Fable - Ask Frostfling Barrow

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Rovan Ravenhill

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Even in the gloom of a northern dusk, the digsite milled with activity around Frostfling Barrow, pockets of lantern light competing with the ice-blue runes in the blocked portal. These runes only glowed at dark, rising with the sun's descent. Dwarven sappers from Clan Silverpick, pried from their underground homes in Belgrath, pored over notes left by experts from the Archeological Society of Alliria. Truly, it was a marvel of cultural encounters.

Rovan might have been able to appreciate it all a little more, had it not been for the blasted cold. No matter how many layers he dressed himself in, it seemed to incessantly creep in through his wool and suck the very marrow from his bones. An inescapable chill suffused the mountain range near the Blightlands, especially at night. Whether he took shelter in tents or by a campfire, fingers of frost somehow managed to sneak over his skin all the same. He stomped life back into his toes, clapped his double-gloved hands together and adjusted his fox fur-cap to fit better over his painful ears.

"Master Ravenhill!" a gratingly exuperant voice called. He sighed and rolled his eyes skyward, preferring to nurse his own misery rather than converse again with their token scholar. By the time she reached him, he had managed to plaster an indulgent smile on his face, turning to see Lead Archaeologist Tafna Gringhook straddling up to him over the rocky terrain, breathless with excitement.

"Master Ravenhill," she repeated, as if he hadn't heard her hollering the first time. Her eyes sparkled and her wrinkled mouth quivered with barely contained excitement. This boded ill for his prospects of a quiet night. "I have urgent news. A breakthrough, I tell you, a marvellous breakthrough!"

He made an inviting gesture of his hand.

"Why then, speak Mistress Gringhook, speak. I am all ears," he pointed to his fur-covered ear. "Despite appearances."

Tafna stared blankly at him. He sighed internally at the droll nature of scholars. Finally, he had to twist his chin and arch his brows in a saying gesture, stretching a painful smile across his cold cheeks, still pointing helpfully. A mirrored smile slowly followed, before her eyes widened with understanding, grinning uncertainly, pointing at him with her mitten.

"Ah. Aha! Very good, very good. I see the brisk mountain air hasn't robbed your sense of humour." Rovan's smile froze, much like the rest of him, painfully taut. Tafna barely noticed, flicking open her book. "When the Silverpicks cleared the remaining rubble, my colleagues caught a find, truly one of a kind." Rovan absent-mindedly noted the unintentional rhyme there - the closest thing she had uttered to poetry in three, torturous weeks, but nevermind. She flicked open her tome, revealing something flinty between its pages, coming to a sharp point, with something looking like a primitive bone handle.

Before he could even question why she would use her tome as a container, she sallied on, voice squirreling away:

"It was hidden among the debris - not too far from the blocked portal. Judging by its clearly Age of Flint make, we estimate it to have belonged to someone from many millenia ago. Possibly the very same who built this tomb! Now, it is a little small for the make of an Ice Giant devoted to Skadaeni, but that could point to its ritualistic nature. It is known that giants often have used smaller folk to conduct their rites. And since this clearly is a barrow of a significant figure, it is likely that this was fashioned purposefully from an inferior material, made from what would be readily available in this region. Perhaps it was employed for sacrifices given to the chieftan--"

"Or perhaps it was employed as a
fancy toothpick." Rovan shrugged, his discursive side getting the better of him. His patron had specifically instructed him to be as courteous to Tafna as possible, but it was hard to supress his incredulity before her flights of fancy. "Or it could be little more than a dinner knife discarded by some hapless creature here. How can you possibly tell that this had any significance to, ah, ice giants?"

Rovan had, reluctantly, studied their research, so he could refute it within its own paradigm. He'd had nothing but time in this frosty region, between setting up camps and travelling. And it was an express desire of his lord that he do so, to be privy to their knowledge.

At first, Tafna gawped at his audacity. But then, she gathered her bearings, a smile of challenge crinkling her features. Oh, no, Rovan thought. Now I've done it.

"Well first of all," she started, sweeping her arm out at the portal. "Look at the size of this entrance. You can't tell me that would be for any lesser creature than a giant, now can you?"

"Or the size of someone's grandeur--"

"Secondly," Tafna went on, interrupting him. "The runes on the portal are adjacent to, but not of any known language. Neither Dwarvish, Draconic or any other Undercommon speak we know of. The written word of the Ice Giants has been lost to us. This portal may be the last letters of this ancient tongue we have--"

A third voice interrupted them brusquely:

"Portal's re'y fer demilition."
They both turned to look down at the leader of the dwarven sappers. Rimer Silverpick, with a thickly braided beard of a colour worthy of his clan-name, a thick leather cap tucked so far down over his face as to nearly cover his eyes. "N' y'werd, aye'll whisk z'laddies frennum n' pull-um stens laik tith frumma dragoon, Gringhok."

