Reflections of MagniOutsiders were a bother, thought Magni, hauling the corpse of the dead caravan guard down the road to the fort, from which he could descend to the tomb level at the very bottom.
Traders, monsters, goblins, all of them. What they had made here was iconic, and he didn't care much for others coming to partake in it, whether by trade or by force.
Magni had been in Nist Akath for many years now. A master in his own right, he felt a curious sense of belonging in this bleak wasteland.
He had always shown talent, even back in the mountainhomes when he had found himself unable to secure a proper job. His entire family had been faced with the same situation, and with the death of his parents in a mining accident it had only gotten worse for he and his siblings.
It was not long after they had been forced to bed in the poorhouse, losing most of their possessions to the Crown, that he had decided to leave on the next migration caravan. That caravan had brought him and a handful of other dwarves here, to what probably rivaled the mountainhomes in terms of grandeur and was damn near unassailable.
And the fortress had received only soldiers of epic skill for a long time, and even then, only a few. This was a place where dwarves honed their talents to mastery.
He briefly wondered what had become of his siblings, and whether they had escaped the poor houses. He hadn't seen them since the day he left, and hoped they made it out of the slums.
Still, they probably weren't hauling corpses around. It wasn't the best of days.