>>5389984“You did good work on the Throat-singer’sss hand,” you acknowledge, on your next visit to her.
“Of course,” the Engineer snorts.
“I thought it perhapsss bessst to focuss your effortsss on prostheticsss, moving forward,” you lie.
She looks up at you sharply, but you play it cool.
“Many warriorsss and workersss lose limbsss, after all.”
“That is NOT my specialty,” she snaps, “and do you have any idea how much TIME that would take, to fit every single invalid your warmongering and reckless misuse of dwarven labour produces?”
You shrug expansively.
“Ssince there iss nothing that can be done to reduccce the hazardsss… What elsse am I to do?”
She glowers darkly, and rolls up the papers she had been scribbling upon. Instead, she unrolls a fresh sheet of paper and take out a collapsible ruler of some description, beginning to trace a neat, geometric grid over which to begin new plans.
“Well?” she demands of you, when she sees you’re still there. “Leave me be, tyrant. I’ll solve your ‘unsolvable problem’, if it means I don’t need to play nursemaid for your slaves every waking hour.”
“How?” you ask, genuinely curious and even a little excited.
“With a big enough lever—and some hinges, maybe a rudimentary pulley system—I will move this whole bloody mountain range, and without nearly so many cave-ins or wall-collapses. I draw the line at helping you kill more dwarves, but I’ll gladly prevent you mangling the poor sods you’ve already imprisoned in this hell. Give me time, and you’ll be digging twice as deep in half the time, and with only half as many injuries.”
Her father had suggested a boring-and-extraction apparatus was well within her technical purview. So too had he volunteered her specialty—structural reinforcement of stacked tunnel systems with a minimum of timber. You’re glad to see it wasn’t all empty paternal pride.
As the blizzard begins to abate, the Geologist also volunteers something else: the preliminary results of his appraisal of your territory’s mineral resources, compiled from his sample-analyses, the scant survey reports which you were able to retrieve undamaged, and your ancient historical maps, as well as discussion with the Blackmantle Delegate and South-Merchant.
The short version is the version you best understand. It is as follows:
