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The Lay of the Grandmasters Way
by Pyewacket
Act 3 The Lay of Osreng
as presented by Mrs Ursul Dunnikin-Diver, Washerdwarf to the Grandmaster of Water.
"Aluwen preserve me, I says, when he approached me with his bundle of dirty linen, Dont think I will be getting THOSE stains out in 'urry young misterman. Aint gotten no better for keeping nor pleasing neither, so you aint. Why, if your old master could see the state of your robes these days he'd have hide off'f you and no mistake. Whats a poor washerdwarf to do with you eh? Seems only a short whiles back you were just a nipper and off on ya Ad-ven-chew-ars, ne'er a thought for those as has to clean t'muck out from behind yer horns n get the filth from yer dun-ger-knees.
And you know what he says to me? To me, who has washed n cleaned n hot pressed his linen these long years like he was one o me own? Not that I'd compare one o them Drah-coon-Ears to any of my brood, dontcherknow, theys too horny to let loose on t'world in My opinion. Anyways, he says, plain as you like
"Water cleanses deepest, where its voice is loudest".
Dont-chew be giving me none of your sauce, says I, I see's that twinkle in your eye and I wont having no truck with any of that nonsense from the likes o you. Meek as a lamb he was then when he passes me his laundry.
"You're a wise one and no mistake", he says and off he trots as quiet as he came.
And thats another thing about him too, never a footfall can you 'ear from him, even in high summer when t'woods is dry as old fishbone, weird really now I think on it. But then I guess thats not the only weird thing I seen nor heard whiles I done for 'im. And I been doing for him a long time now, I reckons longest anyone has done for the Grandmaster. Not that he is one to stand on pomp n ceremony. Not that one.
Takes his studies serious, mind, as he does his Doo-Tease for the school, but oh he loves to lark around. He delights the Chill-Der-Ens from all over Palon Vertas with his antics, calling up water sprites n nymphs n all manner of folk from the wetland realms, just to frolic n cavort with him and the little-uns. Though some of them nymphs are a bit, well YOU know, a bit on the ROOD side if I may beg your pardon at talkin' so plain. Ne'er a stitch on em but bits o seeweed n reeds hiding their wotsits.
Anyways, this one time, I remember, back when he was first at the School, 'prenticin' for the old master, he was forever lockin' himself away in his room, grinding powder n potion til his fingers were black with Gods-knows what devilry. When suddenly he runs out of his room, with his hair all awry n naught but his nightshirt on, holding a steaming mortar like it was fire stoled from the Gods themselves.
What ya got there, I asks. Me being so well Riz-Peck-Tud as I am there, he doesnt think twice about tellin' of his deeds and doings, and right out he tells me, "Its an Ocean, Mrs Dunnikin-Diver". Well, says I, aint that a sight. A whole ocean in that biddy little mortar then? Who'd a thought you could fit something so big into something so small? Now get on with you and if you dont want to share with me just plain say so!
To think of the hours I spent trying to clean that nightshirt of his that next day. You would not BAH-LEA-HAVE that one person could mucky up cuffs like that. But I hears tell that all alchemists as have dirty cuffs need doing. Theres good money in doing for an alchemist, and no mistake, mayhaps I be temted to try the old grindin' meself oneday, if'n I gets chance. Though he DID stop the whole business at one point, right before he left the school and went off travellin'. He SAID that it was 'cause there was no more to be learnteded from the School alchemy anymore, and that he had to go off, bold as brass, to Glacmor.
O' course, me being his washerdwarf I 'ad little choice but pack me stuff up then n there, and go with him. A rum time we had of it too, them Win-Ter-Ee Wul-Uffs were a bit feisty and tried any number of times to catch us unawares. Fair turned me hair grey it did.
But not Osreng, oh no. Cold as mountain snow he was, with em. Froze 'em solid, right there as they came a-prowling around in theys' pack. And I ME-YUN froze too, for I touched one o them out of curiousity and stone me if it werent like touchin' some cold stone Sta-Choo. "You will be safe with me", says he. I will be a bleedin' lot safer back home wi' a nice pot o hot sumthin in me and out of this gods awful snow, says I.
