jimboo continued his walkabout, making notes and getting what information he could from the dwarves he encountered. When he saw the young female who had earlier led him from the Portal, he picked his way through the heaps of furniture over to where she was rummaging through a pile of jumbled stone coffers.
“Hullo, there. Whatcha’ doin’?”
“I’m looking for a bucket of lye, there’s supposed to be one around here somewhere. You haven’t come across a Soapmaker’s workshop, have you?”
jimboo had not.
“What’s your name?”
“Pea sent”
“Piss Ant? Your name is Piss Ant?”
“HEY! You want a fat lip to go with your fat head? PEA-SENT.”
“You – smell like peas?”
“You’re not very bright, are you?” jimboo had never actually considered that but upon reflection, no, he probably wasn’t.
“When I first came through the Portal, the nitwits here all fell on their faces and begged me to deliver them from their stupidity, from their greed. The dwarves remaining in this Armok-forsaken place are not the brightest bunch – have you noticed that, yet?” Hozpitol … yeah, jimboo had noticed that. “It was pretty flippin’ obvious to me right way. I’m no Saviour, no Grand High Wizard. When they asked me what I could do, I told them I'm a peasant. A … PEASANT. Get it? Some genius wrote it down as ‘peasent’ in the Scrolls and they’ve been mispronouncing it ever since. Not the brightest bunch, as I said. And every encounter with them culls the best of those remaining. We’re all going to die, Overseer. We’re all going to die and they know it. This place is cursed and we’re all going to die.” She went back to rummaging.
“Um, sorry about that. The name, I mean. What’s your *real* name?”
She stopped what she was doing and slowly looked up at him. jimboo had never seen a face so bleak.
“No. I won’t use that name in this place. There is real Magyk, Overseer, and there is magyk in a name. I won’t speak my name again until I’m home. My home.”
Real Magyk – jimboo had no doubt of that. Any dwarf that lived with a Legend +4 witch as he did would be very sure of that.
“Well, I want to get home, too, and I don’t want to die here. Snap out of it, Pea, and tell me what’s going on. If we’re ever going to get out of here – if we’re ever going to get home – it seems the first thing we have to do is ‘not die.’ Understand? Now tell me what’s going on. What’s this ‘them’ you spoke of? What curse? Why are we all going to die? TELL ME WHAT IS GOING ON.”
And so she told him. She told him of the founding of this place, this Cathedral, this fortress meant to be a living memorial to Armok. She told him of the deep mines and the elation that had come with the discovery of the blue metal Spire. Of the many migrants that had come. Of the undead that had come. There was much to tell, and jimboo listened.