During breakfast, we spoke with Echo about what she could teach her fellows. Since her change, she had been speaking with them, but felt, as the Darrknots did, that they needed to see her changes to tell if they could reclaim their powers. To "warm up", she disappeared at different points around the room and "fought" Set with both fire and lightning. They kept it small and controlled, but it was entertaining.
Grikmor had left the speaking device in the parlor. Wrath settled into it and began singing the song he taught us to inspire the Raval troops. The rest of the household assembled to listen, being stirred by the words and tune. Some of the Darrknots arrived as he was singing. They were able to sing along, partially, as they did not know the entire song. When he finished, there was a thunderous applause. Wrath received praise from all the dwarfs.
Echo took the other bat-dragons off to "teach" them in private. The Darrknots escorted us to one of the trapped rooms and demonstrated the trapping mechanism that would drop the door and catch the Duergar. After this, they showed us the strategically laid rugs and hung tapestries that would herd the gray one towards the traps. Also, the rigged rooms were falsely labeled as areas they would find interesting: treasury, arms storage, royal this or that. At least six levels had at least one trap room.
We returned to the house and met up with Echo and the rest. They relayed that her instruction had taught them how to be invisible without holding their breath, which increased the time they could stay unseen. Their breath weapons were only slightly improved, being more focused and going straight to their target instead of dancing around it. They also were no longer as skittish around large groups and sparingly used the tethers to stay on the Darrknots.
We joined the Darrknots in their quarters for lunch. It was a simple meal during which they sang Wrath's song to the rest who had not been to the house. Even some of the oldest had forgotten parts of it and delighted in learning the whole song. The bat-dragons showed off some of their improvements as they fluttered around the large dining area.
We wheeled the device from the house into the Darrknots' common area. There, Wrath began his first teaching lessons. Most of the Darrknots listened to tales of the Jambacas and asked him questions their elders could not or would not answer. Some of the older ones were shocked both by the questions and that Wrath answered them without hesitation. They chastised Wrath and the younger dwarfs for "meddling" in what they called "priestly business". Wrath, in turn, chided them for denying their people information that, in his time, was common knowledge. The older ones did admit that their elders had began portioning out knowledge to the population as they saw fit. Wrath suggested taking this matter to Gorval to see if such portioning could be undone.
We all stayed with the Darrknots until dark. Wrath cleared up many points of confusion and explained a host of how traditions had formed. We left the device with them as we returned to Callie's home. Nana and the staff had freshened our rooms and rearranged things since the archivists had taken some items to cross check with their ordered records. Also, some of the furnishings were used to be part of the traps. We thanked them for their work as we headed to bed.
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