On Thread Etiquette:
I'm not going to weigh in on the logic of either side's arguments, but I will ask that everyone read over what they write and really consider if the words they used are polite and won't be inflammatory intentionally or not. You cant account for people's tolerances perfectly but at least try to say your piece without saying things that can be easily construed as overly dismissive of the other side of the argument, thank you.
That'd be a real butterfly, given pre-Maw Ogres were, as far as we can tell, relatively peaceful and pastoral. Relatively in that they'll still fight, obviously, but not aggressively hungry all-eaters.
Damn Maw is literally a worse deal than Chaos, TBH given it's got all the meme-hazard and brain-fuck without nearly the intensity of power of blessings, spread of blessings, and magical mojo. Not even Daemons.
I'm coming at it from the perspective that the combination of Waking and Fate and Striking makes the weapon strike unerringly, whereas something like Conduction and Fate and Striking gives that skill to the wielder as that is the point of both Fate and Striking when put together on top of giving them Conduction. Striking guides their blows and enhances their skill.
Basically, I'm not really convinced of the value of the result of the thought exercise. We could do it, if we designed the weapon in a certain way, and that's valuable to know but that's about it in terms of valuable results of the exercise in my opinion.
And I'm coming at it from the perspective that whips or flails could wrap around shields effectively making them unblockable in a way that non flexible weapons cannot be.
I'm not sure how much more you think we need to get out of this to be worth while? If someones got a better idea for a Mwaking weapon (5 shot crossbow or something) or a better idea for a fail then we can discuss that, otherwise we just mark this topic as probably done for now. We've got 50 odd prospective combos on the detailed rune list and I don't know when that was last updated. Surely you're not expecting that theory crafting is only useful if they're all things we'll eventually make?
I was actually thinking of a hydra flail as an off-hand weapon that was semi-autonomous to get past one of the main limitations of two weapons, coordinating them. I was also thinking of going with MRoWaking, Rune of Parrying, and Rune of Fate, to have multiple autonomous heads able to simultaneously parry multiple attacks at the same time, which a dwarf wielded would be completely incapable of doing, as they couldn't move the heads independently. With Striking instead of Parrying, it could attack multiple enemies as once.
I was also wondering if this would be possible with the Rune of Parrying and the regular Rune of Waking.
Coordinating is probably the least of Snorri's problems, we can probably assume that after all these centuries he's got that down to an art. Regular Waking is an idea, although since its no longer an autonomous gronti weapon we're back to kinda your concern that its no longer autonomous as Snorri needs to manually activate whatever movement is programmed into it. However it is conceivably a way to not waste the MRune slot which is valuable in itself and since I'm not worried about the coordination .
Parrying is certainly an interesting idea, 'Makes weapon automatically block incoming attacks' given that Waking is explicitly still limited by physics and such this would probably be about as useless as a regular flail or super good. And I have no idea which.
Stuff like this is why I wish the combo testing action had been reformed into something that let us make multiple items at T1 and let us know more or less how they'd behave before committing a heavy action investment. I want to try it out... But an MCurrents/MSmiting Fate Striking Axe is just so much of a safer bet that I couldn't bring myself to do it.
Runesmiths are an inherently independent lot, not tolerating organization beyond loose personal relationships. Even twins working together can cause grumbling. The issue is that if it turns out that Snorri taught the Rune of Prosthesis to anyone but an apprentice of his and said Dwarf joined the system it would appear that Snorri was trying to exert undue amounts of influence over the Guild.
Technically, the problem arose when we taught someone it in exchange for them following our directions on how to make it as now we're telling people how to interpret the rule of pride.
If we teach someone else and they use it in the most literal conservative way, there is no problem.
If we teach someone else and by coincidence they happen to use it like we do, then that's not an unexpected outcome that two radicals happen to have the same interpretation of the rule. Again not really a problem.
If we teach someone else in exchange for them making as however many prophesizes, now we're collectivising and hemming in on their independence and telling people how the rule ought to be interpreted. This greatly upsets the Runelords and we bad end out.
If we teach someone else and they decide to do the above, then we're greatly shamed and have to convince the others that we misjudged the dwarves character and didn't know they'd do that, but not necessarily bad end however there will be nasty consequences.
If we give it away for free, then other Runesmiths grumble at us for not being appropriately reverent of rare and precious sacred knowledge.
And I'll repeat, because I think people really need to understand this, this is not a specific issue to the Rune of Prosthesis. Any rune could cause this issue, however Prosthesis and Speech are especially likely to cause it as there is a high demand for the Runes. And unlike the Rune of Light which is another high demand rune, there is an especially limited supply of dwarves to fill it and due to their rarity and relative youth there aren't grandfathered in exceptions to the rule.
I assume part of the reason that Snorri is hesitant to give away especially powerful runes and combos like MUnyeilding is that other dwarves could use these as especially powerful bargaining tools, giving them the sort of leverage that some dwarf might need if they were to start a union of runesmiths.
I thought Snorri's stance on the Rule of Pride was that he himself is happy to spam any and all singular or combination of regular runes as much as he wants while limiting the same master rune to three in a century.
Mechanically? You are correct.
Uses of the same Master Rune are limited. Uses of the same Combo are also. Since most combos we make will include an MRune the master rune limit is the more important one to know, but that does technically also limit how often we can use Hearthward and the combos our apprentices came up with.
Narratively its a little more complicated, Snorri probably does more that as given he armed the entire hold in a decade and he doesn't use MRunes on simple actions he was probably forced to use the same combo two or three times.
Additionally there are things like the Rune of Light where he thinks its just silly to limit himself when the hold might need thousands of them.
I think the mechanical limits are more abstract rules for us. Or else meant to reflect the opinions of other Runesmiths, they'll turn a blind eye to loopholes that have effectively been grandfathered in because of necessity like light or the fact that the hold was in a particularly desperate time of need. However if we're making masterpieces like MRunes or valuable commissions they won't be so lenient.
Personally I think it being the opinion of other Runelords is probably the most correct interpretation as at the end of the day Snorri will churn of Mountain Souled combos like theres no tomorrow if we tell him to.
Jorri kept two different offices inside the house he ran his trading company out of. One was massive and ostentatious, stuffed from floor to ceiling with gold and gemstones. It was designed to impress his wealth on visitors with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the face, and served as part of his strategy to dazzle and intimidate prospective new clients before getting down to business. Then there was the second office, which he was currently occupying. It was cozy and lived-in, downright spartan compared to the monstrosity a floor above. That office was for entertaining friends... and for conducting serious business.
"The first set, he paid 'em like he was asked no trouble," Thorgny said. "The second, he paid under protest. Then when the third set showed up as he was going through the underway terminal on his way out, he said he'd paid the tolls twice over and he wouldn't be paying no more. So there was a scuffle, and then they put him and his crew in irons right in front of everyone and took their pound of flesh from the wagons. Plus a little extra for tryin' to cheat his highness something or other, rightful heir to the throne. It was robbery, chief."
Jorri studied Thorgny's face while he spoke. He wasn't the most expressive of fellows, but there were signs to look out for if you knew him as well as Jorri did, like the tension in his shoulders or the way the corners of his eyes crinkled. Sure enough, the man was livid. Not that Jorri could blame him.
"Well," Jorri dissembled, "at the very least it happened while young Thorulf was on his return trip, so he didn't need to pass through the place again to come home. And we know not to send any other caravans through Kadrin for a while. How's he holding up, anyway?"
