Eight Era, cycle 1721 – cycle of the squatting dog, season of Unkh, day 237
Ember staggered and dropped to her knees. A moment later, someone hit her, and she heard Alban curse.
‘Move your bloody arse, you fool.’ He curse-kicked Ember to her feet.
‘Where’s Zyol?’ Ember asked, looking frantically over Alban’s head; however, on this side of the rift, the entrance they’d passed through was just an empty archway.
‘He was a few steps behind us; he’d better make it, mark you, or all this will have been for naught,’ Alban retorted.
They stood there in silence as they waited for Zyol to appear. Ember was standing in an ever-growing pool, as water dripped off her; she was drenched to the bone.
Ember and her dwarf companions had braved a storm and an ambush to make it to a sacred dwarven location that was only accessible through a one-way portal that opened solely in the eye of a storm and would only stay that way for mere moments.
‘Take this.’ Lyre prodded Ember in the ribs.
She looked down at the proffered jar and took it off him. After pulling the stopper, she took a swig and grunted.
Health restored: 500 health points restored – current health 1,250/1,850
You’ve taken 1 potion; you may take 10 more in the next 51 hours without suffering from potion toxicity.
Stamina restored: 500 stamina points restored – current stamina 789/1,850
You’ve taken 1 potion; although it restores both stamina and health, it still only counts as a single potion; you may take 10 more in the next 51 hours without suffering from potion toxicity.
Ember wiped her mouth with her sleeve and tossed the empty bottle to the ground; no one commented about this – even though you got four bronze coins back for each empty bottle – as everyone was waiting for Zyol to appear.
There was a sudden distorting of the air around the arch, and Ember felt her stomach lift in anticipation. Then an avuncular-looking mage staggered out of the arch, gazed around in confusion and sprouted an axe out of the top of his head. Alban had sunk his axe a good five inches into the man’s head.
‘Prepare for intruders!’ Alban cried to rally them.
The three stood straighter as a new figure materialised.
Ember summoned an ice dagger, tossing it in the air idly as the figure came into focus; like a striking viper, her arm lashed out to take the target in the neck with her dagger. She had to shift her aim suddenly as the figure warped into a grinning Zyol; her dagger took several inches off Zyol’s hair.
‘Now that was a good ruck!’ Zyol declared, and he clanged his axe off his breast plate.
Relationship increased:
The dwarfs are a secretive race; you’ve built up enough reputation with them now to see your relationship status with them. Because all dwarfs consider themselves to be one race, when you increase or decrease your relationship with one, it will impact your relationship with all, much like with orcs.
Beware! Although your relationship has increased with all dwarfs, remember that the negative effects also act in the same manner.
Your relationship with the dwarfs has gone from outsider, −500 relationship points (everyone starts at a decrease with dwarfs), to respected outsider, 2,999–5,001 relationship points.
New quest: land dispute
Your reputation with the dwarfs has increased to the level whereby you may share quests with them.
‘We got lucky,’ Ember disagreed. ‘The first time Fatemeh underestimated dwarfs; I was surprised by how rugged you lot are as well. If you weren’t so secretive, we’d have been dead the first time. That time, we got lucky with the storm; she had bad intel about when it was going to strike. We won’t survive a third confrontation; no one can get lucky that often, and the sisters built their reputation on success, so they’ll only get more aggressive.’
‘Pah, they’re only human,’ Zyol said dismissively. ‘The last time the humans fought the dwarfs was two eras ago, and for every dwarf lost, we killed 300 humans. Humans have short memories.’
‘Fatemeh would have learned from each encounter, so don’t take her lightly,’ Ember insisted.
‘This is much of a muchness. The way back from here’s completely different, so she won’t find us a third time, Ember; relax,’ Alban added.
‘Well, that does reassure me a little. Although she’s found us twice somehow, so I’m still not completely reassured,’ Ember replied. Finally, she looked around.
