Urist Grasprim (Gidthurtirist) was a survivor. He had heard, in his wanderings as a migrant, of Bannerrake, a legendary fortress. Their feats were remarkable: they had survived for four years under continuous seiges by bugbears - while having a population of 8. One of those was the king, who had finally found a mountainhome with adamantine - and bugbears. After four years, the now-legendary seige operators had broken the seiges, and only yearly seiges were now reported.
Urist immigrated to Bannerrake in the spring of 111 as a clothier. Upon his arrival, he was struck by the debris scattered around the fort and began collecting it into orderly piles. His dream was to be able to make goods fit for King Urvad Roomfortune - Urvad was an apathetic, happy-go-lucky sort of king, without any particular preferences, and so was content only with the best. In the meantime, though, he was collecting clothing for Oddom Helmedshields to encrust with their enemies' (and friends') bones. Because of these seiges, the stockpiles were filled to overflowing with bugbear and merchant bones, and Oddom was legendary for his creation of the Rout of Seeds, a bugbear bone greaves, and was thus in charge of the spiking program. Oddom was known for his perspicacity too - one of his first masterpieces had a depiction of a demon on it, relating to the release of a demon in the depths of Bannerrake by careless miners. The demon still lived in the depths, and made everyone afraid during seiges, when he pounded drums in the bottomless pit. With the bugbears encouraged from within, who could hope for the mountainhome's future?
He'd also participated in the Fall of Pairtraps, the future centerpiece of Bannerrakes. The Fall was a pair of towers: one carved from a mountain peak, one built above a bauxite pocket. Rimtar Webroads had an incredible dream back when he founded the fort and was seiged with only 6 defenders - have an indoor garden in a tower impervious to bugbears. After drawing up plans, construction began in 106, after the first group of 20 migrants arrived with the king to supplement the original 6; it temporarily ceased after 18 deaths to the bugbears, but resumed after they were driven off. He was proud to have laid some of the floor of the first completely constructed level - while just a floor, it was the basis of the towers, like those in the human town of Tirith. Rimtar had even promised him a room there in the future if Urist helped his election as mayor.
Urist's work was made more important by the robberies that had been occuring. The Red Caps had reigned over the battlefields after the bugbears were driven off, before the dwarves could collect their belongings. Now the Red Caps were sending ambushing parties - and Red Caps are
fast. The migrant parties had never had to deal with red caps, since they were rather poor, so Urist believed it was just a myth King Urvad had picked up in his wandering and now spread to encourage his workers.
One day in the summer of 111, only three months after he came to Bannerrake, he found out that Red Caps were no myth. He found one of the local Red Cap swordsmen, Shreakwork, named for his victim's deathcries. Fortunately, Shreakwork went after one of his fellow migrants first, an engineer Urist didn't know. Urist hadn't made many friends yet - he'd gotten right to work. Fortunately, Udil's cries attracted Kosoth Workfamous, yet another recent immigrant marksdwarf, who was able to come to Urist's rescue. Urist fought back bravely, but Shreakworks' swift wooden scimitar was painful. By the time Shreakwork died, Urists' upper body and lower legs were broken, his right thigh and knee, upper spine, and brain were cut, his right eye and throat were gone, and his heart and left lung were mangled.
Urist was sad and thirsty. He'd survived for a month after the attack, but was still lying on the slope where the battle was fought. Then Oddom showed up! He'd been sent to rescue Urist and bring him to bed, and he gladly provided a drink for Urist. "Don't leave me to Shreakwork!", Urist said - he was delerious from the pain and brain injury. "Urist, my good man, I've created a new sock just for you - it has an image of the death of Shreakwork on it. You'll make it through - you'll survive". After all, wasn't Urist's first friend in Bannerrake Tholtig Echotool, an axedwarf whose lung had been flattened by a bugbear maceman in the last attack? He'd survived, and so would Urist. Urist had made it to Bannerrake, and Urist would live in his room in the Fall of Pairtraps.
Sadly, when Urist made it back to a bed, the shock was too much for his system. Coming down 60 feet on a rough hill jarred him, even though Oddom tried. Urist died by the side of Tholtig and Rimtar, his heroes. His last words were "Tell my parents not to worry - "Don't cry - I killed Shreakwork - I made it to Bannerrake. "" When Urvad heard of his death, he composed a song for him; a few lines were "And I'm proud to be on this peaceful piece of property./ I'm on sacred ground and I'm in the best of company. / I'm thankful for those thankful for the things I've done./ I can rest in peace/ I'm one of the chosen ones/ I made it to Bannerrake". *
Urist did survive to get his room in the Fall of Pairtraps, with his sock and a casket made of his favorite mineral - magnetite - and featuring an image of Fire agates in red cap bone. The room was marked with a note on the one who rested in peace: "Here lies Urist Grasprim, peaceful weaver, who made it to Bannerrake. He is an example of who we should all be." His wounds proved too much, but his life was an inspiration to the whole fort.
*An adaptation of Trace Adkins' Arlington.
(Note that this story features the excellent
goblin family mod by The Grackle. If you have seiges of 20-30 bugbears for a year on end with 6 dwarves (or 8 including a king), I think a 10-long hallway of weapon traps is permissible.
Feedback on the writing willingly accepted, as I think it's decently boring at the beginning; I wanted to talk about the rest of the fort too. I was amazed to see Urist alive after a month, and so started writing while letting the fort run its way (30FPS, 50 dwarves, but 12k+ stone); sadly I saw halfway through Urist wasn't Tholtig and had died. It was still enjoyable to write about my fort while waiting for things to happen... thanks for reading this far!
