My body was stiff as the first light drifted in from over the mountains, irritated grumbles escaped me as I dragged my worn out ass over to my canoe and began loading it with my gear.

"In the Navy, you can sail the seven seas" I started as I began moving down stream by way of a poke pole.

A much as I loved the pictures of Soviet soldiers rowing their way across the Volga with nothing more than their Mosins I didn't want to risk loosing mine.

The current drifted along, weaving between the looming giants casting the land in shadow. Here and there I could see eyes like burning embers watching from the darkness as small animals chattered over head. Swallowing nervously I couldn't help but imagine this is how the brown water navy must have felt on their long patrols into the depths of the Vietnamese jungle on the Mekong river.

Vibrant colored fish with armored scales in hues of red, orange, and gold darted about beneath the surface following me with a strange interest. They held none of the fear one would expect of a wild animal, perhaps my canoe was little more than a drifting log to them. I was seriously wishing I had taken the time to build a harpoon, it was just one more thing to add to my long list of shit that needed doing.

Once I became comfortable in maneuvering my craft I began picking up the pace. Every so often I would have to stop and drag my boat across a shallow bar or fallen log, but I was still making good time. 

"Never thought I'd be fucking canoeing down a god damn demon infested forrest, I hope like hell my water purifying tablets can kill the magical equivalent of fucking Ebola, at least I don't hear fucking banjos" I muttered in annoyance while keeping my head on a swivel.

At about four hours in and twelve miles down stream I spotted something strange looming in the distance around a bend.

In a clearing maybe half a football field wide were some stone buildings covered with vines, giving them an appearance like withered weather worn old men with over grown beards and wispy heads of hair. There were seven buildings in total, six of them lining either side of a cobblestone boulevard, it's surface pitted and cracked. The boulevard ran straight down to a small harbor that was probably dug out by this places ancient inhabitants.

Slowly I made my way to the harbor, which hand been lined with concrete, a few corroded hulls of small boats lay battered against the moorings. A sudden drop off forced me to row my in much to my displeasure, the seventh building had finally come into view, perviously I had only been able to make out its peak from between the trees.

It sat at the end of the boulevard, majestic and regal, like a wizened old king seated upon a throne over seeing his subjects. Two hulking bronze statues stood guarding the entrance, their frames were broad and clad in heavy plate armor. Each guardian held a two handed warhammer who's dimensions were easily the size of an Abrams tank. Their stern faces seemed to glare at me from over their waist length braided beards. 

The majesty of it all came to a screeching halt as my mind questioned " are those fucking Dwarves".

I shook my head in disbelief and began dragging myself and my heavy ass canoe up an embankment. It was certainly exciting, but I still felt a small twinge of disappointment, what I really wanted to find was some civilization. A place where I wouldn't have to spend every day fighting with the rigours of the outdoors, or worse fucking monsters.

The first building I tried was clamped up tighter than a catholic school girl's ass, though the next was looser than a Philippine hooker after running through a pack of Marines on shore leave.

I found what appeared to be a storage room, filled to the brim with cracked withered barrels that had long since dumped their contents across the floor. It smelled dusty and every where the light touched insects skittered back into the darkness. If I had to guess it had been a warehouse, but it had been long since abandoned, and most likey in a rush.

The third building proved no more illuminating, though potentially more useful. Every corner of the building was littered with ingots of metal that had once been stacked on now collapsed shelves. For now they were little more than a minor curiosity and potential future investment.

"Lucky number four" I chuckled with a smile as I stared into the most promising room yet.

It appeared to be a bunkhouse for guards from what I could gather, the biggest hint being the distinctly familiar presence of foot lockers at the ends of what I presumed to have once been bunk beds. Perhaps the most obvious clue to your average layman were the spears staged in the far corner. Laying upon a cracked stone table were scraps of armor that some one seemed to have discarded just before what ever calamity hit them. It was disconcerting that I had as of yet not stumbled upon a body, if I could find a body then at the very least I might have some clue at to what befell these people.

For now I decided that the bunk house was going to be my staging area and stashed my rucksack under the table and out of view.

