I mean, we did just vote to keep our Oaths of Secrecy over our Oath of Service to the Empire.. We were already in that position, and we made our choice, I don't see why Secret Runecrafting Knowledge would be any different. If anything we'd be less likely to be asked about it, over some of our other secrets.
We can choose to not break the Articles even more than we already have. There is no one with a gun to our heads forcing us to further do so. There are still loads of things we can do to help ourselves, the Empire, and the dwarfs without doing so. There is no good reason to go down this specific road, there's only sheer attachment to it.
No, the best way is to first never break oaths that can conflict. This is not a complex idea nor one difficult to carry out. And it's not like we have no alternative things to do either.
Get a law in saying that you can't share dwarf secrets. Then it'd be against the Articles to reveal Arcane Dwarf to the Empire if it requested it.
I mean, We've already broke the Vow of Poverty in all but name, We've read the Liber Mortis, Took part in a Orcish Divine ritual(Unwitingly), We follow one of the more borderline legal Gods in the Empire, We were part of a Lahmian Conspiracy which lead to the death of the Empress. We are keeping the Empresses religion and past a secret. And like I said, we chose to honor Oaths of Silence over out Oath of Service.
It's Dark Magic that lets you cheat at math.
Buying the Colleges into the dwarf favour economy is something that'd benefit both parties to great effect whilst securing ourselves a great deal of college favour, since we're doing something big for them.
(I may be a big Oswald fan, but I actually don't think we will need to get better at math to build a seviroscope. That being said, if it turns out we do...)
*Looks at Skaventech*
Something that can carry things should make for a shitty bomber regardless, but I'm thinking cannons and flamers and rifle-caliber revolvers to make the equivalent of a crew-served Hellgun. That kind of thing.
It's not about extracting shinies out of us, it's about not making Mathilde break her most serious word. She has a strong ideological belief against breaking the Articles and betraying the dwarves that goes beyond simple material consequence. We should not erode that belief when it's so easy to do anything else.
Ah, that's unfortunate.
...what are we gonna call it? I'm not very good at acronyms.
...Aren't the Winds the result of a Fourier Transform? Or are you proposing a Dhar Attributed Yield Unraveling Matrix?
Well shit, time to spend 10 Dwarf Favor then--or earn 10 Dwarf Favor for this purpose. Being able to serially produce Steam Tanks is a big deal; doubly so since it improves the Empire's understanding of steam engines. Triply so since it would mean that K8P could buy one eventually (it would obviously be crewed by humans, but who cares? A Steam Tank is a very nice asset to have in a siege).
There's no way the Empire would force us to blatantly incriminate ourselves and therefore damn all Dwarf-Imperial diplomacy for essentially forever. Not without someone of comparable stature as Dietrich IV trying to force the issue. At which point you do the sensible thing and tell someone like him to fuck off and go to ground until he's replaced.
Hell, even earlier than that, the TBF Avenger torpedo bomber--which entered service in 1942, IIRC--was able to be converted into a transport plane with relative ease, which was extremely useful for carriers, since it meant that you could fly passengers to or from a carrier at sea in a plane that was capable of landing on or taking off from a carrier. The TBF Avenger was, in fact, the very first aircraft that could fulfill that purpose/role.
