>>5386981>>5386967>>5386931>>5386888>>5386670>>5386665>>5386556“Well, it’s not as if the elderly dwarves need to make it back ALIVE…”
You pause in your musings to clarify to the concerned-looking Apprentice: “I am only considering options.”
After all, you can’t imagine defrosting evidence of a dwarven death-march in the spring would bode well for your low profile among the surface-races. No, your forces to the east will have to make do without you for a time. You and your invasion-force will have to remain where you are for the time being, waiting out the storm. You draw your cloak around yourself, gather up the bodies of the slain elders, and return to the forge-heated interior of the captured keep to notify the others.
The next few days pass relatively uneventfully, all things considered. There are grumblings among the dwarves, especially those not yet ‘broken in’ to your way of life; you and your enforcers put these abortive rebellions down swiftly and brutally, until they stop pursuing these dangerous ideas. This affords you a bit more time to look in on your retinue. In particular, you are curious to see the Throat-singer’s recovery.
“What recovery?” he scoffs, holding up his gnarled, now two-fingers hand with bitter humour. “I don’t know about you lizard-men, but we dwarves don’t grow back fingers.”
This actually gives you an idea, though… One you run by the Novice Fleshweaver later that day.
“Growing the dwarf a new hand?” she repeats, a titch incredulous. “You cannot be serious.”
“And why not?” you ask.
She gestures around at the quarters which have been assigned to her—and to the distinct lack of laboratory therein.
“I have no equipment, no materials… I’m trapped in here with the likes of you, Oh Meatheaded One, and apart from my much MORE important experiments back at our main base of operations.”
“Surely between the two of us, and with the living and dead here, we could accomplish SOMETHING better than what he presently has?”
“Why do you CARE?” the Novice asks pointedly. “It is just a dwarf, after all, and his fingers aren’t necessary to sing.”
“He showed courage in battle, and it is important that the dwarves see that there are rewards for compliance.”
The Novice huff haughtily, but eventually concedes that such a thing is possible, potentially.