"Ah but we haven't found it yet", he says.
Found what? I arsks.
"There is a mineral in these parts from which I need to use this instrument to extract a form of liquid that has thus far eluded my best efforts to recreate" says he, and then he pulls this Con-Trapper-Shun from out of his robes and I near on fainted at the sight of it, for it looked for all the world like somethin' them Hoo-Man farmers use on the prize bulls when its mating season and they want yon heifers to be sired up without t'bull gettin' near enough to damage the good stock.
He must have thought me addled by the Wul-Uffs and in shock or summat, coz he bade me rest up a whiles as he told me that this Al-Ham-Brick was used on Sinny-Bard to extract Quack-Solver. Dont ask me what it all means, I aint be having any truck with any of that nonsense, I am just saying what he says it was, is all.
A whole sixmonth we was there, with the young master, for master he was at this point and 'prentice no longer, him having taken his Eggs-Hams before we went, and day in and day out, theres him quarrying like one o me own folks, snow or no.
I told him time and again that the rocks werent right for quarrying and he was like as not goin' to catch his death o cold and the ones he got out were naught but slag n flotsam but he just kept shaking his head and saying "Theres more need of a patient hand in mining than I had credited. My deepest respects to your race, however the value of these minerals I have taken so far is immeasurable". Well, I laughed, if you can't measure it you can't spend it neither, says I. And right there, he pulls out his what-ja-ma-thingy and within minutes had the spigot opened and out into a vial he pours this stuff and for all Draia didnt it look like mirror juice!
"There is enough mercury in here to buy Idaloran" he says.
What, the whole city? Get on with you, theres only a vialful, though it does look pretty, says I.
"Pretty? And no, not the just city. The whole Idaloran area. From the Trading Route borders to the dry desert of Bethel itself. For although this is one mere vial of mercury, it is the First and Only vial. And with it, I can at last attempt to do what no prior Water Elementist has succeeded in doing."
And you know, even as he spoke those words, it brought a shiver to me old bones, like they was all tingly and asleep. No more would he say though, about what he was to do with the mirror juice, just smiled away and twinkled his eyes, as he did back then, but nothing would do 'cept that we pack up our whole mess o pottage and off we wents again!
And would you believe it, he only went n' had me on a ship.
Me?!
No dwarf had ever gotten sealegs and I was no exception, I can tell yez. All around the coasts of Irillion we travelled, with poor me spending each mornin' losing me breakfast, and each night tryin' to wash out the brine n seasalt from his things. Passing by places I never heard of nor wanted to see again, on some misbegotten smelly ship from someplace I aint never 'eard tell of, Seer-Eid-Yar or somesuch. Maiden voyage it were, but we got on as she touched into port here n there along t'coast.
Why, even from the ship we could see there was some dangerous things out beyond the beaches n coves. Great beasts tall as trees with naught but one eye per head, other things like flying lions that didnt know if they was lions nor scorpions. And I swear to this day I saw me a real life dragon as we rounded the Redmoon coasts!
Then came that awful night, with the wind howling and the seas a-thrashing, seemed a storm had crept on us and with no air 'prentice on board nor stormturner in the rigging, we was fair caught up in it. To an' fro it threw us, like we was a babe in a runaway dung-cart led by a spooked 'orse. Then there was this Gods-awful crash, like the whole of Draia had split open and we stopped movin' sudden-like. Threw the laundry all over, it did. I was in the middle of tryin to get it all up again, when in he trots, quiet as a mouse, and tells me leave it and it didnt matter anymore as we wouldnt need much clothes now.
Well, dwarf of my years, I wont be having any truck with anyone telling ME my Doo-Tease, shipwreck or no shipwreck, so I picks up the lot and bundles it quicksmart, and off we get into the night sea in a tiny little thingy that looked like some wood washer-bath more'n a boat. Thought we'd go under, I did, and I wasnt the only one who thought it neither. But up he stands, calm as if he was on a picnic in a playground, and his hands out in front of him touching the waters edge, he starts to sing.
