"Whew! That's the last batch of plums!" Saint set down her basket, and the fruit thumped on the earthen floor. The dwarf behind the still smiled and nodded towards the barrel waiting by the stairs. Exchanging the plums for the barrel, she hauled it up the stairs and rolled it to the stockpile. Other dwarves passed by, some stopping to take a drink, others hauling various resources to various stockpiles. "I think I'll take a break," Saint announced to no one in particular. No one payed her any heed, and she slipped away into the woods unseen.
"Ah...there you are."
A ways away from the village, in the dense, unexplored woods where no one would go, Saint stopped before a pile of loosely arranged fallen branches. It took her just a minute to clear the debris away, but when she did, her greatest contraption to date was revealed.
A giant, wooden owl emerged from beneath the branches. It'd taken her only a couple days to build, and in the light it wouldn't have fooled even the most gullible of children, but in the dark it was more than enough to push a deranged dwarf all that closer to the edge of insanity. Saint walked around to the back of the owl and gave it a push, and the entire contraption creaked forward on giant wooden wagon wheels. It'd be getting dark soon, and Hawkblockades would soon be the only one out and about, still staking out tracts of land with broken twigs. Saint gave an experimental "HOOT" into the megaphone mounted on the back, and it echoed through the woods as though it were a real, living leviathan owl. She took care to keep her laughs from being amplified, then made her way towards the village. She'd push it around a bit on the outer edge of the village, just long enough to work Hawkblockades into a frenzy. Then she'd wheel it back and hide it once again.
Briefly, Saint wondered if what she was doing was wrong. Clearly, it was working the poor man into a tizzy, and his leadership was faltering as a result. She dismissed the idea immediately. Hawkblockades was a terrible leader, and forcing him to resign would be a boon to everyone. And if she stepped up to meet the resulting power vacuum, so what? She was the Blacksmith. Even if this was a "Village", they were still dwarves, and the leader should be a member of the most noble of dwarven professions. Mark her words, within three years, Saint would be the leader of this little town. She gave another hoot and the woods echoed. Far in the distance, she heard an infuriated scream.
Ooooh yes, things were looking up for the Blacksmith.
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Topic: Nevertaxed: Dwarven Village Bloodline (Overseers Needed!) (Read 54303 times)