The Three Peaks: Part 4 - The Artifact of Power
The Discovery
The expedition caravan had been traveling for three weeks when Urist’s daughter Katrin discovered it.
They were surveying potential settlement sites in the deep mountain range, sending teams to assess water sources, ore deposits, and defensive positions. Katrin had taken a small group further north than planned, following an old riverbed that might have indicated an underground spring.
Instead, she found a sealed chamber.
It was carved with deliberate precision from the mountain stone—not a natural cave, but architectural work. The entrance was sealed with a door of hardened material that Katrin, despite her mason training, couldn’t immediately identify. It was neither stone nor metal nor wood, but something with properties of all three.
“Stay back,” she told her team, approaching carefully.
As she got closer, something unexpected happened. The door simply… opened. Not mechanically, not by her touch, but as if it had been waiting for someone to approach. The seal slid back silently, revealing darkness within.
Katrin drew a torch and looked inside.
The chamber was vast—far larger than should have been possible given the mountain’s geology. The walls gleamed with something that caught the torchlight and threw it back in fractured patterns. In the center of the chamber sat a single object on a pedestal.
It was a crown.
Not crude, not roughly crafted, but shaped with an artistry that spoke of intentional design and impossible skill. It appeared to be made of a substance similar to adamantine but different—crystalline, catching light in ways that adamantine never did. Runes were carved into the circlet, and Katrin realized with a start that she recognized some of them. They were ancient Dwarven script, predating even the oldest fortress she’d heard of.
“By Armok,” she whispered.
Her hand reached out before her mind could tell her to be cautious. The moment her fingers touched the crown, the entire chamber ignited with light. Not fire, but pure illumination that came from no visible source. The runes blazed with power, and Katrin felt a surge of something—knowledge? intention? purpose?—pour into her mind.
When the light faded, she was trembling. The crown felt warm in her hands, and impossible to put down.
The Return to Camp
She brought it back to the camp. When Urist saw what she carried, the legendary smith’s face went white.
“Where did you find this?” he demanded.
Katrin described the sealed chamber, the unopened door, the crown itself.
Urist examined it carefully, his hands steady despite his evident shock. He touched the runes, tracing them with fingers that had created masterworks of such quality that they had become legendary. And with each rune he traced, his expression shifted—from shock to understanding to something approaching fear.
“This is pre-founding,” he said slowly. “This is older than any fortress I’ve ever heard of. Older than any artifact I’ve ever seen. This is… I don’t know what this is.”
That night, Urist called a meeting of the expedition leadership. Drizzle, Katrin, the caravan master, the military commander—everyone who held authority in the new settlement.
“We have a choice to make,” Urist said, placing the crown on the table before them. In the lamplight, it seemed to glow with its own inner luminescence. “We can bring this artifact back to Stellarim, surrender it to Udil and the noble courts, and let them decide what to do with it. Or we can keep it here, secret, and make it the centerstone of our new settlement.”
“It’s an artifact,” the caravan master said, awed. “A legendary artifact. Its value is immeasurable.”
“Its power is immeasurable,” Urist corrected grimly. “And that’s the problem. An artifact of this quality, in a new fortress with limited population, could attract attention. The right kind and the wrong kind.”
“The wrong kind being what?” Drizzle asked.
“Military powers who would view it as worth conquering a settlement for,” Urist said. “I know the politics of the dwarven kingdoms, wife. I know how we think. Any fortress holding an artifact this powerful would become a target.”
“Or a fortress that powerful would become supreme,” Katrin said softly. She was still staring at the crown, unable to look away. “With something like this, with the craftsmanship you could accomplish, Urist—with both of these things combined—you could build something that would never fall.”
The word ‘never’ hung in the air.
“Never is a long time,” Urist said.
“Yes,” Katrin agreed. “It is.”
The Messenger
Five days later, a messenger arrived from Stellarim.
Udil Sparkstone had sent a small party to check on the expedition’s progress. The messenger was a swift runner, good with horses, and carried documents that were both orders and invitations.
The tone of the message made clear that Udil wanted to know the expedition’s status. Resources expended, timelines, potential profit projections.
Urist read the message twice, then burned it.
“We don’t tell them,” he said to Drizzle that night. “Not yet. The crown stays hidden until the settlement is established. Once we have buildings, fortifications, a population rooted to this place, then we consider revelation.”
“They’ll be angry,” Drizzle pointed out.
“They’ll be angry anyway,” Urist said. “But an established settlement with a legendary artifact is much harder to dismiss or interfere with than an expedition that has barely begun construction.”
“And the army we were warned about? The military force heading toward these mountains?”
Urist was quiet for a long moment.
“We’ll face that when it arrives,” he said finally. “And if we’re lucky, the crown will help us face it.”
The Rumors Spread
But secrets are fragile things, and even a small expedition carries gossip like water carries minerals. Rumors began to spread among the workers, the soldiers, the support staff.
Word traveled through caravans. Through merchants. Through the network of dwarven communication that stretched across kingdoms and empires.
An artifact. Legendary in power. Hidden in the eastern mountains.
And suddenly, the eastern mountains became very interesting to every faction with resources and ambition.
Next in the series: The Three Peaks: Part 5 - Stellarim’s Calculation