The Bee Dungeon

POFair 364.1 - Don't Bee Stubborn!

Tamosmed marched through the depths of a mountain, the clanging of forges all around. He stepped to two heavy stone doors and pushed them both open without a grunt. The sounds of the forges faded as he stepped through, behind both thick stone walls and enchantments. He raised an eyebrow as he stared at the desk on the other side of the room.

“You urgently needed to see me, Forgemaster, to the point you’d have me abandon the siege?”

Forgemaster Ughlarer was not sitting at the desk but pacing back and forth behind it. He stopped when Tamosmed addressed him, turning to face the dungeon master with a dark expression.

“Yes, I did. What is the progress on the slime crafting? Do you think you will actually succeed?”

Tamosmed’s mind took quite a bit to process that question. Once it did, he frowned and crossed his arms.

“Why are you asking that now? I thought you weren’t interested in it...or the dungeon we need to accomplish it, which we are at risk of losing right this very moment.”

The forgemaster grunted.

“I am now, so give your report.”

Tamosmed narrowed his eyes.

“No.”

Forgemaster Ughlarer blinked, then glared back.

“No?”

Tamosmed scowled.

“No. You disowned me for pursuing that technique, you stripped me of all rank and honor. You then did everything in your power to stop it. You forced me to discard every scrap of honor I had left, to break our people’s greatest taboos, to indebt myself to the Pixie Queen, and to swear oaths to my patron god. Even then, it took a massive loophole in the Compact before you begrudgingly allowed me to work and you still are holding me back by leaving me as an apprentice and piling as much other work as your agreement with the other signatories allows! So, no, Forgemaster. I will honor the agreement with the signatories and share the technique with you when and if it is finished, in spite of all you have done to prevent it. But anything more? If you want to get involved, if you want reports on my progress? Then by the gods, at the bare minimum I deserve to know why you have changed your mind now, after everything.”

Forgemaster Ughlarer stepped back and his face contorted. Tamosmed braced himself...but instead of shouting back, Forgemaster Ughlarer let his head and shoulders drop, shrinking on himself. Tamosmed...found himself at a loss, having never seen the forgemaster like that.

“...you’re right. You were right...all along. I’m going about this wrong, once again, Hunger take it all.”

Tamosmed openly gaped at the words he had never heard from that man’s mouth in any of the disagreements they had ever had.

Forgemaster Ughlarer stumbled over to his chair and all but fell back into it, holding his head.

“I’ll...start by telling you what changed my mind. That human that came to us, General Rippotis...the fact that he’s alive, and what he can now do. We called him the Butcher of Blackwood after he destroyed the blood elves, but he didn’t do that alone. Back then, he wasn’t a match for the strongest blood elves, he had to rely on his army and his dragon to take them down and they made the Dragon Banner Army suffer for it. That was always how it was between the fair folk and the humans, we had power and time, they had speed and numbers along with a callous willingness to use them.”

The forgemaster grimaced.

“But now...now the Butcher of Blackwood is over a thousand years old, old even by fair folk standards, and seems no older than the days he made war upon us. He possesses god-blessed mana no less potent or vast than any of ours, and I fear there are few, if any, among the Compact who could now defeat him alone. And that extends to all the humans...even this rebellious underling of his we now face has an army of ten thousand soldiers who could hold their own against a silver elf warrior in single combat. He has elite warriors so individually powerful we hesitate to face them openly, not to mention an army of monsters on top of it all that includes a true dragon. And this underling...is not the greatest among them, not by a long shot. The Butcher faced that army alone and was never once in danger. This human nation...this Conclave of Tower Lords...thanks to the power of the dungeons they have overcome every advantage the fair folk once had. They would have been an existential threat to the fair folk as we were before the Hunger struck, when the Silver Host numbered in the hundreds of thousands, when our own forges spread across entire mountain ranges, when the green elf rangers fought alongside every beast of nature all across the Great Forest, when the dusk elves raised vast armies of the dead, and when pixies of all sorts commanded every magical power you could think of.”

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He paused, taking a deep breath before speaking in a pained tone.

“Now? When the entire Compact combined is but a pale shadow of even a single of our peoples from before? If the humans remained united and turned their full power against us, they would sweep us away in an instant.”

