Rise of the Elementium Dawn

Grungnir Orcbane stood silhouetted against a blazing fire. Around him stood his lieutenants, silently regarding him as he peered into the flames. They were in the Great Forge, and before them slouched a single, very dirty dwarf who wore no shirt. He was not a member of the Thane's regiment, nor even a soldier, but a craftsman of supreme renown. Grilburn of the Deepforge Clan, Grilburn the Unsurpassed, and his skill was legendary even in the deepest, most savage reaches of Kalimdor.

"Well?" growled the Thane.

The old smith turned to look at Grungnir, and his eyes were surprisingly sharp; they pierced the Thane with their steady gaze, just as his pierced the smith. For a while they held their ground, glowering challengingly at one another.

"I am havin' some difficulty believin' this," spat Grilburn. He was turning a raw, jagged hunk of purpleish metal over in his rough, soot-covered hands. "Elementium. Rarest metal in Azeroth. Say you've found it... whole carts worth o' the stuff..." He shook his head, grunting disbelievingly. "I never heard o' this Deepholm place."

Morvar Ironbraid, the Thane's right hand, stepped forward briskly. His stern face was lined with impatience, his hairy lip curled in a snarl. "I told you," he whispered dangerously, "and I've no time to repeat myself; it just opened up. I led an expedition there. The Explorer's League have a foothold in the place, but those bloody shaman run the show."

The smith merely scowled at them, his expression wordlessly conveying his disbelief. Another dwarf behind the Thane who had thus far remained silent, stroking his long white beard, spoke. He was very old, and his words came slowly, quietly, with great precision, "If the esteemed Master Deepforge doubts the word of Thane Orcbane and his trusted officers, it can be ordained that he be brought before the Council to be alleviated of his doubts."

At this notion, the old smith bristled and waved his hand dismissively. "Save yer threats, Stonefather."

The Thane pointed directly at the doors of the High Seat not a hundred feet away, baring his teeth, "The Loremaster makes no threats, Deepforge; we haven't come here to waste our time with ye. Think yerself so important that the Mountain Guard would quit the battlefield to lie and spew nonsense to ye? You sully my honor at yer own risk." Grungnir was livid. "Now you make up yer bloody mind or I'll have ye before the High Seat in manacles."

At length, no one spoke. At last, Grilburn began again, his tone begrudging and still uncertain, "I suppose it don't matter where ye got it from... as long as th'stuff's what ye say it is." He held the metal up to the billowing steam rising up from the precipice of the forge upon which he stood, let the flickering tendrils of flame rising up from the molten ore kiss the substance.

Almost immediately, the metal began to warp and sizzle; the portions where the flame had touched it turned a brilliant shade of bright red, like the hot bits of a poker left to rest on the hearth of a fireplace. Blazing cracks opened in the elementium, pulsating with a bright orange light; tiny veins, like that of magma breaking through the surface.

"Aye," nodded the smith grimly, holding the metal aloft with a pair of thorium tongs. "This is elementium alright."

''So rose ''the Elementium Dawn.