4 FORGELORD

In the remote lands of Freljord, in the south-east of the country, there is a mountain range where an active volcano rests. In that place, long before the three sisters came to exist and changed the fate of this ice hell, a tribe known by their formidable works of blacksmithing, architecture, and brewing, used to live there under the teachings of their god, the Forgelord, also known as Old Ornn.

Under the ruins of this place, unbeknownst to anyone, is a cave that leads to the heart of the volcano. Inside this cave, if you were able to go towards its deepest parts, you would be able to hear the sound of metal colliding with metal and the scorching hot air emerging as if the mountain itself was breathing.

There, right next to the lava river, was a being of intimidating proportions, skin that looked more like basalt, horns so pointed and menacing that they could frighten a person even if he was standing there doing nothing, arms so dense and powerful that they seem to bring with it the strength of 10,000 mammoths.

This immortal being, continuously worked in the scorching forge, behind him, for more than 100 meters, all that could be seen were mountains of weapons, armor, accessories, and other objects, they were all exceptional works of smithy imbued with magic without comparison.

When his hammer hit the anvil for the hundredth time, he stopped and took out the piece of metal that was there and rested it on a type of snow bed kept in a container that he himself built using volcanic rock. This container somehow managed to keep itself cold despite its proximity to the lava.

After some time he removed a sword from the snow bed and used the glow of the lava to inspect his work, having guaranteed the quality, he nodded slightly and said with a heavy heart. "Passable."

He took the sword and walked to one of the mountains behind him, looking at the giant pile of objects he sighed and took out a sheath as if he knew exactly what objects were there, and where to look for it.

Seeing how well the sword fit into the scabbard, he put it back on the pile and sighed.

How long has he been forging over the boiler he calls home? Long enough to know that his brother was about to recover completely.

As worrying thoughts ran through his mind, hurried footsteps echoed through the cave, when he heard that, Ornn got up and held the hammer he always carried beside him with his firm hands.

Soon the shadow of a large creature appeared in the cave, it had several horns and a mouth that seemed to be able to swallow a person in just one bite, on top of the white furball with sharp teeth and horns, a cute child was sitting while playing a flute.

Ornn looked at both of them and lowered his hammer.

"Hey, old Ornn! How are you? It's been a few months since we visited you."

"Nunu and Willump, what are you doing here?" Ornn's monotonous, emotionless voice floated through the cave.

Nunu got down from the Yeti and handed Ornn a scroll, seeing the Frostguard symbol he had an idea of ​​who it would be and the reasons for receiving a message.

Opening the scroll he began to read it.

"The Noxian demon continues to move in the shadows, spies roam our lands, their goals are not clear and the desert rose leads them.

With the return of lightning and thunder, enemies surround us from every side, and the echoes of the void increase with each passing day.

The true ice no longer seems to have the same effectiveness as it once had, it's a matter of time until they break free from their prisons, a few weeks ago, one of them truly managed to free himself, but the weapon prepared managed to kill the watcher.

Perhaps only one or two decades remains until my efforts are rendered useless, prepare yourself, First Builder, war is coming and we will need your help to survive."

Seeing this Ornn frowned, 'so soon' he thought. Turning towards Nunu, he returned the scroll and walked to one of the mountains of objects. The kid couldn't leave yet, he needed to know his answer before leaving.

Ornn walked for some time until he stopped in front of a golden chest, he took it on his hand and touched some of the runes inscribed on it, once they lit up, the chest opened and every single object he crafted started trembling before slowing rising in the air and then flying inside of the chest. As the objects approached, it looked like they were getting smaller whenever they entered it.

After everything was stored, he touched something behind the chest, and suddenly two handles fell from the back.

He then used the handles to carry the chest on his back as if it were a type of backpack.

"Let's go."

Without waiting for Nunu's answer, he started walking out of the cave, but what Nunu didn't know was that while Ornn would help humanity, he never said that he would be doing that together with the ice witch.

...

Alwith and Symas looked at the creatures that left the openings on the wall and gulped, they looked like scorpions made out of sandstone with red rubies as eyes, those things worked like guardians of ancient laboratories, if someone without the amulet that allowed you to enter the place was detected by the spell, those things would be awakened and sent to deal with the invader.

After all the scorpions entered the room, they counted and sighed with relief, there were only 8 of them, perhaps there were more in the past, but without maintenance, they would slowly die over time due to lack of magic energy to sustain their cores.

"You take the ones on the left, I'll deal with the ones on the right," Symas said as he pointed his blue staff towards the closest scorpion.

Alwith nodded and without replying spun his orange staff creating two fireballs that he threw at them, but before the projectiles could reach the sand golems, two pillars of sand appeared in front of them, effectively dealing with the fireballs.

Symas waved his staff throwing a few bolts of lightning, but because they were too fast they scorpions couldn't manipulate the sand to create a shield, it was only after being hit a few times that they decided to coat their bodies in a sand armor.

They opened their mouths and started throwing sand knives at Symas, watching as more than 6 knives flew towards him, he jumped to the side and hid behind a table that was lying on the floor.

On the side of Alwith, the scorpions undid the pillar of sand and ran towards him, seeing how fast they were, he didn't have enough time to react, the first headbutted him almost a meter back, the second was about to pierce him with his tail, but before he could do it, Alwith used his staff to conjure a blade of fire on the end that he used to cut the scorpion in half.

He knew that this was not enough to stop the scorpions, so he used elemental earth magic to pull himself back a few meters, seeing that he managed to get at least 3 meters away from the scorpions, he hit the staff on the ground and created a great pillar of fire around them, preventing them from leaving the area in which he conjured the pillar.

Alwith was so distracted that he did not notice the sand knife flying towards him, luckily for him, Symas was attentive and managed to conjure two bolts of electricity that intercepted the knife.

Without wasting time, Symas looked out of the corner of his eye at the position of the scorpions throwing knives at him and kept the distance between them in mind. He hit the staff on the ground and started chanting a spell.

Soon a sphere of electricity formed on the top of the staff, seeing that he had successfully cast the spell, he took the staff and pointed upwards, the sphere flew out of the staff and stopped a few meters above the ground next to the scorpions.

Before they could react the sphere started firing bolts of lightning at them, soon after, their bodies exploded in a cloud of dust.

Alwith meanwhile made some hand signals and pointed the staff in the direction of the pillar of fire, which slowly began to shrink, forcing the scorpions to flee to the center of the circle where they were trapped, the fire became increasingly hot and concentrated, then, after a few seconds, the scorpions couldn't stand the heat and started to melt.

Sighing they looked at that mess and thanked their luck, if there were more scorpions, this could have affected the battlefield, causing them to destroy part of this underground laboratory.

"Do you see any other possible traps or doors?"

"No, it must be safe now..." Symas walked towards the walls that went up and confirmed his suspicions, the false bottom was used only to store these scorpions. "I'm going to go up and call the others, you can start to identify objects and tools, just remember not to touch anything."

Alwith nodded with an innocent smile on his face, but as soon as he turned, his eyes began to shine with the expectation of investigating all the secrets of this place.