Well! I decided to write a story the other day. It's been like 2 years since I've really sat down and tossed out any personal creative writing and my word processor (open office) seems to have decided not to spell check anything so understand that this is rough. Blah blah blah, keep it constructive etc
If there are any formatting issues, please let me know! I'm trying to decide whether I should add returns between each paragraph.
Also I don't really spend a ton of times on the forums so if someone else has used the name Steamdriven, I heartily apologize and was totally unaware. Still keeping the name, tho, cause I like it.
Fun fact: my 'A' key just popped off. Poor laptop lol.
Quick synopsis: Unob, with his friend Rith, is part of a migrant group heading the fabled fortress Steamdriven. Unob wants to work with the mechanics of this newfangled technology. When they arrive, however, they discover that something is wrong.... (creepy, right?) Anyway, please let me know what you think and feel free to offer advice/input on where the story should go if you have the inclination!
Chapter 1: In which our heroes arrive!
Unob was not a being of worry. He was a dwarf that some called bouyant and many called careless. He did not see the point in worry and so he didn't do it. It was not precisely that he was always happy with his lot in life but that he was never overwhelmed by the stress that some of his comrades occasionally showed. He tried to look for the bright side in everything.
For these reasons he did not worry about whether the fortress his small number of companions trekked towards would need a mechanic. He did wonder occasionally if the place would live up to its name. Kengsterus. Steamdriven.
He said the name aloud, as he occasionally did when lost in thought.
"Yeah," said his friend Rith. She spat at the ground in frustration. "Driven by steam. