Rearguard Sergeant

When Gloomdeep Hold finally opened its gates to topsiders, it experienced a huge influx of new traders and prospectors, including many ventures from the Skyiron Dominion eager to explore what they viewed as fresh ground. In just a few months, the number of mines in Gloomdeep territory tripled, and the delving quarters of the city experienced a population boom. The ensuing expansion was highly aggressive as the Hold was gripped by what popularly became known as tunneling fever, with bands of miners hacking through the black rock of the mountains to stake their claim to ever-deeper substrata. The explosion of activity did not pass unnoticed either above ground or in the subterranean territories below. In their efforts to win glory and fame, Dwarf expeditions frequently awoke slumbering monstrosities and terrible cavern-creatures. Even discounting the danger of natural disasters, the life of a miner was fraught, but it was more so for the warriors assigned to protect them, especially those known as the Rearguard, a force who exist still in the present day. It is the sworn oath of the Dwarves who comprise the Rearguard to protect the miners in their charge from any dangers they encounter in the tunnels. If the miners come under assault, be it from calcite-encrusted monstrosities, gigantic arachnids, bandits, or tunnel-raiders, the Rearguard hastens to the defense of the workers and holds the line until they can evacuate. Foremost among them are their leaders, the Rearguard Sergeants, who are expected to be at the forefront of their formations and the last out of any tunnels the Dwarves are retreating from. This duty guarantees a fearsome attrition rate, but Dwarves prize honor highly, and there are few held in greater esteem than the Rearguard Sergeants. For one to survive for long requires either great luck or great skill, or likely a combination of both. Some Rearguard Sergeants are drawn from long lineages of warriors who have served in similar roles, though given the short life expectancy, this is less often the case than it is with many other Dwarf professions. After one particular exploit, Sergeant Frella, the longest-serving of any Rearguard Sergeant, was offered the rank of Jarl and all the nobility that comes with it. An excavating team had disturbed a squirming nest of gigantic, carnivorous mollusks, which Frella and her warriors held off while their fellow Dwarves escaped. To make matters worse, the digging had also ruptured a seam leading to an underground lake, which quickly flooded the tunnels. Frella fought on until every last miner had been hauled free, and escaped with the last few surviving by rail cart after they collapsed the tunnels behind them so that both mollusks and water were contained. Despite her skill and heroism, Frella turned down the offer of land and title, stating that she preferred to continue at her duties. More exploits followed: she hauled excavators out of a collapsing tunnel, held off Orc raiders single-handedly when all her Rearguard had been killed, and crossed the furthest reaches of the Hold’s subterranean maps to rescue and return one young miner who had become lost. Frella performed all of her duties without complaint, and her taciturn bravery became legendary. Frella’s continued survival would likely have been ascribed to divine intervention, if Dwarves believed in such a thing. When she is given command of the Rearguard in a new expedition, its miners are filled with hope, for in all her stalwart tenure not one of those in her charge has ever perished.