Legend of the Runeforger: A Dwarven Progression Fantasy

The monster lashes its tentacles into the water where the ropes pull from, but cannot get hold of its attackers, whoever they are. Dark blood wells up from where the crude iron hooks pierce its skin. Its maw pulsates, teeth flexing in its squishy distended gums—equivalent to a scream of fury. The ropes pull forward, and pull the beast forward too, down onto the stone slope and hold it there.

Its full form is a perfect gelatinous spheroid thirty feet in diameter, with the tentacles sprouting in clusters from its left and right. They thrash harder, whipping the water into foam like it’s egg whites. The ropes continue to pull down, flattening the creature’s body out slightly. They're pulled up along the low walls of the ramp also, creaking as they strain to wrench the monster fully out of the water.

Who is doing this?

Now the monster is fully out the water. Its tentacles curl back toward something I can’t see. They flex and lash at more assailants, obscured from my view by its bulk. One by one the tentacles vanish—are not cut off but rather subdued, caught and pulled backwards—I see the flesh where they grow from become white and stretched.

The last one is caught. The gelatinous beast quivers and waits for its fate to arrive.

Fate does not take long. Someone in blue-gray armor clambers up on top of it and drives a rough iron spike into it head. The toothed sphere shivers and deflates, yet its killer’s boots must be spiked for he does not slip or even lose his balance for a moment.

As the squishy mass of flesh and teeth flattens out more more figures are revealed, each equipped in armor identical to their leader’s. The monster’s tentacles are crushed and bleeding where they were gripped—whoever these people are, they are stronger than dwarves.

A lot taller too. An elongated bulge in the dead monster, one of the devoured amphidons, wriggles. I make the chief figure’s leg to be about the same length as it.

He places down his metal spike and advances toward us. Hayhek backs away. I peer forward curiously. The figure’s armor fits tight, almost like skin.

It is skin. He is not armored at all, and his head is misshapen with a hooked nose and sharp teeth.

Our savior is a troll. It appears we have been saved only to serve as desserts. I aim Heartseeker.

The troll stops, holds his hands up. Then he bows low. Hayhek and I look at one another in shock. The river troll unbends his body and with a finger nearly as long as my forearm beckons one of his fellows forward. This one is smaller, only one and a half times my height. He bows too.

“We thank,” he says. He speaks like someone with a mouth full of jelly. “We thank for help.”

“I... You’re welcome.” He may be able to speak, but hasn’t got much grasp of logic. Surely they saved us?

“No,” Hayhek says, shaking his head. “We should be thanking you.” He bows low. “We would be dead if you hadn’t come.”

The smaller troll shakes his head firmly. “Our hunt long. Tired. Stalk aeolgfu so long tiring. Dwarves bait it for us. Trap it.”

“A coincidence,” Hayhek says. “We have to thank you.”

I step forward, with Heartseeker nearly up at rest position but not quite.

“This beast,” I say. “You will eat it?” I mime eating. “You will eat its flesh? Not us?”

He nods. “Not you. We hunt not dwarf. Only eat if fall down.”

“Good,” I say. “Happy to hear that.”

The bigger troll makes a serious of squelchy, throaty grunts, like he’s trying to clear a massive glob of phlegm from his tonsils. The smaller one replies, then looks back to us.

“How I say this?” he says, half to itself.

I tense. Have they decided to eat us after all?

“We are in... debt.”

“I suppose so,” I reply, before Hayhek can attempt to deny it. “We’ve helped you catch a good meal.”

“Yes. A meal, also terrible murderer.”

“These things cause a lot of trouble, do they?”

“Rarely. But when they come, big trouble.”

“Then I don’t suppose...” I begin tentatively. “You could be willing to help us.”

“Yes. That is what chief say. We help you, return for help us.”

The rest of the river trolls are emerging now, drawing up the thick ropes they used to drag down and immobilize the monster. Water drips from their scales. They must have spent a long time down underwater, swimming or maybe even walking along the riverbed as they stalked their quarry. Looking at the faces—if you can call them that—of the two in front of me, I can see horizontal lines just below their cheekbones.

“Can you breath underwater?” I say, and exaggerate my own breathing in case the interpreter doesn’t know the word.

“Yes.”

Opportunity has come. I see diamond glowing in my mind, imagine a door unlocking and my brother behind it. Perhaps I won’t have to forge a helmet with gills. Maybe the key is not far gone at all, just rolled out of my grasp but a few inches.

“But you don’t live underwater do you?” Hayhek asks suddenly. He pushes forward passed me, gives me a suspicious side-eye. I flinch in shame.

“Half and half.”

“We’re trapped here,” he says. “We’re weak, and cold. Please, take us to your home so we can rest and prepare.” He bows. “That is all we ask of you.”

