PickAccess

It was an odd dream, the little dwarf realized. Always starting with those soft sounds echoing, before the roars. Drip, drip. Stalactites echo their sultry sound of running water from the ceilings of a darkened place. Hundreds of dwellings, laughter and merriment echoing from the depths of a titanic cavern. All before a rumble of lava poured like a hiss into underground streams as smelteries and forges flared to life. To war! Clanging rose from the deepest corners as figures hazy and unremarkable strode through streets with grim faces, and a blaze of defiance in grey hues. Clangs of steel and iron were beaten to a fine folded stretch, while a burning coal haze rose like a steam between chains and chimneys alike. What was this place, buried deep within the earth under the ruins of the Urguan’s underground strongholds? Who could say. A lost paradise, an underground fortress? But second by second in such a dream, it grew. It expanded and chiseled into stone a powerfully gigantic sight. Barbican swung wide like a massive maw in a mountain range, drawbridge rattling down for a triumphant army to escape the reaches of the earthen caverns. Was it a derelict being reborn, or a keep made to conquer? Whatever it was, it spoke to this little dwarf, this humble and unworthy little male of stout stature. Even as toned biceps flexed trying to hammer his first bar of iron, even as stubby fingers swept through raven black locks in sheer surprise at the taste of his first barrel of ale. This dream remained always as blue eyes stared exhaustedly at a rocky sky, and as a rough palm swept up a bag of tools to venture into the depths of the earth alone- as his Brathmorakin sire scoffed between frothing hiccups of drunken fury and golden finery. Never to return without triumph and a worn pickaxe at his waist. This little one was made to dig. Made to excavate. Made to rebuild the glory of their kind with the very veins of the earth that spilled their ores against his fingertips. His name was Rio'dun. Soon, this dwarf would hammer that name into the stones of this world, and smile at the very edge of the battlements he dreamed of. There’d be plenty ‘behind these borders’, let there be no mistake- and no end to foes a mountain dwarf should fight.