Agnaar and the Skulz

Agnarr and the Skulz

A story speculatively attributed to the original Old Cults of Bonja, Goddess of Fire,

in the Earliest Days, by the Early Ones of Dwarven Summer’s Tale

(An Eldest Tale, Origin Ultimately Unknown)

There was a time long ago when Agnarr and Bonja--the fiery goddess of flame and volcanoes--were at odds with each other. Bonja frustrated the God of Destruction no end, for her fiery volcanoes and their lava flows always smoothed over the chasms and rockslides and general destruction that Agnarr so loved to create. The God would wander the mountains of Brohd Zellor, smashing things and laying waste to the mountains, and Bonja--the goddess of fire and volcanoes--would simply send her lava to flow over and cover everything up.
Time after time, Agnarr would come back to view his handiwork, to hunt and camp and do battle among the jumbles and messes of granite, and the destruction would all be unworked. What fun is a smooth, unbroken stretch of mountain land covered in layers of basalt? How could you even call it mountainous? Agnarr’s frustration and resentment grew. It took centuries to bust through Bonja’s hardened lava, and Agnarr got tired of it.
Agnarr’s anger was fearsome to see, and the other deities began to give him an even wider berth than usual. No one visited his territories on Brohd Zellor, and he retired to his greatest stronghold to brood. Darkly he brooded, and all the gods soon knew that Bonja had outdone him and played him the fool.
And that was the last bag on the mule’s back. Agnarr snapped.
Furiously, in his awful, child-like handwriting, the god wrote a letter to Bonja, goddess of fire--a nasty and insulting letter. He spit a great gob of messy saliva into it and sealed it with mule dung. Ha! That’s a good insult! He chuckled to himself, well satisfied with his wit, and he called for his servant: Grizzly the Dutiful. He told Griz to deliver the note to Bonja right away, and to bring back her answer.
Over many high mountains of Brohd Zellor, across the glaciers and through shaded pine valleys, crossing rushing-cold streams Griz loped his lope, until he arrived at one of Bonja’s realms. Griz found a great Vent with a stairway leading down into a volcanic pit, with a fiery orange glow deep within. Sparks flew, and he heat burned with intensity. But Griz the Dutiful carried on.
Down and down he went until he came to an enormous lake of fiery lava, glowing with the heat of the earth-deep. The intensity of the heat was unbearable. Griz stood before the lake with the letter clutched to his chest. He licked his lips nervously and looked around for Bonja.
When Griz saw the great figure rise from the lava pit, he averted his eyes; he fell to his knees in fear and awe. Bonja slowly rose from the pit, the greatly-flaming and ever-burning, the never-to-be-quenched goddess of volcanic fire. She towered over him, her eyes alight. Bemused, she said nothing else but reached toward the cowering Griz with a thick, flaming-red hand. Her great crackling voice addressed Agnarr’s servant: “Give me the paper, Bear.”
Griz handed it to her with a shaking paw, and with a wry smile she noticed the mule dung; she noticed the gob of spit; she noticed the childish handwriting. She quickly read the note before it burned to ashes in her hand. It said:

Hey Bonja,
You stupid flame-head. Stop your stupid lava flows before I make you pay. You will pay really bad.
In disrespect, Agnarr, the Awesome Lord Deity of Destruction and Chaos and also Bad Fury

