CHAPTER 39: Immortal-D: bird-puncherEnd of 116I call a small meeting in my quarters, and invite Dumat, the mayor, and my sister Kel. We spend a few moments discussing the duke problem. Tun has clearly gone mad with power. He may be a tool, but he is now a very influencial one. To the citizens, he represents an everyday dwarf who rose to power through hard work and perseverance. A symbol to all that despite the war and bloodsheds, each and everyone of them could one day become a legend.
Well, he used to be. now they are just scared shitless of him.
-We can make him happy, suggest Kel.
-With what, querns? mocks the broker
-Oh, yes! maybe pretter querns will stop him from doing the whole, hum, headsplosion thing. I'll get right to it, sir!
Sis leaves, enthusiastic, and makes her way to the workshops. I'm not certain that ''pretty querns'' will solve all our problems, tho. Dumat, the mayor and i start discussing how deeply fucked we are right now.
-With so many dead stoneworkers dead in the recent years, we are going to face some serious issues, I tell them.
-Welcome to 15 fucking years of my life, Dumat says. the only way the querns will be produced on time is if we have a clear backlog of tasks. And with so little miners still alive, that means basically starting no new projects whatsoever.
-Well, the mayor starts, I was working on a plan to maybe secure the caverns. but that would involve using more miners to excavate more stone pillars.
-Yeah, hum, about that, Dumat says...
''I'm told a miner woman was clumsy enough to produce another cave-in this morning. she injured her hand and her working arm, stupid fool. General I know you want me to supervise them, but they are beyond hope.
-So that's one less worker for the time being. great.
-Well to be honest, the broker says, why don't we put some soldiers to work asie from military duty? don't we have like, a fuckton of them?
-No.
I have 6 squad, most of them close to full, but one is still made of rookies, and we'll need them to be ready to fill the other squads once they get enough experience. My own squad and Immortal-D's are in charge of covering the caverns and killing forgotten beasts, Mistem's squad is now mostly blind and not of much use anyway. Asmel's team is in charge of chasing bandits, and her subordinate squad is in charge of holding the wall, patrolling the fort, and killing sieges. They use their free days to relax and heal, and i cannot have them doing some brewing or cutting rocks on the side. I need all my men. Overcrowded military ranks are a pain to our growth, but we hold our lives to the sheer numbers of men defending this place.
''Look at this''
The mayor produces a plan for an expansion to the catacombs. The design looks intriguing, and much fancier than the plain rooms we used for the entrance sections. According to Led's bookkeeping, we have exactly one coffin left before the crypts are filled to capacity. This new wing is neat, but who will dig it?
-That's the problem, general. Nobody. We aint got much miners anymore. I ordered this started about a month ago and nobody even got close to looking at the plans yet!
''One of our few remaining miners is busy working on a personal project. Artifact quality, for sure. a gift to impress the noble liasons, no doubt to gain a low nobility title. Beautiful as it may be, I'm not sure artifact grates are what we need them to be doing right now
-Hum, agreed.
''Oh, and we are out of copper'' complains manager Stukos as he barges into my office. ''And potash, and buckets. and wood, for that matter.
-That I can sort out in a few days, says Dumat. Trust me, i have a plan to get more wood that will free our woodcutters and deliver it straight to our carpenter's door.
-I'm not sure how you would achieve that, says Stukos.
-Just, yaknow, wait and see.
''Speaking of wait and see, tho, it would be fucking great if our hunters could do a better job at tracking down those fucking elk birds before they run into the fortress. I've found some dead in BASE1, some in the magma forge for fuck sake. either ignore them or send the soldiers after the birds, so i can train the hunters as the next generation of miners
-Dumat, last time I gave you free rein over our hunters, you turned their leader into a quern-loving megalomaniac.
-Oh come one, don't blame me for Tun. Nobles are nobles, they all go rotten sooner or later.
''Speaking of which, the mayor says, the Lavender empire Law-Giver wanted to speak with me. Maybe I should get to that.
