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Tale of the Dwarven Missionary

(DM Beginnings Story)

by Archer»–)›, formerlly known as Dec

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...and Balin's parachute, made of his bed cloth, unveiled like a flower blooming in fast-motion. He pulled hard on the corners of the cloth to keep himself in a slow free-fall so as not to plunge to his death. He landed safely at the bottom of a great, clifféd ridge and dropped his 'chute.

Balin, the Dwarven Pathfinder, looked across this land, the great city of Myrgard, or the ruins of it. So many years before had he left his home to the invading hordes of Ghols. Ever since they captured the great city, they destroyed everything they could, including the 12 meter high statue of Eiren. Eiren created the settlement of Myrgard centuries before after a dispute with his twin brother Beiren. Beiren created the settlement of Stoneheim to contest his brother's fortune, however, the people of both towns were interrelated too greatly to split with their leaders and eventually caused Eiren and Beiren to make up. As the two towns became cities, they commemorated their leaders with their identical stone statues in the center of both towns.

The statue of Eiren was dismantled by the Ghols into scrap stone to build their monolithic statues of worship. That was the first thing Balin saw after he had landed. Then his eyes quickly turned to the Ghols who conversed in their disgusting language of grunts and barks. One suddenly approached. Balin's sudden fear dropped when he realized that he was completely invisible to the Ghols as a result of a little magic performed by Alric before he left. Nothing could see him, only his footsteps were audible He knew the spell would break if he threw a molitov cocktail at even one Ghol. That would almost certainly be death.

Balin's only chance was to sneak past the field of Ghols and the once blue reflecting pools, now brown with biological pollution, and go up the hill where there used to be the center of the city. As Balin hurried, he imagined the green grass of the garden that once lay beneath his feet; but he needed only unsquint his eyes to the truth he knew he must abolish, his very Dwarven mission.

While Balin rounded the curves of the former steps, now a simple ramp, as the soulless patrolled at a station of guard for no apparent reason. When the prisoners (his people) were captured by the Ghols and forces of dark, they became slaves and were forced to destroy the very city they created. Myrgard was turned into a Concentration Camp of terrifying proportions. The gate at the top of the hill with the dead tree trunks, stuck into the ground to cripple any Dwarven escape attempt, encircled by mindless Soulless truly did give fear to Balin. He could only image what the thousands of citizens did when they were run through those little ways of passage. If one tried to escape, the Soulless threw their terrible spears into the poor soul to kill him dead. Any fast ones were taken down by the Ghols.

The people of Myrgard were forced in very large groups, perhaps of 40 or more, into piles on top of each other. The ones on the bottom would have had the best opportunity, despite the many Dwarven weights crushing from above. They would have been the first to die, but extremely quickly and fairly painlessly by the two or three wights at the bottom, adjacent to them. The ones at the top, paralyzed, would be forced to endure the pain of Ghol cleavers entering their hides and cutting them to bits. These explosions are what created the eroded holes in the ground Balin saw.

Balin got to the middle of the great plain area where the town house once was and threw his signal flare from a small hill. This signaled for another 10 Dwarves to parachute down from their airborne balloons, and also for those remaining in the balloons to prepare to drop satchel charges on wherever Balin would signal with his five red signal flares. The Dwarves made quick work of the surrounding Ghols with no injuries attained.

They scoured the landscape and destroyed every single Ghol who dared to match them. Balin, of course, with his very skilled throwing arm, killed most of the Ghols, compared to his less gifted subordinates. The Dwarves then looked in every cave of the dead Ghols, searching for one that was open to a tunnel network. Most were closed, but one, in the South, was open to the tunnels. They entered it and followed the way out, reading the pictographs of the Ghols which gave signs to where they were going.

