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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.
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purposeful_glory
The Men are less generally nervous after this. It is a good speech.
Afterward he wades through them to join her, tossing out errands like largesse as he goes - "Bayan, right? It's a pleasure to meet you, Loki says you were genius putting together homes for the Men, the Dwarves are finishing up building in the southeast corridor and are very good at explaining their work, should you like to go and join them and get a sense of how all these buildings are made - Yeke, I was very impressed with how quickly you got everyone settled, are they all doing all right? Want to head north a few blocks and do the same thing again today?"
I wrote home. They should arrive in a few weeks if they decide to come at all.
I wrote home. They should arrive in a few weeks if they decide to come at all.
purposeful_glory
That's good. (She nods at Yeke when he looks at her. Bayan does not look; he just grins and runs off.)
Yes. What else is it looking like the Men will need?
purposeful_glory
No obvious deficiencies yet, but they want to know if they can go up on the roofs to have a little more space to spread out during the day.
Yes. I assume they're not so clumsy they'll fall and die, or that the ones who are will be accordingly cautious?
purposeful_glory
The ones who'd fall and die wouldn't wait for permission, by and large.
He smiles. They can go on the roof. Do you need anything in order to work faster? We're rather hoping that your capabilities will scale up with the Enemy's, I take it.
purposeful_glory
Nothing specific. I'm working whenever nothing else demands my attention, so I suppose you could arrange for fewer things to come to my attention.
Done. And apparently considering himself one such thing, he heads off.
purposeful_glory
Okay then. She goes back to her place. She tells the Men they may climb on the roofs but to please be careful. She works.
The Men settle into the city mostly uneventfully. Construction projects near completion. Maitimo does not bother her.
purposeful_glory
She has other social outlets, when she needs breaks. She writes a letter to Findekáno summarizing her move to the city and newsy little items about the Men; bits of it are replaced with [redacted, ask when we meet in person] for the delivery version.
And she works. She's so close to tactical teleportation - so close so close, she can borrow the concept of "position" from the bird spell and repurpose half of "location" from the illusion and come on come on -
And she works. She's so close to tactical teleportation - so close so close, she can borrow the concept of "position" from the bird spell and repurpose half of "location" from the illusion and come on come on -
The host following the House of Fëanor arrives. Trumpets are blown and banners are waved and the King takes up his throne and Maitimo hugs his family and the Men are rather awed. The city has ten times the inhabitants overnight.
purposeful_glory
She swings by when they've had a day to settle in to say hello and see if there's any recent news.
Fëanor is just about to sink back out of normal pacing again. "Hello, Loki. Time with the Men productive?"
purposeful_glory
"Got them all here safely, have them with something culture-shaped, it's possible I should have been more heavily prioritizing making their settlement defensible but they're settling in all right here."
"I'm not sure it could have been done," he says, "building cities from scratch isn't a skillset I'd expect you could have easily imported. And they don't have the numbers. Memory is going to be much more difficult than I thought. I'm aiming for four more years."
purposeful_glory
"That's not far off from your original estimate all told."
"With the speed, though, it's subjectively twice as long. I have eidetic memory already. I think it'll be retroactive within this world by the end of the next year. I'm at this point nearly certain that won't work for you, the information access is going to be different."
purposeful_glory
"I mean, I'd be delighted to take it anyway, but it is not the principal goal."
"Making each of them takes about a month, even maximally speeded, so I think I'll just make one as a proof of concept and then use it personally. I can leave the instructions for Curufinwë to make more if that turns out to be a good use of his time."
"I can give you one for non-retroactive eidetic memory." It's a necklace.