"Some," you hedge. "Probably in a different context to most."
He looks up at you, and you can practically see 'oh right, she's a Grey Wizard' run through his mind.
Mathilde might be a dork, but she's also a scary murder dork.
You consider the possibility that you are dealing with an imposter, possibly one that is aligning itself for an assassination attempt on your person, and you resist the impulse to dismiss it out of hand.
Mathilde might be a scary murder dork, but she's also a paranoid scary murder dork convinced everything is out to get her.
Oh Grey College, why must you be like this?
"So," he says, as you draw a mug for him. "We send an Umgi Zhufokri to sup with rebel Elgi to claw back the knowledge of our Ancestors."
Oof. That's an antagonistic way to start the conversation. And he's not wrong.
You know, this whole project is kind of interesting, because whilst on the surface it's a collaboration, underneath it's about three different magical groups all trying steal magical secrets from the others, all convinced the other parties know something they don't. This is starting to feel like a cold war spy thriller.
They fail the Karaz Ankor twice over, for in the absence of Thungni, Morgrim grows reckless and hasty in his experimentation as He tries to do alone what should be the work of two.
Now this is interesting, because engineering has become a daily part of dwarven life. Canons and handguns are everyday tools of war. Gyrocopters keep the holds connected. Steamships and ironclads patrol the rivers. Zhufbar is the engineering hold.
But runesmithing, which is a fundamental part of dwarven culture, has become a bit of a relic, only known and used by old masters who remember the old days. There were only a few thousand runic items in the reclamation of K8P. Runesmiths did not devise a way to maintain contact between the holds. The greatest achievement of the kings of Barak Var is to fund the creation of a dreadnought. There is no "runesmithing hold", unless we include Vlag and Dum. It is
Manling canons that secure Karak Eight Peaks, not dwarven runecraft.
Thungni isn't a god for the modern Karaz Ankor. When Gunnars was rebuilding shrines to the Ancestors, only two were made for Thungni—a personal shrine for Thorek, and a personal shrine for Kragg, whilst Morgrim had a public one put in the Gyrocopter bay.
The runesmiths are utterly disconnected from the people they serve, and they are becoming less relevant each year, except as the creators of antiques and relics.
And Thorek wants to change that. He wants to drag the runesmiths—the ones who are failing in their duties, the ones who are failing their people—into the modern day, before all that's left of them is family heirlooms.
[X] [THOREK] Both
[X] [ARM] Johann
... I just realised something. We used the coin to convince Thorek to help us. Thorek is proposing a revolution within the guild.
Ranald is the god of revolutions.
Now, I acknowledge that this is something Thorek was planning anyway, but I think we just sailed into Boston harbour with a shipment of tea, and Ranald was at the helm. Ranald
used the coin to influence Thorek to be more inflammatory towards the status quo than he normally would be, and shit's kicking off now instead of several decades down the line.
Oops.
Also, I think we have, like, a religious duty to support this now?
