Janna

Janna Forgedaughter

Age 4 years

I was just old enough for bravery when my home fell to the greenies. Old enough to want to help, old enough to want to hurt them, but I wasn't old enough even to walk under the weight of armor, or pick up my mother's hammer to fight. But she fought. While I was smuggled away with the rest of the useless noncombatants, she and the too few remaining defenders of Karak Azgul held the walls, hoping for the return of our army. I know she, in particular, was watching for my father and brothers, and that she didn't live long enough to see them. Answering the call to protect our allies, the Humans, in Morgheim robbed us of any chance at repelling the goblinoid army. And our returning warriors shattered themselves against our own city's defenses. Ivar Sharptoof's army took our city, killed our people, and desicrated our forges. All my family are dead.

Other races wouldn't know this, but there are no dwarven orphanages. A child without parents is summarily absorbed into a nearby family, taking their name and parents and siblings as if they had had no others. All Dwarves are kindred. But some few orphans of that time have taken names like mine, instead: names that say we are the daughters and sons of Dwarvenkind and no particular family. Names that say we won't ever forget what the greenies cost us, and we'll kill them if we can.

Age 15 years

My master is older that the mountain our city is built into, I swear. Each of his arms is the size of my body, and probably as weighty, all muscle, scar, and soot from the forge. His voice is deep, but raspy with age and years of bellowing over hammer strikes. He's not the least shy of bellowing at me for no reason at all when everything is dead still and I could hear him just as easily were he whispering.

Nothing I do is good enough. Apparently, I'm the most clumsy, idiotic, slow, half-Human, half-wit he's ever apprenticed. He's going to trade me in for a donkey any day now. If the militant twits, by which he means my friends, were any less fractious and flighty, he'd be training them instead. And I'm not permitted to spend time with them unless he's pleased with my work, and he's never pleased. If I didn't practice on my own every damn morning, I'd get no weapons training at all.

Maybe things will change once I'm trained enough to actually work at the forge, but I suspect it'll only get worse. Of course, I won't quit. He can't make me. It's all worth it. I've fetched water and journeyman's tools, swept the forge and cleaned the workbenches, stocked the fuels and tidied the stock ores, and studied design after design for almost two years now. Recently, I was allowed to begin polishing the finished pieces. I held, reverently of course, a blade Master Rocksplitter crafted, and though the intricate and perfect rune in the cross piece was not yet active, the quality of the blade itself was staggering.

I will do this someday. Nothing will stop me. And I won't accept any master less than Rocksplitter. He's the best.

He is also the Dwarf who trained my mother, although she chose to focus on smithing, and he often praises her strength and skill with the metals. He says he doubts I'll ever be as good.

Age 20 years

I don't know that I'm doing the right thing. No, that's too simple. I'm doing the wrong thing, but I don't know if the reasons are right enough to condone it. No, they're not, but I'm doing it anyway.

Once again, Master Bastard denied my request to join my friends for weapons training. It's been so long now, I just want to see them and find out how they're doing. I hate that he always tells me what to do, and he never praises me, and my work is good, solid work and why won't he recognize that, and he's such a jerk. My brains are all twisted up, and my temper... I lost my temper and yelled at my master. I threw some of my junkier pieces in the reforge bin as loudly as I could and I ran out.

I am ashamed. Master Rocksplitter chose me. That's an honor he paid me, and I'm repaying him like this? But he won't let my friends be part of my life. That's way intrusive, and not part of what a master has say in, right? And I'm crying and feeling sorry for myself. What sorry-ass sort of Dwarf am I? I should go apologize, try to make amends, or just show back up and hope he doesn't mention it.

I got cleaned up and went to see my friends at practice. This group that I've been a part of since... well, since the evacuation train... it's made up of other Dwarves who've lost everyone to those green bastards, mostly young Dwarves my age. And yeah, my master's right, they are militant. We've used real, unblunted weapons to train from the beginning, and we train every day. And we're going to kill every greenskin in Karak Azgul and win it back. And then, we're gonna kill every greenskin in the Dragonback Mountains. And then, we'll just kill every greenskin left. Huh, just seeing them brings it all back.

Hisin Axeson and Glugnus Greatblade are fighting in the center. They're using swords for this match, I see, and the clang and metal sheen as they battle is beautiful. Axeson moves around a lot, which is new. Maybe he's learning a Human style of fighting. Greatblade is using traditional Dwarf defensive positions, and I smile because Axeson can't move him. Maybe it comes from working in a crowded forge, but there seems to be less of us than before. But looking closer, it's not a seeming. Instead of the double dozen that used to meet, I see only a score. And they have changed. I notice Greatblade's new scar first. He's wearing a chain shirt, so some of it is not visible, but it is visible below the shirt; an angry, red line traveling from knee all the way up the right side of his body, along his neck, and into his right ear. He's lost that lobe and part of the shell, I see. Secondly, I notice the tattoos. Both Greatblade and Axeson and, scanning the rest of the group I realize, everyone else has now been adorned with slayer tattoos. Head, mostly. Some face, some back. Everyone but me.

They've all chosen a path that I'm not on. I could be a slayer. I am a good fighter. But then, what about what I've learned? Spent time and a lot of effort learning, in fact. I ... already have a path. What will I do if they ask me to join them? Would they? To be tattooed a slayer has to have made one kill, at least. I could go in and congratulate them. Maybe promise them weapons, once I have my own forge. They would still look at me like an outsider, I know. I don't want to feel that, any more than I already do.

I go back the way I came. I doubt anyone noticed another Dwarf onlooker. I feel like part of me has been ripped away, but I don't doubt my way any longer. And if this pain of loss was what Master Rocksplitter was keeping from me, then maybe he's a much more caring master than I thought.

