Quoted By:
As you stand alone in the darkness with only the stink of dead orc to accompany you, the plot brewing in the back of your mind grows from a mere spectre of an idea, a passing daydream barely worth entertaining, to something intriguing, daring, bold. It whispers to you of untold riches flowing from the very earth, of sumptuous feasts without end, of the prestige afforded to the very greatest of your kind. Of walls of mannish spearheads and dwarvish axes arrayed not before you, but beside you, to your own benefit.
Another, more sensible part of you, well steeped in the tales your mother taught you, insists that such a thing cannot be done. It is not the way of dragons, creatures crafted for the express purpose of destruction, to rely on the strength of others to take what is theirs by right of plunder. Never before has anything like this been done, save with easily-dominated orc rabble. To attempt what you consider is too dangerous, no less folly than to point the sword against your own breast.
The little voice speaks again, louder now. Then would that not make you the first? You could be as a great pioneer, a living legend among your race. Food, territory, treasure uncountable. All could be yours, and at a fraction of the age and power it would demand otherwise.
It’s preposterous, says the diminishing voice of reason that you are beginning to think isn’t reasonable at all. You couldn’t possibly.
You raise a black talon to a nearby tree, its bark smooth yet sturdy. Ah, but if you <span class="mu-i">could</span>…
You apply just a little pressure to the bark and the tip of your claw sinks in as you drag it across the surface, and a thin line is left scored across it. The fragrant scent of wounded tree tickles your nostrils and beads of sap pool in the shallow gash, but you are not finished. You raise your claw again, in a different spot, and make a similar mark, and then do it again. For a long while you keep to this task, making careful nicks in the wood as the image in your mind is given form before you. More than a few times your inexperience gets the better of you and you make some small error, be it a broken chunk of bark or a slip of a claw, but you always manage to improvise and either hide the mistake or make it a feature. As the sky grows brighter in the east and birds begin to sing in the distant woodland, your design nears completion.
This process of scratching shapes is bizarre and entirely new to you, but not unpleasant by any means, you have to admit. You are reminded of the writing in your golden book and some level of excitement stirs in you. What is writing if not shapes with meaning? If you can etch a symbol into tree bark, then surely the ability to learn the dwarf runes lies within you also.