Thorgny did not allow himself to be deflected. "The bloodsuckers said his name was goin' on the books as a known toll dodger, in case he ever showed his face there again, chief. They as good as called him a thief to his face, out in the open where everyone could hear. Now there's a piece of paper somewhere in Kadrin, signed by the gofer of some lordling, says my line's got no honour."
Jorri kept his business face on, all polite attentiveness, but internally, his mind raced. Out of all the caravaneers in his employ, Thorgny was probably the best, all told: he was dependable like few others, good to have around in a fight and also a lot cleverer than most people assumed him to be, looking at his brutish face, which was an amazingly useful attribute for a merchant to have. There'd been a few incidents over the centuries, though, on those occasions someone had needled him bad enough to get under his skin. Thorgny wasn't the type to shout or break things when he got angry; instead he buried it deep, stewed in resentment while looking for all the world like he didn't really care, and then, once the other party let their guard down, he gave it back to them good and hard. Now he'd learned that not only had his only surviving son been shaken down for money in broad daylight, but he'd also been branded a miscreant in the eyes of a whole karak for having the temerity to protest against his treatment. Thorgny wasn't disposed to take that sort of thing lying down. If Jorri allowed this to fester, then sooner or later Thorgny would round up a few stout friends, pay a visit to Kadrin and... settle things on his own terms. That would be a disaster.
"Look, there's no point in you going to Kadrin while the Drakebeards are still duking it out." Thorgny tensed, but Jorri pressed on, not letting him get a word in edgewise. "After they've finished their little pissing contest and one prince or another has planted his ass on the throne, that's when we'll make our move. Whoever ends up in charge will happily agree that all the other lordlings were in the wrong when they made a grab for the tolls, and the losers won't be in a position to keep hold of their loot. Me, you and young Thorulf, we'll go all three of us and get the overcharged tolls back once there's a king to petition, and we're not leaving until we've got it on oath that all the dues to Kadrin were paid and that Thorulf Thorgnysson ain't no cheat. We'll sort this mess out, Thorgny: you have my word on it, one Winterhearth to another."
Thorgny paused at that, far from mollified but unwilling to challenge Jorri any further now that he'd given his word. That was enough to finally change the subject and make the change stick; Jorri engaged him in discussion of how they'd adapt their caravan routes for a while, and then, politely but firmly, sent Thorgny on his way. He kept his business face fixed in place until he was sure Thorgny was out of earshot, stayed silent for another ten seconds to be on the safe side, and then finally permitted himself to bury his face in his hands and let out a distressed groan.
This whole thing was fucked. Why couldn't that idiot Thorulf just have kept his mouth shut? How had he managed to survive as a caravaneer as long as he had without figuring out that you never picked a fight with the reckoners, even if - especially if - they were being full of it? Ancestors preserve them all from the stupidity of beardlings.
Jorri knew he would help, of course. Even if he hadn't given his word, and even if the situation wasn't liable to blow up in all their faces almost as spectacularly as that one time Snorri tried to make his own ale, it wouldn't have been in doubt. The little moron was a clansman, and that was enough; Jorri would have his back. It'd be a tricky job, though: recovering the overcharged toll money ought to be easy enough, but "correcting" Kadrin's records of one Thorulf Thorgnysson was another thing entirely. Especially since, by saying the record was mistaken, he was necessarily implying whichever reckoner stood behind the charge had been wrong to press it in the first place. Getting redress would do them no good if they earned the enmity of some Drakebeard scion or his retainers in the process; he'd need to extract enough money and concessions for Thorgny to stop sharpening his axe, while taking care at the same time not to embarrass the royals or their minions in any way. Ideally he'd want to do it without a priest of Grungni showing up and asking pointed questions about instigating kinstrife, too. Making everybody involved feel vindicated would require the deftest of touches - this was the sort of thing that warranted his undivided attention, and he'd need better information than he was liable to get reading missives sent to his office, so he was just going to have to go to Kadrin ahead of dumbasses senior and junior and pave the way for them. He'd start by checking in with his old pal Egil the Boar and ask him who the best local lawyers were. Demand for their services was sure to be through the roof, but Egil owed him a favour and could probably get him an in with one of them.
First, though, he'd need to set things up so the trading company could run itself in his absence. Gotri and Gotrek would have the day-to-day business in hand, he figured, but Kadrin had shredded all his timetables and a number of preferred customers would need to be informed of delays. He couldn't very well offload that duty to his children if he wanted anyone to take him seriously, so he had a lot of letter-writing ahead of him. At least he could cheer himself up by inflicting a really bad pun on Snorri. Ach, he needed a drink...
Given they were apparently raiding Cathay and eating peasants even pre-maw I don't think they'd get on with the dwarves. They'd get booked as soon as the first dwarf went missing.
The reason the Cathyans called down the Maw is that the untainted ogres developed a taste for the flesh of human children, and began raiding Cathay to satisfy it, and the Cathyans couldn't stop them.
Pre-Maw an ogre's hunger could be satiated. That doesn't mean they didn't hunger though.
The Rune of Fate's description on the excel sheet is just "Gives user dreams of a battle, basically combat precog." I wonder what'd happen if you combined that with Gazul and Ties? Or the "Perception" Rune.
Gazul, Fate, Perception.
Would you gain the ability to see the Ties of Fate that Gazul was seeing and cutting and burning in the vision we saw?
Ah. Don't remember if I'd mentioned this or not yet, but... I had gotten an idea about why it was said that while Thungni discovered the Glittering Realm and Runes, it was Gazul who discovered the rest of the Ancestor Runes. I was thinking -- could it be that the reason it was Gazul that discovered the Runes of/for the Ancestors, is because it was Gazul who was going around seeing the ties of fate and freeing people from them? That is... It is because he was looking at the true, spiritual, forms of people, that he was able to also notice and go "Oh, so this is what Grimnir/Grungni/Smednir/etc looks like."
Gazul discovered the Runes for the Ancestors, because he was going around and freeing them from the ties of fate. The process of looking into the realm or place that tied people, also allowed him glimpses of 'true names' or 'true descriptions' or something. And is why he was able to discover/return with, the rest of the Ancestor Runes.
If we teach someone else and by coincidence they happen to use it like we do, then that's not an unexpected outcome that two radicals happen to have the same interpretation of the rule. Again not really a problem.
Intent doesn't actually matter in this case. If we teach another runesmith not of our line the Rune of Prosthesis, and they use it to do the same thing we've been doing, the blame falls on us for not thinking things through properly. Doesn't matter that we had good intentions, we should've been more careful with who we gave it out to.
It's why the consensus is more on 'teach literally no-one' outside of our apprentices, Yorri and Joll (the latter could be seen as iffy if it weren't for Joll actually needing it to be a runesmith).
EDIT: We can't even advise them not to use it a certain way, because the whole point is that we can't dictate policy on how a rune should be used to other runesmiths.
Would be funny if the Kadrin mess become the first major example of Valaya's censure and sanction if she have to step in as the mess evolve into a mini civil war, imagine the depths of the hold's shame unless Valaya did censure other dwarfs or holds before.
Would love to see the Ancestors stepping in like that dealing with naughty grown up children.
Would be funny if the Kadrin mess become the first major example of Valaya's censure and sanction if she have to step in as the mess evolve into a mini civil war, imagine the depths of the hold's shame unless Valaya did censure other dwarfs or holds before.
