Memorials of the Battle of Grim Batol

As Modgud fell, the tide of assault shattered like brittle stone, and the order to retreat thundered through the halls. Yet many of our kin, lost in the labyrinthine depths of Grim Batol—blinded by rage and lust—were caught too deep to heed the call. The shadows, thick and ancient, rose from Modgud's fallen corpse and swallowed them whole. $B$BI saw them. I saw my brothers—once stout and proud—down on the lower floors, consumed by darkness that no light dared touch. $B$BI heard them. Oh, how I heard them—their screams of torment twisted by the curse of shadow, their voices torn from their very souls as they were no longer dwarves, but twisted shadows of flesh.

No time was granted to linger, for we fled with every ounce of breath and steel, pursued by those blasted Wildhammer fools and the creeping darkness alike. But the horror I glimpsed that day haunts my nights still. $B$BThese were no kin. No. What they became was a blasphemy upon the Makers' craft, a mockery of all that a dwarf stands for. $B$BThe skardyn, they call them now. Cursed souls, once our brothers and sisters. And what did we do? We left them to rot in that accursed place, condemned to suffer in shadow.

Long years passed after that cursed battle, before the Red Dragonflight came, their cleansing flames purging what remained. The few skardyn that dared linger in the light were burned to ash, or so the tales tell...