The End of Eternity

Ghosts of the Past

A stern looking dwarf was facing a hulking reptile, who was coughing violently in order to suppress laughing. In spite of the tremendous effort, the reptile failed after a while and the dwarf's face was turning red. A black humanoid with a black, velvet-like soft fur and his shapes resembling a cat was watching them. He sighed, when he saw he had yet another diplomatic issue on his hand.

"Ehm, chm. . echm, so if w-e. ." The reptile had finally managed to calm down a little. "If we manage to stop the ogres from polluting your water source, you will pay us with some unique ore."

"Yes." Dwarf said, his face still red.

"I assure you, we will resolve this matter without fail, you can rely on us." The humanoid cat said and shook his hand with the dwarf, slowly following the dwarf, who was leaving the building. The cat saw the visitor off and returned in no time.

"Claw, you idiot, you should be more diplomatic in the future, it was an envoy of the dwarven kingdom, not some thug."

"But Rhaska, you have to admit the situation was just. .. laughable." The high cat could not scold Claw anymore, the issue was funny indeed. Lately, a part of the dwarven kingdom had a problem, they had always been relying on the water from the surface and one of their waterfalls providing them with water could not be used anymore. The dwarves searched for the cause and soon, they found it. The ogre village was polluting the water with its waste.

"Just imagine some renowned dwarf wants to drink water, but he is immediately dumbfounde by its taste, ogre's shit floating in it. Hilarious." Rhaska just shook his head, Claw was like a kid sometimes.

"We should be happy, we will get a lot of resources for a little work. I still do not get why they would not have solved this themselves, their combat strength has grown significantly, they can crush that village like a bug."

"They are still dwarves, they feel uncomfortable walking on the surface. They have never conducted a large scale military operation outside of their tunnels, caves and halls."

"Take your group and solve it, try to be a diplomat, an issue like this can be solved with coin, no need for violence." Rhaska turned and was walking away slowly.

"I will see, we should be back soon, it is not that far. By the way, how have you managed to get the dwarf here to The Skyrock Castle?"

"Do not ask." He paused his walk for a second. It was true dwarves felt uncomfortable on the surface, but in Rhaska's opinion, it was solely thanks to the fact, they were not used to move outside of their underground tunnels.

Claw, Davena, Mei and Alexius departed from The Skyrock to complete the mission, on they way to the ogre village, they met the envoy of the dwarves and allowed him to join them. His name was Thraagi and he wanted to oversee their mision, at the same time, he became their navigator.

"Strange, the river looks clean." Davena looked into the river which was the object of their mission.

"True, the problem may resolve itself without our intervention." Claw pointed out.

"They may have a specific daily rutin." Davena speculated.

"Like they shit only in the morning after their breakfast?" Mei asked.

"Something like that. .."

"We are getting close." Thraagi said, pointing at a stone wall in the distance. After a while, they walked into a circular wall made of stones, with just one entrance. They looked for the ogres, but they could not find any.

"Where are they?" Alexius asked, looking at the dwarf sharply. The dwarf whistled and a swarm of dwarves appeared on top of the wall, the rear rows armed with crossbows.