[right][i]Written in collaboration with Cyclone[/i][/right]
[hr]

[i]Wind battered against a hain village, tearing apart the thatch roofs, ripping up the crops and tearing down the mud brick walls. The hain who cowered inside were crushed by their falling homes. The hain who fled were struck by flying debris or picked up by tornado-like gusts and dropped from a great height. Vengeful flurries of wind lashed at the hain and their village, for this village had the misfortune of incurring a djinn's wrath. The village shaman had been one of the first casualties, for his magics were but an ember compared to the roaring might of an elemental. The resident urtelem did what they could to shelter and protect the hain under their care, but there was little they could do to fight the wind. Distraught at being unable to protect, and distraught at the destruction of the neighbouring Lensling grove, many of the herd had fled, unable to take the stress any longer. The village was left in ruins, slaughtered by a power beyond their control.[/i]

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[i]The ground had been trampled to mud by hundreds of heavy feet. A village lay ruined in its path. Bloodied porcelain fragments marked where hain had been crushed, and shattered stone limbs where urtelem had been beaten. The buildings had been torn down or burnt. The ogre war band marched on with its spoils, with hardly a casualty among its ranks from its latest battle. The urtelem had put up a fight, but they were outmatched and outnumbered. By design ogres were stronger than urtelem, and the additional advantages of tools, armour and shamanic magic meant that few forces could stop a horde of ogres.[/i]

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[i]The herd of urtelem walked over the cracked obsidian ground. Urtelem have long memories, although they did not have to cast their memories too far back to remember the saddening events which caused this scar in the landscape. A Realta had attacked here, on that frightful day when the stars fell. A lensling grove had inhabited this spot, as had many urtelem. When the being of fire from the heavens came to purge the land of corruption such as that grove, the urtelem had no choice but to flee. Despite their hardiness, many succumbed to the inferno of star fire, with only a few survivors escaping. Now nothing lived on this patch of land, cauterised by the stars.[/i]

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[i]Elementals. Ogres. Realta. And others, like Change Eaters, Cosmic Knights and Fallen Angels. These were enemies the urtelem were never designed to handle, either in kind or in magnitude. The urtelem had sufficed back when Galbar was threatened by ashlings, herakt and chaos hordes. But new, more powerful foes (or foes which flew) threatened to overtake the urtelem, leaving the other races vulnerable.

And beyond discrete enemies, another threat loomed. With the ongoing war between the change-eaters and elementals, weather and climate patterns promised to shift and become unpredictable as the elemental population plummeted. Storms would become more erratic. Flooding would abound. Rivers would shift course. Many villages and even some cities would be displaced, if they could not somehow shape the terrain to mitigate the harm.

Even ignoring the threats to the mortals of Galbar, urtelem had reached a technological plateau. They had sophisticated language, philosophy and culture, but they had no practical science to pursue. Urtelem had no need for houses. Their hands were too large and cumbersome to be efficient toolmakers or alchemists. They were generally not driven by selfish pursuits such as war or profit. All they had was their strength, their prodigious minds, and their internal magic for shaping stone.

The urtelem were overdue for an upgrade.[/i]

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[center][b]New Postulates[/b][/center]
Moonlight illuminated the landscape, a plateau surrounded by the silhouettes of trees on the horizon. The ground was densely covered in what seemed to be boulders. Glittering in the moonlight were the glassy forms of lensling trees, with the dark shadows of needle fae dancing around the trees. Standing upright were monoliths, carefully arranged and aligned. This was a grand meeting place for urtelem, and for now the urtelem all slept.

All, that is, except one. A young child, barely a quarter of a meter tall, was restless. He crawled out from underneath his blanket, a commodity which this herd had received from Alefprian traders and which was useful for keeping warm until he grew large enough to better retain heat during the night, and rolled forwards a single revolution. The child then stood up and looked around. Vigilate, Scitis and Mirus shined in the sky above, along with the stars and the Rings of Lex. But on the ground, the child's short stature meant there was little he could see over the sleeping masses of the adult urtelem around him, except for the branches of a lensling tree.

With a target in sight, the child started walking towards the lensling tree. Adult urtelem blocked his path, but that was no barrier, for the child simply flopped forwards and dived into the earth. He glided forwards through the solid ground, albeit clumsily. Buried beneath the ground, he could not use sight, so he had to rely on feel and on stone-sense to tell where he was and where he was going. While adult urtelem have refined these senses and the practice of earth-gliding, children still lacked some finesse, so when this child tried to surface he instead found his way blocked by the body of a sleeping urtelem.

The sleeper stirred at the accidental nudge, and woke when nudged again. The adult urtelem wondered for a moment what had awoken her, then felt the child beneath her. With maternal gentleness, the adult dipped a hand into the earth and pushed the disoriented child towards open ground, where he was able to surface. It took a few attempts for the child to coordinate himself sufficiently to stand again, but once he had he plodded on towards the lensling tree. The adult sleepily watched the child leave, then curled back up to sleep.

Soon the child had reached the tree, and approached its glassy trunk. As he walked two duelling needle fae flew past. The child let out a squeak like that of two stones rubbing together, and swatted at the needle fae with a stumpy arm. The duelists dispersed, and the child continued towards the trunk. On reaching the trunk, he reached up towards a shard of lensling he could see, although it was just out of reach. He stretched to reach it, needing to stand on the tips of his toes to reach. With his little rocky fingers, he clutched the shard and pulled to break it off. The shard came loose, but he also lost his balance and fell backwards. The child landed with a roll, clambered to his feet unhurt, then shoved the lensling shard into his mouth and ate it.

When the child finished eating, he heard the sound of scratching stone. Normally, slumbering urtelem were silent, so the night should have been noiseless. Curious, the child followed the sound. And as he approached the sound, the source of the sound also seemed to come closer to him.

Then finally he saw it. Emerging from underneath one of the many sleeping urtelem came a line etched into the ground, and this line was being drawn before his very eyes, as though by an invisible hand. He sauntered towards it, and noticed the intricacies and branches that emerged from the line, identifying it as Spiral Script, although the child was still too young to understand all but the simplest Spiral Script.

The writing continued to appear on the ground of its own accord. The child walked after it, trying to follow, but it was too quick, so the child fell forwards into a roll and rolled across the ground after the writing. But the child, clumsy as he was, rolled into another sleeping urtelem. The adult woke, although was about to ignore the child and go back to sleep when the adult saw the line of writing reemerge from underneath more sleepers.

As the child rolled after the manifesting Spiral Script, the adult stood up. The adult looked over the Spiral Script which had mysteriously appeared on the ground. Unlike the child, the adult could actually read what had been written, and although only a small fragment was visible the adult could clearly tell that this was part of the solution to some problem of enormous scope and magnitude.

It was not until morning, when the urtelem woke and the sun shone, that the full extent of the writing was realised. The new piece of Spiral Script spanned the entire plateau, with old pieces of Spiral Script being moved to make room for the new message. The message was interwoven and multilayered into a masterpiece far beyond the capabilities of any urtelem, and attesting to this the message was signed with the name Calloused Hands.

Beyond the magnificence of the message was the content. For the message laid out a new paradigm for describing the world and problems, with a new set of postulates and axioms. This new paradigm did not simply provide a new way to solve geometric and mathematical problem, but instead it described a way to manipulate strange energies and forces and the world itself. The message was thorough in its description of this new paradigm, although it omitted examples and applications. Such things would have to be developed by the urtelem.

The massive herd of urtelem studied the complex message deeply. They discussed earnestly about the message, and worked to develop new theorems from the provided axioms. And as days wore on and news travelled through the Distant Dance, it was discovered that more messages like this had appeared in other urtelem meeting places across Galbar, all on the same night, all signed by Calloused Hands, but each providing a subtly different perspective.

It was early days, but already the urtelem could understand the implications of these messages. They had received the gift of magic, and with this magic they could potentially achieve just about anything, given enough energy and sufficient understanding of the mechanisms of this magic, all of which, it appeared, could be derived from the messages.

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[center][b]The Towering Gorge Problem[/b][/center]
The chasm was a blockage to many travellers. This river of melt water in the southern Ironhearts had carved a deep valley over the eons which was impassable due to sheer cliff-faces, and demanded a long detour on the route from Metera to Alefpria.

Although urtelem were patient and enduring, not minding the extended travel time, they enjoyed solving problems. And the Towering Gorge Problem was a well-studied problem for the urtelem who travelled in that region. It was well-known that the optimal solution was to build a bridge in the right location along the gorge, which would shorten the route by two and a half days; the caveat was that there had been no way to construct such a bridge across the gap. The situation of the Problem had been a debate over where it would be possible to cross the chasm to reduce travel time, and whether any construction projects would be worth the effort.

Then came the discovery of arcane mechanisms to manipulate the physical world. In the weeks following the discovery, the theory of the arcane had developed to such an extent that some urtelem had demonstrated a method to raise stone pillars from the ground, using runic circles and their earth gliding. To those familiar with the Towering Gorge Problem, the application was obvious.

A new formalisation of the Problem was soon written in the Spiral Script, and it was not long before the contributions of multiple urtelem had laid out a full solution. An invitation, with the day as determined by the stone calendars, was issued by the solution, and on the specified day a sizeable herd of urtelem had assembled on both sides of the the bridge-point at Towering Gorge, along with a plentiful supply of edible minerals and lensling shards.

Little more than a brief exchange of hand-signs was needed before work began, for the plan had been prepared earlier. A large rectangle was sketched out across the bridge point, ten meters wide, marking both ends of the prospective bridge. Then, growing from the edges of the rectangle, a special kind of Spiral Script was written, with interwoven symbols for force, motion, earth, displacement and malleability, each carefully measured and calibrated.

The work took time. The sun set, and the herd rested for the night, before waking again to resume writing. By the time the Script was finished, it covered the inner surface of the rectangle like a web, and sprawled out from the edges of the rectangle in a fractal pattern, the shrinking symbols providing higher order corrections to ensure the accuracy of the result.

Throughout the writing were circles, empty of Script on the inside, each large enough to fit an urtelem's palm. With the Script complete, urtelem lined up beside these circles. One at a time, an urtelem would place their hand into the circle and slowly sink it into the earth within the circle. The position was held for a breath or two before the urtelem would withdraw their hand, more tired than before, and be replaced by the next stoneman in line.

After a minute of this, the earth began to creak audibly. After about ten minutes, the ground had been visibly displaced, with a rectangle of stone extending about a centimeter from the edge of the gorge. In an hour the motion of earth had picked up momentum, and the bridge had grown a metre from both sides, supported underneath by more stone, slanting back to the wall of the gorge.

The urtelem had constructed a spell which caused a specified segment of the walls of the Towering Gorge to lean inwards, and at its completion the two ends would join and merge to form a solid bridge. The spell was powered by the urtelem themselves, providing work into the ground and spell via the circles. It was exhausting work moving that much stone, but the urtelem had calculated their needs beforehand, such that the herd had enough members to cycle between those who were working and those who were eating and resting without having to stop the spell completely at any point.

