Dawn of Dusk
Chapter 12: Drathmire Castle

Kronilack reached out with his magick. He could kill as far as he could see. He saw the caves and passages of the Dwarves, he saw the creatures that the Dwarves lived with day in, and day out. Most of them were small insignificant creatures that the Dwarves themselves ignored. He tried to reach out with his Magick to touch some simple creature and shrieked in pain and rage.

For the first time in his life he came across a warded area. Someone had placed a spell of protection in the area to cause pain to any other magician who tried to work magic there. This was not unusual for the Dwarves as a Dwarven Smelt was nearby and Dwarven magic was in working with metals and Jewelry and gems. When the Dwarves worked their trade, they wanted to be sure that no eyes would see that shouldn’t be seen.

The pain surged into Kronilack and strengthened him he reached out again into the Dwarven tunnel and cast his spell. Again the he hurled a spell into the room, this time it was a blast of fire and this time the pain was greater. He grew stronger still and sent more magick fire into the tunnel. The pain strengthened him more and he struck again and again each strike was more powerful than the previous.

In his rage he had stopped looking in the tunnel and was blindly sending his magick into the tunnel in his anger. The ward had been a normal alarm and protection ward. No particular strength or enhancements had been done to it by Vassel Gemkutre a security guard working the area.

Gemkutre felt Kronilack’s first attempt to affect his magick in the tunnel and immediately started for the tunnel. He was surprised to replace the attacks on his ward strengthening in intensity and in rapidity. As he reached the tunnel he noticed the floor of the passageway was beginning to smoke. He went in and began trying to strengthen his ward. As he reached for the warding spell, he felt the pain in his mind that was being directed by the invading magician. He lost his hold on his spell and it crumbled. Before he could recover, Kronilack struck again with fire with the most powerful blast of his magick he had ever unleashed.

Gemkutre was incinerated, the rock on the walls of the passage way began to melt, and the dirt on the floor bust into flame as all organic matter burned away. Kronilack noticed that he received no pain in return for his last strike. He stopped and looked back into the passageway. Nothing was left of Gemkutre but his sword of heat resistant Dwarven Steel.

Kronilack felt a deep sense of satisfaction. He had hurt and destroyed a Dwarf. He had beaten their magic, and he had destroyed their passageway. He turned back to his castle in Drathmire where he was holding about four feet off the wall, three goblins that he had found wandering about in his land. He had brought them in for sport.

They would suffer the way other Goblins had over the intervening time since he was taken prisoner by the Goblins that had created him. Using his magick he ripped their teeth from their jaws and then replanted them in their lips outside their face. He choked them until they passed out and then started removing one layer of skin at a time from their bodies after they had regained consciousness. He pulled their hair out with his magickal abilities and then replanted it in their mouths. He bent their feet until their toes touched the back of their heels. He removed bones from certain parts of their bodies. Their sternums, their shin bones, the tops of their skulls were all removed and he planted flowers in their brains so they could grow out of the tops of their heads. With the sternum Gone, the ribs were free to float around in the chest cavity. The lungs were punctured, the esophagus was damaged, and in some cases the heart itself was punctured and the goblins bled to death internally. In some cases he sent the ribs downward through the diaphragm and into the stomach. Occasionally he would disfigure a goblin hideously and then send it back to show the goblin king that the gnomes would not take any more abuse from the goblins. Once or twice he had tortured a troll, but their restorative powers were so great that they would heal almost as fast as he could torture them. He didn’t think that it was very amusing, all that work and no show for his efforts.

The idea of killing and maiming Dwarves had him really excited. As he thought about hurting his oldest enemy, he looked back at where he had destroyed the Dwarf. Many other Dwarves were picking through the passage way. He reached out and removed the right arm of each Dwarf in the passage and placed them into the rock wall far enough that only the hand and wrist protruded from the wall of the passage. He laughed as he watched the Stricken Dwarves scream in pain and terror. He was going to enjoy killing Dwarves.