At the top of the staircase Elder Moira stood alone, patiently tapping her foot.
"Getting tired in your old age beardling? You're a good twelve seconds late, how uncouth to make a woman my age wait so long," she tuts at you.
You simply bow and apologize before following her into the temple proper.
Quietly, with the aid of runes in your case and simple skill in Moira's, the both of you make your way deep into the interior complex of the temple, into its most heavily guarded areas to reach your destination.
The Foundling Ward.
Foundlings, the thought sent a wave of sadness through you. Often enough clans took in and raised the children of their dead kinsmen themselves, the elders giving them the education their parents would have and none would be worse for wear.
But sometimes that didn't happen.
A small family who may have left their clan's hold to forge a branch in another hold being wiped out, the result of dalliances or trysts, perhaps even abandoned wholesale. The former was tragic, the latter made you think dark thoughts.
From these fates came the foundlings, children born without clan or home through no fault of their own.
The world was cruel, especially to these young dwarfs. No parents, no support network like a clan offered, no traditions save that of their people, only the priestesses of Valaya took them in, and through connections to the various guilds helped them find suitable apprenticeships so that they may make a life for themselves.
With that thought in mind you carefully lay down the sack and one by one, take out the toys you have built over the past few years in your free time, and lay them down at the foot of each child's bed. You and elder moira do this for every room, quietly entering, laying down a toy over and over until every last child has received one, the excess kept by the Temple to hand off when another inevitably arrives at your request.
You note with a tint of sadness that there are more foundlings here than all the other times you've visited, only one more in a long list of reasons to curse that abominable Troll and its horde.
"You don't have to come each time you do realize?" Elder Moira says for what feels like the umpteenth time. In reality, it's only the third time, but the point stands.
"Doesn't feel right to do it any other way," you answer honestly
"Suit yourself," she says, a hint of exasperated humour in her voice.
"I'll be back soon enough, thank you for humouring me Elder," you say sincerely.
"Bah, off with you now beardling, I'm sure a Runelord has better things to do than drop off toys to children," she says with a shoo-ing gesture.
You say nothing as you leave, empty sack hanging from your back, but both of you know that you really didn't believe that despite any and all evidence to the contrary.
Must be that inherent dwarf stubbornness.