Just a day and night later the two ends of the bridge met in the center of Towering Gorge. Thousands of tonnes of stone had been shifted by magic alone. The two herds crossed the newly created bridge, giving each other celebratory shoulder bumps as they passed each other. This would be a story to tell, of the Resolution of the Towering Gorge Problem.

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[center][b]The Djinn Enigma[/b][/center]
In recent times a faint golden wind could rarely be seen flickering in the night sky, even far from the Aurora. There were whispers of it being an omen of some kind. There was even the rare rumor that the golden wind could grant wishes. But none knew where it came from or what it truly did.

But the spell-writers among the urtelem were beginning to realise what the golden wind could do. They could sense the power in the Wind, for when the Wind blew strongly it could energise small spells without their intervention. This presented the key riddle of whether the energy in the golden wind could be harnessed.

Discussion along the Distant Dance sparked numerous experiments. While most of the postulates governing their magic were sufficiently well established that they could apply the rules to get a particular behaviour, the golden Wind was a mystery, so the urtelem would need to study the behaviour and then try to infer the underlying rules. The first thing to be studied was how to harness the Wind's magical energy.

It was not particularly challenging to get the Winds to interact with a spell, for the Winds held a large reserve of potential energy which was just looking for an outlet. Study thus went into creating patterns of Spiral Script which could efficiently harvest the energy from the Winds. The urtelem were not investigating blindly, though, for they knew some methods of collecting and redirecting energy, such as the palm-sized circles used to convert work into magic for moving things. As such, most designs became variants of these circles. In time, a popular design that seemed to be quite effective was a web of harvesting circles all interconnected with a single central circle, although whether this design could be improved upon remained an open problem and area of study. A universal trend, though, was that larger harvesting sigils could collect more Wind.

Harnessing such power was not without side effects. Unlike manually actuated spells, Script powered by the Wind would be active whenever the Wind blew, and even when the golden light was not visible in the sky the Wind would often still be blowing gently and unseen. This could result in issues for spells which were not designed to be overcharged, or hazards for those not expecting the spells to run constantly. And if a harvester did not have a spell connected, then it would accumulate energy, and this could overcharge and produce potentially unpleasant side effects. More than once a spell had exploded because it had been left partially complete and a strong Wind had started before it could be finished. Even if a spell didn't explode, storing Winds would often produce some peculiar changes in the surrounds, such as warping the stone into different forms or strange crystals. And while the Winds were potent, they were inconsistent, their intensity fluctuating day by day, meaning it lacked the precision or reliability needed for some applications.

But despite these drawbacks, the golden Winds were still a potent source of power for spells. And the spell-writers eventually realised that the Winds could do more than merely be transformed into other kinds of energy. It could be harnessed and directed as-is, and while the full effects of using raw Winds was unclear, they did notice that it interacted strongly with elementals.

This discovery presented a new solution to the long-standing Djinn Enigma. Almost since their conception, djinn had been problematic to the urtelem, for while djinn would sometimes attack other mortals, and while the urtelem would want to stop them there was no way for the urtelem to affect the ethereal form of the elementals. Since magic arose, there had been some attempts to solve the Enigma, but most solutions had been fairly lackluster, for even with the ability to interact with an elemental, the elementals of concern were typically far stronger than an urtelem.

The Winds changed this, providing more power and a more efficient use of that power in solving the Djinn Enigma. Designing spells which could potentially harm the djinn was one matter, one subject to experimentation and refinement. The other half of the Enigma was delivering those spells. Urtelem magic, being based on written Script, was not very flexible, so the application to single combat would require some creativity.

A solution emerged from a separate path of experimentation. The rationale was quite simple: Urtelem are made of stone; urtelem can write on stone; urtelem magic is in their writing; therefore, urtelem can write magic on each other. It opened up a lot of potential, but one of the first major applications was in tackling the Djinn Enigma.

Upon some select urtelem were written some carefully planned spells to combat djinn, the Script covering their bodies like full-body tattoos. Along most of their bodies, culminating at their fists, was Script describing the spells to be cast and directed. Their back, however, was dedicated to a harvester for the Wind, providing energy which would enable their spells.

The energy of the Wind was not absorbed without consequence, although the outcome was slightly different for these rune-covered defenders than for inanimate stone. The power of the Wind was processed by the urtelem's metabolism, and yellow crystal growths began to form on the urtelem, which faintly glowed with golden light, indicating that these crystals held the energy of the golden Wind. These crystal growths could then be metabolised to fuel spells. The process of growth and consumption was physically uncomfortable, and the risks of overcharging remained, but that was a price some urtelem were willing to pay.

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Where the sun's warmth came down to kiss the white peaks of the Ironheart Ranges, the glaciers wept tears of the purest water. From a million mere droplets and tears there formed small trickles that rolled down the crags and slopes, and from hundreds of these tributaries meeting together there formed a river. Where mountains gave way to lowlands there was an abrupt precipice and a mighty waterfall; there was the seat of Cataract's power.

The moons had danced across the sky for a hundred thousand nights since the great waterlord Cataract had ruled those falls and the waters both upstream and down. In that time he had witnessed the rise of the Machhua. They were a tribe of those white-shelled creatures of the Clay God's making, having only arrived to these lands in number after many of them had fled from faroff homelands through the dominion of a great many sealords before finally reaching the nearby shores and working their ways further inland. As they wandered the lowlands they always kept to the banks of Cataract's mighty river, and so it was that they eventually found paradise in a lush glade near one of the river's few turns. There they had at last settled and made a new home. Their village was fittingly known as Kubec--a word in their tongue that meant 'where the river bends'.

For some time Cataract had ignored the doings of the Machhua. They were poor and desperate creatures that had evidently been swept away from their former homes by a greater force, just as his river washed away stone and sediment. But in time those few bands of lesser creatures began to grow numerous. They set about crafting tools and building a civilization, and through naught but their numbers and their will they managed to become a force great enough to shape the world about them and bend nature to their will. They marked the land with totems and raised stones, blissfully unaware that they lived in the shadow of djinni lords and claimed as hunting grounds great swathes of land that was already within the dominion of the masters of nature.

It was [i]arrogant. Foolish.[/i] Through such blatant provacation they would only succeed in bringing down disaster upon themselves; perhaps incurring the wrath of a djinni lord had been what led to whatever calamity drove these Hain to resettle in these parts to begin with. Or perhaps a stronger, wiser breed of creatures had overpowered them.

They felled trees to birth unnatural fires that existed not under the sway of the flamedjinn, they dug into the earth and hollowed out mounds to bury their dead or store grain, and they left out open containers to steal the bits of the rain that the sky tried to gift down to the parched earth. All of these things might have been petty offenses, but the djinni lords of those other elements were kinder and more patient than Cataract, or perhaps uncaring about such trivial goings, or perhaps simply preoccupied with other matters. Cataract would have taken great offense to any of those slights, but those transgressions were against the other elements and thus were none of his concern.

That changed when the Machhua began to carve small vessels out of wood and float these things up and down Cataract's river. He tolerated the creatures when they clustered at the banks of his river like a swarm of gnats that pestered a horse; he tolerated them when they fished the bounty of his domain from shores; however, he refused to suffer the indignity of having their canoes and rafts clutter his realm and float back and forth without his permission.

So it was that Cataract had left his throne at the mighty waterfall for the first time in decades. He traveled downstream effortlessly and as speedily as lightning, for the river was his house and it obeyed him utterly. When he came across the village of Kubec he grabbed all the canoes within his sight and hurled them back onto the shore. When the Hain of the Machhua tribe assembled themselves in horror at the sight of the river itself coming to life and rising to stand as a watery giant, Lord Cataract at last spoke to the creatures.

He told them of the offense they had commited and warned them of the grave consequences of provoking his ire. It was within his power to divert the river to cross right through their village and wash away their homes downstream and cast away their entire livelihoods back into the sea, and they had no reason to doubt this simple truth. So when he demanded that they offer tribute and worship from then on in exchange for protection and the right of continued existence within his realm, they were in no position to refuse.

The shape, size, and form of the tribute meant little to Cataract for he had no true need for material things, but it meant everything for the Machhua. He had a way of sensing whether they offered him their most precious treasures or their worthless refuse, and if their tribute was not of the former type then his pride was assaulted and he took great offense. So it was that the villagefolk regularly offered him back a share of the fish that they caught from his river. In less regular intervals fear drove them to make greater offerings lest Cataract begin to think less of their repteated gestures, so on occasion they would offer more precious things: shiny rocks, livestock, pets, and occasionally even the lives of their fellow Hain.

Yet this land was also occupied by urtelem, and while they cared little about the items thrown in the river, these lumbering protectors took supreme objection when they discovered that the Machhua were sacrificing each other.

It was a holy day for the Macchua, marking the end of winter and the beginning of the flow of meltwater from the Ironhearts, when the river would begin to swell and fish would enter spawning season. It was decreed by the village shamans that a particularly grandiose sacrifice was in order to maintain Cataract's favour.

Lots were drawn and a tribute was chosen. A young hain, not even old enough to have reached his second hatching, was dragged from his parents who were weeping with a palm pressed to their heads. The boy was bound, gagged and had his head covered by the shamans, then dragged towards the river to be ceremonially thrown in and drowned, a sacrifice worthy of Cataract's favour.

Yet the procession was stopped in its tracks when an urtelem matriarch, with strange patterns and yellow crystals adorning her right arm, rose from the ground and stood towering over the hain. Two more urtelem rolled in from between the trees, flanking the procession then rising to further block the path to the river.

The matriarch made a simple hand-sign, although even those in the procession who did not comprehend the sign language of the stonemen could understand her intent. All knew that urtelem would not condone such acts of violence.

[i]'Stop.'[/i]

The procession halted. When the matriarch stepped closer, the shamans released the boy, who fell to the ground, and backed away from the approaching stoneman. The boy, unable to see or speak, was trembling in fear as the urtelem reached down to the boy and carefully removed the sack from his head. The boy's eyes were filled with fear, his beak flicking from side to side, although the sight of the urtelem standing over him seemed to calm him slightly.

Gently the matriarch picked up the boy with one hand and lifted him from the ground. She walked forwards, and as she passed through the rapidly parting procession she gave the shamans a deathly stare. No signing was needed to convey her meaning. [i]Don't you dare try that again.[/i]

The boy was handed back to his parents, who unbound him and embraced their child in deep relief. The two other urtelem shared some hand-signs with the matriarch before walking off. The matriarch, however, returned to the bank of the river. She extended her right arm, the one covered with runes and crystals, and motioned at the ground. Coupled to the motions of her hand, the earth reshaped itself into an indentation in the ground appropriate for an urtelem to sit in. The golden crystals on her arm steamed as she did this and visibly shrunk. Then the urtelem sat within the seat she had just created, and watched as a sentry.

