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« on: October 13, 2008, 10:19:45 am »
This is going to be a story fort, although if anyone wants to join and make it a community fort, they're welcome to, and they can post their dwarf's views if they so desire. I will be running it as a generational fort, as much as I am able, so keep that in mind.
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We are the Pillars of Lashing, the last and only hope of Olon Thasdoth, the Gears of Exaltation. That such a great and mighty civilization should be forced so low as to depend upon us lowly citizens...but I digress. I shall begin at the beginning, where all stories must.
I am Durien, and I was born and have lived all my life in the great Mountainhome of Olon Thasdoth. By trade I am a lowly clerk, assigned to aid the nobles with whatever bookkeeping they require. About eight years ago, Olon Thasdoth's King Besmar Searchstaff tired of the constant border disputes and began a war against the nearby goblins of Tuxumstozu. The war lasted until last fall.
On the morning of the 13th of Sandstone in the year 200, I was taking a break when I heard the cry, "A vile force of darkness has arrived!" The goblins had, of course, come to attack. I wasn't particularly concerned, for our military had pushed them back many times before.
But this time was different. The Tuxumstozu goblins had banded with another group, and thus were twice as many as usual, and the second group had brought trolls and beak dogs. They soon overpowered our not inconsiderable military and breached our defenses. All was chaos as panicked dwarves fled hither-thither searching for a safe place as the goblins poured down the great halls and through the chambers, striking down any and every dwarf they found. I found myself running as well, not knowing where I was going, only knowing that I couldn't stay, and eventually ended up in a rough tunnel I was unfamiliar with. There I met a miner I knew but slightly and a smith I had never met before who knew of a secret entrance, and followed them through a secret entrance and out of the Mountainhome. I found myself in a rough cave whose entrance was well-hidden by thick bushes and some young trees. I was relieved to be away from the immediate danger, although even the thick stone separating us from Olon Thasdoth was not enough to completely silence the screams. Ablel, the miner, insisted on returning inside, to search for her family in spite of our pleas for her to remain in relative safety. While we waited for her return, two fishery workers burst out of the tunnel, and nearly died of fright when they saw us, and the smith and I spent much of the rest of the wait calming them down. When Ablel returned late in the night, she was accompanied by two other dwarves, an apprentice brewer and a lowly hauler who had been fortunate enough to end up in the same tunnel that I had, and the news that no one else could have survived. Out of nearly a thousand, only the seven of us remained, and we looked at each other in silence and despair.
The next day we took a vote and it was decided that we would leave, and find another place where we could live in safety, and we left while the goblins were still deep in the mountain, looting our treasures and drinking our booze. The drink was perhaps the hardest thing to leave, but none of us were willing to venture back into the mountain in the hopes of liberating a barrel. Not far from the fort, we found two young puppies cowering by their mother's body. Though we did not have the time to bury the dog as she deserved, we took the pups with us. We also came upon a horse and a one-humped camel near a soldier's body and an injured cat near another.
