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Message: <blockquote data-quote="arwink" data-source="post: 1179623" data-attributes="member: 2292">The dwarven patrol escorts the group to Thorbeck with minimal incidents.  Most of the dwarves stay away from the group of foreign humanoids, keeping a respectful distance unless otherwise ordered, and only Ogath makes any effort to communicate.  He makes use of a tongues spell to speak with the group for a few hours every day, and answer as many questions as possible the group has about his home city.  They learn that Thorbeck is a small dwarven city of roughly eight thousand residents, many of them belonging to one of the three dominant clans.  The city primarily mines iron, silver and Mithril, and has minimal contact with the surface world.  A rigid hierarchy of Thanes leads the city, starting with the Stone Thane (chosen by the dwarven gods), with clan thanes and religious leaders making up the bulk of his council.  From what Ogath says, the dwarves of Thorbeck have a particularly strong relationship with the spirits of earth and stone – certainly stronger than any Halgo has heard of among his Dwarven brethren.  It’s eventually theorized that the Thorbeck dwarves may belong to the same racial stock as the empires Bloodstone Dwarves – a race with stronger connections to stone magic and technology than common dwarves.  Certainly Thorbeck sounds as though it’s rich in magic and psionic lore, with Ogath explaining that his order have learned the art of casting spells using shields as a focus while there are other schools devoted to the arts of arcane weapon crafting and lore gathering.  Halgo, used to being shunned or doubted by his own kind for his interest in magic, is understandably curious about how this comes about.  Numerous questions are asked, but Ogath remains guarded on the details.It isn’t until the second day that Yip suddenly gathers his three companions together and points out something disturbing.“Yip not hurt,” he says quietly.“Me either,” Halgo says.  “None of us are?  So what?”“Yip should be hurt,” the kobold explains.  “Much healing, but Yip hurt bad.  Dead almost.”He raises the hem of his tunic, pointing at a space where he’d been speared by a gnollish blade.  Where there should have been the cleaned and bandaged cut, there is smooth scales.“No hurt, no scar.  Yip healed while moving.”“Everyone heals naturally,” Halgo says.  “We just aren’t used to it because we’ve been hanging around with Geoffrey for so long.  Magic healing is faster and…”He pauses when he sees the expression on Geoffrey’s face.“He might be right,” Geoffrey says.  “I mean, look at Gunnar.  He’s still limping from where he caught that arrow, despite two days of healing.  Blarth almost had his insides spilled over the tower floor, and he’s walking around fine.  We’re healing faster than we should, I think.”“Blarth have healing factor?” Blarth says happily.  He pulls a mean face and swings his sword experimentally.  “Blarth really not puny.  Don't mess with Blarth.”Everyone looks at him like he's taken leave of his senses, and Halgo quietly nudges him."The dwarves are looking," he mutters.  "Put the sword away.  Dwarves don't like Half-orcs at the best of times..."Blarth blinks a few times, as though this is news to him, but grudgingly slides his blade back into its sheath with a satisfying snikt.“I still don’t think it’s a big deal,” Halgo says.  “But I’ll test it.”He makes a narrow incision on the back of his hand with a dagger.“How long should that take to heal?”“A day, maybe two,” Geoffrey says carefully.  “Faster if we dress it.”“Then leave it be, and we’ll see how long it takes.”It takes until just after dinner.  Everyone crowds around, looking at the smooth skin on the back of Halgo’s hand.  Yip wouldn't dare verbalise his emotions to his superior, but the kobolds expression clearly reads "I told you so."“Okay, we’re healing faster,” Halgo says.  “Do we really want to worry about that, or should we put it on the to do list of things we don’t understand?”</blockquote>

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