And this sentry stood guard by the river and carefully watched anything that the hain brought to the river. The Machhua were permitted to continue offering food and precious stones, but the urtelem forbade the offering of live sacrifices, even of animals. None dared to even attempt to offer another hain, for that would certainly invoke the wrath of the urtelem.

The Machhua also feared the wrath of Cataract, but the urtelem were not blind to that threat. Over the following weeks it was noticed that several of the other urtelem in the local herd had been covered with their strange Script and were beginning to grow golden crystals, and the matriarch herself had extended the runes from her arm to cover her whole body.

At one point the chief shaman tried to negotiate with the matriarch, insisting that if they weren't able to make proper offerings that Cataract would become angry and destroy the village. Yet the matriarch was adamant, calmly replying [i]'We will protect.'[/i] The shaman was dissatisifed, but the matriarch would not be swayed by the hain.

This of course did not go unnoticed by the djinn. Though Cataract's watery palace was a long ways to the north, at every fork and bend and rapid along the river one could find his lesserlings there to act as his eyes and rule in his stead. One such djinni existed in the very depths of the water that the matriarch sat beside.

When that one djinni had no tribute from the Hain to send upriver to its master, Cataract's first notion was to place the blame on it for failing to collect. But that blame was short lived; a djinni and its master had a sacred and powerful bond and they lacked the capacity to lie to one another over their telepathic networks. When the lesser djinni told Cataract of what it had seen the urtelem do along the riverside, Cataract had no reason to doubt it.

As the days passed by, Kubec was split. A great many of the shortsighted were overjoyed with the prospects of no longer having to pay for their safety and land in blood, but the shamans and those that remembered the cautionary tales of their ancestors were beginning to grow fearful of a great and terrible retribution. As in for Cataract, his fury steadily grew as he waited to see whether the village would choose to honor his demands over that of a few wretched mockdjinn.

Before he took greater measures, Cataract decided that he would remind the Machhua whose river their livelihoods floated in. It happened quite literally overnight: one day the village fishers had been claiming a bounty as great as ever, and on the next day there was nothing. The djinn pushed all the fish and watery creatures to distant forks and brooks where the Hain would never find them, and in mockery of their inevitable starvation and desperation they saw to it that putrid and half-rotten fish washed up on the banks just in front of the matriarch. The Machhua came down to the  riverbanks before the matriarch and despaired openly. They still had  some stores of smoked fish as leftover winter supplies and the glade  around had berries and other foods, but their settlement was of such a size that they had grown very much dependent upon catching fish.

The Machhua began offering their lesser tributes in greater number than ever before, but it was to no avail. It quickly became apparent that the point of the sacrifices had never been some sort of measurable tax or tithe; rather, the sacrifices were a forced reminder that Cataract owned their land and their tribe. He did not take kindly to the urtelem interceding to dilute the sacrifices, so now it became a matter of pride in which he would not be satisfied unless the Machhua rejected the urtelem utterly and offered a life as was their original intent.

The once pristine waters of the river began to grow a more sickly color as the djinn manipulated the contents within and created a bloom of algae near the village. Now the water itself began to have a vile smell and the villagers were afraid to drink it for fear of growing ill.  It was then that the dissatisfied Hain began to take action; seeing that their pleading to the matriarch went ignored, a plot quickly emerged to steal away in the dead of night and carry out a sacrifice at Cataract's abode upriver.

These hain picked a sacrifice from among their own and, having bound the sacrifice by the hands to prevent escape and gagged her to prevent noise, led her out of the village and down the forest trail leading up river. They had plotted their course to avoid where the urtelem herd was based, but a sleeping urtelem is hard to distinguish from natural scenery, and urtelem sleep much more lightly than many suspect.

Down this trail the procession heard a sound which made them freeze. Beaks flitted side to side, trying to see into the shadows, although sound gave them much more information, for they heard the sound of creaking stone and shifting earth to their left.

Immediately they ran, leaving the trail for the trees to their right. A large boulder burst out from the trees to the left and rolled towards the hain, although the trunks of the trees they fled into soon stopped the urtelem. Yet the stoneman did not waste a moment of time deciding which way to go before diving into the ground.

For half a minute the hain fled, with no sign of the urtelem following them. Just as their pace began to relax, the earth beneath their feet burst open, and a great stone hand picked up the chosen tribute by the torso. The urtelem ermerge fully, then placed the bound hain up in a tree branch out of reach of the other hain. Meanwhile the others fled in all directions. The urtelem watched, but realised it could not chase them all. And another thing made the urtelem stop to consider, for it could sense that behind their murderous intent was not malice, but fear. This was troubling.

The urtelem took the bound hain down from the tree, broke the ropes binding her hands, then pointed her down the trail back towards the village. Then the urtelem left to go confer with the herd.

The herd woke quickly once the news arrived. It was not long before the matriarch herself was present, and a meeting under the moonlight commenced. The urtelem who had just scattered the procession gave the testimony of what had been seen. It was immediately decided that several urtelem would be sent to patrol the region, lest the hain be desperate enough to try again this night.

Yet the riddle was not solved, and time was running slim. Kubec was being starved out, and from the testimony of the watchman it seemed that Cataract was driving the Macchua to perform these sacrifices. Yet many in the herd were reluctant to march out to fight. They were defenders, here to prevent violence, not cause it, were they not?

[i]'There is more than one form of violence,'[/i] the matriarch replied after careful thought. [i]'To strike another and inflict harm that way is only the most obvious form. Yet what if someone takes away another's food and poisons their water? The intent to harm is just as strong. What if someone forces another to inflict harm? The first person should be even more guilty than the second. These water djinn are causing serious harm to the Macchua, which we can no longer ignore.'[/i]

The debate carried on a little longer, although the wisdom in the matriarch's words won through. The five runic defenders, including the matriarch, were assembled, their route to Cataract's lair plotted, tactics discussed, then they mobilised, walking towards the water djinni's abode.

Finding Cataract's throne was an easy task without without one of the local Hain present to guide them. They simply followed the rapids over hills and through the dells. When they finally found the rugged craglands where the Ironhearts met with the lowlands, the Waterfall Palace was there. Through gaps in the treelines they could see the gigantic waterfall from miles away as it loomed over the twisting river. Even before it had been within their sight, the echoing roar of an entire river crashing down the cliffs could be heard.

When they at last arrived at the base of the waterfall they were greeted by a large plunge pool full of whitewater and rapids. The crenelaions of Cataract's palace were the talus: jagged, rocky outcropping jutted out from the cliffs and from within the pool at the waterfall's base. But it was hard to see any of this, for the waterfall's descent created a powerful mist that billowed forth and concealed almost all but the uppermost parts from sight.

The mist came out with such force that it would be hard for most mortals and their frail bodies to push through it and come so close to the waterfall's base, but the urtelem were heavy, determined, and not so easily scattered. So they arrived at the side of the plunge pool, standing right beside the rapids, and looked about. There was no sign of Cataract to be seen. Had he perhaps traveled down the river? Could he be attacking Kubec even now?

Such doubts would be quickly cast aside. Amidst the deafening roar of the waterfall, the discernible voice of some lesser elemental quipped out from somewhere within the rapids, [i]"Lord Cataract has been expecting you."[/i]

[center][img]http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/heroes-of-camelot/images/b/b2/Water_Elemental.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140209120839[/img]
[i]From a watery hole in the cliffside that was hidden behind the waterfall, a gigantic watery mass emerged.[/i][/center]

He was as colossal as the waterfall itself. With as much delicacy and calm as a mother stroking her sleeping child, he reached to the cascade's crest and brushed a watery finger against it. The mighty cascade then seemed to whimper in contented sleep, and in a few moments it had become nothing but a trickle. The roar of the waters quieted to a soft purr and the great clouds of mist dissipated that all could witness Cataract's splendor and hear his voice distinctly.

He spoke in the tongue of the gods, yet the syllables seemed to roll and bounce about wildly and not unlike how the river rushed down the rocky cliff of his waterfall. [b][color=PaleTurquoise]"Mockdjinn. You have drawn out my ire through your meddling with the tribe that I own."[/color][/b]

The crystal-covered urtelem shifted restlessly at Cataract's appearance. The matriarch signed a response. [i]'You have committed violence against the tribe which must cease.'[/i]

[b][color=PaleTurquoise]"Such arrogance...you will be made to know your place."[/color][/b]

Cataract waved a hand and from the damp earth beneath one of the urtelem there erupted an enormous geyser of water. The water surged upwards with enough force to throw even the heavy urtelem high into the air. As it came crashing back down, sinking partly into the ground with a crack and a thud, Cataract rumbled, [b][color=PaleTurquoise]"Things so frail are surely meant to be broken."[/color][/b]

The other urtelem wasted no time as the geyser erupted. With a simple gesture orbs of golden light formed in their hands, the crystals on their bodies sizzling, and then they hurled these etherial orbs at the towering water elemental. There was an explosion of magic when the projectiles struck the aquatic behemoth, and then there was a bloodcurdling howl that could only be described as...unnatural. No beings of flesh produced such sounds.

Great clouds of steam were blasted free from the djinni lord and he temporarily lost control over parts of the watery mass that he wore as a body. Nonetheless, in a few blinks of an eye he seemed to have recuperated. His form was noticeably different, though; whereas before it had been distinctly humanoid, now it had collapsed into more of a blob.

[i][color=PaleTurquoise]"What stolen power is this..?"[/color][/i]

The urtelem's coordinated attack had taken him by surprise. Never before had any mortal defeated an elemental lord, so in truth he had looked at those bothersome mockdjinn as little more than flies. But now he showed no restraint.

He reached with his mind to touch every bit of moisture in the damp soil below and every droplet of dew clinging to the rocks, grass, and even the urtelem's own bodies. With but a thought he demanded that all that water in his dominion come forth, and so in an instant it all [i]surged.[/i] Where before the urtelem pack had been standing upon solid enough earth, now there was a torrent of rain pelting their bodies and a riptide began voraciously pulling them into the plunge pool.

Yet even with the ground slipping beneath them, the urtelem retained their composure. With no less precision than before another volley of the golden orbs were thrown. Several failed to strike their mark as Cataract's liquid form contorted with unnatural speed to dodge the attacks, but more landed. With every blow that struck true, the water itself seemed to shudder.

The flow of water past the urtelem forced them to temporarily abandon their attack and root themselves into the earth. Most were able to find a sure enough foundation, but the soil around one of the urtelem eroded under the torrent, and that urtelem slipped into the plunge pool.

The urtelem that succumbed to the rush of water was fully submerged in an instant and surely dead; the sound of cracking stone was the only outward indication of the being's quick demise as Cataract forced water into every little crack of its body and into its innards before compressing it with enough force to cause the creature to simply shatter.

