Bay 12 Games Forum

Late one night, the dwarves of Halltraded gathered once again in the drinking hall, whispering about the wonderous crossbow, Emalustuth Sulus Athel, or Sensesfence the Crater of Rings.

"Wow, how did you ever create such a marvel?" one dwarf asked.

"I don't even remember making it," Reg replied.

"Who's the dwarf engraved on it, there, it looks like he's lying at our front gate, but I can't for the life of me remember ever seeing him," Bralbaard commented.

"Now that you mention it, I have no idea," replied Reg, "Maybe we should ask around?  I have a feeling that that dwarf is real."

However, despite Reg's certainty that the dwarf on the crossbow was in fact a real dwarf, no one in the hall seemed to remember ever seeing him.  An atmosphere of discouragement had fallen over the hall when Ushat arrived, sweaty from her work in the mines, and obviously in need of a drink.

"What's this, then?" Ushat asked, noticing the dwarves quietly conversing, "That's one fine crossbow you have there!  Who made it?  Say, that dwarf engraved there looks familiar, who is it?"

"I made the crossbow," Reg stood up, "And you hammered down the problem right there, no one knows who the dwarf is, but we're sure it must have been someone."

"You made it an' you don't even know who it is?"  Ushat looked incredulous, "How can ye possibly not know?"

"Well," Reg looked toward her boots, "Truth is, I don't think I was really myself when I made it.  In fact, I don't remember making it at all, an' if it didn't be for all these dwarves insistin' that they saw me makin' it, an' that I can't remember anything at all of the last few days, I'd say that it be'd someone else's work!"

"It sounds like a case of possession to me," commented Keldor, "Maybe that dwarf be dead, an' don't want us te forget him?"

"Perhaps so," mused Ushat, "Oh!  I just remembered who he is!"

"Who?" several dwarves asked in unison.

"That be Urist, Urist Gearedraked, one of our first immigrants!  He never lasted long, I think the skeer mauled him before he ever made it to the gate!  He lived through that, but never recovered.  I remember bringing him water once."





"Of course!" Reg looked up from her boots, "New I remember!  Urist wanted me to give it to îton, that he could wield it and never forget what he protects!  I'll go give it to him right away!"

A vast rushing sound fillel the halls of Halltraded as once again the tower lever was pulled.  This time, far more water gushed out, enough even to spill over the top of the wall and into the trade courtyard.  The water even went so far as to flood one of the passages of the underground cartway ankle-deep, and stopped the flow of lava not only at the chokepoint, but also further down, where the lava poured out of the hillside and into the channel.

Despite all this happening before the pumps could be shut off again, Christes was quite pleased.  Not only had this proven that the new water supply was working, but he also thought that this would likely be the last time the lava channel would have to be extended to complete the dam, the flow of lava having petered out more than two thirds across the river.

Soon dwarfkind would celebrate its triumph as the damn river was at last fully dammed!

Ushat burst excitedly into Bralbaard's office.  "I was diggin' in the mines, an' guess what I found!"

Bralbaard looked up crossly, "More stone for me to catalog?"

"Nope!"  replied Ushat breathlessly, "Erm, yes, actually, I did find a whole pocket of microcline, but that's not the big news!"

"Then what did ye find," drilled Bralbaard, "Speak up, lass!"

"Galena!"  Ushat exclaimed, her grin beaming out through her beard, "We'll be smeltin' silver in no time!"

"That's wonderful," Bralbaard exclaimed, looking happy for the first time, "An' here I thought that this place be,d devoid of any worthwhile deposits of metal!"

The late days of Autumn went by more or less uneventfully at Halltraded, except:

"Did you hear?  îton shot another of those foul skeer today!"

"Wonderful!  I had heard that some of the peasants were complaining that they were being accosted by undead deer.  Maybe they'll leave us alone for a while."

"At very least, they didn't manage to hurt anyone this time.  I sure hope that ïteb recovers."

"He managed to make it nearly half a mile, crawling on the ground from a broken leg, with at least two of the skeer attacking him the whole way!  If he could make it through that, I'm sure he'll be fine!"

