[snip]
-I'll just assume that was an accident on your part.
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IC:
Emdief runs the fort better than I could, at least on the surface.
Under the surface, though, steelhold is sick, and my magic is not of the sort that can help heal it.
Lorius, with a fear of magic, preference for mechanisms, a view of demonworship as heresy, and the worship of the old gods...
And the Masked entity, with a preference for magic, a fear of mechanisms, worship of the demons, and views the worship of the old gods as heresy...
One fort-dwarf. One caravan guard. One face slap. That's all it would take at this point.
It gets worse.
Many of the adults are fearful of magic, especially my pets. The children, instead of picking up the adult's fear like you might expect, have been repeatedly caught spending hours just petting the deer on the ribcage, or riding the tiger around.
the children are already splitting themselves into factions: the tattle-tails and the shutmouths.
I haven't seen the fourth of them in a while. I hope he's ok...whatever he is. At least the other three are happy.
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I scatter ideas; little ideas, scattered on the wind along with obfuscation. 9 tiny ideas, 7 small ideas, 3 big ideas...
but one idea to rule them all. One idea to bind them. One idea to save them. one idea to bring them all and in the...*cough* ah forget it. I'll do what I can to calm people down and encourage rational thought. it won't be easy.
but one idea burns, like a bright warm campfire in a dark cold night: Sufficiently advanced/dwarven mechanisms are indistinguishable from magic.
Was I too late? Had I spent too long napping on my comfortable wool bed? *sigh*. I had to try. I owed these dwarves. they'd helped me save reality...the least I could do is give them a hope to wrok out their misunderstandings.
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The following, highly cryptic message is soon found in the middle of the old bedrooms. You didn't need an expert to see that whoever wrote it had gone to great lengths to keep their handwriting from being identified, like painstakingly copying someone else's handwriting:
"White king starts on black square. Black king starts on white square. Cat starts off of board.
dwarf to move: argue about who moves first.
cat to move: meow.
dwarf to move: white moves first. But White king moves first, or king on white square to move first?
cat to move: Cat to board.
dwarf to move: cancel play, creature occupying site.
Cat offers draw. do dwarves accept?"