Tafna's jaw worked, blinking at the unflinching dwarf.

"I -- I'm not quite certain I . . . pardon?"

Rovan stepped in, brushing the air between them with his gloved hands.

"Allow me, Mistress, I'll speak to Rimer. As you were - you continue studying your, mm, knife."

"Dwarvish sounds so different when spoken - I'm usually used to reading it--"

He refrained from commenting that the dwarf had, in fact, attempted to speak in Common. After ushering away the befuddled archaeologist, Rovan turned to Rimer, switching to Dwarvish.

"My apologies. Ice in the ears, as they say. Forgive our human constitution."

Rimer glanced up at him from below his cap, pale-blue eyes peeking out with scepticism.

"That why a fox crawled on your head and died?"

Rovan smirked at the roughshod tradition of dwarven banter.

"Indeed. Otherwise my cold ears might start mistaking your words for the harped tones of an elf."

The dwarf stared up at him for a long moment, looking as like to put an ice-pick in his fur-cap as to admire it. Rovan met him with his same smirk.

Finally a cackle escaped Rimer's beard, slapping Rovan's knee good-naturedly.

"Attaboy. Come along, let me show you what we've done."

Rovan tried not to bend too much over his knee - what counted as a friendly slap among dwarves felt like a punch to him. At first he hobbled after Rimer, before he straigthened and refound his dignity, approaching the elaborate system of pulleys, ropes and pitons around the massive slab of stone barring their path. It towered above him with an inhuman grandeur.

Perhaps Tafna was right after all . . .

@Frazil Varulf
 
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The moon was a cold queen among her starlit court as she rose silently over the ruins, making the snow-blanketed peaks blush with silver brilliance. Like a ravenous wolf, the wind howled and moaned through the jagged peaks, throwing up glittering drifts of snow ahead of it.

Another wolf was weaving its way up the steep, rocky mountainside, alone if not for the small figure atop its back clinging against the icy claws of the wind. The figure glanced up past the fur and leather of her helmet to settle her gaze on the moon and stars. It didn't capture the frozen beauty of her homeland, but it was a captivating scene nonetheless. A perfectly pleasant evening for a ride, if she hadn't come countless miles over land and sea through this hellish continent to find a legend. Now she finally had a lead, overheard from some loud-mouthed researcher who'd landed in the same tavern as she. All she could do was see if fate was acting kind or cruel.

That legend was none other than Inupa. The half-giant who had journeyed with Clan Akhlun to discover the Southlands, and settle in what little hospitable locations the land provided them. Inupa was said to have been a daughter of Skadaeni herself... though tales differed on whether she was a great warrior who could fell a whole herd of mammoths in a single swing or a powerful arnaku who shaped an entire mountain somewhere here in the Spine. Whatever she had been, she was the key to finding the lost clan.

The white wolf she was mounted upon paused to sniff the air with a soft snarl.

"Sastriga, why --" Frazil didn't need to finish her query. A strong, smoky odor drifted in on the brisk night breeze. Some Southlander was camped nearby, and had a large fire by the smell of it.

"Let's find high ground - get a better look at what's out there," she suggested to Sastriga, leaning close to the wolf's back-turned ears to be heard over the constant windsong. She gave a slight tug on the leather harness holding her mount's barding.

Winter wolves were more intelligent than their common cousins, and understood simple thoughts and commands without much nudging in the right direction. It was Frazil, in fact, that had to hang on as her companion bounded through the snow and to the top of a granite outcropping.

Frazil slid out of the saddle, and the pair instinctively hunkered down in the safe camouflage of the surrounding snow. Down below, the unwholesome yellow glare of fires illuminated stout figures huddled around them. In the moonlit camp, she could make out the outlines of fur tents and piles of supplies. Whoever these Southlanders were (and they must have been, to be worshipping the flames so vehemently), they looked to be here to stay.

Frazil couldn't quite make out any details on the group of figures gathered around an enormous stone door, but it was hard to miss the glowing runes engraved into its surface: Runes that Frazil vaguely recognized, to her great excitement, as jatterun.

"
Hmmm..." She hadn't expected the ruin to be guarded. That would have been well and fine, if she had a raiding party with her, but as it was she could take at most ten warriors at once.... and she didn't know what sort of enemy was camped below.

She considered her strategy for a while before she decided that she might have to take a very Southlander course of action. She would have to speak with them. Which meant she needed something to trade with. Perhaps they'd be interested in the trinkets she'd looted from those bandits a fortnight ago?

With a helpless shrug of her shoulders, she rifled through Sastriga's saddlebags until she found a handful of silver necklaces and rings before mounting up again.

"We are going to... what's the word... par-something," she mumbled and ineffectually stratched her head beneath her helmet. "Anyway, no hunting anyone yet. Not meat. Understand?"