Tamosmed stared in silence for a bit.

“...it’s that bad? I know we didn’t have many warriors left compared to before but...we still have the silver elves, right? The golems, the Pixie Queen, the sword saint?”

Forgemaster Ughlarer shook his head.

“The sword saint can’t kill them all alone and I am not even certain he can defeat the Butcher. The silver elves of old would laugh to hear us call their current army a host and we lost most of our smiths and golem-crafters when they refused to abandon their forges. The green elves and dusk elves are but shattered remnants of their civilizations and of the many groups of pixies that once haunted the world only the Pixie Queen’s court survived. And worst of all...anyone we lose is gone for good. We’ve not even begun to replace the losses to the Hunger, taking any more now will cripple us, perhaps for good. The humans, meanwhile...have grown stronger, maybe stronger than they ever were before. At this rate...the fair folk are doomed, even if we win this present war.”

The forgemaster held his head and sighed.

“That’s why...you were right. I wanted to hide us away from the humans...but that was impossible from the moment that fool girl opened the door...no, maybe it was never possible. The wards were failing, slowly but inevitably, and none of us had a solution. So...if we are to have any hope of surviving, the fair folk need new advantages, wherever we can find them. I’ve already spoken with Nenavann, we’ll be unleashing the Circle from all remaining restrictions soon enough, you dungeon masters have proven you can even the odds. And slime crafting...if there’s one thing that could possibly restore the forges despite all of our losses, it would be that. So...”

Forgemaster Ughlarer rose to his feet and stiffened his back. He reached into the desk and pulled out a silver-colored hammer made from mithril and a small wand tipped with a cut and polished mana core. He looked Tamosmed in the eye.

“This is what I called you here for. You are an apprentice no longer, I’m fully reinstating you as a smith of the forge and promoting you to the rank of master smith, with the right to take on anyone you deem fit as an apprentice and pass to them any knowledge or technique you possess. As for your former rank of golem crafter...I am instead appointing you as Golem-master. Any and all resources allocated to crafting constructs will be yours to distribute and all golem crafters shall now report to you. Among our people, you will be the equal of the Forgemaster in all but tradition and you have already demonstrated you will not let tradition stop you. Among the Compact...you will be my representative, authorized to speak for me if I am not present myself.”

The forgemaster sighed, letting the weight of his years pull his body down.

“The black elves need to enter a new age if we are to survive and you were the first to see it. Perhaps...you are the one we need to lead it...as I cannot. I cannot forget all that we lost, I cannot forget everything that went wrong back then. Even now I burn with rage that we must offer our strength to those who doomed the world in the first place, even though I know there is no other way. I feel I am caught in a storm that even mountains cannot last against, no matter how tough or stubbornly they stand. But I will not let the Compact or what’s left of the black elves fall. I can no longer stop that, no matter how strongly I resist...but perhaps you can, by doing what I couldn’t bring myself to consider.”

While Tamosmed gaped at the hammer and the wand, Forgemaster Ughlarer gave him the biggest surprise of all. The man teared up and bowed his head.

“And Tamosmed...I’m...sorry. My anger, my fear...it was misplaced. You truly were trying to save our people and I condemned you for it. But you stood firm against all of us and persevered...thanks to that, you are now our only hope. You...are truly a man and smith of the forge, your resolve stronger than mithril. If you wish it, I would be honored to call you my son again.”

Tamosmed went silent, not trusting himself to speak as all manner of thoughts and feelings broiled within him. Forgemaster Ughlarer looked up at him again and Tamosmed locked eyes with him. The two stared at each for a long time.

Tamosmed took a deep breath.

“I accept the promotions and thank you for them, Forgemaster. I...am honored by your trust. I promise you I will do my utmost to ensure our people’s survival. As for your apology...I am happy to hear it, but one thing remains before I can accept it...or my place in your family. I am not the only one you wronged in this matter, not the one you most put at risk, and not the only one our hopes now rest upon. You must speak with Tower Keeper Belissar, apologize and make things right with him. For his sake, for ours, and for our people’s future.”

Forgemaster Ughlarer’s face twitched but he slowly nodded once.

“You...are right, once again...Hunger take me...”

Tamosmed had to wonder, not for the first time in the last few minutes, if he was in some strange dream...