They visually read what they were heading to; the enormous stone head of a Ghol, the Ghols' idyllic Godhead. Most of the Dwarves had only heard of it in tale, except for Balin who had once seen the thing during a brief expedition of reconnaissance of the area from the cliff tops, years before when he was just a young man. It must have been 14 meters high and 22 meters long when Balin saw it. Hundreds of Ghols where rolling it into position on a simple platform with a shallow pit underneath it. Balin watched in terror as all the Ghols placed the massive idol with a mad precision that inspired a fear into Balin's heart greater than the sight of all the Ghols beneath him. He then watched what was happening next. A Ghol was carrying an injured but living Dwarf to the pit. The Ghol grunted and barked, like the filthy animal it was, the prayer and then sliced the screaming Dwarf's head off and threw it into the pit as a sacrifice it its God. The rest of the Ghols ate the Dwarf's body.

Balin knew what had to be done; the Dwarves had to get to the idol and drop all of their satchel charges. Then, they had to blow up the statue as a final remark that the Dwarves had reconquered their occupied land. Balin led the all-living Dwarves out of the cave and killed the Ghol standing on duty into a loosely gathered pile of viscera. Facing enormous packs of two dozen Ghols each, the Dwarves nearly were killed, but only some major damage occurred, no one had died yet.

The Dwarves came to a bottle-neck of the pass where 14 Ghols stood, sharpening their cleavers with their teeth. The ever brave, but foolish , Oni ran into the fight, laying satchels and throwing molitov cocktails. The Ghols threw some wight puss that paralyzed poor Oni to fall fate to the Gholen cleavers. This, however, gave the wonderful opportunity to kill the Ghols without them directly attacking the other Dwarves, like Balin. Oni was killed, not by the Ghols, but by the several nine molitovs that exploded around him in attempt to kill those Ghols. The poor soldier was not soon forgotten for his brave deed and work.

The Dwarves passed over a small plateau-cliffÐlike bluff as they proceeded forward when Balin suddenly said, "Dwarves, halt." Balin heard a low, resonating, rumbling sound from the East of which he brought to the other Dwarven attentions. They looked out to the distance and saw the great stone Ghol Godhead, clear as the midday sky they witnessed. To the south of it, Ghols prayed and grunted at the monolith to worship it. There were dozens of Ghols in plain sight and dozens more that could be heard just out of visual range.

The Dwarves passed more obstacles, like a group of seven Ghols and 3 Soulless, as well as a cluster of several dozen soulless the Dwarves made quick work of. The group was assisted by three more Dwarves that dropped from the hovering balloons. Then, after quickly killing a stand-by Ghol, they proceeded towards the Idyllic Mass.

"Stop!" Balin commanded. He realized that all 70 of the Ghols, worshiping their God, had their eyes closed. Only if they got right next to them could the Gholen choral mass notice. "All we have to do, Dwarves, is bate them to come up here on this ramp, then we can kill them easily from the high ground." All the Dwarves gave a nod of agreement, but looked around at each other, knowing what was next. "...But, the question is, who is going to bait them?"

The Dwarves again looked around as Ari inspected his wounds. He realized he was the weakest of the Dwarves, and whatever else lay ahead, he was not the fittest to help them all survive. He stepped forward. "I will go, sir. I'll let them all attack and crowd around me, then you all can blow them up. I'm willing to die in the process. As you say, sir, 'If you can't win, at least blow some shit up.' "

"I'm not going to give up on you that quickly, Ari," said Balin as he threw another molitov at a lone Soulless. "We'll leave that open as an option, but we'll definitely try to save you."

"I'm also willing to sacrifice myself," stood forward Telling, almost as weak as Ari.

"All right. Telling, Ari, you come with me to that hill there," he said pointing. "The rest of you say here on the ramp and prepare to kill the incoming Ghols."

"Aye, sir, " they all said at once.

The trio approached the worshiping mass while Telling laid some satchel charges. Ari walked right behind a Ghol and then threw a molitov right into the center of the crowd. Three Ghols were killed. The entire mass then swarmed onto little Ari. Telling tried to kill the ones on Ari's back, but they were replaced by several more each time. Telling then ran all he could towards Balin, as Ari did.

The injured Dwarves were just coming to within Balin's range so he could kill the mass of Ghols. He first fired into the swarm 3 of his 5 remaining signal cocktails as he aided Telling and Ari with molitovs. The satchel drops were quite successful, but ended up killing over two dozen of the 70 Ghols, as well as Ari and Telling. The other Dwarves moved forward as Balin ran backward, all attempting to kill the terrible beasts.

