Leaving Rufhal took a lot of negotiations and compromise. The main point of contest was, of course, the magmadroths. Barlimn intended to bring with him all magmadroths bred, raised and trained by the Ironhewers, and he isn’t particularly known for changing his mind. Four of those were in active duty and prompted most of the discussions. In the end Barlimn got to take all their magmadroths with him to his future magmahold, but had to concede to two conditions.
The first one was that two of the four active magmadroths have to stay fighting for Rufhal until the second condition is met; The bigger one was that all the Ur-Gold found by the Ironhewers should be sent to Rufhal until an amount worth the investment made in their venture is covered. Forfeiting the Ur-Gold earned would seem like heretical cowardice to most, but they get to keep the eggs they find. For the Ironhewers that’s what really matters. We’re still Fyreslayers, so this arrangement is still a great sacrifice, and it does hurt the pride. Although, we are leaving with a mighty force that belonged to the great magmahold, so the general feeling is the mourning for a sacrifice made in the name of a greater good. That’s the expected outcome of a negotiation between real Duardin.
Barlimn Ironhewer, now known as Barlimn Grimnir, said farewell to his sons who stayed behind to honor the deal on top of their magmadroths and left for the Hungering Steppes with his brother-in-arms: Bronar Drakecleaver. Both riding their trusted mounts in front of most of the family’s hearthguard and additional volunteers to the undertaking of a brand new magmahold. The trip to the steppes was uneventfull. Which, for ghurish standards, means we only lost a couple duardin lives to wildlife and treacherous terrain.
Upon entering the area most people with common sense avoid, we were greeted by our contractors. They brought us up to speed during the trip to their encampment. They are one of the smaller tribes of the Ghurneth, but an ambitious one. Recent changes to the region triggered a new form of powerplay amongst them.
The tribes appear to be competing on who can bring into allegiance the most formidable invading newcomer to the steppes. The tribes have been using the grand hunting rituals hosted by the Denkeeper tribe for this. They don’t have the resources to impress the most formidable newcomers but they had some luck recently. They found a realmstone and managed to keep its location a secret. That was the promised pay for the contract.
The payment goes to Lofnir, straight to Rufhal. However, this is where luck starts to come our way. Their plan is to have us settle in the steppes as one of the newcomers and wait for the Denkeeper’s invitation for the hunt. Our job is to impress all of Packhome with our display and them ally ourselves with their tribe. They never imagined their contract would be answered by a Fyreslayer family that actually intended to settle in the steppes, and we never imagined the contract that made this happen would actually involve getting the locals to help us find the best place possible for our magmahold!
It didn’t take long. In the first night at the camp, we sighted a familiar reddish orange glow in the opposite site from which we came. When we asked about it, the exchange of consternated looks was unmistakable. It took little stern questioning for them to reveal that it was the location of our payment, but a terrible place to settle. That was the Wurmcaller Beacon. A volcano isolated in the middle of the Great Maw’s Gathering. One of the extremely rare places where the terrain is even more stable than in Packhome.
That’s the exact reason why the colossal mouths that open sinkholes in the ground appear there in an uncanny frequency. It`s a minefield of monstrous predators. On top of that, the threat near the beacon is dreadfull enough to scare off even the underground beasts: a constant rain of molten rock! The gleam in our eyes listening to this tale scared them a bit. All Barlimn could think of was that, if they got close enough to find the realmstone there and intend to go back to retrieve it as our payment, they must know a relatively safe way in. We had to see it.
At first sunlight we started marching there. When our guides started counting steps and making turns as if avoiding invisible obstacles, we knew we entered the Great Maw’s Gathering. Anywhere you look the beacon catches some corner of your eye and draws your full attention to it. It’s majestic! Following and memorizing the way we got to the border of a huge hole in the ground filled with very large theeth all over. That one opened too close to the beacon and ended up swallowing too much lava from the rain. We can see the realmstone glowing inside the hole, but every Fyreslayer was looking up. Something at the summit of the beacon called to us.
Everyone could feel it, but the Zharrgrim priests among us where shivering in excitement. Lugwyr and Bronar told Barlimn, loudly and in unison, that we must get up there right now! Our guides went as far as they would. Braving the fiery rain was our adventure, and easily done with our priests’ mastery. We couldn’t help but notice the army of beasts of chaos’ corpses, burned and petrified along the way. Barlimn issued the battle call. Something awaited us at the top. He sent Lugwyr with the Hearthguard tuneling up one pillar of the beacon while Bronar and him set their magmadroths climbing the other.
