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Description
Part of a series: www.deviantart.com/thedreadful…

Byron Brasswrench hated being late. He never slept through an alarm, never written up for truancy in class, and never missed a project deadline in the collegium.

It all stemmed from how late Byron came to being born. As soon his parents were wed they started planning for a family. They moved into a big house in the Ironcross Enclave, with room enough for eight, eagerly awaiting the arrival of the little Brasswrenchs. But the years passed and the children never came. The father occupied himself with mining and drinking like most dwarven men did. The mother kept her hands busy fashioning conduits out of enchanted metal and selling them on. Then one day at age fifty she felt a sudden pain in her stomach as she was hunched over her workbench...

Growing up, Byron hid his embarrassment at his birth parents being mistaken for his grandparents. But that wasn't the only reason he stuck out from his peers. He never entertained growing a beard, had no affinity for mining, and hated the taste of ale. This led to his more dismissive peers gossip that he was actually an adopted gnome. When he was ten his father passed and his mother began to lose the use of her legs, though her hands remained busy. Byron asked if she wanted to him to be her caretaker, but she shook her head and insisted that her son and first blessing would live his own life. After finishing school Byron headed south to study Horticulture at a Magi Collegium, and every weekend he would dutifully return home to see his mother. When the time came for the class' three-week expedition abroad, Byron was hesitant to part for so long, but as always his mother encouraged him to spread his wings and make the trip.

The three-week expedition took six months on account of one civil war, one eldritch awakening, and three cross-dimensional blizzards. As soon the cosmic snow evaporated Byron dashed home holding a heavy pot of exotic flowers. His heart sank on entering his mother's workshop and finding a green-haired stranger at her bench.
'Who on earth are you?' He said.
The stranger turned around, a woman in a leather apron and covered in engine grease.
'Who are you? Where is my mother?'
The woman lifted her safety goggles, revealing a clean brow that framed her amber eyes.
'Oh!' She said,'You must be Stella's son, Master Byron!'
She pulled off one glove and held it under her arm, then extended her bare hand in greeting to Byron, still holding the heavy flower-pot.
'The Mistress' home is full of pictures of you. I'd be remiss to not know you at first sight.'
Byron blushed at the sight of her face and mumbled a reply.
'Uh, you didn't tell who you are or where my mother is.'
The stranger rubbed the dirt off her face with her left arm and answered.
'Your mam's playing an afternoon game of cards at her friend's house. I've been her apprentice long enough that she lets me hold the fort when she's out. My name's, uh, Sile Blessclaw.'
Byron lay the pot down and shook her hand, his head light and dizzy.
'I'm just Byron, uh, Ms. Blessclaw. You don't have to call me Master anything.'

Over dinner Stella Brasswrench spoke of the change she found in Byron's face after so long abroad, on how the many months in exile had matured him, but she kept quiet over Sile's influence on the young man while she obliviously ate next to him. When Byron's curiosity and later infatuation with the green-haired apprentice grew, his mother swore him to secrecy the long tale that was Sile's past with her blessing.

Once upon a time a young green kobold was with their parent at a trading post bordering the Dragon Domains. On one of the merchant cart's shelves, the kobold spotted a shiny bauble that sparked a light in their amber eyes. The parent kobold said no to buying any toys, but after much crying and pleading from their offspring, the parent relented and traded for it with an extra sack of volcanic glass. At home the young kobold tinkered with the device, a metal device of dwarven making called a Conduit. Conduits are tools crafted with enchanted metal, cloth, or wood, that can cast a useful spell regardless of the user's own magic potential. A lycanthrope would be well-suited with a wardrobe full of self-repairing clothes, while no gardener could go without the endless watering-can that draw in condensation from the air. The kobold's gadget had many functions; it could act as a thermometer, a lantern, a compass, a mirror, a timepiece, even a hammer if you were particularly frustrated. The uses were endless.

The young kobold searched for more conduits over the next few years, but the ones they could afford to trade for were either mass-produced mediocrities or shoddy replicas. When they laid claws on a second conduit made by the genius craftsman of the first, they finally learned of their maker's name: Stella Brasswrench, a dwarven woman from the Ironcross Enclave a hundred miles west from the Dragon Domains. The young kobold then pledged to work under this Stella and create conduits as an apprentice, despite the Enclave refusing entry to draconids like them at the time. The story of their long journey is covered elsewhere, but let's just say it involves the involvement of a goddess and a wholesale change of species.

Learning of Sile's draconic origin only strengthened Byron's feelings for her. She was an outsider who fitted right into the dwarven community, while he was a native who always stuck out. She encouraged him to keep cultivating his plants and trading them, and he insisted she stay in the Enclave and take over the workshop when his mother retired. Without little intervention on Stella's part, all her dreams became reality. She had a son who gained the confidence to thrive outside her circle, a hard-working apprentice who never balked at her trade, and an obvious bond between the two. Over a decade later she died happily, in a house full of little Brasswrenchs and Blessclaws.

*

Commission drawn by Fokk3rs .