The Ghols were now cutting into Balin. He was strong, but not strong enough to withstand all the Ghols. He tried to divert his assailants to the base of the cliff-like hill so the other Dwarves could take advantage of the high ground and actually throw accurately, for once, thought Balin pessimistically.

However, the other Dwarves were having problems of their own. The 30 of the remaining Ghols attacked up the hill. The Dwarven desperations rose quickly as they threw as well as they possibly could. Three Dwarves died in the plume of shockwaves that ened up killing all the Ghols. The Dwarves were injured, but survived.

"HELP ME!" cried Balin as he rounded around, back towards the ramp. The other Dwarves came as quickly as they could, molitovs in hand. They were able to kill all the Ghols, but badly injured poor Balin. Balin looked down at his wounds, then up at the enormous Ghol Godhead. He directed his fellow dwarves toward the great monolith.

Balin saw a white Ghol in the distance. He took out a molitov and ran as fast as his little Dwarven legs would carry him. After a quick bark, the Ghol turned and ran in dodging paths of Balin's quick molitovs. Balin was more angry now than he had ever been. He cried out a battle cry more terrifying to the Dwarves than the monotone prayers of the Ghols. Balin let out two molitovs a second, injuring the speedy Ghol to a brief halt that cost it its life. Balin had a single tear come from his left eye that he quickly wiped away.

Balin ordered the other dwarves to drop their satchel charges at the base of the Godhead. When they were detonated, they did nothing to it's structure. After further inspection, Balin realized that a weak spot could be under the protruding part of the lith. The Dwarves, without anymore charges, decided to try and throw regular molitov cocktails to try and weaken it, hoping to end the signifying rule of the Ghols. Balin then decided he would go find his little house on the green area, all that was left from a large public garden. As he approached the foundation of his old and modest home that he knew as a boy, he saw a Ghol eating the remnants of a Dwarf.

It was Oni. The Ghol must have gotten it after he died. The Ghol also stood right next to his old house's foundation. This combination was more infuriating than anything Balin had known in his entire life. The fact that the Ghol was a yellowish-brown, just like the Ghol that Balin witnessed kill his mother, did no help to his emotional stability.

"Die you son of a bitch!" cried the emotionally exhausted and distraught Balin as he threw molitov after molitov. The first two injured the Ghol. The third made him drop his cleaver, which fell at Balin's feet. Balin picked up the sharp, curved blade and ran towards the tripping Ghol. Balin cut the Ghol's right ankle Achilles tendon to cripple the its run. Balin pinned the hideous creature to the ground on its back as he whispered these words of the ancient Dwarven language: "Deiner lebe wird enden jetzt keirnem Glouren, keirne Hsãrnete, keirn Telatur, und keirne Uretti," translated: "Your life will now end with no glory, no honor, no dignity, and no meaning." Balin then slowly sank the cleaver into the screaming Ghol's chest and painfully cut his heart in two.

Knowing the Ghol was still alive and somewhat conscious, he ran toward what looked like a pile of satchel charges. Balin picked one up and ran back towards the struggling Ghol as it was trying to crawl away. Balin put the satchel under the Ghol's back and then put the cleaver, sharp end up, slightly into his back. Balin ran back a few steps and threw a molitov at the Ghol. The explosion of the satchel pushed the cleaver violently threw the Ghol's torso, cutting it in two, while the shockwave destroyed all other parts of the Ghol's viscera. Only the burned scull remained, rolling across the ground, and the bloody Gholen cleaver, fallen 20 meters away.

Balin took a deep breath. Then he realized what he had used to kill the Ghol...A SATCHEL CHARGE! "Dwarves!" he called across the fallen plain of the flattened city, "I've found more satchel charges! Come quick so we can destroy the head!"

The Dwarves did so and walked back with their prize. They laid the satchels under the weak spot in the crevice, neatly tucked underneath it. Balin then threw the head of the Ghol he killed right below the end of the great rock's protrusion. He then blew up the charges which cracked the enormous protrusion off from the rest of the stone. It fell and smashed to millions of bits the skull of that dead Ghol. All the Dwarves then cheered with great joy of their massive victory.

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