plans together."
Hralien nodded and followed Bruenor through the winding tunnels and to the lower floors, and a small candlelit room where Regis and Nanfoodle were hard at work. Parchment had been spread over several tables, held in place by paperweights. The aroma of lavender permeated the room, a side-effect from Nanfoodle's preservation potions that had been carefully applied to each of the ancient writings, and to the tapestry, which had been hung on one wall. Most of its image remained obscured, but parts of it had been revealed. That vision made Bruenor cringe, for the orcs and dwarves visible in the drawing were not meeting in battle or even in parlay. They were together, intermingled, going about their daily business.
Regis, who sat off to the side transcribing some text, greeted the pair as they entered, but Nanfoodle didn't even turn around, hunched as he was over a parchment, his face pressed close to the cracked and faded page.
"Ye're not looking so tired, Rumblebelly," Bruenor greeted accusingly.
"I'm watching a lost world open before my eyes," he replied. "I'm sure that I will fall down soon enough, but not now."
Bruenor nodded. "Then ye're saying that the night showed ye more o' the old town," he said.
"Now that we have broken the code of the language, the pace improves greatly," said Nanfoodle, never turning from the parchment he was studying. "You retrieved some interesting texts on your journey."
Bruenor stared at him for a few heartbeats, expecting him to elaborate, but soon realized that the gnome was fully engulfed by his work once more. The dwarf turned to Regis instead.
"The town was mostly dwarves at first," Regis explained. He hopped up from his chair and moved to one of the many side tables, glanced at the parchment spread there, and moved along to the next in line. "This one," he explained, "talks about how the orcs were growing more numerous. They were coming in from all around, but most of the dwarven ties remained to places like Gauntlgrym, which was of course belowground and more appealing to a dwarf's sensibilities."
"So it was an unusual community?" Hralien asked.
Regis shrugged, for he couldn't be certain.
Bruenor looked to Hralien and nodded smugly in apparent vindication, and certainly the elf and the halfling understood that Bruenor did not want his history intertwined with that of the foul orcs!
"But it was a lasting arrangement," Nanfoodle intervened, finally looking up from the parchment. "Two centuries at least."
"Until the orcs betrayed me ancestors," Bruenor insisted.
"Until something obliterated the town, melting the permafrost and dropping the whole of it underground in a sudden and singular catastrophe," Nanfoodle corrected. "And not one of orc making. Look at the tapestry on the wall - it remained in place after the fall of Baffenburg, and certainly it would have been removed if that downfall had been precipitated by one side or the other. I don't believe that there were 'sides,' my king."
"And how're ye knowing that?" Bruenor demanded. "That scroll tellin' ye that?"
"There is no indication of treachery on the part of the orcs - at least not near the end of the arrangement," the gnome explained, hopping down from his bench and moving to yet another parchment across from the table where Regis stood. "And the tapestry...Early on, there were problems. A single orc chieftain held the orcs in place beside the dwarves. He was murdered."
"By the dwarves?" Hralien asked.
"By his own," said Nanfoodle, moving to another parchment. "And a time of unrest ensued."
"Seemin' to me that the whole time was a time of unrest," Bruenor said with a snort. "Ye can't be living with damned orcs!"
"Off and on unrest, from what I can discern," Nanfoodle agreed. "And it seemed to get better through the years, not worse."
"Until the orcs brought an end to it," Bruenor grumbled. "Suddenly, and with orc treachery."
"I do not believe..." Nanfoodle started to reply.
"But ye're guessin', and not a thing more," said Bruenor. "Ye just admitted that ye don't know what brought the end."
"Every indication - "
"Bah! But ye're guessing."
Nanfoodle conceded the point with a bow. "I would very much like to go to this city and build a workshop there, in the library. You have uncovered something fascinating, King Bru - "
"When the time's for it," Bruenor interrupted. "Right now I'm seeing the call of them words. Get rid of Obould and the orcs'll fall apart, as we were expecting from the start. This is our battle call, gnome. This is why Moradin sent me back here and