Sastriga whined.

"Good."



Frazil rode up to the group standing closest to the rune-etched door. She flipped one of the rings at them in a gesture of wishing peaceful trade. Frazil hadn't attempted to trade except with the occasional bartering with a merchant at a passing market, but it was a well-understood custom in much of the Northlands.

Sastriga licked her lips at the dwarves and huffed a thin vapor into the air.

Rovan Ravenhill
 
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"Now, see here. It'll take much too long to mine our way through this. Besides, your tall friends will want to preserve the runes. So--"

Rovan braced himself, this time for the sophisticated craft of digging holes - something the Silverpicks turned into an artform, and occasionally into a mind-numbing lecture.

But he wouldn't have to suffer through it long.

"Ulvurg!"

The warning pierced the camp - a sharp cry from a dwarven sentry. It took a moment for Rovan translate the word in his head, not hearing it often. Some manner of wolf . . .

And soon enough, a wolf did appear. A great beast of a canine, rippling with snow-white fur and bristling with teeth, saliva and tongue glinting in moonlight. Blinking his eyes in the half-lit dark, he could swear someone was riding it. A small figure. A child? No, it couldn't be. Not with the sway of a practised rider, and harness and belts to boot.

The wolf's tongue lolled, glinting eyes eyeing them hungrily. The dwarves were the first to answer in kind. Most of them gathered up in a clunky formation, bickering and shouting in their own tongue, picking up what tools they had at hand to serve as weapons. The humans were slower to react, most of them of the scholarly distinction, keeping their distance, curiously turning their attention from their studies to this new phenomenon.

Except one.

Pushing himself through the throng of incensed dwarves, Rovan made it to the front, with Rimer quickly following tow and barking:

"Well now! I could use another pelt . . ."
She flipped one of the rings at them in a gesture of wishing peaceful trade.
While the lanterns didn't yield much, it did allow his eye to catch the glint of a precious ring flashing through the air. If his eyes had been mistaken, his ears were not - the distinct clatter of silver that followed all but confirmed it. As universal an offer of commerce as any.

"Wait, wait, wait, stop," Rovan urged in their tongue, having to speak louder to break through the defensive mutters. "Hold your goats. It's someone wishing to speak, look!"

Most of the dwarves followed his pointing finger at the ring. They slowly lowered their improvised weapons. Except for one, a brown-beard with braids merging with his thick eyebrows, still keeping his spade above his head like he was aiming to swat some airborne pidgeon. Rovan gingerly put a gloved finger on its metal head and pushed it down, the miner peering up at him, but lowering it regardless.

"Now then," Rovan said in Common, clipping the charged pause. He steepled his gloved fingers before him, speaking with the studious patience of a teacher who had just managed to subdue an unruly class. "With that out of the way, let's allow civility a breath or two, shall we?"

Pine-green eyes squinted, studying his counterpart. Now that her features yielded more to their light, he could parse some details through the cascade of bewildering shadows. An avalanche of hair seemed to merge with the furs of her mount, white as a crone. Her skin seemed deathly touched by cold, light-blue as a frost-claimed corpse. But life very much burned within her gaze and leather-bound muscle.

What was she? Some manner of smallfolk or goblin? Her features refused to align completely to either stock memory he had of such peoples, but perhaps he would be able to better tell when she stepped further into the light. Or talked.


"Greetings to you, friend. I would welcome you to our camp, but I fear we're not here to enjoy the mountain view." He caught sight of the self-same dwarf from before bending down and picking up the ring, admiring its glow. Rovan paused and gave him a thoroughly unimpressed look. His kin followed suit, turning heads in his direction, and shame reddened his cheeks. Rovan extended his hand at the opportunist. When the ring was relinquished to him, he could give it a cursory inspection of his own, turning it between thumb and index-finger.

"A-haa." Rovan drew out his exclamation, exaggerating his fascination with the object. As universal a gesture of courtesy as any, admiring gifts. He squinted one eye in his performance, the other opening wider - the look of an alchemist re-discovering a favourite reagent. "You know, I have a ring just like this one. It shall make a fine donation to the cause." He closed his fist on it and gave the new arrival a straight look."And who might be our generous benefactor?"

Frazil Valrulf
 
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In the spirit of practicality, Frazil had kept her hands tense and readied to draw her axe and shield as she'd entered the camp. She wasn't about to give first blood should these Southlanders refuse her offer of truce. Watching them scramble into defensive positions around her and Sastriga with their makeshift weapons, she felt a pressure rise in her chest, a war drum beating on her heart as she cheerfully awaited the first swing.

Then, someone taller and thinner than the others stepped out of the throng, speaking to them in some strange language. The impressively burly bear-men calmed back down to respectable a state of wariness. She guessed the tall one to be a human, though it was difficult to tell beneath all of the thick layers he was wearing.

