would be what he had been shaped to be.

And yet—somewhere beneath the callus of duty, beneath the scarring of years and cycles and expectations—a voice stirred. Quiet. Fragile.

Maybe this is not the only path.

—

The next day ground forward like a cart with a broken axle.

Orders barked. Rations counted. Glaives assigned. Armor checked and rechecked.

The raid would begin at dawn—another clash, this time against the Sarrak Clutch two valleys south. No one asked why. No one needed to. The clans always found reason enough. A stolen calf. A disputed path. An insult remembered from generations past.

The blood always had a reason to flow.

Sorrak moved through the ranks like stone through a river.

Unmoved.

Unmoving.

But somewhere, beneath the stillness…
a crack had begun to form.

That night, the stars hung heavy in a sky thin with cloud. A brittle wind tugged at the tent flaps and whispered across the dust, carrying the scent of cold ash and faraway things.

Sorrak stood third watch.

Spear in hand.

Eyes dull from too many nights carved from the same bone.

The camp was quiet, but it was the brittle quiet of coiled wire. Restless bodies shifted in their bedrolls. A single fire snapped low and tired, orange embers glowing like old blood beneath a cooking pot long since emptied.

Sorrak leaned on his spear, listening.

Then—
Movement.

A shadow.

Low to the ground, cautious in its pace. Not the stride of a hunter. Not the slither of a beast.
A boy’s shape—soft-footed and fast-moving—hugged the edge of the camp like it feared being swallowed by the light.

Sorrak moved, silent as breath.

His steps carried him through the gloom until he reached the far wagon line, where moonlight painted the edges of cloth and crate.

And there he saw him.

Jarren.

One of the newbloods. No more than sixteen summers. Still slight of frame. Still soft in the eyes.

Too kind to last.

The boy didn’t see him at first, busy with the final knot on his travel pack, a knife lashed to his chest—not for fighting. For surviving.

But when he turned—he froze.

Eyes wide. Jaw slack.

Caught.

Sorrak stepped into view, his bulk casting a long shadow.

He said nothing at first. Only stared.

The boy trembled. Ready to run. Or beg. Or fight. Probably all three.

But Sorrak only shifted his weight, leaned again on his spear, and tilted his head.

"I didn’t see you," he said.

The words landed with the weight of stone.

Jarren blinked.

Confusion. Hope. Terror all at once.

Sorrak's tone remained steady. Flat as the plains.

"I’m standing here. Guarding this camp."
He looked away.
"I didn’t see anyone."

Silence hung between them—stretched tight and trembling.

Then the boy’s lip quivered.

"But—"

Sorrak shook his head once. Firm. Gentle.

"No words. No second thoughts."

He crouched low so he wasn’t so towering, voice gentler than he remembered it could be.

"Run fast. Run far.
Don’t ever look back.
Not even once."

Jarren stared at him—breathing too fast, heart no doubt louder than the fire.

And then—
A nod.

Tight. Fierce.

He turned.

He vanished into the dark without another word.

Sorrak remained where he was, still as stone.

Counting each heartbeat until the boy was gone,
truly gone.

And when he finally turned back toward the fire,
the wind had shifted.
The air smelled different.
Lighter.

When the next patrol passed, they found Sorrak exactly as he had been.

Still as the stone beneath his feet.

Gaze fixed on the darkness beyond the camp, spear held in the cradle of his arm.

Expression carved in silence.

No questions were asked.

No answers were needed.

They saw nothing amiss.

They never did.

Later, after the hush returned and the fires dulled to embers, he sat cross-legged beside his bedroll beneath the pale, skeletal light of twin moons.

The camp around him shifted in the slow rhythm of sleep—breaths rising and falling like the tide on distant shores.

But Sorrak stared skyward.

Unblinking.

Unmoving.

One thought pressed against the edges of his mind like a blade:

Why couldn’t I run too?

The question coiled in his chest like a thing alive.

Heavier than his glaive.
Heavier than his guilt.
Heavier than the memory of every face he’d buried in dust and blood.

He clenched his fists until his claws cut crescent moons into his palms.

He breathed in.

He breathed out.

Then he lay back and stared into the dark.

And he pretended—just for a while—that sleep might come.

At dawn, the drums began.

Low.

Relentless.

The thrum of inevitability.

Sorrak rose with the rest, his joints aching from too many nights on packed earth. He fastened his armor with practiced movements. Strapped the glaive to his back. Checked the edge—not because he needed to. Because it was part of the ritual.

Because that was what warriors did.

The cold morning air bit against his scales as he took his place in the formation. Shoulders square. Spine straight. Face empty.

The standard-bearers lifted the blood-cloth banners high.

The chant followed.

Blood for honor.
Victory for the cycle.
Death for enlightenment.

The words rolled like thunder.

But Sorrak’s lips didn’t move.

Not anymore.

He simply waited.

And when the horn tore through the morning silence, when the battle cry roared and the line surged forward like a wave crashing toward old grudges—

Sorrak ran too.

Because he was supposed to.

Because he knew nothing else.

Because it was all he had left.

The enemy met them at the bend of the river—Sarrak warriors, their war paint stark beneath the morning sun, their weapons clutched tight in trembling resolve.

The clash came like a thunderbolt.

Shield slammed against shield.
Steel kissed bone.
Flesh tore.

There was no room for thought.

Only motion.

Only instinct.

Sorrak surged forward like a breaking tide, his glaive a sweeping arc of death and discipline. He drove its blade through the throat of a shield-bearer before the cry could rise. Spun, caught another at the ribs. Hammered the haft into the chest of a third, dropped a knee across the jaw of the fourth.

Blood painted his scales.

It wasn’t battle—it was survival made ritual.

The screams rang in his ears—some near, some far, some horrifyingly familiar.

But within?

Within, he was screaming louder.

Why?

Why this?

Why me?

