The evening in his room was cold. Tharkal had just realized that what he was doing could become very dangerous. He scratched his neck and pondered in his room, wondering what he could do. His right hand kept brushing his chin as he tried to think.People usually expected dwarves to live in caves and be foolish — that was the norm. But on the other hand, the other races claimed they were insanely good workers who did whatever was asked of them. Yet the humans and the other races failed to realize that they themselves had made a mistake. Damn, how I hate it!

Underestimation of another, is overestimation of oneself!This was the sentence he had committed to memory for life, and he told himself he would never forget it. At least, that’s what he kept insisting to himself. His mother had made him repeat that sentence over and over again. For a long time, he didn’t understand why he had to. But over time, the meaning became clear to him. And then, when his mother passed away, that sentence was the only thing left of her.

His hand wandered to his brown beard, speckled with tiny grey hairs, and began to gently massage it. Instead, it should have reached for the table and reread the letter — the last letter he had received from his mining unit. But fear held him back. He had tried persuading other squads to descend, but they simply said it was hopeless, too dangerous to send more people down.

As he sank into the deep pit carved by his own thoughts, his gaze fell upon his desk. It was cluttered with antiques from foreign lands. To his right, a candle cast a soft glow across the room. To his left lay papers, plans, and letters — including the final letter from his mining unit. As a leader, one ought to care for their team. That was always the criticism others had of him.

Three weeks. Three weeks and still no reply. Three weeks and still no report. Three weeks and still no sign of life. But the mine was far too deep — several thousand meters, maybe even more. It would take days to reach the bottom, and the amount of supplies needed for a single mining unit was immense. The supply elevators had to depart days in advance to ensure the food — the “ore-fruits,” as some called them — arrived on time. Dwarves could go long without food or water, but letting someone starve was still unhealthy. The shafts were dusty and dark. But who really cared about dwarves? They were just expected to work.

He could ignore it all. He could simply recruit a new unit and start the work anew. But that would be lazy and selfish — and Tharkal had been both, many times in his life, until he came to regret it. His selfishness had cost him his family, his friends, and now even his workers. He had to take the risk. He couldn’t gamble with someone else’s life. If a life had to be risked, it would be his own.

Tharkal stood up and opened the door, but first he peeked outside for a moment. I will not put another life at risk. He would take no one down there with him — only himself and his pride. Pride, despite his failures, despite having achieved nothing more than becoming a mine foreman and an assistant to an architect. But at least he had achieved something, and that was enough for him. The high cavern, where part of the dwarven city lay, offered a vast view of the vault and the streets below. Buildings carved from stone lined the cavern and rose up along the outermost walls of the enormous cave. Some of the dwarven structures had been hewn directly from the mountain itself, and from the rock that made up the mountain, white veins ran through the dark grey stone.

Thud! Apparently, he hadn’t seen where he was stepping — he’d been lost in thought. “Watch it— Ohh, Tharkal.” She was a dwarven woman. He had never seen her before, yet some of her facial features seemed familiar. He had never laid eyes on this woman, and still, something in his mind rang a quiet alarm. The black hair, the freckles on her cheeks, and those dark, almost black eyes — something in her face stirred recognition, though he couldn’t say what it was. “You don’t remember me, do you?” Tharkal opened his mouth to speak. “It’s alright, Tharkal. You don’t have to know me. You don’t have to.” The woman walked past him. Who was she? She vanished down a side street — that strange woman who seemed so familiar. Surely, it was just coincidence.

A wind came from the rise, and that wind gently pulled him out of his confused state. He followed the direction it came from and climbed the elevation. The world opened up before him, and he gazed upon the dwarven city where he lived. The sun glowed in the sky — grey and veiled by clouds, yet still beautiful. A single glowing orb stood behind the clouds, faint but present. Some clouds curled around the peaks of the mountains that enclosed the city. The valley in which the city lay wasn’t particularly green — greenish-brown grass, in some places entirely brown, covered the rolling hills. Only one outdated and, in places, muddy road led from the city across the valley, out into the wild and partly barren tundra.

The street was empty — well, not entirely. In the distance, a small group of dwarves could be seen. They seemed like travelers, or perhaps workers from the mines. But their dirty faces, worn gloves, and tattered clothing suggested they were more likely travelers. They disappeared from view, but as soon as they saw Tharkal — especially one of them — a confused, surprised expression crossed his face. Moments later, that one interrupted the others’ conversation, briefly pointed at Tharkal, then at the staircase leading downward. Where did that staircase go again? Was it the mine shafts? Right, I still had to deal with that. Maybe the stairs led to the market. Yes, that had been his plan — to shop, so he could bring supplies to his unit. How much money did he even have left? Quickly, he reached into his pocket and sighed in relief as the clinking of coins echoed from within.

His hand brushed along the dwarven runes carved into the wall — angular symbols etched deep into the stone, rigid as iron and lacking the fluid grace of other scripts.

He bought everything he needed — stone-meat, ore-fruits, an opal — and then fetched his old leather backpack. He said goodbye to no one. He lived alone, without a child or a wife, burying himself instead in his plans for expanding the mine. But nothing ever truly got expanded. His plans were always discarded, again and again, and with growing frustration he clung to them, never understanding why they were always rejected. Not every dwarf was happy. Not every dwarf was a craftsman living in caves. And not every dwarf knew what lurked down below.