Would love to see the Ancestors stepping in like that dealing with naughty grown up children.
Grunna gives this resource freely to the dwarf sitting across from her, listens to the seeming madness of her requests and accepts them without question. Gingerly, reverently, she takes the chest offered to her and moves it to her side.
"We'll see it secured my Lady, I'll shave my plaits if we can't. If you would permit me this question though my Lady, why us and not her?" the High Priestess of Valaya asks carefully.
The dwarf across from her shakes her head, a rueful smile visible even in the dim firelight.
"She won't take it, and it isn't as if my son has enough weapons already. No, someone who will need it will take up the old girl I reckon. You need only keep her safe until that day comes. I've been laying seeds for a good long time now and a few are growing rather well already," Valaya says cryptically, the glow of the hearth behind her framing the Ancestor with a halo of warm orange light.
Reading back on things, its really a good thing that we managed to stop the avatar of Hashut from forming. Because while it would have been very bad for us (since it would have devolved into 'try to stay alive long enough for Gazul to arrive') but also for Gazul himself. From the hints given Gazul doesn't have all that much longer left himself and having to fight a proper avatar would have been taxing for whatever he has left after his fight against Hashut.
[X] Plan Build That Hold and Take A Walk
-[X] Odd Places 8/10: [Cost: 1 action] Can be taken multiple times. Roll for usefulness.1 Action.
-[X] Render Aid. [Cost: 1 retainer action] Can be taken multiple times. Roll for usefulness, additional actions apply bonus to roll. 1 Retainer Action.
-[X] Hold Founding: [Cost: 1 action, 1 retainer action] Locked in until end of turn 40.
-[X] Hold Founding: [Cost 6 actions] Productivity Like no Other will proc. This is a great deal of work, one devoted wholly to crafting, ordering and coordinating with the survivors of Dum to properly supply them with the material necessary to found a Hold. While technically less difficult, the sheer scale of material required will be more than enough to make such a thing quite the daunting task indeed. 2 Apprentice Actions. 2 Actions.
--[X] A Favour from Otrek: [Cost: 10 Favour from Kraka Drakk] Can be taken multiple times. Gain 1 progress. You have some amount of influence on King Otrek. Normally you have little need or desire to ask him for aid, much to his dismay, but here the pull and weight of a King can be of great use. At the very least it will help the man lessen the crushing weight of the debt he and his Clan owe you. Sometimes you wonder if you went overboard. Bah, nonsense! 50 Kraka Drakk Favor
-[X] [Simple] Yorri's Request: [Cost: 2 apprentice actions] Due whenever.
--[X] Accept
Your schedule these next few years is looking to be spent between four major tasks this time.
One, fulfilling your oath to Valka. A given, and likely the bulk of your time would be spent here.
Two, teaching your apprentices. Another given, their training having already been taken into consideration before anything else.
Three and four, reading through and then incorporating the tome of elven magic Valma translated and going through the myriad of notes and Runes you'd gained from your little exchange. Slow going and sporadic, which you find irksome, but ultimately expected and therefore planned for in advance.
The one commonality? None of this required your retainers to be present in any large capacity. So with that in mind, you set them loose to fulfill the role you created this group for in the first place. You watch as fifty of them head off, their small caravan laden with supplies, and with a request to keep on the lookout for any potential spots for a future Hold to mark for further surveying.
They'll do well you reckon, in terms of training they were all Elders and in terms of equipment well…
What needs to be said on that front?
The ten that remain are those chosen from amongst themselves to safeguard your person, the traditions of the average retinue proving strong even among this rather non-traditional form of it.
Commendable, but unnecessary in your opinion. You could order them to leave you, but you knew full well it rankled at some of them to leave you undefended. Feeling as if they benefit at your expense without repaying that debt, again foolish, but understandable.
Back to the old grindstone then.
━<><><>< 226 A.P. ><><><>━
Your initial forays into reading this elven tome prove exceedingly...confused.
While it made grammatical sense, the logic, the context and much of the terminology translated into Khazalid made little sense to you or perhaps any dwarf really. It was comparable to trying to explain vision to a blind person or smell to a being without a nose. A dwarf did not have the background, nor the innate capability to make sense of it. And knowing that as well as you did, Valma's copy had both the most literal version and her best attempt at translating the text for you to peruse.
Regardless, you think you have at the very least, a rudimentary idea of how these Winds of Magic function. Though you would be remiss not to give Blizzardwing's explanation some credit for helping make all of this nonsense make some semblance of sense to you.
You lacked several pieces of what seemed to be necessary background context that the book assumed you knew, but you managed all the same. Magic to the elves was, based again on the context it was spoken of in the book, an ephemeral thing from beyond the material plane. A source that leaked out into the world from some hole in the farthest reaches of the north. All of this the Dwarfs at least had an inkling of. For the Ancestors prepared your people for the coming of darkness, simple observation could tell you that things got more magical the more northward you went and provided further context as to why Grimnir himself went north.
Where the elven description sheds more light however is in the nature of magic itself.
Here you were, less sure, about the translation and took the time to confer with several Brana on the subject as well to have even this much of an opinion. But in short, when this aetheric, an elven term, energy left its natural realm and entered yours some sort of hybrid energy was created. These, the elves say, form eight distinct Winds of Magic that have some semblance of consistency in how they operate. Some, being incredibly relative, at least compared to its original state. While the Brana couldn't confirm if this original energy was as mutable as the elves say, they could confirm that the description of these winds wasn't too off the mark from their own understanding. Different terms, concepts and attachments, but the foundation was the same so to speak.
This tome specifically focused on one of those eight winds, that being Chamon, the Lore of Metal and associated with the colour of Gold, or maybe yellow depending on the translation.
You think it's likely the latter, because if it was gold the elves do not say what type of Gold it is. Which is odd considering how complex their tongue seems to be with how many secondary definitions or interpretations Valma's put down for the rest of this madness. Whatever the case, the Brana called it the Shining or Golden Wind, so you're just going to dovetail the two and call it the Gold Wind for your sanity.
This Wind is associated with logic, for whatever measure that magic was logical, and was apparently drawn to heavy and dense materials, Metals especially, from which it got its name. Here too the Dwarfs and Elves had some commonality, for even the most foolish Dwarf understood that most things could be inundated with Magic, the very reagents you use to create Runes being the most obvious example, but this book cleared up the mystery of just what kind of magic was most common, or at least where Chamon was most common.
Much of the tome spoke of using spells and how to better draw upon the Gold Wind in their casting. A lot of references to using Gold and Lead for their density because of the Wind's great attraction to both materials. Useless to you mostly, but one section… one section, in particular, caught your eye.
Alkhemy, the art of transforming one thing to another. From what little this tome says on the subject, it doesn't seem too dissimilar to the Chemistry practiced by the Engineers Guild, or Metallurgy of the Metalsmiths, combining and altering substances to create new ones with desirable properties, though with a far more magical bent to it.
Yet when you read some warning to be careful transmuting Lead to Gold and practicing proper procedure and patience for the effect to be permanent...
...here you cannot help but look at your Adamant Smelter.
Thoughts for later, and maybe after finding a more dedicated tome on the subject.
… course you need to learn the damn tongue yourself unless you want to wait for Valma to translate it for you.
Bah!
