The dwarves' particular brand of madness didn't end with their human-powered behemoth. Oh no, it was just getting started. The cannons of this era were about as precise as a drunken ogre's aim, lacking the fine-tuned engineering of large-scale industrial machinery. The steel was, frankly, subpar, and the concept of rifling was still a gleam in some gnomish inventor's eye. Consequently, the range of this so-called "small steel cannon" was laughably short, barely two kilometers.
Of course, "cannon" was a generous term. The shells, packed with a delightful cocktail of explosive materials, were less traditional artillery rounds and more… well, according to Magni's enthusiastic translation, after one shot, you wouldn't find a blade of grass, or even a stubborn weed, within a hundred-meter radius. It was less a cannon, more a localized apocalypse in a can.
"Alright, next burning question?" Duke interjected, his eyes still twitching from the sheer absurdity of it all. "How in the blazes do you load the shells? And where are the loaders, for Light's sake?"
He had a point. The gun barrel, a mere six meters long and a hefty 1.2 meters in diameter, was bolted firmly onto this human-powered, iron-clad monstrosity. And those shells… those monstrous, meter-wide shells… Duke felt his eyelids doing an involuntary jig. This thing had to weigh at least three or four tons, right? It was like trying to lift a small mountain.
"What else can we do?" Magni boomed, a mischievous glint in his eye. "We lift it with good old-fashioned dwarven muscle!"
Magni snapped his fingers, and suddenly, a dwarf guard standing nearby began to swell, his body inflating like a balloon on a hot day. Clearly, the poor guy's armor was specially designed, because the moment his bulk expanded, the plates cleverly separated, transforming his breastplate into a mere heart-guard. His leather breeches, too, were a marvel of gnomish tailoring, stretching into shorts without so much as a tear. As Duke watched the dwarf's body shimmer with an almost silver, metallic sheen, a sudden, terrifying realization dawned on him. "Is that… a god descending from the heavens?"
"Aye!" Magni chuckled, a proud grin splitting his beard. "Looks like you know us dwarves better than you let on!"
Gods descending to Azeroth? Nah, just another utterly bonkers dwarven racial talent. After years of brutal, relentless training, dwarves who awakened this innate gift could achieve a temporary, but utterly significant, boost in strength, attack power, defense, and vitality by simply increasing their size.
Okay! So, the dwarves just had a few of their 'Gods of the Underworld' carry the cannonballs, and poof, problem solved! Duke couldn't help but stare, a look of bewildered admiration plastered across his face. Magni and Gelbin, basking in Duke's awe, beamed like proud papas.
Magni then leaned in conspiratorially, his voice dropping to a stage whisper. "Say, you mentioned something about knowing how to make a 'loader'? Perhaps we could, uh, discuss this in a more private setting later?"
Duke's eyes, ever the calculating ones, rolled theatrically. "Well, you see, we in Stormwind are currently in a bit of a pickle in the Redridge Mountains. How about you lend us a thousand Secret Chamber Guards first? Just to, you know, grease the wheels a bit."
"Are you out of your mind?!" Magni bellowed, his tone firm, his hands clamped together like an old hen protecting her chicks. "There are only twelve hundred Secret Chamber Guards in the entire Bronzebeard Dwarf clan! No! Absolutely no deal!"
A faint, almost imperceptible smile played on Duke's lips. And almost at the exact same moment, those around him who knew Duke's character all too well – like Alleria, who was already struggling to stifle her giggles behind her hand – knew exactly what that smile meant.
Oh boy. Duke was about to pull a fast one again.
"Alright, then," Duke countered, his voice smooth as aged dwarven brandy. "How about I trade you my secret to large-scale tank assaults? I call it… Blitzkrieg."
"Blitzkrieg?" Magni and Gelbin's ears practically perked up like startled gnomes. The name itself sounded utterly impressive, a thunderclap of innovation! For years, their beloved steam tanks had been the butt of every joke, the subject of endless ridicule.
"Useless lump of metal."
"A colossal waste of good dwarven steel and even better dwarven manpower."
"It's no more powerful than an orc warrior's two-hundred-pound hammer!"
"In fact, it's worse than a hammer! At least a hammer doesn't break down mid-charge!"
