*cue music*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dS_ESCLkr5I&ab_channel=Tsai57You make your way to the civic mound having waited a few minutes for the previous agent to enter without you
The dwarf, Danny, waits on the inside of the door and looks at you expectantly. You raise your middle finger and he steps aside
Amongst the gaggle of familiar faces sits The emerald. Declared expedition leader the one chair and desk in the mound is his.
Mobius, head of Clan Maloy, steps forward and coughs awkwardly
"ahem, as you know we've taken over expanding our underground operations and this includes finding metal for us to make gear to meet the deadline"
Mobius is silent for a moment and nervously tugs his beard "So, after some digging and deep surveying we've found the metal in this region. It's almost all on the second cavern or below"
Groans and sighs ensue from across the room. Deep cave digging while simultaneously running a surface operation was incredibly tedious work.
"that's not all. The metals here are as follows: Gold..." Cheers from the dwarves
"...Tin..." hoots of agreement. Good for advanced armor and weapons
"...and Zinc." awkward silence.
"Hematite?" one dwarf piped up
"No" Mobius replied
"Silver?"
"No"
"What about stuff to make copper at least?!"
"Nothing. There's absolutely nothing here that can be forged into equipment" Pandemonium broke out with shouting and arguing.
"How do we reach the 12 year deadline with
no weapons? I don't wanna be an exile!"
The Emerald, who had been silent, raised his fist to signal the rest to be silent.
Mobius spoke up "As I see it we have three options to vote on:..."
1. We run a fort on bone, leather and wooden gear until we can win enough gear through battle and raiding. I suspect it will be close to deadline before we have a respectable amount of dwarves geared up
2.We dig deep. Very deep. Our ancestors have plunged the depths of the earth and taken its treasures and released its horrors more than once. Perhaps it is our destiny to do the same? The chaos released on the surface world would present a good cover for us.
3.That good ol' dwarven razzle dazzle. Forge magic that creates more armor (The forge metal duplication glitch)
What do you think, fellow agents? I'm actually not for option 3, but I wanted an excuse to say razzle dazzle
Also about clans: To maintain our cover with large numbers of dwarves most citizens will either be strictly hillocks or bunker dwellers. If you want you can specify your clan to be exclusively one or the other, but otherwise I'll keep around about half of your clan hillock and half bunker