I bow too, feeling horribly guilty. My duty is to get Hayhek back safely to his family: this is what I decided, is it not? The key is secondary, if it is even the correct decision to pursue it at all.

“Yes,” I say. “Just a few days to recover our strength. That’s all we need.”

The interpreter converses with the chief for a minute.

“Chief says yes. But I warn it not you like.”

“Anywhere's better than here,” I say.

“Then follow me. Unless you stay and watch cutting of beast.”

“We’ll go with you,” Hayhek says, grimacing slightly at the mass of flesh. It’s gone pale in death, and a curious acrid smell is wafting from it.

So we follow the interpreter along with an escort of half a dozen more trolls to the water. Hayhek throws off the rest of his battered armor, but I can’t bring myself to part with my gauntlets, though I know they will make the swim more tiring. I still have hope I can repair them.

We wade into the shallows. The dark water closes around my ankles. I look down, can’t see my feet, and start to feel queasy, fearing a bite or slimy grasp. Our escort is unperturbed, though—they march in as if there’s no difference between the water and the land. The two troll guards in front lean forward and begin to swim. Their long arms rotate quickly yet barely splash. Hayhek and I follow in a doggy-crawl, me with Heartseeker held forward lengthways. Though we’re half the size of the trolls we bring up twice as much froth. As a rule dwarves do not get much opportunity to practice swimming.

The trolls form a circle around us. Up close I can see their rippling muscles, and my fight in the arena with one comes into my mind. I could not beat seven even on land—one would have to be a third or even second degree runeknight to manage that. To do so underwater...

But if they wanted to eat us they’ve had plenty of opportunity already, I tell myself. No need to worry.

After a good ten minutes of splashing we haul ourselves up onto the riverbank. My foots slip on something gritty and slimy, nearly fall over. It smells foul and I wash it off in the water.

“Come,” the interpreter says.

I hurry on after him, breathing hard and shivering. My bare feet tread on rubbery fungi that smells of rot. Everything down here smells of rot, especially the trolls. The acrid smell from before that I thought was the dead monster has followed me here with them—it’s their scent.

We enter the slimy mouth of a cave. Dangling green algae slides against my face. The cave leads down, its walls coated with the same algae. It glows very softly, in the color I’ve seen surface ‘grass’ depicted as. There’s no happy sunlight here, though. The only light is that which the algae gives and that is not even enough to illuminate the trolls; they appear as cut-out silhouettes before and behind us.

“How do you know dwarfish speech?” Hayhek asks. “Not that I think it unusual! I’m not assuming you weren’t capable of it, or...”

He’s taking great care not to offend our hosts. Fortunately the interpreter is more than happy to answer.

“Most not capable. Even me, it is hard, but my brain is large. I’m special rotrylg, new kind. Improved.”

“New type?” I whisper under my breath. Is it half dwarf? That possibility doesn’t bear thinking about.

“Even so, how did you learn it?” Hayhek asks.

“Dwarves sometimes delve, hunt troglodytes, salamanders. I listen and learn.”

I frown at the back of its head. Awfully swollen, I think to myself, with its brain case flaring out to the left and right and distended back slightly also. This creature must be quite the savant.

Still, the idea he’s interested in us makes me relax a little, and a little spring returns to my step despite the coldness and exhaustion permeating my muscles. If he’s curious about our language, all the more reason to keep us alive, and maybe even well fed, dry, and happy.

A green wall appears in front of us. We’re at a dead end. My anxiety returns in an instant as the trolls halt.

“Arrived,” says the interpreter. It gestures to the floor in front of the terminal wall.

Oh.

This is no dead end at all, for there’s a black hole in the green, from which I hear noises of splashing, gurgling, and troll-speech. They are faint, seem to be coming from a long way down.

“Our home secure,” says the interpreter. “You will safe here, but entrance is tricky... Exit will be more so, but plenty food.” It smiles. “Do not worry. See? Trolls go first. None will force you.”

One by one the escort jumps into the hole, until only us and the interpreter are left.

“Me next,” it says. “I hope follow. I wish to learn more dwarvish speech.”

It vanishes after its fellows, and we’re left alone in the slimy green cave.

“Well?” I say to Hayhek, voice echoing slightly off the walls. “Do you trust them?”

“They’re our best chance. I’ll trust them.”

“Are you sure? I mean...”

“I’ve fought trolls too, believe it or not, though not one on one. These ones are different. More like us.”

“Even so...”

He shrugs. “It’s this or back to the river.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“No use wasting time, then.”

He walks forward and puts his toes over the edge of the hole, leans forward, flinches back, then clenches his fists to give himself courage and leaps.

I wait ten seconds and call down:

"You all right?"

I think I hear a reply from very far below, then after ten more seconds to make sure he's out the way, I close my eyes and jump also.