Chapter 9: Krag the Grim (Part II)

"Krag Master! By what right do you barge into someone's private residence without permission, and destroy their property to boot?"

In the silent clash of auras, Iron Chisel Master held his ground for a moment before falling into a disadvantage.

Although his words were tough, Sinuoli still noticed him imperceptibly shrink back half a step.

"Heh, little Aoruimu."

Iron Chisel was the Master's nickname, while Aoruimu was his name. Because he was an elder to Sinuoli and Thorgrim, the father and son addressed him by his nickname; compared to Krag, however, he was a junior, and thus was addressed by his name.

"After all these years, only your mouth is still tough!" Krag Master shook his beard.

"What? Do I need your approval to come and see my most gifted disciple, to see the youngest Rune Master in our Rune Smith Guild?" As he spoke, he turned his head and ignored Iron Chisel Master.

"Come on, kid, let me see that what-you-call-it Master-class Rune of yours!"

Krag looked at Sinuoli; his sarcastic tone made Sinuoli feel uncomfortable, but in his memories, the original owner of this body seemed already accustomed to this way of speaking.

"Looks like he's been gaslit plenty," Sinuoli thought to himself while respectfully handing over the Rune Scroll with both hands.

Krag took the scroll and began his inspection. "Hmph, if I find you plagiarizing the wisdom of our ancestors, just wait for the Finger-Severing Ritual!"

Sinuoli knew the Finger-Severing Ritual was the most severe punitive measure of the Rune Smith Guild, executed only on members who committed major offenses such as harming fellow disciples or plagiarizing the work of others.

These offenders would have a middle finger severed in the presence of the entire guild, after which they would be expelled from the guild and never again permitted to use Rune Power.

There were exceptions to this; during his travels to Dulongcheng, Thorgrim had met a Rune Master named Aoji-Four Fingers. As his nickname suggested, he had traveled thousands of miles from the Middle Lands to Norsca after undergoing the Finger-Severing Ritual in order to continue pursuing the power of runes.

Krag Master's method of inspection was similar to Iron Chisel Master's, both involving touching the rune with their fingers to sense the flow of the Winds of Magic within and the time of its engraving, though Krag Master's inspection speed was faster by comparison.

A moment later, Krag Master put down the scroll: "This is, let me think, a Master-class Flight Rune, right? I saw this rune back in Karak-Angul..."

(That is, Red Eye Mountain; this was the first major Dwarf fortress to fall during the Dark Age. Initially, the powerful Dwarfs of the Golden Age did not view the weak Goblins as a threat, allowing them to exist in abandoned mines and tunnels. As the Dwarf King of Angul led his main force to participate in the War of the Beard against the High Elves, the Goblins seized the opportunity to sneak from the tunnels into the heart of the fortress, forcing the remaining Dwarf troops to abandon the city. After the Greenskins occupied it, they renamed it Red Eye Mountain.)

"... on the Doom Anvil kept there. At the dawn of the world, before our ancestors had settled in the World's Edge Mountains, the Mother Goddess Valaya created it to counter giant beasts flying in the sky."

Just as Sinuoli and Iron Chisel Master were marveling at Krag's erudition, anger appeared on Krag's stern face.

"Those idiots! Not only could they not hold their own fortress, but every time they sent troops to retake it, they suffered defeat! In the end, even the Doom Anvil was lost—that was a treasure passed down by our ancestors! What a disgrace! A disgrace!"

Yes, Sinuoli knew that in the days after the fall of Karak-Angul, the Dwarfs had constantly attempted to recover it, and more than one former High King had even died in battle for it, but that fortress remained in the hands of the Greenskins to this day, with only the content regarding it in the Great Book of Grudges constantly increasing.

The older a Dwarf grew, the easier it was for them to fall into memories, and Krag Master was no exception.

After a bout of grumbling composed of memories of the Golden Age and dissatisfaction with the current Dwarfs, he finally returned to the main topic.

"What are you waiting for, why aren't you moving! Do you want me, an old man, to carry you?" Krag Master called out impatiently.

Sinuoli and Iron Chisel Master exchanged a glance, and Sinuoli saw Iron Chisel Master spread his hands and sigh.

"It was something I couldn't avoid anyway; since I've been confronted directly, I can only take it as it comes. I just don't know how this Krag Master got here so fast!" Thinking this, Sinuoli simply leveled his mindset and took the initiative to walk out the door.

At the entrance, he saw a squad of Ironbreakers—or to be precise, Dwarf warriors equipped with full sets of Meteorite Iron Armor.

Unlike ordinary Ironbreakers, their weapons and equipment were all engraved with runes; these men were the Anvil Guard of Krag the Grim.

Every Rune Master was a precious asset to the Dwarf race, their status equivalent to the lords who ruled the fortresses, and thus they had the right to form their own personal guards.

The personal guards of Rune Lords were generally called Anvil Guard; the name originated from when a Rune Master carried a Doom Anvil onto the battlefield, and these guards would crowd around to protect him and his anvil. When there was no war, these guards would defend the Master's Forging Room, treasure vaults, and assist in transporting raw materials for the Master's production.

The equipment and maintenance costs of the Anvil Guard were provided by the Rune Master himself. Adhering to the principle of "better to have none than to have poor quality," they often possessed better equipment than ordinary Ironbreakers, and their martial skills were generally second only to the personal guards of a Dwarf King.

Accompanied by the Anvil Guard in a manner that was half-escort and half-custody, Sinuoli and Iron Chisel Master moved along the corridor and descended, taking the lift to the Rune Smith Guild located deep within the fortress.

Along the way, Sinuoli was constantly organizing the knowledge related to runes in his mind, but since this Master-class Flight Rune had been provided directly by the system, he searched his brains and could not find a shred of relevant information, so he could only embrace the attitude of "the boat will straighten when it reaches the bridge" and walk forward with a calm face.

Exiting the lift, although he had seen it many times in the original owner's memories, Sinuoli was still shocked by the magnificence of the Rune Smith Guild.

This was a semi-open hall, spreading out in a fan shape from a magma vent at the deepest point that was carved into the shape of a dragon's head.

On both sides of the main entrance stood statues of the Mother Goddess Valaya and the god of Rune Smiths, Thurni. These two ancestor god statues undoubtedly conformed to Dwarf aesthetics—exceptionally tall; Sinuoli's height only reached their insteps.

The arched main gate was engraved with the emblem of the Rune Smith Guild—an anvil, the object that best represented a Rune Smith.

This emblem was filled with Rune Power. Sinuoli knew it had been carved by Thurni himself on the day the hall was completed. Relying on the protection of the power contained within this emblem, this hall located deep in the great mountains had not suffered damage during the great earthquake that signaled the beginning of the Dwarf Dark Age.

On the floor of the hall were pipes connecting to the magma vents, with scorching magma flowing through them like hot water, providing heat to the forging tables at the nodes.

The closer one was to the main gate and the further from the vents, the lower the temperature. On the forging tables directly beneath the dragon's head were several Doom Anvils; those were the positions of the Rune Masters.

In Sinuoli's memory, the dragon head vents could be closed. When there was a major assembly, the guild would close the vents, remove the forging tables, and set up tables; almost all major decisions of the Rune Smith Guild were reached in this hall.