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The general dwarven populace was confused about the Forge’s kill of the previous night. “Why did they kill him? Why one of their own?”
“Don’t you know?” a small voice asked. They turned. It was a young dwarf woman. She looked at each of them carefully before continuing. “One of them was a traitor to their fellowship. He had been amongst them for some time now, and he was the one giving away their secrets. That is why you were able to find and kill some so easily the past couple evenings. I thought you knew.”
“Haha!” they cried, their eyes gleaming. “Then if this was their traitor, who are the ones he suspected, quick, who knows?”
They spent hours discussing the likely dwarves. But again, the dwarf woman said.
“He wasn’t their traitor. It was somebody else.”
“We cannot be certain,” a dwarf said, sharply. “You shouldn’t speak so.”
The girl’s eyes glimmered. “I don’t speak so unwittingly. I know what it is I say. That dead dwarf there,” she pointed to the body still lying untouched due to the heat of their argument, “is not the King’s messenger, who has infiltrated their fellowship.”
“Here are our last two Forge members!” someone shouted. There was a scuffling and scraping, and two dwarves were dragged forward. Their shirts had been torn and their shoulders exposed, and the brand clear to see to all. The sight infuriated the crowd, and they began to chant:
“Kill them! Kill them! Kill them both!”
“Let us hang them from the highest tree!” “Burn them in their own forge!” “Kill them!”
Like a mighty river, the two dwarves were swept away by the others, pushed and shoved and dragged to the place of their death. Pushing through the mob, but ever behind her goal, came the dwarf woman who had spoken up, trying to gain someone’s attention, anyone –
“No! You can’t kill them both. I know who it is! You cannot kill him with the guilty one!”
To the mighty oak that stood at their town square they went. Someone brought rope and in a matter of minutes they had made their nooses and thrown the ropes up over two strong limbs. Many hands reached out to help heave them up, suspending their kicking feet in the air.
The dwarf woman drew near, staring up at one of them, and then she turned to the crowd and said, her voice shaking with emotion and rebuke,
“You have killed the dwarf the King sent to save us. And he has saved us. This is how you thank him and King Dáin.”
Village Dwarves win. The Valley Forge is defeated. The King's Dwarf completed his mission, but died while doing so.
Alive
Sally
Inzil
Boro
Eruhen
Finduilas
McCaber
the Phantom
Mithalwen
Dead
Folwren - Moddess
Bom - Member of the Valley Forge
Wilwa - Night Watchdwarf
Glirdan - Ordo
Gal55 - Member of the Valley Forge
Rikae - Member of the Valley Forge
Nerwen - Member of the Valley Forge
Pitchwife - Member of the Valley Forge and the King's Dwarf
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