Got an Axe to Grind?

[Lirimaer]

The Dwarves cannot be said to be lazy, for they are always making and doing ... but when a thing works too slowly for their liking, they invent, they improve, they innovate! Thus, in the heart of Khazad-dûm, some enterprising spark in the mists of time had decided that sharpening axes by hand was too much like hard work and invented a machine which did the job with wondrous efficiency, sharpening so much more efficiently than the old hand tools, and even outstripping the speed of the old stone wheels still used in so many of the Mannish towns.

Thus the old sharpening wheel was forgotten, gathering dust in one of the defunct mine shaft passages until one day another entrepreneur got tasked to tidy up the old place. Finding himself grumbling about enormity of his task, he'd taken it out on his axe with the grinding stone, and the physically taxing work was so delightfully cathartic in channelling his anger, he decided to come back again the next time he got a little ... peeved. Of course, eventually others got to hear of this panacea, and started using it too. Evidently the Dwarves have a lot of inner rage, because it's rarely out of use.
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Have you got an axe to grind?

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So now there are any number of different sanding stones, in addition to the central wheel. There are trays of different grades of sand and grit which had been piling up, so now they're organised into a massive wall cabinet. There is a trickle of a stream in one corner of this cavern, with a bucket, so if you need water, it's available. The room's even now acquired a small keg of beer which gets replaced mysteriously whenever it gets dangerously low. Just bring your own tankard!

This is a rolling activity, in which you need to respond to the person above you.

How to get involved

• Any Dwarf (or NPC Dwarf) can come and complain about something, anything, nothing ...

• The next RPer needs to come along and respond: sympathise, solve, give advice or tell them to 'Dwarf up' before giving their own problem.

• Be creative

• And if anyone wants to actually sharpen their axe while they're here ... there is a grindstone!

[Lirimaer]

Dwalfur Ironbeard (Balfur's cousin)

Dwalfur stomped into the axe grinding room, his heavy eyebrows so low over his face he appeared to be all facial hair. He dropped his outdoor cloak on the floor next to the grinding wheel and sat down, axe in hand. With his foot on the pedal, spinning the wheel, he bent his head and began muttering viciously as the metal sang high against the stone.

"Not getting my tasks finished on time!" he growled, pressing forward into the stone and making it whine. "Spending too much time overthinking the work. Not focusing on the team goals." He snorted. Actually, he'd been working hard to get the tasks finished at all, and being a perfectionist, wanted the finished products to be quality. All right, so he wasn't particularly team-oriented, but give him an orc army to fight and you'd see him pull more than his weight then! Overseers. What did they know?

"It's not even just me," he grumbled into the movement, admiring the way sparks flew in the dark as he finished up and tested the blade. It nicked his finger. He licked the welling blood. "The dvunklug bullied even the apprentices today. $*%&^#@!"

Dwalfur espied someone in the doorway and got up from the grindstone with a gesture of greeting. He wasn't sure how much they'd heard of his ranting, but he wasn't going just yet. He set his tankard under the drum and turned the tap, angling the cup so he didn't too much of a head, then he sat down on one of the stools in the dim light and watched the newcomer as he wet his whistle.

[Androthelm]

Sveru Goldhand, Irate Jeweller

"Hmph!" grunted Sveru appreciatively, standing in the doorway and watching the blood trickle down Dwalfur's fingertip. "That's a fine axe, friend. Overthinking? You seem more like the time to think the perfect amount, and sharpen your work to a fine fine point! But here--at least you can work!. Imagine being in my situation--" as he spoke, the copper-bearded dwarf settled onto the seat beside the grinding-stone "You're a master jeweler, one of the finest of the Erebor Jeweler's Guild. And I'm not just saying that--I won Cleanest Cut for four years running, before that gromnoz Halfan--" Sveru's dearly beloved half brother "--Came along with his new techniques and his proper inlays. Hmph! And now I come out here--come out to Khazad-dum restored, the one place in the world I think maybe they'll appreciate a dwarf of my skill and what? WHAT! New ordinances? No deep-delving? And how am I meant to get a supply of jewels, if we're all so concerned about waking the nightmares which slumber beneath the mountain-root and keeping the peace of the dwarf-kingdoms, too oft destroyed by greed? HMPH!"