And you could have knocked me down with an eyelash but the water stopped moving around us! Saved us all, he did, with his singing! Funny thing was, I couldnt understand the words but it was like I knew the song too, like it was one I had always known but couldnt remember anymore, now dont look at me that way, I wont be having any truck with that type of look nor nonsense neither, thankyou VERY much, but what I says was right. It was like some forgotten nursey-rhyme or singsong I heard on my grand-dwarfs knee.
Fair spent I was, when we camped for the night on the beach, clothes all a-sodden with salt and sea, but the next day I was proper gobsmacked at where we was, and no mistake. We was in the desert. What I'd thought was a beach didnt have no end as it went in aways from the sea but stretched out 'n' on 'n' on forever.
Still, I knewed a few tricks with sand and its wunnerful stuff for scrubbin up with, so I felt none too bad at the sight, though the heat was already like some o the furnaces I grew up 'round back home.
Anywas, off we sets, leaving the shipfolks to try n sort out the ship, though truth be told, they never did get it to rights and for all I know it still stands there in the bay to this very day. But as I was a-sayin', off we goes, him and me, not along the coast but he heads off right into the desert, like he knows where he is headed. No canteens, no waterskins, just me with my pack and him with his little odd satchel, did I tell you about that satchel of his?
Oh some of the things I seen him pull out of THAT, well I will save that for another time, dont want to keep you and I got things I need doing anyways. Oh the desert? Bethel it was, and off we goes through it like it was a holiday for him. Odd times he would stop and put his hands to the redhot sand like he was searching for somethin' he'd dropped, then he would scoop the sand apart slowly and I KNOW you wont believe this but there under the sand, were puddles of clean water!
Took a while to get where he wanted to go, mind, for all his Cun-Jewah-Ray-Shanzes, but eventually we comes to this cliffside and he heads along it unconcerned with my blisters or my aches, until we're once again in sight o' the beach. Right there, he stops and looks at me, and again there's that twinkle of his in his eyes.
"Would you like to wash something, Ursul?"
Thats Mrs Dunnikin-Diver to you, my lad, says I, and what by Mortos am I to wash WITH may I arsk? Seawater? Or are you going to make a puddle big enough to fit all our clothes into this time?
"Ah no, those puddles are merely small reservoirs of water that already exist in certain places around the desert. Plants and animals of the region know of them, and they survive on them by burrowing far enough down. I merely called the water to us in that instance. No, this time I am going to MAKE water. Here from this cliff"
Ha! laughed I, only thing that will come from that dry sandstone will be snakes and scorpions, if you aint careful m'boy.
Then he takes out his vial and throws it up high on the clifftop, and it smashes right there, all that mirror juice a-sparkling in the desert sun. Then he starts to sing again, like before but this time it was like no nursey rhyme. Deep and powerful, like some dwarf miner off on his work with pick n' spade, it were.
And right there out of the cliff, with no stream feedin' it as I could see, comes this downpour of water.
I tell you the Gods honest truth now, that water was pouring out of the cliff as if it was made of magic, because there was no hole for it to come from nor nothin'.
And magic it was too, for I had no sooner put in one Gar-Mant than it was clean as the day it was weaved, no scrubbin' nor threshing needed! Just as fancy as you please but wet from the water. All the sand and seasalt washed clean away like it was never there.
"From this falls, life can now survive for other than desert creatures, and perhaps in time the races of Irillion may reclaim some of what the sun has taken. This will be my gift to the people, and the magic of the water will not diminish but will thrive and strengthen those whose magic is faltering."
and in he jumps, leaping and larking under the waterfall, like a salmon.
Then, I remembers, he stopped sudden-like, as if he had been slapped across the horns by an invisible hand.
"Master!" he calls out, into the water, "what have they done?!?"