It was eerie as fuck, creeping through these old ruins, every snap, crackle, and pop would send goose bumps racing along my arms and a chill down my spine.

"See that man in the red beret, jumpin's how here earn his pay, he is there for the world to see 82 Air borne Infantry. See that man in Green Beret, teachin's how he earns his pay, he is there for the world to see, Special Forces infantry. See that man in the Tan beret, killin's how he earns his pay, I am the last thing you will see, Air Borne Ranger Infantry" I started up a cadence to drown out the oppressive nerve wracking silence.

While tactically moronic, the quietly chanted cadence did a hell of a lot to calm my nerves and steel my mind.

After sweeping the last two buildings I made my way towards the building at the end, it looked like some kind of temple. Every square inch of it's pristine untouched crystalline white stone was carved with hand sized runes. The front leading down the steps reminded me of the Parthenon in some fashion it connected with a wide rectangular building in a T-section that was topped in a massive steepled dome made of with brass or bronze discolored by age.

Even my sacrilegious ass was forced to stop and stare for a few moments in quiet contemplation before walking up those gold trimmed stairs beneath the stern gazes of it's twin guardians.

What I found upon reaching the front of the temple boggled my mind, the entire thing appeared to be made of a solid single slab of carved stone. There were no gaps or crevices to indicate that it had been built from blocks, or any swirls one might expect from any form of plaster. The only thing that stood out were a pair of circular depressions imprinted by broad hands with stubby fat sausage fingers, funnily enough they only came up to bottom of my chest.

"When in Rome" I stated with a shrug before half kneeling and placing my hands in the prints.

One by one hundreds of runes began to glow bright blue, a loud hollow thump split the air that reminded me of a 40 mic mic. Dust and debris were kicked away from the temple and I felt a thump hit my chest. A deep rumbling started and the ground began to shake beneath my feet as the the stone began to split, doors slowly opened by way of some unknown magical fuckery. I slowly took a step forward only to hit an invisible barrier, a frown began to split my face when my old pain in the ass, I mean friend decided to makes it's self known.

"Congratulations! You have discovered Kaz'Aldruhn, Temple of the Rune Lords. Enter the Trial of the Rune Priest Y/N"

"Yeah, how about no, no fuck shit damnit, fucking cocksucker" I screamed as I was dragged through the barrier against my will.

"Note to self, you mentally retarded mouth breathing shit gibbon, the System does not like sarcasm, do not fuck with the System, signed yourself, a dumb ass" I muttered while I pantomimed writing a note on my hand.

My eyes swept the room which had been illuminated by a group of braziers that ran along the wall, I was really begining to regret my decision. I found the guards, all of them presumably, their dessicated half mummified remains were scattered about the room. By the looks of things some of the had starved to death, a few had been hacked apart with axes, and one or two had probably killed themselves. Written on the walls were no doubt soul chilling letters of their last moments scrawled in blood, thank fuck I couldn't read them. 

I racked my brain for something to rile my self up, to conjure up some of my fighting spirit, but all I could think about was starving to death. Like a fucking moron I had left my supplies behind just for a bit of comfort, if I fucking survived this shit I was gonna duct tape that fucking ruck to my back.

"First Trial of the Rune Priest: The Trial of Comprehension.

To have knowledge of a thing is to have power over it, and only those who can truly grasp it's depths can wield that knowledge with impunity"

In the middle of the room were a group of pedestals, about waist high, upon which floated black metal cubes inscribed with runes. Each pedestal also bore a rune though they appeared to my magically untrained ass to be inert, on account of them not glowing. In total there were fifteen pedestals, and fifteen cubes, a puzzle of sorts if I had to guess.

With out much thought I walked up and put my hand on one of the cubes, a scream ripped from my throat.

Pain, I was experiencing a cornucopia of pain, it started with what felt like pins and needles being driven into my flesh. I gritted my teeth as the next wave hit, it felt as if I was being hacked apart by dozens of axes. My body sagged dripping with seat while my lungs struggled gasping for breath. I barely even had time to mentally recover as my skin seemingly ignited and burned repeatedly by different types of flames. One after another my brain, my body, and even my soul suffered endless torment. Everything from a stubbed toe to the pain of having your friends and family dying in your arms assaulted me. There was something lacking from the endless tides of agony, a pain I was all to familiar with.