With a snap, Sveru whipped his axe off the wheel and slashed, cutting loose a dangling lock of his thick copper hair. "Perfect."

[Lirimaer]

Borin Feldspar, beard technician

Borin had heard the current occupant's loud grumbling even as he came down the tunnel at a run, and he snorted as he came into the chamber.

"You think the 'Don't Dig Too Deep' crew are bad, you should try listening to the lobbyists insisting that we don't disturb that thing in the water outside the west door! Still, you're a jeweller, why not go south with Gimli if you want a new challenge? I hear it's a rare treat to see the Glittering Caves. I might come with you actually"

Borin set his tankard under the keg and waited for it to fill. Not silently, though.

"Anyway, my problems are FAR worse than that! Today I was kissed! KISSED! By that old goat, Fordin, as I was dressing his beard! 'Thought I was a girl', indeed! Gah! Will this ale never wash away the taste of old Dwarf?"

Borin put away his pint at a rate rarely seen outside of Dwarf bars, and pulled himself another.

[KingODuckingham]

NPC Nali, Oracle

The old dwarf stomped into the hall as loudly as his frail old bones would allow. He groaned as he realized he had to wait a few minutes before stepping up--he could only take standing for so long. And he really needed that ale for medicinal purposes as well as just to get roaring drunk. It also had more, ah, mystical properties. Surely dwarves ought to show more respect to their elders and make way when the oldest needed a stout drink, eh?

Still, he listened. He was nearly a professional listener at this point anyway, since so many came seeking his wisdom. Truly, the travails of Borin were a travesty.

"Ach, young one, your life is hard indeed. I sympathize, if the same thing has happened to me once it's happened more times than I can count on my hands." he croaked when he heard Borin's story.

"That said," he groused, "when you've lived as long as I have, you have more than your share of troubles. Listen to my tale, youngins!" He went on and on from this point, in a ramble too long to be decent to write out, about the stairs of Dwarrowdelf he had to walk up both ways in order to get to and from Kagam school, the terrible rotting food he'd had to eat, the goblins he had fought and slain (but not as easily as he would like), the loves who had rejected him, and the unfair grades teachers had given him on his oracle exams.

"Plus, I have to live in the dark for my sensitive eyes most of the time now!" he thundered. He downed his drink, liquid spilling all through his white beard, staining it dark brown.

[Lirimaer]

Tiki Stonebridge

"Gor, stow it, guv'nor!" came the bright voice of young Tiki, scion of one of the Mojak families' houses. "At breakin of the fast you tol' the same tale, and before that you were at it again last night over that game o' Axe No Questions. You're losing your wits, old man!"

At the old Dwarf's look of outrage, Tiki ducked behind the stone wheel and got to grinding before he could be accused of trouble-making, again - or get an axe in his head, which was more likely.

"Now I've got a real issue," he told the world at large, having begun to grind his axe with a fair rhythm. "Mother wants me to learn to write, Father wants me to learn to fight, but I want to be a bard. I think I've got a good voice, and I'm pretty good at making up songs - here, this one came to me, once upon a dream,

'Hi ho, hi, ho, it's off to work we go.
We dig up diamonds by the score,
A thousand rubies - sometimes more,
We don't know what we dig them for,
We just dig dig dig-a-dig dig!'

What do you think?"

[KingODuckingham]

Glor Grindaxe

This fat dwarf bumbled in with a scowl on his face. He was dripping with sweat from having climbed the stairs and it had put him in a terrible mood. His thick curls spilled down into his beard, the whole construction swaying with him as he stumped forward and stuck his mouth under the spigot rather than grabbing a mug.