They were in an antechamber that ended in a large, ornate archway; it had now stilled, but a moment earlier it had been thrumming with energy as the group passed through it. On the plain brick walls were a few light sconces, but nothing else.
‘Is this it?’ Ember questioned, disappointed.
‘This is just the entryway; the actual place is deeper down,’ Alban shot back, offended by Ember’s tone.
‘So, are we waiting to see if any of those bastards get through?’ Zyol asked.
‘No, there’s no point. We’ll be challenged by the keepers before we can enter the premises proper; we’ll be safe from the ambushers after that. They don’t have a dwarf in the party, so they won’t be allowed in,’ Lyre explained.
‘So let’s get a wiggle on,’ Ember suggested, and she scurried off.
Outside the antechamber was an oval room with five other corridors; next to each corridor was a large statue.
‘That’s Duran after forging the Quill of Statutory,’ Lyre said, following Ember’s gaze, ‘The quill is tied to whoever holds it, you see, so the ferz – that is, the chief lawmaker – is given the quill upon the death of the last ferz, and thus only the ferz can sign our laws. There are very few laws signed by the ferz, as they refer to all dwarven kind, but the position of being the ferz is one of the most prestigious in dwarfdom. Although it’s not as glamourous as being the king, the ferz is respected far more.’
Lyre walked a few paces and nodded at the statue of Duran, and then he walked to his left and pointed. ‘This is Vishnugupta; he created our first treatise on dwarfishness, and he defined what it means to be a dwarf,’ Lyre gushed; this was clearly a dwarf Lyre respected. As the dwarfish saying goes: “Duran created dwarfs, but Vishnugupta made dwarfs.” Although, he makes no mention of alcohol, so many think it’s an incomplete treatise – but where would dwarfs be without schisms? So I feel he left it out on purpose to imply the importance of debates to dwarfs.’
‘Isn’t that a dungeon master?’ asked Ember.
‘Yes, this is Gygax. He created the monster cards; everyone on the Sphere plays with his cards, so we honour him here, where paper is almost worshipped – it’s a little dig at the keepers at the same time. Then we have Boris the Opportunist. He led the leprechauns out of the dwarf union; they were the first, but not the last, to leave.’
The issue Ember was having was that – without putting too fine a point on it – dwarfs all looked alike to her; a lot alike. If someone had said that these were all the same dwarf but with three different outfits on, Ember would have believed them.
‘Then there’s Beck. He mapped most of the dwarven tunnels, although the map is a secret known only to dwarfs. We don’t need you above-grounders knowing too much.’ Lyre laughed, but the laugh didn’t reach his eyes.
‘And that thing?’ Ember pointed to the last statue.
‘We don’t talk about them; they’re terrainmoles. It was a terrible tragedy,’ Lyre said sadly.
‘Are they the things that took over your capital city?’ Ember asked, remembering.
‘Indeed. Come on, the keepers are this way,’ Alban said striding off.
Everyone followed him.
‘So what is this place? It isn’t the fabled dwarven library,’ Ember commented.
‘It is; this is just one of the many paths into the sanctuary. We’re careful about how people come and go,’ Alban replied proudly.
‘This must be a big place,’ Ember stated.
‘Naturally, all the laws and contracts – in fact, anything that’s ever been agreed between a dwarf and a faa – are held on these premises,’ Lyre boasted.
‘Well, what about informal agreements between a dwarf and a faa? What is a “faa” anyway?’ Ember asked.
‘You might call them a local king; we have but one king, but sometimes a dwarf becomes leader of a large group of dwarfs, of course, so they’re known as a “faa”. They might set local laws and things, all of which are recorded here. There are no unofficial agreements involving a faa,’ Lyre concluded.
‘That’s a lot of paperwork,’ Zyol put in.
‘It’s a lot of responsibility,’ Lyre countered.
