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Sweat beaded on Bruenor’s hand as he put the key into the dusty lock of the heavy wooden door This was the beginning of the process that would put all of his skill and experience to the ultimate trial Like allfor thisof his long training

He had to push hard to swing the door in on the s warped and settled since it was last opened h, for he dreaded the thought of anyone looking in on his lanced around at the dark corridors of this little-used section of the dwarven co sure once more that he hadn’t been followed, then he entered the roo fringes of many cobwebs

The only piece of furniture in the room was a wooden, iron-bound box, banded by two heavy chains joined by a huge padlock Spiderwebs criss-crossed and flowed frole of the chest, and a thick layer of dust covered its top Another good sign, Bruenor noted He looked out into the hall again, then shut the wooden door as quietly as he could

He knelt before the chest and placed his torch on the floor beside hie for just an instant, then died away Bruenor took a small block of wood fro on a chain about his neck He held the wood block firers of his other hand below the level of the padlock as ently slid the key into the lock

Now ca When he heard the tumbler in the lock click, he braced hi thea spring-loaded lever that had been pressed between it and the chest The small dart knocked into the block of wood, and Bruenor breathed a sigh of relief Though he had set the trap nearly a century before, he knew that the poison of the Tundra Widow

Sheer excitement overwhelmed Bruenor’s reverence of this moment, and he hurriedly threw the chains back over the chest and blew the dust frorasped the lid and started to lift it but suddenly slowed again, recovering his sole himself of the importance of every action

Anyone who had coet by the deadly trap would have been pleased with the treasures he found inside A silver goblet, a bag of gold, and a jeweled though poorly balanced dagger wereother more personal and less valuable items; a dented helm, old boots, and other similar pieces that would hold little appeal for a thief

Yet these items were merely a foil Bruenor pulled them out and dropped theht

The bottoiving no indication that anything ly cut the floor lower under the chest, fitting the box into the hole so perfectly that even a scrutinizing thief would swear that it sat on the floor The dwarf poked out a ser through the opening This wood, too, had settled over the years, and Bruenor had to tug htily to finally pull it free It ca backward He was back at the chest in an instant, peering cautiously over its edge at his greatest treasures

A block of the purest olden coffer, and a silver scroll tube capped on one end by a diao

Bruenor’s hands trembled, and he had to stop and wipe the perspiration from them several ti those that would fit in his pack and laying the mithril block on a blanket he had unrolled Then he quickly replaced the false botto care to fit the knothole back into the wood perfectly, and put his phony treasure back in place He chained and locked the box, leaving everything exactly as he had found it, except that he saw no reason to chance accidents by rear the needle trap

Bruenor had constructed his outdoor forge in a hidden nook tucked away at the base of Kelvin’s Cairn This was a seldom traveled portion of the dwarven valley, the northern end, with Bre out into the open tundra around the western side of thelikewise on the east To his surprise, Bruenor found that the stone here was hard and pure, deeply ith of the earth and would serve his small temple well

As always, Bruenor approached this sacred place withnow the treasures of his heritage, his mind drifted back over the centuries to Mithril Hall, ancient hoiven him on the day he received his first smithy hammer

"If yer talent for the craft is keen," his father had said, "and ye’re lucky enough to live long and feel the strength of the earth, ye’ll find a special day A special blessin’ - some would say a curse - has been placed upon our people, for once, and only once, the very best of our s that outdoes any work they’d ever done Be wary of that day, son, for ye’ll put a great deal of yerself into that weapon Ye’ll neverthis, ye’ll lose a lot of the crafts of yer haood as yer line says ye’ll be, ye’ll have crafted a weapon of legend that will live on long after yer bones are dust"

Bruenor’s father, cut down in the co enough to find his special day, though if he had, several of the items that Bruenor now carried would have been used by hi the treasures as his own, for he knew that he would craft a weapon to make the spirit of his father proud

Bruenor’s day had coe of a two-headed hammer hidden within the block of mithril had come to Bruenor in a drean at once and knew that he would have to ht of power that was fast approaching Already the ht in the sky It would reach its fullness on the night of the solstice, the gray tiic The full ht, and Bruenor believed that he would capture a hty spell indeed when he uttered the dweomer of power

The dwarf had much work before hiun with the construction of the se That had been the easy part and he went about it hts to the task at hand and away fro the weapon