He took a very long pull, so long any non-dwarf would likely have drowned, or even drownded!

When he was done he wiped his face on his sleeve, then turned to Tiki Stonebridge and said,

"Gah, come of it you little punk. You want to be a bard? Ye best be listening to both your parents then, because bards have to know how to write AND to fight! You think being a minstrel is just caterwauling and twanging your fancy instrument? Go back to school and maybe you'll learn something different. Now me," he continued, "I got real troubles, I have. Every dwarf worth their mithril ought to have a decent axe, but mine is shattered, and the haft is broken. Blacksmith says it's unfixable, and I haven't got the savings to outright buy one, so I'm going to have to make me a new one from scratch! Do you have any idea the time and effort that's going to take me? When am I going to have a proper time to drink? When I ask?!"

[Drifa]

Drifa

Drifa looped her thumb through her mug handle and placed her hands on her hips. The mug hung like a miniature cannon by her side. Her axe was resting on her back. She was in a fit of bad temper after settling in to the Halls of the Ankixogs and discovering that the dust she had seen, was not just contained in the main entrance, but ALL over the Halls. She could not abide it and figured she would sharpen her axe and chop off someones head for leaving the Halls in such a state.

But upon entering the honing house, she witnessing something that blew the dust from her mind for a moment. Some Dwarf was sticking his (dirty?) mouth on the spigot. He was fat and sweaty. He was ranting and complaining. Drifa eyed him. The mouth on the spigot deal, was just as upsetting to her as the dust in the Halls. It fueled her frustrations. Hadn't this dwarf heard of germs??. She made her way over to the sweaty dwarf (Glor Grindaxe) and spreading her feet apart, hands on hips once more, she began to speak.

"Maybe if you moved about more and weren't so fat, you wouldn't sweat so much. What did you do, sit on your axe and shatter it? Your a Dwarf!! Axe making should be as easy for you as horse riding is to a horseman. Bah! " Drifa shook her head in disbelief and continued.

"Do you want to know what really takes time and effort? Well, I'll tell you what! Dusting!! Dusting is a never ever ending job. And if you don't keep up on it, it gathers everywhere. In every crack and cranny; in your beard, on your axe, in your boots, on your head and," throwing her hands up in exasperation she cried out, 'even in your ale!" Trying to calm herself, she breathed in deeply and out, then said.

"I have Halls to dust. Many many rooms. It will take weeks and weeks to remove it all. And then, it will come back. And who will help me fight it then? Who will help me win the war? Who I ask?

Drifa threw her hands up into the air one more time, then turned and headed for the honing stones. She had an axe to grind..

[Fuin Elda]

Mili Tumblestone

Mili was a rather small dwarf, her beard not even fully come in at this point, she was carrying a bundle full of axes that her brothers Bimble, Timble, Trawler, Tragor, Boren, and Bauth needed sharpening, and they were quite useless when it came to sharpening anything. She was getting ready to start on that when she heard Drifa a much older (to Mili at least) woman was complaining about dusting. DUSTING of all the things, honestly Mili wasn't quite sure what the issue was. Dusting was never a priority where she lived but then everything where she lived was honest to goodness grey to begin with so it wasn't like dust was easy to notice anyways.

"Have you tried not?" She offered meekly at first, "I mean the floor even here is grey, stone, shelves and walls and such are grey stone, If you're worried about getting your hands dirty get grey gloves then when ever you touch something it is partially dusted if not entirely and you don't see it to begin with, and then you only have to worry about the colourful things in the halls." She looked at Drifa for a moment her lips pinched together in a thin comical smile making her chin whiskers stick out slightly and then at her pile of axes. "I mean have you tried making sure a bunch of bumbling boys don't eat everything in the larder? Dust is honestly the least of my worries with six brothers that can't even sharpen their own axes." She waved a hand at the pile, two each some almost as big as Mili herself before grabbing one and getting to work at sharpening the pile.