The Three Peaks: Part 10 - The Test of Alliance
The Arrangement
The first months of the alliance were delicate. Irondelve’s soldiers, trained for conquest, had to learn how to be garrison instead of invaders. The eastern settlement began rapid construction with military support. Sparkbrook, recovering from its near-destruction, sent delegation after delegation to the new settlement, both curious and wary.
Udil Sparkstone arrived personally from Stellarim with a caravan of supplies and craftsworkers. Her message was formal but carried undertones of approval: Stellarim acknowledged the settlement’s alliance with Irondelve and offered commercial and cultural exchange.
The three fortresses were not allies exactly, but neither were they enemies. They were something new—a coalition born of necessity and fear, held together by the legendary reputations of those who led it.
Urist continued to study the artifact, learning its properties through careful observation and craft. He discovered that the crown responded to intention, to purpose, to the mental focus of whoever held it. It was not a weapon. It was an amplifier. An enhancer. A tool that magnified craftsmanship and creation.
Thorgrim remained at the garrison, officially as commander but practically as guarantor of the alliance. He and Urist met weekly to discuss the settlement’s progress and the artifact’s properties. Slowly, they developed something beyond respect: they developed friendship.
The Tremor
In the third month of the alliance, everything changed.
The ground shook. It was not the gentle tremor they had felt before, but a violent convulsion that lasted long enough that dwarves were thrown to their knees. Stone fell from ceilings. Walls cracked. Support pillars groaned with strain.
And in the depths of the mountain, something woke.
Erith reported the damage to Mira immediately. It was significant but not catastrophic. The garrison commander at Sparkbrook reported similar shaking. Urist felt it at the eastern settlement and felt something else: a change in the artifact. The runes began to glow brighter, more urgently, and he felt a presence in his mind—ancient, vast, and infinitely angry.
Scouts were sent down to investigate the deeper levels of the mountains. They returned with news that changed everything.
There was something in the deep places. Something that had been sealed or trapped or sleeping. And the earthquake had freed it.
The reports were vague—darkness, movement, something massive and utterly wrong—but they were consistent across all three fortresses. And they all agreed on one thing: whatever it was, it was moving upward toward populated levels.
The Council
The three fortress leaders met at the eastern settlement. Mira came from Sparkbrook with her best engineers. Udil came from Stellarim with military advisors. Thorgrim was already present with his soldiers. And Urist presided, the artifact held carefully, its runes still glowing with urgent intensity.
“We don’t know what it is,” Mira said without preamble. “But our engineers estimate it’s large. Very large. And whatever it is, it’s hostile.”
“How long until it reaches habitable levels?” Udil asked.
“Days,” Erith said. “Maybe a week, depending on the passages it takes.”
“And we have no way to stop it,” Thorgrim said flatly. “We have no weapons that would work against something of that magnitude.”
“Unless,” Urist said quietly, “the artifact provides a solution.”
He placed his hand on the crown. The runes flared, and every person in the room felt it—a surge of something ancient, of knowledge that wasn’t quite words but wasn’t quite wordless either.
“It’s showing me something,” Urist said, his eyes unfocused. “A seal. The creature is sealed, but the earthquake damaged the seal. The artifact… the artifact is a key. A key that can restore the seal, or reinforce it, or…”
“Or what?” Mira asked.
“Or banish it,” Urist said, opening his eyes. “I think I understand. The artifact isn’t meant for craftsmanship. It’s meant for this. For protection. For restraint. For holding back the things that should stay buried.”
“You’re saying the artifact is a weapon,” Thorgrim said.
“No,” Urist said. “I’m saying the artifact is a lock. And the creature is the reason the lock was created. The ancient dwarves—the ones who built this artifact—they sealed something in the deep places and created the crown as the tool to maintain the seal.”
The Descent
They voted to send Urist down with an escort. The descent would be dangerous, the journey into darkness unknown, the confrontation with something they couldn’t comprehend utterly terrifying.
But there was no alternative.
Thorgrim insisted on accompanying him. “A legendary warrior should walk with a legendary smith,” he said simply.
They descended with torches and armed guards, going deeper than any dwarves from the settlements had gone before. The deeper they went, the colder the air became. The stone itself seemed wrong—fractured, marked with scars that suggested violence on a scale they couldn’t imagine.
And then they found it.
The creature was impossible to perceive clearly. It was shadow and substance and something that hurt to look at directly. It was in the process of breaking through a sealed door, its weight and pressure already causing the stone to crumble.
Urist raised the artifact.
The crown flared with light that eclipsed the darkness. The creature retreated, unable to face the illumination. The runes spoke—not in words, but in understanding—and Urist felt the weight of ancient command flowing through him.
He was not crafting now. He was sealing. He was reinforcing bonds that had held for millennia. He was reminding the creature of its imprisonment and reaffirming the power that kept it bound.
It took hours. It took everything Urist had. It took standing there, holding the crown, channeling power that wasn’t his own, maintaining a seal against something that wanted desperately to be free.
But when it was finished, the creature retreated into the depths. The seal held. And the artifact dimmed, its emergency function completed, its ancient purpose served.
The Return
They emerged from the depths with Urist supported by Thorgrim, both of them aged by the experience in ways that went beyond physical. Urist’s hair was streaked with white where it had been black before. Thorgrim’s hands trembled despite his legendary strength.
“It’s sealed,” Urist said simply, as he was carried to the medical quarters. “It will hold. Maybe for another thousand years. Maybe longer. But we need to ensure that future generations understand: the artifact is a guardian. And the seal needs to be maintained.”
The New Understanding
In the aftermath of the crisis, everything changed. The three fortresses were no longer separate entities competing for power. They were guardians of something greater. Protectors of a secret. Keepers of knowledge that transcended normal fortress politics.
Udil returned to Stellarim with the story, and Stellarim acknowledged its role in the greater alliance. Stellarim was no longer simply a fortress of craft and commerce. It was a fortress of custodians.
Mira worked with Erith to establish secondary seals in Sparkbrook, backup systems that could be activated if the primary seal ever failed. The small fortress became, in a way, more important than its size suggested: it was the early warning system.
Thorgrim remained at the garrison, but his role evolved. He was no longer a commander overseeing a settlement. He was a guardian. And his reputation grew beyond military success: he was the legendary warrior who stood in the depths and helped prevent a catastrophe that the outside world would never know happened.
And Urist, aged but unbowed, continued to work with the artifact, but now his craftsmanship was directed toward understanding it, maintaining it, and ensuring that someday, another legendary smith would inherit the responsibility.
“We thought we were building something,” Drizzle said to Urist one evening, as he stood looking at the artifact’s runes.
“We were,” Urist said. “We’re still building it. But now we know what we’re actually building. We’re not building a settlement. We’re building a sanctuary. A place where the things that must stay hidden are kept safe, and the knowledge of how to keep them safe is preserved.”
“Is that the legacy you wanted?” Drizzle asked.
“No,” Urist admitted. “But it’s the legacy that matters.”
Next in the series: The Three Peaks: Part 11 - The Reckoning