Description
Part of a series: www.deviantart.com/thedreadful…

Byron Brasswrench hated being late. He never slept through an alarm, never written up for truancy in class, and never missed a project deadline in the collegium.

It all stemmed from how late Byron came to being born. As soon his parents were wed they started planning for a family. They moved into a big house in the Ironcross Enclave, with room enough for eight, eagerly awaiting the arrival of the little Brasswrenchs. But the years passed and the children never came. The father occupied himself with mining and drinking like most dwarven men did. The mother kept her hands busy fashioning conduits out of enchanted metal and selling them on. Then one day at age fifty she felt a sudden pain in her stomach as she was hunched over her workbench...

Growing up, Byron hid his embarrassment at his birth parents being mistaken for his grandparents. But that wasn't the only reason he stuck out from his peers. He never entertained growing a beard, had no affinity for mining, and hated the taste of ale. This led to his more dismissive peers gossip that he was actually an adopted gnome. When he was ten his father passed and his mother began to lose the use of her legs, though her hands remained busy. Byron asked if she wanted to him to be her caretaker, but she shook her head and insisted that her son and first blessing would live his own life. After finishing school Byron headed south to study Horticulture at a Magi Collegium, and every weekend he would dutifully return home to see his mother. When the time came for the class' three-week expedition abroad, Byron was hesitant to part for so long, but as always his mother encouraged him to spread his wings and make the trip.

The three-week expedition took six months on account of one civil war, one eldritch awakening, and three cross-dimensional blizzards. As soon the cosmic snow evaporated Byron dashed home holding a heavy pot of exotic flowers. His heart sank on entering his mother's workshop and finding a green-haired stranger at her bench.
'Who on earth are you?' He said.
The stranger turned around, a woman in a leather apron and covered in engine grease.
'Who are you? Where is my mother?'
The woman lifted her safety goggles, revealing a clean brow that framed her amber eyes.
'Oh!' She said,'You must be Stella's son, Master Byron!'
She pulled off one glove and held it under her arm, then extended her bare hand in greeting to Byron, still holding the heavy flower-pot.
'The Mistress' home is full of pictures of you. I'd be remiss to not know you at first sight.'
Byron blushed at the sight of her face and mumbled a reply.
'Uh, you didn't tell who you are or where my mother is.'
The stranger rubbed the dirt off her face with her left arm and answered.
'Your mam's playing an afternoon game of cards at her friend's house. I've been her apprentice long enough that she lets me hold the fort when she's out. My name's, uh, Sile Blessclaw.'
Byron lay the pot down and shook her hand, his head light and dizzy.
'I'm just Byron, uh, Ms. Blessclaw. You don't have to call me Master anything.'

Over dinner Stella Brasswrench spoke of the change she found in Byron's face after so long abroad, on how the many months in exile had matured him, but she kept quiet over Sile's influence on the young man while she obliviously ate next to him. When Byron's curiosity and later infatuation with the green-haired apprentice grew, his mother swore him to secrecy the long tale that was Sile's past with her blessing.

Once upon a time a young green kobold was with their parent at a trading post bordering the Dragon Domains. On one of the merchant cart's shelves, the kobold spotted a shiny bauble that sparked a light in their amber eyes. The parent kobold said no to buying any toys, but after much crying and pleading from their offspring, the parent relented and traded for it with an extra sack of volcanic glass. At home the young kobold tinkered with the device, a metal device of dwarven making called a Conduit. Conduits are tools crafted with enchanted metal, cloth, or wood, that can cast a useful spell regardless of the user's own magic potential. A lycanthrope would be well-suited with a wardrobe full of self-repairing clothes, while no gardener could go without the endless watering-can that draw in condensation from the air. The kobold's gadget had many functions; it could act as a thermometer, a lantern, a compass, a mirror, a timepiece, even a hammer if you were particularly frustrated. The uses were endless.

The young kobold searched for more conduits over the next few years, but the ones they could afford to trade for were either mass-produced mediocrities or shoddy replicas. When they laid claws on a second conduit made by the genius craftsman of the first, they finally learned of their maker's name: Stella Brasswrench, a dwarven woman from the Ironcross Enclave a hundred miles west from the Dragon Domains. The young kobold then pledged to work under this Stella and create conduits as an apprentice, despite the Enclave refusing entry to draconids like them at the time. The story of their long journey is covered elsewhere, but let's just say it involves the involvement of a goddess and a wholesale change of species.

Learning of Sile's draconic origin only strengthened Byron's feelings for her. She was an outsider who fitted right into the dwarven community, while he was a native who always stuck out. She encouraged him to keep cultivating his plants and trading them, and he insisted she stay in the Enclave and take over the workshop when his mother retired. Without little intervention on Stella's part, all her dreams became reality. She had a son who gained the confidence to thrive outside her circle, a hard-working apprentice who never balked at her trade, and an obvious bond between the two. Over a decade later she died happily, in a house full of little Brasswrenchs and Blessclaws.

*

Commission drawn by Fokk3rs .