Burninganus the muscular tunnel.
Feb stepped into the office with a malicious grin, expecting to see the new arrival tearing his hair out. What she found was ever so slightly different. Somewhere in the pile of ledgers, papers and scrolls she could hear the steady scratching of a quill on paper and a mad giggling. There was a thump, the sound of paper being shuffled around, and the scratching continued.
Feb could faintly make out what Glacies was muttering.
"And we have four hundred bits of microcline here, and four hundred here, and oh fancy that four hundred here too. I'll show them, I'll show them, give them a ham sandwich if I don't, waitandsee, four hundred microcline.."
She cleared her throat and everything went dead silent.
Then, after an akward pause, Feb said "Er. How's it, ya know, how's the book-keeping going?"
"Eheh, er, fine. I guess. I'm only half done, at this point. I've got all the, yum, magnetite categorized, and pretty much, er, all the gabbro and stuff. I'm working, um, on the microcline now."
"So I hear."
"Er, yes. I think I should, um, be done by the end of the week, if all goes well. And then, um, well, I'll ask you later.."
"What? Whaddya' want? Out with it!"
"Well, I'd like a favor. Actually, two. Er."
"You want a favor? After drinking all our booze? You sonuva..!"
"Now, wait, wait, wait! It should be easy enough! All I need to know is what this land is called."
"Err, the hills of rawness."
"No. The continent."
"Oh, of course. The land of oracles. Is that all?"
Glacies gave out some sort of squeak of excitment.
"Er, actually, yum, could you tell me where a place called 'Gatesmaw' is? It should be the capitol, you know, for the flag of ages.."
"Oh. You, uh, havn't heard the news."
"What news?"
"Gatesmaw fell to the goblins. The queen is dead, you see, and her cousin has been promoted up to king...er, the capitol's been moved to awe-inspiring axe. This must come as a bit of a shock to you, I guess. Did you have family there?"
Eventually, slowly, Glacies answered in an icy tone usually reserved for receptionists when faced with someone without an appointment.
"No. I did not have 'family' there. I just want something from it. I am still going. I am not giving up now, and I will not give up until I return to the polished trumpet with it. Get me a map. A reliable one that can show me where it is. The goblins will not have looted it. It is worthless to them. Now, back to work. A map. And a bodyguard, I guess, for the goblins. You can spare one dwarf for me. And I have work to do, so please leave me alone."
Feb grunted non-comitally and left the roughly carved office full of paper, pausing outside the door. She heard a faint thump as Glacies kicked the desk in frustration, and then the rythmic scratch started again. Then she headed up to the barracks, with a certain amount of determination. She was going to solve two problems with one, er, book-keeper. Actually, three, if you count all the paperwork that needed to be done.
Yes indeed, she can finally get Sarig off his arse and out of the barracks, get rid of the strange book-keeper and she'd have all the microcline sorted too! Maybe she could spare a detour to the booze stockpile. Feb's kinda tired of water.