The mountain had known peace for centuries.
Its breath, once fierce and untamed, had long since become a rhythm — steady, deep, like the slow exhale of a sleeping god. Druvadir lived by that breath. The dwarves built their forges in its warmth, sang their sagas in its glow, and crowned their kings beneath its heartfire.
But now… the breath trembled.
And deep, in the belly of the world, the Eye of Skaadii opened.
Not from this world.Not from any world.It was a wound dressed as a jewel — a shard of the Rift, cold and pulsing like a second heart in the palm of a warlock.
Rurgan of the Ash-Fangs, orc warlock and rune-eater, stood upon the last ledge before the great descent. Behind him, the leaders of the fractured clans gathered — crude banners waving in the stagnant heat, their armor clashing like restless ghosts. The ground beneath their boots steamed with ancient blood.
"This is where it burns," Rurgan growled. "And where it will freeze."
He raised the Eye.
It shone with a blue that devoured all warmth.
And the Wyrm answered.
It rose from the magma not like a beast, but a mountain given form.
Vast and coiled, plated in obsidian and ember-cracked gold, its eyes burned like twin crucibles—until they saw the Eye.
Then… they dimmed.
The Wyrm reared back, not in rage, but confusion. A tremor moved through its body like a wave of broken memory. This was no foe it could bite. No chain it could melt. It was wrongness, wrapped in a rune.
Its voice came not as roar, but pressure. Every orc fell to a knee. The cavern shuddered.
But Rurgan stood.
"Forge-beast," he said, with a grin full of tusk and madness, "your fire belongs to the Rift now."
The ritual began.
The clan leaders took their places.
Vrakk Spine-Crusher, Chief of the Grimgut Horde. cut open his palm and marked the cavern with his blood, singing in a dead tongue.
Shaama the Pale-Fang, matriarch of the Hollow Brood, whose tribe painted their faces with cooled magma, began the chant — low and rhythmic, like war drums beaten in the belly.
Urum and Gruum, laughed — sharp, broken sounds that echoed like cracking bone. They danced not for joy, but as if each step etched a rune into the stone — a chant made of madness and motion.
Oggrazh the Black Howl , Elder warchief of the Oath-Breakers, whispered into the Eye in a voice only the dead could hear.
Rurgan walked into the heat. The air should have burned him. But the Eye drank the fire before it reached his skin.
He stepped onto the molten platform — the Wyrm's cradle.
"By the Rift…By the broken chain…By the hunger that sees beyond stars…"
The rune flared.
The Wyrm screamed.
Flames erupted from its jaws — but they were no longer gold.
They were blue, unnatural, flickering like frostfire.
The mountain groaned.
The Forge shivered.
**
High above, the dwarves felt it.
In Throneforge, hammers paused mid-stroke.In the Embervault, runes on ancient walls began to sweat.
King Rurik stood on the balcony of the Emberspire, his flame-cloak rippling in the rising winds. He could feel the change. Not with magic. With blood.
"The Forge is alive..." he whispered.
But what stirred below was not the Forge he knew.
**
The Eye pulsed again.
The blue flame wrapped around the Wyrm's limbs like frost-iron.
Its scales dulled.
Its wings folded inwards.
Its eyes — once suns — turned to black ice.
The orcs chanted louder. The cavern split in places. Cracks formed, not from heat — but from wrongness. The laws of stone were being rewritten.
Rurgan approached the beast's eye, standing on nothing but a ribbon of fused glass.
"Breathe," he whispered.
And the Wyrm obeyed.
A torrent of cold flame erupted from its maw, not upward — but downward. It carved a hole into the roots of the world.
And from that chasm rose… voices.
Not orc.
Not dwarf.
Not mortal.
The Rift was listening.
Rurgan grinned.
"You are no longer a beast," he said. "You are a gate."
In the darkened chamber of prophecy, the High Seer of Thornevale gasped.
Her bowl of silvered water turned black.
"The Wyrm is bound," she whispered. "By something… not born of this land."
The other seers fell silent.
Then came the second whisper.
"He is not alone."
**
Far above, in the Hall of Kings, the Forge flickered.
The dwarves rejoiced — thinking it life returned.
Rurik stood tall, a goblet in hand, yet something deep inside him stirred — not pride, but unease. The warmth that kissed his face was too cold.
Durik turned to his father. "Why does it burn blue?"
And Rurik, ancient though he was, had no answer.
In the mountain's core, the Wyrm moved. Not as beast. Not as god.
As vessel.
Bound by the Eye.
Owned by none.
Its soul no longer its own. Its fire now a key.
And deep within its heart, something woke.
The orcs cheered. The binding was complete.
Rurgan turned to the gathered chieftains.
"The Forge lives," he roared. "And it is ours. We will build our gate. We will welcome our kin. The Rift shall stretch across the skies — and we will ride it as storm and slaughter."
His warlocks raised the Eye once more.
And somewhere, far away, Rei awoke in a cold sweat.
Not from nightmare.
But because the fire he once thought an ally…was now watching him.