In that time the urtelem did manage to cast more of their spells. As the golden orbs continued to strike Cataract, his watery mass gradually began to shrink (even as he drank his surroundings and desperately tried to pull in more mass) and his grip over the water of his domain seemed to slowly weaken. But even as his grip weakened, the riptides somehow quickly grew stronger.

When Cataract had stopped the waterfall as he was first confronted by the matriarch, the lack of pressure had caused the river to slow and the water levels to recede at a noticeable rate. But now the river seemed to swell once more; the direction of its flow was reversed uphill, and not by Cataract's doing. Whether by the will of just that one hidden elemental that had first warned them of its master's appearance or perhaps by the doing of a dozen of Cataract's minions, the riverwater was beginning to join the rapids that were trying to uproot the urtelem.

The urtelem could only dig so deep in this soggy soil, so their footing would not hold indefinitely. But the matriarch, the most perceptive of the group, could feel that the water was not simply flowing but grasping and tugging. Inferring the presence of an elemental, she raised a fist, which glowed golden as the crystals on her back boiled, and brought it down into the water. A shockwave of golden magic blasted the point of impact and her fist was brought to a halt as if it had struck something solid. There was a great bubble of steam as her blow completely destroyed the lesser elemental's form, and within the crystal-clear water one could see the faint glow of a flicker retreating. The other urtelem lashed out similarly, beating away the rest of the lesser elementals. Even the urtelem who had been thrown in the air early, who had not been killed but just wounded with a shattered leg, flailed at the water with magically charged fists.

But Cataract was quick to capitalize upon the distraction that his minions had provided. His hulking form had sank into the water of the plunge pool only to explode back onto the surface as a colossal wave. Where before the riptides coming from behind the urtelem had been pulling them, now they were being battered in the opposite direction by tons of water. For them to lose their footing and be dislodged meant doom, so Cataract's rushing waters assailed the stonemen with frenzied furor.

The urtelem had but a moment to react to the incoming wave. Most, including the matriarch, curled over and dug deeper into the soil, anchoring themselves more firmly and providing a smaller profile to the blast of water. One, however, charged up a fist with the power of the Winds, its magical crystals boiling ever smaller, and met Cataract head on, punching the wave. There was an explosion of light and steam, but Cataract had mass to spare and the wave pushed that urtelem backwards and off its feet.

The elemental lord rolled over the one that had tried to meet his charge. With the weight of an entire river at his back, he washed over the urtelem and battered them down. While that one fell backwards and struggled beneath the water, the others were still  flailing about and preoccupied with the writhing lesser djinn. That left their matriarch in a vulnerable position.

Even as the urtelem clung to the ground, what had been dry and solid was instantly turned into a muddy ooze that offered them little grip. Cataract's surge continued for some ways, pushing further inland and slamming into the nearby treeline. He took a few moments to gather himself, then seeped into the ground itself. Attuned to the earth as they were, the urtelem sensed his motion and had some warning. That knowledge of his impending strike still did them little good when Cataract's massive form erupted from the mud below as an explosive geyser. Even the urtelem's heavy bodies were knocked back, and in the moment of confusion that he had bought, Cataract's watery grasp found the matriarch and he began to rip her away from the ground and pull her into the plunge pool.

Yet the matriarch was not going to be pulled away without a fight. Her fists were sheathed in golden light as she swung them at the water wrapped around her, the water bubbling into steam as the magic seared against Cataract's form.

And in a strange reversal of roles, Cataract knew then what the cliffs felt as his waters slowly eroded them away. But he weathered through the pain and began to drag her away. Not content with simply returning to his place amidst the plunge pool, he was making his way to the watery abyss of that dark cave behind the waterfall.

The other urtelem saw that their matriarch had been picked up by Cataract, and that he was receding. They hurled orbs of light at Cataract, trying to weaken the water elemental and make him drop their leader.

Cataract was quick to take the struggle with the matriarch to underneath the water's surface, out of the urtelem's sight and where the pool itself would offer a buffer between himself and their magic. With Cataract having retreated to the relative safety of his pool, the urtelem on the surface could do little but watch and wait. The matriarch struggled harder against Cataract's grasp, the Script written on her glowing golden and steam bubbling from around her arms, trying if she could to reach the stone walls or floor of the pool.

[b][color=PaleTurquoise]"When will you break, mockdjinn?"[/color][/b]

A watery hand clutched at the crystallized magic on the matriarch's body, and then the djinni lord...began trying to absorb it. [b][color=PaleTurquoise]"You will return the godly power that you have stolen, and then you shall suffer."[/color][/b]

The crystals, or what remained of them, started to dissolve under Cataract's grasp, the power of the Winds contained within being absorbed by the djinni. Suspended in the water and unable to break her oponent's grasp with her power being sapped, the matriarch was running out of options. If Cataract could grab all her magical energy, she would be helpless.

So the matriarch began channelling the energy of the crystals into an orb of golden light, racing Cataract to consume energy faster than he could absorb it. The orb held between her hands grew in intensity, and the crystals on her body boiled all over. The pain of the crystals shrinking so rapidly was severe, and the spell she was casting had not been designed to hold so much energy, yet desperation was a powerful motivator.

Their efforts worked in tandem to release the energy trapped within the crystals, but then began a battle as Cataract pulled at the energy with all his might to drink it in, whilst his foe struggled in an attempt to bring that same power to bear against the one who devoured it. In the end they both lost control over the energetic Wind of Change, and the great surge of catalytic, raw magic was released with neither form nor shape. It created a violent explosion.

Though the water shielded them from some of the kinetic force, the heat still instantly created a giant steam bubble. The walls of the underwater cave shook and the huge burst of steam was visible even on the surface above.

The three urtelem on the surface flinched back from the eruption of steam and water. Then everything was quiet. After a few moments, the two urtelem who could walk cautiously approached the pool, wary of an ambush but suspecting the explosion to have killed both Cataract and their matriarch.

Yet above them was an alarming sight: at the very beginning of their encounter Cataphract had stymied the flow of his waterfall and as such the water level had been rising in the river atop the cliffs. Over the past few minutes it had grown into a precariously large wall of water that simply defied gravity and acted as if it had been dammed off by some unseen force. Perhaps that had been the final card up Cataphract's sleeve, ready to be unleashed in one great downpour if he found himself needing to make an escape.

In any case, whether by Cataphract finally and consciously willing it to come down or by his defeat and inability to restrain it any longer, the water quickly swept downwards and into the plunge pool. The waterfall grew to ten times it normal size, and as the river crashed down it surged forwards to flood the area.

The water washed over the urtelem and they tumbled backwards. Yet the surge soon passed and the river resumed its normal flow. The urtelem walked back to the plunge pool and looked in, yet there was no sign of either Cataract or the matriarch. They could only presume that the matriarch was dead and Cataract was either dead or greatly weakened, and in the bottom of the pool glowed the remains of the urtelem which Cataract had killed earlier, illuminated by the crystals still on its body.

With this bittersweet victory looming over them the surviving runic defenders headed back to their herd and reported what had happened. The herd mourned the losses of that battle. Yet they had also succeeded, despite the cost. The surge of water from before had been felt down the entire river, and had washed away the algal bloom that had been planted by Kubec. With Cataract's minions scattered, the fish also returned to Kubec, and the seige was lifted.

As in for the Machhua, an air of disbelief surrounded the whole ordeal. There were those that were even more terrified for the supposed victory, prophetizing that Cataract would return by the passing of ten days or that another one of the local djinni lords would claim ownership of their tribe now. But as time passed, they were proven wrong on both predictions. The scent of flowers upon the wind smelled all the sweeter now that their land was truly theirs and they were no longer renting from a tyrant it at the cost of their blood and toil. In time, the Machhua began to refer to Kubec when they spoke of their [i]homeland[/i]; before the word had meant those distant shores from which their ancestors had travelled.

The urtelem inscribed the tale of the battle into their Spiral Script, such that the memory may continue and the story be told to future generations and travelling herds. And while Cataract had been defeated, the urtelem always kept watch and were prepared, lest Cataract return for vengeance or some other elemental try to take his place. The story and knowledge spread among the urtelem, spread by the Distant Dance and the mingling of migrating herds, such that all urtelem would come to learn this solution to the Djinn Enigma.

In the deepest depths of the watery abyss behind the waterfall, Cataract seethed. The explosion had caused a part of the tunnel to collapse and now his waterfall palace had become a prison.

He had finally overpowered the matriarch, but the damage had been dealt and in the battle his body had been reduced to nearly nothing. As a disembodied Flicker, he was a singer without a voice, a dancer without feet. He would be powerless and entombed for many years before he could reconstitute a form as great as before, and then it might be some more time before he would be able to break free. But a djinni lord had nothing but time, and Cataract was patient. He woud wait patiently, and he would remember.

[center]~-====-~[/center]
[center][b]The Ogre Conundrum[/b][/center]

With the towering Ironhearts to the east, the holy Valley of Peace to the north east, and the deadlands left by the crystal trees, smothered by lava, to the west, this region of Galbar was generally quite peaceful. Urtelem herds travelled through this region regularly, as part of a trade route between the productive Amestrian city states to the south and the lands in the northern parts of Galbar. This heightened presence of urtelem further helped to calm any hostilities which might develop in the region.

Yet something was coming which threatened to break this peace. For on the far side of the Ironhearts lived the ogres. Ogres were stronger and tougher than almost everything else living nearby, and were rampantly militaristic. And their immortal king Ommok had an insatiable curiosity for what lived in the world beyond his borders.

As such, Ommok had sent a band of raiders, led by one of the ogre shamans, across the Ironhearts in search of new treasures. For while Ommok had travelled extensively to the west in times past, he had never travelled eastwards, so there could still be artefacts of great power to be found in that part of the world.

This band of looters made their way through a pass in the Ironhearts, pillaging any and every village which stood in their path. These villages which had never seen war before were completely unprepared for the overwhelming might of even this relatively small band of ogres. The urtelem who lived there also struggled in battle against the ogres, for the ogres were stronger, larger and better armed. Allowed to enter the lands beyond the foothills, this band of ogres would lay waste to many villages as they marched.

Yet words of warning came by a method faster than any fleet-footed messenger or carrier pigeon. The Distant Dance through which all Sculptors across Galbar communicated allowed for virtually instantaneous transmission of information. Usually this information was either pointless banter or discussions about various artforms, ranging from painting to alchemy, but sometimes it included requests for physical aid, arranging meetings or spreading news. And a Sculptor who had witnessed the advance of the ogres through the pass sent word into the Distant Dance, and this word was heard by Sculptors living beyond the pass, who in turn informed the urtelem they lived among. And urtelem, as always when presented with a new riddle, attempted to construct a solution.

Urtelem knew a few things about ogres, for their kind had tried fighting against ogres in the past. Ogres were strong, relatively well organised, and some even commanded elementals. A brute force approach would be ineffective against the ogres, so a more varied strategy would be necessary to battle the ogres.

