Light from the forges kept the rough hewn, stone walls a steady orange. Time in the Deep was hard to keep track of; minutes and hours seemed to flow like the great rivers of magma that fed the forges. This suited the short, muscular men who manned the forges. They scurried about their machines, raising buckets with heat resistant chains, opening and closing flaps to direct superheated air. Their bodies glinted metallicity in the sullen glow of Semele's blood, creatures of metal working objects of metal. Out of the darkness black, iron carts scooted along stone rails bringing ore to feed the hungry machines. The more Pjeil watched, the more the machines appeared to be great beasts. Each had massive jaws, crushing and swallowing down stone and ore. Each had two great yellow eyes, vents perhaps, or maybe viewing portals to determine what level the magma was. Scrabbling claws shoveled ore out of buckets, but these were held by men made of metal.
Pjeil was next. He was stuck in the minecart. Paralyzed. He could see, he could look, but his lips were sewn shut. The youth's arms were immobile, as if encased in the stone he sat on. This was only a foundry, a place of conversion. From stone to fire to metal. The poured ingots were sent off in those odd self-propelled carts.
On raised platforms, men with shovels began to dig into their minecart and toss it into the smelter. Into those maws did the pieces go. They looked too much like his family, his friends, his people, those pieces of ore. The stones he himself sat on were closer to dismembered limbs, if they were the limbs of statues. A glint of liquidy reflection was gone before he realized what it was. He couldn't be sure, but he hoped to Izurdin that what he saw was silver or a gem and not the remains of loved one, not someone's face, not the glint of an eye winking at him from beyond the gloomy, burning light.
The metal men were like his people, but there was something wrong about them. Perhaps they were not symmetrical, one's arm went down to the floor while the other was far too short, or another's blank, listless features had migrated to one side. As if these workers aspired to being perfect, but were the cast offs of their god. Pjeil shivered in fear of what it would be like to be rejected by his god, the god of creation.
With the cart in front of him light enough to empty out his cart was pulled forward. The sounds and rumble of shifting earth and flowing stone were resounding from that black metal maw. These beasts were growling at him. Those eyes frowned down at him, view ports impossibly creasing and shifting to regard him. It's breath was sulfurous and noxious, the heat causing the light from the maw to shiver as the air flowed over the cart and the nearest metal men. But the men did not resume their shoveling, the sat and stared blankly beyond Pjeil and his cart.
oocAnyone and everyone is welcome to join in the nightmare. Changing, adding to or taking away aspects of the scenery or tone of the dream are welcome, but I request that everyone attempt to keep with the horror/nightmare theme. I have no right to ask it, but it would be nice.
