Corandrel's letter

Dearest Father,

I hope this letter finds you well. I met up with our caravan along the King's Highway before departing for the northern hills. Thank you for the coin, it will last me a while. I've finally arrived at Gawold and intend to send word back to you through the brand new royal post office here.

Oh Father, how wondrous is this country of ours! Every time I visit a new place, I am greeted by new smells and sights and by colourful people with stories and customs and legends I've never heard of before. The marks of war are no longer visible in most of Doriande, as our people have rebuilt everything with such persistence and courage. Only the occasional monument and mass graveyard stand as witnesses to what happened a few decades ago.

Did you know that there are even graveyards honoring the fallen soldiers of the enemy? Our people have such grace, that they did not bury them in unmarked graves, as they deserved, or even cast them into the Ivaris to wash away their filth and the anguish they brought upon us. Had Grandfather survived the war, I do not know how he would feel about this.

My mentioning him is hardly aleatory. I have been thinking of Grandfather lately, after an encounter I had a few days ago, with a dwarf that has sparked in me new excitement and inspiration. As you know, I don't just roam the Kingdom, drinking, merry-making and lollygagging; I try to make you proud by exploring opportunities to expand our enterprise. For that very reason, I find myself here in this remote location. This is where the bulk of the ore supply is mined and processed, a veritable rough gem, waiting to capture the keen eye of the proper jeweler. And the workhorse of this field is the tight-knit dwarven community living in the area, those who brought the knowledge, the Noor, with them from their home.

In my endeavor, I managed to arrange a guided tour of the mines and forges, to inspect the operation and evaluate how a partnership could be formed. My guide, Master Mirik, was quite a helpful, bubbly fellow, who treated me with tea and biscuits and many dwarven jokes that I struggled to understand. After warning me about the dangers of underground cave work and urging me to stay away from sniffleshrooms, we entered the shaft and wandered the mines together. You would imagine that their overall smaller stature would allow Dwarves to dig narrower tunnels, which would expedite their work but make my traversing them a hard labor, like a hound forced to bear a stallion. Alas, the dwarves are all about grandeur: tall ceilings, supported by ornate, permanent fixtures, wide corridors that can fit an entire squad, stone slabs paving the cave floor to prevent carts from miring in the mud, and even food and drink stalls for the miners. I feared that the air would be stale down here, but they seem to have found ways to cycle it through clever architecture.

Of course, as we went deeper to find the active veins, some newer pathways were a lot more like what I expected, but it seems that as the dwarves move deeper into the mountain, they build their way through it, in a manner that would resemble a modern city street. I was very curious about this, so I asked Master Mirik, who responded that it is natural to them, as their ancestors came from the ground and then later built an entire city inside Mount Rolfgar. I pressed the issue as I didn't see the value in expending so much energy and time to building an underground city just for mining purposes. All of this work could produce much more coin, if it went straight to ore extraction. He looked at me puzzled all the same. It seemed that we didn't understand each other, so he tried to convey the importance of their ways to me, as if I was an uncultured primitive, not directly demeaning me, but speaking in a fashion that made me feel that he viewed me as if I were an individual of infantile intelligence.

“For us,” he said, “shaping our mines in this manner is of great importance. Moles dig holes, as do dwarves. But we are no moles; indeed, we are not animals at all. We were born by the will of Svargan and imbued with the wisdom of Pnûrakhal, and we awakened into this world already civilized enough to know the difference. Thus we cannot spend our lives burrowing in filth as swine root for truffles. We require the decency afforded to any people above the ground: clean air, food and water, surroundings worthy of our legacy. No true dwarf would work otherwise, not even with a dagger at their throat.”

At first I was really offended by his changed demeanor, but soon I realized I was the offending party. I made quick apologies to my guide, and urged him to tell me more of their culture, to show him that I was really open to being humbled by his superior culture, in an attempt to save face with the prospective partners.

As we continued through the labyrinth of alleys and roundabouts, passing by various dwarves striking stone with their pickaxes, pushing full carts uphill or placing supports, Mirik's story was unfolding before me: "You know, Master Corandrel, we dwarves are very capable in this trade, because we have been at it for thousands of cycles. The Dorians have finally managed to become a country sixty years ago..."
"Sixty three, actually", I interrupted.

