| abstract | - In the earliest days of Ruuriik, when the skies were grey and the waters steel-black, there came an emissary. This counsel was a man whose stature and manner pleased all who encountered him, and even the wary lords of Ahule lent him strong ears. His name was Anasa Wem. Anasa Wem was of a people called the Arklu-shen. He brought word that his kind were beginning a long migration from their sacred home among the lakelands of the Far North. He requested aid and understanding from Malin and asked that the Dwarves allow his fold to settle among the vales of the Ubaya Orocarni. This request was put before the Council of the Mirror in the Temple of Aule and was honored by the whole of the North-king's kind. Anasa Wem laid down before the Council his sword, one which shone in hues of silver and blue, and stated that his people would never strike bargains with the foes of Dwarven ways, nor would they war upon the Dwarves or their friends. He then gave Drûin the blade and bid him farewell. The Arklu-shen settled as they had promised and founded a vibrant (but crude) society high in the vales of their chosen land. They traded with the Dwarves and allowed treaties to be signed with Drûi's successors. As the years passed, both societies prospered. In all of those times neither group treated the other with malice, and many secrets passed among the lords. When Muar came from the North, many peoples fled southward and sought refuge in the expanded lands of the Arklu-shen. These multitudes were willing to fight for their own safety and caused an eruption of petty struggles later to be called the Old Lake-wars. The Arklu-shen retreated to the highest vales that had been their own from earlier time; the others settled in the void. The latter groups were to pay dearly for their choice. Muar's armies, ever-expanding hordes of terror, swept down upon the newly situated peoples and slaughtered them whole. Few survived. Only the Arklu-shen escaped the horror. The Kingdom of Ruuriik was considerably less fortunate in these years, and soon suffered the same onslaught as mat encountered by the peoples of Ralian and the Lower Ubaya. Muar, with the aid of his horde and the host of Fell Beasts led by Fuingurth the Strange, crushed the defenses at the Jumping Walk, and swept into the Walled Land. Ahule was assaulted, and the many mines of the realm were taken or put under siege in the opening months of fighting. It was at this rime that Druhar and Drus (also called Zigiluk and Azalidum) sought council with the two kings, and stated that the Mirror of Aule should be taken from their land into safety, and that -all knowledge of its ways and existence should be hidden from the minds of the living. The North Hammer had been lost, and their land was nearly doomed. Zigiluk was the keeper of the Temple of Aule, and was one of fourteen in all the world who had known the true nature of ihe Mithril-Mirror, the "first gift of Aule". It had been said that it could enable the Dwarves to watch over their kind in other lands, and would allow them to enter any realm of stone that they so desired. In addition to this, it held the secrets of the Elder Dwarves of the First Days and was the tool that taught the skills to the first generations of Aula's children. The Hammer was high and holy and had to be protected. Zigiluk was given guardianship of the Legacy. He left with six other lords and went north through the mountains. Slopping at Shen-Ubatya, he stayed with the descendants of the "trusted one" Anasa Wem. When he left, he was accompanied by ten of the Arklu-shen (latercalled Ubain). Together they took the most prized possessions of their kind on a journey northward to a place that could be called "home of an enduring time." What occurred later is unknown. One clue was left. The Men were led by Anasa Fef, grandson of Anasa Wem, and it was his quest to find the holy focus of his kind and to refound the Kingdom. The tribes of Malln and Drûin the Proud had little trouble in prospering, despite the occasional forays from the Fale tribes to the west and the servants of the Kanks of Ruartar. The two Dwarven lines coexisted, trading and flourishing behind the mountain barriers that shielded them from the affairs of Men, It was during this time that Malin established a great temple at the mouth of Druin's Cleft. Reputedly built with the blessing of Mahal himself, this monument could be seen from the Great Vale and served as a watch and guidepost for the Dwarves of Ruuriik. Malln named the structure Khalarazum and designed the interior to resemble the legendary Birth-hall of the Seven Fathers. Centuries later, when the "Banished" fled westward and Muar threatened the kingdom, the Keys to Ahule were stored within Khalarazum, for the temple's stones were fused to each other and to the underlying basalt, and the structure seemed imperishable.
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