The supply elevator wasn’t far now, and in the next moment, he was already inside. Tharkal reached for the earth — not the real earth, not the ground beneath him, no. He reached for a higher force, and carefully channeled that energy into the tension cable that held the elevator. It began to move, slowly and with a creak, and it felt like daytime — yet even the cooling crystals couldn’t soothe his burning thoughts. Was this suicide, going down there alone? I mean, the mining crew always descends with a foreman. But I’m an architect — I don’t even know how… how things work down there. No, that was a lie he kept telling himself, just to feel better, to feed his ego, or maybe because he didn’t truly know what he was. He wasn’t an architect — just the assistant. And the chances of ever getting promoted looked grim. But if something was still happening down there… something alive. He had doubted for so long whether it even made sense to keep sending food. What if they really weren’t alive anymore?

You old idiot, what even could have killed them? For a short time, his confidence was back again, but only for short. I don't know, maybe a mine collaps?

No matter how long he waited, he would arrive eventually. He slowly counted the days he spent in the elevator. And after at least two days, he was there — not at the bottom, but halfway down the path he had to travel to reach the depths. But were they really days? The food should have spoiled by now; even cooling crystals couldn’t last that long. Ah, what did it matter — he had lost all sense of time anyway. When he thought of time, only darkness came to mind.

It was pitch black down here, and this was only the first part of the descent. As soon as he stretched his hand into the darkness, it vanished into nothingness — into eternal night. He pulled his arm back and took the opal from his pocket, holding it gently in front of him. He reached for fire — not real fire, but something that lay elsewhere, somewhere beyond reality — and channeled the energy into the gemstone. His arm felt the energy flowing through him like a river, and at the same time, a tension built in his muscles — the river was warm. The stone glowed so brightly that he could see the wall and a glimpse of the abyss to his left. He didn’t dare look into the depths of the mine, but he knew they were deep. The mine was like a wound — an inner wound.

For long days or nights, he saw only the wall to his right and the abyss, which grew shallower with each descent. The descent was slow, endlessly slow. But turning back was pointless now. Turning back wasn’t even an option — only moving forward remained. Even if it took an eternity.

The cold of the abyss grew crueler the deeper one went. The deeper the descent, the more merciless the cold became. And at the very bottom, the cold knew no pity. But even if one broke through that cold, a sudden warmth would overcome them — a deadly warmth. The abyss was empty, nearly dead. The mine carts were still full of goods, but overturned and torn apart. Yet there were no corpses, no blood, no stench of death.

Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. Tharkal walked along the mine — it was dark, without light. He found himself in a long shaft, the rails broken here and there, or vanishing for moments at a time. But once again, he focused only on the rails.

Ahhh!

Tharkal rubbed his head. The small opal flickered briefly, and for a moment, he didn’t know what he had bumped his head against — until his frustration faded again. A monument stood in his path, engraved with dwarven runes. Plain and simple, it stood there. Tharkal ran his fingers across the runes, and the runes spoke the following:

They—they’re gone. But what took them…? Where did they go…? Tharkal sat down, his back pressed against the monument, staring into the void. But how can that be? I did… No, impossible. It must mean something else. That can’t be what it stands for… Tharkal cut off his train of thought. He stood up and continued onward. And as he walked further down the shaft, something startled him — something stood before him. Something that had been unearthed by the miners.

He stood before something — and that something was a gate.

And the gate was open.

Tharkal peered through the gap the door had created. Nothing. Only dark emptiness revealed itself beyond. Runes covered the gate — protective seals carved into its surface. Tharkal couldn’t make them out; the opal emitted too little light to reach all the edges and corners of the seals. The glow was dull, not clear. The light that touched the surface scattered like grains of sand, leaving only a blurred patch visible on the gate.

The gate let out a loud creak as Tharkal slowly opened it. A dark pattern of curved lines was etched into the floor, stretching upward from the ground to the pillars that stood about a meter away from the wall. So, it is a circular room. The rotunda extended far above — Tharkal estimated at least five meters. The lines climbing up the pillars all converged at the top of the chamber, forming a dome-like structure, as if one were looking at a vaulted ceiling from within.

Tharkal looked toward the center of the room, where something stood upon a pedestal. His eyes met a radiant, white statue of a woman — a woman wrapping a cloth around her body. Unlike everything else in the chamber, she glowed as soon as the light touched her. Her shimmering presence was utterly enchanting, and her breathtaking pose, reaching for her sword, gave her a commanding aura. Finally, Tharkal’s gaze fell upon the pedestal, where only two letters were engraved: A and D.

He lifted his foot and took a step toward the woman.

A dark smoke drifted away from Tharkal’s eyes — a smoke that forced him into a fit of coughing. For a moment, he could see almost nothing but darkness. Slowly, he managed to open his aching eyes, but when he did, all he saw was a blinding light.

As he stared into the distance, he saw only a battlefield — thousands of piles of corpses. Some burned, some torn apart, and many shattered where they had fallen. Tharkal couldn’t believe his eyes. Where am I? What is happening here? The field reeked of smoke and flesh. The ground beneath him was crusted and black. Not a single patch of green was visible. No sign of life anywhere.

The light, which had been so blinding at first, slowly dimmed until he could finally look toward its source. The hill before him — that was where the light emanated from. A small group of figures stood at the top of the hill, and the light itself came from somewhere behind them.

One person in particular caught Tharkal’s eye — a woman standing at the very front of the group, seemingly leading them. He couldn’t make out her face. He strained his eyes, trying to see clearly, trying to defy the light. But just as he thought he might recognize something, a sharp, cold pain pierced his heart.

Ooff. That was much. I know, but I hope this could set the tone for the book. Sadly, it's not canon. But i will very likely reuse it in a different way. I hope u like it. Byeeee

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