At least he appreciated the token. Frazil relaxed slightly as he disarmed most of the camp before speaking to her in a language she mostly understood and, with effort, could communicate in (although she didn't catch anything he'd tried to convey after the word 'who', she thought she had the general idea).

"And who might be our generous benefactor?"

"Frazil of Clan Valrulf," she stated with pride -- or so she attempted to convey. Common was such a terrible language, in her mind; harsh in places it should be soft, and airy in places that should have been forceful. Speaking it always felt like tripping over her own feet.

She looked again at the giant stone door, obviously the reason for the mining equipment. "You come to loot this place, yes?"

Rovan Ravenhill
 
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"Loot?" The blunt assertion caught him off-guard, and he glanced at the assembly around him. The dwarven miners looked less surprised, as if that all sounded perfectly reasonable - while Tafna looked horrified, having now waddled up to the throng. Rovan flashed a grin as he peered around, and a handful of dwarves followed suit, smiles almost as feral as the wolf. "Loot? " His brief cackle ignited a few mirrored laughs in the crowd - some genuine, others confused, while still keeping a watchful eye on the wolf.

He stretched out his arms, sharing in a few gazes.

"You hear that? We've been reduced to simple tomb robbers, we have."

"Well, we're not--" Tafna began, but Rovan raised his hand, interjecting:

"Of course not, Mistress Gringhook, of course. Better to clear up the confusion, then."

The grin persisted on his features, wavering, as he carefully reverted his gaze to Frazil. Such a bullish voice for a creature of her modest frame. Her inflection came on ungainly, someone using Common as a bridging language.

He would be curious to learn what other languages this one might speak. It might be an occasion to stretch his linguistic skills. But it would have to wait for another time - there was business to attend.

"Frazil of Clan Valrulf. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance." He offered a small bow, hand over heart, though he didn't take his hat off - still keeping the chill at bay. "I am Rovan Ravenhill, here on behalf of Lord Anton Desver of House Briarwall. And I'm afraid we must sadly disappoint - we are no mere looters, oh no." The hand clenched and gently thumped his own chest in pompous vainglory. "We are men and women of knowledge. Here on a quest for understanding ancient cultures, archaeology and--" his hand twirled for more inspiration, but his well of rhetoric ran dry. "And so forth."

While Tafna lapped it all in, nodding along with sincere austerity, many dwarves gave one another dubious looks. One rifled out gunk from his ear, inspecting it rather than listening to Rovan's elevated speech. Rimer leaned in to one of his kin, muttering in Dwarvish:

"Load of gob-shite. I'm here for the coin, that's what."


Rovan pretended not to hear him, smiling invitingly at Frazil. Important as introductions were, this all served a double-purpose. It would be a useful reminder for the dwarves to remember why they were here, curtailing their greed - or at the very least, to recall the purse who paid them.

Frazil Valrulf
 
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The human calling himself Rovan must have been a skald himself, with how he so animatedly praised his clan and their... accomplishments?

Frazil was only listening half-heartedly herself, instead taking the opportunity to more closely scrutinize the runes on the doorway.

From this position, Frazil could see the script more clearly -- or rather how the figures fit together into a few familiar ideas. Although she lacked the literacy of a nornfædd, the runes here seemed to have been made so that most hermaður could read them. Certainly there must have been some clue as to what had happened to Inupa and Clan Akhlun within this mountain.

When he had at last finished his recitation, Frazil said quickly,

"Yes, yes, Thane of Clan Briarwall must be most feared and beloved in land. Desire of many queens, without doubt. And I am sure quest of yours very good for clan and everything, but I also have quest to open this door. You in way. Please make camp on other mountain."

She reached slowly into a pouch beneath her fur-lined cloak and produced an amulet and several more rings. She had no idea of their true value, but given that she'd had to smash a locked chest to retrieve them, she figured they had some.

"How much for you to move camp away?"

Rovan Ravenhill
 
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The sheer absurdity of Frazil's question rendered him flabberghasted. And in his silence, dwarven dissent began to rise again.

"Think she can boot us out, does she?"

"Bet there's more of her lot hiding here. Arrows coming flying any second, believe you me."

"I say skin that wolf and kick her out!"

"These trinkets could hardly buy a round of ale back in Belgrath! An insult, it is!"


The angry murmurs and clatter of raised tools buzzed in the camp. It culminated with Rimer Silverpick, pointing at Frazil with an audacious finger.

"I know what she is. That's a bloody Frost Goblin, mark my beard. Nasty little creeps from beyond the Blighted Sea! Almost as bad as them Nordenfiir savages."

The protests took on an added fervour, perhaps more at the mention of 'goblin' than anything else. The dwarves began to circle Frazil, threatening her, jeering at her, an angry sea of beards, picks and hammers and spitting curses getting increasingly incensed by her very presence.