Now, I has been a washerdwarf for many a cycle but even back then I was the best at doing for folks as needed me, and quick-sharp I knew somethin' was up, so I hurried over with all I could carry as he thrust his hands once more into the waterfall. As he parted the water between them I saw, plain as day on the other side, not the sandstone face of the cliff, but the old School itself!
Through into it, stepped he and I, and would you believe, we travelled all the way back like it was a second in between one place and the next, though they was many MANY miles apart.
Now why couldnt you have done that to go there, THAT could have been your gift to ME, says I, but he didnt reply this time.
He simply strode quickly and as quiet as ever towards his masters quarters. Thats when I noticed them around me. The dead and the dying. Students, 'prentices and Masters alike.
'Scuse me, somethin' in me eye there, ah thankyou for the 'kercheif, I will get it back to you once I done me next load.
Now, where was I?
Ah yes. All dead or on t'way. And the odd foul body of an orc there n' here too. They'd poisoned the well, it seems, and then when the water turned bad in everyones bellies, they'd crept up out of the caves underneath the School and come to loot the village.
But the resistance at the School had to be overcome first, for if once the Masters had gotten theyselves together, the orcs would be dead outright and no messin' around. But arrow and cutlass had done theys work well. Too well, for nigh on all had been sent to Mortos.
Worst of all was the Master, poor Osreng knelt there beside him like stone. I could barely take in the sight of what the buggers had done to him. They had staked him out on his own floor and then poured burning tar over him. The pitch had boiled all the water in his veins.
I cried when I saw that.Wept til t'tears soaked me jerkin through and through. Yet not one tear did I see from Osreng. He who could create a Manafall in the desert, who could still the very sea, and call forth water form sand, shed not a single tear. Not one, I tells you. Not then, mind, not til after She put him straight again.
Who is She? Oh I will tell you another time. But before that, there he was. Still as rock and as stonyfaced to boot. Hands clenched tight as if holding his last penny. Fair broke me heart it did. But then he turns, and no twinkle eyed youth was there now. Up gets he and taking another of his mirror juice vials from his robes, for he'd made a whole mess of em, he goes out into the School courtyard.
"They will all burn as he did," he says.
Put the wind up me, that did, the way he said it more'n what he said. It was like something had died in him, like he had lost that playful child within and only something dark remained. You can still see that look on him, if he is caught unawares, sometimes, til he remembers himself.
But there he was, anyways, pouring out the stuff from the vial all over the body of one of the orcs, eyes closed and once again he sings. But this was neither the deep powerful song of the desert, nor the child-like song of before that. No, my dear, this was horrible. Like somethin' on th'edge of a nightmare, or a half-awake dream that catches you on the bad side of t'bed and sings into the fear in your heart, it were. Aluwen preserve me but I never want to hear that song again.
I could feel what he was doing without his saying it, neither. It was his ...his..aura, I guess you could call it, it just went out from him like a tidal wave, crushing everythin'. The mirror juice bubbled and boiled on teh orcs body and burnt through it like a hot dirk through cheese.
"So to one, so to all, the orcs blood-water will heed my call, from foul finger to orcish eye, the waters will all burn dry" was what he said next, as he bent and touched the horrible melted fingers and face of the creature before him. I looks around us and I am not kidding you now, they was ALL melting the same way.
Those nearest us were worse off, but it was spreading out like a whirlpool from him, like the skin was being boiled from underneath or somethin'. Oh and the smell, gawd it would take me a month of washdays to clear it, but I did, and thats why I's one of the best there is, Dont-Chew-knows.
But thats when She came. Oh I may as well tell you anyways, this load can keep a bit longer I reckons.
So, as he is doing all this, theres this sudden rumble beneath me feet. Knocked me down it did but not for long, eh? Cant keep a good washerdwarf down for long, thats what I always says. So anywas, up into the sky come huge columns of flames, all surrounding the School and everything. The whole ground just surrounded by fire and lava like we was in some volcano.
And then out of the fire She steps.
An orc.
