Dino Fierybottom

Introduction - Dino Fierybottom

My story is not particularly interesting, unless you’re into tales of castaways, scapegoats, and short people.

It feels like at least a lifetime ago, if not more, that I finished my apprenticeship and was promoted to full tinker in the workshops of the “Swifttrudging” Stoneherder clan. It was all I had ever dreamt of as a child, and through hard work--well more like long hours of practice, failure, and on at least one occassion, some success--I found myself in command of a workbench, tools in triplicate, and a gnome-sized heap of twisted metal, gears, and vials. It was a marvelous little space surrounded by nearly two dozen similar benches; the burrows of Stoneside have some of the most wonderful shops in the whole world! Or at least in our world, the world of the hillsides and the trees, the ornamental facades and the underground tunnels. I suppose it is no longer “our” but rather “their” world, now. There is no place for me in Stoneside anymore.

For nearly five years, I studied the art of the alchemical flame, the raw essence of heat stored in the most unassuming of places and released upon the most delicate of triggers. There are places in the ground where you can dig up these strange materials. They look like nothing more than ordinary dirt, minerals, and sediment, but with a little refinement these dusty granules contain a tremensous amount of heat. I don’t mean the steady flames of the cookstove or the concentrated fire of the kiln. I mean bursts of heat, invisible to the eye and deafening to the ear! And I worked in a shop to learn, harness, and exploit these materials. We understood that even small quantities could be used to accomplish tremendously difficult feats of strength, such as opening stuck doors or digging new burrows, or waking up the old, deaf Belbert Zipgauge! But I was interested in something far more grand, a way to convert this source of power into controlled and precise motion. Why pull a plow with gigantic oxen if you can push it along with alchemical fire? Why expend sweat milling trees into boards when you have alchemical fire? Why walk over a hill when you can be launched to the other side with alchemical fire?

Regrettably, I was never able to answer those questions. It was early in the morning, perhaps only an hour after sunrise, when there was an explosion that shook the very foundation of the hillside and reverberated down the valley. This was nearly three years ago, when I was a scant 28 years old. I was picking mulberries only a few minutes’ walk downhill from my shop when I felt it. Before you rush to judgment, every Stoneherder is guilty of skipping work to pick mulberries once in awhile! It was a jarring tremor that shook the bones before ringing the ears. I rushed back to the burrows and saw the smoking remnants of my shop. As though a dragon himself had sneezed upon the shop, all that remained was a perimeter of charred ground and stone foundation being gently dusted by pale-white ashes settling out of the choked air and acrid smoke. Inside the tattered perimeter were the disfigured remains of twisted metal, shattered wood, and smoldering char. I looked onward, helplessly, while the crowd gathered and searched in futility for survivors who weren’t there.

When both the literal and figurative dust settled, it was me, Dino McTwixle, who was to blame. Hadn’t it been me who was building the strange devices to harness the alchemical fire? Wasn’t it me who showed up to the workshop, tinkered for a few minutes, and quietly slipped out the back while conveniently sparing my own life? What exactly was it that I was building in there, and what did I intend to do with it? Small explosions were commonplace, even mild fires were the source of jest and laughter. Once cannot invent without a touch of reckless abandon. The magnitude of this blast, and the unprecedented quantity of casualties, was cause for alarm among my people. After examining the debris and the few notebooks that survived the blast, I was convicted in both the eyes of the elders and in the court of public opinion. It was a little too convenient that I managed to survive, and that I had been working in an area that few others were interested or could comprehend at the most fundamental level. No gnome could stand by me and remain a part of society; I was a pariah among my own people for something I did not do. And to make things worse, it was assumed that the act I did not commit was performed not in error but with calculated malice.

I was branded “Fierybottom,” as it is common for my people to bestow appended names to one another during times of success, failure, or merely existence. It was a black mark against myself and my family, and we were ultimately exiled by our own people. It is rare for my people to banish their own, or even to punish each other, for that matter. Our people declared us as criminals, and the deep personal shame only hastened our departure. The three of us set off on the road in a quest to escape our own name and the shockwave of our now-expanding reputation among the neighboring clans, never knowing how far we might have to go to find haven.

We traveled the dusty roads up weaving up and down the hillsides through the valley. This was the first time I had ever felt truly alone, absent from the only world I knew and with only the company of my somber parents. After the first month, my father took ill. He weakened, and on a cold, windy night he fell asleep, never to wake. It took only a few more days before my mother shared his fate. I suppose you could say we didn’t take well to the “gnome-madic” lifestyle? After more than two years, there is little capacity left for grief, and the little reminders of home are all that I can hold on to. I sat there inside a grove of trees, unable and unwilling to move, to forage, or to do anything but dig at the anthills with a stick. Three days passed, and the hunger grew, and the delirium from thirst gave me brought me conversation partners. I tell you, you’ve never heard such a raucous crowd until you’re conversed with your own inner demons.