-did you tell him you were in a meeting?
-Not really, he asked to talk to me in autumn, been running after me ever since.
-Ugh, eyerolls dumat, you are the single worsest mayor. Also don't trust him, he works for fucking Quula of all people.
The mayor leaves, Stukos goes to delete all uneeded work orders, hoping people will be able to build querns in time now. Dumat claims he has some business to attend as well, and disappears to his own machinations. He is an efficient fellow, and having him back on board sure has lightened my workload, but i swear he is reckless, secretive, and possibly dangerous at times.
My thoughts wander, and I find myself thinking about dumat's imprisonment. He was apparently building a device to flood the queen's chamber with magma, claiming she was a witch or something.
Tun is living in those same chambers now. I wonder...?...Immortal-D barges into my office, clearly proud to announce that his new uniform was in order. Now garbed in steel, with the highest quality leather garments underneath, he looked the part of a true milicia captain.
-General! I wait my orders!
-Well, your job is really just to stand watch over BASE1, but since I'm stilll severely injured, maybe you could...
-Yes?
-Immortal-D, the task i will now bestow upon you is crucial, and can only be undertaken by our most...popular... dwaf. yes, that's it. that's why i haven't asked anyone else yet.
-Anything, general!
-Ok, i need you to go downstairs and, erh, kill the elk birds. Like all of them.
-YES! I will do that. Holy shit, it means I'm
popular!
ID is so excited, he leaves and forget his many weapons. which would explain the various reports he sends me in the following days.
''Hi general!
Attacked the elk birds as you wanted. They aren't very dangerous. Anyhow, I may have forgotten my crosbow and sword at your place? I'm punching the birds for now''''Hi again!
My stand against the infamous birds continues, general! I'm so glad you chose me to lead this new war against terror and I guess avian super-flu? My men and I killed 3 more of the elk birds today. None of my men have died horribly yet.''''Oh no!
I know why you sent me here now, I now have proff possibly maybe that the pod grabbers and the elk birds have formed and unholy alliance. When we killed two birds, the pond grabbers fled south to gather reinforcements''
Meanwhile, i receive words that someone on the surface spoted and sliced up a titan. giant surface monster reports are getting more and more casual over the years.
Unlike those from down below. Oh, look, more fucking elk birds.
''Holy shit,
I knew it, the pond grabbers recruited more elk birds to fight us out of the water. I stopped their advances... for now. still looking for my weapons, too busy to go back upstairs. I'm using a elk birds as a weapon for now. catten almost joined a fight, i think he is mad I took his place. and possibly his elk bird?
Hey catten did you call dibs on that elk bird carcass already? wait why am i writting that down"''Oh dear god it never ends!''I'm starting to dismiss Immortal-D's report when I stumble upon this one:
''Hi general!
So after you set me here to war against the infamous Elk bird army, I discovered their leader, an enormous bird-like creature weighting 24 tons. It seems to undulate rhytmically, no doubt to create ripples over the water with which to send hidden messages to it's pond grabber followers. Will attempt to punch it, wish me luck''First I misread the combat reports, and don't notice something crucial: not only has a lion engaged the terrifying bird (or what ever the fuck a weevil is?), but it seems that a cook, some animals, and an engraver/miner/stoneworker/mason have been ambushed by a spider.
''Terrible news, general!
A giant spider lurked into the caverns and ambushed two civilians as we evacuated the perimeter around the elk bird king. We unleashed a lion to hold the bird while we tracked down the spider. It seems the two civilians were bitten by a venomous bite.The miner only managed to break a leg before the spider, which we called Omesesh (or crushspun) made a run for our base. The stoneworker is dead, and the cook managed to avoid the webs but died from the poison before he could run too far.Good news, tho, I stationned Hammer Lord Stukos to intercept any wildbeast, and he headshotted Crushspun before it could enter the base. now, to fight the elk king''Uggh, more dead miners, now my plans to kill tun with a giant magma chute can be considered a GIZIP. While I await the next report, I decide to adress some minor problems coming from another section of the mine shaft
A few naked mole dog are interrupting our newest miner, a farmer. The lad is trying to repel the creature by slapping it with an axe. Yes, this is how smart our workers are. When equipped with a giant blade, their first guess is to use it as a gentle club.
