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"I don’t like co here," the orc wo She wasn’t tall for an orc, but still she towered over her diminutive counterpart

"We are at peace, Jessa," Nanfoodle the gno and produced one of the roots, bringing it up under his long nose and taking a deep inhale of it "Ah, the sweet h can take your pain"

"And your painful thoughts," the orc said "Andin a pool of round"

"Only five?" Nanfoodle asked, sifting through the large pouch

"The other plants are full in bloom," Jessa replied "Only five, you say! I expected to find none, or one … hoped to find two, and said a prayer to Gruumsh for a third"

Nanfoodle looked up froaze drifted off into the distance, and his lanced at his beakers and coils He tapped a bony finger to his s up his tiny round face this way and that, he decided, "Five will finish the task"

"Finish?" Jessa echoed "Then you will dare to do it?"

Nanfoodle looked at her as if she were being ridiculous "Well along the way," he assured her

A wicked little grin curled Jessa’s lips up so high they seele bouncing curl to either side, that fraht brown eyes twinkled with noh, i priestess explained "Life is so boring, after all" She spun to a stop and pointed to the herb pouch, still held by Nanfoodle "And so do you, obviously"

The gnome looked down at the potentially poisonous roots "I have no choice in the matter"

"Are you afraid?"

"Should I be?"

"I ah her blunt tone made it seem more a welcomed declaration than an ad live the king," she said as she curtsied Then she departed, taking care to pick her way back to the e anythe corridors of Mithral Hall

Nanfoodle took up the roots and moved to his jars and coils, set on a wide bench at the side of his laboratory He took note of hi on the wall behind the bench, and even struck a pose, thinking that he looked quite distinguished in his e--which of course one, except for thick white clue ears, but he took care to keep those neatly trimmed, like his pointy beard and thin in cleanly shaved Well, except for his eyebrows, he thought with a chuckle as he noted that so that their curl could be clearly noted

Nanfoodle took up a pair of spectacles and pinched them onto his nose as he finally pulled hiet a better viewing angle through the sht of the oiled wick

The heat had to be just right, he reht amount of crystal poison

He had to be precise, but in looking at the hourglass at the end of the bench, he realized that he had to be quick, as well

King Bruenor’shis ridged, creased, and spiked armor, one of the few occasions that anyone had ever seen the dithout it But he wasn’t wearing it for exactly that reason: He didn’t want anyone to recognize him, or more specifically, to hear him

He skulked in the shadows at the far end of a rough corridor, behind a pile of kegs, with Nanfoodle’s door in sight

The battlerager gnashed his teeth to hold back the stream of curses he wanted to lancing up and down the corridor toher

"Orcs in Mithral Hall," Pwent mouthed quietly, and he shook his dirty, hairy head and spat on the floor Hoent had screeched in protest when the decision had been dom of Many-Arrows an embassy in the dwarven halls! Oh, it was a limited embassy, of course--no iven time, and those four were not allowed unfettered access A host of dwarf guards, often Pwent’s own battleragers, were always available to escort their "guests"