“Mountain Lord, no one is against you continuing to use your system, but I don’t see why you want the rest of us to convert. Surely you understand the cost of such a thing.”

  The dwarf stood on his stone throne, the white in his beard making the deep red of his face stand out even more. A vein on his forehead pulsed in rage.

  “You don’t see the point?! You?! The Stonehold just received a fleet of five ships from Emerald Grove Docks last month to be outfitted for the frontlines. Not only did you fail to build a single ship to our specifications, but every ship you sent us had different measurements. You added two months to the time it took us to outfit them and added twenty percent to the material costs with your lackadaisical attitude towards measurements.”

  “Mountain Lord, I understand your frustration with the elves and their flippant attitude towards specifications. Surely there’s no need for the Scattered Stars to adopt your system. You know, we humans have been having the hardest time since the death of the gods. We don’t see why it’s necessary to force this change at such a sensitive time.”

  “Don’t you dare pretend you’re better than the damned sprouts. Answer me this, you overgrown ape, how many feet are there in a mile?”

  “Imperial, divine, standard, or true feet?”

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  The Mountain Lord stomped his foot with so much force that the moon on which the meeting was taking place cracked.

  “The fact that you need to ask that is my point! You will either accept our terms or we will leave the Alliance. Effective immediately.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous! Even if you leave it’s just one mountain, the loss would be great, but it isn’t enough to justify the cost of changing and implementing your system Alliance-wide. We’re already struggling to standardise the language.”

  The Mountain Lord sneered. Waving his hand in a beckoning gesture behind him, two heavily armoured dwarves brought forth a slate of pure white stone. When they stopped next to the Mountain Lord, he sat down.

  The next moment, a torrent of mana strong enough to shatter a star poured from the dwarf in an unending flood.

  “I, Mountain Lord Norreg Tollenhir, hereby issue the Stonehold Edict. By unanimous agreement of all Mountain Lords and Abyss Sovereigns. Should the Alliance refuse to adopt the Dwarven measurement system as its standard, the Stonehold will withdraw from the Alliance.”

  Following the assembly, the dwarven system was adopted and remains the standard across the Alliance to this day.

  Volume:

  10 sips to a cup, 100 cups to a keg, 100 kegs to a barrel, 100 barrels to a still, 1000 barrels to a brewery

  Length:

  10 lines to a word, 100 words to a ledger, 100 ledgers to a cart, 100 carts to a caravan, 1000 caravans to a ship.

  Mass:

  10 pins to a nail, 100 nails to a hammer, 100 hammers to an anvil, 100 anvils to a smithy, 1000 smithies to a mine.

  Excerpt from Chronicler Deldryn Dalommug’s ‘Foundations of the Alliance, Year 4 - 6’