The climb toward Shield Terrace began almost immediately after Garrick and Bram left the Threefold Hall. Ironvale had looked vertical from the road, but walking through it revealed how misleading that description actually was. Streets rarely continued in a straight line for more than a few dozen yards before becoming stairs, narrow stone shelves, or switchbacks that cut into the mountainside. Bridges crossed gaps between ridges where workshops had been built at different elevations, while iron-railed walkways occasionally passed directly above Forge Row and gave Garrick a clear view of sparks bursting from open furnaces several terraces below.
Bram moved through all of it without slowing. That would have been mildly impressive in ordinary clothing. In plate armor, Garrick found it irritating enough to mention.
“You know, I was already surprised when Selene said Shieldwardens tend to be young. Watching you walk up all of this without breathing harder is beginning to explain why.”
Bram glanced over his shoulder as they climbed another steep staircase. “You say that as though early thirties should have me considering retirement.”
“For one of the three people running the settlement? It feels young.”
“It is young for governing. Less so for fighting.”
Bram reached the top of the stairs and waited while a cart rolled across the narrow path ahead of them. Two workers guided it toward a descending rail where iron wheels locked into grooves carved through the stone, allowing the load to continue toward the lower terraces without anyone having to drag it by hand.
Once the cart passed, Bram continued upward. “The Shieldwarden is not really an office anyone expects to hold for forty years. Ironvale cares less about how long you have been doing the job compared to whether you are still the person best suited to it.”
Garrick remembered the explanation from the Threefold Hall. “And eventually the mountain beats you.”
“The mountain contributes.” Bram smiled faintly. “So does the armor. Training every day contributes. Testing whatever Maera’s people invent contributes. Falling down stairs in armor is particularly educational.”
“You make the position sound appealing.”
“It is.”
That answer came without hesitation. Bram turned onto another switchback where the path opened briefly toward the valley. From there, the lower portions of Ironvale spread beneath them in dark layers, the Ironheart burning near the center while Forge Row surrounded it in a maze of smoke and glowing openings.
“You spend your best years doing something you are good at, and when those years stop being your best, you step aside before pride becomes dangerous. Some people manage that more gracefully than others.”
“That sounds brutal.”
“It can be,” Bram’s tone remained matter-of-fact rather than defensive. “We are Unawakened. A Second Seal fighter can recover from things that would leave one of us limping for the rest of our lives, and a Fourth Seal Guardian like Bellhaven’s Captain Vane can probably train at an intensity that would destroy most of our people in a month. That does not mean we stop training because someone stronger exists somewhere in the world. It means we understand what our bodies can afford.”
The words carried enough irony that Garrick almost laughed. After seeing Aurelia’s expression that morning, he suspected she would have several objections to Ironvale’s definition of afford.
The path steepened again before finally widening, and Garrick heard Shield Terrace before he saw it. Wood struck metal in repeated bursts. Someone shouted a count, followed by the heavy crash of a shield being hit hard enough that the impact echoed against the surrounding stone. Another voice immediately began arguing about whether the shield had been angled incorrectly.
Garrick stopped once the terrace opened in front of them. He had expected barracks or a training yard. Instead, Shield Terrace looked as though a martial school had been built directly beside an experimental workshop and neither side had ever agreed where one ended. Several fighters sparred in a broad open area marked with chalk lines. Near one wall, three smiths crowded around a breastplate strapped onto a wooden frame while another man struck it repeatedly with a heavy hammer. Chalk circles marked dents along the metal, each one numbered before the smiths began measuring the deformation.
Farther away, two people battered a shield until the rim bent. A smith shouted at them to stop, but one of the fighters shouted back that the shield was supposed to survive worse.
Bram smiled. “Welcome to Shield Terrace.”
Garrick watched a woman in padded armor deliberately drive the edge of a sword into a reinforced gauntlet while another smith inspected what happened to the links beneath it.
“This is not what I expected.”
“Most outsiders assume fighters exist to use whatever Forge Row gives us,” Bram gestured toward the terrace. “That is only half the relationship. The Forge makes things, and the Shield tries to break them.”
A loud metallic crack sounded behind them, and a nearby smith immediately cursed.
Bram pointed without looking. “Sometimes we succeed.”
Garrick laughed. Bram explained the arrangement as they walked. New armor rarely went directly from Forge Row into regular use. Movement was tested first, then impacts, then repeated abuse under conditions close enough to real fighting that smiths could see what needed improvement.