They continued on their way. Finally, they reached a room that smelled of wax, paper and age. Smooth, thick stone shelves rose from the ground, and solid wooden benches, freshly polished with beeswax, were scattered about. There were several stoic dwarfs wearing pristine white robes and what might be considered fishermen’s caps. However, instead of floats and hooks, these hats held spare quills and penknives.
The dwarfs ignored the newcomers, who waited with patience, except for Ember, who waited with increasing impatience.
‘What are we waiting for?’ she asked.
‘We wait for them; they aren’t here to satisfy the whim of any passing dwarf,’ Lyre retorted.
Eventually, a white-robed dwarf finished with their duties and approached the group to enquire about their presence.
‘I’m Alban Whiteiron, son of Artem Whiteiron and Rifat Whiteiron. We’ve come about a dispute between Aduen Painswold and Nery Painswold,’ Alban continued, using their common names rather than traditional dwarfish due to Ember’s presence.
‘Are Aduen and Nery related?’ Ember queried, confused.
‘No, why would you think so?’ Lyre replied, equally as confused.
‘Well, they have the same surname; it can’t be that common.’
‘Everyone born in the same mine shares a surname, as everyone born takes the name of where they’re born. It’s why so many families make a pilgrimage to Knarepeat.’ Lyre sounded rather resentful, but he continued at Ember’s confused look. ‘Knarepeat’s an affluent place, so people like to have their children inherit the name. Stuck-up rock-suckers.’
‘Who knew the dwarfs had so much internal politics?’ Ember murmured, not really interested.
Alban must have convinced the keeper, as he was now walking away, and Alban was studying a roll of parchment.
‘Is that it, Alban? The proof we’re looking for?’ Ember asked.
‘No, this is just the layout of the area. We should find our deeds somewhere in the south wing,’ Alban confirmed.
‘Isn’t there a… What is it that libraries use? A referencing system to tell us where it is? Like number 133–4353?’ Ember suggested with a sinking feeling.
‘You have three on the brain,’ Zyol replied.
‘I’m not very imaginative,’ Ember responded. She then followed Alban as he took them to the section where they’d find the deeds of property.
‘There’s a reason why we don’t tend to allow anyone except dwarfs in,’ Lyre was saying as they walked, ‘and that’s because everything is written in dwarfish.’
‘I can’t read dwarfish,’ Ember admitted.
‘No, only dwarfs are taught dwarfish – we don’t teach outsiders. You’ll have to keep yourself busy for a while,’ Lyre said without pity.
‘So what am I meant to do? Given that I don’t read dwarfish,’ Ember queried as they made their way around the labyrinth of shelves.
‘And I don’t want to read scrolls all day,’ Zyol added.
‘It’s for your family,’ Alban snapped back.
‘True, but I thought more of our group would make it, so I wouldn’t have to do anything in this paper mausoleum,’ Zyol confessed.
‘That’s cold, man… er, dwarf,’ Ember declared, shocked.
There was a scuttling beside them, and Flynn popped his head out of a shelf and sniffed the air before making a pleased squeaking noise.
‘Flynn!’ Ember burst out. ‘I’d forgotten about you. Oh man, I’m a terrible person for forgetting you.’
Flynn scurried off the shelf and clambered up Ember’s thigh before settling around her shoulders.
*
After passing what little of the day remained in a hot spring, before retiring early, Ember spent most of the night watching the night sky; she’d never found it easy to come down after a fight. Part of what made her a great assassin was that she’d pass right out after a quick, clean kill, yet after a protracted encounter, she’d spend the night obsessing compulsively about why it had become messy. That meant that she’d become a great assassin, but it also meant that it had become habitual, so now she struggled to sleep after any fight. Fortunately, the night was crisp, the sky was clear, and Ember had a fire in her room, along with a kettle.
The insomniac debuff appeared, warning her that she’d become distracted, emotionally fragile and her core bars (health, mana and stamina) would replenish at a diminished rate whilst suffering from the insomniac debuff, which would also get worse each night. Ignoring it, Ember watched the night sky.
