Franclorn Forgewright was the dwarf responsible for the design of everything in the Blackrock Depths up to Shadowforge City, Blackrock Spire, the Stonewrought Dam in Loch Modan, and many other things. He’d masterminded the Dark Irons’ greatest wonders, and when he felt his death approaching he even went and designed his own tomb and monument. The monument was in the Shrine of Thaurissan, but his tomb…

  The Forgewright’s Tomb was inside the Heart of the Mountain, which was a massive chunk of rock as big as two hills glued together, suspended by three massive chains above the throat of the volcano that was Blackrock Mountain itself. It used to be the plug in the volcano’s throat, the plug that kept the volcano dormant until Sorcerer-Thane Thaurissan led the Seven in a ritual that tore it out, to be forever suspended above the bubbling magma in the Molten Span.

  The most direct path on foot was to leave Shadowforge city via the Ring of the Law, passing through the Shrine of Thaurissan on the way to the Eastern Garrison, then a slog through the detention block.

  To reach it quickly meant to take a steam cart down the Highway at full speed.

  Both paths ended at the Masonry, after which they had to go on foot to cross the Grinding Quarry beyond, where their nation sourced most of their building materials.

  The delays from having to assemble a big and good enough escort didn’t materialize because General Angerforge already had everything at the ready, having anticipated the broad strokes of the mission even if he didn’t know when the Emperor would recover. That only meant that Dagran’s malaise was on display the entire time, which rankled something fierce.

  Mercifully, he caught no smart comments or slanted eyes on account of his health or foul mood, even with his eavesdropping spells. Ragnaros had won no goodwill with his heavy-handed punishment, and Flamelash had done even worse for himself for overstepping not once but twice.

  Dagran Thaurissan spent the trip fuming and seething. The punishment for trespassing was imprisonment, the punishment for assault was public flogging, the punishment for assault on senators was public execution, the punishment for invasion was torturous interrogation and then public execution.

  But the human was not one of his subjects, he’d come under a peace flag, he’d made no requests he wasn’t willing to suffer for in the scorching heat, and the Firelord’s commands – demands…

  The memory of them burned inside Dagran’s soul like the Molten Span’s heat threatened to age his black beard white.

  The climb to the tomb itself was harrowing. Forgewright had very particular ideas about what made someone worthy of visiting his resting place. After they passed the Grinding Quarry, the first thing they had to do was cross a chain across a steep drop into boiling lava, similar to the ones holding the Heart aloft. The architect didn’t believe in redundancy, which a proper bridge apparently qualified as when the chains were already ‘wide enough.’

  The chain ‘bridge’ only deposited them at the very bottom of the Heart of the Mountain, after which it was an even steeper climb along a much narrower path around the edge of the rock, with uneven footing in addition to the same lack of safety railings. If Dagran ever commissioned a vanity project, he’d make sure it was somewhere that didn’t accumulate more ash underfoot than a blast furnace did slag.

  Finally, they were there.

  Because he was neither a fool nor insane, Dagran ordered the platoon of fifty Anvilrage soldiers to go in ahead of the rest of them. General Angerforge led from the front, which Dagran hoped would not become the biggest mistake he ever made. The senators-turned-hostages were an annoyance at best, the Senate got in his way more often than not, but he couldn’t afford to lose his best general. He didn’t doubt the dwarf’s skill, but full-proof enchantments remained a pipe dream. Just like the flame-resistant enchantments on Dagran’s own robe were not absolute, the anti-magic runes in the general’s armor were not either.

  For better or worse, the all clear came.

  Dagran entered, thankful that he’d recovered enough of his vigor on the way to walk without help, and even put on a convincing enough act that he wasn’t as impaired as he was. Firehammer and the Priestess followed him inside. It was the most galling thing yet, but she needed to be there in case he experienced another bout of weakness.

