200 Space Virus X : Zareth's Truth

"Orous is the dwarf's race's home world, but dwarves are more like a collective name for all of them. There is a variation of the species, like pygmies, gnomes, goblins, and leprechauns. The main race, which is my race have three distinct branches and a bunch of tribes. I'm a member of the mountain dwarves, and our leader; my uncle is an emperor with a battle beast. Then there's the iron dwarves, the dark dwarves and the cavern dwarves of the underworld.

There are a couple thousand tribes, but the tribes are more accurately large families. So even the royal family is considered a part of a single tribe. There's a cold war going on between the four main dwarves' factions, with the other races either being bystanders or allies in the bid for supremacy. My uncle is the emperor, but royal law forbids him from using his battle beast against people of dwarven heritage as at the time of the rules inception, all of the races were united under one king.

But now everyone is working for their own gain and their own agenda. There has not been an open war in a very long time, but at the moment that stalemate has come to an end, and the cavern, dark and iron dwarves have already assembled their armies. But therein lies the problem, over the years the mountain dwarves have relied on the knowledge of us having a battle beast to keep the other races at bay, we grew complacent and didn't see any reason to foster improvements in our tools of warfare, so we made sure we had a better living environment, better vehicles, land and luxury.

But the other factions were intimidated by the sole fact that we had a battle beast, and even if there was royal law forbidding the current emperor from using against dwarves, they reckoned it was only a matter of time before he stopped caring about laws and decided to take matters into his own hands. But even if that was not the case, the idea of someone having a weapon of mass destruction gave them the feeling of being inferior, and all dwarves, whether they're not a part of the main factions were very prideful and competitive.

So while we lavished in the peace and security the battle beast afforded us, the other factions grew and evolved from the pressure of being helpless against an entity of such magnitude. The iron dwarves built great machines of war, golems, mechas, legendary guns, swords, spears and armor. The dark dwarves mastered magic and forged what we now call the Hell-sworn. Undead demonic creatures of metal and death. And the cavern dwarves built underground cities and an elite force of soldiers that are completely immune to the power of skills and magic. And we the mountain dwarves had nothing, at least not until I was sent to retrieve what would help us tip the scale of the war in our favor.

And this was only discovered when I became an avatar for the fire dragon. With this card in hand, it stands to reason that we would be able to put up a fight and defense ourselves, we would be safe and we could end the war before it starts and save a lot of lives, and also reestablish the supremacy of the mountain dwarves and usher in another prosperous era of peace and tranquility."

So this was a civil war of sorts, it didn't seem like the kind of place to be to go find players who would join our guild but I guess we don't have that much of a choice. Besides its only on the battlefield you would be able to see the greatest of heroes, so there might be a bright side to this. But it still begs the question though, what was so important that Zareth had to leave home to go find, what was this great tool or weapon that could help him turn the tides of war, I was about to ask that question but Qitar beat me to it.

"This thing that you had to go retrieve, the tool that would help you win this war; what is it? And where is it? Since I've not seen you carrying anything of value on you."

Zareth looked down a bit, before raising his head up, his beard waving in the drafts of an invisible and unfelt wind; as he turned towards my direction and raised his fingers to point it squarely at my chest. "I went looking for him, another Avatar of the elemental dragons." I raised an eyebrow at that, completely surprised and caught off guard.

"Why?" Jack asked as he slowly inched his hand towards the elven sword by his hip, the elf was loyal to a fault that he didn't hesitate to see Zareth as an enemy the moment he got a hint of deception. After all, nobody knew that I was what he was after, not until now. And usually when someone goes through all this trouble to get you to his home world, and as a weapon that can turn the tides of a civil war, then you know the outcome can't be that good.

"I became the Avatar of an elemental dragon by chance. But unlike other civilization and races, the dwarves still had records of the power and technological advancement of the elemental dragons, and of their fall. One was already powerful enough to make a difference, but two or more would be completely overkill and that's exactly what the mountain dwarves' emperor wanted. So I was sent, along with a bunch of people to watch over to go find the rest of the avatars and bring them back, willingly or unwillingly.

The mountain dwarves do not intend to ask for your help guild master, they intend to enslave you and use you as a tool. The moment we get on Orous I will betray you and turn you over to them, all of you will undergo conditioning and be turned into agents of the Mountain dwarf empire. You will help them win the war, and in exchange they will keep you captive for the rest of your days…. this is the truth of the Mountain dwarf empire; we're monsters."