The fellows who brought me into a nearby encampment were a curious folk. I don’t remember much of the details from that first day, but it turns out I was being watched while I played in my imaginary world on the hillside. A camp seemingly full of nomads, although I later learned it was a permanent settlement, was located nearby, hidden by the trees but no more than a stone’s throw from the road. I was fed, watered, and bathed, as helpless as a newborn child, and after some much-needed rest, I felt renewed and reborn.

My present company are an odd assortment of many different ages and races, cast out from the cities and towns in the south. They’re a magical folk, hidden from society and reclusive by choice. The encampment holds maybe one hundred, living in semi-structured tents and cooking simple meals from local ingredients and meats. Some of them are like me, born into the ordinary, and cast out for their differences. Others were born here, having experienced little of the world outside of these hills but possessing an abundant book knowledge of the histories, the alchemies, and the societies.

Over the past two years, I have had more than enough time to reflect. While I certainly did not intentionally cause the explosion in Stoneside, there is no way that I possessed enough alchemical fire to unintentionally cause such a violent ruckus. If not for the delicious local mulberries, I would have perished in that same fire along with the rest. Then to frame me afterwards? Somebody among my people is trying to bring ruin to me, and they have gotten away with it. The unprecedented act of exiling an entire family from the clan suggests some deeper evil lurking within Stoneside. It’s only now, with a clear head and an emotional barrier that only time (and a bit of hallucinogenic thirst) can provide, that I can finally see the evil that is. The evil that also claimed my parents lives on the road more than two years ago. I could sit here and squander this second chance I’ve been given, squander it through an absence of purpose and by not making the most of each minute each day. No, it’s not in my Plan. Instead, I have chosen to become strong.

Life among those with magical tendencies has gifted me an opportunity to learn and to train. I have resumed my craft of alchemical fire, except there are people here who seem to have already transcended everything I knew back in Stoneside. The materials for alchemical fire are not limited to the dust dug up from the ground, but there are many other ways the Gods have allowed us to interact with raw elemental heat. Under careful guidance, I am only now beginning to even see what others are capable of, and I am now beginning the journey to learn for myself. I have also learned how to defend myself with a short sword, since outside of Stoneside and its neighbors the world presents dangers that I have never trained for. I no longer live in a world devoid of evil. It turns out I never lived in a world devoid of evil to begin with. At least this time, when evil shows up, I will be empowered to do something about it.

It was at the enclave where I had time for lucid reflection. All of the misfortunes befallen on us, they all felt a little too deliberate. Never before had I felt so crushed beneath the fists of a vengeful world. The explosion itself was far too powerful for anything that we had stored in the workshop. Or was it? Was something in there that I didn’t know about? Did I underestimate the power of what we were working with? No, no, we had blown up dozens of things over the years, but never with such tremendous and terrifying force. And the flames that licked the ruins burned white hot. Not the dull orange of a cooling fire but pure white hot. It’s never really sat well with me, like a spoiled mulberry in the back of your throat, wanting desperately to not swallow it but not really knowing what else to do about it. But if the fire was from something out of the ordinary, what caused it? Why would someone be after me and my family? I mean, my parents lived a very simple life, at least by Stoneherder standards. We were an unassuming folk, and my parents tended to lay low. They had friends, sure, but they never wanted to be at the center of the party. In fact, they really were quite quiet, although I have heard stories from others in the clan that they were much more adventurous in their youth. That’s right, the straight-laced McTwixle duo used to venture deep into the mountains, sometimes for days at a time. I get the sense that nobody in the burrows were ever really settled about it, not with the comings and goings of a young pair of gnomes in love venturing into uncharted parts of the great underground. Most gnomes stayed away from there; it was told to us as children that folks in the deep were halfway between solid ground and the land of the dead. If you got too far, there were far more evil things than we surface dwellers would ever care to meet. But those days were in the past, and as long as I can remember we’ve been a good family, good to our neighbors and good to our clan. I cannot imagine anyone targeting us.

I’ve since adopted my branding as part of my identity in an effort to own my own destiny. The same moment that Dino McTwixle died, Dino Fierybottom was born from the ashes of a fire for which he has been blamed. I cannot undo the fire that claimed all those lives. But I can fight to clear my family’s name. Someone tried to kill me that day in an explosion, and after failing that person framed me for the destruction. Something inexplicable claimed the lives of my parents out of thin air. I can figure out who did all of this and who has been trying to ruin me, and I can seek the source of the nameless and faceless source of the explosion. And I can bring the justice for my people that they deserve.