Prelude – Pushka

Pushka Ironwright was born in the year 2214 of the Imperial Calendar in Zhufbar, a dwarven hold nestled deep in the mountains. Known as one of the greatest engineering holds in the realm, Zhufbar was ruled by the Forge Master, the most skilled mechanic and engineer among the dwarves. The hold guarded its engineering secrets with fierce jealousy, and sharing the wonders of dwarven technology with other races was considered one of the most forbidden taboos. This xenophobia extended to all outsiders, with particular hatred reserved for elves, humans, and halflings. The dwarves of Zhufbar lived in a nationalist, insular culture where fear-mongering about other races stealing their technology was commonplace.

Pushka’s parents, Kari and Thrund Ironwright, were merchants who had seen far more of the world than their close-minded kin. Their work was essential to the hold, as the mountain dwelling made it impossible to produce certain necessities, especially food. Unlike most of their fellow dwarves, Kari and Thrund held progressive views, believing that humans and halflings were not the enemies that others made them out to be. This put them at odds with many in Zhufbar, and their family was sometimes mocked as “elf lovers” and told to go live with the halflings. Pushka was the middle child, with an older sister named Hara and a younger sister named Moria.

In the year 2246, when Pushka was thirty-two years old—still quite young by dwarven standards—a particularly brutal winter descended upon Zhufbar. The cold was so severe that even those living in the mountain caves could not keep warm, and the storms raged with unprecedented fury. In the midst of this harsh season, during the month of Vorhexen, disaster struck. The mass of snow and ice above caused a cave-in that destroyed two of the three major grain silos that stored food for the cold months. The loss threatened certain starvation for many of the dwarves, as food could not be produced from nothing, and trade during winter was nearly impossible since everyone was hoarding their own supplies.

The hold turned to Kari and Thrund, who had cultivated an excellent relationship with the Downhill family, halflings who lived in the fertile Mootlands just below the mountains. Pushka’s parents argued that this was a terrible time to be asking for grain, as it would be expensive and the halflings needed to feed their own people through the winter. However, Durak, a particularly angry and racist dwarf who was popular among the nationalist movements, vehemently disagreed. He argued that the dwarves should not go hungry or pay extravagant prices when they were far stronger than the halflings and could simply take what they needed by force.

A heated debate erupted between Durak and Pushka’s parents. Kari and Thrund insisted that they could not destroy their relationship with their neighbors, that the halflings were their source of grain and attacking them would be short-sighted and wrong. Durak gained support from others who questioned why they should give gold when they could take the grain with their superior strength and weapons. The argument grew increasingly tense, with people getting in each other’s faces and tensions rising. Eventually, Kari and Thrund convinced the Forge Master, Borna Hammerfist, to allow them to travel to the halfling burrows and negotiate for grain. Durak, however, insisted on accompanying them with nine other armed dwarves to look after the interests of the Hold.

The convoy of twelve dwarves, including Pushka, her parents, and Durok’s group, made the journey through the brutal snowstorm to the burrow of Cloggwick and Flamella Downhill. Despite the harsh conditions, the halflings welcomed them with characteristic warmth and hospitality, offering hot cocoa and food. Thrund had a special relationship with the Downhills’ young son, Eddie, a four-year-old boy who loved to tinker with mechanical things. Thrund often brought Eddie small toys and trinkets from the hold, including a mechanical catapult with gears that could be wound up to shoot projectiles. Though sharing such items was frowned upon, Thrund saw no harm in giving toys to a child who reminded him of a dwarf born in the wrong body.

Negotiations began with Cloggwick, his wife Flamella, his brother-in-law Durko, and Gildi Mill Pond, Flamella’s sister. Durak immediately took control, demanding grain stores and offering a pittance, accusing the halflings of lying about their supplies and hoarding grain for themselves. The halflings remained kind but firm, explaining that they had their own families to feed through the winter and could only spare so much. Kari skillfully managed Durok, reminding him of the need to maintain good long-term relationships with their grain suppliers, while Thrund negotiated directly with Cloggwick and the others. After tense back-and-forth discussions, a deal was finally struck that would provide enough grain for the dwarves to survive on half-rations, though it would cost a significant amount and the halflings themselves would face lean times.

Durak appeared angry during the negotiations and stormed off at one point, but he later returned and apologized for losing his temper, seemingly accepting the deal. However, Pushka observed something troubling. She watched as Durok entered the room where young Eddie was playing on the floor with the mechanical catapult. Durak sat down with the boy and asked to see how the toy worked, and examined the gears closely before returning it and walking back outside. Pushka had a bad feeling growing in her gut as she watched Durak speak in low, angry tones with the other dwarves outside, and she noticed them moving around their wagons, no longer loading grain but retrieving something else.

Pushka cracked open the door to eavesdrop and heard Durak speaking angrily about how Thrund had given the halflings dwarven technology, that it was illegal, and that the halflings now knew their secrets. She saw the dwarves retrieving weapons from the wagons. Alarmed, Pushka approached her father to warn him, but Thrund was engrossed in friendly conversation with Cloggwick about the storm and their well-being. He only half-listened to his young daughter, patting her on the shoulder dismissively before continuing his conversation. Pushka returned to the door just as it burst open, and nine burly dwarves wielding axes, picks, and hammers stormed into the burrow, pushing her aside.