Each strike of his glaive carried a silent plea:

I don’t want to be here.

Each parry, a confession:

I don’t want to be this.

Each life ended beneath his blade tore away another memory of soft reed beds and honey-fed beetles.

He’d loved beetles once.

He’d named them.

Fed them.

Spoke to them like friends.

Now he moved like death given muscle and rage.

Because he couldn’t stop.

Because survival had been carved into his bones.

Because choosing to die—letting them kill him—felt wrong.

Dishonorable.

Weak.

So he did the only thing left to him.

He kept killing.

Not for glory.

Not for victory.

But because some part of him still feared what lay on the other side of the glaive more than the blood it spilled.

Because it was easier to forget he hated this… than to admit he was too afraid to leave.

Somewhere in the haze, the rhythm blurred.

There was no tally kept—only movement, only instinct. His blade slid through a gap in a warrior’s cuirass, clean and quiet as breath. Another fell gasping beneath his boot, throat shattered by a single, brutal stamp. Another flailed. Another fell. Another.

Until the dirt beneath him drank deep of red.

Until the sun itself seemed to pale behind the smoke.

And when the silence came—
when the screams faded,
when the clash of steel died beneath the weight of too much death—
Sorrak stood alone atop a hill of corpses.

Panting.

Armor drenched.

Jaw clenched so tightly it sent lightning down his spine.

His glaive hung heavy in his hand, soaked to the haft.

Around him, the warband howled their triumph—drunken with blood, bellowing chants to the Endless Cycle, raising weapons like trophies to the unfeeling sky.

But he didn’t join them.

Couldn’t.

He heard them only as echoes.

Distant.

As if from underwater.

A captain clapped him hard on the back, booming with laughter.

“Forty!” he cried. “Forty souls, Stoneheart! Forty for the Cycle!”

Sorrak blinked.

Forty?

He looked at his hands.

At the blood staining every scale. At the splintered bone. At the broken weapons littering the field like discarded truths.

He hadn’t even realized.

He hadn’t even known

The night reeked of smoke and victory.

Fires dotted the valley like stars fallen to earth, and laughter rolled across the blood-slick grass. Meat roasted. Ale foamed over crude clay mugs. Songs were sung—raucous, guttural things full of blood-pride and conquest.

Sorrak sat apart.

His glaive lay across his lap. He ran a cloth over its blade—not with reverence, not with care. Just motion. Repetition. An act to keep his hands moving, to keep the memory at bay.

Hands that moved could not remember.

Hands that moved could not feel.

He watched the fire flicker, gold and hungry. Thought, for one breathless moment, about standing and walking into it. No cry. No defiance. Just... forward. Into heat. Into silence.

But he didn’t.

His hands did not rise.

His feet did not move.

Coward, he thought.

Always the coward.

When sleep finally took him, the stars above twisted like knife-points, sharp and unblinking. He lay staring at them, armor still on, weapon close.

And quietly, like a child in prayer, he whispered:

"I hope I’m a beetle next time."

The summons came with the sunrise.

He had just completed his morning forms—precise, flawless strikes with a spear borrowed from the rack—when a runner approached, eyes wide with reverence.

"The Voice of the Ancestors requests your presence."

Sorrak followed.

He entered the tent in silence, knelt in silence.

Before him stood Varesh Sun-Caller—Voice of the Ancestors, high priest and keeper of the bloodline’s sacred flame. He was draped in ceremonial blue, each golden bangle a mark of lineage and authority.

"You have been chosen," Varesh said, his voice like dry leaves on stone.

"To guard my path to the neutral lands."

No praise.

No pride.

Just command.

Just another mask to wear.

Sorrak bowed low.

Because what else could he do?

Because saying no had never been part of the language he was taught.

The road north was dry, long, and lined with dust that clung to armor like regret. But for the first time in many seasons, Sorrak’s path did not lead to battlefields or clan feuds. It led away from them—toward Barathen.

He walked in silence beside the ancestral priest, Varesh Sun-Caller, whose rank had earned him safe passage into neutral territory. Sorrak was his chosen escort. A reward, some said. An honor.

He thought it more like exile in silk.

But the road gave him time to think.

He had heard stories in half-whispers and fireside rumors—tales of the Freehold of Barathen, that patchwork city cradled at the edge of three great nations. A place where the Dwarves bartered stone for song. Where the Urthagarn spoke in gruff poetry. Where the Sceadugenga wove magic into ink and told time by the stars.

A place where clan blood meant nothing.

At night, Sorrak sat by the campfire, spear across his knees, staring into the embers. He tried to picture what life would feel like without a leash wrapped in clan-color silks. To walk without orders. To speak without knowing the words had been chosen for him.

To choose who he was.

What he was.

The thought scared him more than any sword ever had.

Barathen met him like a thunderclap.

Its gates were no more than simple archways of polished driftwood and stone, but beyond them was chaos—beautiful, dizzying chaos.

Tents layered over market stalls. Stone houses carved into the bones of a hillside. Urthagarn fishmongers bellowing prices beside Sceadugenga scholars debating alchemy in three languages. Dwarves in brass-trimmed robes walked shoulder to shoulder with cloth-draped desert traders. The very air shimmered with the heat of too many cookfires and too many clashing scents—roasted rootbeast, candied bark, ocean brine, forge smoke, and something sharp and floral he could not name.

Sorrak stood amidst it in full ceremonial armor, his glaive slung across his back like a relic of another life.

He remained close to the priest, ever the dutiful shadow.

But inside?

Inside, the world tilted.

It was too much. Too bright. Too loud.

And he was… awake.

The hum of the city wormed past the scars in his mind. Every sound carved a little deeper into the stone of his discipline. Every smell cracked another shell of obedience. For a moment, he thought he might cry—and didn’t know if it would be from fear or joy.

He had not felt this alive since he was a boy turning over river stones, hunting beetles with his little wooden spoon.

