The largest peek of the island was located inside the tribal area of the Brockenborings dwarves. This peek was like a mighty sea wave in the middle of a storm; it rose up from where grass met the rough dunes of the beach and curved over the beach. It was the favorite spot for many of the teenage dwarves that lived on the island, and was the best place for their favorite game, Fosol. Fosol was a game the used large wooden polls, spiked balls, and nets; needless to say it is a very complicated game. Even though this peek was the place where young, laughing, young dwarves could be found it was not where the life of the island of Yami was.

The life of the island, and the tribal area of Brockenborings for the matter of this story, was the gold mines. The treasure of the Yami island was the gold, this gold was shipped out to everywhere from the island of Cosrin to small remote lands. The mines were not a place for the weak or kind and this because of its rough nature. The mines where dark and cold and were always filled with fighting, grumbling, drunk dwarves looking for a place with large pockets of gold to sell at low prices to merchants and exporters.

It was these mines that the family of Running Foot made their soul living from. They lived on the woody outskirts of one of the major gold mines in a small warm house. They were only a family of two and the small house fit their needs.

It was on one sunny morning, like so many others, that the gruff, yet feministic, voice of Clar, the mother of the Running Foot family, called out for her young son to awaken. He was always sleeping late and was always late to get into the mines, which normally meant he would have to fight for a place to mine. This action is not to be mistaken with the presumption that he didn't like mining, as he did.

The young dwarf awoke with a long yawn, slid out of his wood bed, with straw bedding, and scratched his chest vigorously. His eyes wondered around his small room till he spotted what he was looking for, and he walked over to, like everything else in the house, a wooden chair and pulled off a musty, once white, shirt from it. Sliding the shirt over his head (No worry he had slept in his pants) he headed to the kitchen where his mother awaited him with a large wooden spoon.

THWAP!

The spoon landed dead between the young dwarfs head. His mother began a verbal assault, "I swear to you little dirty eared, tall (tall was a insult to them), pony riding, fiery if I have to wake you up again you won't have to worry about getting to work, because I'll cut off your hands (and she some what meant it)!"

Like most teens he mumbled something incoherent, but most likely something he shouldn't be saying to his mother, and like all mothers he started back up,

"Do you have something to say Brandoria Doodle Running Foot!"

Brandoria seemed to shrink in embarrassment from where he stood, he had never moved after the spoon hit, because he always hated when his mother used his middle name. He often was sure that she had given him the middle name Doodle just because she wanted to embarrassment.

"No marm'" he mumbled out.

"Good then now off with you! And I don't want to here another word!"

Brandoria slowly walked to the door at the end of the kitchen and open the WOODEN door and walked out the back, any hopes of breakfast were left behind with any hope of liking the middle name Doodle.

CLANK
CLANK
BOOM
CLANK
CLANK
BOOM

That was the beat of the gold mines. The sound of miners working hard could be heard long before the mine itself could be seen. Though on this very day everywhere seemed to be in a gloomy mood, and there was no loud sounds from the mines except for an off beat CLANK now and again. The sky was gray, clouds hung heavily in the sky, and most importantly, somewhat, the young Brandoria was gloomy. It might be thought that any young dwarf would be jumping up and down to work in the mines (as many youth were doing every morning till their parents let them work the mines), but when it looks like a day of mining with no food, the day can look pretty down. Nevertheless Brandoria, with his beloved pick-axe in hand, walked through the thin woods till the trees started to be replaced with shrubs, and the grass began to be replace with dirt. It didn't take him that long; it would take less time if he had long legs, to get to the mines. Before he even reached them he could smell the sweet smell of soot, sweat, and blood all mixed together.

To understand the gold mine of Brockenborings a little history needs to be told. The Brockenborings main gold mine had been mined for more years then the hairs on a dwarf woman, and that's a lot of hairs. Like most mines at first large amounts of gold could be found just below the surface of the large mountain, but slowly with time in was necessary to go deeper and deeper into the mines; till the miners had to go into the very heart of the mine. Brandoria stopped short of the large mine and looked around himself, still a little sleepy. In front of him was the large mountain, nicknamed Lmou, (L= Large Mou= Mountain. They are dwarves and not cleaver with names. Must we remember Doodle?!?) in all its glory. Large walkways and ladders surround the mountain and went up to many different entranceways into the mountain. The main entrance was a large golden archway with the word "LMOU" chiseled in. To his east, west, and south were the outskirts of the forest, as the mountain was in the middle of a forest, making a wonderful sight to see.

