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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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"All the days? Ever?"
There's no line of questioning that gets a useful answer on this topic.
There's no line of questioning that gets a useful answer on this topic.
purposeful_glory
Oh well. Loki doesn't want to run it into the ground. ...She's going to have to leave the Men alone w.r.t. her secondary purpose for at least a few years, she could probably make do without literacy but a literal inability to count past ten is pushing it.
"I'm from very far away. I heard you and other tribes like you were around here and came to see if you wanted any help with anything."
"I'm from very far away. I heard you and other tribes like you were around here and came to see if you wanted any help with anything."
"Help is nice. With what? Wild animals? Things to stay warm?'
purposeful_glory
"I can do things to stay warm! A friend taught me how to do it with magic."
"Okay. How?"
purposeful_glory
"I just need something that you want to be warm, and then I attach some magic to it and it'll be warm all the time for you. A rock is fine."
She finds a rock and hands it to her.
purposeful_glory
And Loki puts a warmth song in the rock and hands it back.
"Why is it making that noise, is there a demon in it?"
purposeful_glory
"No, the noise is doing the magic. It's just a song sung very fast."
"Who's singing the song? It doesn't sound like a song."
purposeful_glory
"It sounds different because it's so fast. The rock wouldn't stay warm all the time if it were slowed down, because it takes half the song to start working. I learned to make songs sing themselves. It's not very useful unless the song is magic, so I got some people to teach me magic songs."
"Okay," she says, and holds the magic rock close. "Thank you."
purposeful_glory
"You're welcome! Do you want more warm rocks or is one enough?"
"More would be good, but they might make people nervous. And if they are demons then they might escape and kill us all."
purposeful_glory
"There are no demons in the rock. Just songs. Do you meet demons, when you're wandering around?"
"No. We would be dead. I know stories, though."
"From other people we run into. They say 'don't go that way, there are demons'."
purposeful_glory
"Which way is it that there are demons? Maybe I can make the demons go away for you."
"Across the hills," she says, "by the big lake, and in the forest. All very far away."
purposeful_glory
"Thank you. Would you like a singing rock that does healing, in case any of them ever wander this way and you get hurt?"
They would love one of those.
purposeful_glory
So she makes them one! They... probably couldn't use any other kinds of singing rocks, let alone defend them. Would any of them like a math lesson? Covering the concept of "counting past ten"?
They're all rather intrigued by now, and happy to sit around and give it a try.