Musty carriages and ballrooms were never a place for a lad of fifteen.  Though Dravius had seen much of the world he always seen it from the inside of a sterile cage. The dangers far off the adventures imagined.  Today would be a day like any other, warm waiting rooms, chuffing emissaries, being herded from one room to the next.  All while his father went about royal business. 

Dravius Barsoom Daalmuud was ever his father's companion on his diplomatic journeys.  Often tasked with entertaining pot belled princelings or bucktoothed princesses, while his father went about the business of securing trade routes and writing treaties. The city of Copper Sound was a welcomed distraction.  It was a large town, one of the few dwarven cities not built in the mountains and housed their large museum, known as the vaults.

The lordling had no heir for the lad to entertain, instead he was left with a husky guardsman, named Oilamar, who was deep in his cups by lunch.

Dravius's wits, had escaped him all together, as soon as his hands were around the key ring and his feet were in the halls.  He read dwarvish writing well and immediately recognized the word vaults.  Soon he stood before a great door, He tried many keys and eventually one undid the lock.  A drunkards ramblings could not begin to describe the majesty that he witnessed behind those doors. There was gold, there was gems and most importantly there were arms of war.  He played as any child would, trying on a belt, a set of matched pauldrons, but soon his eye was drawn to an enormous golden coffer. 

Engraved on the lid, he saw the three peaked mountain with a sun rising behind it.  There were words written below but he could not make them out in the dim illumination.

He exclaimed aloud "Why do these damned dwarves not allow for more light!" At the words, the coffer shifted down the middle on an invisible seam and slide silently open. 

Inside were the two most magnificent swords he had ever seen.  He immediately removed them, donned them and admired him self in a large mirror.  He cut at shadowy dragons, charged up mountains made of gold and shouted the war-cry of his countrymen at forgotten wracks of armor.  But the charge of the great war chief Dravius was cut short when he tripped over a misplaced gauntlet.  Cursing he picked it up and puzzled over the clammer of clock-faces and gears that adorned it.  He slid it on to his right hand and began manipulating every dial, slider and button on it's surface.

Within twenty minutes of setting out, Dravius saw a campfire in the distance.  He hurried toward the camp as fast as he could, eager for some explanation as to what was going on. 

As he neared, he saw a man hunched over a cook pot. He whistled loudly, the man stood alert and gave a friendly wave.  As he approached, he saw an older man in a green and brown cloak.

The man greeted him "Hail Stranger! It's odd to see people in these parts of the world."

Dravius said to the man, "I was was on a trip with my father to Copper Sound and I have no idea what happened to him."  The man nodded. "Is your father an archaeologist' I can help you find him and if you are in need of a guide I know the area well enough."

The lad replied, "My father is a diplomat from House Daalmuud, We were staying in the keep, when i took a chance to tour the vaults and when I emerged, I found the keep no longer standing."

The man laughed. "I think, rather your father is a wine merchant and you spent the afternoon sampling his wares.  Copper Sound hasn't stood for nineteen-hundred years!" 

Dravius's eyes widened."that could not be, I laid eyes on it today!"

"At the beginning of the second age, Copper Sound was the site of an incident that would cause the one hundred year war, between the Dwarves and the kingdom of Daalmuud." The Ranger took a long drink from a wine skin.

Then he continued. "The king of Daalmuud had sent his cousin to Copper Sound in order to arrange a festival between the two nations.  The man had brought along his young son.  At some time in the course of these talks a band of orcs attacked Copper Sound. After the orcs were dispelled, it was found that both, the ambassador's son and a set of ancient relics dear to the dwarves had come up missing." He paused, to look out over the slightly barren lands, then back to the lad. "The Dwarves accused the king's cousin of paying the orcs to attack, so a spy posing as his son could steal the relics.  The man in turn accused the Dwarves of not taking care of his son or of kidnapping him themselves.  Tempers flared, the ambassador returned to Daalmuud, to report the events to the king.  The dwarves, massed an army on the borders of Daalmuud." 

Dravius found his appetite quiet removed and sat the bowl aside. The ranger, took another spoon of stew and continued speaking after bites. "The king, angered by their aggression, amassed his own army and the war began.  The kingdom of Daalmuud pushed the dwarves all the way back to their mountains, but suffered heavy casualties in the process.  The Dwarves responded with an army of golems."

There was a bit of a pause as the Ranger got more comfortable. "Though the dwarves did not return from under the mountains for three hundred years, the golems overwhelmed the Daalmuud army and smashed their kingdom into dust.  The nation was split but no king would ever sit above these free lands again.  Copper Sound has ever set as a border, that the dwarves of Brega have never crossed unto this day....."

As the ranger finished this tale, he took a long pull from the wine skin and offered it to the lad.  "Would you like me to guide you to a village nearby in the morning?"

Dravius sat for a moment, deep in thought before responding. "No, I will make my way back to my father's camp in the morning" The ranger laughed, "Well enough lad, your welcome to the warmth of my fire for the night" He rummaged through an old leather pack and pulled out an old wool blanket. He handed it to Dravius, before stoking the fire and laying down himself. 

Though Dravius's thoughts were troubled,  he eventually settled into an uncomfortable sleep. Nightmares of his homeland burning plagued his mind through the night.  He woke in the morning, to find the fire burned down to coals and no sign of the ranger, but two ripe red apples laying near his head.  His thoughts immediately turned to the gauntlet and he knew that he had to fix this.

He did not know how long he had been unconscious nor why his clothes felt so tight, the landscape around him had transformed. No longer the barren plains lands or the dwarven ruined buildings. He knew not where he was or what would happen next.

The sword and gauntlet lay at his feet, he slid the sword back into its scabbard next to its mate and picked up the sundered gauntlet.  With it split open he noticed an inscription inside.  'Crafted by GORT, The Mighty, on the occasion of Prince Belwar's birth'....