Bay 12 Games Forum

In a time before time, the dwarves of a world whose name has passed beyond knowledge inexplicably decided to settle upon a frigid glacier whose only mineral wealth was a few meager clusters of kaolinite and some unremarkable metals. The surface was a frozen waste populated by yetis, wolves and bears who wanted nothing more than a juicy dwarf for a snack. The caverns were populated by an alarming number of forgotten beasts. The site itself was so distant from civilization that the only notable event that ever happened anywhere remotely nearby was the death of the exiled vampire adventurer Muthe Vinebanks when the ocean snap-froze around her, encasing her in ice forever.

In spite of all this, the fortress thrived.

Every year, traders came hundreds of kiloUrists for the gorgeous porcelain and yeti bone crafts created by the dwarven artisans. Every month, new subterranean terrors fell before the might of the military or the cleverness of the mechanics with their webbed traps and falling floors. Every day, an engraver created a new masterful carving of the now-famous Death of Muthe Vinebanks (here, Muthe Vinebanks screaming, here cowering in a fetal position, here making a plaintive gesture, always being encased in ice). Every day, the vampire queen paced her tiny cell and admired her Muthe Vinebanks wall carvings and statuary--a grim reminder of what befalls bloodsuckers who can't control their impulses.

One day, though, it all fell to pieces. Two titanic horrors attacked in tandem, and while the military was distracted with one, the other started a cavern fire that would eventually claim their lives, though they did, mercifully, destroy the beast they were fighting when the fire started. The bulk of the military taken care of--a few stragglers were napping or off duty--the fire-breathing beast bypassed the not-yet-reset traps, breezed past a bridge raised a moment too late, and wreaked havoc upon the civilian populace. Within days, the last survivor of the militia--a raw recruit, no less--faced the beast and fell. Within a week, everybody in the fortress was dead; even the queen had been let loose to try and take down the menace, but she died screaming. Every man, woman and child in the fort died in terror and blazing pain. All but one dwarf.

She was nobody. She had dedicated her life to cheesemaking or threshing or socializing before coming to the fort. She never made a name for herself once she arrived, just quietly hauled goods around and did whatever no-skill job needed doing. All of her children died in the conflagration in the caverns; her husband was the raw recruit who was the last of the military to attempt to take on the beast; in her grief over the loss of her family, she miscarried what would have been her fourth child. She watched her friends die by ones and tens, but she could do nothing. She was nobody, after all. She was everydwarf.

Suddenly, though, she knew what she had to do. It was as though the genius loci of the fortress had gone into the military menu and--never mind, dear listeners, I won't bore you with metaphysics. As I was saying, she knew what she had to do. She grabbed the nearest armor and axe--by chance, her late husband's equipment--and approached the Beast. It spat fire at her, and she was ablaze. The agony was overwhelming, but she pressed on. Before she knew it she was upon the creature. She looked up at its towering bulk...and with one clumsy swing of the axe, she neatly lopped off its head. She screamed, whether from triumph or pain or loss or all of these, as the Beast fell before her burning wrath.

All this happened near a well, so she was able to douse herself with water. Her face and upper body were masses of melted scar tissue, every single person she knew was dead, but somehow, she persevered. She began to entomb and memorialize the countless dead. Everywhere, she felt their spirits around her. On the rare occasion she allowed herself a break, she would walk through the empty rooms of her late friends, stare glassy-eyed at the porcelain statues of Muthe Vinebanks, or eat in the furthest corner of the glorious dining hall that had been the bustling heart of the great underground city she had known and loved.

Nobody knows exactly what happened next, but when the next year's caravan arrived, they found the fortress an abattoir. Dead bodies still littered the halls, ghosts glided laughing or shrieking through the halls, and the still-hot corpse of a monumental metal Beast lay by its neatly severed head. There were no survivors.

One body, though, was much fresher than the rest. Unlike the rest of the bodies, this one was not charred to a crisp, though the face and upper body were horribly scarred by fire. It was hunched by a burnt-out brazier over a half-chiseled memorial slab, a rictus of terror on its face and a gooey mass of ectoplasm right over its heart.

The name on the slab was illegible, but the words "beloved husband" were still visible.

So, dear friends, the next time you spit on those who dedicate their lives to worthless pursuits, remember this: heroism lies in the hearts of even the lowliest of dwarves. Thus endeth the lesson.