The next day 70 Petty Dwarves and the 120 Firebeard Dwarves, plus a newly acquired family of 6 Blacklock Dwarves who all had been involved in the alchemy trade as merchants and manufacturers, and they had dour looks and black hair, which all reminded Theria of her favourite bodyguard, she made a mental mischievous note to share the similarity to Findel with the Elf when they were next alone. Theria's ring was again green, so she was happy to extend the offer of hospitality to them all, which they readily accepted. Theria said an emotional farewell to Cousin Ur’sid atop his DireBear mount and entrusted him with her Father's sword Orcslayer to help ensure he did them proud in the North, and he was most appreciative.
It continued to snow all day lightly; as they were leaving Jade City a force of 150 Rangers joined them with a walking stream of 2,786 Kobolds who had been found in a makeshift hidden camp guarded by goblins where the Kobolds had all been making siege engines. The 1,000 goblin guards had been quickly eliminated by a force of 600 Rangers with minimal losses. The logs, prepared wood, hides, tools, other supplies and siege engines were taken to Big Bear via Mittfield. The Kobold prisoners of war were told of the fate of the other Kobolds we’d encountered and had voluntarily walked back to Jade City to accompany Theria home and ask to join her, which they did throughout this Theria’s ring was green. So she was happy to accept their service. Theria sent a messenger via the Dwarven expressway from Jade City to Big Bear City to let Tystin know of their planned return and to let the Kobolds at Big Bear City could expand the living quarters to receive the influx. Theria reflected that they would probably now need more space for the Kobolds, good job; the Firebeard Dwarves would be on the case of extending the Catacombs.
The day before Theria’s return to Big Bear, it continued to snow; three large contingents of actual Bears arrived from west, east and south, they all entered the City, which perplexed some of the human inhabitants, but they soon got used to it.
Theria’s journey back, other than the snow, was otherwise uneventful. She spent the time considering the Petty Dwarves and their fate, which they had inherited from the transgressions of their forebears, causing them to have been exiled from their various original Dwarven tribes and to be under the curse of exile, that made them lesser than what they had been before. Upon arrival, making her way through the primary North gate house across the drawbridge and through the secondary gate house. Theria was followed closely by the Petty Dwarves, who she had instructed to follow her. She made her way to the Inn and sought out Maurice. Theria Introduced Maurice and the Petty Dwarves to each other; this seemed to go well, so Theri decided to ask a boon of the Dragon.
Theria began, “Royal Dragon, it is said you can bless clans or tribes, and indeed, there is a tale that for the sake of my great grandfather, you blessed the clan Adalbern; if this is true, I am forever grateful. These Petty Dwarves seem to me to be capable of being a tribe and having talked with them on our journey here, and I ask a boon of you that you bless this tribe of brewers and tanner Dwarves.” Maurice had been giving Theria a hard stare during the speech until she mentioned Brewers, then he smiled a smile that reached his eyes as Theria continued, “I feel they could be of greater service to you, your Inn and Clan Adalbern if you were to restore these Petty Dwarves and remove the curses of exile I feel upon them to receive a blessing of restoration to Tribe”. The Petty Dwarves all knelt and fell to the floor; nothing like this had been known to have occurred before to the knowledge of the Dwarves or, indeed, the Dragon.
Maurice transformed into the form of a large Purple Dragon after a moment of inspection of the Dwarves and decided to attempt to do as Theria requested. He replied, “This is not a small thing you ask of me, and if any of these are unworthy, I will not hesitate to remove my blessing, which I am minded to give, and the curse of exile shell return them to be Petty Dwarves again. I do not know if this is possible, but if it is, there is only one way I know that this might be accomplished; it is a powerful deep magic.” Looking at the Petty Dwarves, a massive purple ring materialised on the ring finger of his large right clawed hand; he said, “Any of you who would be adopted by me, as my children may come before me, vow to be my child and kiss my ring to take tribe name Feybeards and become Dragon born” The air turned Purple around him as he said this and one by one with looks of shock, awe and wonder the Petty Dwarven families stepped up and took the vow and as they kissed the ring they were ennobled they grew taller, bigger and stronger, fairer and wiser and most notably for those watching their hair turned purple. Then the Dragon breathed purple fire on each after they had changed, burning away their petty nature and their curses and giving them a fresh start.
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As the last of the Petty Dwarves transformed into a Feybeard Dwarven and was fired up by the Dragon, the Dragon spoke, “My children are marked as mine and answer to me, for as long as they do good to the Adalberns and by me, they will have my protection. That took a lot out of me, so for now, I will take my leave you to slumber for a while”. With that, Maurice disappeared, but the Dragonians and Feybeards remained.
