Rise of Myth: Heir to Valor

A few hours journey with no trouble, Val began to notice villages, small towns, and farmlands in the distance. The amount of life and intact architecture laid out before him was shocking. It was as if he had stepped out of a world destroyed, and into another entirely. Further in the distance loomed a massive, gray stone fortress, sitting in the middle of the valley. He slowed the bike to a stop, taking in the view with wonder and disbelief.

The most striking thing about the fortress was that the walls continued upward and began to curve inward, as if to enclose the entire fortress in a hemispherical dome. There was a large opening at the top, the fortress-city not being entirely enclosed, but openings decorated the walls, and a section, roughly the height of a seven story building, jutted out along the perimeter, providing wide ramparts for patrolling dwarves. The openings appeared to have some sort of siege weaponry installed. The higher up sections had larger gaps for catapults or trebuchets, whereas cannons seemed to partially protrude from the lower ones. The overall height of the dome was difficult to tell at a distance, but judging by the lower height from the vertical spacing between the gaps, it must have been at least twelve stories tall at its highest point.

"How the hell did they build this…?" Val asked aloud in disbelief.

"Dwarves are masters of masonry and carpentry, among a number of other crafts, what they can accomplish with lumber and stone often tends to defy common sense. It is good to see they are thriving as usual." Asha offhandedly remarked, not showing any sign of surprise at all.

"Guess even if anyone had any beef with them, it'd be a tough nut to crack, it's hard to see, but… Those are runes?" Val spotted some places along the walls were large, carved runes he recognized. Among them, 'Odal', a rune appearing like a folded over ribbon, and 'Eoh', akin to an 'S' in shape were inscribed into the stone itself.

"Mm, protective barriers, charged and maintained by powerful rune-smiths, I suspect even your modern artillery you described would do little against these walls. The protection of those runes grant the walls strength of earth itself, as far as I know, no one has breached dwarven walls without first finding a way to deny their runes' protections, it would be like attacking a mountain. In the past, humans tried, even succeeded in some cases, but they were long and bitter sieges taking years to finally starve them out."

Val did not find it hard to believe, between what he knew of those runes and what she described, Eoh would provide a powerful binding force along the entirety of the surface, and Odal might harden those walls enough that they may as well be made from diamond. Still, the magic required should be enormous, he was curious as to how they powered such a massive formation.


"There, you see the gates? That line of people, we can enter through the checkpoint." Asha pointed to a massive gate on the east side of the fortress, where many people from various backgrounds were being processed into the city, the entire procession looked like clockwork with how efficient and orderly the dwarves handled themselves.

"I see it, hard to miss honestly, for dwarves, they really don't do anything in small measures do they?" Val smirked, imagining an entire race of people compensating for their size with the grandeur of their architecture. He drove down the roads, coasting through the remains of an American town and on through an Aurulian village, it was the very oddity Huginn pointed out, where two towns of different worlds seemed joined like jigsaw pieces. There were a large number of people going about their business, many of them curiously exploring the remains of what must have been Lakeport. Some of them turned and stared or exclaimed various forms of shock as Val's bike zoomed by, but he paid them no mind, he knew he would cause a commotion but if Karl and Asha were right, as soon as he reached the dwarves, it would not matter.

Within a few dozen meters of the gate, Val cut the engine and he and Asha dismounted, walking the bike the rest of the way to the checkpoint. The roads were another surprise, they seemed put together with brick and mortar, but they had been largely paved over or simply very well laid out, driving on it had not been too different from paved asphalt. The checkpoint seemed divided into several queues, one for citizens, returning persons, and new arrivals. The dwarves themselves were more or less what he expected, most were stout and around four feet in height, but otherwise very humanoid in appearance. It seemed both the males and females of their race were trained for military service of some form, both being among the patrolling guards. They carried long halberds a bit taller than themselves, and a few were organizing queues and shouting instructions for everyone to hear.

Val and Asha entered the new arrivals queue and quickly proceeded to a brown haired dwarf patrol officer with a clipboard.

"Pass?" The dwarf looked up from a clipboard to Val and asked.

"I'm sorry?"

"Do you have a travel pass?" He clarified.

"Uh…" Val thought of Karl's request, and almost reached for the sword on his back before quickly realizing how misunderstood that would be here.

"I'm on official business, an envoy from my queen, this one is accompanying me." Asha lowered her hood and held out a strange looking metal badge that fit within her palm, on it were words he could not understand, and a depiction of a sun over a forest. The dwarf did not take it, but studied it carefully for a moment before writing in his clipboard.

"Proceed through the gates, receive your temporary visas from the customs office." The dwarf said his piece and motioned them along before motioning to the next group in the queue.

"How do I get a travel pass?" Val asked the elf.
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"It's not something so official, or required, if you don't have one, you can proceed all the same but there is a fee. A travel pass here is really just a document implying faithful conduct, someone will issue one to you if they require you to visit the dwarves, it can even be just a letter detailing who you are and who sent you." Asha explained.

"Uh huh…"

When they were inside, he noticed a large gatehouse, and a building below it, Asha seemed to know where she was going so he followed her to the customs office. He noticed that there were many signs and even a kiosk with a couple clerks giving information and answering questions, it appeared that everything here was written in the something very close to the runic language. He could figure out some things but had not studied runes for their use as alphabet, but rather for invoking their power.

Inside the building was a row of windows, with sharply dressed dwarves in collared shirts, vests and neckties, they looked very professional as they processed each new arrival with efficiency, though it was surprising how similar the fashion was to his own world in a few ways. Val was not sure how he was supposed to stand in line with his bike when one of the dwarves left his window and approached them with a clipboard.