The cycle had brought him to Barathen.

But for the first time…

He wondered if he might choose not to go back.

The inn was modest—a squat, stone-and-timber hall named The Broken Lantern, its rafters hung with the faded banners of guilds long since merged or forgotten. Time had weathered the walls, but the hearth still burned strong, and the scent of stew drifted lazily through the common room like a memory of better years.

Sorrak took his seat in silence, his broad frame still clad in ceremonial armor. Above, Chief Varesh held private council with emissaries from distant lands. Below, Sorrak watched. Listened. Waited. His hand rested lightly on the hilt of his glaive—not from fear, but out of habit so deeply carved it had become instinct.

The tavern buzzed with life—traders quarreled over tariffs, Sceadugenga scholars debated ink formulations, dwarves clinked stone mugs while exchanging smuggled jokes in their gravel-thick tongue. In the corner, two soldiers played dice for copper, their laughter sharp as knives.

And then the door swung wide.

The Urthagarn stepped through—a mountain in motion.

Seven and a half feet of scarred hide and corded muscle, draped in sun-faded furs and armor that had seen a hundred snows. Warpaint streaked his broad, bearded face—white lines across dark fur like the markings of a storm god. A greatsword hung lazily across one shoulder, its edge worn thin by countless campaigns.

Sorrak froze.

This one was larger than him. Not just in frame—but in presence. The kind of presence that didn’t need to announce itself. It simply was.

The Urthagarn’s eyes found him at once, and to Sorrak’s quiet confusion, the giant smiled—broad and genuine, as though greeting an old friend.

He strode over, boots thudding against the floorboards, and dropped onto the bench across from Sorrak without a word of permission or ceremony.

“Don’t often see your kind this far north,” he rumbled, his voice like glacier-rock grinding beneath the earth.

Sorrak blinked, unsure if it was challenge or curiosity.

The Urthagarn flagged the barkeep with one hand and ordered two mugs of whatever northern brew the place served. When the drinks came—dark, bitter-smelling, and frothy—he slid one across the table without hesitation.

“Branvar,” he said, raising his own mug. “You?”

Sorrak hesitated, just for a breath.

Then: “Sorrak. Of the Reed.”

Their mugs met with a sharp, ringing clink that echoed oddly in Sorrak’s chest.

Not a clash of warriors.

But a beginning.

They talked, Sorrak and Branvar.
At first, haltingly—two blades dulled by years of duty, circling an edge they didn’t yet trust. But the words came. Slowly. Easily.
Branvar spoke as men do when the fire is warm and the drink flows—plainly, with the careless wisdom of someone who no longer needs to prove anything.

Said he was an adventurer. Wandered the fractured edges of the Empire. Cleared trade roads. Hunted beasts. Escorted overeager scholars who couldn’t read a curse mark if it bit them.
“Pays well enough,” he said, biting into bread like it owed him money. “Pays better in stories.”

Sorrak had asked, quietly, as though the question might turn to ash if spoken too loudly.
“You chose this life?”

Branvar only grinned. The kind of grin that came from long roads, close calls, and mornings beneath unfamiliar stars.
“Course I did,” he said. “Got tired of fish nets and fence posts. This way I get to wake up where I like. Fight when I choose. Sleep under skies not owned by any crown. Eat what I catch. Drink what I earn. Answer to no one but my own honor.”

Sorrak had said nothing.
But his grip on the mug tightened.

There was a silence then—not empty, but full. A silence thick with something deeper than surprise. A slow ache, coiled in the ribs, like a wound half-healed.
For the first time in a long while, Sorrak had heard a word he’d almost forgotten:

Freedom.
And it sounded like a dream.
And it sounded like betrayal.
And it sounded, somehow, like salvation.

—

Branvar drifted away not long after, drawn toward the dice players in the corner with a gambler’s easy stride.
Sorrak stayed.

Sat alone at that battered wooden table in the Broken Lantern, watching the dregs of ale cling to the bottom of his mug.
He turned Branvar’s words over like stones in a river, polishing their edges until only meaning remained:

Wake where you like.
Fight when you choose.
Answer to no one but your own honor.

The next morning broke gray and heavy with mist, the kind that settled on the bones and made everything feel a little older.

Sorrak sat once again in the common room, armor still buckled tight, spear resting against his shoulder. The inn was quiet, save for the creak of beams and the occasional murmur of travel plans.

Varesh, the priest, had vanished into his councils—talking trade, treaties, border disputes. All the language of nations Sorrak had only ever bled for, never spoken.

His orders hadn’t changed:
Wait.
Watch.
Be silent.

He sighed.
Long.
Low.
And for the first time in years, wondered what might happen if he didn’t.

The door to the inn rattled open beneath a gust of mist-heavy wind.
Branvar Half-Tusk filled the frame, all tooth and cheer, reeking faintly of wet fur and mead. He stepped inside as if he owned the floorboards, boots tracking rain and confidence in equal measure.

Behind him came a dwarf—broad, scowling, and bearing a hammer that, at first glance, seemed comically oversized. It swung from his shoulder like a siege weapon misplaced at a tavern.
But then you noticed the way he carried it.
Casually. Effortlessly.
Like it weighed no more than a walking stick.

Sorrak’s eyes lingered a second too long.

The dwarf noticed. His cheeks flushed the color of forge-ember.
“It’s enchanted,” he muttered, not quite meeting Sorrak’s gaze. “If you’re wonderin’.”

Sorrak blinked.
Something in his chest shifted—an almost-laugh caught behind his teeth.
But warriors deserved dignity, not ridicule.
Even those who wore their steel like a second name and their pride like an ill-fitting coat.

He offered the dwarf a respectful nod instead.

Branvar, unbothered as always, clapped the newcomer on the back hard enough to make his armor clatter.
“This lump here is Garin Stonebrow,” he declared with a grin. “Best hammer-man this side of the northern ridges. Bit slow in the morning, though.”