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*
The next day, she played cards with Zyol; such was the genius of Gygax that the amount of games that could be played with his cards was nearly infinite. The game they were playing currently required at least four people and could last most of the day. Ember was amazed that Zyol had been able to convince two of the librarians to join in. After 6 hours, Zyol played his last “trick” and blocked Ember’s “trump”, before Zyol’s partner played a “double” then an “anchor”, and the game was won.
‘Good game,’ Zyol offered.
But Ember waved him off. ‘I hate courteous winners, and there’s nothing worse than losing after playing half the bloody day. What a waste of time,’ Ember said with bad grace.
‘What next?’ Zyol asked, also not up for starting another long game.
Ember’s card partner said something that caused Zyol to sit up with interest.
‘What’d he say?’ Ember asked.
‘They’ve got a fiend problem. They were going to send in their own guards, but there aren’t many here. Anyway, they have their hands full in a different section of the library. So he’s offered us the quest as thanks for the game,’ Zyol translated.
New quest: busy work
You’ve got time to kill, so instead of kicking your heels, go and do something productive. There are disturbances in a less-used room, so go and check it out.
‘Finally, something to do!’ Ember cried out before getting to her feet.
Zyol tapped her on the shoulder. ‘You owe me ten silver.’
With yet more resentment, Ember paid off the bet.
They then followed their guide, who was named Kelan, through the winding paths – dwarfs seemingly resented straight lines – and were eventually shown what looked like a silhouette of a person burned into the wall.
‘What is it?’ Ember and Zyol asked in almost unison.
Their guide spoke a langue that Ember assumed was the dwarf clearing his throat.
After a while, Zyol rubbed the back of his neck. ‘You see, there are many things we don’t like to share. It’s hard to know how much to share and how to explain what these friezes are; it’ll be easier if you’d take the vow of secrecy,’ Zyol stated.
‘What’s that?’ Ember asked.
‘Well, we write a rune on your tongue, and it stops you sharing some information,’ Zyol explained.
Ember burst out laughing. ‘You’ve got to be joking!’ she mocked. ‘You think I’ll let you write a rune on my flesh? Because there aren’t a million horror stories about someone doing just that. You may as well ask for my servitude.’
‘No, no, no; it’s nothing like that, see. This is just to stop you spreading any information that we’d prefer was kept secret. If you hadn’t just levelled up your relationship with us, girlie, we couldn’t even offer you this much,’ Zyol tried to explain.
Ember shook her head. ‘I wasn’t born yesterday; that’s not going to happen.’
‘You realise that this isn’t just me asking, but all dwarfs? If I were to break any trust, all dwarfs would be in your debt – other than the king.’
‘You can eat a jar of beelzewasps; that’s what you can do.’ (Ember was saying the equivalent of, ‘Go suck on a bag of dicks.’)
‘I can’t say as I blame you now,’ Zyol declared, accepting Ember’s protestations. ‘How did you keep secrets in your last job?’
‘Well, that’s different. They wrote the rune on me when I was a child,’ Ember retorted. ‘I didn’t have a say.’
‘You already have a rune?’ Zyol turned to the dwarfs and shared a quick conversation. ‘You know we could alter it, to free you from your old masters?’
‘And whilst you’re at it, add in a secrecy script for yourselves,’ Ember concluded.
‘Who do you trust the least?’ Zyol queried with a laugh.
Ember took out a dwarven cigar; they are extra pungent to make up for the blandness of dwarven foods. She lit the cigar and took a drag. ‘Fuck it, let’s do this. The assassins were quick enough to sell me out.’
