"What is it?" Otrek says, raising the object in his hand for the both of you to see.
"A ring/ring," you both reply, eyes wide.
It is no Runic masterpiece, no great ward or weapon of woe, but a band of simple, if finely engraved with beautifully stylized mountains, Oathgold inset with a small ruby.
Beautiful.
Now that's really awesome.
It doesn't need to be runed to be really touching. That's going to bouy Otrek's spirits a lot I think.
You wish Klorah well.
"Snorri!" Yorri calls from the bed next to you.
"Yes Master?" you reply.
"What's this about not using Troll Tongue on your apprentices?!" he rumbles.
You sigh, having dreaded this day.
The things you do for them.
Oh boi. Lol.
When a few dare ask for information, you are told that Grimnir's companions will not utter a word of what occured beyond the bare minimum. Grimnir went north, they followed, but were bid to return. Only Lord Mogrim followed his father onward, the rest of them unable to continue. From how the Huskarls tell it, these dwarfs feel shame on a level none could begin to comprehend for their failure.
Beyond that, they only leave the Temple of Grimnir to bring battle and wage war on the few daemonic hordes that dare assault Kraka Drakk. Venting their anger and rage at any that fall within the reach of their weapons.
Sounds like these are the first Slayers.
Poor bastards.
Over the coming days, Dwarfs throughout the hold take a moment to pay silent respects and honour Grimnir The Valiant for His final and greatest act. For there is no other reason, at least in their minds, as to why the shadows have been pushed back so thoroughly and why some sense of normalcy has returned to the land.
In your mind his final message repeats itself over and over.
Fight and live well ... die for something even better than that.
Leave it to Grimnir to set the greatest example of His own philosophy.
See ya on the other side Grimnir.
Plan wise since folks seem to be interested in seeing what happens to the King of the Skies and his flock I'll put down plans that have him eat the heart.
[] Plan To the Heart with Apprentices
-[] Refuse the Hearth: Allow the King of the Skies to consume it.
Gain standing with the Skarrenraz Ankor and KoTS. ???
-[] Boon from the Sky: A bundle of your crest feathers.
[Cost: Start Request, [Difficult] Plated Skies Pt. 1:]
-[] Apprentice Hunt: Go out and trawl through the local and regional populace to find a beardling or two worth your time. No stone unturned, no clan unchecked, no record unread, even the Foundling Wards!
[Cost: 1 Action] Apprentice Vote after Turn Results. 1 action.
-[] Dragon Ogre Autopsy: You've found yourself with a bevy of corpses to study. Dragon Ogres aren't an
unknown foe, but you've never been privy to the results of the few limited autopsies done in the long history of your people.
[Cost: 6 actions] Student of the Odd will proc. 2 Actions.
--[] Destructive Research: You have very
many corpses. Being a bit more invasive in your understanding will mean more work gets done, but will cost you.
[Cost: 3 Shaggoth Corpses, 9 Dragon Ogre Corpses] Gain 2 Progress, can be taken multiple times. Take Twice.
-[] C-c-combo Tester!: Write-in format for a Rune Combo you want Snorri to test. Format is as follows: [Placeholder Combo Name] Equipment type: [Rune 1, Rune 2, Rune 3]
[Cost: 1 action] If a rune you want requires special ingredients that you don't have access to I will alert you. 2 actions.
--[] Valaya's Care, Banner: Master Rune of Valaya, Rune of Healing, Rune of Fortitude.
--[] Valaya's Sanctuary, Banner: Master Rune of Valaya, Rune of Healing, Rune of Sanctuary.
So the idea behind this plan is to give the KoTS the Heart of Kholek both for dramatic irony since Kholek failed in eating the King of the Skies own heart and to set up the King of the Skies armor request. The purpose of asking for the feathers is that honestly I think he's effectively paid for the armor so this is to satisfy pride and give us a selection of feathers to use when making Master Runes of Grimnir either for the King of the Skies with his weapons, or weapons or Banners for dwarves of Kraka Drakk.
Further on we have the Dragon Ogre autopsy so that we can hopefully either use them for the King of the Skies' armor or the Healing Banner I decided to go for a couple pages back and to also just find out what they're useful for generally. I expect many to come hunting for Kraka Drakk when it gets particularly stormy. We have absolute shittons of Dragon Ogre Corpses, 15 Shaggoths and 45 Dragon Ogres. We have a looooooooot to spend so might as well. Finally we go hunting for more wonderful apprentices and test out two different combo possibilities for the Banner.
In terms of combo testing I only want to do one for two reasons: I am pretty confident that Valaya's Sanctuary will create a combo, and for my second reason if I find a combo out of any of the three I suggested I'm going straight for it and discarding the other options. I don't want to spend two turns testing combos. If it fails, we'll we're kinda shit out of luck then. Ain't many runes to do with healing.
[] Plan To the Heart With No Apprentices
-[] Refuse the Hearth: Allow the King of the Skies to consume it.
Gain standing with the Skarrenraz Ankor and KoTS. ???
-[] Boon from the Sky: A bundle of your crest feathers.