But she was crying. Though her tears were steaming off her face like the fire was burning em away I could tell it wasnt the fire that did it, 'cause the flames didnt touch her skin nor hair nor her tattered rag clothes neither. It was his magic that was boiling the tears from her. And it was stronger now, for the sight of her must have angered him still more, if that was possible and I'd reckons on it being hard to do, he fair loved his old Master, did Osreng. Taught him all he knew from being able to crawl. Why there was this one time..no.. I's best be leaving THAT story for another time I guess.
So, as I was a-telling, there She is. And She takes a step towards him, like. But up he throws his hands, as if putting all his effort into making the magic go onto Her. Yet She takes another step, slowly but She kept going. One step at a time it was, like She was walking against a tide, or trying to walk opposite to a river current.
"Fire will not aid you against ME, orc. I can extinguish you. I WILL." and then he has both hands out to ward Her off, and his horns, I swear they was glowing from within.
I could barely breath, the power coming from him was so strong even I could feel my skin pringling away and my face heating up, though I was a safe distance from both of them, and as far from the heat of the flames and lava as I could possibly get.
Yet on She stepped, crying all the way.
"Your power cannot even begin to match my own, orc! Use what magics you will against me, I will destroy you utterly and all your foul race thereafter!"
He was screaming at Her then, like he wanted Her to stop, to give in and die.
And he was putting all he had into making Her die.
Yet She took step after slow step towards him, though it was, oh I dunno, like it was tearing her apart inside but outside She did not appear to suffer from his magic. Yet no magic did She unleash, I remembers, not a fireball nor a willowwisp, no not even flinging the lava at him by Her will, although those fire elementalists can do things like that, I hears.
Just one step after another, tears still steaming away from her as She went.
Finally She stood before him, and thats when he lost his rag with her good and proper.
"You cannot kill me! Die damn you! You took him away from me! I will kill you ALL!"
And I remember as he said this, me own fingers were starting to heat up like they was on fire, and my eyes burned from within as if I had been starin' the sun too long after a sixmonth in the mines.
That was when She stopped him.
It wasnt magic as such.
Not the kind he was expecting, anyroad. But, speaking as one who has had a brood o me own and raised em right n proper, I knows the magic She used and its always worked on my lot as well as it worked on him that day, when they wants their own way but cant have it and be damned to anyone who nay-says em, then theres but one magic that can stop even the most far-gone and petulant brat, and it were this magic She used.
She slapped him a right ringer around t'lughole.
I almost wet meself when I saw it too, and would have too, I reckons, if'n all me waters werent dried to kindling by t'magic.
He jsut staggered back and fell flat on his a...hem..his Poe-Steer-Ee-Ahr. I will always remember that sight.
Strongest Water Elementalist in the lands and he was brought down by a clip round earlug.
It'd make any mother proud, that would have.
Thats when She knelt besides him and..well send me to Mortos in me own laundrybag if She didnt simply cuddle him then n there. She just rocked back n forth with him. And thats when he cried. Poor lad just broke down then, as if all his anger had been washed away.
O' course that was all a long time ago, and since then he's become Grandmaster of Water. Well, truth be told, since he was the only one left alive back then that MADE him the Grandmaster by rights, but he could have left if he chose I guess. Though he didnt, did he? Not him, no, he stayed here, took in new 'prentices, turned em into masters and they in turn trained up new students and so on.
And now we got us a load of folks running around again, playing with nymphs in the fountains and cavorting with watersprites like the old days. But not he. No, not anymore. He even keeps the lava surrounding the School, as a reminder of what might happen should he not keep his head.
For I hears tell since, he was on the verge of killing us all. Aye. He'd lost control so bad it werent just orcs who would have died from his magic that day, had She not taken the brunt o' it all. Ah look at me, standing here gossiping with the likes of you when theres work to be done, these clothes dont wash themselves, y'know. This is Palon Vertas, not Bethel Falls, now be away with you, I cant stand here all day gassing away like this. I wont have no truck with any of that nonsense, no sir!"
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