-Deep Ocean Floor: Red Tooth Hunting Vessel
In the back section of the Red Tooth Hunting vessel resides the engine room. Here a group of dwarfs spend their time shoveling coal into the furnace. This furnace then heats up a boiler containing fuel commonly known as water mana stones.
A mana stone is formed naturally over time when exposed to high doses of mana and the element of its nature. In this case these water stones are dark blue in color and contain massive amounts of compressed water and mana.
There are two ways to release energy out of a mana stone. One is through magic, which is difficult for most dwarfs to use. Another way is to expose a mana stone to an opposing element. When this happens the stone releases its stored element and mana as a defensive measure.
Many ages ago a dwarf had a revolutionary idea to build elemental refractories that can tap into a crystal's energy by taking advantage of their defensive response to opposing elements. The dwarfs adapted the elemental refractories as engines for submarines. A simple furnace and boiler system for water mana stones can jet propel the sub for years with only a few stones.
Orfal has been shoveling coal for hours while another coal worker is sharing this story about elemental refractories. After about half a days worth of labor Orfal and the other coal miner have their shift end and can finally rest.
"I'll show you to the mess hall, the chef on board makes a tasty stew," says the fellow coal shoveler to Orfal.
Orfal's body is so sore he can barely reply back with words so he just responds with an exhausted nod.
In the mess hall many sailors are singing together a song and smashing mugs of mead together as they are excited to be out at sea again.
♪ I'm forever blowing bubbles,
Pretty bubbles in the air,
They fly so high, nearly reach the sky,
Then like my dreams they fade and die.
Fortune's always hiding,
I've looked everywhere,
I'm forever blowing bubbles,
Pretty bubbles in the air.
-James Brockman original, sang by fortry drunken dwarves.
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-Midgard: Secluded cave around the North Pole
Outside a cave a raging blizzard blows. The storm is strong that it's hard to even see past a few yards in it. However a silhouette appears from out of the storm and into the cave. It's a polar bear about 15 feet tall and 8 feet wide but something is off about this bear.
If one was there to see it come in they would be shocked because the polar bear was walking through a blizzard without moving its feet or arms. It would also appear strange to see the snow trail left behind the bear was of two small but wide feet.
The polar bears approaches a blazing fire before it collapses to a stop. The fire it lays by seems to just be burning from a few deep red colored stones but the heat they put off is hotter than any wooden fire.
"Argh," a dwarf grunts as he lifts himself from under the polar bear then says, "This be the heaviest polar bear i've caught yet."
This dwarf with outstanding strength is Nordri, protector of the north. Nordri, just like the other three protectors, does not look a day over 500, around the prime age of a young adult dwarf.
His appearence is everything a classic dwarf should be. Wide stature, broad shoulders and dark tan skin covered in dirt and sweat. For clothing he is shirtless under a bear skin fur coat and is equipted with a majestic battle axe strapped over his back. He stands 4' 10" tall, which is taller than most his kin. The light from the fire illuminates his blue eyes and black curley hair as he stirs the coals of his camp fire.
A few minutes later the scent of roasted bear meat is filling the cave and the dwarf is biting into a piece of bear thigh. Nordri gets about half way through his meal when a chime starts to be heard, coming deeper from within the cave.
"Huh, its been 10,000 years already? Well i suppose having a nice nap will feel good on a full stomach," mutters Nordri as he walks over to part of the cave. The walls turn from a rough jaggaed surface to a smooth polished cut. Nordri's walk brings him into a large 10,000 square foot cavern full of glowing pools of mana stones, a color for each type possible. These pools surround a metal plateform thats dead center in the cavern. On it sits four giant cylinder tubes surrounding a control device in the middle.
Nordri hits a flashing button on the control panel and one of the tubes opens up, releasing waves of steam and mana. Suddenly a hand reaches out of the steam and grabs onto the opening of the tube, followed by another hand then a foot. Finally an entire dwarf emerges from his stasis chamber and begins to groan and stretch, spreading fresh blood throughout all his stiff limbs.
"Vestri hurry up and get my chamber ready before I finish my meal. I'm wanting to spend the next 30,000 years frozen with a full stomach," says Nordri as he bites more bear meat off the bone in his hand.
Vestri's ears start to sting at the sound of Nordri's loud words but he shakes off the pain and starts to gather his thoughts to what he last remembered 30,000 years ago.
'Let's see I remember the four submarine colonies went through that huge battle with the merfolk and wiped them out for good. Then there was those lava mantarays that started causing issues in the western part of the sea then it was around then that Sudri took over for me and I went into a stasis slumber,' Vestri recollects to himself, then finally turns to Nordri and asks, "Has the new catalyst had any response?"