Reaching the top, they found the remaining beasts. Four bull headed monsters were preparing a summoning ritual. Their leader, a massive skinless Doombull, smiled at Barlimn and Bronar atop their mounts. Its muscles exposed, blood constantly dripping from his body and evaporating before touching the ground, axe raised to the sky, his menacing grin; it all foretold a much harder fight than the slaughter of four cows. Bringing the axe down he cut the fabric of the realm and two large daemonic claws reached through the gash, grabbed its borders and forced it open. A Bloodthirster stepped through the rift, followed by a horde of lesser daemons. The objective was clear: disrupt the ritual and stop the flow of enemies into what immediately felt like home.
Before the enemy could organize, Barlimn and Bronar rushed forward. Midst charge, Bronar managed to summon a molten infernoth of such a massive size that surprised even its summoner. It was sent to the entrance of the rift turning the crossing to Ghur nothing short of suicide for any daemon not already at the summit.
A battle crying wave of bloodletters charges headlong into the charging runefather and gets bowled down the pillar. Still, they managed to halt the momentum of both riders, who then get charged by some flesh hounds that were able to break through, passed the infernoth. While the duo was being swarmed by daemonic beasts, before the enemy leaders could solidify their position, the remaining daemon infantry was covered in lava and banished screaming. Our Hearthguard emerged out of the tunnel on the other pillar and surprised them with their very own magma rain.
Lugwyr started shouting out some important information from behind them: There was no magma inside the pillars, the lava streams coming out of the pillars’ summits were being generated in sites of a large power concentration right beneath our feet. One in each pillar. Barlimn looked at Bronar, who punched a flesh hound off of his mount’s saddle and then nodded in agreement with Lugwyr. The Hearthguard had just taken control of one, and Barlimn saw the Doombull, his entourage and the Bloodthirster charging towards him and Bronar with a clear intent of not letting them take control of the other.
It was mayhem. In one side, our droth breeders were lassoing and skewering flesh hounds all over the north pillar; in the other the leaders of both armies were clashing with everything they had. Every swing of a Bloodthirster’s axe spills enough blood to please Khorne twice over. But it learned the hard way that bathing yourself in Magmadroth blood is a terrible idea! After burned, axed and clawed at, a well-placed bite in the neck dropped the mighty Bloodthirster. Bronar didn’t have time to celebrate his feat though. The Doombull left his sparring with Barlimn and leaped over to swing his axe at the runesmither felling him and mounting his magmadroth, which fell soon after. Before the beast could finish off Bronar, a Latchkey Grandaxe came swiping and chopped it’s head clean off. The bloodcrazed expression of who’s going for the kill got imprinted on its severed head.
As the guards finished off the fleshhounds and the remaining bullgores started flinching and backing up, the portal started to flicker and close. Before it did, the infernoth’s right arm was thorn off in an explosion and a squad of bloodcrushers came charging through. They crashed against Barlimn injuring his mount. The bullgores, with renewed moral, engaged again surrounding the Runefather. Lugwyr finally broke the ritual, but they wouldn’t have time to save their general from the loosing fight he was locked in. Luckily, they didn’t need to. The molten infernoth turned to the fight and obliterated the remaining enemies with a backhand swipe.
With the battle won and the beacon secured, the others were trying to help Bronar with his wounds. But he was shoving them away to reach Barlimn and tell him his findings. In a back and forth with Lugwyr he explained that the calling we all felt was from the power concentrated in the summit of each of the twin pillars. Whatever was it under our feet generating the lava streaming had a strong presence of Grimnirr/Vulkatrix’s essence in it. He would need to bring this mater to the Zharrgrim priesthood for an oficial acknowledgement but he and Lugwyr were pretty confident we had found a natural monument to Grimnirr’s last battle. Each pillar representing a fighter locked in an eternal clash of epic proportion.
They decided to name this sacred place at the beacon’s summit as Karak Brodunk. “The enduring fighting festival to Grimnirr“ in ancient Khazalid. Now we all knew where our New Magmahold had to be. We had to decide where to start building. That’s when one of the breeders calls everyone and points down in the space between the pillars where the lava flowed down beneath the earth and into an underground lava pool. “There is more to be seen here. Down we go!”
