The events of the 24th of Sandstone, 1065
The council met in Aryn's chambers, much to his chagrin. In a town of this size, news had a way of slipping out, and after Dodik-Come-Lately had... happened upon... it hadn't taken long before rumors were flying. Aryn's brows were knit together, his finger tapping rhythmically on the table while Duke Bomrek ran his mouth opposite him.
"Aryn, old chap, I say, you can't just go about sending these... these letters out. What will the smallfolk say?"
"They'll say it was a letter," Crowpages said dryly. She stroked her beard, looking down at the copy on the table, "Though I have to say Aryn, it was bad form to ask that it be encrypted. What's the point of it all?"
"Just security..." He said morosely. "Would you lay off me if I said I didn't know what the encrypted letter said?"
"Bullcocks!" Duke Bomrek blurted, "Aryn and I both knew from the start what was written, though his skulduggery and my discretion in private maters kept it from the others eyes."
Aryn closed his eyes, pressing the heels of his palms into the sockets hard, relishing the star bursts that formed briefly. When he dropped his hands to the table once more, he said in a low, tired voice, "Let's discuss something more pertinent than my mail, shall we? The test of the quarry-floor removal went off without a hitch. No one was injured in the 4-story removal, no equipment was damaged. Those are both positives. We do have, ahh, the issue of a lot of the stone getting crushed as the floors collapsed inward."
"What?" Glacies said, his jaw falling open. He tried to control himself, but even so, he stammered some as he spoke, "The rocks... g-got cru-ushed? H-how many?"
"I don't know," Aryn said with a dismissive wave, "fourth fifths of them"
Glacies was a flurry of limbs and papers as he yanked his ledgers open, using his pencil to trace the lines downwards. A few quick scribblings later, and he looked up, awe-struck. "S-sir, if we started w-with 56768 loose stones, and y-y-you said t-that..." his pen danced on the page again, and he gasped, "We're d-down to 12622, g-give or ta-ake."
"Glacies," Duke Bomrek asked uncomfortably, "Are you... crying, lad?"
"Y-y-yes, sir," Glacies sobbed, wiping his eyes with the side of his hand, "I'm j-just so... so d-damned ha-appy."
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Topic: Migrursut: What Comes After The World Ends? [Epilogue] (A Community Fort) (Read 389314 times)