He was gnarled and bony looking with wrinkled red skin and a bushy white beard. It was nearly impossible to tell where the beard ended and his wild, unkempt mane of hair began. His impossibly large eyebrows were completely unable to hide the unsettling gleam that shone in his eyes. He was short, and wore a stained leather apron over indistinct, dirty working clothes.

He stalked through the tunnels cursing, eyes on the glass-like floor. His low growls were barely coherent, but a careful, well-educated linguist could identify the language as ancient and Germanic. The words themselves were best left untranslated.

Suddenly he stopped and looked up; warned by some sixth sense that another stood before him. This man was taller, easily six feet, and simply dressed in black, with a dark cape whose exact color seemed to shift beneath one's gaze. His hair was dark and straight, and his face smooth and beardless. His skin had a slight dark cast to it, giving him a somewhat foreign look. His eyes were dark, but seemed to shine a little despite this.

The old man cocked an eye, causing one of his massive eyebrows to jut even more magnificently into the air. "Vat the hell do you vant?" he growled in heavily accented English. "Come, Andwari." the man said, his voice sounding just slightly as off as well. "I would like to offer you funding. Surely Concordia's greatest Nocker smith would like a chance to complete his master work?"

Andwari grimaced, and cocked the eyebrow even higher as he asked suspiciously, "How the hell do you know my name? Who the fuck are you?" The nocker added, "You look like a normal firking human to me."

"You may call me Mr. Donogaot." He smiled, and his teeth gleamed in the dark tunnel. "I am an... admirer of your work. Your ideas have great potential, and I would like to help you complete them."

Andwari grunted, "Hmmf... Vat does a meat-sack like you know about it, eh?"

Donogaot pulls a sprig of rosemary from inside his cloak and hands it to the nocker. He says quietly, "Careful, Andwari. Ring-maker. You know me."

As he takes the rosemary Andwari's eyes open, both eyebrows rising to their full, impossible height. "Mein Gott!" he whispers.

Donogaot chuckles, "That's better. More fitting."

Andwari stammers, "But out of Time they sent him..."

Donogaot growls, "Leave that. I have work for you... opportunity. Your work should be completed."

Andwari says quietly, "The Ring was taken from me... I was denied my treasure..."

"And I shall give you the chance to create a second one. Only it shall not herald an end, as before, but a rather a beginning, a Return. " Donogaot says.

The nocker is silent, his eyebrows have sunk back down and his eyes have filled with sadness. And suspicion.

"I send you now to one who shall provide you what you need." Donogaot says quietly, "I shall come again when your new Ring is forged."

Donogaot moves to the wall of the tunnel and waves his hand across its face. A hole appears, revealing a new tunnel with a floor paved in gold. "Just follow the gold, Andwari..."

The nocker looks at Donogaot, steps into the new tunnel and starts walking....