"Please, this way, we can process your arrival over here." A clean-shaved dwarf with his hair trimmed short, motioned to their group and they followed him to the side.

"To what do we owe the pleasure?" The dwarf asked politely.

"Official business, envoy of the Queen." Asha replied in an equally courteous tone.

*Oh my god she can be polite if she wants to.* Val almost rolled his eyes at the elf.

"Very well, length of stay?" The dwarf seemed to be writing on several different pages as his questions were answered.

"A week." Asha replied, to which Val raised his brows, not having actually planned for how long he would stay but now the duration seemed fixed.

The dwarf clerk was quick to pick up on Val's reaction. "You may extend your stay if you wish, you need simply notify us to renew your visa." The clerk clarified, before resuming his flurry of scribbling on his clipboard.

Val nodded his understanding, visibly relieved he still had flexibility with his plans.

"Now, your name, miss…?"

"Alevriasha, of House Evenwind."

"And yours, sir…?"

"Valtyr."

"Very well." It seemed the dwarf did not mind the lack of a surname or house for him, or was not expecting one. Val was unsure whether Aurulians had surnames, but hedged his bets on the dwarves not caring.

"And, will you be needing storage for your… goods?" The clerk eyed Val's bike curiously, not seeming sure what to make of it. Val himself had assumed they might treat it as scrap from the nearby towns to be sold.

"Yes, please." Asha replied, seeming familiar with the process.

"Very well, for the storage space required, we collect a rent of 10 crowns per night, you may pay the final sum upon your departure but the first night must be put down as deposit now. We also offer insurance for your merchandise but we would need to appraise the value first."

Asha retrieved five gold coins, handing them to the dwarf. "No thank you, we'll pay the full week now, and I'd like the remainder to be exchanged for dwarven crowns."

"Alright, I shall return shortly, please wait a moment, ah, sir? We can take your goods to storage now if you would like." The clerk motioned to a couple burly dwarven porters nearby.

"Oh, right, sure, let me grab my things." Val took the keys and the canvas rucksack from the bike, letting the porters walk it to storage with mixed feelings.

"Please rest assured sir, your belongings will be managed with utmost care, we have a perfect record of securing the goods of our patrons." The clerk assured Val, though he just raised an eyebrow at the idea of a truly perfect record.

*Why offer insurance then…? Basically scamming people aren't you?* Val decided he needed to be careful of dwarven merchants.

"It's true, no one does banking and storage more securely than the dwarves." Asha assured him as well, to which the dwarf simply beamed before heading off to exchange the gold.

"I take it you've been here before?" Val asked.

"I have, it's a safe place to stop over if you're traveling through the area."

"You seem very familiar with the process."

Asha shrugged. "My duties keep me away from home most of the year, this is one place I've frequented. My task here is half complete simply knowing that it is business as usual for the dwarves, despite recent events." Val was not sure, but she did not seem at all sorrowful about not being home much.

*I guess if you live for centuries, home gets boring?* Val soon dismissed his thoughts on the matter as the dwarf returned only a few minutes later with a couple pouches filled with coins.

"Four hundred and twenty-two crowns is your change, and here are your temporary visas." The dwarf handed Asha the pouches and a couple cards roughly four by six inches, printed on thick, stiff paper with the information they provided, including a receipt for the specific goods stored. Some quick math based on the storage fee told Val a gold coin was roughly a little less than a hundred dwarven crowns. He also handed them a couple of leaflets which seemed to have information regarding inns, general code of conduct, a surprisingly detailed map on the back.

"Thanks." Val accepted his visa from the dwarf and nodded to him.

"It is my pleasure, enjoy your stay at Kar Lodihr, please peruse the guide carefully and if you need any further guidance, see the information booth for more details." Overall it was a short process before they were allowed through the gatehouse with their visas in hand, it seemed they primarily cared about keeping an account of visitors, not even flinching at the weapons they carried in.

Val was studying the leaflet as he followed Asha in, Huginn and Muninn were perched on his shoulder and sword-hilt respectively, but it seemed he gathered much less attention here than among the survivors. He only noticed after he looked up from the leaflet, but there was a bewildering diversity of life bustling along what looked like a market street as soon as they passed through the inner gatehouse. Humans, dwarves, a couple elves here and there, though their ears were much shorter, almost human, save for the pointed ends. Many people had stalls set up and were hawking their wares, some stood in front of stores or inns advertising their services. He almost lost his jaw as he spotted a man who looked to be part fox, with pointed furry ears and a bushy tail. There were a few other people who seemed half beast and half man, some more beast than man and vice versa. If he was not mistaken he even saw what looked to be a minotaur, hulking with a figure nearly eight feet tall and equipped in a combination of leather and plate.

Asha grabbed his jaw and closed it, sternly scolding him. "Do not remain there and gawk, stomach your surprise and stay close." Val had not noticed before, but another point Asha differed from the mysterious girl he met was she was actually almost as tall as him, though with the stream's fluctuating water level he could be wrong about the girl's height. She was maybe five foot ten or so with the help of her boots, it was much more obvious with her stern emerald gaze almost level with his.

Muninn was simply giggling again at his reaction.

Bewildered and wide-eyed, Val did his best to try and peel his eyes off all the bizarre creatures he saw, following as Asha dragged him along by the arm.

"Christ, maybe some fucking warning next time…?" He complained quietly.