Chapter 6 Spring Equinox - Rockridge Mining Colony

~* Late morning of the Spring Equinox *~

"Folmon Bronzefoot!" Gertrude's shrill voice pierced through the serenity Folmon found pounding away in his smithy. He grunted and continued to pound away, pretending he hadn't heard. He switched hammers to a weighty and massive crosspein. Every broad muscle worked in concert to strike the glowing metal. "Folmon Chauncey Bronzefoot!" She screamed all three of his names. That made him wince.

"What?!", he bellowed back. She was louder than the dwarfish furnace.

"You're working without your apron!", followed her screeching reply.

He grunted and tossed the metal he was working on in the bucket to cool off. He used that same water to wash the black grime off the dark brown skin of his face.

"I don't need it, Ma!", his voice boomed in a robust resonance. He didn't bother arguing anymore. He nodded at the apprentice and suggested, "Take a break, go enjoy the festival er something."

The apprentice obeyed the Master Craftsman and smiled huge as he hurried to clean the shop and leave. Folmon was already headed into his house which was attached to the smithy. They occupied a really nice corner of the colony by happenstance. The cave behind the shop was massive, and the only entrance into the mines. This meant every miner passed their smithy on the way in or out for repairs, tools, or even talismans.

"You're going to burn yourself!" Gertrude screamed from somewhere deeper in the home.

"I ain't never burned myself and that's the truth!", he yelled back. Folmon shed his toolbelt with a loud clank on the floor near the door.

"You better pick that up!", came the automatic reply from his mother.

He grunted and picked up the belt to put it on one of the hooks near the door. He trudged deeper into the stone house they shared before a woman appeared before him from a bedroom. She was short and maintained widow braids in her long white beard. Gertrude already was brandishing her finger in his face, "You go around sassing me and you'll find out where I buried your father, boy."

He was forty-seven. The age most men in his culture started finding a family. That thought hadn't really entered Folmon's plans. He wasn't going to leave his mother. He watched her as she continued to nag and worry over him. Adjusting his braids as she reminded him of the shopping, errands, and other items he had promised to attend to.

"Yes, Ma." He replied and let her go about fussing over him. He was tall, unusually tall for a dwarf. When he was younger a lot of the other children had said he must have been a disgusting half-breed human. No, he was just built as solid as they came. He was a whole head taller than the tallest dwarf in the colony, The gods fashioned him as thick as he was wide with muscle. Folmon kissed his mother's head good-bye as he stood his full height again and turned to run the errands.

Leaving his home, he started walking down the street. The street, like everything built in this giant caldera, was molded out the natural lava tubes from the extinct volcano deep underground. Everything was of lavastone or from the surrounding rock itself. The entire colony was crafted this way showcasing architecture and craftsmanship only seen from the dwarves. Large pillars looked almost like stalactites and stalagmites that were holding one another. There were carved trees from the stone where large boughs appeared to be holding the entirety of weight of the tons of earth overhead.

The man shuffled through the excited festival crowd to get some bread from the baker. He went to the vendor and purchased items only found outside of the colony. He stopped and picked up a few textiles for his mother to work on her quilting. Finally he moved to travel back home the long-way. He wanted to see the Tabernacle of Orlin and then, of course, to see Tulip.

"Oy! Looks like all those priests from the human church are here." Folmon shouted to his friend, Pieter, a monk at the tabernacle.

"Yep. They got their veneration today, lots of people going to the Temple of Iros for it."

Folmon scratched his copper beard and nodded, "They gonna throw more people into a volcano?"

The monk shrugged obliviously and leaned against the stone fence separating them, "Looks like. Never much understood it either."

Neither the monk or Folmon actually knew what the ceremony was for, it had next to nothing to do with Orlin. The Unified Church mostly found the anointed of Iros underground anyway. Folmon had no way to really know beyond the few he had seen because he was one of the few exclusive parishioners to the tabernacle. Most dwarves, especially the miners, worshiped the Earth Goddess, Iros.

The temple for the Earth Goddess was enormous. It captured the entire northern wall of the large underground cave. Extending ceiling to floor, it depicted the Goddess Iros in careful carvings. Great works, legends of her might, and of course the breathtaking display. Beneath the temple the diggers and the miners had carved away an unreasonably large depiction of the goddess, stretching far below the earth. So far down that one could not even see her feet, though they were down there somewhere between the narrow and deep chasm that the art caused. The depiction held the weight of the temple on one shoulder. Folmon could, and did, respect that, he gave the Earth Goddess more than enough respect, but in his heart he knew he belonged to Orlin. He knew he was Orlin's the first time he heard the anvils being played in the tabernacle during summer solstice.

Orlin was the God of Fire. The Maker God. The dwarves had erected a more modest place of worship for all the other gods, and Orlin's was a small cleared area with an average sized rectangle building in the center. It was surrounded by flames, torches, braziers, and then a stone fence. Anvils were outside in a circle with different tones to denote the passing of time, events, and similar.

The monk commented with a derisive snort, "Savages, the lot of them. Orlin doesn't need people thrown into the volcano."

"Eh.", grunted Folmon in agreement, "They'll be back in seven years, just ignore em. Nothing to worry about."