It was determined that the best location to make a stand against the ogres was near the hain village of Guarachachi, which was located at the exit of the pass, for the ogres would definitely have to pass through Guarachachi to reach the rest of the region. The path of the ogres would still be confined to the valley from which the local river flowed, so their approach would be fairly predictable.

It would take the ogres just a few days to reach Guarachachi, so time was short. A small herd lived within the valley and could begin preparations immediately. Another small herd would be able to reach the village before the ogres were expected to arrive, although too late to help with most of the preparations. Their low numbers notwithstanding, the herd started applying their knowledge to rapidly construct some defences.

[hr]

The summer heat was brutal.

Dargok raised a brawny hand to wipe the sweat from his brow, then snorted. "We gonna stop right here," he suddenly declared. His unit was happy to oblige; the other ogres found their way to the shade beneath a cliff overhead and then sat down.

The two dozen warriors escorting Dargok began to eat snacks and engage in conversation with one another about all matter of mundane topics, probably ranging from the best way to smash things with a club to the best way to crush things with a club.

A few of them watched Dargok with bored disinterest as the shaman closed his eyes and did some magic things. After looking really dumb and concentrating for a few seconds, he summoned one of the little djinn bound to him. Those djinn had a tendency to wander unless he kept them on a short leash and controlled them throughout the entire day.

Once the djinni manifested, Dargok began bossing it around. They couldn't tell what he was saying since the commands were given in a mixture of some indiscernable gibberish language and telepathy, but they could still tell that he was bossin' it somehow. Dargok was usually bossy like that.

Its orders received, the elemental scurried off ahead of the ogre warband. Its task was to scout the mountain pass ahead; never before had a band of ogres crossed this part of the Ironhearts, and in truth Dargok had not even the slightest clue of what was ahead or where they had to go to follow the shoddy trail through the mountain pass.

The ogres had not even the slightest clue that the locals knew of their presence and that even then there were herds of urtelem preparing to repel their advance. As such the tiny earth djinni didn't make much of an attempt to hide itself or find enemies; it was trying to find where the trail led, not spot an ambush. But there was still a good chance that it would see the urtelem, and unless they somehow noticed the djinni and immediately attacked, Dargok would soon hear word of the urtelem's plans.

The trail soon joined a river, which flowed along the bottom of a valley. The valley slowly descended, and the jagged mountains on either side slowly receded in height. Along the trail was evidence of use by travellers, with the occasional wooden shelter and empty fire pit. Before the valley ended, though, the scouting elemental came across a most unusual scene.

It saw urtelem making many strange markings in their peculiar script on the ground, forming intricate circular patterns on the ground. Even a hain sculptor was present, marking the ground in the same patterns as the urtelem with pointed porcelain limbs. The djinni kept its distance from the working urtelem, and the urtelem took little notice of the djinni for they sensed no malice in it. Yet as it wandered onwards it stopped suddenly as it realised an accumulation of some... familiar energy in front of it. The small djinni looked carefully, and realised that a patch of dirt and leaves in front of it was actually covering the ground underneath, and it was large enough to conceal one of those runic circles being drawn elsewhere. However, the djinni did not interfere with the patch of ground, for fear of inadvertently unleashing the latent energy stored within.

Moving around the patch of energy, the little djinni saw more strange sights ahead. The urtelem had written more of their script across the ground, spanning the width of the valley in two particularly narrow locations. Flowing through these markings the djinni could feel more of the familiar energy, but that was only half of it. Between the markings the earth itself was shifting, slowly rising from the ground into two earthen walls. Behind the walls the urtelem were writing more of their Script.

And among the urtelem were a few special urtelem. These urtelem were covered in similar markings to those being made on the ground, and gold-coloured crystals were growing from them. Even from a distance, the djinni could sense that they contained more of this familiar energy.

The little earth elemental decided that it had lingered long enough. Before the urtelem could grow too wary of its presence, the djinni turned and left, heading back up the trail to report to Dargok.

[hr]

Some time had passed by the time that the elemental returned, and the ogres had been making good progress trekking down the path. It was in the early hours of the morning that the djinni warned Dargok of what awaited them ahead. If they marched on at the pace they had been going, they could reach the urtelem herd by midday.

"Only one way through this dumb land," Dargok grunted, "but there's a buncha stonies in our way. A heen too, one of the funny ones touched by Juk Fonk. They're doin' magic stuff all over the ground."

"Better knock their heads in 'fore they mess up the ground real good!" one of the other ogres suggested.

"Maybe they know we here?" mused another one.

"Doesn't matter! We knock the knowin' outta their heads!" the first one quipped back.

Dargok had other plans. "Not gonna just walk down that path 'til we get there, then run in and smash them all. That's what they fink we gonna do. No, walk a li'l bit farther. Then we make camp an' get some rest. We wait 'til dark then sneak in and knock 'em over the head while they sleep!"

Slothfulness was a force strong enough to overcome even the ogres' aggression, so without much objection they kept to the shade and followed their leader's plan. Along the sides of the cliff were a few small recesses in the stone wall, so most of the ogres they clambered out of sight in those tiny holes and caves before sleeping.

Dargok meditated, but he did not sleep. Through telepathy he controlled a few djinni minions, watching through their eyes as they scurried about in the open sun. The shaman reasoned that if the urtelem knew that ogres were coming and were expecting them to arrive later that day, they might come out looking to see where the ogres had gone. If they did come looking, Dargok wanted to see them first.

The urtelem had indeed calculated, from what sparse data they had on the ogres' advance, that the ogres should have arrived some time that day, so when the ogres failed to appear the urtelem became somewhat anxious. Had the ogres found another way out, even though doing that would have involved serious mountain climbing? Had the ogres been repelled by some unknown force, or decided to turn back of their own volition? Perhaps the ogres had been delayed for some reason. Or maybe the calculations overestimated the travel rate of a warband of ogres.

Regardless of the reason, the urtelem, including the herd which had arrived as reinforcements, would wait a while longer. The ogres could arrive at any time now, so they kept a keen watch, even as night fell.

[hr]

"Sneaky, sneaky," Dargok reminded his warriors. "Sneaky, sneaky," he whispered as they advanced forwards and kept to the shadows as much as they could. This was a rather dark night, but the many moons still reflected enough light to see the path ahead. That was good. Dargok was still wary of what his scout had seen, and he wasn't very keen on stumbling blindly into a trap.

So they advanced rather slowly, low to the ground, and in single file. More sneaky that way anyways.

At the head of the column was Dargok, two little bound stonedjinn at his side. This caution served the ogres well. The stonedjinn, with their sensitivity to the Winds harnessed by the urtelem, were capable of detecting the hidden traps even in the darkness. At their slow pace, the stonedjinn guided Dargok around buried magic circles, and the ogres behind him took care to follow in Dargok's footsteps.

The column of ogres slowly snaked forwards, having avoided the traps so far. But, still distant from the walls, cover ran scarce. The watchful eyes of an urtelem perched on the wall spotted the ogres. It stood up and beat its stone arms against its chest, creating loud clacking noises and raising the alarm. By the walls and elsewhere sleeping urtelem unfurled and stood, alerted to the coming danger.

"Da Stonies see us," Dargok grunted in surprise. Some of the ogres behind him began to panic, whereas others now wanted to stop sneaking about and make some mad charge.

Dargok thought for a moment and then made his choice. "Keep goin' up to that wall! When you get there knock the Stonies on the head!"

The ogres continued to follow Dargok's two djinn as they snaked through the minefield of magical traps, but the going was faster now that they weren't so concerned with being spotted. Dargok had broken off from the group.

With a deep breath, he channeled some of the magic within his soul and empowered the muscles in his legs. With supernatural speed he ran a good ways off from the other ogres. Along the way he triggered no less than two or three of the runic traps, but the combination of the shaman's speed and his own ability to defend against hostile magic left him unharmed.

The quick series of magic explosions and lightning arcs alerted the urtelem watchers to Dargok's location. As they watched, he conjured a great fireball and then sent it hurtling at the wall. Then another. And another. The wall and urtelem were unharmed by the fire, since they weren't flammable, but it attracted their attention. Dargok then turned to where he sensed a nearby trap. He raised both hands above his head and ripped the magic out of the buried runes.

Tapping into the cloud of magic that he had created above his head, Dargok began to create a small inferno about himself and began chanting incomprehensible words in some magical tongue. A glowing Flicker shot across the sky as it was summoned to Dargok. The shaman was trying to bind a fire elemental.

Meanwhile, by the walls, the urtelem had moved themselves into battle positions. Against the dark sky three runic defenders could clearly be seen, the golden crystals on their bodies faintly glowing. But more were up on the walls, and they surveyed the battlefield and relayed messages to urtelem behind the walls via hand signs.

Behind the walls were more magical runes on the ground, but these were quite different to the exploding runes. Part of a polar grid was laid out upon the ground, with a web of Script connecting each grid square to a Winds accumulator, which was glowing faintly. A team of urtelem was associated with each of these spells. One urtelem stood upon the wall, relaying positions to the urtelem below. One urtelem took a heavy rock and placed it on one of the grid squares. A third urtelem collected these rocks and brought them to the other urtelem. And a final urtelem stood behind the spell, poised by a palm-sized Script circle which would trigger the spell.

Dargok's pyrotechnic display painted him as a prime target. It took mere moments for the spotters to relay his exact position and bearing to their teams, and for the team to load the rocks into the correct grid squares, then for the rear urtelem to trigger the spell. There was a loud [i]thwump[/i] and the rocks were each thrown by magic. Three large rocks flew through the air in a parabolic arch, heading straight for Dargok.

The other ogres did not go unnoticed, though, especially with Dargok's flames illuminating the battlefield. One of the runic defenders spotted the column being led by the stonedjinn through the minefield. She conjured a ball of golden energy in her right hand and threw it at one of the stonedjinni. Unaware of the incoming attack, the orb struck the djinni squarely and travelled right through it, and its stony form crumbled as its Flicker was torn from its body.

The other stonedjinni, alerted by the destruction of its ally, lept aside from the path of a second orb of golden energy. It strafed a third orb, but by then another runic defender had noticed the stonedjinn and threw an orb from her position, at an angle not anticipated by the stonedjinni, and the second little elemental was also destroyed.

The battleground was illuminated at a steadily increasing intensity of orange light as Dargok willed the Flicker into the writhing mass of fire and quickly helped to shape the monstrous djinni. He was not so engrossed in his work that he failed to notice the three boulders hurtling right towards him. With the same magically augmented speed that he had used to distance himself from the other ogres, he sidestepped the incoming projectiles without even breaking concentration upon his spell.

The sudden disembodiment of his two stonedjinn minions was somewhat jarring as he had shared a telepathic bond with them. In any case, now that they were useless to him he severed the mental link with their Flickers and then was free to focus the entirety of his mind on subduing the fire elemental before him. His magic had accelerated the thing's growth to a million times what was natural; what should have been a nascent spiryt the size of a coal ember was a raging inferno, yet it still had only the control and intelligence of the most insignificant of djinn. It was a raging, feral, uncontrollable thing that would incinerate everything in sight without even comprehending what it did.

