Chapter 10: First Contact
Balor Rockshaper was bored. He had retired 500 years ago and found it didn’t live up to the hype. It wasn’t building the grand monuments that he missed, it was the simple projects that required back breaking work day after day that he longed for.
He looked at his stone hands and admired the proof of his experience. His calluses would never fade. Balor’s ancient ancestors had been simple people. Rock elementals that constructed geometric shapes within the mountains of his ancestral planet, Karak dun Drak. The assimilation of mana led them to an evolution that turned them into humanoids, though to others they still resembled boulders. Changing their shape hadn’t changed their constitution. Even after millions of years, they were still stone through and through.
The Karak, as they called themselves, didn’t try to hide their ancestry as some other species in the cosmos preferred. They were proud builders and Guild Drak, the primary faction of his people, was well respected for their abilities with stone. A steady stream of commissions for their great works kept them busy and the quality of their work was the only advertisement they ever needed. A city without a monument built by Guild Drak was no true city after all.
A grandmaster like Balor would even be specifically requested to lead grand projects, bringing glory and fortune to Guild Drak. Unfortunately, his mountain grew too tall. Other builders grew jealous of his fame, and the Guild was unhappy that some projects would be canceled by the commissioning factions rather than go on without Balor.
Fame hadn’t come on purpose. Balor just loved to build, and, when he was young, had the foresight to dedicate effort into his class and leveling. Most builders in Guild Drak only wanted to do one thing and it was build. Balor wasn't any different, but he wanted to build for a long time, so he leveled his class to maximize his lifespan.
He had gone on great campaigns exploring the unknown, became a soldier for hire and fought on planetary battlefields, and joined adventure parties completing quests and defeating terrible monsters, all for his passion for building. Eventually, it paid off. He was able to place his massive warhammer over the fireplace and relinquish his magnificent plate armor to a corner of his workshop and just focus on building things.
Many lifetimes of experience forged him into a great talent that the guild recognized to be worthy of the grandmaster title. At the time, he was thrilled with the reward, not realizing that it would be the beginning of his downfall.
Once word had spread that a new Guild Drak Grandmaster had risen, the demand for his services grew to unprecedented levels. Instead of treating lesser commissions as beneath his title as was expected of someone in his position, he welcomed them. A grandmaster who was willing to build fortifications and shelters instead of monuments and temples only increased his demand. Not that he wouldn’t build a monument, he just didn’t have any preference as long as he got to build something.
Balor was eventually forced into retirement by the Guild, told to enjoy his time in a mountain palace that they gifted him for all of his descendents. It all came to a head when a religious faction was offended that Balor wasn’t available to build a monument to their god emperor as he was already engaged with building a riverwalk for a small colony and had refused to leave the project mid completion. Once the political forces began to move, the Guild decided enough was enough from their newest grandmaster and gave him a few options.
Retirement was the most desirable for both parties.
He tried to enjoy it, but it was too cold. And boring. His family wouldn’t bother the elder Balor; those that would were long gone or off on their own adventures. They just wanted him to rest and enjoy his fruitful life in retirement.
Balor needed a new project that he could work on in relative anonymity, without the Guild knowing and without his family hounding him to relax. He had been toying with an idea to get out from under their noses, but it would require a certain amount of luck that he wasn’t sure he possessed anymore.