Beneath Druvadir — The Old Vein
The forge groaned.
Not loudly.
Not yet.
But the sound was unmistakable.
It came first as a breath — a faint exhale from unseen vents in the stone. The kind of breath a thing makes not because it lives, but because it remembers how.
Durik was the first to notice.
He stood beside one of the shattered anvils, his fingers brushing over iron runes dulled with age. But as his palm passed over the cold surface, sparks leapt — brief flickers of flame, rising like startled memories.
He drew back. "Did you see that?"
Kaia turned. So did Rei.
Around them, the forge was stirring.
Coals that had not burned in centuries hissed and glowed red. Chains dangling from the ceiling shivered. Not from wind — there was none. But from resonance. As if something deep beneath the stone was singing, and the iron was remembering its place in the chorus.
Rei stepped forward slowly. The Skarnveil gem on his hip pulsed. Soft. Then brighter.
The warmth wasn't natural.
It was calling.
Kaia's eyes narrowed. "Is this what it looked like before?"
Durik shook his head, breath caught in his throat. "No. The Forge was dead. We came through here on black stone. Now…"
He looked up.
Amber light licked the walls. Smoke, faint and perfumed with old ore, drifted through the air. The hammers mounted on the forgewall began to tremble in place.
"It's awake," Durik whispered. "By the stone, it's actually awake."
Kaia sniffed the air. Her beastkin senses sharpened.
"The heat's rising fast."
Then—
It came.
A sound.
But not from the room.
Not from the tunnel.
Not even from Druvadir, as they knew it.
A roar — vast and distant, as if a mountain itself were howling. It rolled down from above, not like thunder, but like pressure. As if the sky had split somewhere far, far above, and the sound was only now catching up with the deep places of the world.
Dust fell from the ceiling. The forge tools rattled. The Skarnveil gem flared bright as flame.
Durik fell to a knee.
"Did you hear that?" he gasped. "That wasn't from here. It came from above."
Kaia's eyes went wide. She turned to Rei.
"Was that—?"
But Rei did not speak.
He couldn't.
His eyes were unfocused. His pupils blown wide. The gem pulsed once more — then his mark began to burn.
The Rift.
It wasn't responding to the roar.
It was answering it.
Rei staggered backward, hand clutching his side. The skin beneath his ribs seared with unseen fire. A pulse hit his chest, then another — like something massive had just opened an eye inside him, and the world around was suddenly too loud, too small, too fragile.
He dropped to one knee, teeth gritted.
Kaia rushed to him. "Rei!"
"I'm fine," he lied.
He wasn't.
Because beneath the dragon's roar...
He heard another.
It wasn't a sound.
Not truly.
It was a sensation, like claws dragging down the inside of his spine. Like a breath being held in the belly of the world, and now it stirred — old, cold, and remembering hunger.
Fear rose in him. Not the kind that came from danger — the kind that came from recognition.
The Wyrm was awake.
But something else had begun to listen.
Something deeper.
And it was listening to him.
**
Throneforge — The High Balcony
The firelight danced wildly along the stonework.
The Emberspire tower trembled, shaking off centuries of ash from its uppermost ledges. The mountain's spine had roared.
And so had something within it.
King Rurik stood alone on the high balcony, flame-edged cloak drawn about his shoulders, his gauntlet resting on the obsidian rail.
He did not flinch.
He merely listened.
The roar faded, but its echo still curled in his chest. He closed his eyes.
"It lives."
He turned.
Behind him, the High Runepriest knelt in reverence, sweat dotting his brow as he clutched a scroll marked with glowing glyphs.
"My King… the sound… the Forge responds. The pulse—it's awakening. We believe it ties to the Wyrm. The Gem has become active. The Old Veins are no longer dormant."
Rurik said nothing at first.
Then he raised a hand.
"Send word to the Deepguard. I want the Riftborn found. And whoever walks with him — bring them."
The Runepriest's eyes flicked up. "You would… bind it?"
"The Gem calls," Rurik said, voice hard. "And the fire rises with it. The age of silence ends now."
He turned toward the mountain.
"The Wyrm is not wild. It is ours by right. Let the world remember that dwarves once ruled the flame."
"And if the Riftborn resists?"
"Then we remind him," the King said, "who holds the mountain."
**
Thornevale — Edge of the Greenwood
Moonlight poured over the treetops like liquid silver.
The High Matriarch of Thornevale stood still beneath the whispering boughs of the Heartgrove, her eyes closed, her hands in prayer.
She did not need to see the future.
She had felt it break.
The visions had not faded — they had shattered.
Now, her chosen stood at her sides: warriors in barksteel, seers cloaked in silkmoss, scouts already mounted on elkwolves and hornbeasts.
"The roar comes from fire," she said. "But it is not fire alone that rises."
A younger acolyte stepped forward. "Shall we warn the dwarves?"
"No."
Her eyes opened — pale, like moons etched in ice.
"We do not warn flame. We contain it."
She looked east, toward the roots of the world where the Forge slept no longer.
"The Riftborn walks below," she said. "And the gem with him."
"The Matriarch's Order is clear," a voice echoed through the leaves. "We move for Druvadir."
"Do not engage," she warned. "Do not provoke. But if the dwarves act as they always have… then we must act first."
"And the Riftborn?"
The Matriarch's gaze did not blink.
"He must be reached."
She turned.
"Before the dwarves try to chain him…"
"…or the other thing wakes completely."