A Tombkeeper's Diary | "The Mountains Weep Green"

[Reece Nolan 636]

Sat in the dimly lit annex of collapsed ruins, a lone Ireheart scribbles away in his journal. Beside him rests an iron half-mask on the pine table, with a one-handed ferrum war axe resting against the leg. Strewn around him are a variety of chipped and bent tools used in clearing out the space he currently occupies. The stench of a tallow candle wafts out of the short length hall and into the cavernous underbelly of the new dwarven cityscape. Taking his time, the Ireheart scrawls an entry into the ram hide book before him.

 

       "Often I wonder, do the mountains carry our fallen dreams? When our kin are born under this stone, raised beneath it and taught to defend it, when we are given titles and aspirations, do these mountains silently cheer us on? Time and time again we have been protected by the very lands we struggle to defend, whether the foe be of fiery hell or watery ocean. We return our bodies to the land we swore ourselves to, and in doing so these mountains remember us. 

 

         It is this reason that the mountains endlessly weep green. Like a mother who has lost their child, they can do nothing but cry. Our derelict halls and abandoned lands do not forget the lives of those whom they nutured. For the mountains who have provided us with everything they had to offer, we gave them back our loved ones in good faith. They shield our eyes from rot with tears of their own; Blades of grass and blooming flowers shroud the mounds where our fallen reside. Even the most ferocious of warriors are swaddled by the love of our homeland.

 

         My ramblings need not be interpreted as poetic, visit your relatives and tell me if the mountains have taken good care of them. Perhaps this is an unspoken way of Dungrimm granting privacy for the dead, as prying eyes can pressure one into making choices that are not their own. An iron visage obscures the transition between life and death, giving the weary travelers time to be themselves again before passing onwards."

 

Satisfied with his work, the Ireheart leaves his work to dry beside his dainty candle. He rose from his seat and grabbed a torch, carefully lighting it with the candle flame before propping it upright with a few stones. Pick in hand, he continued to chip away at these forgotten tombs.