Hearth Fire

Bing.

You have received the temporary buff of Hearth and Home.

Your health regeneration has slightly improved.

Your stamina regeneration has slightly improved.

Your experience gained has slightly improved.

It happened again. This time Stronric didn’t drop his hardtack, but he did raise an eyebrow. His experiment had worked. The moment he ate, he received the strange message again. This time he focused on the words. The words did not fade, but expanded into small boxes with a gray outlines. The only noticeable difference was they had timers on them.

Bing.

You have received the temporary buff of Hearth and Home, duration of blessing 23:59.

Your health regeneration has slightly improved, duration of blessing 23:59

Your stamina regeneration has slightly improved, duration of blessing 23:59

Your experience gained has slightly improved, duration of blessing 23:59

Stronric reached up and felt his shoulder where he’d been struck yesterday. It wasn’t bothering him, It didn’t even cause pain when he poked it. He looked down where the wound should be and found nothing but smooth skin. This world has many secrets I do not know of. I’ve never heard anything like this. This would put most doctors and physicians out of work back in my old world. If one has to simply sleep by a fire to be healed, who would pay for doctoring? There had to be limits and restrictions. How could anyone die from wounds? Maybe this is the power of the ancestor. Ever since I lit the fire of the hearth and the runes glowed, I have felt at home.

“Thoranthana, if you are there, could you help with this? We didn't have this, any of this back in the old world.” He asked the cornucopia on the wall above the hearth.

Nothing but the crackling of the fire answered him. He waited a minute before shrugging his shoulders and pulling his boot on to start preparing for the day. Stronric placed more timber on the fire, slung his pick axe over his shoulder and headed for the door. Today he was going to go further up the stairs and see what he could find.

Before exploring the areas up the stairs from the fields, Stronric first checked his newly planted mushrooms. He took some time to walk the fields and check for any signs the Gobis had found a new way in. Satisfied with the lack of Gobi activity and how well his mushrooms took to replanting, Stronric continued up the stairs. Most creatures that lived in the mountains could see in the dark. However dwarven dark vision was legendary back home. Dwarves could see further than most creatures, but they lost the ability to see color. Instead, they saw the world in shades of grays. Even in the darkest of holes, a dwarf had no issue navigating and could easily detect minor changes in stone or even the most discreet of openings.

Stronric made his way up the stairs with just the crunching of his hobnail boots as company. At the end of the stairway a door hung from its hinges, broken and cracked. A placard next to the door read, “Nulral” the rune of stables. The carved rune on the placard was of two vertical lines, with a diagonal line starting starting at the top of each of the vertical lines and crossing in the middle.

Stronric hunched down and crept forward, expecting another group of unwelcome guest. The stables were surprisingly large. The roof was three times the height of an average dwarf, roughly fourteen feet high. Wooden beams ran the length of the ceiling. Thick posts attached the beams to the stone floor. These supported the wooden walls separating the room into smaller stable boxes. Gates and openings allowed different sized animals in and out of the pens. Stronric ran his hand down thick iron bars, reinforced to keep more dangerous animals penned. The foul stench of rotting straw which littered the ground filled his nose. The floors need mucking, some pens would need tending and repairs. Stronric sighed again. Another mess of chores and things for his to-do list.

Walking down the center of the aisle, Stronric counted the pens. He had enough space for a herd of fifty goats and thirty riding rams. He began to bubble up with excitement. This stable could house many more than his hold back in the old world. The amount of cheese and thread he could harvest from this many animals was a fortune waiting to happen. His mind swelled with mating, butcher, and harvesting cycles. One of his favorite tasks back in his world was tending the goats and rams.

His love for animal husbandry was the reason he was reason he was away when the attack befell his hold. He’d been out searching for a lost kid. His favorite nanny had bleated at him and rammed his legs until he left. He had a weak spot for that old nanny. The kid had fallen into a small ravine and couldn’t climb back out. It was at this moment, upon his decent into the ravine, his home was attacked. The smile disappeared from his face and he balled his fist in anger as he thought about his failure to be there when the invasion began.