If something broke, it went back down the mountain. If the failure seemed to come from the metal itself rather than the design, the question could travel farther upward toward the Mine.
Garrick glanced toward the Deepmouth far above them. “So the fighters are part of production.”
“Exactly,” Bram seemed pleased. “A smith can tell you what a breastplate should endure. Someone eventually has to hit it hard enough to find out whether the smith was right.”
“That sounds like the kind of job Aegis would volunteer for.”
“Your dragon?”
“One of them.”
Bram looked amused. “I am still adjusting to that sentence.”
They had not been on the terrace long before people began noticing him. Some of that attention undoubtedly came from being a visitor. More came from the fact that Bram had brought him directly into the proving yard instead of leaving him near the observation areas. A broad dwarven smith with a leather apron approached while wiping both hands on a rag.
“This the Awakened one?”
Bram nodded. “Second Seal.”
The smith’s eyes moved over Garrick with the same practical interest Garrick had seen people give newly forged armor. Then, the smith pointed toward an empty testing frame holding a thick iron plate.
“How hard can you hit?”
“That depends.”
“Good,” the answer apparently pleased him. “Show me.”
Garrick stared for a moment before smiling.
The first few tests remained ordinary. Garrick struck the plate with a training hammer while two smiths watched the impact and measured the resulting dent. Nobody cared whether Garrick looked impressive - they wanted repeatable impacts.
The smiths immediately became more interested when Garrick mentioned he could hit it significantly harder. Garrick stepped back from the testing frame and rolled one shoulder.
“All right. This one should be heavier.”
Weave gathered.
[Concordance Active: Shale]
The change felt familiar. Weight settled through Garrick’s stance while something solid formed between his hands. Stone and condensed Weave assembled into a heavy hammer patterned after the blunt force Garrick associated with the Burrowback Drake, its head broad enough that an ordinary person would have struggled to swing it cleanly.
The dwarven smith’s eyes widened. Garrick swung for the center, and the plate rang hard enough that several people turned. A deep circular depression appeared near the chalk mark.
The smith immediately walked forward. “Again.”
Garrick blinked. “You want another?”
“Same place.”
A second smith crouched beside the frame. “Same force if you can manage it.”
Garrick smiled. “Oh, I can manage it.”
Within minutes, three more people had gathered around the frame and begun arguing about whether the support assembly was flexing enough to affect the measurement. Someone replaced the plate with another type. Another person asked Garrick to strike closer to the upper edge.
Garrick found himself enjoying the entire process considerably more than expected. Nobody cared that his hammer came from a Class - they wanted to know what happened when it hit iron.
Eventually, Bram rescued him.
“If I leave him here, they will keep changing plates until dinner.”
The dwarven smith looked offended. “That was the plan.”
“I promised him the rest of Shield Terrace.”
“You should not make irresponsible promises.”
Bram pulled Garrick away before the argument could continue.
“That is another thing you should understand about Ironvale.”
Garrick dismissed Shale’s Concordance as they walked. “What?”
“Never demonstrate a new way to damage equipment in front of smiths unless you have several hours available.”
“That seems like useful advice.”
“It is one of the few pieces of wisdom every Shieldwarden learns immediately.”
They reached the central sparring yard several minutes later. Bram stopped near a rack of training weapons and removed the heavier outer pieces of his plate armor. He kept the breastplate, bracers, greaves, and a reinforced shield, then selected a blunted sword.
“I would like to see how an Awakened Knight moves.”
Garrick paused momentarily. “You already saw me hit a plate.”
“Plates rarely hit back.”
Bram tossed Garrick a training sword, which he caught. Several people nearby noticed what was happening and gradually shifted closer. The attention remained casual enough that nobody stopped working entirely, although Garrick suspected half the terrace would be watching within a minute.
Bram stepped into the yard. “Start without whatever dragon tricks you have.”
Garrick raised an eyebrow. “You know that makes this unfair in the opposite direction.”
“I am comfortable with that,” Bram settled behind his shield. “Show me.”
Garrick entered carefully. He had trained enough under Edric to know better than assuming an ordinary fighter was harmless merely because they lacked a Seal. Still, Bram was physically slower, weaker, and less durable than Garrick even before his Class became involved.
That should have made the opening easy, but it did not.
Garrick tested him with a straightforward strike toward the shield side. The shield caught the blow at an angle instead of absorbing it directly, and Garrick felt his sword slide away before Bram stepped inside the opening and tapped the flat of his blade against Garrick’s ribs.
