Another snatcher appeared as the last of the migrants made his way through the new entrance, but unfortunately Ushrir was the one who spotted him.
This went about as well as could have been expected for the goblin. Ushrir was specializing in headshots nowadays.
We had to kill most of our spare animals for Bomrek's mood; she wanted three separate sets of bone. She also took a silver bar. I hoped it would be worth it; we could have used that precious silver for a warhammer. On the plus side, that meant we had a lot more tallow.
Oh!
...oh...
...oh gods...
What was going on here?My little office was too small to contain all of us comfortably, but until the new deep fort was a bit further along, there was nowhere else for us to go that had any sort of privacy. Endok, Ushrir, Nevyn, Dr Kosotham and myself all squeezed in somehow.
"The first bone artifact we got was Clobberedsly," I said. "Very simply, an axe made of horse bone. Nice and straightforward, nothing unusual about it."
"Right," Endok said defensively. "Just an axe."
"Next, Nevyn's sword. Ceilingbastion, the Satin of Sorcery."
"A bastion is an architectural term," Ushrir said. "It's a... a sort of..."
"A structure projecting outward from the main enclosure of a fortification, situated in both corners of a straight wall (termed curtain), facilitating active defence against assaulting troops."
"...One of those. Thank you, Nevyn."
"So to sum up, it's protective," I said. "It's a defensive thing."
"Ceiling... bastion." She looked thoughtful.
I went on. "And then we had the earring: Relievedplait the Contingencies of Reticence. I had to look most of those words up and I'm still not sure I understand what exactly it's supposed to mean. But a contigency
plan is something you set up for a situation in which something
might go wrong. And reticence is unwillingness to speak out."
"Have we got the earring here to look at?" Ushrir said.
"No, it's still in the craftsdwarf workshop upstairs. But I can remind you what it looks like: there's an image of Clobberedsly on it, and Kovest, laughing." That image was burned into my mind by now. The look on the goddess's face... I sighed heavily. "And now, this. Another bone artifact."
"Splashedtest," Dr Kosotham said. His eyes widened. "
Splashedtest! Ceilingbastion! Dear gods it all makes sense!"
"No it doesn't," Ushrir said. "Could you share with us mere mortals?"
"The aquifer!" the doctor said wildly. "Ceilingbastion! The ceiling's a
protection! And then..."
"We broke through the protection." I shuddered. "That's what the armor stand is saying. We've passed the test."
"But what
test?" Ushrir asked.
"I don't know, but the two of them have one thing in common. Something we can all see." Foul blendecs. An image of a blendec laboring on the Satin of Sorcery, and then an image of a blendec--together with a goblin--on Splashedtest. "The blendecs
know something about this place," I said. "I think we have to try to capture one. Alive."
"That could be difficult," Nevyn said. "I mean, you've only ever seen those three since we've been here, right?"
"I'm afraid so."
"Well," Ushrir said, "there's nothing we can do unless we spot some more of them." She got up and set her foot on the upward stair, then glanced back. "In the meantime, I suggest we keep an eye out for any more dwarves who get god-touched, and look very carefully at whatever they make.
Especially the bone carvers..."
oh man this story is writing itself. I nearly fell off my chair when I saw the latest artifact.
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Topic: Ubenudil, Soaplanterns - Soapmaker's Guild Fort (Read 56924 times)