With a huff and a puff Brandoria shoulder his axe and headed into the gold mines of Lmou…..

Dim light bounced off the walls like arrows slung from the bow of a strong ranger lighting the long pathways inside the mountain of Lmou. There were pathways leading everywhere some leading up, some down, some to the left, some to the right, some to the side, some to the other side, some to an angle, other curving around a bend, others just dropping down in a deadly plunge but to someone born to the mine this was just a walk in the park; Someone like Brandoria. As Brandoria strolled through the pathways he thought back to when he was just a young child begging his father, whom died, to let him work in the mines with him, but his father always said he had to be old, and finally on his 10th birthday he was old enough. His father gave him one of his old pick axe’s, which he still used now, and he remembered how big it was then; how hard it was to strike the hard rock…but know matter how hard it was he kept going with a smile on his face, because there was nothing that made him happier than mining…but there was nothing that filled him with such joy than mining with his father…Brandoria sighed heavily…how he missed him so….

Light slowly increased as Brandoria turned another bend, not going down a deadly path which lead down to a spiked pit, five or six had been lost to that very pit. Soon the light covered Brandoria like a flood of water, and soon before him was his pure joy, the gold mines…Everywhere around Brandoria were dwarves with grim face’s, in concentration, picking away at the hard rock of the belly of Lmou. Now-and-then someone would scream out in joy and jump up and down, holding a huge chunk of gold in their hand, holding it above their head in triumph. Brandoria began to look around for a space to pick at, now and then waving at someone whom he knew. Lucky for Brandoria, as he didn’t feel like fighting for a spot, there was an empty spot next to a young hyper dwarf named Wigs.

“The mountain drips with gold friend?” asked Brandoria, in a traditional greeting(which was asking if the digging was good).

“Like the rain falls from the sky,” replied Wigs, meaning all was well (If he was have a bad dig he would have said “The sand sweeps my eyes me friend,”).

“Then my axe falls onto Lmou?” asked Brandoria, asking if he could mine at the spot next to him.

“I think it shall,” replied Wigs, saying it was okay.

Brandoria removed the covering that covered his axe blade and started to swing his axe down onto the hard rock, his shoulders and arms shook with the impact that would have hurt many others, but like the saying goes “Dwarf is like rock”.

“So me friend Bran, did you hear the news from Pogc (Pogc=Pool of Good Coal; which was another mountain some ways off)?” asked Wigs, after a second. Brandoria stopped picking and whipped little beads of sweat that had already started to form off his head.

“Can’t say I have,” replied Brandoria, not asking what happened as it was considered bad manners, and one only asked if they didn’t respect the other dwarf (or person for any matter). After a little more time Wigs continued.

“Five full caverns fell in.”

Brandoria nearly dropped his axe.

“Strange bit of something going on…sixth collapse…Kali must be mad,” said Brandoria.

“Or Loki for that matter,” Wigs replied, and Brandoria nodded but was already on his own train of thought. He was thinking if this collapse was as strange as the others. All that was know about the other collapse was that the miners from the surrounding caverns heard a strange noise only described as a sound like a “Tinker..Tinker” and then the cavern collapsed. If the “Tinker” wasn’t strange enough the bodies of the miners couldn’t be found; most people just brushed off such a thought and called in a myth, half because they didn’t believed it and half because they feared what had happened. Brandoria thought that the stories could be true, but maybe that was because of other reasons…he didn’t want to think about it.

Twenty big dwarves walked to many of the entrance ways of Lmou as the sun slowly set to the west. All twenty of them held a horn made of bull horns, and at the same time all of them blew into their respected entrance ways. As soon as they had came the dwarves slowly walked back into the surrounding forest. As soon as they had left the miners started to walk out. Some had happy faces and held large, and small, chunks of gold in their hands or in a bundle of cloth, while others only had the axes they came with and a frown on their faces. Sadly Brandoria was among the ones with the long sad faces, it was worse for him as he hadn’t gotten any gold for the past months…His family was running out of food. He sighed heavily and head back home, with hopes of a better tomorrow.

