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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.
purposeful_glory
This is probably not a great place to wander in uninvited; Tyelcormo, can Huan confirm from here that Thauron's still occupied?
purposeful_glory
All right, then it might be a trap but it's probably just werewolves manning it.
She steps in.
She steps in.
It's a tower.
Well, the foundations of a tower, three stone stories in progress underground and stone piled for the aboveground work once the foundations are done. The werewolves are in the form of Men, and peaceably working on it; at the sight of her they freeze in terror.
Well, the foundations of a tower, three stone stories in progress underground and stone piled for the aboveground work once the foundations are done. The werewolves are in the form of Men, and peaceably working on it; at the sight of her they freeze in terror.
purposeful_glory
Werewolves, tower, not even a trap. "Hi," she says. "Your boss is having a real bad day. This'd be a swell time to defect if you were considering it."
He starts trembling even more violently, looks inclined to shrink into the ground. He doesn't turn into a wolf. "Burilgi."
"I don't think I'm supposed to," he says. "You killed - people I know. They're dead. They don't exist forever."
purposeful_glory
"The werewolves I killed were attacking people," Loki says. "You're not attacking anyone right now, good for you."
"Eru made it so we're all going to wither and die and then we're dead forever. Our Master says he can fix it but he needs us."
purposeful_glory
"I can fix it too," she says. "And all I need is time. Time which keeps getting eaten up by having to protect people from even more untimely deaths because, oh, werewolves attack them."
"We don't kill them. We bring them back here so they can help us. It hurts when we bite them but not for long, and it makes them stronger and tougher, they are less likely to get hurt again."
purposeful_glory
"Oh, is that how that works. Well, if people wanted to turn into werewolves and that's all it does that sounds fine as long as you don't attack them in the night and have them working for Thauron."
"Yes. He's been teaching us how to build things and making us stronger and fixing us if we're not well, or if we get hurt."
purposeful_glory
"All admirable activities; unfortunately his long-term large-scale plans are not so. I may have to replace his useful functions. I'm going to consult my friends. Don't go anywhere."
And she steps back out.
And she steps back out.
purposeful_glory
Werewolves. They're scared of me. Been building a tower, which does not seem rigged to explode if visited. Being a werewolf is contagious. Thauron's been fairly decent to them.