Yet for all that hassle such a thing entails. Doing so would make the seamless and gargantuan wall that was Durin's consternation…
...well it may let you see the mortar between the bricks so to speak.
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For the sake of your sanity, you intersperse your Magical ahem, education, with work fulfilling your oath and reading the rest of Valma's notes. Though sadly for you it is more often than not the former rather than it is the latter.
Like now, where you patiently waited outside Otrek's personal study, waiting for him to let you in.
There's a part of you that grumbles about being made to wait, while the rest of you simply uses the opportunity to think idly in between bouts of much deeper thought. You'd met with many of the Guildmasters already, all too aware that for whatever shape Valka's future Hold will take, it will require a proper foundation of Craftsmen and Craftguilds. Something that, in light of the almost total destruction of their own Craftguilds during the Betrayal and the attritional losses suffered in the time since your arrival, would prove incredibly difficult and time-consuming to overcome if left to their own devices. So it was one of the first things you sought to rectify, convincing many of the Guildmasters in Kraka Drakk to put feelers out and see if there was anything that could be done to get to repairing that cracked foundation as soon as possible.
As a teacher, and as a student of Master Yorri, you understood the importance of a good education both for the mental health and overall ability of a student.
"Lord Gift Giver," a young Huskarl says with a bow, "The King may see you now. He sends his apologies for the delay, the meeting with the Zorn Thanes ran longer than expected."
Getting up from your seat you merely nod at the boy and begin walking towards his study.
The Zornish had been Otrek's latest long-term project, you had no ear against that particular wall but from the sounds of it, there were still a few lingering issues to be dealt with. In the grand scheme of things, you believe he would get them on side. If for no other reason than the level of freedom they now had in comparison to the restrictive oaths Zorn was known for. A byproduct of the elder days, both to minimize conflict between the Clans under the Royal Clan's domain and, more cynically, control their subjects more easily.
You push such thoughts away for another time, opening the door to the King's study with one hand.
Might take a fair bit of convincing to get Otrek to do this on your behalf, but you had sworn an oath to aid the survivors of Dum to the best of your ability.
━<><><>< 228 A.P. ><><><>━
You stare down at the last pickaxe, the Runes glowing proudly on their surface.
With this, you've officially created enough equipment to outfit every survivor of Dum with a Gromril tool and protective amulet respectively. You weren't done making everything they'd need, but in terms of personal items there was nothing left to craft. It wasn't a truly difficult task, not compared to everything else you've done, and with Zharrgal and Barak Azamar you feel no worse for wear despite the effort you put into it. In fact, much of the delay is more due to the other host of duties you had to see to. You only managed to get any smithing done in the time between meetings, letter writing, and generally using your time to coordinate a Hold Wide effort to see every material need for the future Founding met and then some.
Had you devoted yourself wholly to just this one task you imagine you'd be done making everything you planned for the Dawi of Dum in three years easily, two if orders came at exactly the right time and you were fed material at exactly the right pace.
It says much about how far you've come in terms of your speed, but more about how few Dawi survived the fall of Dum.
You frown at that thought.
All the more reason to see them properly equipped you reckon.
Holstering Zharrgal you walk out of your forge to check up on your beardlings to see how they were progressing. In a show of supreme, in your opinion, trust, you'd given them the honour of inscribing every Rune of Light and a third of the Runes of Warding in the Future Hold when the time came. Furthermore, you had, with Valka's permission, given them the chance to forge a few extra items for the Hold's future armoury, to be dispensed by the Royal Clan in times of need. Nothing too extravagant, just fifty axes and hammers and a few dozen talismans each, things they were used to.
You still checked their work for any sign of shoddiness of course. You would have no part, no matter how indirect, in supplying these Dawi with lacklustre equipment. And as your apprentices, that connection wasn't even that far removed!
Stealthily, so as not to disturb them, you watch as they work. Nain is on pace with where you expected, he'd likely be done by the time the Hold would be founded, but Karstah?
Karstah is ahead of schedule.
Only by fifteen percent, but it is a noticeable amount nevertheless. Nowhere near your level, let alone your older apprentices, but you can tell she is pushing herself with every blow. Always ensuring that the quality of her work never faltered even as she imperceptibly improved her speed with every passing day. You feel a small surge of pride from that knowledge.
Perhaps a reward is in order, after you had seen to your other duties of course. An excursion maybe? There were still a few places in Yorri's journal you haven't visited yet that could work. It would doubtlessly be a good learning exercise for them. With how close they were to becoming Journeymen, it would be prudent to give them a bit of experience traversing and surviving in the wilderness.
You stare at their backs a while longer before leaving them to their work. After all, you had a letter to write then deliver to Queen Valka. After that, you would check over their work, and then finally finish your work incorporating the knowledge about the Rune of Waking from Valma.
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The Master Rune of Waking was fascinating.
An obvious observation, but one that needs to be restated as you grow more and more familiar with this oddest of Runes. First created by Thungni and taught to his students, there was, unlike every other piece of knowledge he deigned to part with, no obvious Runes previously shown that created this potent Rune. No component Runes that clearly detailed the means by which Thungni came upon it, nor any rhyme or reason to it's creation. An anomaly, something Runesmiths were always tempted to explore, made all the more tantalizing by what it could do. Its limits were little understood by the Runesmiths. Not the actual limits themselves, your folk had worked that out easily enough, but why those limits existed in the first place.
Most obviously was something that Durin the Lost had coined, "The Limitation of Form."
The Rune possesses the ability to animate body and form only when given a proper framework for movement, be it conceptual or actual.
In more understandable terms, the Runes ability, or more accurately its lack thereof, to animate certain forms coincided with the inscribed object's movement potential. That is, the form's ability to function if it had the ability, whether it was by imitation or actual properties. For instance, a body was the easiest, and commonly accepted as the best, possible medium for the Rune to exert its power on. A living thing, even the inanimate facsimile of one, was ultimately something the Rune seemed to understand as capable of movement. This was followed by other mechanical systems; levels, pulleys, switches and the like. All things that, with a decent understanding of basic physics, any Dwarf could follow the logic behind their function well enough even if they didn't know the specifics. Input leads to output and such, with the caveat that the systems could actually accomplish that understood function. Anything outside those realms, be it individual tools or weapons, a chain or rope, or a slab of wood, the Rune could do effectively nothing with.
Fascinating and confusing in equal measure.
Your efforts to understand Valma's variations on the Master Rune of Waking provide key insights in that direction, uncovering several key details that were not well known to the wider Runesmith community. The most unsurprising one being that the accuracy of the form mattered. While the logic itself was sound and proven by the aforementioned limitations surrounding mechanical systems, it also seemed to extend to the statues the Rune was most commonly used for.
A more accurate depiction of a Dwarf, not their appearance so much but their anatomy, Valma learned, improved the performance of the Gronti to a statistically significant degree. Your own work to expand the Rune's ability so that it could recognize non Dwarfen body shapes likely followed a similar trend. Moreover, her work on adapting the Rune to work on Armour showed that a suit of armour seemed to follow a hybrid of these two pseudo rules, at least from what Valma could tell. Altering the Rune so that it seemed to operate on the assumption that there was a being present inside the suit of armour, and in doing so gave it the range of movement anyone in that suit would have.
The Talismanic version she developed followed a similar path, altering the Rune to act as if it were in control of an object as some sort of invisible secondary set of hands. Or at least that was how she explained its ability to cast Runes and abilities without the Runesmith's attention or even knowledge. A marked improvement over the simple preset commands you could give the Rune before.