She was taken to a room etched with script – probably protection runes, sigils or some other esoteric magical scrawl – Ember had never had cause to learn nor care about it. She’d never been tasked with assassinating a mage, after all. The dwarfs used mouth props to hold Ember’s mouth wide open before they poured hot candle wax into her mouth from eerie-looking, blue tallow candles, which smelled of pungent incense. The wax brought forth the runes inscribed on Ember’s tongue, so that the dwarfs could then use razor-sharp quills to cut into her tongue and alter the rune. Ember had agreed to this procedure because she currently had a death sentence over her head from the assassins’ guild, but if she removed their secrecy block, she could blackmail the assassins to leave her be.
Lost mark: assassins’ graver mark
Your hidden mark (the “assassins’ graver mark”) has been removed, along with its effects; no further information is available.
New mark: binding secrecy
You’re bound to hold the secrets of the dwarfs – should they choose to share any with you.
Relationship increased:
By agreeing to the mark of secrecy, you’ve proven yourself to be trustworthy. There are easier ways to increase your relationship level, but this is an instant bypass to the associate level.
Ember didn’t get enough time to read it all before she passed out.
*
Over breakfast the following day, she spoke to Zyol, who elaborated on the origin of the mysterious silhouettes, but he’d say nothing about the operation on her mouth. Even with her mark, there were secrets that she was not privy to. In fairness, though, they didn’t ask her about the assassins’ mark, letting her keep her own secrets too.
‘So what’s the deal with the shadows?’ Ember asked as they ate.
‘The ghasts – that’s what we call them – are a remnant of the Dark War. This place is a city, not just a library, and it has a rather unique architectural design.’
Zyol stood and took Ember to a thick curtain, which he pulled back. Ember gasped; what the curtain had hidden was a window that looked out over a vast, snowy mountain rage.
‘We call it the “Wyneb” because there’s a part of a building that pokes above of the surface. This is only one of a handful of pieces of dwarven architecture that has a surface presence. I have to hand it to you – you surface dwellers do get good views.’
‘Where are we?’ Ember gasped.
‘I don’t know; there’s some silly surface name no doubt. We just call it the “Dannedd” or the
“Teeth”,’ Zyol replied.
‘Why the curtain?’ Ember almost made it sound like an accusation.
‘Not all dwarfs like seeing the surface; it makes them nervous,’ Zyol explained. ‘Around 1,000 dwarf years ago, we had what we call the “Dark War”.’
‘Why “dwarf years”? What’s the difference?’ Ember asked, confused.
‘See, you surface dwellers use weather as a measurement of years, right? So many days of rain and sun, and it’s a roughly a year, correct?’ Zyol questioned.
‘What? No. We do have seasons, if that’s what you mean, but the year is… Well, it’s something about the sun, I think.’ Ember tried to remember, but she’d never really queried what a year was.
‘Well, we don’t have the sun, and weather is rather different below ground. The amount of daytime in one day is the time it takes for a master smith to craft a Taaffeite shield, and we allow the same amount of night-time in each full day; however, there isn’t a whole number of days in one year, so we get a few free hours at the end of each year, and we use that to get properly pissed!’ Zyol exclaimed, and he slapped his thigh. (Interestingly, a dwarf year is about 30 days longer than a surface year. Another interesting point is that the time to create a Taaffeite shield is around 30 hours, so a full day is actually 60 hours.)
‘Where was I?’ Zyol asked absently. ‘Oh yes. So around 1,000 years ago, we had the Dark War, right? We don’t like talking about it because it doesn’t show the best of us. We had a chance to make peace with the goblins, brownies and other creatures, but instead we became insular, see? This place was lost during that time. We only reclaimed it some 200 years ago, so there are still many fiends and monsters here, with only 100 or so guards. There are fewer than twenty scholars here, and they can’t fight anyway, mark you.’
‘Scholars? You’ve called them hermits, librarians, caretakers, keepers and scholars. What are they?’ Ember questioned, confused.