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Bram smiled. “That would have hurt.”
“I noticed.”
Garrick attacked again, which Bram redirected instead of blocking. Every movement seemed small and economical. He used the shield less like a wall and more like another weapon, turning Garrick’s strikes away from his centerline while forcing him to reset his footing after each exchange.
It helped once Garrick increased his pace. His greater physical speed began creating openings Bram could not entirely close.
Then Bram allowed Garrick to commit. The shield dipped as Garrick stepped forward, and one edge of Bram’s shield caught Garrick’s forearm while Bram’s foot hooked behind his ankle.
Garrick hit the ground hard. The entire terrace reacted at once with a mixture of laugh and applause. Garrick stared up at the sky for half a second before Bram’s face appeared above him.
“You all right?”
Garrick accepted the offered hand. “Annoyed.”
“That usually means yes.”
Bram pulled him upright. Garrick rolled one shoulder and smiled.
“Again.”
The next exchange lasted longer. Garrick watched the shield more carefully and stopped trying to overpower every position. Bram still redirected him twice, caught one strike on the reinforced rim, and nearly swept Garrick again before Garrick adjusted.
Then Garrick stepped back.
“You said you wanted to see an Awakened Knight.”
Bram’s smile widened. “I was wondering when you would stop being polite.”
Garrick gathered Weave.
[Concordance Active: Aegis]
Storm-blue energy crawled across his arms as the air around him sharpened. Garrick felt the familiar surge of power settle into his movements as Bram’s expression changed.
“Again.”
This time, Bram barely caught the first strike. The impact shoved him backward several feet despite the angle of his shield. Bram tried to redirect the second blow, but Garrick changed direction too quickly. The training sword stopped beside Bram’s neck, after what may have only been a fraction of a second.
Then Bram lowered his shield. “Well then...”
Garrick dismissed the Concordance. “That felt less educational.”
“It was extremely educational.”
Bram looked toward the shield - a shallow dent had appeared near the edge. A smith immediately approached, prompting Bram to groan.
“I knew that would happen.”
The smith took the shield from him without asking. “You angled too late.”
“I was fighting someone faster than me.”
“Then angle earlier.”
“That is excellent advice.”
The smith walked away with the shield. Bram shook his head and retrieved another from the rack.
“You see what I live with.”
Garrick laughed as he released his Concordance. “I’m beginning to.”
They moved away from the main yard while the other fighters returned to their work. Garrick found himself thinking about the spar more seriously than the outcome deserved. Once Aegis entered the fight, Bram had not possessed a realistic chance… but what mattered was everything before it.
The timing, the footwork, and the way Bram had manipulated Garrick’s momentum instead of trying to stop it.
Garrick glanced toward him. “If you were Awakened, you’d be terrifying.”
Bram laughed. “That sounds flattering.”
“I mean it,” Garrick looked back toward the proving yard. “I’m stronger than you. Faster too. I recover better, and that’s before I start using Concordances… You still put me on my back.”
“That is what practice is for.”
The older sections of Shield Terrace lay farther along the ridge. The buildings became smaller there, constructed from darker stone and patched often enough that Garrick could see several generations of repairs layered over one another. Some had been converted into storage, while others held equipment too old or damaged for regular use but historically significant enough that nobody wanted to melt it down.
Bram became more talkative as they walked. He pointed out the remains of older fortifications and places where the terrace had been expanded after landslides or attacks. Garrick listened easily enough, although most of the dates blurred together once Bram reached events several centuries before anyone currently alive.
Eventually, they stopped near the outer railing and the valley opened beneath them. From this elevation, Garrick could see far beyond the lower terraces and the Black Hills. The road snaked away through the foothills while distant forest covered much of the flatter ground beyond. From there, something near the base of the mountain caught his attention.
Ruins. Several low stone foundations spread across a patch of uneven terrain, half swallowed by vegetation and dark debris.
“What’s that?”
Bram followed his gaze. “Old ruins.”
“That answer was remarkably unhelpful.”
Bram rested both hands against the railing. “Nobody knows exactly what they were. Some histories claim another mining settlement existed here before Ironvale. Others say they were our earliest lower workings before the town moved upward.”
Garrick studied them. “And nobody ever checked?”
“People have,” Bram shrugged. “There is not much left. Foundations, collapsed walls, bits of old stonework. They are older than anything we can date reliably, and eventually everyone stopped caring enough to argue.”
Garrick accepted the answer. For now, there was no reason not to.
Bram pushed away from the railing. “The more entertaining history is this way.”
They continued toward the oldest section of the proving grounds. The path narrowed between two stone buildings before opening onto a broad shelf overlooking almost all of Ironvale. Wind moved more freely there, carrying smoke from the Ironheart upward in long gray strands.
At the center stood a dark stone block that appeared to serve as a monument. It was a single dark slab that rose from the terrace, weathered around the edges but otherwise largely untouched. A sword was almost completely buried in it. Only the hilt, guard, and a narrow section of blade remained exposed.
Bram slowed. “There it is.”
“A sword?”
“The sword.”
Garrick approached carefully. The grip showed wear, but the metal itself remained surprisingly clean beneath centuries of weather. Faint discoloration marked the guard, yet there was none of the heavy corrosion Garrick would have expected from something left exposed on a mountainside for generations.
Bram stopped beside him. “That is the only piece of equipment we can say with any confidence was made by the Founder himself.”
Garrick glanced toward him. “What happened to everything else?”
“Time,” Bram leaned one shoulder against the stone railing. “Weapons broke. Tools wore out. Good metal was reforged when people needed it. Ironvale has never been particularly sentimental about leaving useful material untouched. This survived because nobody could use it.”
Garrick looked back. “The Founder’s actual name is gone?”
“Depends who you ask,” Bram smiled faintly. “Several old records disagree, and each version has enough missing pieces that nobody can prove which one is right.”
“What do people actually know?”
“That he was an exceptional smith, and that he helped establish the terraced form of Ironvale we still use. Some of the oldest stories claim he was Awakened.”
“Was he?”
“We have no idea,” he looked toward the valley. “The popular story says he killed a dragon somewhere in this region before Ironvale entered its great period of prosperity.”
“That’s vague.”
“Most stories that survive several centuries become vague once you ask them useful questions. Some versions make the dragon sound enormous, while others barely mention it. At this point, legend and history are tangled together tightly enough that anyone claiming certainty is probably selling something.”
Garrick looked toward the sword again. “This part is real, though.”
“Very,” Bram walked closer. “Every Shieldwarden tries to pull it, as do the smiths and anyone sufficiently convinced they will be the exception.”
“Has anyone moved it?”
“No,” Bram pointed toward several gouges in the stone surrounding the weapon. “Someone tried mechanical assistance a few generations ago. Ropes, pulleys, a frame anchored into the terrace.”
“What happened?”
“The frame broke.”
Garrick laughed, but was cut short when Bram stepped aside.
“Your turn.”
Garrick stared at him. “You brought me all the way up here just to make me embarrass myself.”
“That is one of several reasons.”
Garrick approached the stone. Up close, the sword looked even stranger. The guard was simple rather than ornate. The grip had been wrapped in material that should have degraded long ago, yet enough remained intact to hold comfortably.
Garrick wrapped both hands around it.
“Try not to injure yourself. Aurelia will blame me.”
“That is excellent motivation.”
Garrick planted his feet, then pulled. Despite all of his strength, it did not give even the faintest shift. The muscles through his arms and back tightened, but the sword remained exactly where it had been.
Bram smiled. “Welcome to Ironvale.”
“I’m not done.”
“No one ever is at this point.”
Garrick released one hand and flexed his fingers. If the sword were simply heavy, something should have shifted. This felt like something different.
Garrick stared at the hilt, then smiled.
Bram noticed. “That expression usually causes property damage.”
“Only occasionally.”
Weave gathered around Garrick.
[Concordance Active: Kindle]
Warmth spread through his arms. A banked ember sensation settled beneath the skin and reinforced the strength already there. Garrick gripped the sword again and pulled again, but still got nothing.
Garrick gathered more Weave.
[Concordance Active: Shale]
Weight settled through his legs. His stance rooted into the stone terrace while his grip felt heavier, as though the same grounded force Shale used to tear through earth had passed into him.
Kindle and Shale remained active together. Garrick pulled again, this time with everything he could muster. The sword refused to respond even to that… but the System did.
[Class Specialization Quest Accepted]
Garrick froze.
Bram’s amusement disappeared when he saw Garrick’s expression. “What?”
Garrick barely heard him - the message remained in front of his vision. It was the Quest that had appeared when he reached the Second Seal. He had never known what it wanted, and now it had manage to accept it.
A second message appeared.