No matter how many times Magni and Gelbin heard these insults, it was like a thousand tiny needles pricking their hearts, a constant, agonizing torment. Though the spirit of steampunk, of gears and steam and glorious innovation, was deeply ingrained in their very souls, and they firmly believed that high technology would one day replace flimsy swords, as long as their beloved steam tanks hadn't proven their worth on the battlefield, they and their ingenious creators were doomed to live under the shadow of ridicule. The old guard among the dwarves, those stubborn traditionalists, continued to preach that more effort should be poured into training their elite Secret Chamber Guards, rather than wasting resources on these clanking contraptions. This, naturally, grated on Magni and Gelbin's nerves like a rusty file.
Duke's words, however, had just hit them right where they lived, striking a chord deep in their inventor's hearts.
Duke flipped his hand, and a massive, shimmering virtual image materialized in the air. It depicted a vast, open plain, shrouded in hundreds of plumes of smoke and dust. Upon closer inspection, it became clear that these weren't just any clouds; they were caused by tanks, unlike anything the dwarves had ever conceived, tearing across the landscape at breakneck speed. They used their incredible velocity to rip through enemy defenses with astonishing swiftness, then swung around to the enemy's rear, slicing them into isolated pockets, surrounding them, and annihilating them with ruthless efficiency.
Duke's magnetic voice, rich and resonant, filled the air. "While I acknowledge your invention as a groundbreaking stroke of genius, it's clear your application of tanks is fundamentally flawed. Tanks are not meant to be weapons of static defense or head-on confrontation. Tanks represent firepower and mobility. And mobility, my dear friends, is the very soul of a tank!"
Mobility!? The two short, stocky figures shuddered from head to toe, their minds reeling. The images flashed by too quickly for them to discern the exact nature of the enemies these tanks were pulverizing. But that didn't matter. A whole new window of possibilities had just burst open in their minds, a glorious, steam-powered vision of the future.
Just as they leaned in, desperate to hear more, Duke, ever the master of suspense, abruptly cut the feed, closing the screen with a flourish.
"What?!"
"Wait!"
Duke ignored their protests, pressing his advantage. "There are nearly three hundred thousand human soldiers and thousands of mages gathered in the Wasteland. If this turns into a straight-up, head-on brawl, when will it ever be the dwarves' turn to take the lead? By the time your short legs finally get there, the battle will be over and done with! Everyone's advancing with infantry, so why should the dwarves be the ones to lead the charge?"
"This…" Magni's face turned a shade of green matching a goblin's skin, a clear sign of his mounting frustration. After being blockaded and beaten senseless by orcs right on their doorstep for a year, everyone was seething. Magni was already chafing under the smug expressions of the Lordaeronians, who acted like they were the dwarves' saviors. Now that Duke had brought it up, Magni felt a wave of discouragement wash over him.
Gelbin, ever the pragmatist, spoke up. "Alright, Duke, you've got our attention. Do you have any brilliant ideas to help us dwarves and gnomes? How can we seize that coveted first place?"
Duke smiled mysteriously, then, with a conspiratorial wink, snuck into a dwarven tent with the two eager engineers. Inside, he lowered his voice. "Orgrim, the Horde Warchief, did indeed issue a challenge to the Alliance, daring Lothar to a decisive battle. But Orgrim is a cunning fox, and he never promised to fight to the bitter end, did he? If he can't defeat the Alliance in the open, he can simply retreat into the Blackrock Fortress! Think about it: if two hundred thousand orcs dig in there, how long will it take the Alliance to capture Blackrock Fortress? And in a street fight, with narrow, confined terrain like that, who do you think will be sent in first to do the dirty work, to be the cannon fodder?"
Magni's composure shattered. He couldn't keep calm at all.
Dwarves. They would absolutely send the dwarves, the undisputed masters of tunnel warfare, to be the first ones through the meat grinder. Even if Lothar was genuinely kind enough to try and spread the losses evenly among all the nations, this was still a waking nightmare for the Bronzebeard dwarves, who had already suffered devastating casualties. He knew, with a sinking feeling, that the fifty thousand dwarves currently assembled were practically every able-bodied adult Magni had managed to rally in a fit of vengeful rage. If the losses were too tragic, it was a foregone conclusion that the Bronzebeard dwarves wouldn't recover for a very, very long time.