Chapter One-Hundred Ninety-Six

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**Elsewhere**

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Deep beneath the surface lays the dungeon known as the Maw.  Just outside the Maw, lays the town of Silvervein.  The inhabitants, almost-entirely pale elves and pale dwarves, are emancipated dwellers, released from the Maw so they can better provide it with mana.  The priesthood of The Great Maw holds sway over the town, with varying levels of enthusiasm by the inhabitants.

Most of them, like most people in any town, do their best to ignore politics.  They simply want to live their lives as best they can, with many unaware of how off-putting their society is to outsiders.  Most of them don’t particularly care what the outsiders think, as most of what lives beyond the guarded tunnel entrances are monsters.

But there are some who dream of more, and are shrewd enough to consider that maybe, just maybe, it’s not an opinion that should be shared with just anyone.  The priesthood takes a very dim view on dissenting voices, and those who complain too loudly will often find their contributions to The Great Maw to be insufficient.  Those unlucky enough to gain the attention of the priesthood will generally find themselves offered to the Maw, as the hungry dungeon can always use more mana.

For most, it’s just a further encouragement to stay out of politics.  For some, it’s just another sign that there can be something better, but one must be careful how one dreams.  Dreaming in your bed at night is one thing, but dreaming out in the day will draw attention.

A loose network of dreamers carefully probe, daring to hope for something more.  One such dreamer is a cheese maker, Serd.  He’s an elf, born into a line of cheese makers, and quite fond of his job, and his decay affinity helps the process along perfectly.  In his youth, he tried to raise milkworms, hoping to be able to master the entire process, but the worms are more ornery than he expected.  He had to take the worm to the butcher after it collapsed a wall in the cheese cellar, ruining an entire rack of product.

As an adult, he supposes it was a good lesson for him to learn: dream, but not recklessly.  A rack of cheese is a small price to pay to learn things are more complex than they might seem at first.  So he’s left the milkworms to the wranglers, and outwardly turned his focus back to his cheeses.  While he does take pride in his experiments with smoking cheeses, his true work is in finding others who would like to have someplace better.

Like the veins running through a proper blue cheese, he’s slowly built a network of fellow dreamers.  He’s been cautious, ensuring that people don’t share names, don’t meet up with others face to face, don’t even tell him the details of who they might bring in.

It hasn’t been perfect, but he thinks it’s been working well.  Some groups get discovered, but the security measures keep the tragedies to handfuls of people, instead of exposing the entire network.  Sometimes he wonders if he might be able to overthrow the priesthood if he went public, but that’s a particular dream that is beyond even him.

He’s no daring leader, and even if he somehow could scrape together enough people with enough levels to challenge the priests, there’s nothing he could do against the Maw.  He’s seen others try, usually by attempting to sneak an invader deep into the Maw, but nobody has tried in many years.  The Redcap’s public haberdashery of the last offender was enough to dash any other ideas of similar plans.

He sighs as he pulls the wire frame curd cutter from the wall, and sets about cutting the latest batch of curd.  If only processing guilt was so easy.  He had thought it a stroke of luck to turn one of the cardinals, one of the people positioned high enough to actually be able to enact change!

It had been a long process, dropping subtle words and suggestions off with each wheel of his best work.  Only, when he went to drop off this month’s shipment, the cardinal wasn’t there to accept it.  Instead, it was an acolyte Serd wasn’t familiar with, though the look of zeal in the young dwarf’s eyes was unmistakable.

“Oh?  Where is the cardinal?  She usually collects my offering directly.  Is she busy?” he asked, trying to keep it casual.  It quickly became clear something was wrong, as the dwarf snarled and prepared to spit.  The acolyte was forced to simply swallow the phlegm, thanks to all the other food around, but he didn’t need to be so concerned with his opinions.

“The cardinal has been hatted for being a traitor,” growled the acolyte, and Serd made no effort to keep his face from growing even paler at that.  “Plans to free the kobolds were found in her room.  Thankfully, the inquisitors discovered it before they could go much further,” he finished with a cruel grin.

“Ah… uh, good to catch it so early?” he awkwardly replied, which seemed to satisfy the zealous acolyte.  His cheese was accepted, with even the low-ranked dwarf seeming to be happy to have it.  Serd is hardly a cheese master, but his successful experiments are apparently conversation pieces among the priests, and new challenges for the chefs.

He shakes the memory off as he shakes the cutter clean, then starts to drain the tub of the whey.  He hadn’t known he had made such an impression on the cardinal, but at least she didn’t sell him out.  If so, he’d have probably been consumed by the Maw, no matter how interesting his experiments are.  He almost wishes she had told him about her plans to free the kobolds, but it’s probably for the best she didn’t.

Still… it could be a good idea.  The Maw losing its dwellers could be a blow to its legitimacy and power.  If something so jealously guarded and cared for were to be taken from the Maw, the people might listen to calls for change.  Or they might not care.  Those who believe in The Great Maw see the kobolds as its sacred delicacy.  Those people would chase the kobolds to the molten abyss and beyond to get them back.  Some others take pity on the kobolds, but don’t dare to speak up for them.

Unfortunately… most people just try to ignore them, and with them so carefully guarded by the Maw, it’s easy to do just that.  Hmm… could he be subtle about it?  Breaking them free would probably only make a mess, but what if he tried to make it so people can’t forget about the kobolds?

While he can’t exactly go around giving speeches to argue for their freedom, he could try something a bit more subtle.  He might even get the priesthood to endorse it, if he plays his cards right.

As he lets the whey drain, he goes over his cheese notes, looking for what seemed to be the favored one for snacking directly.  He’ll need to get new molds made, and adjust the process for a smaller size, but it could work.  If he plays up the sacredness of the kobolds, make them sympathetic, the people may take it more to heart, and so be more open to helping them.  The priesthood would have difficulty clamping down on that kind of sentiment, too, especially if he uses the priests’ own words against them.

Kobold cheese, shaped like their namesake.  The molds will be difficult to make, but he has some coin to spend for his projects.  The texture of a carved mold would usually invite irregularities into the cheese, but with small enough molds, it shouldn’t make too much of a difference.  He’ll need one he can easily accelerate with his affinity, probably a softer cheese, but not a spreadable one.

Kids will love it, he has no doubt.  Not all will carry the happy memories all the way to adulthood, and fewer will associate the actual kobolds with the memories, but maybe enough.  It will take a long time, if it works at all, but it will still be him taking action.  He’d like to do more, but what else can he do?  Even something like this risks him being hatted, but he can’t stand by and do nothing any longer.

He’ll just have to be patient and take it slow, be prepared for the inevitable investigation.  He smiles as he pulls out his notes on the favored snacking cheese.  Patience and attention to detail are the hallmarks of making cheese.  Even if his affinity can speed the process, he’s no stranger to letting time do the majority of the work, and he already knows he’ll need to leave the brunt of the work to time.  Just as with cheese, trying to rush this will make much more of a mess than just a worm collapsing part of his cellar.