White alloy/story

White alloy/story is an Official GemStone IV Document, and it is protected from editing.

A Tale of Dwarven Mettle

Voices echoed through the smooth cavern halls, the quiet drone transforming the low-light dwelling from day activities to the solace of night. Solace for all but one within the dwarven monastery.

Sweat dripping from braids, brow, and beard, she stood over the forge with a pit in her stomach, an anger born of frustration on her lips and deep disappointment constricting her airways. When she had started the morning, she thought that this would be the day that she would achieve her goal. She had thought that the long hours before the heat, forging hammer in hand, would bring to her the satisfaction of success. Instead, she stared down at the mace on the anvil and felt only disgust and a vague soreness of muscle.

Closing her eyes, she placed her forging hammer upon the anvil and slowly dropped to her knees.

"Father of Creation," she intoned with the barest of breath from her lungs. Scarcely audible, any dwarf that passed the hall would not have heard, yet something in her quiet words caused a stillness in the forging hall and it was as if the entire underworld was holding its breath.

"Father…" she began again, but this time the word came out thick, her emotions betraying her to the point of vulnerability and she wept. Soft, silently, the tears disappearing into her beard, she let her frustration, anger, and grief seep from her tired frame.

She lowered her forehead to the anvil, the large stone and iron object that had become an altar to her over the past few days, weeks, months, and let it support her as it always had. As her faith always had.

Licking her lips, she began again.

"Father of my Creation, Hear this Hammer's unsanctioned Rogation. My Sisters and Brothers die, as I pound on this forge. My arm is weak, my spirit is waning, but I can not eat or drink for despair has turned it to ash. Please, Father, guide my hands. Helping me to forge a weapon that can hurt the ethereal, bring it low, and bind it. Please do not ask me to remain useless. Do not ask me to attend another funeral. Let me right the wrong."

A shiver of air set the fires of the forge to flickering, the gust of heat adding to her discomfort but she hardly noticed.

Gravely and deep, a voice from the hallway called out to her.

"Daughter of the Hammer," and she lifted her head to stare at the simply garbed friar with daisies in his beard.

He strode to her and placed his hand on her shoulder.

"Here, let me guide you. You are so close to your goal, do not let the despair take it from you."

Licking her parched lips, she numbly nodded even as she noticed a tingle in her arm where his hand had touched her.

"Show me what you have done…"

Mutely, tired, and fatigued from her countless efforts, she was too tired to argue with the unusually large dwarven friar.

She rose to her feet and guided him through the steps she'd been taking. She spoke to him of the smelting process, the ores that she used in her metals, of the molds she had crafted herself. He offered not a word to any of it but nodded at appropriate intervals. Lastly, she brought him to the forge and showed the crafted item.

His eyes did not leave the smelter.

"Daughter of the Hammer," he said to her, and she was struck by the formality of it for the second time that night. "Your ratios are off by the barest of measures. Add a touch more eonake to your vultite and white ora."

Turning, she tore her gaze from the object that had consumed her every waking thought and dreams, her eyes as round as moons, and asked, "How…" But the question died on her lips. The friar was gone.

Not wanting to lose a moment, she began her days work anew. Resmelting the ores, filling the forms, and began working at the anvil once more. Each strike of her hammer ringing out loud enough to deafen, but in her ears, she only heard the sound of her own heartbeat.

As the midnight bell tolled, she gazed down at her work with awe and wonder. She had succeeded, the new metal she had created held form, the mace was a thing of beauty.

The next day, they found her there in the forge -- a white alloy mace in her hand, instructions scribbled in coal upon the ground, and a single daisy in her beard.