BEØMIN - Forging a Legend

:BEØMIN THE BEAR:

~Forging a Legend~

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By J.B. German

In the kingdom of Dargonda in the Hethrona Realm, there lived a man,

a very strong man named Beømin, which means "to be man" in Aeronorian - the language of men. He was often called Beømin the Bear for various reasons that you'll probably understand before too long.

Beømin was not fully human but was born to a woman named Astriik, and a dwarf named Usler the Earless, who lost his hearing after a mining accident.

Beømin was like every other child, he would run and play with the other children, climbing in the mountains, pretending to be knights, wandering up and down the creeks hunting for frogs, or fishing.  Until Beømin was eleven.

On Beømin's eleventh birthday his parents took him to visit his mother's family in Aeronore, the greatest kingdom of men in the Hethrona Realm. While sitting around the table eating birthday meat-pies with his family, a young bear wandered out of the forest and into their camp just east of the great Tholondir Lake, at the base of the mountains. The bear came towards Beømin and his family, but when Beømin saw the bear, he screamed and hid under the table while his father and only brother fought the beast and killed it.

After the bear was skinned, gutted and harvested, and everyone was gathered around the table again, Beømin's brother Beøthain (which means "to be a leader") wrapped the bear skin around him and sneered, "better luck next time little man." Beømin saw the mockery in his eyes and heard it in his voice, and filled with rage he grabbed an axe lying nearby and hurled it at his brother. The axe dug into Beøthain's spine and killed him. Beømin, after he realized what he had just done, ran to his brother and wept bitterly over him, cursing himself for the evil he had done.

As his family gathered around his brother and mourned for him, Beømin, full of fear and regret, pulled the axe out of his brother's back and ran into the mountains with the bear skin still wrapped around his shoulders. The last glimpse his family got of him, he was already high up in the mountains, and with the bear skin on his back he looked like a real bear roaming through the tall rugged mountains, and just like that, both of their sons were gone.

After searching for over a month, without success, his family was finally convinced he was dead, assuming nothing could live up there that long besides bears, wolves, mountain goats, and reindeer. Of course there was always the chance of running into a dragon, or other monsters in the wild. Little did they know that Beømin was not only alive but had barely kept out of their sight, hiding in caves and deep in the forest along the southeast face of Ulfclaw Mountain. When it appeared that the search parties had ceased looking for him, he decided to make his new home in the cave he had been hiding in.

Beømin was now an outcast, all alone in the harsh, frozen mountains miles away from civilization.  And it had to stay that way. 

 He surely had a bounty on his head, they were probably hunting him right now, at least that's what he thought, for many years. Beømin would sneak out of his cave at night to hunt, or trap anything he could to keep from starving.

After a few months passed, Beømin felt it was safe to venture out in the day now. "They've probably stopped looking for me by now, but if I went back I'd surely be in chains," he thought to himself. So he started going out by day to fish, hunt, gather firewood, or forage for berries, mushrooms, and other food. He usually spent most of the day just making sure he had enough to eat. Thankfully he chose a cave that was very close to a small spring, so he only had to go a few yards to get fresh, clean water, and he had a never ending source of it. In addition, food is naturally most abundant near a good water source like Beømin's spring, but he wasn't the only predator drawn to the benefits of the spring.

Before long the wolves of Ulfclaw showed up. As Beømin was fishing one evening he heard rustling in the bushes behind him, so he threw down his fishing spear he had made and grabbed his axe.

However, before he was able to turn around, one of the wolves sprung out of the bushes. He saw the wolf just before its claws dug in, but wasn't able to react in time. The wolf's claws gouged deep into his right eye and left a bloody mess. With a cry of pain Beømin threw the wolf off and grabbed a large rock nearby. As he hurled the boulder at the wolf that was just now getting off the ground, another wolf jumped out at him and sunk its teeth into Beømin's right arm. Thankfully, even half dwarves have tougher skin and bones than a regular man, even at his age.

He grabbed the wolf's throat, digging his fingers in with all his strength. He heard a crack, and the beast dropped to the ground, unmoving. In the background he heard the wimpers of the wolf he'd thrown the boulder at. Before another wolf could attack, Beømin grabbed his axe off the ground just in time to bury it in the next wolf's spine.

Beømin, now in a frenzy, let out a blood-curdling yell so ferocious that the remaining wolves took off with their tails between their legs, fleeing to safety.

Beømin pointed and laughed at the wolves as they ran away crying, he flexed his muscles and yelled "run away little mutts!" laughing the whole way home, as he dragged the dead wolves to his cave to skin and cook. Beømin was so hungry after the fight, however, that while waiting for the first one to cook, he ripped open one of the other wolves, pulled some meat off the bones and ate it raw. He ended up eating half the wolf this way before he could control himself.

He felt like he was becoming a wild animal himself, with the way he was living, and acting. "Maybe the bear skin Beøthain put on me is turning me into a bear," he thought to himself, still wearing the bear skin. "Beøthain was sixteen, and my beard is longer and thicker than his was, and I'm only eleven and a half. Probably not even a half yet, actually. I don't think I've been out here that long." Beømin went and washed out his wounds in the spring, and bandaged them with strips of cloth from his shirt sleeves. Before he finished wrapping his arm, he examined the wolf bite and wondered if that had anything to do with the way he was acting. "Maybe I'm becoming a werewolf or something. No, that can't be true! It's probably all in my head, right? Surely I'm not actually becoming a beast, am I?" He continued to ponder this question the rest of the night. In fact this question began to grow heavier and heavier in his mind over the next few weeks.

Soon, the question bothered him so much that he decided to do whatever it took to distract himself from the topic. He used the hammer of his axe to break apart rocks until he was able to fabricate a crude stone pickaxe with the hardest rocks found. "I'm a dwarf aren't I? Dwarves mine, that's what we do, so that's exactly what I'm going to do!  I'm not an animal!  I'm going to mine iron, coal, and arnamithium, and create a forge. I can make my own weapons, and tools, maybe even armor! Who knows, I might even find gold, diamonds, or even a shardstone!"

With that inspiration, Beømin got straight to work. Digging and digging, he labored away. Switching between his pick, and axe when the rock was too hard for his stone pick, Beømin did eventually collect some iron ore, and fashioned his own coal-fed furnace, and made makeshift billows with some of the wolf skins.  Using a hard flat stone as an anvil, and the back of his axe as a hammer, Beømin used the coal to introduce carbon to the metal and refined the iron to make steel, then forged a real pickaxe and a few other tools with it.

Beømin's mine grew, as did his forge and armory.  Over time Beømin managed to forge an entire breastplate, and even a greatsword.  Considering the long hard toil he put into the production of the mighty weapon, as well as its deadliness, Beømin named the sword Backbreaker, and engraved the name along the fuller of the blade in Beørak (dwarven) runes.

Beømin loved his work.  In fact he loved it so much that he worked, hunted, and even slept in the armor he had crafted with his own two rough, calloused hands.  He even slept with Backbreaker at his side, hilt in hand.

Ironically enough, the moment he needed it the most, was the moment he didn't have it with him.

After nearly a year of living in the mountains, Beømin decided to explore his surroundings and map out the area.  "Maybe I'll find something valuable out there, like a herd of goats, or sheep, or something.  Winter is getting close and I'm actually going to need shoes for once.  I can walk on sharp rocks all day, but I can't keep waking up with stiff blue feet every morning.  One of my toes is going to fall off from frostbite one of these days, if I don't cover them soon."

And so Beømin set out on his quest to map out the area and winterize his rocky home.