Friends in a Foreign Land

The party just sat staring at Brilwynn, taking her measure and not saying a word. After a few moments she decided to break the silence.

“Let me start off by swearing an oath so you know that you can trust me,” said Brilwynn. “Nothing I hear here today will be revealed to anyone except my clan and then, only when I feel it’s necessary.” Everyone in the party immediately received a system message:

[Brilwynn Livingstone has sworn an oath not to reveal your secrets to any except her own clan and then only when necessary. Breaking this oath will cause serious harm to Brilwynn, physically and even more so karmically.]

The party all looked around, seeming to wait for someone else to speak up first. After a few moments, Dakota did so.

“Why should we join your clan? What makes you special?”

At this, Brilwynn replied in a tongue none of them spoke but after a few words they got a couple alerts:

[Congratulations! You’ve learned Scottish Gaelic]

[Congratulations! You’ve learned Latin]

“Whoa!” hollered Dakota while holding up his hands.

Brilwynn stopped speaking and looked at them, concerned.

Liam continued, “Apologies, we were distracted by system messages. Can you please start over?”

Brilwynn grinned as she started speaking again and this time they understood her perfectly. “Our motto is ‘I shall do it if I can’ meaning that we take pride in attempting to do the impossible, specifically in regard to helping others. You should join Clan Livingstone if you want to make a positive difference on Traum. Unlike most clans, we won’t tie you down to any one location. We were founded by a Twiceborn and he set up our entire clan to follow dwarven tradition as best it can while also being open to the whims and wanderings of Twiceborn.” Switching back to Common Brilwynn continued, “Now, I assume ye have questions?”

The party, trying to process what they were told, just stared at Brilwynn for a moment before questions started flying. Brilwynn smiled and did her best to keep up.

“No, I’m not a Twiceborn, but my grandfather was. Our clan estate is on an island nearly three thousand miles west of here, and we have a presence in many other cities across the continent. Not Kan Ladur, though.”

The questioning lasted for a good twenty minutes before everyone started slowing down.

“Now that you’re all taking a breath, let me tell you a bit about our clan. Livingstone was founded, as I said, by my grandfather Dubacan MacLea. He was brought here to Traum upon his death where the gods saw fit to make him a dwarf due to the clan structure being similar to what he was used to. He was part of the Clan Livingstone in his world and wanted to recreate his clan here. I’m not sure if you’re aware, but creating a clan is not an easy task. And the first several times he attempted it, he was denied.

“Dubacan arrived on Traum shortly before the Elves started their war. He wisely stayed as far from it as he could going as far as moving to the island that now houses our estate. From there he fought the local wildlife and monsters and got stronger. He then put word out that he was looking for crafters to join his clan… which didn’t officially exist yet. He used the gold that the gods give Twiceborn to pay those who joined and he learned from them. The clan slowly grew as the war intensified and more dwarves wanted a new place to hide out. A place that wouldn’t send them to fight in the war. By the time the gods had gotten tangled in mortal affairs, Clan Livinstone was living up to it’s name. Dubacan had learned to create golems. He was using them to dig into a mountain on his island to further protect his clan. Eventually war found our home. And golems were sent out to fight against the elven intruders, slaughtering thousands.

After defending our home, our clan took a war party, which included over five thousand golems, and traveled to the closest dwarven holds. They found them fighting to keep out elves and again slaughtered them. Then they went to the next dwarven hold and found them fighting to keep out orcs, and they slaughtered them. This continued for years. Dubacan only asked for the materials he needed to repair his golems and for any volunteers. He and his war party continued to travel to each dwarven hold and provide the assistance needed. But as the war continued to heat up and the gods started getting involved, the other dwarves pressured Dubacan to build golems to attack the enemy. They wanted him on the fields of battle. But he refused each and every request. This angered many of the clans.

“After a decade of fighting to protect others, he started his return trip back. But because war was still going and he was refusing to get involved any further, he and his party were forced to travel on the surface rather via the tunnels connecting the dwarven holds. While doing so he came across a human that was living in a remote area, also trying to avoid the war. They started to talk and it was discovered that this human was also Twiceborn, though not from any place Dubacan was aware of. The human was invited to come back to Clan Livinstone and in the years following became Dubacan’s best friend, the two bonding over the shared strangeness of dying and being brought to a new world. But humans do not have much of a lifespan and soon his friend passed away. By order of Dubacan, we have no records of the human’s name as he said it was too painful to remember.

“Eventually the supreme god Quo stepped in and punished the other gods. This brought about The Collapse. Mana was no longer available to cast spells or to power golems with. Dubacan left the clan hold again, this time traveling to meet with various mages and priests from around the continent and possibly having traveled to other lands as well. When he returned he brought with him a means to continue powering golems. Golems were modified and Dubacan left again taking a legend of golems with him. Some were outfitted for war as before, but most were made to rebuild. He traveled and met with the rulers of the other dwarven holds and instead of asking for permission to create a clan, he asked for recognition of his clan.