Garin scowled. “Wasn’t slow, you half-frozen oaf. I was at the—”
He hesitated, glanced about the room, and dropped his voice.
“…the Red Lily House.”

Sorrak tilted his head, confused.

Branvar’s grin turned predatory. “Means he went for company,” he said, “not breakfast.”

Garin turned an impressive shade of crimson.

And Sorrak—unexpectedly, involuntarily—felt the corner of his mouth twitch.
Not quite a smile.
But close.
Closer than he’d come in years.

They shared a table, the three of them—two warriors of the north and one from the dustbound south.
Rough mugs of ale. A plate of fried tuber cakes crisped to golden brown. The kind of meal bought more for warmth than taste.

Garin devoured most of it with grim efficiency, crumbs catching in his beard like forgotten tales.
Branvar drank deep, wiped foam from his chin, and leaned forward with that disarming smile of his—the one that could split tension like firewood.
“You’re lookin’ restless, lizard-friend,” he said.
“Something on your mind?”

Sorrak hesitated. His claws clicked once—twice—against the rim of his mug.
Then, low and halting:
“…You said yesterday. You are adventurers.”

“Aye,” said Garin through a mouthful of tuber.
“Iron rank,” Branvar added, with no small pride. “Still green by some reckoning, but good enough to pull decent contracts. Been with the Freehand Guild out of Silverday four years now.”

Sorrak blinked. “Guild?”

Branvar nodded.
“Started in the dwarven heartlands. Spread everywhere someone needs a hand and has coin to offer. You take work—escort routes, clear beasts, guard caravans, delve ruins, recover lost things. Fight when you must. Rest when you can.”

He tapped his chest lightly with a thumb.
“You answer to the Guild charter. To your team. That’s it. No clan. No leash. Just the work. Just your name.”

Sorrak swallowed hard.

The words sank deep—stirring something ancient beneath the discipline, beneath the duty.
No clan. No leash.
They echoed in his chest like drumbeats from another life.
But with them came the old fear.

He gripped his mug tighter.
The wood creaked faintly.

“…I cannot leave,” he said, voice barely louder than the fire’s crackle.

Branvar tilted his head. “Why not?”

Sorrak said nothing.
He stared at the table, tracing the grain with his eyes as if it held the answer.
Because I am bound.
Because they made me into this.
Because if I flee, I will be hunted—and I don’t know if I’ll run… or turn back to fight.
Because I do not know what I am without a weapon in my hands.

But none of it reached his lips.

Only a shrug. Heavy. Hollow.
The sound of chains that no eye could see.

Branvar didn’t press. Didn’t try to crack the silence.
He leaned back instead, easing the weight of the moment with lighter tales—stories of misread contracts, collapsed tunnels, too-curious scholars, and monsters that turned out to be clever goats.
The kind of stories that only make sense in hindsight.
The kind Sorrak didn’t have.

And though he heard the words, Sorrak’s mind wasn’t in the tavern anymore.

It was spinning.

Could I?

The question circled him like a hawk over a field—terrifying, ungraspable, and somehow brighter than any battlefield he’d ever seen.

And for the first time in years…
He felt a flicker of want.
Of wonder.

Later that evening, as the sun sagged low and orange over the rooftops of Barathen, it happened.

The talks had dragged long.
Too long.

Voices raised in polite fury. Promises sharpened into veiled threats.
Barathen’s diplomacy was a dance—ornate, bloodless, but no less dangerous.

Sorrak stood at the edge of it all. Silent. Still.
Glaive in hand. Armor polished. Eyes steady.

Chief Varesh Sun-Caller, Voice of the Ancestors, stood at the center—robes immaculate, words honed to cut. He wielded lineage like a weapon. Carried pride like a shield.

But in this place—this city built from barter and broken chains—no one knelt.
Not the dwarves, who had weathered a thousand years of empires.
Not the Sceadugenga, whose tongues dripped with stars and ink.
Not even the Urthagarn lords, older than Varesh by lifetimes and unimpressed by ceremony.

Here, in Barathen…
No one bowed to blood.

And for Sorrak, something in that truth cracked open.

Not loudly.

But just enough to let the light in.

The final insult came as the last light bled through the high windows—red and dim as old blood.
Chief Varesh, cornered by the slow grind of diplomacy, snapped.

He rose from his seat, robes flaring, and stabbed a clawed finger across the table like a blade drawn too hastily.
“You will honor the strength of our blood,” he hissed, voice sharp and echoing in the vaulted silence.
“And if not—”

He turned.
Gestured to Sorrak.
“This spear will remind you why.”

A hush fell over the chamber.
Not the hush of deference.
But the cold stillness of insult weighed, measured, and discarded.

No one stood.
No one flinched.
They looked at Sorrak not with fear—
but with contempt.

And that was when the Sceadugenga emissary moved.

He didn’t rise. Didn’t shout.
He simply tilted his head—just a fraction. A breath of a gesture.

That was all it took.

From the corner of the room, where shadows clung thickest, something flickered.
A whisper of movement. A breath turned lethal.

Then—steel.
A soft, wet sound.
A single gasp.

Sorrak moved, a lifetime of training snapping through him like a thunderclap—but he was half a second too late.
The blade struck true.

Varesh staggered.

His mouth opened—no command, no curse, just air.

And then he folded forward onto the negotiation table, robes crumpling beneath him, jewelry clinking hollowly against the wood.

Dead before he finished falling.

The room did not erupt.

It held still.

Sharp.

Poised on the edge of aftermath.

And Sorrak…

Sorrak stood unmoving.
Glaive clenched in his hand.
No longer a symbol.
No longer a warning.

Just a weapon—too late to matter.

For one long, electric moment, the chamber held its breath.

All eyes turned to Sorrak.
Some expected fury.
Some expected blood.
Most expected obedience—the instinctual lunge of a warhound unleashed.