"Yeah. Well there's that one time they selected Gregan Stoneskin." Pieter glanced askance.

"Eh.", another grunt from Folmon, "But he was a gillie-wet-foot."

The pair watched as people raced down the streets to make it to the temple on time. Unified Church bishops welcomed them all with large smiles and waves. Peiter lifted his hammers overhead and pounded out a familiar rhythm. It was half past eleven. Folmon nodded goodbye to his friend, gathered his things and turned back home stopping at Tulip Blondbeard's flower cart.

Upon arriving Folmon immediately he lost what to say, so he stood there staring at the flowers. He stole glances at her as he looked at the blossoms. Tulip was the loveliest dwarf Folmon had ever seen. Eyes the color of peridot. Hair the color of sunshone wheat. Lips as soft as a mole's stomach.

"Are you picking something up for a lady friend for the festival? I have a lot of spring flowers that..."

He barely heard a word of what she said. He watched her move among the foliage as she started pointing out various types. She settled near daffodils and he managed a nod. Every movement she made captivated the blacksmith. She wrapped them as she continued to chat her silent behemoth of a companion. For his participation in the talk, he managed grunts and nods. Folmon watched her blush as she smiled at him. He felt warm all-over. Eyes wide, he blurted,

"They're for my Ma."

Tulip's eyed widened in surprise, then immediately softened as she smiled. He watched her as she tucked wayward hair back toward her braid.

Nothing else could be said between them before they heard screaming from the direction of the mine. It caught Folmon's attention because now presented as glowing bright red. Clearing his throat, confused, it made sense suddenly. His body was still warm, and the heat was coming from that distant glow. He dropped everything in an instant and told Tulip a simple word, "Run."

He didn't check if she did. Instead, he started pounding the streets underfoot in an all-out sprint through the people rushing away from the mines. He turned the corner and his home was there with the bright tunnel bright behind it. The air got thick, and he noticed ash and flickers of embers while acidic gasses stung his eyes.

Almost ripping the door from its hinges he called for his mother. He heard her reply from in their home. As he entered the threshold, there was a rumble from deep beneath the earth. Behind him were the sounds of pillars and earth being smashed about the colony. He screamed for his mother as the hallway collapsed. On unsteady feet he made it as the rubble still threatened to overtake their home. Luckily the earth stopped shaping itself. He saw his mother, behind the pile so he started to dig. The interior of the home started to grow uncomfortably warm, until the intensity alarmed him.

"Ma, get back in yer room. I'm gonna grab tools to get you out!", she didn't argue, as another rumble triggered him to move to his feet. Fleeing his home he moved a few paces to get to his smithy and stopped. It was too late.

Facing him, filling the entirety of the mine, was a oozing sludge bubble of molten rock pouring itself into the street beside the smithy. He couldn't even get to the door because of the barricade of lava. Folmon felt his flesh ignite due to the proximity, yet not a single hair was singed. The flames danced over his flesh. Where one would expect to find the snapping of bones as they rapidly heated, Folmon's were tempered like steel. The liquid burbled around his feet melting his leather boots. So, with a pivot, not even pausing to question his gut, he sank his fingers into glowing wall of magma.

Liquified earth seeped beneath his fingernails as he sunk his fingers past knuckle-deep. There should have been nothing left but burnt stubs, but instead he gripped the lava digging himself in. There is where he made his stand, at the half engulfed door of the smithy. This far, no further. Flames harmlessly licked at his face, demolished his clothing, and played with his hair and beard. He pushed the mass back, one step at a time, with great violence. Something had already stirred in him. Pounding as sure and steady as the beat of his heart. Each step gained he felt it further.

Folmon became fully aware of the power all around him as he wrestled the oozing bright orange stone. It felt first like honey, thick and goopy, but he pushed deeper and felt more and more strength. He wanted to fall into it, and surround himself with it. The energy ran deeper than the core of the planet. It drifted back and into space, to some cosmic source Folmon recognized in an instant as Orlin. He grinned at this, his god had saved him! With this power, Folmon continued pushing the eruption back, step by laborious step, until it backpedaled all the way to the entrance of the mine. There, he unleashed a fraction of Orlin's blessing which caused the magma to ripple and start to rapidly cool. He dug his hands in deep, twisting as words of worship sprung from his lips in song,

"Orlin the maker, praise be the maker god!

Orlin the father, praise be the creator god!

Orlin the fire, family, and warmth of hearth!..."

He chuckled at this change in fortune as the rock completely cooled. He plucked his hands from the stone gloves they had made in the lava. That is when he noticed that his skin was burning bright, blazing red like copper in a forge. He turned to look behind him, to move toward his mother, but was instead met with the astonished stares of the community as the blacksmith. He was frantic for just a moment until his mother emerged from the home. He cheered at this and boomed the final refrain of song:

"Orlin! The god of fire! Brother to water, air, and earth!"

The stone beneath his feet melted as he stepped, but soon enough the power he had fed on vanished leaving him completely empty. Stubborn as he was, he continued walking to his mother before finally, Folmon slipped on the liquid stone underfoot and collapsed in a naked heap beside the smithy. There wasn't a single burn or blister on his entire body.