Tal Kentiach

I have heard you are looking for recollections of the Etney. I’m Kenra Tilrin, but it was not long ago that I was a mere Har attached to the dwarven army as a liaison to the Hardune. The army was scouring our territory in search of the forsaken forces that had broken past the front lines we’d previously held for four hundred years. On the first day of the Etney, a forsaken ambush wiped out the army I was attached to. I died with them, and the next day we woke unharmed, but only I recalled the events.

I warned Kenra Gibar of the ambush, and even though he slowed the approach, we still failed, but less so. I gave Gibar more advice each day until I could maneuver the army to reverse the ambush. I should mention that I had to mislead early on, and claim the warning from Torc himself, but as I grew more knowledgeable of the situation and of war, my words alone were enough to convince my non-Hardune brethren.

Each day I learned better the enemy's responses and sent out personal orders to commanders and squads. I broke our army into a thousand blades and sent each into the Torack to deal devastating strikes to the forsaken that had become entrenched in our home. Eventually, I reached the point where no forsaken forces survived in the range of our army.

With the aid of the attached gnomish Tiach, I teleported to the dwarven capital and the communication hub therein. This was a greater task than wresting command of a single army, but to my luck, the Hardune liaison to the king too was aware of the Etney, and she aided me in swaying him to my side. Shana was not militarily minded, nor was I at first to be honest, but she had a mind for politics and had been using the Etney to build support for the rebuilding of the Hardune. Together we pieced through the reports of all the battles of that day, and built a grand plan of war. The ambush in which I’d died was only one of dozens of fronts for the new war we waged. The forsaken specialized in ambush, and with our knowledge, we took away their greatest strength.

With the authority of the king, we rebuilt and restructured the dwarven defenses until we ended the day with more territory than we’d begun for the first time since the Breach. When we’d reached the best solution we could find, we ceased our trials and replayed the same events to perfection, hoping that others were out there working to free us of the Etney.

I want to thank you for what you did. You did not create the Etney, but you helped free us all from it, and without that, the Hardune would be no more, and on a more personal note, I would have never met Shana. She is due any day now, and we wanted to name our child after you, but as you may know “Tal” is the word for vermin, such as moles or ferrets, so we have chosen instead to name him or her Storm.