Chapter 14: The Trial of Ten Thousand

*Date: 33,480 First Quarter - Iron Confederacy*

The secluded valley smelled of smoke, ale, and scorched iron. As Demir, Marco, and the twins dragged their cart down into the crooked streets, they were met not by welcome, but by laughter.

The dwarves were old, bellied from beer, their hands rough but idle. They sat outside their squat stone halls with tankards in hand, forging crude trinkets for amusement - spiraled nails, bent horseshoes, even pots with holes in the bottom. No armies, no order, no ambition. Only retired craftsmen reveling in their "liberation."

"They don't work for gold," Marco muttered under his breath. "They just... play."

"Doesn't matter for us. We just need one of them to help us," Demir replied.

Demir swallowed. He had imagined wise, disciplined smiths. Instead, these dwarves were half-drunk artisans who seemed to have forgotten the world outside.

When Demir begged, pleaded for shelter and apprenticeship, the dwarves only shook their heads.

Demir approached their forges and said, "Moradin sent me. I am looking for masters who can teach us."

"Who is Moradin?" one said.

"Brovick's nephew, merchant kid," another said.

"Yes, Brovick... Brovick Ironspine. Where is he?"

"He is over there," pointing at the town inn.

Demir entered the town inn where men, women, old dwarves drunk, singing, drinking.

Drunk old dwarves shouted when they saw Demir and the boys: "Look, founders came again. Our retirement over should we get back to work again?" Others turned their heads, but seeing young teenagers and an old thin man gave them only laughter.

Demir warned them goblins enslaving humans, mining like dwarves themselves they only snorted into their mugs.

"Politics is not our thing," one said.

"It is not politics."

Timmy's voice cracked: "They kidnapped us, kidnapped us. Enslaved us. My father is still there."

"Good," several said and walked out.

"Goblins are melting ores and supplying your cities, exchanging for your crafts. How long before they start smithing too?"

"They can never do that," one shouted.

"Have you ever seen dwarves buy all their mines? There are millions of goblins. If 1% becomes crafters, that's 100,000 crafters."

Marco whispered, "10,000."

"They ain't supplying us," said one, burping.

"Aye. Goblins can rot with their forges. Doesn't touch us."

"What do ye want?" asked a white-bearded dwarf.

"Teach us. Or give us something so we can take back our friends."

But one dwarf lingered on the idea, stroking his white beard with sharp, mocking eyes: Brovick Ironspine, the name Moradin had spoken.

"So ye want to swing a hammer, boy?" Brovick taunted, leaning against the doorway of his forge. "Want to call yerself an armorsmith, eh? Bah! You've hands like chicken bones. They'd break before the first strike."

Demir clenched his fists. "Then test me."

Brovick's laugh rolled like thunder through the valley. "Test ye? Hah! And what wager do ye offer?"

Demir's voice was hoarse but steady. "If I fail... chop off my hand. If I succeed... you take me as apprentice."

A hush fell over the dwarves. Some laughed nervously, others muttered into their beards.

Brovick's eyes gleamed, cruel but curious. "Bold words. Foolish words. But I'll not say no. The test is this: strike the anvil with the hammer ten thousand times. Not once less. If ye stop, if ye falter yer hands are mine."

The dwarves roared with drunken approval. Absurd, impossible - it was a trial no man could endure.

But Demir said only: "Give me the hammer."

"Are you sure? Hey, hey, let's think it through. If your hands are cut off, you can't survive in this world," Marco said.

"We were dead the second they closed the system. We have to take risks."

"You don't have that much Resilience or Stamina."

Demir ragged his hand and brushed past Marco and took the hammer.

The first hours were easy. Steel rang against steel in a rhythm that echoed across the valley. At first the dwarves laughed, jeering from the sidelines. "Look at him swing! Like a farmer threshing wheat!" "He'll last an hour, maybe two."

But Demir kept going.

Hours passed. His palms split open. The rag wrapped around the handle was soon soaked red. Still he swung, each strike slower, heavier.

"Change yer bandage, boy," someone called mockingly. But Demir didn't stop to bind his hands. He couldn't. If he stopped, he lost.

By afternoon, the laughter quieted. The dwarves wandered past, no longer jeering, some shaking their heads in disbelief. Marco and the twins tried to hand him water; Demir gulped it down without words, never ceasing the hammer's arc.

His mind drifted as pain hollowed him out. Not the ache of his hands, not the fire in his shoulders Aris's face filled his thoughts. The moment of failure. "Why did I entered so fast? Why didn't I explain to him where to go? I didn't go to him. I didn't even try. I was too weak. I am still too weak," he thought. The shame of being too weak. His eyes burned, but not from pain. Not again. Never again. He would save his new friends who considered him as their leader in that small community 14 lives, he thought.

By nightfall, the blows slowed to a crawl. Each swing was agony, his arms trembling, breath ragged. His body felt carved from lead. And still he lifted, still he struck.

The dwarves had gathered now, a ring around him. No more laughter. No more taunts. Only silence, broken by the rhythmic clang... clang... clang.

Finally, the last strike fell. Ten thousand. [Bzzzt!] Something flared in his vision, but Demir was too weak and exhausted to notice or care. Demir swayed, barely conscious, his hammer slipping from his hand to the stone floor with a hollow thud. And he fell to the floor.

Brovick Ironspine stepped forward. His face was unreadable, his eyes shining wet in the forge light. He waved the others away.

"Go home, ye drunkards. Naught to see here."

When the dwarves shuffled off, Brovick knelt by Demir, lifting his shredded hands. "Ye fool... ye damned stubborn fool. Ye've got the fire."

From a drawer in his cluttered workshop, Brovick produced a small glass vial. He uncorked it and poured the thick red liquid over Demir's palms and shoulders. Demir hissed as warmth spread through his ruined muscles.

"If ye didn't tear a tendon, ye'll be fine come sunrise," Brovick muttered. "And if ye did, ye'll learn to swing with the other hand." He pressed the vial's remainder into Demir's hand. "Drink the rest. Don't waste it."

Demir lay on the workshop floor, tears streaming silently. Not from pain, but from relief, from the weight of Aris's memory pressing on his chest.

Brovick stood over him, gruff as ever. "Rest, boy. At dawn, we forge. Ye're my apprentice now."

In the shadows, Timmy and Sin clutched each other, smiling through tears. Marco exhaled, rubbing his thin face with trembling hands.

And Demir, broken and bloodied, wept quietly on the stone floor, knowing this time he had not failed.