It was perfect for Dargok's needs.

The sorcerer took direct control of the flamedjinn for a few moments. It extended an arm back as if throwing something, but when the arm flew forward it broke free from the djinni's body and flew towards the wall as a mass of writhing fire. Though there was nothing there but urtelem, dirt, and stone, this fire was fueled by the djinni's own magical essence and so it flared and swelled as if it was feasting upon an entire forest. Where the rest of the djinni's body had been next to Dargok, the fires suddenly became mundane and quickly died down due to a lack of fuel.

The blaze upon the urtelem's wall suddenly coalesced into a vaguely humanoid shape; in the span of two seconds, the djinni had relocated to the top of the wall. It reached for the nearest defender with burning hands, and when it grabbed the mockdjinn it exuded enough heat to make the unfortunate creature's stony body crack and melt.

Right below the wall, the ogres suddenly found themselves without any guides to lead them through the field of magical traps, but it now mattered little. In the time that it had taken for the urtelem to answer the alarm and mount a defense, the ogres had been able to nearly reach the wall. Now they just charged forward blindly. The ogre in the front of their single file line trampld right over one of the runic traps and lightning burst forth from the ground. It was enough to fell even a creature as bulky as him, and he instantly fell to the ground smoking. If that didn't killl him, being trampled by the twenty-some ogres that had been behind him probably was enough to finish the job. 

There was another magical trap in the way, but when the ogre in front stepped on it and triggered the lightning, he didn't even break his pace. The lightning seemed as repelled from him as oil was from water. Amongst the ogres this one was what they called a spellbreaker; since the time of their creation near Astarte's stone, some of them had always been born with an innate resistance to magic.

At the wall, the ogres spread out to try and climb it. No more than four metres tall at any point and made of rough, compacted earth, the ogres simply jumped up and tried to haul themselves over the ledge. Yet the defenders would not let them scale the wall so easily. As one ogre climbed the wall, a stone fist emerged from the wall itself and punched him in the face. A follow-up punch to the sternum sent the ogre toppling backwards.

This scene was repeated across the walls. Many of the urtelem had entered the earth wall itself and were now striking at the ogres who attempted to climb the wall.

This tactic alone was not enough to prevent some of the ogres from climbing the wall. Yet there were more defences. The rock-throwing teams had shrunk slightly, with the spotters diving into the walls to join the fighting, but a spotter was not necessary when the target was in plain view. As the first ogre to scale the wall hauled himself above the ledge, the rock-throwers quickly placed a rock in the spell, aimed towards that ogre, and triggered the spell. The rock was launched forwards and struck the ogre, still yet to get his feet on top of the wall. There was a crack of shattering bone, and the ogre was thrown backwards as the rock's momentum was absorbed by his flesh. The other two rock-throwing teams worked similarly, shooting ogres as they climbed over the wall.

Meanwhile, the newly conjured flame elemental had drawn the full attention of the runic defenders. Orbs of golden energy were thrown at the elemental, and the runic defenders moved to get closer to the elemental. Each strike quenched some of the fire which constituted part of the djinni's body.

Dargok released his grip upon the firedjinni and allowed the feral thing to wreak havoc on its own. It tossed aside the cracked and half molten remains of the first urtelem that it had grabbed, then charged the nearest of the runic defender. Embers flew everywhere, and save for the three runic defenders with their magic, the other hapless urtelem could do nothing as the djinni of fire rampaged through their ranks and passed over them as a wall of unbearable heat.

The runic defenders did not flinch from the firedjinni's charge, but met it with their own magic, each blow quenching some of the flames. When the firedjinni attempted to engulf one runic defender, the urtelem lashed back with a fistfull of her magic, beating back the elemental.

Never before had the sorcerer heard of stonies using magic of their own, but he was able to pinpoint the runic defenders quickly enough even in the darkness of night and as they stood upon the distant rampart. They were the only ones that could hope to counter his magic, and they were currently occupied with a raging elemental. With a chuckle, Dargok summoned a thousand Flickers. Into pebbles they burrowed, into little flames broken away from the greater djinni they were swallowed, and by the eddies of wind they were swept up. They were all weak, almost insignificant things on their own. But together they formed a swarm that could easily overtake an urtelem. Dargok unleashed them upon the wall, and like a mass of writhing insects they swept across the ground to clamber up the walls, or otherwise flew unimpeded, and all made a beeline straight for the runic defenders.

Against the single fire elemental the runic defenders had been faring reasonably. The swarm of lesser djinn, however, added an extra degree of difficulty. As the swarms approached the urtelem, the runic defenders charged their right arms with the golden energy and swiped at the swarm, the tiny elementals dissolving on contact. But their attention was split between the greater firedjinni and the many lesser djinn, alternating desperate swipes at the encroaching swarm with punches at the enraged fire elemental.

In an impressive feat of concentration and magical prowess, Dargok began to channel another spell even as he continued to direct the hordes of djinn bound to his will. A large cloud of magic manifested above him once more and ominously cackled with power as he charged it.

Meanwhile, with the cannons firing rocks into any ogre who clambered onto the ramparts, a change of strategy was in order. Using their axes and mauls as crude hooks, the ogres reached up and tried to grab at the bodies of the urtelem above or inside of the wall and pull them out to be quickly disposed of. Though the ogres were outnumbered, at the wall's base they were under cover from the magical cannons and past the minefield of magical traps, so here they were able to take advantage of their brute force.

The ogres were able to grab onto and yank about three urtelem from the wall, which were quickly dispatched, before the urtelem realised that the ogres were no longer attempting the risky climb up the wall and drew back out of the ogres' reach. Aside from the ongoing struggle between the runic defenders and elementals, and whatever spell Dargok was preparing, the two forces were now in a stand-off, both unable to strike the other without putting themselves at risk.

The urtelem had one more ally. The hain Sculptor, who had first communicated the threat and had helped in setting up the spells. He was a quadruped with skittery legs and two arms with a large porcelain spike each, and as with almost all Sculptors he commanded a swarm of Needle Fae. He had been keeping his distance at the beginning, to avoid accidentally draining the spells with his fae or getting in the way of the other urtelem, but now with the magical cannons on standby the Sculptor lept towards the front wall with his own swarm.

The runic defenders were still having a difficult time fighting both the larger fire djinni and the swarm of lesser djinn. The swarm had managed to cripple one of the legs of the runic defender, and she was doing all she could to avoid being completely overrun. And the Script on another runic defender had been partially erased by a powerful blast of heat from the firedjinni, such that she could no longer coalesce the golden energy into a throwable orb.

One moment the three urtelem were baking in the heat of the elemental's inferno. The next moment the heat stopped and was replaced by a cold chill, for the Sculptor had interposed his swarm of needle fae between the runic defenders and the firedjinni. A moment later and the Sculptor himself was standing amongst the runic defenders, with the remainder of his fae swarm dancing about them.

With the fae in close proximity to the runic defenders, their spellcasting was supressed. But the effect worked both ways, for the ability of the fae to drain ambient energy caused many of the weakest djinn of air and fire to simply be snuffed out, and forced the rest away. The little stonedjinn, while not affected by the fae, could still be swatted away by the urtelems' regular fists. The larger firedjinni was similarly kept at bay, unable to enter the swarm of needle fae.

The three runic defenders quickly hand-signed their gratitude to the Sculptor as they regained their composure. But in this moment of respite, they noticed the ominous cloud of magic which Dargok was conjuring. They did not know what exactly he was doing, but they could guess that it was not good for them. One of the runic defenders thumped her chest to gain the attention of the other urtelem and signed Dargok's position to the rock-thrower teams below. The teams quickly loaded up the spells to fire at Dargok.

The sorcerer did not move. Telekinetic nudging allowed Dargok to manipulate the paths of the boulders in flight, and then despite the urtelem's meticulous calculations each boulder missed its target.

The sorcerer raised his hands and ripped the power out of three of the nearby buried runes, adding it to the great cloud of magic that he had conjured. Then he began shaping it into some sort of ominous spell.

The urtelem had one warning: the ogres at the foot of their wall were suddenly swept up by some unseen force and hurled flat to the ground against the side of the narrow ravine where the wall met with the cliffs. Two of the ogres were left standing dumbly, for they were spellbreakers. But then they realized that it was Dargok that was moving the others, and even their primitive minds understood why. They dove for cover near the other ogres, and not a moment too late.

Dargok shaped the magic into a battering ram and then propelled it all at once. It crashed into the middle of the wall with explosive force and breached through the wall, sending tonnes of earth flying. The urtelem had similarly dived for cover on noticing the ogres and anticipating the incoming blast, many burrowing deeper into the ground, although two did not get far away enough in time and were blasted apart just as the wall had been. The area behind the wall for some distance was showered by rubble and dirt. The only place completely unaffected by the explosion was inside the needle fae swarm, where the Sculptor and the three runic defenders were sheltered from the shockwave by the energy dissipating fae.

From afar, the sorcerer's beady eyes witnessed the result of his work. There was chaos upon the walls as the djinn were blasted apart and scattered like chaff; no longer able to target the runic defenders because of the Needle Fae, the elementals began turning on one another and on every urtelem in sight. The ogres at the base of the wall began to rise back up again and regain their bearings; even though it hadn't been targeted at them, the concussive force of the explosion had still rattled them.

While they recovered, Dargok began his own advance towards the breach. More rocks were fired at the shaman as he approached, but this time his concentration was not split between multiple feats of magic and he was able to show the stonies the sheer futility of such efforts. With a hand held above his head, he had conjured a barrier of magic. Though it was not visible to the eye, right before the boulers should have collided with the ogre they burst into a thousand fragments or bounced away as if they had impacted an unbreakable wall of steel. Not even the fragmented pebbles fell upon Dargok; unable to get through the barrier, they remained unnaturally suspended in the air.

With the wall breached, the ogres would soon be charging through. The magical rock-throwers could not aim at ground level or to the side, and Dargok was countering any efforts to shoot him, so the crews abandoned the spells to join the other defenders at the breach.

The elementals were still rampant, so the runic defenders needed to take action. There was a very rapid exchange of hand signs between the runic defenders and the Sculptor. The runic defender with the malfunctioning Script rolled off to join the other urtelem, while the two remaining runic defenders and the Sculptor turned their attention to the elementals.

The urtelem threw orbs of golden magic at the larger firedjinni, drawing its attention. Meanwhile, the Sculptor and his fae swarm swept among the ranks of the urtelem, pushing away the scattered swarm of little djinn. The firedjinni was quick to return to fighting the two runic defenders. While the crystals on the runic defenders were quickly shrinking, the firedjinni was also weakened from the battle, so was not able to gain the upper hand. When the Sculptor returned and flanked the firedjinni with his fae swarm, the firedjinni was forced backwards towards the breach where the ogres were approaching.