I mentally struggled back against the cube with my own experiences of pain, the endless torment of sharp stabbing, dull aches, and phantom burning from frayed nerves, torn ligaments, and old injuries. No matter what they never healed, the best you could do was ignore them, maybe you'd get lucky and it'd be nothing but a dull throbbing ache in the background. Other times it'd feel like your entire leg was dipped in fucking acid and set of fire. The more I fought back the less hold the cube had over me, I threw every thing I had back in it's face. All of the horrors of modern wars I could imagine until at last finally I was free of its grasp.

At some point I had blacked out, body crumpled up of the floor as tears streamed from my eyes as I re-lived every one of the painful memories I had spent the last five years trying to escape. The worst had been watching my buddies burn to death, hearing their screams, and smelling their roasting flesh as I crawled away from a burning humvee unable to do anything.

I sat there for a moment, staring into the dark ether of nothingness, with my back against the pillar. My fourty five was looking awfully friendly there for a few moments before my mind began to unwind and put everything in perspective. No matter what had happened it was behind me, there was a beautiful woman waiting back home and I wasn't about to let her or my fallen brothers down by taking the cowards way out from a moment of weakness.

"Fuck I wish Doc was here" I growled slamming my fist against the ground before picking myself up, he always knew what to say when ever I was having an episode.

There was another Blue Box, and holy fuck did I want to stab it.

"You have comprehended the Elder Rune: Pain"

"No shit Sherlock" I mentally grumbled as I made my way over to another rune and put my hands on it.

A gentle crackling warmth began to fill my being with comfort, which was strange because I was anything but comfortable at the moment, in fact I was pissed. Slowly but surely the crackling warmth began to increase in temperature from a camp fire into a raging inferno hot enough to melt metal. This rune was fucking amateur hour after what I had just gone through, this was fire. Mentally I fired back in a prick waving dick fight over who's understanding of fire was the greatest. I started out with the building blocks of fuel, heat, and oxygen then began to run through a long list of various chemical reactions from exothermic reduction-oxidation to nuclear fucking fission and finished it all of with the inner working of the fusion cycles of stars.

"Hell, I didn't even break a sweat on that one" I chuckled while making my way on to the third.

" Congratulations! You have comprehended the Elder Rune: Fire"

From that point forward most of the runes proved to be fairly simple and straightforward, the common theme I noticed was that each rune seemed to be the embodiment of their craftsman's understanding and knowledge of the given subject.

After arranging the fifteen cubes to their correct pillars I heard a creaking from the far end of the room. Minus the Rune of Pain, the whole challenge seemed to easy considering all of the dead bodies piled up in the first room. I couldn't help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, that selfish prick of a System was helping me in some unforseen way as I made my way into the second challenge.

"Second Trial of the Rune Priest: The Trial of Creation.

Knowledge with out purpose is vanity of the mind, it is only though action that you demonstrate your knowledge as power, all that you need to succeed is at your finger tips"

For some odd reason, these windows sure were being a hell of a lot more descriptive as of late. I shook my head and rolled my eyes as I found myself amidst a smithy and a smelter. A grin split my face as I stared in wonder, smithing had been an on and off again hobby of mine between deployments, though I originally started with making horseshoes on my Grand Father's farm.

They really had gone all out in this challenge, I couldn't find any prepared bar stock or ingots about. Rubbing my hands together with a wicked smile I grabbed a thick leather apron and a pair of oversized rawhide gloves from a bench near the forge.

By the smelter were a few bins of refined processed ores and a number of crucibles. The smelter had an oddly high tech feel to it, the main chamber had a front loading hatch for the crucibles and an over flow spigot to pour off anything in the case that the crucible failed. On the side there were a number of dials with markers attached to pipes that fed from other odd contraptions, one quite clearly was the rune for air and another I recognized was fire. I assumed it controlled airflow to the furnace while the other supplied the flame. This thing was like the magical equivalent of a blast furnace. 

