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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
Hang on, give me another hit when I say go, I want to try something. Spells are indelible, she might be able to think about them even while she can't think about anything else. Still puts her at a disadvantage but might make it look less like it does.
This time is louder, more forceful. Pay attention to me.
purposeful_glory
She pays attention to him, but she also turns into a bird and back.
Huh! Tyelcormo says. Cool.
purposeful_glory
Limited application; I've got particularly strong memories and ability to mentally handle spell stuff. A lot of illusion-handling doesn't go straight through spell concepts once established - although I might be able to do song amplification like that, and definitely healing, my primary hope is that pulling that off even once will make it look like it might be a waste of his time.
He may keep doing it even if he thinks it's very likely wasted on you, Huan says. It costs him very little.
purposeful_glory
Well, then this is going to be difficult and unpleasant. But at least I can go around with frozen eyeballs and not compromise my vision in the process.
He shakes himself and gives a sharp bark that seems to communicate agreement.
purposeful_glory
I'm told you'll get back up again from whatever I hit you with? Real blade, full-blast ice, et al?
You cannot seriously injure me.
purposeful_glory
Right then. Lævateinn goes long glaive. Whenever you're ready.
And he leaps at her with astonishing speed, twisting sideways out of the way of the blade.
purposeful_glory
She ducks and breathes ice in his face, grows the blade longer into his path.
He rolls again in midair so he hits it sideways with an astonishing amount of force, howls at the ice so it whirls through the air in all directions.
purposeful_glory
The blade switches angles as soon as he strikes it, and she yanks to press the advantage. Her every exhalation is frost, now.
He rolls off the blade, a gaping wound in his side closing near-instantly, shaking his head furiously to keep it clear of frost, and charges her again.
purposeful_glory
She transfers her weapon to her right hand only, aims her other at him, blasts. The ice moves as quickly as she can point.
He's very very fast, not quite fast enough to avoid it, not quite loud enough to divert it. He does keep moving.
purposeful_glory
And she sets a spear against his approach, finds it oddly easy to plant her feet in the frosted grass.
He jumps The jump isn't just impossible-given-his-momentum it's impossible altogether, leaping instantly twenty feet up in the air and wheeling as he flies back down to bite and claw at her.
purposeful_glory
She's a bird, she's above him and zooming down to fall faster than he does and meet him with a blade at the ground.
A chuff of delight, a last desperate twist in midair so the blade only grazes him, and then the attention-demanding roar in her head as he finds his footing.
The osanwë-communication is still attention-demanding when there's no accompanying sound, but the effect does seem suddenly lessened. She can feel him start pushing back against the silence and throw himself at her sword arm at the same time.
purposeful_glory
She manages to reshape Lævateinn in her hand, but the effect is sluggish. The perception song in her ear is outside her silence, but it doesn't compensate. It's not quite a tossup versus not silencing him at all and having that attention to spare, but it's close.