Role

Chapter 2

The dreams first started when I had just learnt to walk and have only
recently stopped. They started off as dreams I really enjoyed, I would go to
sleep and awaken lying on the top of a gigantic mountain. The view would go
for miles upon miles, there were no clouds in the skies, no harsh winds
wipping at my barely clothed skin, and I would never feel cold there. They
stayed much like that for years, I would be on the mountain an see all sorts
of life go by. Birds would through the air, large animals would prowl the
grass lands sprawled beneath me, and the forests grew ever thicker. About the
time my family showed me how to swing ones pick with the most strength is
when my dreams started to change. I could feel something was starting to go
wrong. Nothing was too apparent at the time from my mountain perch, sitting
in the skies, but the atmosphere changed. Each night the feeling of doom
started to spread. I would see flock, upon flock or birds racing away from
the east, headed as fast as they could across the lands. Each night they
would do it again, and each night it started to get a tiny bit more chill,
wether it was my surroundings or merely what I was feeling I will not know. A
few years after things started to go wrong, I would not only feel but I could
see something far to the east. It was like a large billowing smoke rising
from the eastern coast. Each night it grew ever so little, but day after day
it spread, and grow it did. I remember the night after I first went into the
mines I could hear the screeches. The cloud had been gathering and was
starting to cover almost a third of all I could see. Not just birds were
fleeing it, but packs of animals could be seen running, running as far and as
far west as they could, trying to escape what was coming. It started to tear
me up, and sadden me at the same time. All these animals, all this life was
being threatened and destroyed and I could do naught but watch. Each night it
bit into me more, started to wear away at me. I dared not tell my parents
because I knew they wouldn't understand. They would think me less of a dwarf.
So I braved this alone. As it was nearing the birthday of my third decade the
cloud had all but engulfed the lands, nothing was left, and from my perch I
could see through the cloud. There was nothing, not just no animals, but no
life. No trees, no grass, no birds, no deer, there weren't even any rats. I
could sense the land had all but given up, it could no longer live under such
stress. I was distraught. My birthday should have been a joyous occassion of
ale and spit roasts, but it wasn't. Many remarked at my pale appearance that
year and worried I had drunk some bad ale. If only they knew the horrow I had
been witnessing. I tried to avoid everyone and just mourn, but they would not
leave me alone, so I feined being sick so I could go and rest. As I fell into
slumber I awoke on the mountain, yet this time not alone. There was a huge
dwarf dressed in the finest armor I had ever seen, silver chainmail covered
most of his body, while there were large shoulder pads of silver with glowing
runes engraved upon them. In the middle of his chest stood a triangle of
silver, pointing down, which held an engraving of a large single peaked
mountain with a red engraving of a bright fire within it. His he