Rovan could hardly see a way this wouldn't come to blows. He only hoped she had come alone, if that was the case. His gut sucked inward, an uncomfortable shiver dancing down his back at the prospect of violence.

But much to his surprise, none other than Tafna Gringhook broke through the crowd.

"Wait!" She said, raising a hand, a human shield between wolf and dwarf. "Didn't you hear her? She is here too for the tomb! Perhaps she knows something we do not. We cannot waste such an opportunity!" Tafna turned to Frazil, hope gleaming in her crinkled eyes, tome still clutched in her arm. c64205c2-05d0-41a7-86ee-05e066f65885.png
There. Rovan saw his opportunity in Tafna's action. In truth, he hadn't expected this sort of boldness from her. Neither had the dwarves, best he could tell from their confused expressions. He could almost respect her level of initiative.

"Tafna speaks true. We ought not allow this frost goblin - whatever she is - be a hindrance to our work." He swept out his arm with a majestic rustle of heavy cloth. "Go back to your work at the portal, and allow Tafna and I to question her."

"That wolf is going to eat your faces, you know that?" Rimer shouted, pointing at Sastriga. "I'm not having that slobbering thing leering at our backs while we work, you hear?!"

With tensions this high, the final outcome seemed to hinge on the actions of Frazil and Sastriga. Would the dwarves back down and allow Tafna and Rovan to speak with her alone, or would they dispense with this strange nuisance on their own terms?

Frazil Valrulf
 
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A deep snarl rose in Sastriga's throat at the dwarves' outburst, something that those immediately around her might feel as well as hear. The muscles around her jaws pulled taut, revealing a set of canine teeth like ivory knives. Instead of steaming the cold night air, flurries of snow followed her quickened exhalations.

Frazil looked around at the hairy mob, considering her next course of action, until...

"I know what she is. That's a bloody Frost Goblin, mark my beard. Nasty little creeps from beyond the Blighted Sea! Almost as bad as them Nordenfiir savages."

... at which point the small humanoid called upon the first lesson of a skald in training: how to yell very loudly.

"I am no goblin! I am ísflögur! Child of Skadaeni!" her voice boomed above the growing ruckus. It only served to temporarily interrupt the dwarves; not to be outmatched by this brazen intruder, they started to yell even louder than before. Frazil threw aside her loot and moved to draw her axe.

"Wait!" She said, raising a hand, a human shield between wolf and dwarf. "Didn't you hear her? She is here too for the tomb! Perhaps she knows something we do not. We cannot waste such an opportunity!" Tafna turned to Frazil, hope gleaming in her crinkled eyes, tome still clutched in her arm.

Frazil narrowed her eyes at the old human woman, but paused to listen, noting her confounding effect on the provoked miners. Perhaps she was their rendition of a nornfaed, or maybe a wise-woman. It seemed that she and the other tall human were giving orders, as a nornfaed would do.

"With you, I will speak," she replied to Tafna, her voice softening for a moment before she added, "But first..."

She dismounted, her glare set squarely on the first offender, Rimer Silverpick. She shook her axe at him menacingly. Some of the other nearby dwarves backed off a few steps, not out of fear but rather in the collective knowledge that something interesting was about to happen.

"With you, I will have words."

She buried her axe in the packed-down snow in front of her before removing her helmet and tossing it down as well. A tangled braid of snowy hair tumbled out, nearly luminous in the intersection of moonlight and flickering firelight. Now she would test the mettle of these bear-men who'd threatened her wolf.

Rimer was confused by the display, but more than ready to fight. He raised his pick in front of him.

"Come on then, goblin-spawn!" he spat.

"You wish me goblin because goblin only creature who might bed you!" she growled back but made no other aggressive move. "Wrong! Not even goblin could stand smell. Do you roll in latrine in mornings? I smell beard from here -- like rear of musk ox in heat...."

The insults kept rolling out of her mouth, taking advantage of any empty space, increasing in tempo and volume as she gained momentum. She soon reverted partly into her native tongue, too focused on her next attack on Rimer's ego to notice.

"You could not even give anínarniq ánægja with such malieńki eigblevasi! One blihać before all over!"

Rovan Ravenhill
 
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"You wish me goblin because goblin only creature who might bed you!" she growled back but made no other aggressive move.
The briefest snicker escaped Rovan, snorted through his nose - before he whisked it away behind his sleeve, pretending to wipe his nostrils.

He had to commit that one to memory. Certainly this Frazil knew the fine art of mockery.

Unfortunately, it had exactly its intended effect. Rimer raised his pick to attack.