Sorrak did not move.

But I saw his grip tighten.
The muscles along his jaw locked.
That ancient reflex rising from the marrow: Protect. Avenge. Strike.

But then…

He didn’t.

Because something broke inside him—not a snap of rage, but the brittle crack of an old chain giving way under its own weight.

There was no honor left to defend.
No war to win.
Only the ghost of another leash, waiting to wrap tighter.

And Sorrak—stone-silent, weapon in hand—chose not to step forward.

He chose not to kneel.

—

The city guards surged in a moment later, boots hammering the floor, voices raised in every dialect spoken between mountains and sea.
Diplomats were pulled apart. Accusations drowned in shouts. Blood was smeared into silk and trampled into the stone.

Sorrak stepped backward into the chaos, his glaive lowered, nonthreatening.
He let the storm pass over him like a man standing still in a river.

When the questions came, barked sharp by armored peacekeepers, he answered simply:
“I saw nothing until the Chief fell.”

It was the truth.
Enough of it, at least.

Neutral ground.
No blood price owed.
No vengeance required.

And the diplomats—eager to avoid scandal, unwilling to provoke further incident—nodded, muttered, and let it end there.

Just another assassination in a city that had seen too many.
Just another body carried out beneath a white sheet.
Just another weapon left standing in the corner, forgotten by those who had wielded him.

But I remember the look in his eyes as they cleared the hall.
Not grief.
Not fury.
Just stillness.

Stillness like the moment before a storm forgets how to stop.

Later, once the bones had been stripped clean and the fire had burned down to a patient glow, Sorrak spoke again.

His voice was low.

Uncertain.

Like stepping out onto ice not yet tested.

“Are there beetles?” he asked.

Branvar blinked.

Garin raised a brow.

Sorrak shifted, his tail twitching through the dirt.

“In the Empire,” he clarified. “The woods. The fields. Beetles.”

For a moment, silence.

Then Branvar laughed.

A great, booming sound—half wonder, half delight.

“Gods, yes! Big fat ones near the rivers! Glowbugs near the Weave pools! Stone beetles in the mountains—tough little bastards, you’ll crack your blade on ‘em if you’re not careful!”

Garin snorted. “You’ll trip over ‘em if you’re not watchin’. They’re everywhere.”

And Sorrak—Sorrak went still.

Not in fear.

Not in tension.

In something gentler.

Something that curled behind the ribs like warmth returning to frostbitten flesh.

Hope.

He lay back slowly, arms crossed behind his head, scales catching the last gold flickers of the fire.

He didn’t speak again for a while.

But I remember the look on his face.

Not joy, not exactly.

Something quieter.

Like a man remembering how to imagine.

Like a child, staring at the stars and daring—for the first time—to wonder if one might be for him.

—

The walls of Varnhull rose before them days later, jagged and immense, draped in morning mist like a kingdom born of myth.

Stone older than dynasties.

Gates high enough to scrape the breath from your chest.

Banners snapping in the mountain wind—crimson, gold, steel-gray.

At the crest of the last hill, Sorrak stopped.

He stared.

Mouth open.

Heart pounding.

Not with fear.

With awe.

He was here.

Truly here.

A thousand miles from the blood-soaked mud that birthed him.

A thousand miles from chants and chains and battles without reason.

And he had walked here.

On his own feet.

The Freehand Guildhall sat just beyond Varnhull’s second market square—a squat fortress of stone and timber, its polished oak doors edged in black iron and worn smooth by countless hands.

Above the archway, a sign.
Simple.
A handprint.
Fingers outstretched.

Not clenched in command.
Not pointing in judgment.

Just open.

—

Inside, the air crackled with life.

Armor rang against flagstones.
Papers shuffled and fluttered.
Laughter rolled like thunder across the rafters.
Voices—Urthagarn deep, Sceadugenga lilting, dwarven gravel-thick—rose and tangled like morning fog.

Sorrak froze in the threshold.

His breath caught.
His grip tightened around his satchel.
The noise. The bodies. The living.

It was too much.

Too different from the barracks.
Too loud to be safe.
Too bright to be forgotten.

His scales itched. His muscles tensed.
A lifetime of discipline warned: Leave. Now.

But a hand fell on his shoulder—broad, warm, steady.

Branvar.

“This,” he said, voice calm and sure, “is where the real road begins.”

Garin grunted, nodding toward the counter where gray-robed clerks scrawled notes into ledgers thicker than a smith’s anvil.

“Time to get your name in the book.”

—

They crossed the hall together.
Every step echoed.

Branvar stepped up first, speaking with an easy familiarity to a clerk—a dwarven woman with a tight bun and ink-smudged fingers. Her eyes, keen and tired, flicked toward Sorrak.

“This one’s with us,” Branvar said. “New recruit. We vouch.”

The clerk looked Sorrak up and down, lips twitching faintly at the sight of so much scale and scar in one man.
But she said nothing—only nodded.

“Tin rank, then. Provisional until first contract’s done.”
She slid a ledger across the desk.
A thick one. The kind that remembered.

She dipped a quill and set it atop the open page.

“Name?”

—

Sorrak stared at the parchment.

The quill sat light in his fingers.
The ink shimmered.
The line waited.

Empty.

Expectant.

Not like a chain.

Like a choice.

He took a breath.

Then another.

And at last—

He began to write.

Branvar leaned in as the quill hesitated. His voice was low but firm.

“You don’t have to keep the name they gave you.”

Garin gave a slow nod beside him, crumbs still clinging to his beard.
“Lot of folk start fresh,” he said. “Clean ledger. Clean name.”

Sorrak—the warrior I had followed through the shape of his old life—stood utterly still.

I watched him breathe.

Watched the tension ripple just beneath the surface, like wind across still water.

He did not hate the name that had carried him through blood and fire.