These two versions of the Rune, in particular, seemed geared towards giving whatever overarching logic behind the Rune more power, or maybe methods, to act.
The Weapon variant was sadly less impressive, more like an experiment to test Durin's Limitation of Form hypothesis really.
Nevertheless, you've managed to incorporate the knowledge to the best of your ability, which is to say that any future Rune of Waking you make will be more improved not only by virtue of its new construction but because of your own growing understanding of the Mechanics behind it. On a more neutral turn of events, you believe that with all you have learned a realization of some importance has come to your attention.
That being, any future improvement to the Rune of Waking's performance will not easily come through a more nuanced or better way of striking the Rune into existence, no nothing so relatively simple as that. Improving the Rune's performance will require manipulating the very connection it has to the Deep Magic in some fashion.
Thankfully for you, Valma's Runes have given you some measure of insight there as well. By examining the commonalities in their construction, as well as those in her Rune of Empowerment, you've come to see what aspects of its creation refer to that connection specifically.
And with that in mind, any future work simply comes down to futzing about with that part and seeing what works. In a systematic, safe, obsessively recorded and hyper-focused series of experiments of course, nothing so haphazard as simple random chance!
That was the realm of madmen or savants, and the latter ought to know better!
━<><><><==><><><>━
Drumin nocks a bolt with well-practised ease, takes aim, and sends the projectile screaming downrange in the span of a few seconds. Around him, the click-clack of master-crafted crossbows unleashing their deadly payload is broken up by the far louder thump of that miniature bolt thrower Yngvar calls a crossbow.
He watches as the bolt embeds itself in the eye of a Gor at the exact same time a bolt from Yngvar's monstrosity destroys its chest.
"I claim that kill Thoreksson!" the Master Engineer rumbles over the din of battle.
"LIKE HELL YOU WILL ULTHARSSON!" he roars back, "My bolt hit its eye and passed through its brain a good five seconds before that lug of a thing was even loaded!"
"A Lug? My Menna's no Lug you dirt eater! Take that back or I'm drinking you under the table for the fifth time when we get back home!"
"Bah!"
"Bah!"
"Focus on the Minotaur!" a voice yells from the front.
"HES MINE!" they both shout in unison, shooting competitive looks at the other.
"Count of four, as always?"
"Feh, obviously!"
"By Valaya's axe, the two of you better start acting like Hearth Guard and not bickering beardlings or I swear I'll come back there and thump the both of you unconscious!" Skella roars, the Valkyrie Guard swinging her hammer out and pulping a Gor's head for emphasis.
━<><><>< 232 A.P. ><><><>━
A knock on her door draws Valka's attention. With a word of confirmation the door opens and her second walks in with a roll of parchment about the size of his forearm.
"Another letter from Lord Klausson my Queen," Gammur announces, handing her the roll with a deep bow.
"Thank you Gammur," she says, nodding at him as he leaves the room with another bow.
Taking a moment to look at the time teller, a generous gift from King Korr, she decides that she has enough time to leaf through it. Lord Snorri didn't seem like one for long-winded letters, but perhaps she was wrong on that front.
She unfurls the scroll and begins reading, going through the contents within with an ever-growing amount of disbelief.
"Lady Igna has arrived my queen," one of the guards outside reports.
"Let her in Thorgrim," she mutters offhandedly, eyes still on the letter in her hands. Mind still trying to wrap around what exactly the Runelord had been doing.
She only barely acknowledges the sound of Lady Igna taking the seat across from her. It requires a bit of effort for her to put down the paper and regard the Runelord of her future Hold.
"Must be quite the letter with how often you keep glancing back at it," Igna comments idly.
"Forgive me Lady Igna. It's from Lord Klausson regarding the status of his...contribution," Valka says.
"He's completely funded the entire thing hasn't he?" Igna says, sipping from her mug calmly.
Valka blinks, and that seems to be enough to get the Runelord to realize just how on the mark she was.
"Yes, and more actually," she eventually replies, "How did you...?"
"Know? Not like it's a secret. You've been here long enough to have at least heard of the name folk have for him."
"The Gift Giver aye," she admits, "I suppose so, but I never expected…"
"The level of commitment? The resources brought to bear? The almost single-minded focus he appears to give?" Igna supplies helpfully.
"Yes," she confirmed, "That."
The Runelord only hums and takes a long swig from her mug. Valka watches her put it down and wipe the foam off the top of her lip before she speaks again.
"You've only ever experienced Klausson when he was quite literally tearing his way through Dum. Isn't that far fetched to think he'd be just as ...intense, in other pursuits?" Igna asks.
"Hmmph, there are similarities and there's this. He's given me timetables, contract orders, a sworn oath to give every Dwarf in my hold a piece of Runic equipment and the oaths of several Guildmasters and Thanes to devote a non too inconsiderable amount of time vetting the skill and shoring up any deficiencies among the hold's artisans. Nevermind the oath he managed to get King Otrek to swear. It's...too much, but I can't refuse! It's all I need and more! To waste it would put us back decades, maybe more, if we tried to collect all of this on our own. If I hadn't seen him quite literally save my people I'd think he's drowning us in debts purposefully."
"Well, you're right about the drowning part. Welcome to the reality of working with the man who literally gave away enough Rune inscribed Gromril weapons to outfit every Dwarf, elderly and children included, in his Hold, and then did it a second time without batting an eye when the Incursion hit. The Dwarf who cut down the timetable on Kraka Drakk's Underway by at least a third on his own and built, alongside a whole host of other things, a Gronti to help with the rest. If I hadn't realized early on that Klausson seems to treat politics like he would the work of a thirty-year-old engineer I'd be far more worried about the effort he's putting into not only the Hold, but Clan Metalheart as well."
"He's aiding you as well?"
"Aye, I've gotten letters from dozens of Runesmiths who have the time to take on an apprentice willing to at least see those among the Clan with The Gift, before I even sent out a missive. It's not hard to put two and two together when a good three-quarters of those letters came from Kraka Drakk. A Hold whose Runesmith community can be summed up as, 'trying to be Klausson and failing.' "
"All this effort seems...wasted on us. Not that I'll complain but surely there are other things that could use the effort?"
Igna shrugs.
"Maybe to you, I and many other Dawi, but Klausson has decided differently. Ancestors, his retainers spend more of their time out helping others than they do guarding him. So it could very well just be he simply wants to. Who's to say? The Elder's an enigma wrapped in a mystery and one I've long since stopped trying to seriously decipher his intent."
━<><><><==><><><>━
You were hankering for some troll jerky right about now.
Maybe you'd go hunting next month. Apprentices could use the exercise at the very least, but you ought to focus on the task at hand.
High summer, while the best time weather-wise to do any real exploration, had the unfortunate facet of conditions randomly and very rapidly becoming downright inhospitable for those caught unprepared. Doubly so for your current location, a humble mountain in the middle of a valley whose one opening faced the coastline. Naturally defensible, with good access to water from the rivers that ran through it and with fairly large iron veins near and even jutting out of the surface; this area seemed the perfect place to settle for any would-be colonist.