Griz cowered still below her. “Bear!” she said. “Not only is your master no match for my gorgeous and cleansing lava flows; he also has little skill in communication. But he is funny...
“Return to him with this.” She produced a pocketwatch and held it forth. It gleamed a bright gleam in the light of Bonja’s subterranean fire, but the heat and flame did no harm to its metal.
“Bear!” she said again. Griz jumped to his feet, timid and fearful. “Take this and give it to your master. I have long since absorbed the meaning of its power. I am too intelligent to need it anymore.”
She handed the watch to Griz. “Tell Agnarr that this is no ordinary object. The forges of Zellor-kell, in the time before time, forged its divine metals. The gnomes of Brohd Zellor crafted it with their unsurpassed ingenuity. It is indestructible; it will never come to an end; it will run on forever. It’s name is Skulz, or ‘entropy’. Take it to your master as an answer to his ridiculous missive.”
Griz bobbed up and down, averting his eyes from the towering divinity before him. Then he loped off at full speed. Over many high mountains, across the glaciers and through shaded pine valleys, crossing rushing cold streams Griz went, until he arrived back at Agnarr’s territory, at the god’s greatest stronghold.
Griz was out of breath on his return, tired and panting, and Agnarr’s furrowed brow met him in the throne room. In his paws Griz clutched the exquisite magical stopwatch Skulz.
“Well?!!” Agnarr demanded with no preamble. “How did the flame-headed dolt respond?” There was a destructive glow in his eyes. Griz feared what might come next, for his master was quite unpredictable in his anger.
“Here, master,” Griz said timidly. He held the precious object up, and Agnarr peered at it. He took it and rubbed it with a great calloused thumb. He peered at it with a great, glowing green bloodshot eye. He held the object to his gigantic, whorled ear and listened to it ticking.
“It makes noise,” he commented to no one in particular.
Griz ventured more conversation. “Bonja’s gift is called Skulz, or ‘entropy.’ It never stops making the noise, dear master. She said it, um, goes on forever... such is its magic, um… That’s what Bonja said…”
“HA!!” the God of Destruction thundered. “LIES! That flame-headed moron sent me this in response to my eloquence and deft wit? Forever?! This is just a piece of junk! I’ll prove her wrong, just you wait Griz.”
So Griz watched while Agnarr sat down on his rough granite trone. “If I just sit here long enough, this trinket will surely stop. That Bonja won’t deflect my powerful anger so easily, with some stupid little broken Gnomish gadget!” The great god of chaos and destruction sat down and waited. He would prove Bonja wrong and get the better of the goddess of fire.
Now, we know that Agnarr is the most stubborn of the gods. All the gods know him as Zuzziftehenkken, ‘the one-who-will-not-back-down.’ Indeed he will usually destroy anything before (or especially after) it gets the best of him.
So stubbornly he sat there on his throne. The watch kept ticking. He sat some more, and still it didn’t stop. He furrowed his great bushy eyebrows: he was undaunted. Still he sat there. Seasons piled into full suns, into decades and centuries, and beyond into many millenia. Still the watch ticked, and still the great god of destruction sat there on his throne, listening, waiting for the gadget to stop.
The god remained on his throne stubbornly. What are millenia--even a thousand of them--to a great god like Agnarr? But the truth was, in his heart of hearts, that he began to tire of this. Maybe the stupid thing did go on forever after all. He began to doubt himself…
But he looked up then, and he noticed to his astonishment that everything around him had changed. He didn’t even recognize the place. The little stream in the pine valley below had grown wider and changed its course. The trees had all died, to be replaced with new growth. The valley was littered with new rockfall from the destructive influence of earthquakes, water, wind, and ice. Even the mountains were gone, replaced by new mountains. In short, everything had been utterly destroyed.
And in the distance he saw Bonja’s lava flows as well, but now even they were crumbled and worn away, leaving a messy jumble of basalt, much of which was washed away by wind and water.
It dawned on Agnarr that this gift (which still ticked on and on) may actually have some value after all. He admitted it grudgingly to himself: Bonja had given to him the ultimate tool of destruction. As long as Skulz ticked away, the world continually destroyed itself, forever and forever. And if he wanted to, Agnarr could just sit on his throne, listen to his watch, and observe his powers at work, without lifting a finger! (Of course, this was rarely his course of action, but it was good to know. A kind of insurance.)
She must have been pretty intimidated by my note, he smiled and gave a chuckle. The god of chaos and destruction was self-satisfied indeed. He patted his pocket where the watch was stowed. A good tool, he thought again, I will keep this and use it. Maybe I’ll thank Bonja some day; she’s not so bad after all. He even managed a smile as he thought of the goddess.
And to this day, the Skulz still ticks on. Some see Agnarr as the Father of Time, or simply as Skulz itself--as entropy personified--as the god of Ultimate Destruction. There is nothing he cannot crush with the magic of the Skulz. And although Agnarr never wields his power in true evil, the other divinities--with the possible exception of Bonja’s good-natured jibes--are careful not to cross him.

"Griz," as he know, is the ever-servant of Aagnar.  The position is highly esteemed, but working for the likes of Agnaar can be stressful.  Griz is subject to Agnaar's anger and moods, and his duties sometimes include the impossible: calming down Agnaar and trying to help Him see reason.  Griz has ever been Agnaar's servant.  His kind, it is said, was created by the God in a fit of moody anger.
Grizzly bears have ever since been influenced by the God of Chaos, athough their ways have largely diverge.  The bears are calmed and more patient.  The echoes of Agnaar's influence can be seen mainly in the protection of their young, the fierceness of which can never be quenched.