Journal

April 6, 2514

I consider this a waste of good parchment. But Master Rocksplitter wants updates, and not just from his Human friend Wizard Klemperbad. I arrived in Nuln today. No troubles on the road; putting the survival book I read into practice was really fun, actually. Not that I'm in a great mood. Nuln is nothing like a Dwarf city. It's architecture is all jumbled, and all flat, and so many of the buildings are wood. I'm sure the architects are considered good enough for Humankind, but to this Dwarf's eyes it looks rushed, flimsy, and garish. And it's noisy. Now, I have slept mere feet from an active forge, so my tolerance is high, but this mass of beings constantly speak and shout over each other and the city noises are amplified simply by the numbers. This place must be six or seven times the size of Zhufbar, and with no stone to absorb sound and conceal size. If I didn't have a map, I'd despair of finding my way anywhere. Wizard Klemperbad's home is in a wealthier business area, nearby to the Imperial War College which I am very eager to visit. Also, Nuln boasts a sizeable Dwarf population, mostly in the quarter called Dwarftown.

Master Rocksplitter had been less detailed than usual in the discription of Heinrich Klemperbad, with whom I would be staying and studying, so I don't know what to expect, although he did say to expect to be sent on the occasional quest since that would help build my knowledge of the outside world.

April 7, 2514

The best part is that he gave me a book: the history of the Rune Lord Alaric the Mad. I am very pleased.

The less best part is that I have a quest. Yes, quest. Immediately upon arriving, in fact. I hadn't even set my things down. He is sending me and his apprentice to collect a torso of a giant. A freshly killed torso of a giant. To aid us in the killing part, his Human apprentice Zacharie was set to hiring warriors, and I was sent to locate a giant for us to kill. Happily, I was able to do that in Dwarftown, where I met a veteran, Grizzer. He also lost family in the Goblin War and a large portion of a hand as well. Talking with him was good. He shared a rumor of a giant attacking caravans who travel through the Winter's Teeth Pass, a shortcut into Bretonia near Ubers Reich. I now also have a package to deliver to his sister Suzannah in Ubers Reich.

The part that makes me fret my braids is that Zacharie hired a prissy, pretty little Elf-ey. It's a waste of money. The first swing a giant takes at that forest twig will kill her dead and in the meantime her horse will be eating our provisions and a quarter of the gear I bought will be for her, also wasted when an Elf can just sleep in a tree. From her complete refusal to discuss her qualifications (she drew her Human-apprentice-blacksmith made sword on me when I asked) I have to assume the wizard apprentice hired her because she charmed him into it. Obviously she's merely ornamental. And argumentative, which is normally a trait I admire, but her high pitch grates. The other hire is probably Human. He seems good-natured, but he's buried under scars and monstrously large. I wouldn't doubt if somewhere in his Norsecan bloodline there was a surprised giant. Not that I hold his appearance against him, quite the opposite; I feel confident that a being who has taken that much damage without dying knows his way around in a fight. And his general kindnesses and cheer seem absolutely genuine. My only concern is that, as often as he repeats himself, and as loudly, I think he may have taken too many blows to the head. He may, in fact, be simple. This morning, in the guest room, he bench-pressed an empty bunk.

And we're setting out on the road soon. My, things sure do happen quickly here.

April 8, 2514

I think it's the Elf's influence, but the wizard apprentice seems to be getting prissier and prissier the farther we get from the city. Admittedly, he's one of the smallest Humans I've seen (although he might still be an adolescent, I haven't asked), but he puffed up like an angry songbird when I recommended we not stay in an inn every night. He's Bretonian, and pretty enough a Human that he might have some elven blood, but I know he's not useless. A Human Dwarf-enough to learn Runelore just wouldn't put up with a person who's nothing but a face. Simply because he is his master's apprentice, he can't possibly be as useless as he seems right now.

April 10, 2514

A lot has happened in the last two days.

First, and the most shocking: the Elf. Caelyn, in a pitched battle against chaos beasts smoothly put down a runner, at twilight, in a torrential downpour, from fully across the clearing. Elves and bows, right? Perhaps not that shocking. But later that night, she put an arrow up to the fletching into a demon, yes, a demon, without flinching. Honestly that foul chaos creature should have been dead on the spot. Once it was slain, it reduced back to a two-foot statue of itself. Still shaking from the sheer wrongness of what we had faced, I handed over my hammer when she politely asked for it. She then beat the statue to powder. Now, her swings were not the most controlled arcs ever, but that certainly was a very Dwarf thing to do. When I suggested it, she assisted me in buring the dead. She's a compentent warrior. She's not scared of dirt. Apparently she's not even scared of demons. So. I will start refering to her by name. That doesn't mean we're friends, but I was wrong about her being useless. Very surprisingly wrong.

The inn we visited to get out of the rain yesterday was the home of chaos cultists who were raising a demon in the basement. We killed the minions, the beastie lurking in the stables, and the demon itself, and freed the innkeeper and some few others, although many had already perished. And then they fed us and let us sleep.

The road wardens have asked us to submit statements about the events of the last two days to their commander in Stimmigen, and I'll include a copy of my statement to road wardens here. The main thing that happened, for me, was a change of perspective. Real battle, especially with chaos beasts, is not like weapons training, not even the free-melee, really. And, if I'm true to my purpose I'll need more practise in real battle. So. I will accept that this quest, and the ones to hopefully follow, is just as important to my training as time spent over the forge or reading my rune-lore. And I trust this party to survive real battle. I approve of Zacharies' hiring choices, and will try to trust him to lead more.

A lot has happened.