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Tumunzahar makes Menegroth look like a contract project. Which, the Dwarves assure her, it was. The stonework is astonishingly careful and beautiful, silky to the touch up close while from a distance it gives the impression of stretching on forever above, a sky of stone with crystals for stars. Vast natural cave systems are connected by dozens of perfectly smooth, gently sloped broad stone pathways from which the fall, if she fell, would be several miles down. There are handrails. "We use those to move materials carts," someone explains to her, "we're not going to be reckless."
There's an amphitheater, a place where a hundred of the stone walkways twine around to create space for a hundred thousand people to sit in close proximity, and someone is giving a lecture or a demonstration at the base of it, the seats closest to him filled with eager, tiny, bearded Dwarf-children.
And they spiral down, and down, and down, past waterfalls and egg-sized gemstones left half in the rock and halls of crystal. Everything grows gradually more ornate and more perfectly maintained and the clang of hammers fades behind them. "People say," her guide says, "that we only have a council instead of a single King because there were nine winners of the competition to design the throne so we couldn't just select one person to sit it." And they push open the doors to reveal, indeed, nine thrones so elaborate it would be hard to choose between them, and nine squat bearded people sitting them.
So he sings while Tyelcormo flutters above them projecting the motor skills of swifts to their learning audience.
purposeful_glory
And she copies, and sticks that one in one ear and the perception spell in the other, and does a little drill to see how her grace and control over the weight and shape of her weapon compensate for the song's oomph.
It takes some practice, but certainly won't take months of it; after a little while she's moving Lævateinn with a great deal of power and only a little clumsily.
purposeful_glory
...She wasn't expecting to ever have to do this, but she tries casting her grace spell on herself again.
Macalaurë's watching sympathetically. Most people try it once and then ask me not to do it because they can't expect me to be singing it right when they're fighting. I should have proposed it sooner.
purposeful_glory
It's not making me nearly as clumsy as I was when I was little, but it's also not responding to the same solution. I can maybe turn it on and off depending on whether I'm going for power versus maneuvering. Or just skip sleep on the trip to practice.
purposeful_glory
You can, I'm not a Quendi. Keeling over mid-combat because I had the poor sense to blink seems like a worst case scenario.
Right. Ah, if we're walking from Tumunzahar for realism's sake, we can carry you while you sleep for that part.
purposeful_glory
They don't launch into the air immediately upon hatching, so I assume it's biologically possible. - I forgot to ask for my repaired armor pieces.
purposeful_glory
Thanks. Any other songs I should have? I won't be able to record from midflight osanwë.
You don't like mind-altering stuff, right? There's ones for euphoria we used at concerts in Valinor...
purposeful_glory
I do not like mind-altering stuff. Which is my sole objection to alcohol, incidentally.
All in that vein...visual illusions you already have, less sleep you have...less tiredness? It's not useful except if you're on your feet for hours...
purposeful_glory
I've seen few actual engagements against sapient forces, and tended to have heavier-duty backup available and knew more of what to expect about my opponents' and allies' effectiveness.