“Some clans chose to recall his aid in keeping their cities safe and some chose to focus on his refusal to help them attack the elves. To the former he offered to lease golems to them to help with various tasks such as digging, mining, lifting, and so forth. Basically helping them to rebuild and continue even though they had lost so many members due to war. In time, these honorable clans continued to grow while the ones who refused Dubacan struggled to rebuild. To my knowledge, none of the clans that refused to acknowledge us still remain.

“The income generated from the golems helped our clan continue to grow and draw new members. Remembering how it felt to finally find someone who he could relate to, Dubacan spent what was left of his life looking for others like him. He wanted to give them a safe place and, if he could find enough of them, others who they could relate to. Before he passed, he stressed one rule above all. Every Twiceborn is to be interviewed and if found to be honorable, they are to be offered clan membership.” Looking to Randell, “Regardless of race.”

As the group digested everything that was said, the questions once again started with Liam going first, “You said that he was alive both before and after that war. We were told the dwarves only lived around five hundred years and the war was twice that, wasn’t it?”

“Actually the war was three times that. And lifespans on Traum are always based on the average tier 1 person of that race. As your raise your constitution, you’re increasing your life expectancy, as does raising your tier. While we didn’t have the ALMS system back then, looking back it seems likely that Dubacan was at least tier three,” Brilwynn answered.

“Going from 500 to 1500 years seems like each tier must multiply your lifespan?”

“Yes, though it’s different for each race. For dwarves, tier two gives you an extra 50% on average. Tier three typically doubles that. Again, your constitution impacts this as well. And we’re not entirely clear how much tier four gives as no one who knows is sharing.”

“What did you mean by not having ALMS back then?” asked Celeste.

“The ALMS system that puts numbers to our lives was not available to us until the Day of Reformation. Some of the priests tell us that the gods always had this system but others dispute that claim. When the system was revealed, many of us were already pretty high level. I myself was already at the second tier and now I’m about to reach the third.

“Are you a higher level than Gito?” asked Liam

“Yes. Gito spends so much time managing the clan that his personal growth has stagnated a bit.”

“So the pressure we felt when you walked in, that’s from your level being so high?” asked Miguel.

“Sort of. It’s because I have a high level relative to you. If your levels were near mine you’d not feel it. Or if I was better at hiding it. My apologies for that. I’m still working on controlling my presence. Always pay attention to that feeling though. If you’re about to fight a beast and you feel them putting pressure on you then you know you’re in for a rough fight.”

The conversation continued for another hour before Deandra brought the conversation to a stop by asking, “How did your grandpa power the golems when there was no mana?”

Rather than just answering as she had been, Brilwynn paused for a couple moments; long enough for everyone to realize that she had hoped this question wouldn’t be asked.

“It’s going to be something evil isn’t it,” popped off Dakota.

“It is what it is,” answered Brilwynn. “Let me start with some context so that we’re all on the same page. Do you all know the three parts of a sapient being?”

Everyone looked unsure but Celeste took a guess, “Are you referring to mind, body, and soul?”

“More or less. The accepted terms are spirit, soul, and body. The spirit is your mind, will, emotions and so forth. The part that makes you, you. Your spirit is what was brought over from your home world to Traum. The body, of course, is your physical vessel, the container for your spirit. And the soul is the life force that ties to the spirit to the body. If you’re missing any of the three you’re going to have problems. Now, don’t get ahead of me.

“Through much experimenting, wizards learned that certain crystals can store mana. This crated an industry around what became known as mana batteries which were sold to cities and the wealthy to power enchantments they had installed. This worked fine until there was no more mana. People then wanted a new power source. Wizards already knew how to store a person’s spirit and soul into an item. But it was a huge, complex, mana hungry ritual. So they modified their rituals to grab only the soul, and to store it into a specific type of gem.”

Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, Brilwynn continued on, “The first soul gems were created by killing people. No one knows how many because there was more than one group trying to figure out how to do what they were doing. Once they figured it out, the ritual to fill soul gems was refined and eventually made into a fairly simple spell. The spell was taught to mages of all types. Wizards near a battle field would cast it so that they could grab the soul of anyone dying in battle. Healers would cast it on any patients that they couldn’t save. Then it was discovered that it could be cast on beasts and monsters as well. This gave adventurers a new source of income and before long soul gems became quite prevalent.

“As I’m sure you’ve concluded, Dubacan was one of the first ones to experiment with the soul gems and that’s how he chose to power his golems. And hunting monsters to fill those gems is how he got as strong as he was.