[center][h3][s]High[/s] Low Treason[/h3][/center]

"He said WHAT?!" Glough screamed as he grabbed Bronzeburn by the collar. Between the flying spittle and violent shaking back and forth, it was like the poor engineer was being swept away in a hurricane. The proverbial tempest was so mighty that it knocked off the engineer's hat.

Glough finally released Bronzeburn, and the terrified (and embarrassed) gnome scurried down onto the ground to reclaim his precious red cap. All the while, the Director was now turning towards his lieutenant to scream, "My pen, paper, and portable writing desk! NOW! I have a proclamation and a sentencing to make! This absurdity will end here! And have the fool dragged before me!"

Delfus and the Director's other assistants hurriedly complied with their orders while the Director raved on and on in one of his fits. Finally, an excruciating 53 seconds later, they had unfolded a table and presented him with the pen and paper. As if time itself had slowed, Delfus saw his party leader scribble gigantic letters 'H...I...G...H' and immediately, almost precognitively, such was the power of his superior gnomish brain, realized what was to come. "Wait!" Delfus cried out.

The red-faced Glough dropped the pen and turned to eye Delfus diabolically, twirling his mustache in icy anger. "You can't mean to have Treecog indicted for [i]high treason[/i] and executed! All he did was-"

"Blatantly disobey the orders of my appointed officer and refuse to work, all over some petty qualm about quality control!"

"But that's not [i]high[/i] treason! He didn't betray us to the birds or any of our other enemies!"

With a scoff, Glough turned back to his paper and crossed out the word he'd written. "[s]HIGH[/s] LOW TREASON" the top of it now read. He began scrawling a summary of Treecog's crimes, for posterity and party records, before finally writing the declared punishment at the bottom of the paper. His arm moved like a whirlwind, and the entire thing was done by the time Treecog was finally dragged before them all by two burly gnomes that were formerly Royal Infantry.

The nearby procession of dwarves might have watched some of these proceedings in confusion, but the trained animal handlers diligently tried to distract them and herd them a fair distance away.

"Treecog!" the Director spun around and declared, facing the terrified prisoner with a devilish grin. "for dereliction of duty and low treason, your party membership is revoked! You are hereby exiled! Enjoy living off the land and among all the nasty wildlife and local animals, you sub-gnomish cretin!" Glough let out a satisfied sigh as the bewildered (and weeping) Treecog was prodded along and led away from the base camp.

"Now that that's been dealt with..." the Director said, wiping some imagined grime off his hands, "Delfus, I've arrived at a decision regarding these so-called 'dwarves'!"

Delfus internally sighed, expecting that he'd be told to convey orders to vivisect them so as to ensure the accuracy of the estimated Zekel-Voight-Greasegear rating. Or maybe to just have them killed.

But Glough was anything if not predictable. "With a rating of only 0.3 on the logarithmic scale, I find it unlikely that they could be capable of manipulating and controlling the birds. If anything, it seems likely that they might be manipulated [i]by[/i] those evil birds that attacked the Red January. Time and further study will be needed to determine what to do with these dwarves. If they scored in the vicinity of a 0.15 the obvious conclusion would be that the animal trainers should try domesticating them as draft animals, any gnomish infant could see that. But here? I will not pretend to know what niche they should be put into! Let the animal handlers do as they see fit."

The disheveled Bronzeburn still hadn't left, though. Delfus saw the timid gnome and asked, "Director, what is [i]he[/i] to do now that you've exiled the supplier for his project?"

"He can find a new one! Or hope that the expedition sent into the mountains finds something usable. I still expect results! We need more weapons!"

[hider=Summary]
Still awaiting news on the expedition sent into the mountains last turn.

Glough hears about Treecog's demand that they go into the forest to find quality wood, and promptly declares him to be committing low treason for not utilizing the wood that was given. Treecog is exiled, so for his weapon-making project, Bronzeburn is left trying to either find another supplier or to make use of whatever the mountain expedition brings back.[/hider]