Blacksmith Brandoria, Dwarven Smith
They won battles of glory. He made their armor.

A cold wind swept across the island of Yami the next morning, and for once Brandoria was awake before his mother could call him, it was in part because he wanted to live, and was shoving raw squid and eel’s down his throat when his mother came down, she didn’t look surprised to see him.

“You better be back before dark, and no more cuts,” she said to her son, shaking her head.

“Yes marm” replied Brandoria quickly, and ran out the door. His feet pounded the ground as he ran as quickly as he could towards the beach of the Yami. It took a good half hour, half running, half walking, to get to the beach, but Brandoria knew it was worth it. As he reached the beach he took a second to sink the sand between his toes before he headed off towards the shadows of the large cliff that hung over the beach. As he neared the base of the underbelly of the cliff a young dwarf whom seemed to be near exploding with energy ran towards him.

“Oh no,” mumbled Brandoria to himself, “when did he turn of age?”

“Bran..B..bRandoria!” screamed the little dwarf, “I turned ten! I turned ten!”

The dwarf stopped short of Brandoria and bent over panting. Brandoria couldn’t help but smile at the young dwarf, he looked so happy but he knew that after these days rules would start to bear down on him. It was the years where he turned into a grown dwarf.

“Well done Quick, well done,” said Brandoria smiling a polite smile, calling the young dwarf by his nickname, Quick.

Together the two walked over to the shadows of the cliff where a group of four other dwarves stood in a circle, which opened up to let the two join, surrounding a mid-aged dwarf whom had an aura of mystery and respect glowing from him.

“I’m glad you could join us Brandoria, and Quick please no more running off. Well seeing it’s a cold day we better get started. Everyone go get your sabers,” said the mystical dwarf, and with that all six of the dwarves ran off to the base of the cliff where a bags awaited them. Inside were long sabers made of bamboo. Everyone quickly got a weapon and quickly walked back to the mystical dwarf.

“Well’n now that you have your weapons, team up,” he said,

“Yes Maestro,” they all said and ran off to team up.

For the next three hours the young dwarves trained in the ways of the saber, swinging, hacking, running, blocking, feinting, sweating and blocking. When they were done they were dripping from head to toe with sweat. Slowly after talking to each other a bit everyone went their way. Lucky for Brandoria, Quick decide to walk with him home.

“So Brandoria I’ll be seeing you in the mines right?” he asked, but didn’t let Brandorai answer, “I’ll be there I can wait. I hope I find gold my first time out. Think I will? Is it hard. Is it fun? Wait don’t tell me I want to find out myself….is it hard? No don’t tell me,” Brandoria tried to hold back a laugh. Even thought he could get on his nerves, Brandoria always found it funny to hang out with Quick.

It was getting dark by the time the reached the forest again, and was even darker by the time they were just passing the gold mine. Brandoria stopped in front of the mine when he noticed that a light was still burning inside.

“Hey Quick go on ahead, looks like someone forgot to blow out a torch,” said Brandoria and started to head to the mine.

“No that’s okay! I’ll wait for you,” replied Quick, jumping up and down for know reason at all.

“If that bakes your pick,” said Brandoria under his breath.

“What?!?” screamed Quick, whom somehow had head him.

“Nothing!” said Brandoria, chuckling under his breath.

The mines were ghostly when they were empty. It seemed like ever passageway was alive with moving shadows. Its sometimes gave Brandoria the chills. As he stood at the entrance and waited for his eyes to adjust, and once he could see clearly he kept going. Half by instinct, and half by seeing, he made his way towards the torch, and once he got to the torch he pulled out of its hall holder and head towards to entrance again.

TINKER
TINKER
Brandoria stopped dead in his tracks. Did he just hear something? It was just his imagination, it had to be. Need to stop listening to Wigs, he told himself. He shook his head and chuckled to himself, how stupid he was to think such a thing. He kept going on.

TINKER
TINKER
TINKER
Brandoria stopped again. He did hear something he knew it. This time the noise was much quicker. He started walking again, much quicker.