‘Well, a lot of knowledge was lost when we abandoned this place, and part of it was the title of the keepers, so they tend to get called a lot of things. Anyway, the ghasts are left over from the Dark War. You see, when you reach about 400 or 500 feet below ground, you find that the dark has substance – a form of its own. We theorise that it’s a form of the rūpa, the magic schools, yeah? Consciousness, cohesion, solidity, that other one and void. The ghasts are the void school, sort of manifested. Like a golem is made from the solidity school and is the symbol of the school; you can’t get more solid than a bloody great golem.’
‘Shouldn’t you get golems down here, then? I mean, where do you find more earth than underground?’ Ember asked sarcastically.
‘Golems are made by people, but a ghast is a natural fiend. It can pass through solid matter, and that’s where the silhouette comes from: it appears after a ghast has passed through the wall. Also, we dwarfs are naturally resistant to earth magicka, so we’re sort of a symbol of solidity, too.’
‘Right, can we just get back to the point? I don’t care what it is anymore; how do we kill it?’
Zyol harrumphed; he wasn’t usually prone to such long expositions and felt slightly embarrassed by his prolonged speech. ‘I was given these orbs.’ Zyol pulled out of his pocket a translucent orb with a fractal display of blue light and gave it to Ember. ‘This lets out some sort of light that harms the ghasts but is harmless to us – well, relatively harmless. You’d be advised to cover your eyes when you set it off. It deals around 750 damage points a second to them and should kill them in less than three seconds.’
‘That sounds easy enough; how do we find it?’ Ember asked whilst turning over the orb she’d been handed.
‘That silhouette isn’t just left due to it passing through the wall; apparently, it being so clearly defined means that the ghast is still there. That is, that silhouette is the ghast. When it moves on, the shadow it leaves behind becomes more… well, “mildew-like” was one of the words used. I kind of lost the thread a little at that point. But the main thing is that it’s still there. I was given a phrase that’ll kill the lights, which will encourage it to come out, and we can ambush it,’ Zyol said, sounding more confident at the end of the speech than during it.
‘So, we turn the lights out, it pops out, and we hit it with a light ball? Sounds easy enough,’ Ember summarised.
*
‘This is the place!’ Zyol declared after having got lost a few times on the way to where the ghast was.
They took to their knees either side of a large shelf opposite the silhouette. Zyol spoke the command to put out the lights. After the lights had gone out, they waited in complete darkness for something to happen. The first signs of the creature emerging were a soft buzz and the smell of hot, damp earth.
‘Eyes!’ Zyol yelled.
Ember had just enough time to cover her eyes before the ball exploded.
The ghast screamed, and when Ember’s vision returned, she noticed that there wasn’t any message about the ghast being killed.
Affliction: blindness
You’ve been stunned by a bright burst of light; your vision will be impaired for the next 30 seconds.
Ember blinked rapidly, although that only seemed to make things worse.
‘Now why didn’t that work? Zyol demanded.
‘It must have fled from the sudden light.’ Ember shot back, irked by Zyol’s amateurish tactics.
‘Well, I know I lost concentration for a bit whilst they explained, but I was sure it was a case of throw the bomb and the ghast dies,’ Zyol said abashed.
‘Clearly not,’ Ember replied scathingly.
‘What’s that smell?’ Zyol asked just before Ember’s body exploded in pain.
She screamed; it was like her nerve endings were being stimulated directly. Something was somehow attacking her entire body, and she wanted to curl up and hide.
Affliction: crippling pain
You’re overwhelmed by visceral pain and are unable to move.
Ember might not have been able to move, but she was able to use her iisjomfruen, which created a body double made from ice.
Affliction finished: crippling pain
There was a deep snap – the sound of ice cracking – as her duplicate took the damage instead of Ember, allowing her to turn and pull a waxed match from her pocket. She scraped the wax off with a thumbnail before striking it on the floor. The match took, and with a flare of soft light, it revealed Ember’s ice form with a swirling black substance flowing through it, seemingly trying to take it over.
Ember grinned, held the light orb before her, covered her eyes with her arm and used the orb.
