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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
I like girls a little. I tend not to like the same girl more than once, which isn't so bad when I can just explain that in advance and avoid misunderstandings. But if you think I know how to navigate the mores of Quendi lesbians...
I don't know any. If I did I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable telling you, either, it really is a serious fault that people won't want known.
purposeful_glory
I feel like that sentence needed the word 'considered' in it.
I can live with believing I actually have vices, you know.
purposeful_glory
I didn't say you couldn't; I don't care for the implied insult against me, my best friend, and a decent fraction of both our bedmates.
He sighs, leans back. No insult was intended.
I apologize.
He stands up and walks away. I think best moving. I'll let you know in a week if the song is the sort of thing I could do even in principle.
The rest of the night goes by quietly.
purposeful_glory
She gets a lot done.
If nothing happens in the morning either she will head back to the Fëanorians to apologize to Macalaurë.
If nothing happens in the morning either she will head back to the Fëanorians to apologize to Macalaurë.
The morning is also uneventful.
purposeful_glory
Zoom, then. Her and nineteen decoys.
Land outside the gate, walk in, look up last conversation and open with that osawnëing Macalaurë in particular followed by Are you busy? I need to apologize.
Land outside the gate, walk in, look up last conversation and open with that osawnëing Macalaurë in particular followed by Are you busy? I need to apologize.
I can spare a moment.
purposeful_glory
I didn't realize that songs were a particularly proprietary sort of thing and reviewing the conversation through that lens it looks very much as it would if I'd been purposefully withholding the intention to distribute copies as largesse. Your cousins explained it to me. If you want me to I can dismiss their copies from here, it'd be awkward but I'd do it, they've got five each on jewelry kept in a soundproof box, I don't think that idea is proprietary and you may feel free to steal it. If you don't want me to make any more besides the one I'm carrying I can do that too. I have some from them that are under various sorts of license, I can share some of those.
... thank you. That is how I'd interpreted your intentions. I don't think my cousins would have taken them if they hadn't thought they were getting one up on us, and they're very useful spells, and there is a war on, so you need not dismiss them. What kind of sharing agreements are conventional?
purposeful_glory
The one I'm expecting to be most broadly popular when I can't talk people into turning them over for use at my discretion is copies for copies - I enchant whatever random objects they like with the song and I can make that many copies elsewhere. I've got one that I can use but not copy again.
That sounds reasonable. The jewelry-box approach is a wise one but we are sadly bereft of jewelry; our possessions were mostly destroyed in the sack of Formenos, and he went for everything my father had created or inherited in particular. Perhaps we'll just do it with polished rocks from the lake.
Another song I have that seems of use to you is one that checks someone's impression of reality against the version they're describing and highlights discrepancies - accusing people of lying is a very serious insult, but of biasing a telling, intentionally or no, and it will catch lying, and it can do so in a way that's not visible to the speaker.
And lately I've been working on treating wood so it doesn't rot quickly, which is a bit more mundane but probably useful to everyone.
Another song I have that seems of use to you is one that checks someone's impression of reality against the version they're describing and highlights discrepancies - accusing people of lying is a very serious insult, but of biasing a telling, intentionally or no, and it will catch lying, and it can do so in a way that's not visible to the speaker.
And lately I've been working on treating wood so it doesn't rot quickly, which is a bit more mundane but probably useful to everyone.
purposeful_glory
They wanted the lying one for interviewing Sarpalarë; I don't think they'd need their own copy for that if you wanted to let me have one but not copies. Would the wood thing work on paper or is the going plan still to reverse engineer my notebook page?
That's what it was developed for; doesn't work. We aren't sure why, or I'd be trying to refine it.
purposeful_glory
Huh. Just doesn't work at all or partially works or what?
The paper gets brittle and less useful as paper. The spell just tells it to hold its form longer, I wouldn't have expected that problem.
I'm currently working on moving large volumes of stone. It'll make construction faster. I have a fantasy of someday composing a symphony that lets me assemble a castle in a day just by standing at its center and singing.
I'm currently working on moving large volumes of stone. It'll make construction faster. I have a fantasy of someday composing a symphony that lets me assemble a castle in a day just by standing at its center and singing.
purposeful_glory
Findekáno wanted a project and asked what songs would be most useful to me. Are ideas for songs also proprietary?