At the front of the armed group stood Durak, but something was terribly wrong. His eyes glowed with a faint red light, and jagged, rough tattoos on his neck also pulsed with an eerie red glow. Pushka felt a visceral, core-deep fear unlike anything she had experienced before. It was as if she were staring into one of the bottomless caves in Zhufbar where something dark and ancient stared back. The shouting began immediately, with Durok confronting Pushka’s parents and the halflings about the shared technology. As the situation escalated, Kari pulled Pushka aside while Thrund stood fearlessly before the armed dwarves, positioning himself protectively in front of Cloggwick and Flamella despite having no weapons or armor.

Kari looked Pushka directly in the eyes with intense gravity, squeezing her shoulder so tightly it hurt. She instructed Pushka to grab Eddie and run to her older sister Hara’s home, emphasizing that she must not tell anyone what she had done. With tears in her eyes, Kari told her daughter, “You’re gonna have to be a big girl now.” Then she released Pushka and returned to stand beside Thrund to face the armed dwarves. Pushka rushed into the room where Eddie was playing and found Gildi holding baby Mel, Eddie’s infant sister. When Gildi asked what was happening, Pushka told her of the danger. Both fled,Gildi taking baby Mel back to her own burrow, and Pushka fleeing with Eddie to her sister’s home in the foothills.

As Pushka escaped into the storm with the young halfling boy, she could hear the shouting in the burrow as it escalated into shoving, and then into violence. She heard the sounds of screaming, followed by the meaty thunk of axes hitting flesh. The red glow appeared in all the dwarves’ eyes as they began their brutal massacre. Thrund put up some resistance, but he was quickly overwhelmed and beaten. Cloggwick and his brother-in-law Durko tried to help defend their family, but they were no match for the armed, possessed dwarves. Other halflings from nearby homesteads came to help, but the dwarves showed no mercy. Every halfling in the area was slaughtered, and the dwarves began loading grain as the storm mercifully drowned out the screams and the sounds of weapons crushing skulls.

The last words Pushka heard as she fled into the darkness were Durak’s chilling declaration: “No one must know our secrets.” He had decided that dwarven pride and the protection of engineering knowledge were more important than the lives of innocent people. Pushka made the long, difficult journey through the storm to reach Hara’s home with Eddie. When Hara opened the door and learned what had happened, how the negotiations had gone sour as the dwarves had learned that the halflings had some dwarven artifacts and that they suspected that they knew some of their engineering secrets. Hara promised to keep that knowledge from Eddie, lest he fall to the same fate. Hara took Eddie in, promising to care for the traumatized child who had no memory of the horrific events. On that terrible day, Pushka took a solemn oath that would define the rest of her life: she would never again be xenophobic or treat anyone as an outsider because of their race, and she would fight against the narrow-minded nationalist attitudes that had led to such senseless tragedy.

When Pushka returned to Zhufbar, she was shocked to find that the caravan had arrived with the grain, and her parents were with them. They were injured but alive, having been subdued during the attack while the halflings were slaughtered. The Forge Master, Borna Hammerfist, held a trial to determine their fate for sharing dwarven technology with the halflings. Durak argued vociferously that Kari and Thrund should be executed for sharing dwarven technology with outsiders, though he had spared their lives because they were dwarves. Borna ruled that they should not die because they had secured the grain for the hold, and notably, no one seemed to care about the murdered halflings. However, he sentenced Kari and Thrund to exile from Zhufbar. The next day, Pushka’s parents took her and her younger sister Moria and left their ancestral home forever, traveling to the distant city of Talagaad.

In Talagaad, Pushka’s family built a new life. Kari and Thrund continued their merchant work, traveling frequently for long-distance trading. Moria stayed mostly in the dwarven quarter, an insular immigrant community similar to the nationalist environment of Zhufbar, and her increasingly nationalist views worried Pushka. Pushka herself established her own merchant shop in the city. Thirty years after the massacre, Hara sent an adult Eddie to Talagaad to make his fortune, though she did not explain why. Eddie arrived with no memory of the traumatic events when he was four years old, knowing only that he had lived with Hara for three decades. Pushka helped him find work with Alabaster von Schwarzwalden, a retired human engineer from the Imperial School of Engineering who ran one of the few non-dwarven engineering shops in town.

Eddie worked for Alabaster for two years before disaster struck again. The shop was destroyed in a massive explosion, likely caused by black powder, which killed Alabaster and burned several surrounding buildings. After the explosion, Eddie could not find work at any of the dwarven engineering shops because the dwarves maintained a monopoly on the engineering guild and refused to employ non-dwarves. Pushka, believing it was wrong to exclude him from engineering work simply because of his race, employed Eddie in her own shop, where he had been working for the past four years. He now had his own place in town, though it remained unclear how much he knew about what had happened to his parents.

Shortly after the explosion at Alabaster’s shop, Pushka’s younger sister Mora surprised her by moving out of the dwarven quarter and coming to stay with her. Mora left her old life behind without fully explaining why, though something was clearly weighing on her. She no longer displayed the nationalist attitudes she had once held and showed far more compassion and empathy for others, suggesting that something significant had happened to change her perspective. As Pushka looked at her family now—her exiled parents, the orphaned Eddie she had saved, and her transformed sister—she carried the weight of that terrible winter day in her heart, along with the oath she had sworn to never let such hatred and xenophobia go unchallenged again.