Battle log:
You are attacked by a ghast for 1,050 void-damage points a second, 800 health points remaining
You use iisjomfruen to break free of the attack, 1,550 health points remaining
You use an orb of luminous flux, which deals 750 damage points to the ghast
The ghast dies; you earn 1,190 experience points from a level 35, class B ghast
Iisjomfruen dispels; you’re next able to use iisjomfruen in 132 hours
‘I hate you,’ Ember declared, and she collapsed to the floor.
*
Later that day, as Ember was enjoying a soak in one of the hot pools, her tranquillity was disturbed by raised voices, so she reluctantly left the pool and wandered towards the sounds of heated debate, only to find Zyol, Alban and Lyre arguing about something.
‘Ah, a cool head; maybe she’ll understand,’ Alban mocked.
However, Zyol didn’t rise to the bait. ‘Maybe you’d do a better job of explaining it to her,’ he grunted.
‘Are you talking about me?’ Ember asked.
None of the dwarfs jumped or looked guilty; instead, Alban flat out admitted that they were.
‘More tedious customs?’ Ember enquired sulkily, and she sank onto a hard chair, kicking her feet up onto an ornate reading desk.
‘Pull your robe together, girl; we don’t all enjoy the sight of human flesh,’ Lyre reprimanded as Ember’s robe flopped open.
Ember grunted and closed her legs before pulling out a thick dwarven cigar and lighting it up. ‘So what dwarven custom are you going to bore me with this time?’
‘The best kind; the pedantic type, right?’ Lyre retorted.
‘You see, we found the agreement that Aduen signed, and it isn’t as simple as we’d hoped,’ Alban added. ‘It’s signed as an agreement for Aduen to control the land, under the auspices of the dwarf council.’
Quest update: land dispute
Alban and Lyre have discovered the contract, so bring this information to Aduen.
Reward: your party has overcome much. When fighting in a party led by Zyol, you gain a 5% boost to your attributes.
Ember grunted, ‘Go on.’
‘Well, that’s the crux of it, see?’ Alban said prodding the table with his finger.
‘I don’t get it,’ Ember confessed.
Zyol laughed.
‘It’s the wording, right?’ Lyre sighed.
‘You’re worried that because the king is changing, the agreement might not hold?’ Ember guessed.
‘No, not quite. No king would go back on something signed by the council; it would be the height of bad manners now,’ Alban replied.
‘You’re worried that Nery will back a different king?’ Ember queried, exhaling a long stream of smoke.
‘Again, no; no king would go back on something signed by the council. The problem is that it’s signed over to Aduen, not his family,’ Lyre explained or at least tried to.
Ember hazarded a second guess, ‘Ah, so you’re thinking that if he dies, then his family will lose the plot of land?’
Zyol made a harsh noise and then butted in, ‘That wouldn’t happen. This kind of thing occurs all the time, so there’s a precedent in dwarf law to say it passes on to his family.’
‘There’s a precedent for both ways; it depends on who’s king next, right? We were hoping for something more secure,’ Lyre said, shaking his head.
‘Aduen has decades left to live; his tenure will speak for itself,’ Zyol said brashly.
Ember enquired, ‘How long do dwarfs live?’
‘Two hundred years per 10 levels achieved,’ Lyre confirmed flatly.
‘Huh, twice as long as humans,’ Ember pondered.
‘Aduen is above level 40, so he’s in his third century now and he’s got at least 500 years left,’ Zyol said brusquely.
‘Then I agree with Zyol: this is all too theoretical for me,’ Ember concurred.
Zyol decided, ‘We should go to Aduen and tell him of our findings at least.’
‘Well, that at least we agree on,’ Alban said, nodding. ‘But before we retire for dinner, let me give you something for your brain to digest. If you were looking to take Aduen’s lands and you knew this, wouldn’t your next step, quite naturally, be to kill him?’