Winter of 54: End of year report.Cilob stands on a table in the vast, fully-engraved dining room. Lines of masterwork statues face each other down the middle of the room. The walls are white marble, polished to a shine, with glints of gold veins here and there on the eastern side. Children mill around, playing with bits of bone and shell rings and rods pilfered from Geb's reject bin.
To the gathered dwarves, Cilob speaks."My fellow dwarves! It has been four years now since we settled here by the ocean, and I am proud of what you all have accomplished."
"Our ongoing research projects are working well. We are continuing to learn more every day about exotic animal training. The Liaison has taken my latest notes back to the Mountainhomes, and when the caravan comes next year, we will be able to send them breeding pairs of several animals previously unknown to dwarves."
"I am pleased that several of you have come forward to assist me with this task, as the number of animals we have here has increased significantly. Weiss Ironcage and Ceilan have both been of assistance to me in recent months. I will have some further challenges for them coming up soon, with some of the more exotic results of our trapping program."
"Though I am not sure that all of the creatures we have caught will be useful, it will at least be a learning experience for our new trainers."
"I mean seriously, do any of you even have an idea what this thing is?"
"Now, I know the loss of the caravan hit us hard. Geb has a storeroom full of crossbows waiting for export. As skilled as our militia, they can only wield one at a time. And our clothing industry has taken the worst of it for lack of raw material."
"But then, Geb and Erush may have more important things on their minds now."
"I had been waiting for the word to be official before making this announcement. I know that some of you knew anyway, seems we just can't keep a secret properly here, but word has come back and I can now announce this to everyone. Brightwater has been officially declared a Barony by the mountainhomes!"
"And they have picked our own bonecarver and bowyer Geb Mozimducem for Baroness! Everyone give her a hand. Seems that they dug up records indicating that she's a direct descendant of old king Kivish, through her farther who died back in the elven wars. I would never have suspected, but the liaison had all the paperwork to prove it. Phenix and her crew have been working round the clock to get the royal quarters ready for her in time for the announcement."
"Let's hope she'll be a wise ruler and not let power go to her head."
"Now, don't worry if our clothing and crossbow production slows down for a bit. I just took a tour of the workshop level, and we have plenty of other industries ramping up to provide goods for export and domestic use."
"Including some new faces I haven't seen there before."
"I think we have a new cook at work. It's a bit of a repetitive recipe, but surprisingly tasty."
"Finally, I'd like to say a word on behalf of our Doctor Cain. He's unable to be here at the moment, being still busy with working on poor Rakust."
"As you know, he's been working nonstop on that girl ever since Erush here heroically rescued her."
"I fear the girl's going to be more suture and splint than dwarf by the time this is over."
"But she will recover! Doctor Cain tells me that her treatment has turned a corner for the better. Her injuries have all been cleaned and stitched, and he has moved on to realigning her broken bones."
"So everyone, raise a toast to Cain and Rakust! Next year, they'll both be down here for the end-of-year party with us."
Author
Topic: Brightwater: Community fortress of science, oceans, and animal taming (Read 154820 times)