#ZattyWriMo 2024

It felt as though a year had passed in the blink of an eye as the dwarven rune master studied their faces. He then pulled out a flat drum made of wood and dark leather. Katla only caught a short glimpse of the runes drawn along the rim of the drumskin, as the dwarf held it up before him. He took one of the runecarved sticks they had handed him and slid it into a small hole in the wooden frame. Katla couldn't see what it was supposed to do, but he appeared content as he plucked out the stick and dropped the next one in. The process repeated with the third and last stick. As he handed the runesticks back to Katla, he spoke for the first time:

"Your truth is proven. May you walk the mountain without fall."

Katla received the three sticks and noticed the rune master had put down the drum. But the dark leather wasn't a blank surface any more. Pale lines, slightly raised from the skin, had appeared in the leather. Pale lines in a pattern resembling... Her own face!

The dwarven rune master noticed her staring at the upside down illustration of her face and quickly snatched the inscribed artifact and hid it behind a fold in his loose tunic. It was clearly no drum the dwarf had used, but no magic Katla had heard of could explain how a wooden stick carved the night before made a drawing of her face appear. Katla speechlessly handed Solvi and Jorunn their sticks, and behind her the stone gate started to move.

Before long the four travellers were through and the guard post disappeared behind them. Eitri explained they had two or three days walk before them before reaching the entrance to the Dwarven City of the Southern Mountains.

"Be sure to enjoy the sun while we walk. Once we enter the mountain, it will be a while before we emerge from the northern gate."

That night, as they set up their camp, Katla asked Solvi in hushed voice, "Did you see what that rune master did? It was some kind of magic, I'm sure of it!"

"Of course I saw it. I've been staring at the stick Eitri carved for me every chance I got."

Solvi had stopped unpacking the wagon and was fiddling with something in her pocket.

"There's something about them, as if it's not just lines carved in wood," she continued, "but it doesn't make sense, you can't just make a few scratches and have a face appear somewhere else."

Katla grew thoughtful. "But how do we figure out how it works? Even if it's only the carvings, we could be drawing lines from now until a rock grows bored and still have learned nothing."

"No need for guessing games, I'll ask Eitri about after we get the fire going. Judging by their chattiness last night, I'm bound to learn something."

"Right. Talking to people. I forgot that was an option," Katla said with only a slight hint of sarcasm in her voice.

"It's fine, they're helping us, remember?" Solvi reassured her, "and they already said they'd teach me how to carve the runes. Maybe they're just trying not to scare us away with their gigantic magical power."