  When he finally entered the central mausoleum, though, and stepped in front of the perimeter of armed bodies that his soldiers had made around the sepulchre, Dagran Thaurissan looked up and up and suddenly understood what had made even his mighty grandfather hesitate to press land claims before the elder races.

  The thought made all his earlier anger roar back to life, but he wasn’t given time to speak first.

  “I was starting to think you’d never actually show up,” said not the biggest human that Dagran Thaurissan had ever laid eyes on, but the ghost.

  The ghost of Franclorn F. Forgewright hopped down from the lid of his tomb, where he’d been standing and talking to the human. A human so big that he looked a little down at the Ancestor despite standing so much lower on the floor.

  “Architect,” Dagran said stiffly, unsure how to act. This was the first Ancestor Spirit other than the Seven that ever appeared to them since the loss of Old Thaurissan. That it only happened because some human giant decided to breach into their domain and make a mockery of their security was like an acid poison in his breast. “I didn’t know you lingered.”

  “Of course not, there’s never enough spirit energy to manifest anywhere in this mountain anymore. What the Seven don’t take to feed their absurd idea of ‘trials’ is taken by the elementals, and not by accident either. It’s not just here, there’s a reason Ironband can only ever manifest in Blackchar Cave for only a few days in the second moon of the year, and only because of customs and rites we don’t even keep to!”

  He – the ancestors – Ragnaros’ elementals were suppressing them? Dagran had thought they’d just turned away from them, but if they didn’t – if the Firelord’s lesser kin could do such a thing, then shamanism had truly failed them completely.

  “Ah, but it’s not like you have any reason to know about the Lunar Festival,” lamented the spirit. “The dwarves were not around for the War of the Ancients.”

  “But the Earthen were,” said the human for the first time. His voice was both more and less powerful than Dagran expected, and that word - earthen? The word stirred something unknown in Dagran’s skull, but what? “Ironband is one himself, you know.”

  “Which is all the more to our shame! None of these brats would listen to what Ironband has to say, they certainly don’t listen to me.”

  Dagran ground his teeth, feeling chastised and then angry at feeling chastised. Didn’t the Architect just say he was too weak to actually talk to anyone? “I would remember speaking to you, Elder.”

  “You always do, but then immediately dismiss it as a dream that you should go completely against the moment you wake up!”

  That was preposterous, those dreams were real? Not just false doubts put in his head by the Firelord as a way to make him doubt his sanity? If Dagran listened to every dream he remembered, he’d be a self-made exile exploring sunken ruins down in the Black Morass!

  “Oh, but what should I expect?” The Architect lamented, wringing the right split of his twin-combed beard around his wrist. “I worked tirelessly to build a dwarven city mightier than any city or fortress that came before, or would come after, and what do I get for it? Oblivion would’ve been better than this!”

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  “Patriarch, please, don’t say such things,” the Priestess intervened with unusual fervor. “No one has ever forgotten you! Your great works are the main reason why the spirit of our people was revitalized after the disastrous loss of Old Thaurissan. Your feats are passed down and used as an example for every child that is born. Even your tomb was placed here, at the entrance of the city you planned and built, in honor of your efforts. Every journey here is a pilgrimage, a test of strength and courage both!”

  “Yes, I passed as a hero of the new nation of Dark Iron. But that’s the only honor given to me that’s not been tainted since. Or before! I could see the turn of destiny before I even broke the first rock of Shadowforge City. When the construction of the Spire was complete, my will to live amongst my people had already given way. And what happens immediately after? I get grossly vindicated for all of it! My great hammer Ironfel is passed into the hands of Fineous Darkvire, a man of despicable motive and little talent. After that I get to stand by and watch the corruption of Ragnaros seep through the hearts and minds of the Dark Iron nation. This once honorable race, driven to madness, to evil!”

