The Crucible of the Dragon God

'Glad I wasn't hiding in the wardrobe in that boudoir.'

Kali raised her eyes. 'I doubt it happened like that.'

'No? You wanna tell me another way you know of making,' Slowhand paused and shuddered, 'little dwelfs?'

'I am not the result of physical procreation,' the dwelf explained, 'but of other processes.'

Slowhand wasn't sure what that meant. 'Are they as much fun?'

'Slowhand!'

'Sorry, sorry'

'You said 'other processes.'' Kali said to the dwelf. 'You mean those birthing pools? Is that what this sphere is — your own birthing pool? Were you created here?'

'Created when your race was young.'

'Looking good on it, pal,' Slowhand said, then pulled a face as he visualised the frond thing the dwelf had first been. 'Now, anyway.'

'Actually, I doubt he's as old as we are,' Kali corrected the archer. 'That's right, isn't it? When we saw you grow, you were being created all over again, just like the first time, weren't you? The liquid in this sphere is the same as that in the pools but… more complex, somehow. It enables you to form and reform at will?'

'Nutrients, proteins. The essential building blocks of life. I would not have survived this long had I not been able to revert to a state of stasis among them.'

'You're thousands upon thousands of years old,' Kali breathed. 'But at the same time, so young.'

'Oh, come on,' Slowhand objected. 'He can pop in and out of existence, just the same as he was, every time, with all his memories intact? I may be just an old soldier boy, Hooper, but — '

'Perhaps you simply do not have all of the facts, Killiam Slowhand,' the dwelf said.

As he spoke, his body faded into a state of translucency for a second and something that looked like a length of stretched and shimmering gold could clearly be seen coiled throughout his body.

Slowhand stared. 'What the hells?'

Kali could hardly believe it herself. She thought back to her meeting with Kane in Andon, the way he used the threads as physical things. It seemed the Old Races had too, but in a way that even Kane would likely find hard to believe. The Old Races, particularly in their last age, had been outstanding engineers, but she had never imagined — never could have imagined — that they had begun to engineer themselves.

'I think that's a line of thread magic,' she said. 'An actual magical thread interwoven with his very being.'

'Yeah?' Slowhand responded, perhaps not quite grasping the enormity of what she said, or perhaps, being Slowhand, simply asking the sensible question. 'Why?'

'It is a necessary part of the process,' the dwelf said.

'Necessary for what? To churn out those things from the pools? Or maybe just try and suffocate anyone who pops by?'

'The atmosphere chamber,' the dwelf said. 'That was not I.'

'Oh? Then who?'

'No one. Your entrapment was accidental, the process automatic. However, I regret the facility was left unsealed.'

'Atmosphere chamber?' Slowhand asked but Kali placed a hand on his shoulder, preferring the conversation walked before it ran.

'If you were the one that freed us, thank you,' she said. 'And for chasing away the k'nid, however you did.'

'That is what you call the spawn? Interesting. But yes. The k'nid, like most organisms, are susceptible to certain harmonics and vibrations which cause them discomfort, in this case forcing them to flee.'

'Harmonics and vibrations you've used before. To interrupt the absorption of those bodies out there.'

The dwelf was silent for a second.

'I had no interest in saving the intruders,' he said. 'Only in protecting this place.' As he spoke, the structure shook once more, rumbled deeply. 'The birthing k'nid have inflicted considerable damage on the complex.'

'The Faith, too, by the look of what we've seen out there,' Slowhand chipped in. 'Why the hells didn't you use these harmonics to get rid of them, too?'

'Because I have observed your world and know their motives, the singular, dark mission of their Church. Had my presence been revealed to them it would have served no good and perhaps have led to other discoveries. Also, my influence over the complex is no longer absolute. The damage it has sustained even without the k'nid — naturally over the long, long years — has left areas of it dead to me.'

'Like the birthing pools — the Crucible,' Kali said, and the sphere rumbled again as she spoke. 'The Final Faith turned it on, didn't they?' she said, remembering Jenna's recordings. 'That was what she meant by their mistake.'

'And now you can't turn it off,' Slowhand said.

'The Faith disturbed the precise calibrations of minds long since dust, spawning the k'nid in numbers not intended. Worse, the prism central to the birthing process — the same prism that could abort the process — became misaligned beneath their meddling hands.' The dwelf sighed. 'You are correct, archer. I cannot stop it.'

'Stop it?' Slowhand repeated. 'Why in the hells did you start it? For gods sakes, why on Twilight would you want to create such creatures in the first place?'

The dwelf's answer sounded regretful and — considering what it seemed he, or at least his people, were responsible for — also somewhat unlikely. 'To save the world.'

'News for you, pal, that's her job,' Slowhand said, nodding at Kali. 'So what's the real story?'

Kali wasn't as hasty in responding. The dwelf's regret had sounded genuine enough for her.

'Do you have a name?' she asked.

'I was created to be a guardian,' he said. 'The elven word for such a role would be Tharnak.'

'Tharnak it is, then. Tharnak, please, I don't understand. How would creating these things save the world?'

'Our world faced a threat foretold in tomes of as great an age as divides our civilisations now. A threat both from the unknown and unknown in essence. Though both elven and dwarven races knew of its coming, we knew also that it was alien to us. We did not know what could stop it because we could not know what its weaknesses were. And so we constructed the Crucible. Its purpose was the creation of a singular life form specific in its purpose — to combat any threat.'

'Must have been a pretty unique threat.'

'It was. As unique as the solution we devised. The creatures you call k'nid were the result of complex manipulations of Twilight's life forms — extracting from them those elements which brought them victory in the survival of the fittest. In the process we gave birth to other creatures, and these, too, became part of the process. Our survival was at stake and so we had to create the ultimate defence. A life form capable of surviving any environment, of winning and transforming that environment and becoming its dominant life form. The only life form.'

'So overwhelming it would spread like some disease,' Kali said, 'consuming the enemy. Tharnak, we're not the enemy and your creations aren't saving our world, they're destroying it.'

'Because,' the dwelf said, 'they were never meant to be unleashed here.'

'Unleashed here? I don't understand.'

'On this world.'

'What?'

'The k'nid were destined for the heavens.'

'Okay, pal, that's it,' Slowhand cut in. 'Hooper, don't waste breath on this guy. He's a short wick in a long