“At any rate, Nthazes thinks we can trust them,” I whisper.

“Yes, but will they trust anything I have to say? That’s what I’m worried about. You may not have realized this, but I’ve never exactly been liked. An object of interest for some time, yes, at least until they decided I was rather less interesting than a new kind of alloy or hammer, and since then opinions of me have varied from neutral and suspicion.”

“If Nthazes backs you, they’ll trust you through him. He’s well-respected, even if you and I aren’t.”

Jaemes takes a swig of beer and shrugs. “Maybe. Though I fear that by associating with us, the respect the others have for him might diminish.”

“It’s just a risk I think we have to take. I’m not sure about them either, but we need all the allies we can get. And the dwarves here aren’t as united a group as you seem to think they are. Especially after the expedition.” I lower my voice right down. “There’s criticism of the two commanders, you know. Even of the Runethane.”

“I suppose. Though I’d question your assumption that more allies equals a greater chance of success. Maybe it’s just the arrogant academic in me talking, but I find that doing things alone often leads to better results than collaboration with a bunch of fools.”

I scowl at him. “Belthur and his friends aren't any more foolish than Nthazes and I have been. Unless you think we’re fools too.”

“Ah, I apologize. I didn't mean to imply the two of you are fools. All I’m trying to say is that more doesn’t always mean better.”

I nod. “Understood. I still think we could do with the help, though.”

“Then I leave the decision up to you.”

We talk a bit more: he asks how my forging is going, in a tone that suggests he’s just asking out of politeness’ sake, and I ask a few questions about the surface world, which he is happy to ramble on about for rather a long time. According to him, if you stay out in the sun too long it can burn you just like fire. I find this quite difficult to believe, since he also says the sun is theorized to float many thousands of miles above the world, but he swears that if I was to go out into the sunlight unarmored, my exposed skin would turn red and start to peel off.

It’s only when I get to the forges that I realize I forgot to ask how many days I've been down here. This unnerves me a little; I worry that I’m forgetting about my old life, my past sins I must face in the future.

There might be no future for me if I don’t get these new runic ears perfect, however, so I focus. I pick up my hammer and begin to curl the right one in on itself into a pointed ear shape, zhik-galyoth.

There’s advantages and disadvantages to making your runic ears pointy. They can get chipped or bent more easily, but can also pick up on sounds from further away, and also are more sensitive to higher tones. This latter benefit will be useful to my crafting.

Once the right one is done and fairly even, I curl the left one. I examine them to make sure they’re both approximately the same shape, and I’m pleased to see that they look better by far than my first pair of ears looked at this stage. I’ve improved at my hammering almost without noticing it.

This is a bit easier than doing the waist-plates, since the ears are much smaller.

I pick up the chiming rod to begin the process of evening out the imperfections. I tap, listen, feel, hammer subtly, repeat. I’ve done this process often enough that I feel like I’m in a trance, my hands and senses working of their own accord.

But, just like with my waist-plates, I know I’m missing out on details. I think back to when I made my boots. I also used a combination of sight, sound and feel to make sure the plates were well-formed, but I was wearing my runic ears then. The sound had more subtle tone to it: I remember a sort of melody that I can only pick up the barest traces of now.

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It’s frustrating; these ears won’t be as good as they should be. Each pair of runic ears a runeknight down here forges is better than the last not only because their forging improves in general, but also because with each pair they make they can listen to the metal better, pick up on more detail. Each is a rung on the ladder to perfection—a phenomenon that doesn’t happen when forging helmets or spears, since those are just equipment, not tools and equipment in one.

I grimace. Well, I’ll just have to get mine as symmetrically smooth as I can. They’re sure to be better than my last pair, at least, so long as I don’t mess up any of the next steps. And I’m sure that with them I can make the waist-plates and breastplates a good deal better than my last ones.

After a few more sessions—each of many hours—of perfecting the symmetry of my ears, I’m ready to make the whorls.

Nthazes suggested that, instead of fitting a secondary structure into my ears to be the whorls, I make creases in the titanium instead, since it takes runes to it much better than the steel I forged my last ears out of.

It’s painstaking. My fingers are shivering with tension with each tap I make. I couldn’t do this if I didn't have the skill at shaping titanium I’ve built up over hundreds of hours. The most minor error leads to two dozen more careful taps to shift the metal back into place. The length of each crease must be totally precise down to the sub-millimeter—between sessions I ask if I can borrow a magnifying lens, and get blank stares. So I try to use sound to make sure the whorls I’ve creased into the titanium is even, but the notes are too complex for me to decipher clearly.

I curse blackly. If only my previous ears weren’t ruined.

I entertain the thought that after this second pair is done, I might use them to help me make a third pair. I fear I don’t have the time. Maybe once the other pieces of armor are done, and the runes on my boots and gauntlets altered. But by then the almergris will likely be ready.

At least the shape of the creases is relatively simple. The vibrations of air will be channeled down a pattern that looks like the spokes of a wheel toward the induction point. Calling them spokes doesn’t quite do them justice—they twist and curve around where the garnets will be placed—yet they are not overly-complicated.

Once the creases are finally done, it is time to engrave the garnets and place them in. I’m not making any major changes to how I did them last time, since trying to change everything about the way you craft all at once often leads to disaster.

The gold runes I’m grafting onto the titanium are a little different, though. Same script, mostly the same runes and kinds of lines: about the gentle flow of air through the caverns, with an underlying theme of change leading to sweet, moving music. Yet the size of the runes will diminish in parts and heighten, stretch, or thicken in others. I was always told this was a bad thing to do, and certainly no dwarves in Thanerzak's realm did this, but I trust Nthazes. His runic ears employ the same technique, after all—though very subtly.

I strive to be subtle myself when bending the gold wire, and soon find that it’s much easier to make everything the same size, than to make one rune exactly a fifth of a millimeter smaller than the first, and the next one exactly a fifth of a millimeter smaller than that. I find myself accidentally twisting the runes the wrong way, putting the finer strokes at odd angles.

I step back from my work and scratch my head.

Hastat-khalte-jikhol-lhokhe-forthil.

A line stating that the flow of air through a curling tunnel can transmit much knowledge and emotion, though it doesn’t actually state that, because the second and fourth runes, which mean ‘know-how-to-bring-to-close’ and ‘heart-open-to-new-senses’, I’ve managed to alter into two that might mean mind and soul.

Might, because I don’t actually recall ever seeing them before. I remember Wharoth’s words about me having created new runes. My stomach turns; my heart beats harder. I want to dismiss it, but when this kind of thing happens, I really can’t.

I sit down on the steps and think hard. This leaves me a decision: I know the proper form of those two runes, so should I fix them, or should I leave them be? If there's some deeper meaning to my unconscious alterations, perhaps they will be more effective. If they’re just wrong, my craft could be ruined.

Salterite is hard to use, after all. I don’t think I have the skill to apply it well to such a delicate craft as this.

I look at Heartseeker. Its runes are oddly twisted as well, hinting at meanings beyond their strict denotations. And it, by all accounts, is an extremely effective weapon.

So I decide to keep the runes on my ears as is. The grafting goes well—I use an even mix of quizik and incandesite for both ease of use and power—then heat and quench in warm water. Titanium doesn’t need as extreme a heat differential as steel did, so this part of the process is less nerve-wracking than it was with my first set of ears.

Once they cool, it's time to try them on. I pick them up with trepidation, suddenly thinking that to leave the runes with mistakes in was a terrible error, that I’ve ruined my craft, thrown dozens of hours of work into the latrines.