TINKER
TINKER
TINKER
TINKER
TINKER
He started to run
TINKER
TINKER
TINKER
TINKER
TINKER
TINKER

The noise stopped, and so did Brandoria. Just ahead of him was the exit of the mine. Suddenly small movement started around him; seven to eight feet to his left, and right, a large section of the wall began to shift and move upward to revile a solid block of gears which were moving, shifting, stopping, and turning! Before him what he thought had to be impossible was happening! The gears themselves shifted up, down, and side to side as forms came forth through the wall of gears, and soon from each side of him two dwarves appeared, each clad in a strange uniform of gears with weird helmets. Without speaking, and Brandoria scared to death and not moving or talking, the forms took from their strange belt they wore metal plates, and they started to turn something on the plates, it made a TINKER noise. They took the plates and slammed them into the opposite wall, which the stuck to, and without speaking placed their hands into the block of gears, which parted to let their hands fit in, and started turning their hands. In front of Brandoria what seemed to be fake rock parted to make a doorway. The four forms removed their hands carefully from one section of the gear wall and placed them in another, quickly removing them after wards, and the walls folded back down. The forms walked up to him. One spoke.

“Two ticks left, you wish us to live walk through the passageway.”

Brandoria was dumbfounded, he couldn’t believe what was happening to him, people walking through walls, doorways opening in front of him, little metal plates being put on walls, and people talking about “ticks”. He felt dizzy, and slowly he began to fall in a half faint. The two dwarves closest to him caught him just in time.

“Let’s go one tick left,” one of them said. They pulled Brandoria through the door way. Brandoria looked around and saw everything in a haze. He seemed to be in a narrow metal walkway whose walls and ceiling seemed to be made up of gears. Yet again one of the figures pressed their hand into the walls and turned it around, the door closed behind them. Just as the doors shut there was a sudden boom, the noise scared Brandoria so badly he fell into a faint……..

It wasn’t the rat, that crawled on Brandoria’s lap and nibbled away at his clothing like he was dead, that awoke Brandoria, but the long moan and cries that surrounded him like an ocean a fish. His eye’s fluttered open slowly and he saw in a slight blur a sad view that made him wish his eye's were closed again...

All about Brandoria were dwarves like himself, but all of them looked as if they had been in the small cave like room, where he laid now, for a long time. Most of them were much younger than him, and seem to have a touch of disappear in their eyes. Some of the very young ones, maybe no more than 3 or 4, cried openly on the shoulder of anyone who offered. Grime covered everyone’s faces, and slowly Brandoria noticed that it wasn't grime but mine soot. Soon his mind, although quite groggy and still racing over the recent events, started to connected some of the things that were going on; the mine collapses, the missing miners, the miners, so he was sure of, in the very room. But why? Why were they here. For what? And most of all, he wanted to know who the people in the strange suits were. He had a lot of questions that he wanted answered.

Brandoria slowly tried to raise himself up from the ground but fell back down just as soon, feeling fairly dizzy. One of the other dwarves in the room notice his stir and quickly walked up to him. The dwarf couldn’t have been more than a year younger than Brandoria, he had light brown eyes and long, black, wild hair, and he walked with a slight limp. Once he reached Brandoria he kneeled down to him and helped him sit up,

“You must rest me maklers, food will come around soon to restore your strength,” the dwarf said. Maklers, thought Brandoria, that’s a word from the iron miner tribe of Gotoo meaning friend.

“Thanks my friend, do you have any idea where we are?” brandoria asked.

“Not in the least bit, been down here for only day longer then you. Names Gimmy by the way,”

“Nice to meet you Gimmy, even in such a goinky(Meaning bad) time,” said Brandoria, they both laughed; maybe it was because of the feeling of disappear that really engulfed them and the use of the word goinky that made them laugh, or that fact that dwarves are the masters of stay cooling in danger, or at least the Yami dwarves were.

From a flat wall, which Brandoria had just noticed now, a clinking sound of keys could be heard clinking around in a lock before the wall itself open up. Three large dwarfs walked in and set down three barrels before backing out. Brandoria turned to Gimmy in question.