[Cost: Start Request, [Difficult] Plated Skies Pt. 1:]
-[] [Simple] Weaponized Wings: You can't arm the Griffons of the Skarrenraz Ankor with Gromril, while lesser in population than the hold they make up for it in sheer bulk that needs to be protected. What you
can do, however, is take part in King Otrek's efforts to arm them with Runic weaponry and good solid steel armour. It will mostly consist of you spending time fitting a few select Griffons, likely the eldest and most powerful given your position, with Rune weapons and maybe a suit of Gromril armour if they're important enough.
[Cost: 1 action] Productivity Like No Other will proc. 1 Action.
-[] Dragon Ogre Autopsy: You've found yourself with a bevy of corpses to study. Dragon Ogres aren't an
unknown foe, but you've never been privy to the results of the few limited autopsies done in the long history of your people.
[Cost: 6 actions] Student of the Odd will proc. 2 Actions.
--[] Destructive Research: You have very
many corpses. Being a bit more invasive in your understanding will mean more work gets done, but will cost you.
[Cost: 3 Shaggoth Corpses, 9 Dragon Ogre Corpses] Gain 2 Progress, can be taken multiple times. Take Twice.
--[] Prod Yorri: See if your master has something in his noggin, he spent a decade fighting these things.
[Cost: 1 prod] Gain 1d3 of progress. 1 Prod.
-[] C-c-combo Tester!: Write-in format for a Rune Combo you want Snorri to test. Format is as follows: [Placeholder Combo Name] Equipment type: [Rune 1, Rune 2, Rune 3]
[Cost: 1 action] If a rune you want requires special ingredients that you don't have access to I will alert you. 2 actions.
--[] Valaya's Care, Banner: Master Rune of Valaya, Rune of Healing, Rune of Fortitude.
--[] Valaya's Sanctuary, Banner: Master Rune of Valaya, Rune of Healing, Rune of Sanctuary.
This one is as above but has Yorri prods for Yorri interaction and no apprentice hunting so we can give the Griffons weapons and armor.
[] Plan Deck of Many Things
-[] Refuse the Hearth: Allow the King of the Skies to consume it.
Gain standing with the Skarrenraz Ankor and KoTS. ???
-[] Boon from the Sky: A bundle of your crest feathers.
[Cost: Start Request, [Difficult] Plated Skies Pt. 1:]
-[] The Movement of things: The Rune of Waking or Animation as some would call it is a rare rune. How Master Yorri knows both the regular and Master Rune could be explained by either a harrowing adventure full of terror, beasties and treasure or by something as mundane as asking a friend, you could never be sure with the man. Still, this was a rune that, to your frustration, you haven't had much chance to tinker with. Maybe just a peak?
[Cost: 8 actions] Student of the Odd will proc. 2 Action.
--[] Prod Yorri: Master Yorri, by his own account, has a good idea about how gronti and their ilk function.
[Cost: 1 prod] Gain 1d2+1 Progress, can be taken multiple times. 3 Prods.
-[] Dragon Ogre Autopsy: You've found yourself with a bevy of corpses to study. Dragon Ogres aren't an
unknown foe, but you've never been privy to the results of the few limited autopsies done in the long history of your people.
[Cost: 6 actions] Student of the Odd will proc. 1 Actions.
--[] Destructive Research: You have very
many corpses. Being a bit more invasive in your understanding will mean more work gets done, but will cost you.
[Cost: 3 Shaggoth Corpses, 9 Dragon Ogre Corpses] Gain 2 Progress, can be taken multiple times. Take Twice.
--[] Prod Yorri: See if your master has something in his noggin, he spent a decade fighting these things.
[Cost: 1 prod] Gain 1d3 of progress. 1 Prod.
-[] C-c-combo Tester!: Write-in format for a Rune Combo you want Snorri to test. Format is as follows: [Placeholder Combo Name] Equipment type: [Rune 1, Rune 2, Rune 3]
[Cost: 1 action] If a rune you want requires special ingredients that you don't have access to I will alert you. 2 actions.
--[] Master of Storms, Armor: Master Rune of Steel, Rune of Lightning, Rune of Cold
--[] Valaya's Sanctuary, Banner: Master Rune of Valaya, Rune of Healing, Rune of Sanctuary.
This one is a variation on the To the Heart plan line, with the intent here to be leveraging Yorri as much as possible. With the arrangement of prods on Yorri and actions for Movement of Things we get at minimum, 2 Progress from our Actions, and 6 progress from prodding Yorri. That will complete it in one go. I'm doing something similar for the Dragon Ogre Autopsy, 4 progress from using Destructive Research, 1 progress from our own actions, and 1 progress minimum from Yorri.
That gets all of our research done, feeds the heart to the King of the Skies, takes up the boon with things useful to both him and us, and does combo testing on two different things. For the King's Armor combo I'm going with the idea of "Master of the North Wind, imbue lightning and cold into this steely Armor." with the idea that Steel is both conductive for electricity and heat.
E: Oh we can only use Prods once. Hmm. Oh actually all my plans are fine.
