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Message: <blockquote data-quote="arwink" data-source="post: 1321483" data-attributes="member: 2292">“Why do they always have to give us stuff we can’t sell,” Geoffrey grumbles.  He turns the burnished helm over in his hands, examining the workmanship that has gone into it.  “Because it’s a gift,” Halgo says blandly.  “Not a reward.  There’s a fine difference between the two.”“Yeah, but a helmet made of copper?  It’s not like we can actually wear them.”“I don’t think it’s actually copper,” Halgo says.  “The metal’s to hard, and the colour is slightly off.”“Mithril and adamantine alloy,” Amarin says eagerly.  “I heard one of the smiths talking about it at the party.”“Just as hard as normal steel then,” Halgo tells Geoffrey.  “Good, solid dwarf work, fresh from the king’s forges.  What more do you want?”“Gold,” Geoffrey says.  “Spell-forged armour.  A small keep to call my own.”“You’re never satisfied, are you?” Halgo asks, eyeing the bulky suit of fine full plate that Blarth and Geoffrey both commissioned as their prize for winning the Bhal’Meral tourney.  “The better the equipment, the greater service I can be to my god,” Geoffrey says piously.  He takes a pose of resigned nobility and spurs his horse forward.  Halgo and Amarin, sitting on a merchant’s wagon as it rattles along the road, watch him go.  The merchant caravan is small, little more than three wagons and a half-dozen guards, but it was the first human contact to be made with Thorbeck since the trade treaty was hammered out over the festival, and the Copperheads were eager to catch a ride home.  “Is he always like this?” Amarin asks.“Sometime’s he’s worse,” Halgo says.  “Wait until you see why we’re going to leave the trail tomorrow.“Why would we leave the caravan?” Amarin’s tone is surprised, and full of curiosity.  “I mean, the Reldenfolk are fascinating in their own way.  Sven over there has told me a dozen stories about his homeland that I simply have to verify one day.  Surely it’ll be safer to stay…”Halgo cuts him off.“You’ll see.”The group parts company with the caravan around noon the next day, shunning the overland route in favour of trekking along the river.  It’s early autumn, the air starting to fill with the slight bite of winter, but the fast-flowing river cuts an easy path through the thick redwood forest.“Hope troll not down here,” Yip comments as they follow the banks.  “Not want to fight again.”Amarin’s eyes shine as he hears.“A troll?  Here?  I thought they were only native to the northern swamps.  Well, I guess they’d be the southern swamps to you people, what with you all being northerners.  What kind of troll was it?  Was it big?”“Can somebody shut him up?” Geoffrey asks from the front of the column.  Nobody answers Amarin’s questions, which seems to do the trick.  The young scholar sinks into silence, contenting himself with conversing with the small crystal he carries in one hand.“Hey, boss, check this out – that tree looks kind of like a sword,” the crystal explains, forcing its observations directly into Amarin’s brain.“Wow,” Amarin thinks back.  “It does to.”“And in the dirt around that tree – I bet those are badger tracks,” the crystal says.  “Maybe we should tell Halgo?  He’s always carrying a badger around in that cage he made, trying to keep it out of danger?”“Maybe,” Amarin says.Then both the crystal and its master see the sight at the same time, and think the same thought in unison.“Oh look, a battle-axe tree.”Amarin pauses, mentally running through his notes on botany and nature.  As far as he can remember, there shouldn’t be a tree that grows battle-axes.  Actually, wait, no, there were elven communities that do that, but they sing to the wood.  And they don’t normally make battleaxes.  Especially made out of metal.  It’s strange.  Definitely strange.He wonders if he should mention it to somebody.“Yip, Blarth, up the tree,” Geoffrey orders.  Both follow without delay, clambering up the smooth trunk and throwing metal axes to the forest floor below.“We’re harvesting the Battleaxes?” Amarin asks.“Geoffrey stored them here,” Halgo explains.  “Killed a bunch of gnolls near here, and he thought the weapons and armour could be worth some coins when the mission was over.  So now its over, and the weapons have to be taken back to town.”“And you make money doing this?” Amarin asks.  He looks confused.“A little,” Halgo says.  “Although it’s debatable whether it’s worth enough to justify the effort.  Geoffrey just has something approaching a mania.”“Really?” Amarin says, suddenly perking up.  “Do you think I should try doing something about it?  I mean, in theory I should be good at manias, with the psychic surgery I mean.  Not that I can actually do that yet – no-where near powerful enough, but I’m good at laying the groundwork.”“Perhaps not,” Halgo says. Amarin opens his mouth to say something else, but he catches the strange look on the dwarf’s face and stops without speaking.</blockquote>

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