The Flame’s Whereabouts – Part 03

The Blue Dragon clan, Hikaru mused. Right, they’re supposed to be the most militant of the twelve clans. Are they backing off because they’re being cautious? Or… do they have something else in mind?

“The flame of the Progenitor’s Forge is out? Does my father know about this?” Dodorono said, visibly shaken.

“Dodorono, like the Blue Dragon guy said just now, the Black Goat chief is clearly trying to control the narrative. He’s spinning it so his clan doesn’t look like the villain. We can’t fall for it.”

“But it’s the Progenitor’s Forge, you know? It’s the Dwarves’ dream, our pillar.”

Hikaru let out a slow breath. Even Dodorono seemed to be getting drawn back in. A man who had left Ironforge, walked away from the smithy, and now worked with scissors, thread, and needle instead of flame and hammer.

“Then… shall we go take a look for ourselves?” Hikaru suggested.

“What?”

“We’ll know if the flame is really out once we see it with our own eyes.”

“Well, that’s true, but how?”

Hikaru grinned. “Don’t worry about that. I am an adventurer, you know. I’ve got a plan.”

He didn’t have a plan. He simply used Group Cloaking and went straight through. He did avoid areas teeming with soldiers, of course.

“What?! Huh?!”

Even when they passed directly behind some of the Black Goat’s soldiers, none of them noticed a thing.

Dodorono looked around in wide-eyed confusion, clearly having no idea what was going on. That was amusing in its own way. When Hikaru told him it was thanks to a magic item, Dodorono muttered, “I-I see. I mean, what else could it be? But still, to have this kind of effect,” sounding half-convinced and half-bewildered.

He was gripping the hem of Hikaru’s cloak—so he’d stay within the range of the Group Cloaking—and that probably helped sell the magic item excuse as well.

Hikaru and Dodorono slipped past the soldiers’ eyes and entered the vast chamber where the Progenitor’s Forge was housed.

In a corner of the chamber, about twenty Dwarves in smithing attire sat on the ground with their hands tied behind them. Three Black Goat soldiers stood guard over them.

They must have been the Green Rabbit clan’s smiths. Every one of them wore a sullen scowl.

One of them, likely the master smith, looked their way with a frown. The distance weakened the effect of Group Cloaking enough that he sensed something off. Maybe he had points on his Instinct stat.

Thinking it would be trouble if the smith called their attention, Hikaru picked up the pace and walked by quickly.

When Hikaru glanced to the other side, he saw a massive furnace towering over the Dwarves. It was so large he had to look up to see the top. He figured this must be the Progenitor’s Forge.

“Th-The fire’s out,” Dodorono muttered blankly.

Indeed, the Progenitor’s Forge sat in silence, its gaping mouth pitch black. The heat had long since vanished. Standing nearby, Hikaru felt nothing at all.

Now that he thought about it, the cavern was chilly, yet the blacksmiths wore light clothing. That must’ve been because this place used to be filled with heat when the furnace was burning.

“Hm? These letters.”

Hikaru noticed writing etched at the bottom of the furnace: The flame chooses, the master is chosen.

It clicked. This must be why the Black Goat Clan had stationed themselves here, blocking anyone from entering. Because of this message.

“I can’t believe this,” Dodorono mumbled.

Hikaru pulled Dodorono down behind a workbench. “Dodorono. Is Brigid further inside?” From this angle, no one could see them.

“I-I believe… Lord Brigid should be further in.”

“Then let’s go.”

“Wha—”

Hikaru clamped a hand over Dodorono’s mouth. His beard scratched against Hikaru’s palm.

“You saw that writing, right?” Hikaru said.

“Hmm-mm.” Dodorono nodded.

“Can you keep quiet? Otherwise, even with magic items, we’ll get busted. Honestly, the Green Rabbit clan’s foreman might’ve already noticed.”

Dodorono snapped to attention and nodded firmly.

Hikaru let go of his mouth. “From what that message says, the flame won’t return to the Progenitor’s Forge.”

“So that means, just like my old man said, the message passed down only to the clan leaders came true?”

“I don’t know who the flame chose, but…”

Hikaru glanced at the message again. Something about it still bothered him, but this wasn’t the time to dwell on it.

“Anyway, the Black Goat clan saw the writing. And they know the Progenitor’s Forge is no longer here. They’re trying to use that knowledge to their advantage. That’s why they don’t want anyone else coming in.”

“What advantage?”