“Its time to be eating,” he said, “you sit here and I will get us some food,”

Before he could thank him Gimmy got up and walked over to get food. From one barrel he pulled out a large bowel and a cup, he then dipped the cup into one barrel and then the bowel into another. When he started back towards Brandoria, brandoria could smell something like soup, and he was pretty sure there was water in the cup. Gimmy sat down next to Brandoria and handed him a bowl of soup and a cup of water.

“Eat up fast, they be coming back for everything soon,” and with that Gimmy started to dig into his food, and Brandoria followed suit with vigor. With his bare hands Brandoria shoveled thick soup down into his mouth, and only taking a break to breath, which was rare. Licking the bottom of the bowel clean, Brandoria still felt hungry. He also felt quite sleepy. He let out a large yawn, and Gimmy chuckled at him,

“Sleep me friend, you nots going anywhere” said Gimmy, taking the bowel and cup from Brandoria. Brandoria laid back sleepily and dozed off into a deep slumber.

Blacksmith Brandoria, Dwarven Smith
They won battles of glory. He made their armor.

Brandoria grabbed a small flower on the ground and plucked it out of the ground lightly. He brought the flower to his nose and took a deep breath letting the pollen fill his nose; he let out a strong and loud:

ACHOO!

He rubbed his nose and looked around him; He was in a grassy field that seemed to stretched out forever, and as he looked up at the sky he saw a large dark cloud start to cover the sky. The cloud grew quicker and quicker, and suddenly he felt something ruff on his face. As if a bucket of cold water was thrown on his face Brandoria eyes snapped open, everything around him was dark even thought he knew his eyes were wide open, and slowly he noticed he was being dragged. Something had to be over his head. He thought of screaming but thought it would be best he stayed quiet and find out where he was. All around him he heard echoing footsteps, small whimpers, loud clanking and ticking. From the whimpering that Brandoria heard he was sure that some of the others from the room, where he had been brought to after he was captured in the cave, were near him, and from the fast footsteps he knew they were going somewhere in a hurry. He wasn’t sure how long they had been going, and a few times he had passed out, but he knew that his ankles were hurting from trying to stand up right. Brandoria slowly noticed that it was quiet…no whimpering…Suddenly they stopped, he dropped to the ground as they let go of his arms. His blindfold was taken off and his eyes suddenly burned as light poured to them. He heard a click and a door close behind him. His eyes adjusted to the suddenly light. He was in another small room, by himself, with no windows and a large steel door; the walls were lined with lanterns.

Brandoria picked himself off of the ground and nearly fell back down as pain shot through his ankle but was able to grab hold of the wall before he could fall. As the pain eased Brandoria noticed a small table, with a white table cloth, in the corner in front of him. On the table laid four large gold gears, three silver gears, two bronze bars, and an assortment of other strange looking things. Slowly he eased his way over……

Blacksmith Brandoria, Dwarven Smith
They won battles of glory. He made their armor.

After a little bit of searching Brandoria spotted the slightest bit of light from under the door, and quickly crawled over, not wanting to put pressure onto his ankles. He pressed the table cloth, that wasn’t a table cloth, near the light to examine it more closely. It was solid white on one side, but on the other side it was totally black but had white drawings and words on it. Brandoria closely looked at the drawings and the words:

The shaft should be entered into the golden nic gear and bent inwards to prevent the gear from leaving the shaft, then the silver gog gears should be….

Brandoria thought of what this could be about, and was sure that if he made what ever this was, he might get some answers. And so he set to work…

Brandoria eyes strained to connect the last piece, a covering case, onto the object he had made.. The object was a mix color of bronze, gold, and silver; the main body of the object was covered by a silver casing, one end was made of a long silver shaft which had a small bronze block connected at the end, and the other end was made of two shafts intersecting each other in the middle.

Brandoria had a sense of pride that swelled up in his belly, but quickly died when he realized that he had nothing to go on anymore. He had finished building what ever he had built, but he still hadn’t found out anything, even though he had worked hours and hours on it. This doesn’t make any sense, he thought to himself, why would someone nap me for no reason at all?!? take me from my family?!? Brandoria climbed to his feet, and in another fit of rage banged his hang on the door screaming out as loud as he could, “WHAT DO YOU WANT WITH ME!?! HE DON’T HAVE ANYTHING!!”