Save for the fact that these factors made it damn near inhospitable from Summer to Fall. The valley's geography and position on the peninsula meant that it was buffeted constantly by storms, the valley walls ensuring that the weather fronts simply came in, hit the far wall of the encircling mountains and got forced back through where they came. Either by going around or over the mountain in the center. In rare occasions, made possible due to the Valley's overall geography, multiple storms would travel into the valley at once and go along different "walls," only to crash into each other. From there the two clashing forces of nature either destroyed one another or more worryingly, came together and formed a large enough weather phenomenon that it broke past the mountains and into the peninsula proper. The presence of so much open iron, and in such pure state, meant that lightning strikes also peppered the land whenever a storm came through, enough that the entire location was colloquially known as Grungni's Forge, for the thunderous booms that could be heard echoing over the mountains that usually kept these forces at bay.
The commonality of the storms there made it a rather popular place for young Brana attempting to test their control over weather over a period of months. A test you are told, to prove their worthiness and skill to be called a Stormcaller, a Brana whose mastery over the weather was strong enough that they could conjure and control an, albeit weaker, storm like their progenitor did.
How do you manage to survive walking through this place with two bumbling apprentices and a cart pulled by four goats one may ask? Simple really.
Such things were no concern for a Runelord.
Around you the storm raged, unable to penetrate the barrier of swirling winds erected by the Master Rune of Grungni. A bubble of safety in an otherwise inhospitable scenario. Beside you your two apprentices watched with rapturous wonder as lightning, ice and snow simply broke in the face of proper Runework like waves upon a cliff.
Did nothing for the noise though.
"Hurry it up beardlings! The summit may be willing to wait for you but I certainly won't!" you shout over the din, just barely audible enough for them to hear you.
"Yes master!" they say, grabbing at the reins and doing their best to move the goats along. The animals having been deafened with a few Rune inscribed earplugs and so, were utterly calm in the face of the storm raging around them.
Old Ornery the Nineteenth seems to have chomped at Nain's finger in annoyance from the way your apprentice yelps like a chipmunk who'd just spotted a diving hawk.
Shaking your head, you continue your march up the slope and towards the summit.
Only Master Yorri would look at such a place and think it was ripe for exploration.
━<><><><==><><><>━
Dolgi nods with respect, tearing away the tarp to reveal what lies beneath to his audience.
Around them, several Brana stare at the two massive sets of Pure Gromril plate armour with obvious appreciation and desire. They stand proudly in the center of the King of the Sky's hall, glimmering silver in the Rune lights, and the glow of the Runes upon them.
Each set of Pure Gromril is a massive work of art, obvious siblings yet wholly their own. The one on the left is made of thicker plates, its helm bears an axe-shaped horn atop the beak, that glows with heat. Each individual piece of thick overlapping plate is etched in a mix of Kraka Drakk knotwork and the flowing scratch script of the Branakroki, the Runes proudly engraved on the chest plate and each flank. A suit of armour made for one who would wade into the thick of the fighting and stand as an unbreakable terror.
Its sibling meanwhile is a thing of sleek plates and ever more finely articulated plate and scale layers. Slim, and slender, the horn atop its helm is perfect for diving plunges into the bodies of enemy lords. Its slender form emits soft curls of icy vapour that flow from the ends of the scratch script upon them, sheets of scale can be seen covering otherwise exposed joints and openings in the armour. A suit made for one as swift as the mountain winds, whose blows come rarely but are aimed at the heart and with the force to sunder mountains behind each one.
Only his children have made Dolgi prouder.
The King of the Sky, dressed in his own armour, and his sons stare down at each suit with inscrutable intent.
The Runes on the massive Brana's torque glow, and with a few words forever changes the course of at least one family's history forever.
━<><><><==><><><>━
You finally reach the summit of the mountain, your apprentices not far behind. Around you, the storm still swirls with the fury of a thousand gronti, yet its intensity is lessening as each moment passes.
In the now windswept clearing, surrounded on two sides by a couple of particularly large stone outcroppings, you see what appears to be a field of wide woody bushes. Their deep greyish blue leaves in stark contrast to the slate grey and white bark jutting out of the earth. Atop each bush, a bare and blackened branch stood out proudly like a spire, rising half a meter in the air.
You were in the right spot it seemed.
These were the odd plants Yorri spoke of, bushes who seemingly adapted to be struck by lightning, growing atop mountain peaks to best take advantage of the great storms that wracked the peninsula in high summer.
"Here we are beardlings! Come along then, we have samples to collect!" you holler,.
"Yes Master!" they shout, jogging over towards you.
You sniff once, idly noting the scent of stale air and loamy soil before your eyes widen in realization.
"STOP RIGHT THERE! Cave below our very feet! One dwarf too many and this peak could collapse on top of our heads," you shout out a warning to your apprentices.
Kneeling down and tapping the earth with a mundane pickaxe, you listen to the stone and soil react. Centuries of experience giving you keen insight in such things to know what you're looking for.
"Harumph, 'bout a quarter meter of soil and rock between us and the cavern, roots are probably the only thing keeping us up here. Alright, you two, walk the cart back slowly, standard safety procedures!" you shout, still kneeling.
"Yes Master," they shout back, already pulling at the reigns and getting the protesting goats to move back down the slope.
Master Yorri's journal said nothing about this!
Bah!
You watch both Nain and Karstah walk back, making sure they're well out of way before you begin to get up off your knee. Yet just as you get back onto both of your feet you are buffeted by a gust of wind, one strong enough that you nearly lose your footing. It forces you to move your foot to stabilize yourself, the smack of boot on a bare stone echoing for a good few seconds. You wait for a few tense moments then, seeing that you hadn't inadvertently hit a weak spot in the rock, breathe out a sigh of relief.
Only for you to hear the rumble of stone.
To your left, from the top of one of the outcroppings, a small boulder the size of two Dawi falls from maybe four meters up in the air. Its size, shape and trajectory let it pierce a particularly thin section of the cavern roof and crash into the opening below. You stare at the hole it left, then watch with slowly growing dread as cracks begin fanning out from it. The ground beneath you rumbles dangerously, the fissures growing ever more rapidly. You only have a few seconds to look at your two gobsmacked apprentices, hands still on the reins of the cart, before the stone and soil gives way and you fall to the cavern below.
You don't dignify the situation with even a grunt of surprise.
By Grungni if this is how you die you're dragging your soul out of the Underearth to throttle Yorri yoursel-
━<><><><==><><><>━
You come to with a start and a snort of surprise, the sound of something hitting the floor beside you waking you.
Where?
Ah.
You look to your left and see a rope ladder, the line reaching up to the surface where already you could hear the hammering of stakes into the stone vibrate through to your position. With a groan of exertion, you shove off a piece of stone from atop your person and simply lay there for a moment. Above, rays of light from several different holes shine down, giving the area an almost eerie feel to it with how the dust and snow seemingly float in the air, creating scintillating particles that shimmer in the dark-
-you blink, and stare out further into the black, noting the massive shapes within.
With another grunt of effort, you raise yourself so that you're in a sitting position. The effort of doing so was something that made your ribs protest greatly if you may add. Still, curiosity gets the better of you and reaching into your pack you pull out Zharrgal and activate the Runes. Immediately ethereal flame springs forth, lighting up the area to give you a better look-see. Standing before you, interspersed throughout the cavern, are what you once thought were pillars, but were in fact trunks. The colour and texture an exact match of the bark from those bushes above, clearly visible under the light your hammer emits. Dozens of them, maybe more, standing like columns in the dark. Farther back, past the maze of trunks, the faintest edges of a naturally formed tunnel can be made out against the rock.