At the back of the stables, he found an old rusted wench. The wench had a chain leading up into a hole in the wall. Squinting at the ceiling, he barely made out the rectangular outline. Stronric believed the chain was attached to a pulley system, and to make it work he had to turn the wench in a circle. Setting down his pick axe, he grabbed the handle of the wench with both hands. Using all of his strength to turn the handle, the wench didn’t budge. The thing had rusted, almost shut. Tapping the chain and racking the wench handle, the handle began to move. A slit in the ceiling began to open. The cold, snowy day greeted him as a ramp slightly began to lower.

This hold is amazing! If I had this back home, it would have taken a fraction of the time to let the goats goats out to graze. If the pens for rams are up here, that must mean there is a road above as well.

He quickly cranked on the wench. The roof of the cavern lifted away. From the wall, a ramp slid out and dropped to the ground. Stronric was fascinated by the engineering of such a wall, it was amazing. His curiosity made him want to tear apart the wall and study its innards. The engineering that went into this place was simply amazing. First the pond, then the fields, and now even the stables were top-notch.

The cold air and bright sunlight poured down into the stables. Stronric raised a hand to block the sunlight and started up the ramp into the world above. The ramp led to a large snow-covered mountain top. The blanket of white was broken here and there by shrubbery as it pushed through. A dilapidated fence leaned some distance away, it must have been an old pasture. Forgetting his pick, he turned back and noticed a rim that allowed the weight of the stone door to settle naturally onto it when closed. Running back down inside, he grabbed his pick axe and headed back up.

He used the head of the pick axe to sweep away snow, looking for the road. He found the road a short distance away. It ran down the center of two different grazing areas, then disappeared over the side of the mountain. He explored the areas and found the ruins of an old building. It’s doors of iron were locked. He continued to search for a way in and found two holes in a side wall. A massive rectangular room met him as he climbed inside. He looked up and saw a large bowl making up the roof of the building. Old and faded runes ran Criss-Cross around the bottom of the bowl. At the base of the bowl was what looked to be a pipe shaft, but the pipe was missing. Kneeling and looking down the hole, he could see a body of water. This must be what feeds the pond down below!

Most of the runes on the bottom of the bowl were faded and couldn’t be made out. If these runes were to control hot and cold, they could control water to the hold this way. If there were a series of these around the mountain, they wouldn’t need to depend on underground spring water. We used to carry in barrels of water monthly and the whole hold had to help with that. Something terrible and wrong must have happened for this place to fall. I can't share the secret of this place with just anyone. The wonders that could be found in the stables alone are worth fortunes.

Stronric climbed up the broken wall and jumped back outside. Landing on his feet, he came face to face with large yellow eyes.

“Shite!” yelled Stronric, his face inches away from a goats.

The goat lowered its head and rammed him in the stomach, partially knocking the air out of him. The goat then turned and ran. Stronric looked up, seeing the fluffy tail of the goat disappearing. He decided to run after it.

“Come back here ye old nanny!” he yelled. When that didn’t work, he tried, “Please come back ye pretty nanny! I promise to not make ye into a stew!”

The goat ran with the spirit of the wind, and then would slow looking back at Stronric in pursuit. Every time Stronric almost caught the nanny it would take off like the gales of winter. Stronric chased the goat but began to sense he was being led. As the nanny came to a stop he approached it with a raised hand and gently said, “See I’m not so bad.”

The goat allowed him to pet her, leaning into the contact seemingly for comfort. The goat stared straight ahead, looking into a cave that led underground.

“You lived in there?” he asked the goat.

The nanny bleated and shook its head, stomping its foot. The goat turned and more gently rammed him again towards the cave entrance.

“What? You want me to go down there?” he asked.

He walked closer to the cave and the smell hit him.

“Trolls!” he said, as he brought his weapon to the guard position. “Okay, old girl, I’ll go in. Now you be a good girl and wait for me here.”

The goat bleated and nudged his elbow. He patted her on the head and walked towards the cave.