"Dat's eit! I'mma keel 'er!" His eye caught the sight of the buried axe - a universal sign as any to a stand-off. His cheeks were red with anger, hairs practically bristling, the ice-blue eyes below his cap spitting cold fire. "Y' talk fairne shait fer a bloo gobbo. Peek up yer aks, slaugob, if y'know 'ow ter juse it!"

If not his smattered Common, then certainly his angry gesticulating at her axe should be sign enough. There was a level of astounding irony to be found in this situation, a dwarf and a - what had she called herself, Isfloegur? - belting out insults at one other through a smattering of Common and native terms either probably wouldn't even understand. Oh, well. He supposed it was the intent and vigour that mattered.

Rimer waved off the other dwarves, clearly wanting to do this single-handedly. Rovan gently face-palmed, rubbing his brow wearily. Tafna strode up to him, looking more confused than if she had found an artifact incongruous with her studies.

"I do not understand," she stammered, limply waving out her hand at the spectacle. "There's no sense to this."

"Oh, but there is."
He pinched his nose, seeing with inevitable defeat where this was going. "Dwarven honour, once slighted, is hard to repair. Only the price of blood may redeem it." He glanced at the two duellists above his own fingers, eyes sharp and narrow like compass needles. "The question here is, who's going to pay for it?"

Frazil Valrulf
 
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That was by far the easiest time she'd ever had beating an opponent in the traditional hermaður way to solve grievances: hurling insults at each other until everyone feels properly offended and forgets what they were originally angry about.

Although it soon became apparent that her adversary didn't understand the rules. She glanced at the humans as if she expected one of them to intervene. When neither of them did, she shrugged and knelt to pick up her axe and helmet from the frozen ground.

"Suit self. I try not to blink and miss it." She grinned her wolfish smile again and donned her helm before coming at the dwarf.

Frazil understood the weakness of a pick as a weapon and used that to her advantage as she came in with a testing horizontal slash. Rimer managed to parry it and tried to retaliate by swinging at her chest. Frazil ducked to the side, leaving the pick to whiff harmlessly through air. She rolled backwards, away from his next attack as he shouted something else at her.

His parry left her weapon arm numb. Her opponent was impressively strong, she granted him that, but also notably clumsy. And judging from his movements, he was having some trouble fighting with something so unbalanced.

Rimer put his strength and fury behind each blow, clearly growing more frustrated at how Frazil was toying with him. Frazil used her agility to her advantage, evading the pick's unwieldy swings but not managing to get more than a glancing strike against the dwarf's shoulder. They had exchanged at least a dozen attempts before any blood was drawn.

With the exception of those who had made wagers on the winner, the other dwarves watching the bout had just begun to lose interest when Rimer landed a blow. Finally, he had become so aggravated by how the pick was failing to dispatch his enemy that he had resorted to his fist.

Frazil reeled momentarily from the fist to her face but managed to keep her axe up, anticipating that a follow-up attack was coming. Sure enough, she felt the full force of the pick reverberate through her body as it struck the axe, forcing it downwards.

But Frazil had two things the angry miner did not: training and an enchanted weapon. She shifted her weight so that the heavy pick slid down the axe's edge, making it glow with an eerie blue akin to the runes on the door. Rimer, unable to halt his forward momentum, couldn't get his hands back up in time to block Frazil's headbutt.

Both combatants were struck dizzy by the attack, but Frazil recovered first. She rammed the hilt of her axe hard into the dwarf's fingers, making him drop the pick. She followed up by slapping his knees with the flat of her axe, knocking him off his feet. The sharp blade pressed against his neck, its edge emanating a glacial chill that made frost spontaneously grow over his beard hairs.

Frazil turned and spat blood into the snow, feeling the tenderness of a rising bruise on her cheek. The axe lowered to her side.

"Not bad," she said between breaths labored from exertion. "Still would not bed you if last male in world. But good brawl."

She would offer him a hand up if he seemed less bloodthirsty, but otherwise would keep her weapon ready if he was still wanting a fight.

Rovan Ravenhill
 
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Rimer slapped the proferred hand away, pushing himself up from the ground. Some of his kin aided him, even offering to finish the job for him in their own gravelly language. But he answered them bluntly in Dwarvish:

"Leave her. Come on, let the humans deal with her. We have a job to do, and if she's still here by the end of it, we'll have wolf-meat on the spit." He glared up at Rovan as he staggered by, face bloody, frost permeated in his beard. "You tell her to leave, Rovan, or we'll make her."

As the dwarves passed and went back to the portal, Rovan breathed a sigh of relief. Rimer might be callous, greedy, tempermental and a whole slew of other descriptors, but at least he had a sense of honour. His firm belief in fairness kept the others in check from pouncing her, and it seemed she had matched that sense of rough and tumble dignity.

Tentatively, Rovan and Tafna approached while the dwarves dispersed - the former drifting over like the snow-flecked wind, the latter doddering as if the earth could swallow her any second.

