Stormguard Stronghold – Threnar Isle
Deep beneath the Bastion, where the stone walls pulsed faintly with ancient heat and the flame Qi ran thick through the veins of the mountain, Bruga knelt before a forge altar.
Rows of shallow iron molds lay before him, each shaped into perfect spheres, marble-sized orbs no more than an inch in diameter. He exhaled slowly, his breath like smoke, and placed a single blank orb into the first mold.
With massive hands unusually delicate for his size, Bruga traced a glowing sigil into the surface. It shimmered red-hot, the shape of a coiling flame rune. Then he closed his eyes and sent his flame Qi into the core of the orb. The sigil flared as the energy took hold, and a flickering flame danced to life inside, trapped within the shell like a restless spirit waiting to be unleashed.
One by one, he inscribed and charged the orbs, sweat rising on his brow despite the fire-forged strength in his veins.
A warmage stood nearby, cloaked in reinforced crimson. As each orb was passed to him, he sealed it with a counter-sigil, binding the flame within. His hands moved quickly, but with ritual precision.
"Five seconds delay," the warmage muttered. "Or explode on impact."
The final seal locked into place. The orb glowed faintly red in the dim chamber, a deadly spark nestled in his palm.
Dozens of the orbs now lined the stone trays, their glow reflecting off the cavern walls.
The forge hissed.
The mountain pulsed.
And the weapons of fire were ready.
Far above the Bastion, within a frostbound chamber where breath turned to mist and silence hung like frost on steel, Yezari worked alone.
The walls were carved with sigils of cold, glowing faintly with glacial blue light. A basin of pure ice sat at the chamber's center, ringed by rune-etched silver molds, each shaped to hold a small, perfect sphere. The air itself hummed with frozen Qi, drawn from ancient ley-lines buried deep beneath Threnar's northern cliffs.
Yezari stepped to the basin. Her armor refracted the cold light, and her breath plumed before her lips. She held a crystal orb no larger than a marble, its surface clear as frozen glass.
"Freeze-type," she whispered to herself, her voice steady. "Target joints and core."
She pressed the orb into one of the molds, then raised her palm above it. Threads of icy Qi coiled from her fingertips, streaming down into the orb's heart. A pale-blue sigil flared along its surface, a snowflake inscribed in runic form, its edges sharp as blades.
Inside, frost began to swirl, spiraling inward until the core of the orb glowed with a chill blue radiance. Thin ice spread over the mold, cracking faintly as the orb stabilized.
A second sorcerer entered, an articaster clad in frost robes reinforced with bone and shell. Without a word, he extended his hands and sealed the orb with a frostbound rune. The seal shimmered, locking the cold Qi within.
"Trigger on impact," he said. "Flash freeze in a quarter-meter radius. Enough to snap bone."
Yezari nodded.
Orb by orb, the chamber filled with growing cold and deadly stillness. As each was completed, the light from the frost sigils pulsed brighter.
By nightfall, rows of sealed ice orbs sat quietly in silver-lined trays. Cold mist drifted above them.
Weapons of winter, forged for war.
And the Forgotten Isle would feel their bite.
In the lowest vault beneath the Stormguard Bastion, where no torch burned and even sound was reluctant to echo, Nyzekh stood before the Void Crucible.
The chamber was hewn from obsidian, veined with ancient nullstone. No flame lit the space, only the soft pulse of the crucible's dark core. Around it, sigils of warning and silence spiraled across the walls. This place was forbidden to all but a few.
Even Yezari did not follow him here.
Laid across an altar of black glass were six hollow orbs, each no larger than a closed fist. Perfectly smooth. Perfectly silent. Forged from voidsteel drawn from fallen star-iron, they hummed at a frequency felt more than heard.
Nyzekh extended his hand. Darkness gathered. Not shadow. Not smoke. But a folding of space itself. His eyes flickered with black fire. He whispered a single rune under his breath, ancient and cruel.
The orb in his grasp drank the power hungrily.
Within seconds, its inner shell rippled, as though space itself curled inward. A sigil flared to life, one not of fire or frost, but absence. The mark of erasure.
