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[IamanElfCollaborator]

Chapter One
'The Birth of a Legend'

'The City of Akathgethor,21st Slate, 15.'
'The Den of Thieves'
 

    Tobul Splashtowers was screaming. She was trying to push the baby out of her belly, the baby which she had been expecting for some months now.
When her good friend Erush heard, he had treated her out and told her of his own wife, back in the Mountainhomes. She had had 2 children, a rarity amongst the dwarves. Erush had told her giving birth was easy. Not so now. 'Must be his father's blood..', Tobul thought as she pushed the new life into the world. The Pandaman doctor was trying to ease her birth with beer and ale, but it was no use. No matter how numb the pain was, it felt like she was pushing a rock out.

  The screaming continued into the wee hours. She had not yet given birth to him when Erush came in to tell her that her husband was coming in from the forges to see their new child. 'Damn you, Muthkat, you did this to me!', she screamed, and at the sound of his father's name, the baby came out like booze in a barrel into a dwarfs mouth. Tobul felt the pressure go quickly, and she looked down. The child was amber-skinned. He was strong looking, though he had only just been born.  His eyes were turqoise. Tobul named him after her patron god, Asmel. Just then, the father came into the room. The fire imp Muthkat held up his child. 'He looks like he'll be a strong little boy,' he uttered. 'Yes, Muthkat, that's all because of you,' Tobul responded and passed out. The doctors managed to revive her and she went back to work the next day.

The young Asmel was strange amongst his kind, for he was the only half-breed in existence. Indeed, he was half fire-imp, half dwarf. Such a combination had never been heard of. But, the Impborn, as he was called, would become great amongst the thieves of Winterdirge, as we will soon see....

(Based on true events. See the Dfusion thread.)
(The true events: In 21 Slate, 15, in Akathgethor, a child named Asmel Wheelscalded was born of a dwarf and fire-imp marriage. He was unique in that he was evidence that children could be born of interracial marriages without race-changing or adventurers. He was also unique in that his description was visible without crashing the game, a first for half-breeds, whose desc usually crash games because their appearance is unrenderable by the current DF engine. I named Asmel 'Impborn' to commemorate the new discovery, and he was made a metalsmith after his mother was killed going berserk by the militia and his father dying of old age the next year. I will add more details as his life story goes on. Some events in this story were fabricated due to the normal story being boring and the world Asmel was created in crashing beyond a certain point. )

[IamanElfCollaborator]

Chapter Two
'Discovery'

'The City of Akathgethor, 21st Slate, 36'
'The Den of Thieves'

Asmel Wheelscalded, Impborn was now 21 years of age. His mother had died when he was 15 when she was caught stealing from the warehouse overground in Akathgethor, along with some of the Den's best thieves. His father, Muthkat the fire imp died of grief 2 years later and Asmel took up the mantle of being a metalsmith, like Muthkat before him, and running down a long line of metalsmiths.

Asmel hammered into shape a superb steel maul, ordered  for the latest thief to be enlisted, Vabok Ancientangel, a very skilled hammerbold. Spare metal was scarce in the Den and only the elite or highly proficient, like Vabok were given new weapons. Most thieves either crafted wooden weaponry, made stone weaponry or stole metal from the surface. It was hard to dig, seeing as most of their pickaxes had bent since the days of Momuz, the leader of the expedition by day, the master of the Den by night. He was a very old gremlin now, but in his youth he had commanded the respect of both the lawful and unlawful.

Vabok walked in to the forge. He was a tall kobold, strangely muscled, especially for his kind. He had a deep, growling voice, as if he was a wolf given voice. He had bronzed skin, tanned by the endless summer days of stealing from the marketplaces of Winterdirge. It had been a nice summer up there, apparently.
'So, where is my hammer, Impborn?' informed Vabok with a hint of scorn. Asmel's status was not high, and it had not been made any better by being a half-breed. There were some, like Urist, another kobold thief, or Melbedil, the new doctor, who took more kindly to him, but for the most part, people treated him badly. Asmel picked the freshly made iron maul from the anvil. It was beautiful, with intricate engravings in the handle, and the carving of a flame on both sides of the head. Vabok snatched it from Asmel's hands and examined it. 'Your father did better work than this,' he spat. 'But I suppose I'll have to settle for you.' He left the forge and Asmel scowled. 'Arrogant bastard,' he muttered and got to work, melting down a batch of incendium stolen from the surface.