"Well," Rovan said, pressing on that word with finality. "Frazil of Valrulf, you certainly know how to put on a show. I can't say what our dwarven friends will do next . . ." He glanced over his shoulder at the dwarves milling about the portal, shouting and heaving. "But since you want this door open as well, I wager we'll all get our wish in the next few minutes."

"What do you know of this tomb?" Tafna asked bluntly, protectively covering her tome with her arms.

Frazil Valrulf
 
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Frazil didn't need to understand dwarvish to know what Rimer and his kin were thinking; their looks were warning enough. Her returning expression suggested that she was unimpressed with their lot. That was the last time, she decided, she would give any of these creatures the chance to get back up.

"Well," Rovan said, pressing on that word with finality. "Frazil of Valrulf, you certainly know how to put on a show. I can't say what our dwarven friends will do next . . ." He glanced over his shoulder at the dwarves milling about the portal, shouting and heaving. "But since you want this door open as well, I wager we'll all get our wish in the next few minutes."

"They do not listen to you?" she queried, wondering how in the world anyone kept order around here. In any case, the human was right: the door was a barrier to them both, and the runes gave no hints as to how to open it. If she was lucky, it would just fall down and crush the 'dwarven' flat, solving two problems at once.

"What do you know of this tomb?" Tafna asked bluntly, protectively covering her tome with her arms.

"Not much. Does not say who buried here, but I have feeling it belong to lost clan. Only ones... erm... how say you... 'crazy' enough to build this here. Could be Inupa herself in there. Big door."

She pointed at a constellation of runework on the stone. In the giants' writing tradition, the runes were grouped to represent ideas.

"Ones here.... gone to meet... Great Winter Mother."

She pointed at another grouping. "Below is..." She couldn't tell if the idea portrayed meant to say legend, story, or great wealth, but decided not to pique the interest of these Southlanders any more than necessary. "...story, buried in nazaulífu ice."

Sastriga had wandered over behind Frazil as she spoke, her eyes catching the glint of lanterns and fires as she stared at the working dwarves. She interrupted the conversation with a gruff bark.

"I know you're hungry. As am I... I will get some jerky for you in a minute," Frazil turned and spoke to the wolf in her language. "Next time these hairy little men attack, you can eat all you want."

The wolf made a sound somewhere between a muted howl and energetic whimper. Frazil turned back and gestured at the last set. "Sea serpent. Erm, means danger here," she finished in Common.

Rovan Ravenhill
 
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"They do not listen to you?" she queried,
He gave a helpless shrug and a little smile at her question. Before he could answer, however, Tafna had barged in with her question.

During Frazil's explanation, Tafna flipped open her tome and began taking feverish notes, dropping her piece of sharpened charcoal several times. In all her scrambling movement, Rovan stood perfectly still, giving both Frazil and Sastriga dubious looks.

Either she was an excellent liar, or she happened to know more than the combined minds of the archaeological society. Both options were impressive - and rather worrisome.

"So you believe it belongs to a clan of your people?" He cupped his own chin, glancing between the portal and her. "That would explain why you made the long journey here . . . but where might be the rest of your clan? Did you come alone?"

Frazil Valrulf
 
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Nursing her swollen cheek with a handful of snow, Frazil watched Tafna scribble in her book with a befuddled interest. She'd seen a few people carrying such things around since she'd landed on the mainland, but she still hadn't figured out the reason for them.

"Is ísflöguryn, without doubt. I only ever seen jatterun in homeland."

but where might be the rest of your clan? Did you come alone?"

Had she been deceptive by nature, Frazil might have considered how advantageous it would be to have an imaginary army at her disposal. But straight-forward creature that she was, she instead explained,

"Rest of clan in Fjallaheim. I sent to find great hero Inupa... or what left of her."

Rovan Ravenhill
 
Fjallaheim . . . It wasn't a place he had heard of before. And Rovan made it a point to have a firm grasp on Arethil's various realms and borders.

Intriguing. Another point he would have to explore at length.

"I see . . . so a lone emissary of your people, eh?" He pulled his own cloak further over himself, glancing off, musing idly. "Somehow, I can relate--"

A great cacophony interrupted him - first a chorus of shouting dwarves, then snapping ropes and splintering wood, followed by stone slamming against stone, like a titan's foot stomping on the mountain top.

When the group turned their heads, they saw the great slab of stone that had once barred their path face-down among the dwarves. It seemed they had pried it free, hacking out what indentations kept it in place - though they had underestimated its weight, tearing through the ropes that should have allowed it to gently land on the ground. As such, a large crack splintered through it, and the runes that once glowed in its front died.

Tafna sucked in breath through her teeth, paling with horror. Rovan clicked his tongue in mild annoyance, as one might after stepping into a muddy puddle.