  Dagran brought his hands together behind his back, glad for Doomgrip’s presence behind him. It let him hide how tight he was clutching his own wrist. “As always the living endure, and the dead judge.” The Ancestor’s words were fit to summon the Firelord’s wrath on them to punish their sedition, was Dagran going to have to bear another tantrum so soon? Who would suffer if he failed to take it? Last time it was Lokhtos Darkbargainer, and the realm lost all their thorium research because of it. “I can see why the Seven patriarchs deny you a part in the Trials.”

  The Architect looked at him soulfully, understanding the double meaning in his words. It made Dagran want to rip his own beard out.

  The architect sighed and turned his back on them. “I am ready to leave, Prophet.”

  What?! Leave? Where, how, he – Prophet? Of what? Of who?

  “Surely not!” the Priestess spoke again, stepping forward in alarm. “Patriarch, I can understand that you have misgivings, but please – don’t give up on your people so easily! The Emperor himself is here before you, he came running the moment he first saw you.”

  Which was looking like it might’ve been a mistake.

  “Emperor, bah! Emperor of what? Cinders and ashes! An Empire implies multiple dominions, not one city inside one mountain surrounded by a blasted wasteland as far as the eye can see! You only use those affectations because you can never get over the fact that we lost, and we deserved it! Three hundred years and still we haven’t learned our lesson in humility. I am as guilty as you all of that, but what more can it take? How many of other people’s homes do we have to ruin before we realize we’re the problem?”

  “Perhaps one fewer than last time,” the human said cryptically, reaching into one of the pouches on his chest strap to pull out… a case of bottled dwarfs. The senators.

  They were angry, screaming and pounding on the glass, all completely soundless despite the holes in the lids to let in air to breathe.

  Dagran felt the second-hand humiliation like a vise around his chest. Around him, his companions and the soldiers all around shared in his ill feeling. Could the human do the same thing to them? Could it be resisted? Could they escape? Had Dagran made a huge mistake walking into this room?

  Were Dagran’s wits impaired after all?

  The giant human needed a single step to cross the intervening distance, at which point he held out the case of bottled dwarves for them to take. Not exchange, not make demands, not make threats despite having proven impervious to all casual harm. Not even after having breached the defenses of their kingdom in ways they still had no understanding of. He just handed the senators back, as if divesting himself of an annoyance.

  The grace of the Elder Races is as confounding as ever, damn them!

  Whether by courtesy or coincidence, the human was tall and far enough away that the offer could be for any one of the four of them.

  After glancing at Dagran for permission, General Angerforge stepped forward to accept the return of prisoners with a low grunt of… Dagran didn’t know what the dwarf was feeling. He didn’t even know what he himself was feeling right now.

  “You can have this too,” the man said, pulling a stack of sheets of… some manner of white, thin parchment. “I jotted down the essentials of the ‘conversations’ the not-so-good senators inflicted upon me. We wouldn’t want you to hear just one side of the story after all.”

  “We who?” Dagran demanded, completely at wit’s end. “An interloper who invaded our lands with no statement of intent?”

  “A guest I invited,” the Architect snapped, his ghostly form flickering from monochrome grey to true color for that moment. “Or are you going to claim I’ve not the right just because I’m dead?”

  Dagran dearly wanted to do just that, but then he’d be a hypocrite for submitting to the terms and judgment of the Summoners when he took their trials. ‘Invited’ he says, invited when? How? Or – was this what the human was really doing while sitting there?

  “I’m going to cleanse Grim Batol.”

  …

  That –

  “Naturally, I thought you’d want to be there for it. After all I’ve been through these last few days, though, I’ve reconsidered extending that invitation.”

  That – that was preposterous – wait! Wildhammers, here! The Wildhammers sighted before, was that why they were here? But they hated the Dark Irons and the feeling was mutual, the Dark Irons were the only reason they lost their city in the first place, Modgud’s shadow rites tainted it for all time, why would they -?