[Concordance Resonance Detected]
His hands remained on the sword. “Bram.”
“Yes?”
“Has anyone Awakened ever tried this?”
The question took him a moment. “A couple of visitors, but it’s never amounted to anything beyond what you’re demonstrating now.”
Garrick looked down at the hilt. The sensation was faint and buried, but something familiar was there that his Class recognized. Garrick reached toward it instinctively with the part of himself that knew how to connect. The same sense that recognized Aegis, Zephyr, or any of the other dragons.
A connection began to form, and as it did, the sword began to move. Metallic scrape sounded against stone as Garrick stopped breathing and Bram began straightening. The blade had risen perhaps half an inch, but Bram made a sound somewhere between disbelief and laughter.
Then everything vanished as the resonance opened.
Heat struck first - though nothing like Kindle’s warmth. This was unbearable - living heat trapped beneath scales and muscle, compressed until the body producing it had nowhere to release it. Garrick gasped as pressure closed around his arms. It was as if something had bound him to hold him in place. His shoulders burned, and phantom weight crushed against a shape his body did not possess.
Sharp pain followed in repeated bursts. Each one felt as if something was being ripped from him, and it did not happen only once. It happened again… and again… and again.
Garrick’s grip tightened involuntarily. For an instant, all he knew was imprisonment: Heat, pain, anxiety, and the terrible certainty that whatever came next had happened before. Something would cut, then tear, then get removed.
At first, an enormous rage seemed to answer the pain - violent enough that Garrick’s own heartbeat hammered against his ribs. Then the rage weakened as the injuries never stopped accumulating. Countless years and decades passed before the anger exhausted itself.
What remained underneath was worse: Fatigue and helplessness - the exhaustion of something that had stopped believing resistance would change anything.
Garrick could barely breathe. The sword rose another fraction, then the emotion reached him clearly enough that he understood it without words.
Enough.
Another pulse followed, softer and older.
Please…Let me rest.
Garrick released the sword immediately. The blade dropped back into the stone with a quiet metallic scrape. Garrick stumbled backward as his Concordance collapsed away from him. Bram stared at the sword, then at Garrick. For several seconds, excitement overwhelmed everything else.
“You moved it.”
Garrick did not answer.
Bram stepped toward the Founder’s Stone. “No one has ever moved it, and you had it three inches out.”
Garrick stared at his hands. The phantom pressure around his limbs had vanished, but he still felt it.
“Garrick?”
Bram finally noticed his expression, and the excitement faded.
“What happened?”
Garrick looked toward the sword. “I felt something.”
Bram waited. “From the sword?”
“I think so,” Garrick swallowed. “My Class recognized something inside it.”
The words sounded inadequate. Bram glanced toward the Founder’s Stone while Garrick rubbed one hand over his forearm.
“It felt like a Concordance.”
Bram frowned. “You said those connect you to dragons.”
“They do,” Garrick looked toward him. “That is the problem.”
Silence settled across the terrace. Farther behind them, people continued working. The ordinary sounds made what Garrick had just experienced feel even stranger.
He looked toward Bram. “The Founder killed a dragon.”
“That is the story.”
“How?”
Bram shook his head. “No one knows.”
Garrick turned back toward the sword. He could still remember the dread. Not fear of one final blow, but the fear that there would always be another.
“The story says he killed it.”
“Yes.”
Garrick stared at the exposed section of blade. “I don’t think it was quick.”
Bram’s expression changed. For the first time since they reached the Founder’s Stone, he had no immediate answer.
Garrick stepped closer again. He did not touch the sword, though he knew now that he could move it. That was almost certainly what the Class Specialization Quest wanted, but the obstacle had never been strength. Something inside the weapon had responded to him - something old and draconic that wanted to be left alone.
Garrick looked over Ironvale from the high terrace. The Deepmouth towered above, Forge Row burned below, and the Founder’s Stone stood between them, carrying the last surviving work of the man Ironvale credited with beginning its greatest age.
For generations, people had treated the sword as proof of that greatness. Something heroic enough that every Shieldwarden was expected to test themselves against it.
Garrick could no longer look at it that way. Whatever the Founder had done, the dragon had left something behind.
He looked toward Bram. “I’m not pulling it again.”
Bram stared at him. “Not today?”
“Not until I understand what I’m touching.”
Garrick’s gaze returned to the sword. He had expected the Class Specialization Quest to feel like progress.
Instead, it felt like a warning.