A void orb.
It pulsed once.
Nyzekh stepped back. A warmage officer approached, his steps careful, his breathing measured. He offered a containment sleeve of null-cloth.
"Only wardens or warmage officers are cleared," Nyzekh warned, his voice like stone dragged across metal. "Impact detonation… or twenty-second delay. Radius: twenty meters."
"What's the effect?" the warmage asked quietly.
Nyzekh did not blink.
"All matter within the radius. Stone. Steel. Bone. Air. Will cease to exist. It will not burn. It will not fall. It will be gone."
The warmage nodded once, took the orb with reverent hands, and placed it in the containment sleeve.
Nyzekh turned to the next.
There would be no mass production. No storage vaults.
Only seven void orbs would be forged.
No more.
And when they were used, the Forgotten Isle would know the silence of unmaking.
Beneath the Forge Hall, where anvils never cooled and the air shimmered with heat and iron dust, Daalo stood amid the clang of steel and the hiss of quenched blades. The master engineer's robes were scorched and stained, but his eyes burned with focus.
The scroll from Altan lay open on the worktable beside him, its black-ink sigil pulsing faintly. A dual-layer rune, finely tuned to Qi alignment. Its structure was deceptively simple, a core flame matrix woven with an inverse frost node. It could burn or freeze on impact, depending on the flow of energy through the weapon.
He etched the first sigil into the head of a falcata using a needle of dragonbone dipped in liquid silver. As he whispered the activation phrase, the sigil pulsed—once red, once blue.
A Stormguard weaponsmith nearby tested a javelin tip. When aligned toward flame, the sigil glowed crimson and spat a spark. He turned it, inverted the flow, and frost rimed the edge in a flash of cold mist.
"Perfect," Daalo muttered.
All around him, smiths worked in furious rhythm. Hundreds of blades laid out for inscription. Spears. Falcatas. Knives. Arrows. Each was carefully aligned. Fire runes for those targeting the monsters' limbs and faces. Ice runes for joints and core. And some blades bore both, etched on either side of the weapon's edge.
"Distribute them to every cohort," Daalo called. "No dull blades. No plain steel. If it doesn't burn or freeze, it stays behind."
One smith turned, sweat dripping down his face. "What of the archers?"
Daalo raised a hand. "Same sigils. Flame and frost. Use ley-reactive shafts only. They'll channel the Qi better."
Another smith brought forth a batch of javelins with rune-etched tips glowing faintly. Daalo tested one, channeled a flicker of Qi. It ignited at the point, seared the air, then faded.
"Good," he said. "Mark those for frontline use."
Through heat and steel, the weapons of Threnar were reforged. Not in gold. Not in honor. But in urgency. And warcraft.
They would carry the will of the Stormguard into fire and ice.
And when they struck, every blow would burn. Or freeze. Or end all things.
As the last of the forges cooled and weapons were sealed into crates, a chime echoed through the war hall. One of the aides stepped forward, breath sharp.
"Commander. Veilguard transmission. Coded. From Kymarion."
Altan looked up immediately.
"Source verified?"
"Yes. Embedded operative. Cipher-check passed."
The aide handed him a slate etched with the rune-seal of the Veilguards. Altan broke it and read the message silently.
It was the confirmation he needed, though not the one he had hoped for. The Dazhum had moved. The Kymarion fleet, the main command hub in the Broken Isles, was mobilizing. Not a raiding party. A legion. An entire warhost.
And they were setting sail for Orûn-Mal.
Altan remained silent for a long moment. The torches along the chamber walls crackled. The scent of oil and steel lingered in the air.
This was no longer a hidden skirmish in the shadows. The Forgotten Isle was drawing fire from across the isles. And for what reason, none could yet say.
Another variable. One that might complicate everything if mistakes were made.
His jaw tightened as the thought crossed his mind. Was it a rescue? Or a containment?
He kept that question locked away.
Instead, he turned from the war table and gave a single command to his aide.
"Summon the Stormtide naval and marine officers. We meet before dawn."