  “Still, as the ruler of the people that Modgud and Thaurissan abandoned in that place to be twisted into the skardyn, I still hope we can come to an arrangement. If not for aid, then to send some people as observers. Maybe a cleric or shaman too, to give those poor people their last rites if the worst happens.”

  … There were survivors?

  “Forgewright, have you decided?”

  “I have.” The Ancestor gave them one last glance and accepted the human’s offered hand. “Even if your friend can’t get me a new body, I don’t care.” A what -? “We made that mess, the least we can do is be there when someone else cleans up after us. If none of these children are brave enough to face their grandparents’ sins, the Dark Irons will still be represented.”

  “Ancestor…” Dagran called, but he didn’t know what to follow it with. This – none of this made sense.

  “There will be a small summit of the Free Peoples of Azeroth at Morgan’s Vigil in two weeks’ time,” said the giant, tucking their Ancestor’s ghost against his side. “If the caliber of your leadership isn’t all just fools and cowards pretending at intellect like that lot, you can come and prove it there. Goodbye.”

  With a flare of Arcane power and a gust of wind strong enough to toss their beards every which way, the human shrunk until he vanished and was gone with the wind, taking their disappointed and depressed ancestor spirit with him.

  “-. .-“

  The journey back to Shadowforge was tense and silent. It was tense and silent despite the shrinking magics expiring mere moments after the human left, because Dagran glared at the seditious senators with such a vicious snarl that they lost their words more thoroughly than the Ancestor had made him lose his.

  He remanded the fools into the General’s custody to await public trials. He ordered that they be kept in the detention block with the slaves and beasts, just so he didn’t need to suffer their stupidity any longer.

  He wanted to burn the human’s ‘transcripts’ almost as much. He only managed to refrain from indulging that impulse by shoving them at the Priestess and pretending not to see them for the entire trip back home.

  To Dagran’s frustration, his attention was wandering so much by the time he was back in his apartments that he would get nothing more done that day. The body was willing but the spirit wasn’t able, even with the Priestess resuming her treatments. That, at least, gave him the strength to finally tell her to go away.

  She bowed deferentially, but did not leave immediately. Instead, she gave one look at Senator Firehammer, gave a longer look to General Angerforge, and then turned to face him one last time. “When the time comes and the shamans’ powers either turn on us or fail them completely, we will stand with you.”

  She left.

  No one stopped her, and Dagran didn’t order them to either. He could utter no words at all. He almost cracked his teeth from how hard he was grinding them, that’s how angry he was.

  Now she found her ambition? When it was too late?!

  “Your Majesty,” Angerforge asked. “What is your command?

  “Bah!” Dagran spat. “We will fulfill the Firelord’s orders, what else?”

  Grimstone isn’t going to see his war, but I’m finally getting mine.

  The idea that there could ever be an alliance, even just a ceasefire with the Bronzebeards or Ironforge, it was laughable. As if that would ever be possible! That well was poisoned long before he was born, by the unholy knife of Sorceress-Consort Modgud. Ragnaros the Firelord was just the hot iron used to close the wound over the pus.

  What would peace even look like?

  Dagran didn’t know, but he did know what a renewed war would look like for him here, at home. Unlike the medics, the sadists were entrenched, in all strata of society up to the highest nobility. Not few of them were Senators, or they controlled someone else who was. Dagran couldn’t be entirely sure he’d identified all of them because of that. He couldn’t put them in their place without causing domestic strife, maybe even a civil war, and the Firelord would certainly get involved.

  But if he could spend their lives against the Bronzebeards and Wildhammers… with them out of the way, and their conquered kin guaranteed to take any chance to fight for their freedom, then they – he might be able to form something of a united front. The Dark Irons alone would never manage it, but with the Bronzebeards and Wildhammers added to their might, and all their subject clans? Then he’d finally have a chance good enough worth taking. A chance to do the only thing that mattered.

  To throw off the yoke of Ragnaros and be a free people once more.

  Free Peoples of Azeroth.

  The words rankled like nothing else.

  here.