“The other clans might know the flame’s gone, but they probably don’t know it’s been relocated. If someone did gain the flame, it won’t stay secret for long. So while the others are confused, they’re trying to identify and secure whoever the flame chose.”

“I-I see. That would explain why Sujara was patrolling the city even though the forces were deployed here.”

“Exactly.” Hikaru looked down the corridor that stretched beyond the Progenitor’s Forge. “I want to go where Brigid is said to be. I want to ask him directly what that message means.”

“Th-That’s… that’s far too presumptuous.”

“Presumptuous? You’ve already left Ironforge. What about Brigid, the revered figure of the Dwarven blacksmiths, is so intimidating now?”

Dodorono fell silent in thought, then finally said, “You’re right. I’ve left this country. No, I’ve cut ties with smithing itself. A normal Dwarf might call it presumptuous to seek out Lord Brigid, but I’m different. No… I have to be different. Maybe this is something only a Dwarf who’d left Ironforge can do.”

“I think so too,” Hikaru agreed. “I don’t believe in fate, but I’ll say it anyway. Maybe it was fate that brought you back to Ironforge at this very moment.”

“Oh. Come on, now. Who are ye calling a fashionista?” Dodorono rubbed his upper lip with his thumb, grinning sheepishly. He was finally starting to sound like his old self again. “Thanks, Hikaru. I’ve made up my mind. I’m a Dwarf who left Ironforge, left my homeland. And maybe that’s exactly why there’s something only I can do. Let’s go, to where Lord Brigid is.”

“All right.”

Hikaru stood up with Dodorono.

Together, they headed deeper into the great cavern.

---

“What happened to Pops?”

Dodonno sat in a small, windowless room. Though it lacked natural light, the walls were decorated with intricately patterned fabric, so it didn’t feel bleak.

His mother, draped in a shawl over her shoulders, looked so small he wondered if she had shrunk over the past few years.

Her gentle, kind expression remained the same, but perhaps because of that, she now looked older than her age. Her once thick hair had lost its volume and was streaked with gray, now tied into a single knot at the back.

“What do you mean what happened? He’s always been like that, hasn’t he?”

Though she looked older, her tone hadn’t changed a bit. Dodonno felt comforted by that.

“Still… he basically told me and Dodorono to leave the house. I bet it’s already gotten pretty lonely around here.”

“A Dwarf man shouldn’t be fussing over little things. He’s thinking things through in his own way.”

“Maybe… but from where I’m standing, it just looks like he gave up after he couldn’t work at the forge anymore.”

“Pfft.” His mother chuckled, then shot him a sharp look. “Don’t you dare say something like that in front of him.”

“I-I won’t.”

“He was never all that into smithing to begin with. He just kept at it because he had to.”

“What?”

Dodorono was shocked at the revelation. In his memories, his father, Donovan, was always wearing a smith’s apron and dripping with sweat. That’s why it felt so strange now, seeing him spend every day in bed.

And now she was saying he didn’t even like smithing?

“You look so surprised. Why?” his mother asked.

“Well, because he’s a Dwarf.”

“You don’t like smithing either, do you? And don’t even get me started on Dodorono.”

“Well… that’s true, but still.”

“Like father, like sons,” his mother sighed in exasperation. Dodonno could only blink in disbelief. “He wants you and Dodorono to leave this country. Otherwise, you’ll never live freely. He didn’t want you chained by the notions that Dwarves have to like smithing. That Dwarves have to love drinking.”

“…”

“So what’s with the surprised look? If he didn’t think that way, the head of one of the twelve clans would never give his own sons permission to leave the country.”

“I… suppose that’s true.”

It was the first time Dodonno had heard this about his father. And even more than surprise, he felt grateful.

Worried about the other clans’ opinion, he had opened a smithy in the Theocracy of Bios, but truth be told, being away from Ironforge’s Dwarf society had been a relief. He felt great. And his father had allowed it… because he had been bearing that same suffocating pressure his whole life.

“Besides, it even said so in Lord Brigid’s message, didn’t it?”

“Y-You know about that?”

“Of course I do. I’m a Dwarf of this country too, you know.”

“R-Right.”

“Leave your home means leave the country. Otherwise, Dwarves will just keep clinging to old ways and never move beyond ordinary smithing.”

Though she was the wife of the Red Rat clan’s chieftain, his mother wasn’t fully immersed in Dwarven society’s mindset. That was probably thanks to her husband, Donovan.