Elbaic had never seen so much traffic! Didn't this require some sort of management? A flow system? Maybe some sign posts, ropes, little lights and dwarfs in tabards waving their arms around. So much possibility for expansion lay ahead of him if this popularity continued. In the midst of his entrepreneurial musings, the stinky dwarfette (Dis) and thrust a dark bottle under his nose, "Orcish whatszit, I forget what it's called. Burns like heck going down but you can run for days after a belt of this." she said, pressing it into his hand. Elbaic took it tentatively, as he wasn't sure how safe this orc stuff was and put it down gentle on the rock shelf behind him. He took a pause...and then picked it up and moved it another couple of metres further away. "Yer...offering is received." He grunt, "Now you receive a clue. And then you can give me yer name, and the correct answer and then I might let you inside for a bath. Which is apparently what you most need". Again, he dipped into his cloak and pulled out some parchment upon which was scrawled (Dis clue: On what day does the secret door to Erebor appear?).
His attention was then snatched by another bribe entering his circle of awareness. Elbaic had a bit of bride radar - he could sense good ones coming. This was not one of those moments. He peered, mystified, at the green, delicately leafed hand (Oak) which held the bottle and looked up in the serious and deep eyes of a Huorn. He gaped. He stared. He eventually found his voice, and coughed. " Yer can't buy passage. Tha's against rules. But you can buy a clue." This bottle went on the opposite end of the shelf from the first (because who needs that potential mix up) and he dug for another piece of parchment, one appropriate for such a visitor, and pressed it into the oaken hand, it read (Oakie clue: How were Ents created?).
Elbaic returned to Oro, who was stroking his beard in his thoughtful fashion. "Aye Oro" he said, reaching to shake the dwarf by the hand, "The Arkenstone indeed, the Heart of the Mountain, the light of all dwarf kind, buried beneath Erebor. So now" he gestured behind him, where the huge doors of Moria were stamped into the rock,"you can - " then, Elbaic saw with a sinking heart, a drunken dwarf weaving his way across the path. He extracted himself from the group and as he stepped towards the Firebeard he seemed to grow broader, stand straighter, develop muscles where before he was just old and wizened. As the dwarf (Oghren) proceeded to shout in his face, Elbaic laid a heavy hand on his shoulder and leant to the dwarf's ear. "Sit yourself down, brother" he said soothingly, "Maybe dip your hands in the Mirrormere, cool off, take in the view. I will see if I can get you an afternoon drink to get the dust off your throat how about that eh?"
Family Stealtharm | Sil's #1 Property | Knowledge of a woman, pride of a dwarf | Khazâd ai-mênu!
