Chapter 416: The Forgemaster

"The Sky Deer that I used to heal a part of your soul is a rare beast, but I knew that I needed multiple of them to heal you. It was not the plan to return with just one. I had no idea that you could endure such..." he gestured towards me, "... drastic damage to your soul and still remain you."

Dorrik stared back at the fire. "It was not supposed to be this way, but the System is a madness that is taking the best of us all, and I need to make a stand."

He gestured, and a block of metal appeared in front of him; he placed it into the fire, and he did not seem to care about the heat. With his second hand, he traced a line across the surface of the forge, and I saw the metal beneath his hand begin to glow.

"The System does not tolerate what it cannot control. The free gods, the old races, the wild places, the deep magic, all of it is being erased. I don’t know what has changed, but the Dragon God does not want to rule a world of diversity. He wants to rule a world of uniformity where everything fits into his order. The only problem with that order is that it promotes nothing but strife and endless bloodshed. If the fallen gods eliminate all the free gods, their hunger would not end, and they would turn on each other."

I watched his hands move. He shaped something precise, and I could see lines of power flowing through his fingers, weaving into the metal like threads into cloth.

"I have no problem with dying; life and death are two faces of the same coin, and I would have gladly gone to my death if the fallen would stop when the Old gods and races were gone, but from what I have seen... this madness would not stop."

Something was being added to the metal that I felt was closer to Anima, but it was not. In my sight, it was almost more raw, as if I was seeing what came before the power of souls.

"Stoneborn are builders," Dorrik said, as he worked the metal. "We shape stone, we shape mountains, we shape the bones of the world. We are not meant to shape weapons. A weapon is a thing that ends. To build a weapon is to betray the nature of what we are."

He paused, and I saw his hands still for a moment. The ghost inside his skin pressed harder, and I saw the outline of something that might have been a face, pressing against the stone of his cheek.

This face seemed to see me, and it turned toward me and grinned.

[Eldritch Perception: 14 → 24 (Initiate)]

I didn’t focus on the face; I was more interested in what Dorrik was doing, and this trick seemed to help, as whatever was inside him looked away from me and became fixated on the metal changing shape under the god’s finger.

"But I have watched the world burn for too long. I have hidden in this mountain for centuries, telling myself that endurance was enough. But nothing has changed. The System has only grown more entrenched, and the free gods are dying, one by one. If I want this world to still stand when I am dead, then I will have to make a difference."

He looked up at me, and I saw the weight of endless millennia in his eyes, which made what I saw inside Sovereign Caldus seem like a child. Dorrik was very old, old in the sense that I would not be surprised if he told me he had lived for a million years.

"I cannot hide any longer. If I do not act, there will be nothing left to save."

I felt the weight of his words settle onto my shoulders; his mission seemed so close to my own. We were forced by the world to take a stand against madness or watch it all burn, and there was no way to hide from the truth of this. "What will you do?"

He looked back at the forge, and I saw the glow of the invisible fire reflected in his grey eyes. "I will make weapons. I will forge blades that can cut through the bindings holding down this world. I will craft armor that can resist the Dragon God’s will. I will build tools that can be used to fight back... and if it is not enough, then I will make weapons that can end worlds. If I am going to change, there is no need to hold back."

He reached into the fire, and I saw his hand close around something that I could not see. When he pulled it out, there was a blade in his hand that glowed with the warm light of the moon. It was small, no longer than my forearm, and its edge was so fine that I could barely see it.

Even inside his hall, I could hear the crack of thunder far above in the sky, and the wind began to move... it was as if the act of creation of this blade had sent a signal into the world that could no longer be hidden.

I found myself reassessing Dorrik before me, this Stoneborn could not just be a normal god, he was something different. What was disturbing was the second face inside him; I noticed it was no longer pushing against Dorrik’s face as though trying to tear its way out. Now their features were merging... I tried not to think about what this could mean.

"This is the first," he whispered, as if talking to the blade. "There will be more."

He held the blade out to me, and I took it. The metal was warm, and I could feel the power in it, the ancient magic that Dorrik had woven into its surface. It caused my channels to hum, and for a moment, it almost felt as if the seal over my soul were beginning to crack.

"Take it," he said. "You will need it."

I looked at the blade, and I felt the weight of it in my hands. It was not a weapon that I had expected, and I could feel something that I did not expect... Law, I could feel the power of Law inside the blade.

Dorrik stared at me. "From the way you hold this blade, I would assume that you do not fight with one."

I shook my head and smiled, returning the blade to him. "It is a beautiful and powerful weapon, but I don’t fight with a blade. Even if you give me the greatest of swords, I would just flail around with it."

"Oh, how fascinating." Dorrik rubbed his jaw. "So, what sort of weapon do you use?"

I opened my mouth, about to say a Staff, then I paused. I already had a Staff, and there was no way I was changing it, but I had long exceeded the power that a Staff could give me, and then I had a thought and smiled, "My weapon... is a book."

"A book?"

"Yes, it is called a Grimoire."