"Oh, dear. The archaeologists won't be happy about this--" when Tafna stared at him, stunned by his blasé tone, Rovan quickly adjusted his reaction, applying the appropriate amount of shock to his expression by raising his hands to his head. "For shame! These dwarves have no respect for history. They should all . . ."


His voice petered out, eyes narrowing as he caught sight of something within the yawning darkness left by the torn-out door. Something writhing. As if the darkness itself twisted and churned like a black soup, an inky mist billowing out from the cave. The final end to his half-finished sentence came in instinctual understanding, all feigned outrage drained before hollow realisation:

". . . run."

Frazil Valrulf
 
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Frazil was ready to heed Rovan's words, though in the opposite direction to what he was intending. Her warrior's instinct kicked in and she was all but bounding off the hill on Sastriga's back before most of the miners could react beyond gaping.

The winter wolf's paws beat the snow in great strides while Frazil swapped her axe for a leather-wrapped shortbow and nocked it. The darkness slithered en masse out of the door; a black hole that swallowed up the moonlight except for pinpoints of white that studded its shifting form.

The wolf slowed, giving Frazil the stability needed to fire the arrow. She watched as the projectile simply sank into the thing as if she'd shot through smoke. Whatever this creature was, it seemed it would simply devour whatever touched it.

The nearest unlucky dwarves had already found this out: those who'd had the reflex to fight found their tools-turned-weapons cutting through nothing but shadow and air. Their horror, however, was short-lived as their lives were snuffed out moments later, followed by those who were attempting to flee.

"Halt!" Frazil cried, causing Sastriga to slide to a stop. There was little time to decide what they would do, but both felt in their blood and bones that fleeing was not an option.

Rovan Ravenhill
 
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The wind rose its hackles and the sky clenched its fist, forming grey clouds and throwing fresh snow-flakes at the unnatural movement, as if trying to blow away this aberration. It was as though nature itself attempted to reject the living darkness.

From one moment to another, the monsters had turned the camp into carnage.

Picks and shovels swung uselessly through the twitching shadows and gathering blizzard - shadows with teeth and claws, splintering off from the void like a pack of spindly-limbed imps, hopping onto screaming dwarves, tearing straight through flesh and fabric to claw for the essence within, causing eyes to burn with the same, white fire that made up for their own hollow eyes. Pale flames, spewing from eyes and mouths of unfortunate victims, merged with the smoking tendrils of darkness, greedily eating its meal.

By now, half the dwarves had already fallen.

Stunned, Rovan had been slow to act. He whirled to find Tafna, who was swinging a knife at some of the crabbing darkness. It cut a white slash across its amorphous skin - like a chalky dash on a blackboard.

Unfortunately, she soon fell to her knees, tome and knife clattering on the ground - her last find. Her jaw dangling loose, arms and hands quivering and curled as though having a seizure, bone-white fires spewed from her eyes and mouth. The flames leaking out of her coalesced and was drawn into the vortex. Something black rose from her shoulder - a spiked ball littered with a myriad of tiny white eyes hidden in dark crevices, like some twisted bee-hive. Its largest and central eye flickered, before honing in on him. Spindly limbs propelled it forward - a scrabbling eyeball - flinging itself from the sorry archaeologist's remains towards Rovan, claws outstretched.

He barely managed to dodge - his fox-hat flying off with the wind - saved by primal instinct. The creature landed and tumbled on the snowy ground, finding its feet. Rovan's cloak snapped and whipped around him, his gloved hands curling as if looking for something - anything - to defend himself.

The knife lay not far from him, along with the dessicated husk that was once Tafna. His gaze travelled back to the creature, still seeing the white cut in its black flesh. His inactivity had at least afforded him more of a view - witnessing how neither Frazil's arrow nor the dwarves' tools could cull the darkness. But this - this had done something. His heart beat in his throat, while his cold, gloved hands sought the bone-hilt of Tafna's artifact. This was going too fast. This was all impossible. How could something like this happen?

No time. He had to attack to survive.

Rovan rushed forward, his throat unused to battle-cries, sounding more like a shrill note of pain. He cut the thing, and saw a brief glare of blue-white light flash from the flint blade on impact. Icicles latched onto this wound, imprisoning some of its inky form in a layer of ice. Another impossibility. But one he could appreciate, at least.

The spikes on the creature bristled, a strange sound emanating from it, like an airy hiss. It retreated to its brethren, and as it did, Rovan rushed for Frazil, her wolf as good as any rallying flag in the chaos.

He had seen the ísflögur fight. She might well be his best chance of survival.

"Frazil! Here! This - this can injure them!"

He was shouting and waving the strange knife at her, competing with death-cries and abominable growls. With his hat off, his raven-black hair blew wildly around his face and triangular goatee, his black clothes rendering him like a fleeting punctuation mark against the canvas of the white blizzard.

Frazil Valrulf
 
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