With suicidal abandon, the nearly mindless djinni of flame had flung itself at the Needle Fae, but their power repelled it still. By this time it took notice of the ogres. Ally or enemy, it didn't care...its intelligence was such that those notions were incomprehensible, and its only desire was to incinerate everything. So it turned like a maddened bull and charged towards the ogres. Fortunately Dargok was near enough to stop its rampage before it began. The rogue firedjinni had expended its usefulness, so while he could have tried to bind it once more the shaman instead subdued the elemental and tugged at the magic fueling its fires. The mighty blaze quickly shrank and was reduced to more of an ember, and then Dargok cast it aside.

By then he was practically upon the shattered rampart. With his magic he probed the ground for any urtelem still hiding within the wall, and those that he sensed quickly found themselves under the grip of a telekinetic force that was dragging them out into the open.

Behind the breach the urtelem rolled into position. Those pulled from the earth by Dargok conceded to being above-ground and fell back to the other urtelem. Altogether there were 21 urtelem there, not including the three runic defenders, one of which couldn't walk, plus the Sculptor with his fae.

Dargok leaped into the breach with a ferocious bellow. The warcries of his twenty remaining bodyguards echoed back, and then they rallied to him and stormed over the broken rampart. The line of ogres charged the urtelem as fast as they could. Capable of barreling forwards at a surprising speed considering their bulk, the ogre warriors slammed into the urtelem and then the bloodbath began. Among the ogres were all manner of crude and savage weapons; stone mauls, clubs, and axes were the most common arms, but the occasional warrior carried a metal weapon that had no doubt been looted off the corpse of some past enemy.

The fighting between the ogres and the urtelem was ferocious. Although ogres tended to be stronger than urtelem, a fist of stone backed by ten tonnes of rock is still a formidable weapon. Although, in a fair fight, the urtelem were outmatched.

But the urtelem still had one trick left. An ogre charged the nearest runic defender. The crystals steamed as the runic defender drew back her left fist, and when the ogre came close she punched. On impact, magic amplified the force of the blow many times, such that rather than hitting with the force of a regular punch it was as though the ogre had been hit by one of the magical cannons. There was a spray of blood as flesh ruptured and the ogre fell backwards.

The two runic defenders who could stand stood in the breach, fighting ogres with the force-spell in their left arms, and were flanked by the other urtelem who prevented them from being overwhelmed by the charging ogres.

Dargok had his own magic, but he was not allowed to tear through the urtelem unhindered, for he suddenly found himself surrounded by a swarm of needle fae. Though the blades of the needle fae did nothing against his thick hide, their presence sapped warmth from his surroundings and partially suppressed his magic. The hain Sculptor stood on the wall beside the breach, looking down at the ogres.

In their initial charge they had almost instantly battered down several of the urtelem, but they ogres too had taken losses at the hands of runic dfenders. Still, the ogres in the back pushed forwards and forced those in the front to advance, so the fighting continued for several moments.

It broke when Dargok, who stood shoulder to shoulder with the others in the front, suddenly found himself assailed by the strange insectoids. He began to back up, and upon seeing their leader do so the other ogres did likewise. In a panic they pushed back with enough force to create some space and disengage if only for a moment, and then they joined Dargok in wildly thrashing their weapons in the air to attack the bladed Needle Fae.

Seizing advantage of the opening and distraction, the urtelem pressed forwards, assailing the ogres with blows both magical and mundane.

The insects broke Dargok's concentration and sapped away at his magically enhanced strength. With each fae that was swatted down, Dargok regained some of his power, but he was still crippled. As the urtelem pressed forwards, Dargok found himself trying to stave off the fists of the runic defenders even as the remaining fae continued to harass him. He was visibly struggling.

Fortunately, not all of his bodyguards were fools. Two of them quickly realized that it must be the strange Sculptor looming above that commanded the magical insects, and then they reasoned that killing it would enable Dargok to use his magic once more and easily win this fight.

So there was nothing to think about; those two ogres quickly jumped up to grab at the ledge and pull themselves onto the top of the wall. It was much easier to climb the wall now that they were standing upon a ramp of rubble created by Dargok's explosive magic. While their fellows continued the frenzied fight against the urtelem below, those two charged at the sculptor.

Faced with opponents far stronger than himself, the Sculptor did what anyone with a self-preservation instinct would do: ran away to stay out of reach of the charging ogres. This he could manage, because he was quite fast on his four legs. However, his attention was now split, and the fae swarm, already thinned by the flailing of the ogres, began to disperse.

So focused on their target were they that the two ogres failed to even notice the fae scattering, so with a monstrous roar they took up the chase. As in for Dargok, in the very instant that he felt his power return he conjured a barrier just like the one that had used to deflect the rocks fired from the magical artillery. He shoved it forwards and slammed the invisible shield into the faces of the runic defenders in such a way that they couldn't extend their arms far enough to punch with full force. And then he poured his energy into the barrier, anticipating that their magical strikes might otherwise break through. And he leaned forward with all his weight, intending to take them by surprise and force them onto the ground.

The barrier was a surprise to the urtelem, and combined with the added torque from Dargok's height the ogre sorcerer was able to topple the two urtelem. However, they did not stay in a vulnerable prone position, but instead sunk into the ground, curled up and rolled backwards, burrowing beneath the ranks of other urtelem.

Dargok could only spit and mentally curse his foes' cowardice when they retreated into the earth. Fortunately there was no shortage of enemies, so the sorcerer allowed his barrier to dissipate and then swung at the next urtelem with a magically empowered fist. The runic defenders were not the only ones that could deal death with one blow; Dargok's Astartian magic allowed him to punch with enough force to shatter stone.

Meanwhile, the Sculptor was still fleeing from his two pursuers. With his superior speed, he kept just out of reach of the two ogres, hurling insults and snide quips while he regrouped the remains of his needle fae swarm. "You call yourselves warriors, yet you're outrun by one guy! Your mothers must be slugs for you to be so slow." Running out of space to run, the Sculptor bounded up the side of the cliff where it met the rear wall and landed on the top of that wall. He backed away out of reach of the ogres and took a moment to survey the battlefield.

The fight was all in the breach. Bodies, both shattered urtelem and maimed ogres, were piling up on the rubble-strewn ground. With Dargok's magic, the ogres were pressing forwards, the urtelem forced backing away and scattering into the earth walls beside the breach under Dargok's indomitable strength. The tide of battle was rising against the urtelem, and they had run out of trump cards.

When the two ogres arrived panting at the base of the next wall, one of the ogres gave up on the chase. "Too fast, 'e's too fast," the brute wheezed out, then turned to watch the onging battle. "But we could go bash 'em stonies from behind!"

"No, we gots to chase this one away for Dargok," the other one stubbornly grunted.

The argument devolved into a quick and heated shoving match, but then the fight broke up just as quickly as it had started. The two reluctantly parted, with one picking up large stones to throw at the sculptor and the other running back to the fray at a brisk pace.

The Sculptor skittered further down the wall to put some distance between himself and the rock-throwing ogre, evading the large stones. He stayed for a moment longer as he saw one urtelem not occupied by the fighting, the one runic defender with the crippled leg. The Sculptor hand-signed, [i]'There is little more I can do in this battle. I shall ensure your story is sung.'[/i]

A rock, otherwise well aimed, then struck one of the needle fae surrounding the Sculptor, coming to a halt and squashing the fae mid-air. Not sticking around any longer, the Sculptor signed farewell then turned and ran, disappearing behind the wall.

Back at the breach, the runic defenders had emerged behind the urtelem. The ogre which had returned to fight the urtelem from behind thus found himself charging at two runic defenders. The ogre hesitated and stopped his advance, but the two runic defenders rolled forward, flanked the ogre and killed him with a magically augmented left hook.

By the time they had turned back, Dargok and his surviving ogres had managed to push through the breach. Some urtelem were backing away on foot, while others were resurfacing from the ground to which they had fled. Having lost the breach, the urtelem withdrew to behind the second wall, walking and rolling through the earth wall and disappearing within and behind it. A few urtelem surfaced on the top of the wall, watching the ogres advance.

The ogres did not immediately move to attack the second wall; rather, they took a few moments to regroup. The wounded were helped back to their feet and told to walk it off, or else left where they had fallen. Dargok, meanwhile, began to prepare another explosive spell. The second wall looked no sturdier than the first.

The urtelem saw Dargok preparing his spell, and knew that there was little they could do to stop it. So the urtelem withdrew a safe distance from the wall and waited for the inevitable. Those among the herd who had been severely injured and were no longer able to fight they sent away, rolling down the valley and away from the battle. Now only two runic defenders were left, with just a handful of urtelem by their side, ready for their last stand.

The ogres let out a raucous and triumphant cheer when the urtelem fled before Dargok's might. At a leisurely pace the sorcerer channeled his magic and then unleashed it, obliterating the center of the second wall even more thoroughly than he had the first one. The ogres advanced towards the new breach at a marching pace and with the intent of saving their energy for when the fighting was renewed, but in their eagerness that trot quickly turned into a fast jog and then into a full charge. Once more Dargok ran at the head of their ranks.

The urtelem rolled forwards to meet the ogres in the breach. The two runic defenders were at the front, and they unfurled in front of Dargok and swung at him with their left fists. Both missed as the sorcerer's body dodged their strikes and moved with freakish speed. His skin began to shine and glow as he utilized so much magic to augment his body. Dargok answered the two runic defenders with a flurry of his own punches. He struck so fast that there was hardly time to react to one swing before another was about to land; in this aggressive manner, he forced them back and denied an opportunity for his two enemies to go on the offense.

The runic defenders were forced back a couple of steps in order to not be struck by Dargok's deadly blows. The urtelem following behind the runic defenders did not unfurl or slow down, though. They kept rolling as boulders, going around the defenders and barging into the ogres. While ogres might be bigger, urtelem were heavier, and they used their mass to bowl the ogres over.

Few things could stop the momentum of a charging ogre, but the urtelem were one such force. The entire rank of ogre was battered down, but they were hardly crushed to death. With the wind knocked out of them and some with broken bones, they nonetheless managed to grapple with their enemies and thus began another bloodbath, this time a savage one that had devolved into a wrestling match on the ground.

As in for Dargok, he pressed forwards even as the two runic defenders backpedaled in their attempt to gain space. Suddenly and without warning, his flurry ceased and he kicked at the enemy on his right.

The kick struck the urtelem in the right shoulder, shattering the rock and severing the arm. The runic defender on Dargok's left pressed forwards as Dargok performed his kick and punched with her left fist. The impact of the blow was lessened somewhat as Dargok twisted his body and attempted to hop backwards on his one foot touching the ground, but the punch landed nonetheless. In an awkward and undignified tumble, the sorcerer tripped backwards over one of the nearby urtelem wrestling on the ground. He elbowed the creature away and then began to scramble back onto his feet.

