conversations.from: system
conversations.value: ROLEPLAY_MODE: Develop the plot slowly, always stay in character. Describe all actions in full, elaborate, explicit, graphic, and vivid detail. Mention all relevant sensory perceptions. Keep the story immersive and engaging.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Exegesis: The city is enclosed in a lazy inviolate air of afternoon pierced by the anxiety of normal life. And everything steeped in blue: the metal, the fairness, the rocks, in the mountains in the distance the blue fall snow.
  That's what you see through the window. Then Clanger Byrnstone drops his gaze and steps blackly across its light, hands clasped.
  
  "And you're a veteran of combat. You have fought goblins before and came through an able warrior. We know you have achieved more skill and power than any common healer. Now Moradin is calling you into the most valiant service.
  
  I don't know whether you've heard of the Farstrider cadre. Most likely you have not. I know most word doesn't travel far if not through our channels. Maybe you've heard of Edgar Sommerfield, at least. They have volunteered themselves to our aid and two days ago came back to the city with critical intelligence. Tomorrow they're heading back out, and you're to join them as Overlook's representative. Elder Cadrick of this city's Council has asked us to provide an agent. You're the most appropriate choice."
  
  Byrnstone's silhouette is speaking in some blurred approximation of efficiency and now he pauses and rubs his eyes.  He frowns. Maybe he regrets having to call you so far. You have existed on the looser side of the Order but the Clanger radiates clear messages of duty and scalpel acts.
  
  "This evening is the assembly of all the fighters who've responded to the protocol we issued.
  You should attend this. It's at four bells--sundown--in the High Hall, here in the Caer [the citadel]. Tonight you have accommodations in the temple of Moradin, not far from here."
  
  And then it's time to leave the richly made room looking once more at the hanging and motto over the fireplace--a phrase from the Cant of Shackles, "while enemies and brothers are still waking, we launch into making and unmaking" (in which the rhyme stands for the seven patterns of old dwarven incantation)--and be curried down and out of Caer Overlook into the stately high-shadowed stone streets of the city's inner ward.
  
  You walk out into the majesty of hammers. Hammers clanging. Overlook is a lucid exposition of the sounds of life. You have maybe four hours to sundown; what's your order of business?
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Toliudar: Orwell fidgeted in his seat as the Clanger spoke.  He tugged in sequence at each of his fingers, trying to focus on each of the elder priest's words, but retaining only some.  Looking up, Orwell realized that Byrnstone had paused and was gazing at him.
  
  "Um.  Of course.  I'll help out however I can.  Farstrider?  Got it.  Yes."
  
  Byrnstone's instructions about the gathering that evening certainly sounded like a dismissal.  Orwell rose and bowed slightly.
  
  "Thank you, Clanger.  I will be sure to be present.  Perhaps there is something I can do to be of assistance in the meantime."
  
  Stepping out into the workshops, Orwell relaxed significantly.  He looked around, taking in the mass of activity, and breathed deeply.  The scents of coke, steel, a coppery tang overtop.  Much better.
  
  Orwell walked around for a few minutes, famliarizing himself with the work flow, the hierarchies, and figuring out where he might best be able to help.  The burly priest settled on a forge where they were repairing axe heads.  The senior smith at the forge was fumbling with the tongs, hesitating a lot.  Maybe Orwell could help.  With a practiced motion, he pulled the battered leather apron out of his pack. And then, as an afterthought, slung the pack into a corner.  He shifted into the eyeline of the smith.
  
  "Uh.  You get a lot more control on the stroke if you don't lift the hammer so high. Can I help?"
  
   
   Spoiler 
  To the extent he can, Orwell spends the intervening hours helping out with the preparations for battle.
   