Asmel was a tall dwarf, with amber skin, tinged with red, a hint of his ancestry. He had differently colored eyes, one turqoise, his mother's eye color, one yellow, his father's. He had long fingers for a dwarf, and some of his facial features looked impish: his mischievious smile, the slightly pointed ears and the eyes, they looked like they hid something. He had a hoarse voice from working in the forge, and he was strong from years of hammering. He was suited to the heat: after all, his father had been a fire imp.

Vabok walked back in. 'What is this piece of crap?!', he boomed as he threw the now bent iron maul Asmel had just given him. Asmel scowled. 'I worked hours on that, you prick,' he muttered. 'Well, Impborn, I guess you'll have to work on it again!' Vabok laughed, and Asmel only remembered two things from the next two minutes that followed: a fire appearing in his hands, and Vabok screaming.

Asmel looked down. Vabok was writhing, a large, severe burn in his side. Asmel could instinctively tell that Vabok would not survive: the burn was so deep, you could see his ribs in places. Vabok tried to grab Asmel's foot but he was kicked savagely in the burn by Asmel, and Vabok went still,
'What have I done?', Asmel asked to himself. He was puzzled to how he had managed to burn Vabok badly enough to kill him, when he saw a small, but bright fireball in the palm of his hand.

[IamanElfCollaborator]

Chapter 3
'Succession'
'The City of Akathgethor, 24th Slate, 36'
'The Den of Thieves'

Vabok Ancientangel's funeral was thinly attended. Only his family; a pair of old, evil-looking kobolds and a very ugly, even by dwarf standards, dwarf,: attended. Everyone else simply said their condolences and celeberated in their own homes; Vabok had been an idiot to everyone, not just to Asmel. However, what Melbedil , the chief doctor in the Thief's Den,and her helpers could not figure out is how Vabok had been burnt so badly as to kill him. The only other person to have seen Vabok killed had been Asmel, the metalsmith, and while he had fire imp ancestry, which only three people in the entire Den knew and believed (Asmel, Urist the kobold thief, and Melbedil), this did not mean he could throw fire. Fire imps could only throw fire because it surrounded them, but as far as they could see, no fire surrounded Asmel.

Asmel was sitting in his bed. He felt a mixture of emotions at killing Vabok. Jubiliation, since he had killed the person who half the Den hated, and who had broken his beautiful creation, pride at having such a power, fear that he could hurt someone with it, and guilt at having killed Vabok. He was a living person, idiotic and arrogant though he was, and so Asmel felt some guilt at having killed him. He looked at his hand, which had a fireball in it. He hurled it at the wall, which left nothing but a scorch mark where it landed. 'What in Asmel's name is this power?' Asmel asked himself. It may had had something to do with his fire imp father: they could throw fire, but then again, Asmel was a unique being. Nobody had ever seen a half-breed before. Not even in the long histories of the Mountainhomes, nor in any other land had a half-breed been seen, at least not that Asmel knew of. He went to see Melbedil.

Melbedil was in her study, wracking her brain over what could have killed Vabok. Nothing she could think of fit in: Asmel had told her that he and Vabok were the only people in the room, and the fire imps were all being trained in the danger room. IT made no sense, but one of the fire imps had had to have done it. She thought, 'Can't blame 'em. Vabok was an arrogant bastard, no mistake.' She knew what she was saying: Vabok had flirted with her many times, unsucessfully. Asmel walked into the room. 'Good afternoon, Dr.Whispertrades,' he said. It was a sign of respect in the den to refer to someone as either Mr. or Ms. or Mrs. if they were only common thieves, Master or Mistress if they were elites or Dr. if they were healers.
'Asmel, you don't have to call me Doctor. You know we've been friends a long time, you can call me Melbedil.', she responded. 'Not when I need to ask you something important to a certain case,' Asmel countered, and Melbedil knew what he was talking about. 'How do you think Vabok was killed?' she asked. 'Well, my theory is he was burnt by a stray coal,' he answered. 'A stray coal wouldn't be that big,' she responded, curious. Asmel knew that well enough, why would he be saying that?
'Well...' ,he stopped. 'Asmel, I know your father was a fire imp, but that doesn't mean they're all decent. After all, we live in a den of thieves, murderers, beggars and assasins.'
Asmel was about to ask Melbedil about his ability when one of her helpers came in.
'Dr. Whispertrades, the Forges are on fire! We need everyone we can get, now!'