The Ironstone Family Past (Part 3)

The civilization of Midgard arose thousands of years ago. Back then, humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, and giants lived together.

The dwarf women, with their skillful hands, helped the women of the other races as midwives. The elves blessed the newborn babies, asking for the protection of the spirits of each element of nature. The human women bathed the babies right after they were born. Thus, each of the five races harmoniously made up for what the other lacked.

The elves gathered fruit, the dwarves forged tools, the giants easily watered the crops, and the humans hunted alongside the brave orcs. As the world was filled with monsters, the weak depended on each other to stay alive.

However, cracks appeared in this grand alliance between the five races over time.

As the Orcs were fully developed in five to seven years, they were the best natural warriors, able to outnumber the giants in strength and skill. Their strength bordered on the supernatural, and their battle instinct was frightening, which kept all the other races safe for a long time.

Soon, the orcs had to claim leadership of the five races. They believed that they deserved this position and that this was their right to protect everyone, for no race could rival them in matters of fertility and fighting skills.

Under pressure, the dwarves, humans, and giants had to accept the governance of the orcs, but the elves were proud and believed that the orcs were too stupid to command them. So they were the only ones to challenge the supremacy of the orcs. The elves, who knew elemental and spiritual magic from their bond with nature, did not publicly announce the rejection as this would create a war. However, they gradually began to distance themselves from the orcs.

The alienation of the elves was noticed by the humans and dwarves, who began to act as well.

The humans began to develop agricultural techniques, domesticating animals and plants, which allowed them to take control of the entire food chain of the alliance.

In turn, the dwarves advanced metalworking technology and other ores, making their weapons even more powerful.

The giants realized the fragility of the link between the races and chose to break away from everyone, fleeing beyond the Silvan Mountains.

Eventually, the alliance of the five races fell apart after several hostile disagreements and jealous fights. When this series of events happened, the orcs decided that if they could not dominate all the other races with morality, they would subjugate each of them, and the first race chosen to suffer the wrath of the orcs was the elves race.

The orcs scattered throughout the world to find the whereabouts of the elves, but they could never find these pointy-eared people.

Rumors arose among the orcs about the possibility that the elves had returned to Alfheim, the world hanging from the branch closest to the top of Yggdrasil, that is, the world closest to the land of the gods, Asgard. In addition, Alfheim was also the land where the first elves appeared, still in the cradles of gold. These were only hyperbolic rumors to the orc leaders, and even if the elves had indeed returned to Alfheim, there would be no way the orcs could reach them in such a distant world.

Since the elves were apparently no longer within reach, the orcs focused their actions on the humans and saw them as the right target; since the humans had nowhere to run, their original home had always been in Midgard.

Inevitably, the humans and the orcs fought over scarce food for some time, and the dwarves took advantage of this war to sell weapons to both sides, maintaining exclusively commercial relations with both. As the orcs spent too much time searching for the elves, the human villages on the rich soil banded together and became prosperous kingdoms, making the war more one-sided to the humans, who were no longer the submissive race of the past.

After a truce agreement, the orcs dispersed into the wild world of virgin soil, hunting monsters and sometimes afflicting the civilized ones as they pleased, always enjoying the combat without any restrictions.

In Midgard, only humans and dwarves remained, but human intolerance towards all other races grew quite large thanks to the hard times of war, so the dwarves chose to stay holed up inside the mountains, mining and honing their craft of creation.

The Blacksmith Village hidden in the Misty Woods was a settlement descended from the first dwarves who once explored the deep caves of the region. Just one look at each inhabitant of this settlement was enough to notice the resemblance to the dwarves' broad features, especially the thick fingers and prominent chins.

Although the intolerance of the humans was great, the village of the Blacksmith still bravely kept the name Ironstone, which once was also the surname of one of the best blacksmiths in history.

The engraving of this surname on the weapons forged there caught the attention of several human nobles, especially avid collectors of antiquities and weapons.

The nobles were surprised to find out that it was not a hoaxer using a legendary name to attract attention but, in fact, a great blacksmith of direct dwarves descent. This information spread to the four directions of the wind, and this blacksmith quickly became famous throughout the nation.

However, some years later, the blacksmith became so ill that he could no longer forge any weapons. The kingdom's nobles learned of this after receiving a letter from the blacksmith, begging for help to treat the disease that afflicted his people. This disease seemed to have no cure and made all those infected feel their skins melt.

Faced with this information, instead of sending help, the nobles of the kingdom sent a letter in reply. In this letter, they warned that they would kill without a second thought anyone who dared to leave the mountain with any remnants of the disease.

Dwarves are usually very skillful and clever, but mostly they are haughty, so when they read the letter from the nobles of the nearest town, Holinda, they were resigned and accepted the order, also determined to overcome the disease without anyone else's help.

Obviously, the black blister disease could not be overcome with willpower alone, and this became clear when Therkara's father, the village master blacksmith, died. Soon after this happened, she locked herself in the house and, from then on, several things happened in the following days. The disease spread, some blacksmiths tried to escape and were cruelly killed just beyond the gate, and there were also internal conflicts in the face of such despair.

Despite all this, Therkara did not open the gate. She would regret this decision for the rest of her life.

As Therkara told all this to Kaizen, she looked at the cavernous horizon and remembered those dark times.

"When I finally left home, most of my village had already collapsed, but since I felt guilty, I helped the remaining sick and gave them a more peaceful death. Somehow, the disease didn't infect me, so after all the sick people died, I was still completely alone in this huge place." She explained, finally looking at Kaizen again.

The sadness in the blacksmith woman's gaze was conveyed to Kaizen, who was deeply shocked and moved by the story.

"At that moment of loneliness, I desperately searched for someone to blame and decided that I would make the human nobles pay in blood for rejecting to help us. To do this, I would need the strongest weapon, and it was then that the urge arose to forge the strongest weapon I had told you before." Therkara continued.

Though a bit crestfallen by the whole context and story of Therkara Ironstone, Kaizen asked:

"The people of this village, your people, were extinguished a hundred years ago. How are you still here?"

Therkara smiled briefly and extended his right hand toward Kaizen, who also frowned and extended his right hand.

Just as the man's hand was about to touch the big hand of the lady, he felt a freezing cold on his fingertips and, before his very eyes, he watched Therkara's hand cross his.

At that moment, he raised his head again to look directly into Therkara's face; however, a system warning screen interrupted him.

[Class Passive Skill discovered:  Contact with the Dead.

Psykers can see beings and entities, who are between the tissues of the worlds that separate life and complete death, without any kind of ritual.

Helping these lost and greedy souls is not the responsibility of the Psyker, but the Goddess Hela will reward you for every soul helped].

...

Edited by: DrHitsuji

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