"I sure be hopin' so!  Say, wasn't it îton that finally killed those deer as well?  That lad sure has a dead eye with that crossbow!"

"An' he ain't afraid to take as good as he gives!  Remember that time he forgot to refill his quiver?"

"Hah!  Do I ever!  He broke those deer into splinters small enough that all I had te do te make bolts out of 'em was te cut nockin' slots it the back of 'em!"

"Hah, aye, that lad be gettin' himself quite the score against those monsters, an' no mistake!"

You just have to make sure that their marshalling spot has no line of sight out to the goblins, or else they will go running off to "kill" them.  "They" meaning the first dwarf to reach the position, and "kill" meaning dieing "heroically" in single combat against the hoard...

Also, unless you break out Dwarf Companion or something, I don't think it's possible to get those champians out of the guard and into the military :-(

Christes burst into the drinking hall, his face glowing with pleasure.  "Ye all won't believe the deal I got off those merchants!  I think I got every pint of drink and all their food, metal bars, wood, and even livestock, an' I don't think we'd even got but half our goods out there!"

"Well done!"  exclaimed Keldor, "I think this calls for a party!"

"But we still haven't finished the last one," Christes stated, confused, "How can we be throwin' two parties at once?"

"Bah, ye have a point," mused Keldor, "I know!  From this day forth, ye'll be known as Halltraded's official trader!  An' then we can be throwin' yer party a bit later, once this one be finished."

While Bralbaard busy was ignoring the liason in his office, an argument had broken out between Keldor and Christes.

"I thought you said that your plan was foolproof, that the water would simply flow back up the stairs to supply the water tower!"  Keldor glowered at the mechanic, who looked unimpressed.

"I told you, water will flow upward to fill any space below its maximum level.  This effect is known as the U-bend effect, and is a well established mechanical phenomena.  Therefore, I will tell you again that you are simply not waiting long enough.  The chamber will fill as soon as the water fills the bottom level," Christes explained.

"In case ye haven't noticed, the bottom level is full, an so is the tunnel leadin' out to the river!"  Keldor objected.

"And I'll tell you again, once it becomes full, the chamber will fill up as well," Christes spoke slowly, as if to a particularly slow student, "therefore, by corollary, the chamber must be filling as well."

"An' I tell you it don't be!" Objected Keldor, "I just be'd down there te check!"

"Well then, in that case, clearly the lower level is not full," Christes explained, seeming annoyed that Keldor did not seem to grasp this simple logic.

"Bah! An I tell ye it don't be fillin' and that the rest of the aquaduct be filled up full!"  Keldor shouted, "An' if ye can't grasp that, ye can come down with me an' I can show ye an' knock some sonse into yer thick skull!"

"Fine then," snapped Christes, "we shall go and see, and perhaps you will be the one who gets some sense knocked in!"

The tunnel down to the water tower's supply chamber was caked with dried mud which crackled under the two dwarves' feet as they made their way through the narrow, twisty passage.  Every so often, Christes would stop and inspect a piece of the inactive machinery, the stone gears and wooden axles which brought power to the pumps.

Finally, after several minutes squeezing through the gaps between machinery and walls, they came to the end of the passage, where a large slab covered the stairs down into the reservoir.  "Come and help me move this thing," Christes grouched, and before long the slab had been pushed aside, revealing the stairs down into the chamber below.

The chamber, although fairly large, was lit enough by the dwarves' lanterns to reveal where the former opening into the river was now plugged with a wall of gleaming obsidian.  Sticky mud sucked at their boots and stained the dwarves' clothing as they tredged across the chamber around the corner.  At the far side of the chamber, a deep pool reflected their lantern light with a still, mirrory surface.  As they approached, the outline of a stairway disappearing downward into the murky water could be seen.  The surface of the water was still; clearly the water was not flowing upward into the chamber.





"Well, will ye look at that," Christes said, "Looks like the thing got plugged up somewhere.  That'll be trouble to fix, an no doubt!"

"An' how do ye propose we fix that," Keldor glowered at the unmoving pool.

