Broken Wings
N.W. 808
A Dying Species

The dwarves were dying.

It wasn't something Lloyd wanted to think about, and yet... He knew that there was no denying it. Their magic was failing them, the city of Vraelheim was slowly crumbling, and what had once been a bustling city filled with hundreds of thousands of dwarves now housed perhaps thirty or forty thousand.

Lloyd looked out over the cavern, brow furrowed as he wondered over this. There was no reason for the dwarves to be fading that he could ascertain. His own magic was strong, ten times stronger than even the blacksmiths he had personally trained from a young age, who were now the most magically-inclined dwarves in the entire city.

Perhaps it was just their magic fading, but why? Why was it weakening, why was it failing? His was stronger than any dwarf would ever manage, but even he could tell that his apprentices, though the strongest of the current generation, were much weaker than Hogun and Thorben had been.

It was vexing... and heartbreaking. The dwarves were as much a part of Lloyd's life as his home northeast of the desert was, or flying above the clouds, or stopping conflicts with his friends, or tending to the Yggdrasill...

That though made Lloyd pause.

The Yggdrasill.

Kratos. Derris-Kharlan.

The eight-hundred year passing had come and gone years ago! He'd completely missed it!

"Master Lloyd?"

And then Lloyd had to berate himself, because Kratos was an angel, and could wait for him.

The dwarves... the dying race he loved, whose customs he'd taken as his own, the race to whom his adoptive father had belonged... they were dying.

He shifted, pushing away from the wall he'd been leaning against and turned to look at the young woman who stood nearby.

Rhunde was the greatest hope he had for the most recent generation of dwarves. Already, she showed a great talent for smithing, and had a good touch with the innate magic that so many of the dwarves had been losing. Perhaps she would be able to help bring them back around to prosperity...

But deep inside, Lloyd doubted it.

Still... "Finished cleaning up?" he asked. Rhunde nodded, and he stepped past her and into the workshop. She was still very early into her apprenticeship, and that meant making sure she knew her way around the forge, and knew where everything belonged. Cleaning duty sucked, but it imparted good habits early on.

A cluttered workspace made it difficult to get any actual work done.

And Rhunde had taken almost as much care to return everything to its rightful place as Lloyd always did.

He smiled to himself. "Well done. I'll see you tomorrow afternoon. Your father's aware of your schedule, yes?"

"Yes. He's not pleased, but I feel no call to the stone he shapes," Rhunde replied. "If I am to be of use to anyone, I should be doing what comes naturally to me."

"Indeed you should," Lloyd agreed. "Off you go now. I need to head out for the night." He needed to go talk to Martel... Just in case.

It was far too late to be trying to contact Kratos now, but that didn't mean he couldn't ask the spirit if his father had attempted to bridge the gap from the other side this trip.

Just a quick trip to talk to his little sister...

Then he would return to his dying people and do his best to see them hold on just a little longer.