Nordri shakes his head and tells him the divine connection is still dead as before. Aside from the small power it now siphons from the eye of Ymir there is no mana supply appearing.
Nordri, unsurprisingly to Vestri, has not kept much of his attention on the colonies for the past few decade so he is unaware of any current events.
Why was this? Well Nordri was busy spending his time in a pengiun tossing competition with a polar bear. Which escalated in a brawl between the two and ended with one roasting the other over an open fire.
Vestri had enough pain in his head from being frozen for 30,000 years but talking to Nordri seemed to redefine the phrase 'head trama' to him.
They both decided to turn to the control consol and tune in the catalyst to view each of the colonies recent events.
Nordri's clan in the Megalodon (giant shark) construct were all celebrating a war victory over some crustaceans that occupied a mana stone mine.
Vestri's clan in the MineSweeper (giant pufferfish) construct had a few explosions going off around their fortress. Most of his clansmen are tinkers so they became the main providers of weapondry between all four marine settlements.
Austri's clan in the Ouroboros (giant sea snake) construct seemed to be extracting strong amounts of mana from an underground volcano vein that fills up fuel cells for all the settlements to run off of.
Last but not least Sudri's clan in the IronShell (giant turtle) construct is running its hunting and expedition teams as usual. However whats not usual is no dwarfs are moving around inside the fortress, a very strange situation to come across.
"Hmm, I wonder what's keeping everyone off the streets over at IronShell," says Vestri. "I am going to rewind this for a bit and find out what happened."
"Aye but make it quick," Nordri says while taking another bite of meat.
The two dwarf protectors watch the screen's display speed increase while everything starts moving in reverse. Finally they get to a part where crowds of dwarfs are exiting their homes backwards going from desperate sprints to confused walking then regular activity. It's quite the well orchrastrated movement of the dwarfs having the same behavior in unified waves. From the top districts of IronShell all the way to the bottom districts all the dwarfs rewind out of their homes and back towards there usual places in the fortress. Once everyone is back in place the screen goes through the ventilation pipes and winds down a few shafts and to a door that has a dark puddle of waste on the ground. The puddle starts lifting into a central point and increasingly grows into a powerful stream that flows into a large waste tank. A dwarf is seen by the waste tank before he crawls backwards into the puddle and upon reaching the doorway he is then pulled forward by the powerful spray of waste until he arrives back to the tank closing the valve.
At this point Vestri is mirroring the look of panic that yoing Orfal has in the video. Vestri quickly cuts the video feed and hits a button to open Nordris stasis chamber.
"Nothing for the great Nordri to concern himself with now here you go off the bed," cries Vestri as he starts to push Nordri off towards the chamber.
"HAHAHA! Would you look at thay Vestri, another one of your victims has contaminated the air vents again," annouces Nordri with a big smirk on his face as he tries to take another bite of meat but is met with an emtpy bone.
"No no no, I believe you miss saw the video. It can cause confusion when watched in reversed maybe after your nap you can watch the scene normally and see how it was just an emergency test drill by Sudri's lot, they are quite the diligent bunch in being prepared for any emergency situation," spurts out vestri with a hurried voice.
"I bet it was one of those Browfury lads? I remember the day their founding dwarf signed up for the job. You promised him it would bring his family great honor! Hah what honor? The family's own name was changed after an incident like this happened in the past. What was that nick name... Brownfury!" says Nordri just as his chamber door is closing.
It is now so silent the only thing that could be heard is howling of the storm. Vestri is devistated again. Infront of Nordri of all people, who's mouth never closes.
"I hope I got him into the chamber quick enough or I will have trouble hiding this from the others," says Vestri outloud to himself. "Time to go erase that recording."
Vestri walks back to the control panel and starts drawing some runes that enter into the catalyst, but all of a sudden some lights go of on the control panel and a few dusty gauges start to move. Vestri is blown away in shock, There hasn't been mana detection on Midgard for 40,000 years, has the divine connection been restored to Yggdrasil?
Vestri looks back at the catalyst and starts drawing more magic runes that flow back into. The display screen appears to be flashing about the milky way galaxy around Midgard, or earth as its known by for its only remaining occupants the humans. Finally the screen ends up stopping back on earth and Vestri is confused on what is happening.
"There is no connection to Yggdrasil but Midgard indeed has mana returning to it. The amounts are very low but at this growth rate the dwarfs could be returning to Midgard in a hundred years!" cheers Vestri as he jumps in excitement.
Not only did his plan to protect his kin really work out in the end, but he can finally get them out of those fortresses that his fellow protectors tease him about.
"Now's not the time to cry over spilt mead, I have a wrong to right," Vestri says while staring at the display footage he intends to delete. He looks at the desperate silver eyes of young Orfal and mutters, "You lad are in for a surprise."