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Annie is on her trike on her way to school.
This van labeled HAZARDOUS MATERIALS is also on its way to school.
The van hits a patch of black ice. It goes spinning, it turns over, it slices itself open on a wrought-iron fence with spikes, and it disgorges boxes which smash open on the pavement. Some of them skitter clear into the slush.
Some of them - along with most of the van - land on Annie.
There is a whirl of bewildering pain and confusion -
- and she falls to the ground, injured and in more kinds of discomfort beyond that and moaning.
She slowly starts to heal before the eyes of her sole witness.
six artifact pileup annie in thedas
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keep_busy
keep_busy
"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?"
time-goes-on
"No..." He looks at her. "...I apologize if this is a rude question, but do you have some other means of seeing?"
keep_busy
"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."
time-goes-on
"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."
keep_busy
"I'm not sure how the detail compares. Is there an easy test to try?"
time-goes-on
"Hmm." He tilts his head slightly to one side. "What do you see when you look at a golem?"
keep_busy
"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."
time-goes-on
"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."
time-goes-on
"Where did Stalas leave that hammer he is so fond of..."
Caridin looks around, spots the hammer, and picks it up.
Caridin looks around, spots the hammer, and picks it up.
keep_busy
"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."
keep_busy
"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."
time-goes-on
"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."
time-goes-on
Caridin nods.
Someone knocks on the front door. Pell answers it. It's a delivery of several books for Caridin's human guest!
Someone knocks on the front door. Pell answers it. It's a delivery of several books for Caridin's human guest!
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.
keep_busy
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.
Once, long ago, dwarven civilization was a continent-spanning marvel of social and mechanical engineering.
Then the darkspawn showed up.
The Deep Roads went from the beating heart of trade and traffic in Thedas to a place of death and terror. Eventually, with Aeducan's help, the dwarves fought back; but the darkspawn still pushed them farther and farther toward the surface, until today Orzammar is the only city left in its kingdom. (Recently, a lost city called Kal-Sharok was rediscovered, still full of dwarves and very angry about being abandoned to the darkspawn centuries earlier. No one is quite sure what to do about this, but Kal-Sharok is very much disinclined to accept Orzammar's rule again.)
Then the darkspawn showed up.
The Deep Roads went from the beating heart of trade and traffic in Thedas to a place of death and terror. Eventually, with Aeducan's help, the dwarves fought back; but the darkspawn still pushed them farther and farther toward the surface, until today Orzammar is the only city left in its kingdom. (Recently, a lost city called Kal-Sharok was rediscovered, still full of dwarves and very angry about being abandoned to the darkspawn centuries earlier. No one is quite sure what to do about this, but Kal-Sharok is very much disinclined to accept Orzammar's rule again.)
keep_busy
That puts the fertility problems thing into more context.
There is actually some speculation, based on census data over time, that the dwarven fertility problem is partly caused by long-term exposure to the taint. But even before the darkspawn arrived, dwarves didn't tend to have huge numbers of children. Noble hunting has been a tacitly condoned practice for a very long time.
keep_busy
Well. If it's taint SHE WILL JUST HAVE TO POKE A LOT OF PEOPLE AND THEY WILL HAVE TO BE VERY WARM FOR A LITTLE WHILE.
first-and-final
And now: Stalas is back! He seems to be exactly as fine as he predicted.
"I see the books arrived," he says when he steps into her room.
keep_busy
"They did. And I'm not sitting on the engineering revolution I thought I might be but I may have a different one if my sense thing is fine enough; I'll know tomorrow. Are you okay?"