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Tumunzahar makes Menegroth look like a contract project. Which, the Dwarves assure her, it was. The stonework is astonishingly careful and beautiful, silky to the touch up close while from a distance it gives the impression of stretching on forever above, a sky of stone with crystals for stars. Vast natural cave systems are connected by dozens of perfectly smooth, gently sloped broad stone pathways from which the fall, if she fell, would be several miles down. There are handrails. "We use those to move materials carts," someone explains to her, "we're not going to be reckless."
There's an amphitheater, a place where a hundred of the stone walkways twine around to create space for a hundred thousand people to sit in close proximity, and someone is giving a lecture or a demonstration at the base of it, the seats closest to him filled with eager, tiny, bearded Dwarf-children.
And they spiral down, and down, and down, past waterfalls and egg-sized gemstones left half in the rock and halls of crystal. Everything grows gradually more ornate and more perfectly maintained and the clang of hammers fades behind them. "People say," her guide says, "that we only have a council instead of a single King because there were nine winners of the competition to design the throne so we couldn't just select one person to sit it." And they push open the doors to reveal, indeed, nine thrones so elaborate it would be hard to choose between them, and nine squat bearded people sitting them.
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purposeful_glory
I can't take passengers yet. I wonder if I should add that next instead of gunning straight for interdimensionality.
It has a lot of applications. How long do you think passengers would take?
purposeful_glory
Eennh - if I flung myself at it like I was working on tactical personal - I could maybe hack together allowing living 'cargo' and then I could carry a small number of birds in two, three years - substantial numbers of person shaped people five to eight - and I would normally not work that fast, although I can sustain it if I ought to.
I don't think the Enemy's going to be able to change gears nearly that fast.
purposeful_glory
There are some advantages to fighting a war populated by slow people.
Another smile. When you get back to your world they're not going to know what hit them.
Nor are our relatives across the sea, for that matter. They're going to be like "last holiday season Fëanor was forging swords to fight Melkor and now the gods are dead and the stars are other worlds to go travel to."
purposeful_glory
No, the stars are fake. The Valar were on a deadline to have Quendi wake up under starlight and hadn't figured out real stars so they slapped pretend ones up there. The planet is also not supposed to be cylindrical!
But there are real stars, right?
purposeful_glory
Yeah, you've just never seen 'em. These ones look convincing to me, they're probably even good enough facsimiles to your eyes, I wouldn't have known if Melian hadn't said.
He shakes his head. Have you told Fëanor that? It's the sort of thing that would delight him.
Congratulations, Loki.
Sauron's going to be a puddle soon enough.
purposeful_glory
Maybe an ice sculpture. Maybe I'll hit him hard enough he won't even melt.
He sends amusing mental Sauron-images.
How is my uncle doing on his time-sensitive project?
Well, now we can hold out for a while.
purposeful_glory
How are you liking the camp? Did you find it suitably un-booby-trapped?
The parts of Maitimo that are there are sincere. I didn't expect it to be booby-trapped. And yes, it's nice, would have taken us a while. The generator we wouldn't have thought of.
purposeful_glory
They went from a crappy half-remembered paragraph about electricity to a lightbulb in three days, it was amazing.