2. Into the Fire

The feedback from my people was not as bad as I had expected. My father, General Drogo ‘Doomfeller’ Onyxfist of the Gevorgun Clan, was excited, even happy for some reason. I was soon to know why. But what I was most concerned of was that the guarantees of the Fourth of the Fourth Traders had come to nothing in protecting my cargo.
 
My people had set a task of atonement in the form of a manhunt and protection task from the Dwarven Triskelion Order I was now directed to find the Ninth. I had assumed it impossible - the Ninth was the penultimate son of a Celestial (one of several races including the Elves and the Noble Atlanteans, basically a quarter of the population) and my role was to bodyguard the boy. Basically to find a single human being among thousands. All that they would advise me of was that he was being carried aboard an Elven Vessel from Cadiz, but also gave me a single Tetraktyan Prophecy indicating that I was fated to find him.
 
Fall
Doom Marks
Son’s Orb Thru
Eye Can N’er Age
 
Apparently they had interpreted the nonsense as the son of Doomfeller who happens to lose his eye during a calamity to something that never truly ages (like the moon), and they went on to say that the Ninth would have some sort of Mark on him, to show he was someone who can N’er Age’(basically an Immortal or Celestial). But I had seen versions of the same poem that had Sun’s Orb - and it had spelled doom to those who had seen it through the hole (Eye) of the Moon Mountain. But who knows with these prophecies.
 
I later learned that my father had taken the story of my loss of my left eye as a sign from Hephaestus that I was the son who was being referred to in the ancient prophecy because my eye was the only Dwarven eye to have been lost at this time, and he felt that I had finally honored the Clan in some way, and the Elven Triskelion had heaped praises of my selfless helping of their people during the Moonstruck Hit to bring honor on all Dwarves for our compassion. They are in my debt for the first time.
 
The Thieves Guild took me and gave me a babysitting task - to take care of a Novice Rogue called Terwin, to aid him in finding two rogues who had been on lookout duty in the sewers. So now I was ankle deep again - this time in human shit. We skulked and scouted throughout the sewers of Pavia (known locally as Pavis - apparently the initial Charter to the Town had been mis-spelled as Pavis and the local community had retained it. Others in the Kingdom still call it Pavia.), and were horrified to find it being patrolled by Orcs and Orc Commanders. For three days we made our way carefully through the sewers looking for any signs of the lost rogues with no luck. Timing our movements to the patrols we eventually came to the western mid-line section of the sewer system only to find it now blocked with a collapsed section of the culvert. There was now no way to get out of the sewer without backtracking through the entire network - and we noted that the Orcs had greatly increased their activities in the area. But Terwin and I noted beneath the collapse with a caved in skull was an official of some sort and atop a pile of debris was a suit of field plate armor, it’s wearer was delirious but recovering. We were discussing what to do with our find, when the armor wearer stirred. I had found the Ninth!