We were victorious.
The mines had proven difficult and treacherous. We did not escape unharmed. We had, however, managed to rescue a great many of the prisoners.
I was excited. This would prove to the priest that we were worthy of his council. I felt that with this service to his people completed I could ask him the many questions which burned in my mind. Why had we been created? How? We were forgeborn, brothers in origin.
It was then, in this moment of triumph, that I felt the darkness.
I stopped and turned to ask the others what was going on when I noticed their gaze turned skywards. I too turned to look towards the sunset.
I beheld the end of all things.
A great mountain of fire falling from the sky, its edges glowing white hot like a second sun. Yet, for all its light, I could see into its heart. This great stone, this meteor, was a thin of evil. Pure, undiluted hatred for all of creation. My eyes beheld a blinding fire but my soul saw only darkness unending, like a great void coming to swallow us up.
We all stood there, petrified, for many moments. Even the dwarves who had been jovial and boisterous a few moments before were locked in silence.
“Where do we run?” I heard someone ask.
“Nowhere,” I replied. I knew despair then, for in seeing the truth of this terror I felt there was nowhere to run. This fire was a child of the void, the black and unending madness of nothingness come to swallow us up.
Was this it, then? Was this all the life I had to live? And what of Cidra, who was so young and had so much life ahead of her? Was our recent act of valor nothing, them, in the grand picture?
No. There was hope. I dared to hope, then, in the face of this darkness. There was always a way to defeat the darkness in the light of hope.
“This way,” I ordered, pointing to a nearby alley. It would provide us some shelter from the blast. Something… anything… was better than nothing.
A great blue light shone then, like a vast barrier across the sky. The mountain of fire slowed and halted, suspended above our heads like a furious moon.
A sudden rush of air came around us and the meteor was hurtled away, east, towards the sea.
Questions needing answers. Lives in the balance. What darkness was that at the heart of the fire? What evil did it portend?
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