The watching Blacklock Dwarves, Firebeard Dwarves and Ironchest Dwarves were amazed to see this. Theria spoke up, “I declare the birthing of a new Dwarven tribe to be cause for a public holiday, and until midnight today, public singing will be permitted at whatever volume you can reach”. To this, there were loud cheers, and a much needed public celebration ensued. The Feybeards and the Dryads got on well, and the Feybeards agreed to work on hides for Gris Stitchwell to work with her enchanted threads.
The Dryads founded a grove above the underground reservoir between Big Bear City and the Volcano, far enough away from the City to blend into the background and be easily overlooked by the sight of the imposing Volcano behind, where the Ironchest Dwarves dwelt and laboured.
The following morning the snow did not abate, and neither did Princess Tystin, who continued to oversee the building of the city between the walls up in earnest, finishing a large Alchemist workshop and shopfront before the end of the day, much to the delight of the Blacklock Dwarves. Nearly everyone participated in practising archery, or other ranged attack and shield formation manoeuvres either as Legionnaires or as a phalanx. Both the strength or endurance training were popular and seemed to be making a real difference to all involved. The Kobolds settled in well, and 900 Kobolds offered to join the army, 500 were assigned short bows, and 400 were assigned to train with spears. Josephine approached Princess Tystin to ask if she could do anything to help the Kobolds train and then, as they were alone asked what was troubling her, "I know it won't, but if Big Bear was to fall, what would we do?" and Trystin answered "Well all you Bearkin could live with us in the mines and your friends could all certainly visit for a time", and Josephine seemed pleased, "I'd love to visit but just not it that way" Tystin smiled, and gave Josephine another task to do.
However, a Dwarven Feybeard who had been watching offered up a plan to Tystin to modify 100 ballista bolts that had been designed to trail a cable after being fired. Teams of five Kobolds could use them to resist a heavy calvary charge, but they found it hard to coordinate themselves. So an ideal opportunity for leadership training for 100 Pages who were assigned to train with the 400 Kobolds to help co-ordinate them as the Dwarven Feybeard drilled two holes through the ballista bolts and inserted a cross beam through both so a team of four Kobolds could lift the Bolt and point in a particular direction and then the Page at the back of the group could hammer through the cable hole at the back a large staple to make an anchoring point. Theria wasn't sure if this would work, but looking on after an hour of practice, the first modified ballista bolt squad under Josephine Bera impressed her, and she hoped all the others would get up to Josephine's speed soon.
Theria decided to deploy the Ironchest's blessed White coloured 12-foot high War Golems from the Clan's hidden reserve. Sending 200 to help defend Jade City, deploying 100 at Big Bear and sending 150 to Mittfield two-thirds to reinforce the army and the rest to garrison the town, with a further 100 deployed to Farreap, 15 to Iceflow Keep to provide rear guard action in case it was overwhelmed. She recalled initially being startled by the stark White colour of the Ironchest's Golems had stood out so much, but she recalled Tystin comment that they were perfect for fighting in snow and ice, and indeed, they were.
The building of siege towers, ballistae, catapults and trebuchets continued, as did artillery practice. Indeed they were also working on the covered frame work for a Battering Ram Theria wasn't sure why Tystin was building this, but she supposed it is better to have it and not need it than not have it and need it and it would be a vital piece of equipment if any of Fecundity fell to the Icekin Alliance and the need to repossesses a town by force would become paramount.
The Bears practised fighting in formation, dividing into two groups taking turns to charge up to try to break a line of Bears and being a line of Bears trying to resist a charge. Off all the things going on, the spectacle of the Bears' training attracted the most attention from curious onlookers, but the bears seemed to enjoy the novelty of being the focus of attention and continued to train for longer each day than they had originally planned.
That evening a Royal Messanger arrived with sour tidings Baron Icemauler had died, and his Capital had been sacked; his loss was a real blow to the defence of our realm, and with the Capital sacked, Theria worried that the line of succession to the Barony might be disputed, but this wasn't something she could do anything about so she turned her attentions to mustering forces, supplies and preparations ready for when Clan Adalbern would send a second overt force to reinforce the North. The messenger was offered hospitality for the night while the snowfall continued unabated, the snow had settled lying here, and that spurred Theria to worry that it would be worse in the North, and her concerns for her Cousin grew.