The first runic defender was still staggering from the pain of the shattered arm. The runic defender which had punched Dargok advanced towards Dargok as he climbed back to his feet, and he had only just got up when she went to punch him again.

With telekinesis he pushed down on the shoulder of the arm that the runic defender had punched with, forcing the swing to fall short. Then he raised his leg into another vicious kick.

The augmented kick struck the runic defender in the chest, and she fell backwards with fatal cracks throughout her body. Yet the urtelem by Dargok's feet grappled the one leg he had on the ground and threw its weight into the leg.

In an instant Dargok was taken onto the ground once more, but he was quick to drive the heel of his free foot into the body of the urtelem clinging to him. In this moment, though, the remaining runic defender had taken advantage of Dargok's distraction to step forwards and deliver a force-fuelled punch with her remaining arm.

In a fit of irony, it shattered his arm just as he had shattered hers moments earlier. He howled in agony, but just before that runic defender might have delivered the finishing blow, one of the other ogres pulled her into the ground. He raised an axe and brought it down upon her face, over and over, until there was little more than a heap of broken shards. All around the rest of the urtelem were either dead or desperately fleeing, but Dargok's own warband had taken heavy losses.

Afraid that more urtelem would harry them along the way, what was left of the warband was forced to retreat back through the mountain pass in disgrace. Dargok did not look forward to reporting back to his master.

[center]~-====-~[/center]

[i]Almost upon him![/i]

The exhausted ogre willed himself onwards with some of the last of his energy. For days he had pursued the fleeing Sculptor. The thing was fast, with all its leggsies, but those only left more footprints to follow.

The thing thought it was clever; it walked through brooks, but the ogre crossed each stream and wandered the other side until he found the trail once more. He was stubborn even by ogre standards, and even the Sculptor had to admire such persistence.

It was turning into quite the fun game, actually. From inside the cave that he had sheltered in, the Sculptor heard the laborious breathing and heavy footsteps of its pursuer. With perfect grace the Sculptor feigned terror, and then burst out laughing when the bloodthristy brute charged into the darkness and triggered a runic trap. The lightning shocked and paralyzed the ogre, but the magic hadn't been allowed to charge long enough to prove lethal. All the better! That only meant that there would be another round.

Laughing and taunting the ogre in a language that it didn't understand, the Sculptor scurried down a narrow corridor and left the cave from another opening.

A few moments later, the bellowing ogre's crashing footsteps could be heard as it took up the chase yet again.




[hider=Summary]
Massive post, with lots of world-building, divided into four named self-contained sections. The first section introduces magic to the urtelem. The next three sections showcase examples of urtelem magic.

There is a prologue which basically says that urtelem aren't up to scratch for fighting things like ogres, elementals or realta, so they need an upgrade.

[u]New Postulates[/u]

One night, Teknall ('Calloused Hands') secretly visits several large herds of urtelem and leaves a very large Spiral Script message.

This message details the postulates underlying an entire system of magic, which the urtelem can access through a version of their Spiral Script. Although not mentioned explicitly in the post, this magic is derived from Belruarcian Magic, as detailed in the Codex of Creation. Belruarcian Magic is a system of arcane laws which can be manipulated by those who are sufficiently knowledgeable to achieved virtually any effect, given enough energy. The analytical, mathematical minds of the urtelem are perfectly suited to the task.

A race of mathemagicians is born.

-3 Might to teach Belruarcian Magic to the Urtelem. (Teknall: 39 MP and 2 FP to 36 MP and 2 FP)

[u]The Towering Gorge Problem[/u]

On the trade route between Metera Valley and Alefpria, a ravine called Towering Gorge blocks the path and extends the travel time by a few days. Urtelem, being the riddle-solvers they are, know that the optimal solution is to build a bridge, but they don't have the means to do so.

That is, until they got magic.

Urtelem have a natural affinity for geomancy. Thus, one of the first applications they found for their new magic was geomancy, manipulating the terrain to be the shape they want.

The application to the Towering Gorge Problem is obvious. A few herds get together, write Script on the ground for a day, then start casting the spell. To power this spell, the urtelem use their own manpower. About 24 hours later the bridge was finished. High-fives all round.

The implication of this is that, using their magic, urtelem have the power to shape the terrain around them. Urtelem can now do landscaping and terraforming.

[u]The Djinn Enigma[/u]

It doesn't take long for the magically aware urtelem to discover the existence of the Winds of Change, and to realise that these can be used to power spells, generally to greater effect than by using their own strength. There are some draw-backs, such as a tendancy to explode if you're not careful, and the variability of the Winds, but generally the benefits outweighed the risks.

A common feature in all spells which use the Winds is a pattern of Spiral Script labelled a harvester. Larger harvesters collect more Wind.

It is also discovered that the Winds of Change can be used to fight elementals. Some experimentation and trial and error is implied to have taken place. This is significant for the urtelem, because they've never been able to fight hostile elementals before.

The nature of their magic, as immobile writing on stone, makes using such spells in combat difficult. However, they have a solution: runic defenders. Runic defenders are urtelem who get magical Spiral Script written on their bodies. A runic defender can be 'programmed' to cast one or two spells (generally one for each hand), and then the runic defender can direct and cast those spells at will. To power the spells, runic defenders also have a harvester for slowly collecting Winds of Change, which grow into glowing golden crystals on their bodies, which are then metabolised while casting spells.

Change scene to a river flowing from the Ironhearts. At a waterfall in the lowlands in the residence of Cataract, a reasonably powerful water djinni. Further downstream is Kubec, the home of the Macchua, a hain tribe.

Cataract demands tribute from the Macchua, displays of fealty to be allowed to use the river. Their sacrifices become progressively more significant to keep Cataract appeased, until they start offering hain into the river.

The local urtelem take supreme objection to hain sacrifice, and step in to stop the practice. The hain are let off with a warning this time, but they are forbidden from sacrificing any more living creatures.

We are also introduced to the matriarch of the urtelem herd. She is, at that time, partially a runic defender, with a small amount of Script and crystals on one arm which allows her to perform minor geomancy. For reference, this means that some urtelem might choose to adapt just part of their body to casting minor magic.

With the flow of 'proper' sacrifices stopped, Cataract is miffed, and gets his minions to beseige the village, depriving them of fish and fresh water. Over the weeks it took to come to this, though, the urtelem had been preparing for a confrontation with Cataract, with the matriarch and four other willing urtelem being converted into full runic defenders and growing their Wind of Change crystals.

When some hain are caught trying to sneak away and deliver a sacrifice, the urtelem decide to make their move. The five runic defenders go to fight Cataract and stop his tyrrany.

Upon confrontation, a fight breaks out. Cataract exercises regular waterlord powers, such as stopping the flow of the waterfall, erupting from the ground as a geyser, pushing and pulling with waves and currents, and being able to crush any urtelem who get dragged into his pool like a pneumatic hammer.

The runic defenders, besides their regular earth gliding powers, are equipped with magic designed specifically for harming elementals. It comes in the form of golden energy, and may be either thrown as an orb or sheathed over the fist to punch in melee range. It proves to be quite damaging to Cataract, who recognises the power as "stolen". It is also fatal to weaker elementals, with the runic defenders able to dispatch Cataract's weaker minions in with single well-placed strikes.

Ultimately, Cataract drags the matriarch into the cave beneath his waterfall and tries to drain the energy from her crystals. In a final gambit, the matriarch channels all her energy into an orb faster than Cataract can absorb it, which then explodes, killing her, stripping Cataract of almost all his power, and collapsing the cave, trapping him within.

The surviving runic defenders report back. With Cataract defeated, the Macchua are freed from his tyrrany, and finally feel at ease in Kubec. The tale of this fight is spread far and wide among the urtelem, so this method of fighting (hostile) elementals will become fairly ubiqutous.

[u]The Ogre Conundrum[/u]

A warband of 24 ogres, plus Dargok, a powerful ogre sorcerer (there's only 10), is marching east through a pass in the Ironheart Ranges, wanting to explore the lands beyond for magical treasures. As ogres typically do, they slaughter everything in their path.

Word gets out across the telepathic Distant Dance, and urtelem learn of the incoming threat. They decide to mount a defence near the hain village of Guarachachi, which was located at the exit of the pass, because they are guaranteed that the ogres will be passing through there.

Only a small number (30) of urtelem are able to respond to the call in time, so the urtelem resort to magic to give them an advantage. They use geomancy to raise two 3-4 metre high earth walls across a narrow point in the valley. They create magical landmines, some which explode, some cats lightning. They create magical rock-throwers/cannons, which are functionally similar to catapults. And they make three runic defenders, which have on their right arm an anti-elemental spell as before, and on their left arm a force amplifier which makes their punches like getting hit by a catapult. All this is powered by Winds of Change.

A hain Sculptor with some needle fae is also present, and he helps write some of the Script (by copying what the urtelem were doing).

Dargok sends ahead a little stonedjinni as a scout, and it sees what the urtelem are preparing. It slips the urtelem's notice, because it isn't aggressive. Because elementals are sensitive to Winds of Change, it realises that all this is magic stuff.

Forewarned, Dargok waits until night to attack, and sends his ogres in single file led by a couple minor stonedjinn. By the time the ogres are spotted and the urtelem assembled, the ogres are almost through the minefield. Only two ogres are hit by the traps, and one of them as a spellbreaker is unaffected. The ogres can't get past the wall, though, because urtelem punch them from within the wall and if they do get up they get shot by the cannons, so they wait for Dargok to blow up the wall.

Meanwhile, Dargok exercises body-enhancing Astarean magic to move faster, dodging or deflecting cannon fire, and he rips power from the traps to make a raging firedjinni, plus a large swarm of very weak elementals. The runic defenders fight the elementals, although the swarm plus the firedjinni prove difficult until the Sculptor steps in and pushes the elementals back with his needle fae. It is also noted that the needle fae suppressed the ability of the runic defenders to cast magic.

Dargok then blew up part of the wall.

The elementals are dispatched as urtelem and ogres charge into the breach. The runic defenders tip the balance in favour of the urtelem, with their force-punches able to kill ogres with ease.

Dargok's powers are suppressed when he is surrounded by needle fae. Two ogres climb up the wall to chase away the Sculptor, dispersing the swarm. With his powers back, Dargok is able to force his way through the urtelem with augmented strength of his own, and they are all forced to retreat to behind the second wall.

The Sculptor also retreats, fleeing the battle entirely. One of the ogres continues to chase the Sculptor.

Dargok charges up another explosion spell as the urtelem send away the wounded. A second breach is made, and the urtelem undertake their final stand. The two remaining runic defenders fight against Dargok. Ultimately, both are killed, but not before seriously wounding Dargok.

The ogres won the battle. But having taken heavy losses, they are forced to turn back and return home.
 
 
There is an epilogue saying that the ogre is still chasing the Sculptor, in an ongoing game of cat and mouse. Of note is that the Sculptor was able to write a lightning trap on his own, given the designs the urtelem had taught him earlier.
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