Interlude (Part 2)

The Never Ending Quest - Episode 7644

The man's hands are torn and bloody as he crawls up the tree, gripping the rough bark. He has climbed so long he hardly remembers when he started.

A drive burns in him, consuming all rational thought.

He must climb, he knows, for he must reach the forge. He looks up, and sees a branch so far above him it seems a speck. It gives him strength, and he strains to reach the next handhold.



The stone ruins of a grand Atlantean building stand silent, their only inhabitants ghosts of a bygone age, if even that. The spires are shattered, the arches crumbled. In the center of it all lies a broken throne.

Such is the price of war.

If there were someone there to listen, a faint sound could be heard, disturbing the halls of a fallen race. Steadily, it grows louder, and in this dead citadel, footsteps ring upon the stone.

The shadow of a man passes over the broken throne. Its source, a tall figure in tarnished brass armor, his face obscured by a leering mask, also of brass. He speaks, and his words echo in the dead court.

"Zerm...wake up Zerm..."

A cold whisper is borne on the wind to the man.

"You have no right to be here. I left for the withered lands to be alone, and to contemplate my mortal sin of pride. Leave the dead in peace."

"You are not dead, Zerm. You were only sleeping. Now say the name you know I am to be given."

"You are the Corpse-Stirrer, he who knows the true purpose of the slipgates, and will unleash their potential after the waters between the lands of men have mingled with those from afar."

"That is correct"

"What do you wish of me, Corpse-Stirrer?"

"You know the prophesies, Zerm. Rise."

The winds stir the dust which has settled on the broken throne, and slowly, grain by grain, they come together. Sifting and churning, they take on a roughly manlike shape, and then, they are solid.

"You have become the dust-mage, Zerm, as it was written. The Six Magickal Forces have been released with the destruction of the Crystallics. You are to collect them one by one, and forge them into the Crythrawl, dark sibling gem to them all, which will enable me to walk the pathways between the worlds. Go, and let nothing stop you."

The man made of dust nods, and with weary steps, begins a long journey.


The man has reached his destination, and resolutely he treads the cavern floor.

He stands in Nidavellir, the kingdom under the mountain, the lost ancestral homeland which the many nations of dwarves came forth from centuries ago. In the tongue of men, it is called Svartalfheim.

He approaches the forge, and as if by his will alone, it lights. Sternly, he grips the hammer, and, tongs in hand, begins to beat a sheet of brass into a new form. Gradually, it takes a shape, a leering mask. He douses it in the water, and knows he has done well.

Putting on the just-cooled mask, he hears his own voice, telling him secrets, telling him his path.

Your travels are set, he is told.

You were once bound by their rules, but no more.

You are outside them.

You are beyond them.

You are he who waits, the Harbinger who comes when the world-skeins are crossed.

You are the Corpse-Stirrer, he who knows the true purpose of the slipgates, and will unleash their potential after the waters between the lands of men have mingled with those from afar.

You are the Brazen Man, and you will shake the foundations of it all.

  1. Then, for the first time ever, the Norns are silent, and the affairs of men resume...
  2. Then, a foreign presence seeps into the roots of Ygg, and the mists creep about the Norns...

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2/21/2000 5:04:24 PM

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