"Same maps?"
"Western tunnels—mostly unused."
"Where is he now?"
"Last I saw was him moving down those same tunnels," Miccarl explained. "I'm thinking that he's thinking he's found something there."
"And what might be there?"
"Nothing that I'm knowing, nor that anyone else's knowing. Them tunnels been mostly sealed for a few hunnerd years, unless them duergar that took the hall with the dragon opened them—and none who've been down that way since our return ever found anything."
"Then what? A way out—a way to bring an army from Mirabar in?" Regis asked. "Orc that could be stolen for Mirabar's forges?"
"Nothing there—not even good orc," Miccarl answered. "Never was nothing there but shale and coal for the forges. If the little one's come all the way to find a source for that, then he's a bigger fool than ye know, for there's not much worth in the stuff and Mirabar's already got more than she'd ever need."
"Tunnels to Mirabar?"
Miccarl snorted and said, "We got enough already known. We could get far west of here in a day's time and be aboveground beyond the reach of our enemies and well on our way to Mirabar. The little one's got to know that."
"Then what?" Regis asked again, but quietly, and more to himself than to the dwarf.
What might Nanfoodle be doing? As he pondered the possibilities, the half-ling's hand instinctively went up to the chain around his neck.
"Find Nanfoodle and bid him join me," Regis instructed the dwarf.
"Aye," Miccarl readily agreed. "Ye wanting me to drag him or knock him black and carry him?"
"I'm wanting you to coerce him," Regis replied. "Tell him that I have some news for Mirabar and need his advice forthwith."
"Not as much fun," Miccarl muttered, and he left.
A procession of informants followed the departure of the blacksmith, with news from the east and news from the west, with reports about the fighting outside and from the progress in securing and scouting the tunnels. Regis took it all in, paying strict attention, weighing all the possibilities, and mostly, formulating a line of questions for his dwarf advisors. He recognized that he was more the synthesizer of information than the decision maker, though he found that his advice was carrying more and more weight as the dwarves came to trust his judgment.
That pleased him and frightened him all at the same time.
His dinner was delivered to him in the same room, coming in alongside yet another messenger, one reporting that the expedition of fifty dwarves had set off for the south with Galen Firth.
Regis invited the dwarf to join him, or started to, but then Miccarl Ironforge appeared at the door.
"More work," Regis explained to the first messenger.
The halfling gave an apologetic shrug and motioned to the plates of food set on the small table between the chairs.
"Yup," replied the dwarf, and he stepped over, piled a few pounds of meat on a plate and filled the largest flagon to its tip with mead.
He gave a nod to Regis, which sent some mead spilling over the front of the flagon, then took his leave.
In walked Miccarl and Nanfoodle.
"Got work to do," the sooty blacksmith explained, and after moving over to similarly outfit himself with meat and mead for the trek back to the Under-city, he too took his leave.
"Sit and eat and drink," Regis offered to the gnome.
"They left little," Nanfoodle remarked with a grin, but even as he spoke the words, a pair of dwarves entered with refills of both food and drink.
Both the halfling and the gnome, not to be outdone by any dwarf, began their long, hearty meal.
"I am told you have news of Mirabar, or for Mirabar," Nanfoodle said between gulps of the golden liquid. "Master Ironforge was not explicit."
"I have a request for Mirabar," Regis explained between bites. "You understand the weight of our present dilemma, I hope."
"Many monsters, yes," Nanfoodle replied, and he took another bite of lamb and another gulp of mead.
"More than you know," Regis replied. "Pressing all the region. No doubt word has already reached your marchion from besieged, and perhaps already overrun, Nesmй. I know not how long we might hold any presence on the surface, and so Mirabar must mobilize her forces."
"For the good of Mithral Hall?" asked the gnome.
So surprised was he that a bit of mead fell out of his mouth as he blurted the words. He quickly dabbed it up with his napkin and took another big swallow.
"For the good of Mirabar," Regis corrected. "Are we to assume that these monsters will end their march here?"
It seemed to him that the gnome was growing a bit more concerned, and in his nervousness, Nanfoodle seemed to be taking more and more drink and less and less food. That was good, Regis thought, and so he kept the conversation going for some time, detailing the fall of the eastern gate and the fears that the trolls of the south had joined with the orcs and giants from the north, or perhaps that the groups had been working in concert all along. He spared no detail at all, drawing out the conversation for as long as possible, and letting Nanfoodle drink more and more mead.
At one point, when the servers arrived with even more food and drink, Regis called one over and whispered into his ear, "Cut the next bit of drink with Gut-buster." The halfling glanced at the gnome, trying to get a measure of his present sensibilities. "Twenty-to-one mead," he explained to the server, not wanting to knock the poor gnome unconscious.
An hour later, Regis was still talking, and Nanfoodle was still drinking.
"But you and your sceptrana claim that you came here to check on Torgar and to strengthen the bond between our towns," Regis said suddenly, and with increased volume. He had been steering the conversation that way for a bit, moving away from the particulars of the monsters and the fighting and toward the issue of relations between Mirabar and Mithral Hall. "That is true, is it not?"
Nanfoodle's eyes opened wide—or at least, as wide as the somewhat inebriated gnome could open them.
"W-well… yes," Nanfoodle sputtered. "That is why we came here, after all."
"Indeed," said Regis.
He shifted forward in his chair, leaning near to Nanfoodle. He fished his necklace out of the front of his vest and fiddled with the ruby pendant, sending it into a little spin.
"Well, we all want that, of course," the halfling said, and he noted that Nanfoodle had glanced at the ruby and up, and again at the ruby. "Better relations, I mean."
"Yes, yes, of course," said the gnome, his eyes more and more focused on the tantalizing spin of the enchanted ruby pendant.
Regis would never have tried it on the gnome normally. Nanfoodle was a brilliant alchemist, so Torgar and Shingles McRuff had told him, and also was known to dabble in illusionary magic. Add to that obvious intelligence the natural resistance of a gnome to such enchantments as the ruby might cast, and the pendant would never have been effective.
But Nanfoodle was drunk.
He didn't even turn his eyes from the pendant anymore, obviously mesmerized by its continuing sparkling and spinning.
"And do you seek those relations in the westernmost tunnels of Mithral Hall?" Regis asked casually.
"Eh?" Nanfoodle remarked.
"You were there, were you not?" Regis pressed, but quietly so, not wanting his suspicions to break the charm. "In the western tunnels, I mean. You have been going there quite a bit, from what I hear. The dwarves find that curious, even amusing, for there is nothing down there … or is there?"
"Sealed tunnels, pitch-washed," Nanfoodle answered absently.
"Then what importance might they offer to your mission in coming all this way?" the halfling asked. "Since you came to check on Torgar, did you not? And to better the relationship between Mirabar and Mithral Hall?