But I saw it in the way his shoulders shifted, just slightly—like an old weight had loosened.

He was ready to set something down.

Not in shame.

But in grace.

—

He stood there longer than most.

The hall pulsed around him—boots and laughter and contracts and voices calling names that weren’t yet legends.

But he heard none of it.

Only the scratch of quill to parchment.
Only the shape of who he might become.

And then—

He wrote it.

A single word.

Sora.

No clanmark.
No title.
No war cry clinging to its heels.

Just a name.

Light as river wind.

Warm as firelight on scale.

His.

—

The clerk glanced at the page, gave a brisk nod, and handed him a tin badge bearing the open hand of the Freehand Guild.

“Welcome to the Guild, Sora.”

He turned the badge over in his clawed fingers, as if memorizing the feel of freedom.

Branvar beamed so wide his tusks nearly split his grin.
Garin clapped him on the back, nearly toppling him into the desk.

And Sora—he laughed.

Gods, how he laughed.

A clean, rough, beautiful sound that cracked through the stone of every silence he’d ever swallowed.

—

In the years that followed, that badge would shine.

He would carry it across mountains and through war-torn valleys.

He would save villages. Slay monsters. Escort children through storms. Guide the lost with steady hands.

He would rise to Platinum rank—the first Lizardfolk to do so in all the long memory of the Guild.

He would not be sung of as the Butcher.

Nor as the Broken Reed.

He would be remembered as Sora the Freehand.
Sora the Skystrider.
The man who walked out of the cycle and into a life of his own choosing.

—

But not yet.

Tonight, he sat at a fire.
A tin badge at his belt.
Laughter in his throat.
And a world waiting beyond the door.

And somewhere out there...

perhaps even a few beetles still waiting to be found.

Author’s Note
As recorded by Ilven Tal’Karesh

I’ve walked many roads. Heard many stories.
Some shimmer with grandeur. Others burn with grief.
But every so often, a story lodges in the ribs—quiet, steady, unforgettable.

Sora’s story did that to me.

Not because it was loud.
But because it was honest.

Because it reminded me that freedom isn’t always thunder and banners.
Sometimes it’s a name, chosen quietly.
A path, walked willingly.
A life, reclaimed without permission.

If you find yourself at a crossroads—burdened, bound, or afraid to take the next step—
I hope you remember Sora.

And I hope you choose to move forward.

Even if it’s just one step.

Even if it’s only toward the sound of beetles under stones.

Entry: Varnhull, City of Stone and Steam
By Ilven Tal’Karesh

Varnhull is louder than I expected.

Not in volume—though the clatter of carts, the chiming of bells, and the chorus of street vendors certainly gives it voice—but in presence.
This city speaks with every brick. Every plume of steam from the foundries. Every carefully etched rune in the stonework of its gates.

It is the heart of the Dwarven Empire, yes—but more than that, it is a hearth.
A place where scholars haggle with tanners, children dart between spice carts, and the scent of smoke mingles with roasted chestnuts in the morning air.
Where the old stone bones of the city don’t resist the new—they lean into it with callused hands and stubborn pride.

I’ve taken a room at the Turnspindle Rest, a quiet little inn tucked behind a weaver’s alley not far from the walls of Luminaris Academy. The students pass by each morning, weighed down with books and ambition. The inn itself leans slightly to the left, and the window has no proper latch, but I like it. The floorboards creak only when you try to sneak. The bread tastes like someone still wakes early to bake it by hand.

I’ve much to learn here.

But before the deep stories—the bones and blood of Varnhull—I’ve gathered a few pieces of the city’s daily pulse. Below are several clippings from the Varnhull Gazette, the Empire’s ever-watchful voice on matters both mighty and mundane.

THE VARNHULL GAZETTE
Est. 312 of the Unified Crown
“Truth Hammered True.”
Issue No. 14,938 – 4th of Thrymfrost, Year 483 – One Copper

CRYSTAL CONTROVERSY DEEPENS AS TARIFTS RISE
Exporters Warn of Empire-wide Shortages
By Delbin Runecleaver, Trade Correspondent

VARNHULL — In a move stirring tensions from the southern coasts to the Aetherforges of Korrendar, the High Council has approved a controversial increase in tariffs on unrefined Aether Crystals bound for foreign markets.

Citing “strategic reserves” and “enchantment sovereignty,” Lord Magister Vorrick Stonebrow defended the hike, saying, “Our advancements are not to be siphoned off by those who give us naught but flattery and inflated spices in return.”

Independent merchants and foreign diplomats alike have voiced concern, warning of retaliatory levies, slowed enchantment supply chains, and potential job loss in crystal-excavation towns across the Frostline.

“Mark my words,” said Guildmaster Kella Thrain, “if we squeeze too tight, we’ll find the vein goes dry.”

More on page 2.

ROYAL ANNOUNCEMENT: PRINCESS MAERIL TO WED ACROSS SEA
Alliance Rumored with Liranic House Virellen
By Hessa Quickquill, Court Watch

After weeks of speculation, the Imperial Palace has confirmed that Princess Maeril Varnhammer is to be wed this spring to Lord Admiral Thayen Virellen of the Sunborne Dominion, a union spanning nearly half the known world.

While palace officials describe the betrothal as “a joyous bond between two noble houses,” political analysts suggest deeper motives—chiefly naval cooperation and securing influence over northern sea lanes.

The announcement has sparked celebration in courtly circles and heated debate among traditionalists. A small protest outside the palace gates this morning ended peacefully, though several signs reading “Dwarves Do Not Bow to Salt Kings” were confiscated.

Full engagement details on page 5.

LOCAL BLACKSMITH STRIKES FLAME TOO HOT, FORGES WINDOW BY MISTAKE
By Brenna Slatejaw, Neighborhoods Desk

What began as an ordinary enchantment mishap turned into a public spectacle yesterday when apprentice smith Tonnig Emberfeld accidentally melted a viewing pane into the outer wall of Gildhar’s Smithy, earning his first laugh in six weeks.

