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Kinda ironic I guess, that it was so technically easy from the outside (just give the Stop command to the next Waystone) to break out Vlag, but so desperate from the inside.

Like being locked in a vault that has a simple doorknob on the outside, but nothing on the inside.

I think it might have been more that they could not reach the doorknob, that would have been the point of contact where the Star of Chaos was in our vision.
 
So now we might well have the greatest collection of research notes (outside the chaos dwarfs) on how a dwarf would go about using the winds directly if they were desperate or crazy enough to try.

I expect that the experiments that turned them to stone actually had a chance of working. Shame that they didn't.
Seeing a "dwarven" tag on our individual magic wind categories is gonna be weird, man.
 
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@Boney could "drums" work as an instrument?

Drums and drumsticks. Dead simple instruments. Dead simple to replace or repair too. Dead simply to play and use.

They are also some of the oldest instruments. Or ones that remain anyway. You could even make them out of bones.

EDIT: Or something like a xylophone; that was what I was thinking of.

Xylophone, not drums. Because a xylophone can have a set of 8 or 9 bars to hit with a thingy.
 
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The opening had me a little confused initially, I did not have runesmith books on my radar. It's kind of hilarious that Mathilde once again stumbled into being a Big Help.

Also, this bit also shows just how close she is to Belegar. She doesn't even try to smugly suggest it was all a clever plan. Just straight up admits it was an accident. There's even something there you could take as implying that's a not too rare occasion. I'm not sure she'd say something like that to anyone else.
Maybe Heidi, but she'd be very smug about, and maybe make a point about how lucky that was.
"So, what is it that made you look at ten million acres of spider-infested forest and say, yes, I think I can find one specific rock in that?"

"We could get lucky."

Johann gives you a searching look. "Do you know something I don't and you're being coy about it, or do you mean the other thing?"

"The other thing."
Can someone help me out here? What's the other thing?
"And yours, in some areas," Egrimm replies with an odd little smile. The tone he used is odd, an inch away from well-practiced slickness but some element deliberately left out to prevent it all from harmonizing, which must have taken more effort than actually following through. Your first thought is that he's toying with you, but he's not watching you closely enough for that. He's not amused by your reaction, but by his own - he's mocking himself for defaulting to that form of oily flattery when it's entirely unnecessary.

"There are mystics in eastern province troupes that find grey to be the colour that gets the best reception," Kas... agrees?
The Return of Sus Egrimm! Been a while.

I kind of feel like she's overthinking, and it was actually pointed at Kas, who may or may be a Hedgewise related person.
- Also also it is shockingly difficult to find a premodern wind chime design that did not involve penises.
This isn't what I read this quest for, but I welcome it anyway.
Normally I have to wait for the discussion in between updates.
New under "other features":

I don't see anything new otherwise, so based on the A/N we won't know the rest of our haul until that social action.

Fucking funny that we just got all that for free though - I hadn't even imagined that we'd be getting a giant pile of runesmith lore for K8P, but there you go.
Pretty sure we won't know anything about that bit even with the social action. That will be for the Fire Spire haul.
 
old Holy Site for Ranald from before He was known as Ranald.
If it's not now, than it definitely could be. We've fought gods for Big R's lost temples before. This is extra sneaky Mork.
"More lost than you can comprehend". It's possible Ranald didn't "need" his own waystone network but rigging this first up to this temple in his name would be clutch.
 
@Boney could "drums" work as an instrument?

Drums and drumsticks. Dead simple instruments. Dead simple to replace or repair too. Dead simply to play and use.

They are also some of the oldest instruments. Or ones that remain anyway. You could even make them out of bones.

It would have to be a set of drums and they'd be trickier to fix than you'd think but yes, it's plausible. Clapsticks or similar would work too.

Can someone help me out here? What's the other thing?

Johann knows Mathilde has a different relationship with luck than most people do.
 
[ ]: Other (Pipes)

There are few instruments that hold more historical weight than a flute/pipe. It is easy to make for damn near any woodworker and more than that easy to adapt. Outside of drums it may be the oldest instrument. (Looked it up, pipe/flute is the oldest)

It has the metaphysical weight that simply cannot be ignored. Isolated shepherds use their pipes to signal to their neighbors, it guides people to safety among rolling hills. Not to mention the inherent use it has towards the military, pipes and drums strike up a tune! Battle is ahead, and when it meets those pipes lose their tune amidst the violence.

Not to mention since they have to be enchanted and presumably modified to recognize the winds it would be an easy sell to most villages. "Well your best player's gets this super special pipe that they have to play at least once a day. It will change it's tune if danger is about!" There is a reason (presumably outside of torture or they were the cheapest) the American education system put those little shits in the hands of fourth graders.

Honestly I can think of few better options than Pipes or a fiddle. Also that little catch with Egrimm? Might be worth spending some time with him on the social.
 
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So, the goal is something easy to maintain, easy to transport, that won't be tuned out, and won't be to annoying to listen to right? And pipes are probably the best at that so I'd probably say the Organ but wouldn't just an actual set of pipes work? Like an 8 Piece Pan Pipe
 
[x] Bagpipes

Just one bag, but a pipe for each wind. And I enjoy the sound.
I would suggest a saxophone, but that is actually a pretty instrument, mid 1800s. And contains a bunch of fiddly metal bits, so wouldn't be well suited anyway.
 
You called on a divinity to seek something ancient and lost, and in this place, it is impossible for that divinity to find anything but this. This place was sacred to Them before the name and form that you know, before the name and form that others know, before any name still spoken on this world. This place is more ancient than anything you can name, and more lost than anything you can comprehend.
They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods...
 
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The shadows here are impenetrably deep, and would remain so even if the webs above were removed entirely. They retreated in a circle around the hole of sunlight that Adela's fire let in not as a surrender to it, but as a welcome.

You called on a divinity to seek something ancient and lost, and in this place, it is impossible for that divinity to find anything but this. This place was sacred to Them before the name and form that you know, before the name and form that others know, before any name still spoken on this world. This place is more ancient than anything you can name, and more lost than anything you can comprehend.
Wonder just what it is that we found here in the Forest of Gloom, that was sacred to Ranald back in the early days of the world, when the form He had was something that has been forgotten by everyone alive.

- Also also it is shockingly difficult to find a premodern wind chime design that did not involve penises.
Magical penis alarms is a very comedically tempting idea.
 
So, the goal is something easy to maintain, easy to transport, that won't be tuned out, and won't be to annoying to listen to right? And pipes are probably the best at that so I'd probably say the Organ but wouldn't just an actual set of pipes work? Like an 8 Piece Pan Pipe

It would work, but easy to maintain and easy to transport are directly opposed here. An organ requires a big impact to damage and can be fixed with smaller, carefully-placed impacts. A pan pipe would require at least a tinsmith with steady hands and possibly recarving part of it from scratch.
 
It would have to be a set of drums and they'd be trickier to fix than you'd think but yes, it's plausible. Clapsticks or similar would work too.
I was thinking of a xylophone instead of drums, once I remembered what I was envisioning; a xylophone can basically be 8 or 9 things to hit with a thwack after all. Just run a drumstick along a set of 8 or 9. Not sure how many pieces a xylophone usually comes in though, but, eh.
 
I suspect that the current mode of thinking for dealing with the runkit problem is to just wait it out. Getting all the Runkit to agree not to pass on their knowledge any further then wait for them all to die of natural causes. Stashing the books away is part of that.
 
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