I order the farmer to step aside. My body is still hurting from all the repeated full-body incineration from a few months back, but combat comes naturally to me, like jumping back on a bycycle made of mass-slaughter. I proceed to break as many bones as I can on this naked mole dog.
My motto is ''You don't truly know someone until you've destroyed every bone in his body'' this maybe why I dont have many close friends among my fellow dwarves. I return, and a child messenger brings me the final report from Immortal-D's expedition
''Ok, so...
We've been tracking down the elk bird king alongside the river for days now. He seems to be spending most of his time wandering the river, and we can't reach them. Saw more pond grabbers moving around, obviously the longer we leave the king alive, the more reinforcements he will summons. I asked the miners to free some space by removing the stone pillars, but all the miners I talked to were either dead or cooks who were also dead.It finally emerged after a few days of behaving weirdly. by that point, Doren the unburnt was the closest to it, as I sprayed the men around to cover the various river exits. He managed to keep the beast busy while we joined the fight. I am proud to announce that my mission is a success, and we are rid of the elk birds for now!
PS: have you found my weapons?''
While this was going on, the fort had turned 20 years old. a true achievement, for any dwarven settlement, considering how explosive some colonies tend to be. While we may lack industries, or an actual monarch, the fort has plenty of fierce soldiers, great booze, and a bunch of furnitures decorated with the bones of our enemies. A fine thing if I may say so.
Spring goes by smoothly, with a few good news. immortal-D is back from his cavern mission, which turned out to be much more than just punching chickens. He also retrieved his weapons from my office. Manager Stukos has successfully completed the newest quern mandate. He's also glad to announce that Dumat managed to secure about 50 pieces of wood, and put them in the storage pile already.
''Oh, I simply told the elves I would trade them all their wooden logs for our 4000 bolts. As bow users, they told me they wanted nothing to do with our bolts. I told them ''That's right, you want nothing to do with them'' so I agreed to remove the bolts from the trade, and i just took their wood for free. Made sure they knew to bring more of it as tribute next year, cause otherwise we were gonna offer them the bolts again. Very convenient how the depot is right next to the wooden piles now, we dont need to cut or haul it anymore.''
Meanwhile, Kel has been working on some marvelous bone works recently, such as this one. Creating an artifact drum certainly made her a great crafter. some of her items turned simple objects into beautiful pieces worth up to a thousand dwarfbucks.
Her namesake apparently encircled a gem with bone. While it is a pretty item dedicated to our previous general, I can't help but think someone took the instructions
too litterally. I guess something along the lines of this occured:
''Hey what should we be doing with those ones?
-encrust them on some items, like whatever furnitures is closest on the pile.
-well, technically, this random gem from the jeweler bench IS the closest thing to me right now, so...''
I'm not an expert, but aren't you suposed to socket the gem INTO something, and not the other way around? I decide to put it in the barracks to honor my predecessor. I'd ask for the gem to be encrusted into something, but I'm afraid someone would just get confused, and build a fucking chair
around it or something.
Meanwhile, other crafters are adding bones to items that didn't really need them much, such as this floor bag. The same crafter also worked on a quern. Not the greatest of art, so i doubt that will be enough to keep Tun under check.
Yet at this very moment, Kel shows me another quern, her true masterpiece. The quern itself is of great quality, and every bone decoration works together to create a true piece of art. In the middle of it all, a depiction of our goddess, Kadol, admiring the quern she is on.
''This is what I've been practicing for. I called it
Kadol admiring a quern. do you think the duke will like it?
-Yes, sister, it is truly beautiful. You may have saved more life than you could know with this thing. This will keep tun happy for a long time.
I may not have to encase you in obsidian after all...Yes, today's FB art is a pokefusion. I'm sick. I don't care.
