Back to full health after a bit of rest, I decided it was time to return the Forgemaster's fingers to the Orcs and see what benefit this might bring. So I traveled back to the Stronghold I had found and met with their chief, an Orc named Burguk. He was most pleased I had returned their relic to them and named me "blood kin".
As I had approached the shadow of a dragon had passed overhead and I had the sense it had lifted off from inside the compound. Because of this I stayed for some days. And I learned a bit of interesting lore from them.
Orc legend claims that in the very beginning of their race they were related to elves. Their forefathers supposedly were taken captive by a great evil lord (sound similar to what the elves have told me of the ancient days) and the first orcs were bound in will and captive to the power of this dark lord and his servants. The dark lord himself was defeated and imprisioned in ancient days, but his evil minions had been free to wreck havok for many ages after and the orcs had remained imprisioned. But these early orcs were a twisted and lesser version of their forefathers. And so it is claimed that in the final battle between the survivors of this dark lord's minions and the noble elves and men of the age, that a mighty wizard had created the current race of Orc from combining the blood of men and lesser orc. Legend goes on to speak of a great war between all Orcs (lesser and greater) and elves as the elves sought to destroy the last of them. Their myth claims that with the death of the final dark lord of that age the bond that had enslaved them was broken and the Noble Orc (as they called themselves then to distinguish themselves from their older fathers and cousins who still feared the dark) was free and became a civilized if warrior race. The lesser Orcs continued to live in dark places and to seek murder and war because their natures had been so long twisted by darkness that without the bindings of the dark lord, their hearts were evil and full of hatred. But the noble Orc was a newer race and of much less time under the bond and so many left behind their love for murder and destruction. Their legends claim that when the bond of evil broke the Allfather himself poured out his grace upon them and cleansed its taint from the hearts of all who would receive it.
Their legend goes on to claim that at that time men rose to ascendancy and the elves were leaving this land for somewhere the Orc did not know. But some elves refused the summons of their lords to leave choosing instead to stay and persecute a war against all Orcs. Legends claim all the lesser Orcs were killed with only a few being taken to the dark realm by the few surviving demons, who their wise one claimed were the ancestors of today's Scamp that we sometimes see when portals are opened from the Created realma and the fallen realm. Their history teaches that at that time there were many kingdoms of men and some made war on the Orc not trusting their new found rebirth but that one mighty kingdom of the tree as it was known, while not befriending the Orcs, at the least did not seek them out to kill them. This earned the Kingdom of the Tree the enmity of the elves who remained for the elves had no hesitation in their goal - the elimination of every Orc of every kind. And hence the Orcs and the Elves have never been great friends.
But their more recent histories speak of great curiosities, for it appears there was one race among the races of that age who believed in the liberation of the Noble Orc and that was the ancient race of Dwarves. And so the Dwarves befriended the noble Orc and taught them a true love for metal and the making of things. Orcs had always been good at forging metal and making weapons of war but the Dwarves taught them many secrets of fire and earth and the Orcs found joy in it. And so while their blood flows from Elves and Men, their spirit was touched by the Dwarf.
This earned the Dwarves the enmity of the elves who stayed behind and so it is claimed the Dwarves were forced out of their homes and they came to this land in the north to build fortresses and safehavens. Orc history claims the elves followed and found their secret fortresses underground and broke their door and slew their people. And at the last the Dwarves created their works of metal, great metal beasts and men, and that they they escaped through secret exists to the Orc knows not, but before they left they sealed their fortresses with mighty magic and released a powerful poison creating blindness even as they let loose their war machines. And so the Orc will not readily enter Dwarven ruins for they are sacred and haunted to them at the same time. And they claim the blind descendants of those bitter elves live there still and they hate all that walk the surface of the earth.
And so I left with pieces of the puzzle. The answer to the Falmer. The suggestion that indeed a mighty fortress of the Dwarves is under our feet. I may have even inadvertently found part of it once. And how a mighty race such as the High Elves could become something like the Thalmor of today...through hate and rebellion and refusal to see the power of redemption.
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