Nothing... No reply. Brandoria slumped back with his back against the door, tears burned in his eyes and flushed out like rain, running down his face to his chin and onto his lap. He felt like all the fight was dead and out of him, all hope was lost and he was sure of it, and that he would die in that very room. He half screamed and half sobbed in defeat, his body shook heavily, his tears slowly died away and he fell asleep…..

Brandoria awoke with a tight neck which he couldn’t quite move right. The first thing he notice when he awoke was that all the lanterns were relit; this scared him and interested him all at once. Picking up the object he had made and wrapping it into the cloth it came with, Brandoria wobbled around the room trying to stretch a little bit, but quickly stopped when he noticed a noise outside of his door. He half ran and half stumbled over to the door and started banging on it, to tire to scream. He placed his head against the door and looked down at his feet, his eyes caught on to the key hole. It wasn’t much but a small block..block…the object he had made! Brandoria quickly removed the object from the cloth and stuck it into the hole and turned, nothing happened. He pressed harder and the key itself pressed in, he turn and the shaft of the key started to turn and make a clicking noise. He turned till it couldn’t move anymore and let go, the key shaft started to turn, there was a grinding noise, the noise stopped, there was a second of pure silence, there was a clicking noise, the door slowly creaked open. Brandoria looked out into a vast pit which was lined with many doors, some already open. In the center of the room was a young perky looking dwarf who smiled warmly at him.

“Welcome..” the dwarf said.

“Who…what…where am i?” asked Brandoria, still not leaving the doorway. “I am the Test Keep,” he explained as he held up a cup of water, “trusty?” As soon as the words left the Test Keeps mouth Brandoria wobbled over and grabbed the water, he quickly drank it all down.

“Where am I? and why?” Brandoria asked and handed the cup back, the Test Keep took the glass and put it on the desk in front of him.

“You are on the top level of TickAla, why you are here...me not the one to tell you,” he replied.

“And who will? You’ve kept me locked up and away from my life and that’s all you can give me!?!”

“I can give you this,” the young perky dwarf handed Brandoria a leather backpack as if he was handing over a chunk of gold.

“Why the would I want a backpack!?! This makes no sense at all! You keep me locked up, no food, give me a glass of stupid water! And then give me a half baked answer and expect me to be alright!?!” Brandoria yelled out in one breath, the rage billed up in his chest and he swung out at the Keep. His fist landed square onto the Keeps face but nothing happened, he didn’t even move.

“Sorry lad, but I can only give you bits of information. But if you wish to learn more go up that walk way.” He said and pointed towards a stairway going downwards. Brandoria instantly got the feeling that many people had tried to hurt the Keeper, and any form of outrage might be worth nothing. Snatching the backpack, which the man still had stretched towards him, Brandoria stormed off towards the stairway and began to descend.

The stairway was made of stone and the walls of dirt, but a few times Brandoria could have sworn to have seen symbols flash across the wall, though he wasn’t sure what they were for; he was a dwarf not a mage. The stair seemed to go down forever, and on the way Brandoria took a look inside of the backpack the Keep had given him. Inside was a shoulder-belt which had four compartments, one of which he placed the key he had made, a dagger with matching sheath, which he also put on around his waist, a canteen full of water, some odd bits of food, and last of all a map. Brandoria pulled out the map and looked down at it as he hit the last step; he looked around to see that he was at the entrance for what looked like a long tunnel…

Like everything in life, things can be unsure. As Brandoria came to the steps of this underground city our story must drop off, as it has become ever growingly unclear what happened after this, to some point. This is because of the very secrecy of what lay within the gates, and that some secrets are best unknown. But a good story teller can find ways to sneak in even the best tricky gates that block us from following our young Brandoria. I belive at this point Brandoria was taken into this city of TickAle where he learned the secrets of their...of their "Tinkering"..Why he accepted to go even though his family, and all he knew, was behind him is any mans guess..or dwarfs. Though 10 years later a sudden explosion rocked the hunder ground city...When the dust had cleared Brandoria and many others were gone..why they left..and where they went was a total mistory..till now.