"...Sixty three years ago, but they built upon our Pnûr. Because, as I am sure a learned fellow like you definitely knows, we built a kingdom one and a half millennia ago. And though much of its territory lay above ground, its halls and forts and palaces were deep within the Navel of the World. For we were able to build such wonders so far back in the past, that would make this here mine look like an anthill in comparison. The halls of King Baen must have been taller than the hills upon which Gawold is built. We sprouted from the mountain and so we never truly left it. Instead, we made it our home, our bastion, the teat that fed our insatiable hunger for metalworking.

You see, the Rolfgari excelled in agriculture and other arts as well under Baen, but none of that would have been possible without stonemasonry and smithing. The plows, the mills, the granaries were what gave us the edge to feed our people year-round. And those were products of our ability to mine and process ore. The gift of our god to us.
An entire city underground. Can you imagine? All those people, living, breathing, feasting, singing, dancing, loving, birthing in the heart of the mountain, its carved ceiling echoing the sounds of an ancient civilization! Not ancient as in barbaric let me tell you. The halls were adorned with all manner of luxury: statues made of gold with emerald eyes, pure-white marble columns carved by the most skilled masons, fountains made of bronze or silver... To enter the city was to behold a wonder like no other."

I asked how he could be sure that all of this was true and not simply the fairytales told by his forefathers, as ours surely did the same. For the dwarves' "Heinous One" and the "Terror" said to have chased the early Dorians south, as the local legends say, sound to me like little more than poppycock, things that archaic minds invented to frighten children into eating their porridge. He glanced at me once more, measuring me top to bottom as if I had just ordered him a full set of plate armor.

He then asked me my true intention there, and I presented him with my ingenious plan for partnership. I told him of our merchant enterprise and how it could provide the funds necessary to upgrade their operation. Of our business acumen and the synergy such a deal would enable, so that they didn't produce blindly, but based on premade arrangements, worked out by the customer-facing part of our partnership - our family.

He then bade me follow him farther still. The air at last smelled different, musky, like in a wine cellar. Although the dwarves are known to be able to see in the dark, even this part, which was obviously not an active part of the mine shaft, was very well lit with lanterns. It was also clean and tidy. I saw lots of stone slabs, all facing the same way. They had names carved on them and the same symbol: An axe and pick crossed on top of an embossed mountain, surrounded by many helmets.

"Therein lies my Grandfather", Master Mirik broke the silence. "He was the one that told me the story of my people, when he gave me this". He took out an amulet from his vest and showed it to me. You wouldn't believe this unless you saw it. It was a fingertip, the size of an apple, made entirely out of pure gold! The dwarf told me that this amulet had been passed down Grandfather to grandson for generations, and that almost fifteen generations ago, his ancestor brought it all the way from Rolfgar, as a keepsake of what once was.

"When the orcs came and woke the Heinous One, my kin stood their ground and fought valiantly to defend their home, their kingdom. But when it was obvious that we couldn't win the fight, we did what was necessary to survive.

We fled, not out of cowardice, but out of bravery. We scattered into the unknown, leaving our home with all its riches behind, only carrying with us the wisdom to start anew, but also keep our heads bowed this time. To remember our moment of glory, but survive in humility.

This is the reason why we never demanded our own territory here. My kin, my ancestors taught your ancestors how to trade, so that you can come here today and make such an offer to us. A deal which would have you own our mine, our labor, our Grandfathers' graves."

He then told me that there would be no such agreement. He did make a counterproposal of practical sense though: that our house might secure steady supply at favorable terms, should we commit to volumes befitting our station.

"It is survival", he insisted, "that is the truest wealth".

Do with this deal what you wish father. I gave him no definitive answer, but told him he should expect a letter of yours soon. I see no point in remaining here any longer, as if this deal goes through, I won't hold any office in this business, despite my intention. Therefore, I shall depart again to continue broadening my horizons.

My mind is set on something else already anyway. That golden fingertip, the statue it was ripped from. All of this wealth, of both gold and knowledge, is still waiting in Rolfgar for someone to gloriously claim! Someone who will be sung and praised, and whose name shall remain spoken and read for centuries to come.

I think I've found my true purpose Father. I am so excited that I could burst any moment.
I'll write to you again soon, when I reach Waygate.

Your devoted son,
Corandrel