Now you're wondering where the roots of these plants are, seeing as the trunks seem to continue through the floor and deeper into the mountain beneath, you reckon that tunnel may be the best place to start. The only things stopping you from investigating further are the two Dwarfs patiently waiting for your return to the surface and the dull throb emanating from your chest.
Bah! Of all the times to leave Barak Azamar back in the workshop. You'll deal with it, best to not get used to it anywho. You'd gone centuries without the benefit it provided after all, and you could handle a few piddly days of pain you'd felt before!
Standing up slowly, you see a shadow loom over your head. Looking up you see Karstah staring down at you, brow crinkled in concern and confusion in equal measure, her plaits dripping down into the cavern. From where you stand, you estimate they're a little less than a metre long now, almost a Longbeard.
"I'm fine beardling! No simple cave-in is going to be the death of me! Now have some patience eh? This is quite the development after all," you groused up at her.
"Yes master!" she shouts back down, voice tinged with relief after hearing your grumbling. Her head disappearing over the hole's edge shortly after.
Taking a deep breath, you grab hold of the rope and begin climbing. All the while, knowing you'd be heading back down here soon enough.
Thorek glances at the blood-stained snow with distaste before lifting his gaze back to the forest, eyes scanning for any more threats to their position. Within their protective circle and behind the cover of the wagons the Valayans they'd rescued were being treated as best they were able to. Which considering how many supplies they took every time they left Kraka Drakk, was considerable in comparison to what could usually be done or expected.
It was also fortuitous that these Clerics were out gathering rare and very potent medicinal herbs as well.
He wonders how the rest of the Hearth Guard are faring before he snaps back to the present, having heard a rustling to his left.
"CONTACTS, INCOMING WEST 90 DEGREES!" he roars, as he and several members of the defensive screen take aim at the ever-growing sound of rumbling.
"Hold your fire you wazzocks it's us! We found some survivors!" Rudil calls from the underbrush.
Lowering the crossbow but keeping it at the ready just in case, he and his fellow former rangers watch Rudil and his group break through the trees and into the clearing. With them are several wounded Valayans, carried in stretchers or with arms around the shoulders of one among them. Others, those not injured, carry baskets and bags no doubt full of yet more medicinal herbs.
"Anyone else come in before us?" Rudil asks as he and his group get close.
"Aye. Parties two and four made it back with ten and twelve respectively before heading back out. Parties three, and five to eight are still out there, but they have horns and flares in case things go hairy."
"That's around a tenth of those that came out here according to Sifna," Rudil comments, "We'll restock on ammo and head back out."
"We need more bodies out there searching?" Thorek asks.
"We're already spreading ourselves thin enough as is. Can't risk leaving the wounded undefended. According to some of the folk we saved they heard sounds of fighting north of their position before they started running from the Trolls that found them. We'll try our luck and see if there's any sign of survivors, and barring that...well we'll make sure the appropriate Grudges are made in the Hold's book. I see a few faces that aren't from our number among the sentries, protective detail?"
Thorek nods, "There were forty Karinnzaki assigned to protect the beardlings who made up most of this group, but the rest were trained priestesses and it wasn't as if they all came out here in their temple robes."
Rudil nods in understanding.
"Hopefully we'll find more survivors, I had two cousins in this little excursion," Rudil says, watching his party return from the wagons, restocked and ready to march again, "I'll be seeing you Thorek."
"Don't go losing your head out there. You can't help these Valayans if you end up dying after all," he reminds him.
"Don't plan to," Rudil says with a grin, "don't plan to."
━<><><><==><><><>━
True to your word it takes only a day for you and your apprentices to stand down in the cavern once more. The cart hitched up and secured in a crevice carved into the mountainside, just in time as well given how you can hear the rumble of thunder from the surface.
"Nothing more than a bit of surveying, spelunking and sample taking beardlings, nothing your years in the mines haven't taught you. If you can't handle this, then you're better off living on the surface for the rest of your days! Torches, chalk marks on the left wall or left side of the floor in this instance. Most importantly, don't lose track of just where you are in this mess understood?"
"Yes Master!" they reply.
You eye them skeptically, doing your best to finagle out a reaction from them.
"Harumph! We'll see, come along now my apprentices! There's exploration to be done!"
"Aye master!"
━<><><><==><><><>━
"DRENG THEM HEARTH GUARD! FOR THE GIFT GIVER AND KRAKA DRAKK!" Rudil screams.
"KHAZUK KHAZUK KHAZUK-HA!" they shout back.
The massive troll roars in response, forming a fireball in its withered hand while the other swings a crude axe made from scavenged dawi armour. Ill-gotten spoils for ill done deeds. Around the monster, its thralls rush past and charge headlong into their shieldwall, finding little success on that front. Even with only twenty Dawi, the width of the cave mouth made that number more than enough to hem the bastards in.
Behind him, he can hear one of his fellow Hearth Guard blow into a horn, the long and deep note loud enough to be heard by any from kilometres around, calling for aid.
Aid will come, they need only hold and giving them the best chance of that means keeping the Troll's master off-kilter.
"COME ON!" Rudil taunts the Greedy Troll, "I'VE SEEN GUNK SCRAPED OFF THE BOTTOM OF MY BOOT MORE BOTHERSOME THAN YOU! DUM GRIBBAN TROLL - AZ BARAZ KLAUSSONTHRONG-HA!"
The cavern rumbles with the creature's roar of outrage.
━<><><><==><><><>━
The lot of you have been in these tunnels for a while now, some four hours by your reckoning. The light of torches and the ethereal flame of your hammer are the only sources of illumination in the dark. The sound of your boots, the huffing and puffing of Dwarfen lungs and the periodic scratch of chalk marking the wall the only sounds that can be heard in the cold, dry tunnels. The walls sometimes shake from the forces exerted on the mountain, the storm racking it fiercely.
You hope the goats are doing well, you did carve out a nice little creche for them into the mountainside, but if you could feel the storm from in here well...
You turn another corner and any thoughts about your goats are dashed away when you see a dim glow from a chamber ahead. Based on your mental map of the geography, it sits below the one you fell through or thereabouts, before double-checking against the map you had Karstah hold for you. If you were a betting dwarf, you imagine that there would be trunks here too. That in itself would be interesting enough to make you investigate but the consistent pulse of blue light emanating out of there is simply honey on your Stonebread.
In for a copper in for a gold, you reckon, lifting Zharrgal and walking into the cavern.
You pass through the tunnel and into the chamber proper, eyes scanning around for some form of exit.
Only to stop dead in your tracks, forcing your apprentices to stutter to a halt abruptly behind you, and stare at what's ahead.
As you expected, the trunks are present here as they were above, thicker and larger than you've ever seen them. Moreover, you can see several more trunks near the room's edge jut out diagonally, breaking through the rock, and into parts unknown. Yet this oddness is secondary to what you find sitting idly at the base of each trunk. In great piles that reach about half the trunk's height and many times each one's width, combining into one very large hoard, are thousands of drop-shaped gems. These are the source of the blue light from the looks of it, given that they glow and pulse with blue and white light. All along the parts of the trunks that you can still see are several blobs of varying sizes, all made of a substance that glows with the same hue as the gems. Every few moments, in time with the shaking you've been experiencing since the new storm started, a pulse of blue energy travels down from above. You all watch, transfixed, as the globules attached to the trunks swell and grow slightly as the light enters them. Some of them, having grown to around the size of the gems below, fall off and land on the piles at their base with a soft thunk.
