So Annie parks with Cairidin and asks him if all the runes are known.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, they seem to have inherently magical properties; are all shapes that have magical properties exhausted or are there new ones discovered now and then, or are they invented in the first place, or what?"

"Ah, I see. The shapes themselves are less important than the process used to create them," he explains. "Some of the runes do yield worse results if crafted in other shapes, but with some, the shape is set only by convention."

"Oh, I see. I was hoping I was sitting on some kind of magical engineering revolution."

"Unfortunately, I don't believe you are. At least not that one. But I am always interested to hear your questions."

"Thank you. One of my magical properties is that I can understand what seems to be any language - I'm actually completely deaf and blind except for things that count as language - but runes count. Is there any less obvious benefit to be derived from that?"

"No..." He looks at her. "...I apologize if this is a rude question, but do you have some other means of seeing?"

"No. The same thing that blinded and deafened me - and for that matter took my sense of smell - also gave me a different sense, which as I understand it is sort of like a short-range Stonesense but for things that aren't stones too."

"That... could be interesting," says Caridin thoughtfully. "Stone-sense varies in how easily it picks up fine detail; if you can perceive more detail than a trained and talented dwarven smith, that could allow you to pursue an engineering revolution or two."

"I'm not sure how the detail compares. Is there an easy test to try?"

"Hmm." He tilts his head slightly to one side. "What do you see when you look at a golem?"

"You or one of the smaller ones? I haven't been focusing on the fine detail - I can't pay attention to everything the sense gives me at once."

"If you can clearly tell the difference between the metal of my body and ordinary steel, you have at least as detailed a view of it as I do," says Caridin. "The material itself, that is, not the obvious lines of lyrium embedded in it."

"Where's some ordinary steel to compare?"

"Yeah, I can distinguish between you and it, but I'm not sure I'm going by actual composition... the densities are similar, it's just organized differently."

"Organized differently in what way?"

"I'm almost tempted to say the crystallization pattern but I don't think I'm getting that fine detail, I can't read small handwriting with this sense and that's much bigger than the actual crystal pattern. I guess I'd call it texture."

"That... might or might not suggest a useful level of detail. We would have to make further tests. Sometime after House Ortan has provided me with a forge, perhaps, which they said they would do by tomorrow."

"Okay. I can come back tomorrow."

"Ooh, thank you."

There's a bunch of dwarven history in there, a couple of publications from the surface about magic, the memoir of Paragon Aeducan, and a few works of fiction.

Yay! These will help distract Annie while she waits for Stalas to be done experimenting. She thanks Cairidin for his time and goes to sit in her room and read. Dwarven history first.