Solam did not hide his doubts. Friendship was friendship, but some matters still had to be made clear. Though Solam was delighted that the Copperbeard Clan had chosen to join him, he was not so carried away by it that he wanted a group of spies with ulterior motives under his command.
Hearing Solam's question, Eberk, the Copperbeard Clan's High Elder, did not panic. Instead, he calmly sighed and explained helplessly.
"We have nowhere else to go."
In other words, Solam was their last choice.
It turned out that after a thousand years of wandering, the Copperbeard Clan's pride in their clan had gradually faded. What had truly taken root in their hearts was the Hammer Guild. This was especially true for the younger generation of dwarves, who enjoyed quite comfortable lives in Calimshan and had increasingly faint memories of their clan.
The Council of Elders had been powerless to change this, until Solam appeared. After he handed Thor's Hammer over to the Copperbeard Clan, the clan finally completed their ancestors' rune knowledge and even produced a master dwarven blacksmith!
The clan's glory blossomed once again, greatly strengthening the cohesion of the Copperbeard dwarves!
This gave the Council of Elders hope of rebuilding the clan! At the same time, however, it brought the Copperbeard Clan an enormous crisis—they had once again drawn the attention of a mysterious and terrifying organization.
The Magic Rune Society!
The dwarves had lived very comfortably in Calimport. They ran the most profitable arms trade, did business with nobles throughout Calimshan, possessed a massive guild envied by all of Calimshan, and had even monopolized Calimport's construction industry.
A group of dwarves—foreign dwarves, at that—could they really have lived so prosperously without anyone's support and recognition?
Obviously not! When the Copperbeard Clan settled in Calimport, they had