What's more, all around the cavern you can see that there are also other natural passages into yet more chambers, each giving off their own blue glow or are angled deeper into the mountain.
"What in Grungni's name?" you mutter, walking over and picking up one of the gems.
It shimmers in your hand, and if you squint you can even see the gem pulse every so often as streaks of white, black and blue energy that remind you of lightning churn within.
Dronril, a mix of this and blue amber.
━<><><>< Khazalid Trivia ><><><>━
Branawongr - Branafriend
Barag - War Machine
Dronril - Thunderjewel/ Thundergems of Grungni
Dronwut - Thunder Oak/Thunderwood
DUM GRIBBAN TROLL - AZ BARAZ KLAUSSONTHRONGHA! - Doom is upon you - the axe promise of The Hearth Guard comes!
Grimhazkalrik Klad - Unyielding Fireplate
Gromwyrren Klad - Brave Coldplate
Karinnzaki - shorthand for Valkyrie Guard
Klaussonthrong - the Company of Klausson/ term for The Hearth Guard
Wyrrakdrengi - Snow Slayer
Zharrkazad - Burning Fortress
━<><><><Gain ><><><>━
- Movement of Things Pt. 3 complete, Movement of Things Pt. 4 unlocked! You've cracked it after taking a good amount of time to examine the many variations of the Rune of Waking now in your possession. The minute differences and the many commonalities letting you figure out just what you believe, to be the part of the Rune's structure that draws on the Deep Magic that Valma spoke of. Moreover, the limits and capabilities of each variant's range of movement have shown you that the Master Rune of Waking works far better with an anatomically correct body more than a regular body. The more odd the shape the more difficulty the Rune faces. Your modifications to allow non Dawi body plans seemed to simply expand the range of "known" body types to include beasties and gribblies as well. In the end, a body of some sort is what the Rune works best with, barring that it looks for a mechanism to animate, and without either it's effectively useless.
-- +1 progress to Movement of Things Pt. 4, new totals: [Cost: (10 -1) =9 actions]
-- Master Rune of Waking and regular Rune of Waking improved, all of Valma's work incorporated.
- Chamon textbook read! Options unlocked! You now have some sort of understanding about these so-called Winds of Magic. Well, understanding might be stretching it, more like that you know they exist and have an inkling of an idea about how one of them works in some fashion. To know anymore you're either going to have to wait for Valma to deliver her future texts or do a bit of work yourself.
- Hold Founding complete! The material is there, ready and waiting for the very second a location is found. Once that happens, the imposing weight of what a Runelord can bring to bear if roused will come crashing down like an avalanche. In the meantime they will be trained, made ready and equipped for the new life they will be making for themselves.
-- -50 Favour with Kraka Drakk, new totals: Standing 10, Favour 505
-- 1/2
- Over the decade your Retinue have been doing their level best to lend aid wherever they can. Helping small holds clear out monsters in their vicinity, finding missing Dawi lost in the wilderness, but their most significant deed was helping recover a party of Valayans out gathering rare medicinal herbs in the center of the peninsula, clearing out a cave filled with Trolls and slaying their Greedy Troll master in pitched combat and avenging the Grudges soon after they were struck.
-- +50 Favour with the Cult of Valaya, new totals: Standing 6, Favour 100
- Deep blue stones, dropped from an underground grove of trees, whose uppermost branches break through the surface and are struck continuously by lightning in high summer.
-- +∞ Mysterious Blue Amber/ "Dronril" The Stones shine iridescent blue, lightning, or what appears to be lightning, crackles within them periodically.
-- +∞ Mysterious White Wood/ "Dronwut" The pale slate grey wood is as hard as stone and just as inflexible. Working the material is more like chipping away at a block of Granite than a log.
- Dolgi earns Legendary Deed, Branawongr: For continued acts of friendship, aid and good faith with the Branakroki as well as arming the sons of their Lord with resplendent armour, Dolgi Bolgisson and his line shall be forever known to all as Branawongr with all the responsibilities and rewards it entails.
-- Epic Creations of Note, Grimhazkalrik Klad (Unyielding Fireplate)
---Combo, Zharrkazad(Burning Fortress): [Master Rune of Infernos, Rune of Vitality, Rune of Fortitude] The bearer can spew a coat of flames around themselves that improves their regeneration, heals minor wounds and burns their foes.
---Sky Armourer
---Crow Crafter
-- Epic Creation of Note, Gromwyrren Klad (Brave Coldplate)
---Combo, Wyrrakdrengi(Snow Slayer): [Master Rune of Blizzards, Rune of Speed, Rune of Impact] The bearer can launch themselves forward at incredible speeds, forming a Gromril hard ice spike at a desired point on the armour.
---Sky Armourer
---Crow Crafter
AN: To be clear, take nothing Snorri views on the Winds of Magic here as entirely canon to this quest. He's interpolating from reading a text originally written in a very flowing and multi-faceted language, translated into arguably its complete opposite in terms of structure and underlying ideas. Paired with a completely different set of backgrounds and cultural knowledge, he's doing the best he can yeah? Snorri reacting to Dolgi and other stuff next turn. Anywho, thanks for waiting for, hope you enjoy and don't forget to C&C. :^)
[ ]Deed: The Laborious Defense at the Peak Pass
You were part of an enterprising group of dwarfs who were setting up a large defensive rune array near the future Karak Kadrin.
You know, I've always wondered what'd happen if we chose this option, and then the King and Heir of Karak Kadrin thing happened in Turn 32. It'd be interesting to see what happens if a dwarf who took part in founding Karak Kadrin (yet deciding to set foot in the Far North) decided to give his own 2 cents about this mess.
Bah! Of all the times to leave Zharrgal back in the workshop. You'll deal with it, best to not get used to it anywho. You'd gone centuries without the benefit it provided after all, and you could handle a few piddly days of pain you'd felt before!
- Dolgi earns Legendary Deed, Branawongr: For continued acts of friendship, aid and good faith with the Branakroki as well as arming the sons of their Lord with resplendent armour, Dolgi Bolgisson and his line shall be forever known to all as Branawongr with all the responsibilities and rewards it entails.
Let's be honest, he definitely deserved that more than we did. He's definitely closer in spirit and deed, we just did the two most flashiest contributions. I'm proud of him, he found his niche.
"Maybe to you, I and many other Dawi, but Klausson has decided differently. Ancestors, his retainers spend more of their time out helping others than they do guarding him. So it could very well just be he simply wants to. Who's to say? The Elder's an enigma wrapped in a mystery and one I've long since stopped trying to seriously decipher his intent."
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You were hankering for some troll jerky right about now.
Funny enough between our three actions (from procs) our already set in 1 action and our two apprentice actions, we had it done even without calling in favors from Kraka Drak.
Well always nice to have confirmation from others that Snorri is odd just like his master just in a different way! Though makes me wonder if we should ease off on it at times. Also look at our Hearth Guard go! Helping our people also I find it quite sensible of them to leave 10 guards at our door after all part of there job is to guard us even if it's not often needed.
It shimmers in your hand, and if you squint you can even see the gem pulse every so often as streaks of white, black and blue energy that remind you of lightning churn within.
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