“I meant to temper a blade,” Tonnig confessed, “but I blinked and now folk can watch me burn my eyebrows off in real time.”

Master Gildhar has decided to keep the melted wall as an “educational exhibit.”

More chuckles and soot on page 8.

HELP WANTED — OPPORTUNITIES IN SERVICE TO THE EMPIRE!
Glory, Craft, and Purpose Await the Dedicated Worker!

FORGEWORKS HIRING: APPRENTICE SMITHS NEEDED
No prior metalworking experience required—just strong arms, steady hands, and a loyal heart! Learn the noble trade of weapons-forging under the guidance of certified Imperial Masters.

“Every blade you temper helps shield our future.”

Housing and meal vouchers included. Uniforms provided. Enlistment bonuses available for those who pledge a full-year service term.

Apply directly at Hall of Industry #3, Redhammer District.
Ask for Overseer Drenn.

Entry: The Library with No Threshold
By Ilven Tal’Karesh

This city hums differently.

Varnhull is a forge turned inside out—heat in its belly, purpose in its bones. The stone here remembers every footstep. Yet between the clamor of foundries and the tangled markets, there are pockets of startling stillness. I found one today in a most unexpected place.

I followed the road toward Luminaris Academy, more by instinct than intent. The main archway bore no guards, no signs, no grand banners—just a single rune carved deep into the stone above the threshold: Learn.

And then, without warning, I was inside the library.

No entry hall. No reception desk. No ceremony.
Just shelves. Hundreds of them.
Stacks of spellwork and strategy. The smell of vellum and steel filings. The occasional click of a clockwork cart rolling past with tea.

It was disorienting—wonderfully so.

Near the eastern alcove, I found a small woman reorganizing a toppling stack of loaned tomes and humming softly to herself. She was eating what looked to be a warm roll slathered in honeyed butter.

This, as it turns out, was Tamsin Brewbarrel—a library worker who commutes daily from the docks and knows exactly how strange it is to step straight into a library without so much as a doormat.

Interview: Tamsin Brewbarrel, Keeper of the Quiet

I asked how long she had worked at the Academy.

“About three years now,” she replied, nudging a tower of weathered scrolls into neater alignment. “Working near the books is about as close as you can get to real learning when you haven’t the coin for tuition. Not that the professors like to say it aloud.”

I barked a laugh, loud enough to earn a shushing from a nearby student.
“Aye, lass,” I said, lowering my voice. “Ain’t that the truth—money makes the world spin, and not always in a noble circle.”

Tamsin grinned and tore a bit more off her roll. “Still,” she added, “working here means I can check out books and scrolls that aren’t currently being used by the scholars. So long as they’re back in place by sunrise, no one asks questions. I’ve learned more after hours in this place than some of the students with their full satchels and empty heads.”

I couldn’t help but marvel at her cleverness.

“Do you ever work alongside the scholars themselves?” I asked. “Contribute to any of their research?”

She shrugged modestly. “I fetch what they need, mostly. Track down references. Locate citations when their own notes are muddled. I’ve been helping Master Baelric Ironhearth, actually. He’s been in a lot lately.”

That name struck me like a thrown stone.

Baelric Ironhearth—dwarven runesmith, expeditionist, one of the few who returned from the expedition into the Outer Reach after the Aeldari Archive reactivated.

The very same Archive that changed the course of magical theory and political ambition in half the known world.

And here was Tamsin, shelving books and passing scrolls to one of the men who touched the edge of history.

I leaned in a little, curiosity freshly stirred.
“And where’s Baelric now? Any idea?”

Tamsin gave a short laugh, shaking her head as she nudged a tome labeled Runic Faults and Their Musical Analogues into place.

“Not a clue,” she said. “But if you stick around long enough, he’ll poke his head in. He always does. Like clockwork—or like a hammer you forgot you set on a high shelf.”

I grinned. “Forgive the turn in subject. I didn’t mean to veer off your story.”

She waved the apology off with a flick of her wrist. “Don’t mention it. The king’s personal runesmith is quite the... character. He has a way of changing the topic all by himself anyway.”

I chuckled but brought the focus back to her, pen hovering again.

“Has the Archive’s awakening changed anything for you? Day to day, I mean.”

She paused—not out of hesitation, but the way one does when they feel the gravity of a question.

“Oh yes,” she said, her eyes alight with something between wonder and wariness. “It’s changed a lot. But not everything. I still get my bread from the same bakery on Wharf Street. Still get hollered at for shelving in reverse order when I’m tired.”

She smiled, but her voice lowered slightly.

“The theories the scholars are working on though? Whole different world. They’ve started looking into these ‘Weave harmonics’—trying to use them for communication over long distances. Not letters. Not courier birds. Just... resonance.”

She made a spiraling motion with one hand, as if drawing invisible rings in the air.

“I won’t lie, most of that goes right over my head. But I know Master Baelric’s been elbow-deep in it. That, and getting the components sorted for artificial Aether crystal production. He’s been running himself ragged. It’s exciting stuff—but concerning too. The world’s shifting under our feet. You can feel it.”

I wrote all of it down, every word.

Because she was right.

And because her voice carried the same quiet tone I’d heard in cities across the continent—where things were no longer what they had been, but not yet what they would become.

I tapped my quill gently on the parchment.

“Don’t I know it,” I said. “I used to be a banker, you know. Gilded chair. Clean hands. Safe roof. One day I stood up, took a journal, and just... started walking.”

She looked at me, eyes amused. “And now you chase stories.”

“Aye,” I nodded. “And they’ve been chasing me right back ever since.”

Tamsin glanced toward the clock mounted over the far wall—its gears ticking like a patient heartbeat—and sighed.