I loaded up a crucible with what I assumed to be Iron pellets, a few handfuls of powdered charcoal, and what I thought was probably a flux in alternating layers. With nary a second thought I threw the crucible into the chamber and began tinkering with the dials marked fire and air. With a roar the furnace ignited and I sat back and began filling up a second crucible.

Using a piece of charcoal I began taking notes on the wall with different ratios of what had gone into each crucible. The first had been four parts iron to one part charcoal and one part flux. My next batch was a four, two, one, and the crucible after that I decided to mix up a batch of what appeared to be copper and tin ore in a ratio of nine to one.

After an hour or so I pulled my first crucible to check on it and much to my surprise it had melted. There had to be some magical fuckery at work, with a scoop I spooned the slag off the top and then poured it off into some preheated molds. While those were cooling I threw in my next crucible and turned my attention elsewhere.

While waiting for my ingots to cool I made my way over to a bench where a barrel with a spigot sat, I pulled on the tap handle and much to my surprise perfectly chilled and preserved ale poured out.

"Mother of God" I exclaimed as I began to suck down the sacred nectar, savoring it's rich taste of roasted coffee, rich toffee, and slight hint of dark chocolate.

Next to it was what I assumed to be the Dwarven equivalent of an Igloo lunch box, snapping it open I discovered it was full of smoked sausages. Clearly the System had to be fucking with me, but I couldn't care less I was so happy to know that I wasn't going to starve to death. I could have wept, manly tears of joy, for the Gods had delivered unto me the holiest of holies, beer, sausage, and mustard all I was missing was some sauerkraut.

"Lord of Fire, Master of the Forge, Creator of all things good in this world, I thank thee for bequeathing upon my humble self your most sacred of beverages, amen" I solemnly prayed before turning my attention back to my ingots.

Somewhere across the great void a hulking figure clad in golden armor furrowed his brow while hammering away at his gargantuan forge. The words that entered his ears were most confusing, with a slight nod of the head he turned his attention to the remnants of an ancient Dwarven empire which had long fallen into collapse. Much to his surprise, of all things a human was praying over a keg of ale left behind by an ancient Rune Lord, with a shrug of his massive shoulders the figure decided to lend this strangely amusing human a little aid to help with his predicament.

"Your actions have garnered the attention of Therradin, Lord of the Forge. You have been blessed, Dwarves will recognize you as a follower of the Forge Father.

Blessing: Mark of the Forge Father(lesser)

Bearers of the Forge Father's Mark will recognize almost every gem, stone, and metal by touch.

The bearer may receive inspiration while crafting leading to sudden inexplicable surges in creativity and or the creation of items that beak the limits of one's abilities"

"Well that was fucking awesome" I exclaimed checking out the Hammer and anvil that had suddenly been branded onto the back of my right hand.

Quickly I flipped and pounded on my molds releasing the ingots before they became stuck, and started re-heating them for the second batch.

While the second batch was still busy smelting I took the time to catalogue the refined pelletized ore, simply dipping my hand in each bin as I passed.

"Refined Pelletized Iron Ore"

"Quality: Master"

"Forged in the heart of stars through nuclear fusion and spread across the universe by super novas. It one of the most common crafting materials found across the planes, usually occuring in the form of oxides, in banded formations, or as a mineral. While known by many names across the planes, you know it best as iron. Recognized as Fe, number 26 on the periodic table with an atomic weight of 55.845(2).

This ore was refined by a master smelter intended for the production of various alloys.

"Contains trace amounts of Sulfur, molybdenum, and Manganese"

"Are you fucking with me" I questioned while staring at the sizable wall of text before moving onto the next bin.

The bins of copper and tin had proven just as illustrative as the iron had, and while there were several other mundane metals such as aluminum and chromium there were others that had left me stumped. One bin contained what looked like a fine dark green powder, but the one that really had my eyebrow quirked were what looked like dark electric purple marbles. The powder had turned out to be Adamant, while the pearls were called Aethericin.

"Knowledge Metallurgy Lv.1"

You have gained a deep understanding of various metals and their production"

"Well, that's complete bullshit I muttered" while returning back to my work.