"Well, are ye any good at smiwwin'?" asked Christes wryly.

"Bah, we dwarves be like stone.  Tough as granite, but about as bouyent," Kelder answered sourly, "Ye know that!"

"Well then, I suggest we go an' find Ushat an' Bralbaard an' have 'em dig some dry access tunnels," responded Christes, "Or perhaps I could build a pump down here, an' maybe force whatever be blocking the tunnel," he mused.

[OOC]
I've discovered some rather odd behavior with U-bends - the rest of the waterway is full, but the water refuses to flow back up the stairs to its original level.  I suspect that this has something to do with the way nte river losses water off the edge of the map - since there are some tiles at the end of the river that do not have full 7/7 water, it might be deciding that since there is connected space on the river that isn't completely full that the water should try to fill that before trying to find a pressure outlet.
[/OOC]

The entrance into Halltraded was little more than a dark crevice, a passage crudely dug into the stone, more resembling a kobold's hole than anything dug by dwarves.  At threshold, there was a doorway of sorts built of rough stone blocks, but this was more the result of the inhabitants hastily removing the wall sealing off Bralbaard's first ill-designed tunnel (which happened to be in a perfect location to bring goods through to trade) than any real attempt at a proper entrance.  In reality, the thing the entrance resembled most was a hole in some ruined wall, reduced to rubble by the ever-present force of time.

Needless to say, this appearance did not help to boister Kib's confidence as he stood before the opening, wondering if it would be better just to return to the depot to wait for any signs of life.

A glance back at his friends made up his mind.  They would never let Kib live it down if, after his bold words, he were to simply turn back without setting a foot inside the foreboding fortress, and besides, Kib reasoned, there was no reason to think that anything other than a warm hall filled with drink and feasting dwarves awaited within.

Steeling his nerves, Kib stepped through the doorway and into the darkness beyond.

The corridor beyond was not as dark as it had appeared from the outside.  Beams of light filtered through the ceiling, where narrow slits let in the weak daylight.  This light illuminated the narrow passage, revealing other passages splitting off to either side before the short, narrow corridor ended at an imposing looking stone door.

The door, in contrast to the passage leading to it, was clearly of dwarven make.  It was a single rectangular slab of stone, perfectly filling the doorframe, so that not a single hairsbreadth would fit anywhere along the fine seam between door and wall.  The door and its frame were engraved with fine designs, befitting that of a proper fortress entrance, but with the door's relatively small size, Kib thought it looked more like the entrance to a mausoleum.

As he looked upon the door, Kib remembered stories of intrepid adventurers, doomed to a ghastly fate as the doors they had just entered slammed shut behind them, sealing them within forever, or at least for the decades before another would-be hero opened the door from the outside.  Within, the next adventurer would encounter the remains of previous adventurers, who, far from being exactly dead, forever roved the halls, glints of red looking out from empty sockets in skeletal faces, forever searching for an escape.  Or for warm flesh.

There was no way Kib was going to go through there, but, he supposed, he could still have a look in the other passages.  After all, he couldn't leave too soon, lest the other merchants discover his fear.

Looking down the passage to his left, Kib saw a derelict brewery, full of cobwebs and empty barrels.  In reality, the inhabitants of the place had simply abandoned it, in favor of a newly constructed still closer to the cellars and the farms.

Not seeing anything of interest there, Kib turned and went down the passage to the right, which went on for a short ways before turning a tight corner into an earthy chamber.  The chamber was full of tattered clothing and ropes, overflowing the few bins lined up against one wall, but this wasn't what caught Kib's attention.

While most of the bins were ordinary, work-dwarflike wooden boxes, there was one that stood apart from the others, one which, even in the dim light, practically glowed from an inner beauty.  There were simply no words to properly describe this most wonderful of bins, nor words for the incredible lifelike detail of the engravings thereon.  It was this bin that had caught Kib's attention, and he stood gawking at it like a drunk admiring ladies at a ball.  So entranced was Kib that he lost all track of time, failing even to notice the failing light as the sun began to set outside.

And also failing to notice the figure approaching from behind him...