“I’d better focus before the scroll indexes eat me alive,” she said, already turning back to her cart. “If you’re really set on catching Baelric, there’s a little alcove in the back corner near the south window. He always sits there. Says the light’s better for his eyes, though I think he just likes the quiet.”

I thanked her, offered another nod, and slipped away—moving past rows of etched spines and humming lanterns until I reached the place she meant.

The alcove was small but pleasant: a semicircle of stone benches nestled beneath a wide glass panel that let in the weak, clean daylight of Varnhull’s late morning. A single table, scarred with runes and ink stains, sat in the middle—quiet, unassuming, and clearly beloved by someone who returned to it often.

So I sat. And waited.

I half-expected hours to pass.

They did not.

Barely a quarter-hour later, I heard footsteps—a heavy, deliberate tread, and the slight jangle of enchanted tools brushing against a thick belt.

Baelric Ironhearth stepped into view.

He paused when he saw me, brow furrowing beneath a thick shelf of copper-colored hair. His eyes flicked to the table, then to the window, then back to me.

“Uh. Excuse me,” he said, in the tone of a man not quite used to being surprised in his own domain. “I usually work here. It has nice natural light.”

He pointed, almost defensively, to the window.

I stood and gave a quick bow, coughing politely. “Apologies. My name is Ilven Tal’Karesh. I’m a traveling historian—sort of—and I was hoping to speak with you. I understand you were part of the expedition that uncovered the Aeldari Archive.”

Baelric blinked once, then again. I could see him weighing my presence—curiosity versus caution.

Then his lip curled into the faintest of smiles. Not smug. Not weary. Just... entertained.

“Aye,” he said, setting down a leather-bound tome. “Why not.”

He eased down onto the bench across from me.

“Ask away.”

Interview: Baelric Ironhearth, King’s Runesmith, Explorer of the Aeldari Archive

We sat together in the soft quiet of the alcove, light spilling over ancient pages and fresh parchment. I kept my voice low so as not to disturb the stillness of the place, but there was no mistaking the weight of the man across from me.

He did not carry himself like a legend.
But legends rarely do.

I leaned forward, pen poised.

“What was it like,” I asked, “to find the Archive?”

Baelric rubbed his beard, thoughtful. The motion seemed habitual—more to give his thoughts time to gather than out of uncertainty.

“Well,” he said after a long pause, “that’s a tricky one to explain. There was a lot going on that day… but I remember laying my eyes on it and just thinking, ‘Damn. This is it, isn’t it?’”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. “I think that sounds rather poetic.”

He stifled his own laugh, not wanting to disrupt the quiet. “Aye, it is,” he admitted. “Thelion and Tharos were practically salivating. And me? I was just standing there thinking the rest of my life would be spent trying to unravel the mysteries they left behind. Trying to build something with what they bequeathed us.”

There was no boast in his voice. Just a tired sort of pride.

“And how has your life changed since?” I asked.

That brought a longer silence. When he finally answered, his voice was softer.

“My life is different in every way,” he said. “I live under the king’s thumb now. I’m not allowed to wander far. Delving ruins with the gang? That’s all but impossible these days. I miss it.”

He looked down at his callused hands.

“But… the pay is good. My children and grandchildren are taken care of. I like to think the work I’ve begun will keep even their grandchildren busy, far into the future. These Aeldari—they were more advanced than you or I could even dream of. Not just in magic. In thinking.”

I sat with that a moment. The silence stretched.

“I remember reading,” I said at last, “that the Aeldari left a record. That they left. Do we know where they went?”

Baelric’s lips twitched into a quiet smile. He didn’t speak right away. Instead, he simply raised one weathered hand and pointed toward the ceiling window—toward the pale blue sky beyond.

“They went away, lad,” he said. “Far away.”

He tapped the side of his head gently, as if nudging the dream behind his temple.

“We’ll never see them.”

I let the silence linger just a moment longer, then steered gently toward the present.

“And what brings you into the library today?” I asked.

Baelric’s expression brightened immediately, like a forge catching flame.

“I’m working on refining the runic matrix I designed for the Stormbreak Dams,” he said, sitting up straighter. “The design I drafted four years ago—solid, but not elegant. We’ve uncovered new examples of previously undocumented Aeldari runes down in the South Seas, near the southern pole vortex. The site was in remarkable condition.”

His eyes glittered with enthusiasm now. His hands moved with the rhythm of a craftsman sketching shapes in the air.

“These new runes—if I’m interpreting them right—could reduce the Aether draw of the matrices by up to another seven percent.”

I must’ve looked visibly lost, because he paused, then chuckled.

“Sorry,” he said, scratching the side of his nose. “I get a little excited about this sort of thing. Aside from my dear Dagna, runework’s my one true love.”

I laughed. “No, no—it’s fine. I’ve heard of the Stormbreak Dams, actually. They’re nearing completion, aren’t they?”

Baelric grinned, full and proud. “Indeed they are. Seven long years, and now the final of the three stages is nearly done. The boys on-site are ready to come home. Can’t blame them. Hard work, far from hearth and kin.”

I found myself imagining it—a wall of stone and steel holding back the fury of an Aether-fed ocean, pulsing with rune-light. A project built not for glory, but for permanence. It stirred something in me.

“Perhaps I’ll head there next,” I said aloud. “Might make for a fine interview.”

Baelric nodded. “You should. Seek out my cousin—Thandric Ironhearth. Foreman on-site. Gruff as a cave bear but twice as generous once you’ve shared a drink. He’ll talk your ear off, so long as you bring a good bottle of fire brandy.”

I smiled. “Noted.”

We stood, and I offered him my thanks with a respectful bow.

He waved it off.

“Just keep writing it down, lad. Folk forget too fast. Someone’s got to remember how it all really happened.”

I promised I would.

Then I slipped quietly back through the rows of ancient shelves—my journal heavier, and my heart a little lighter.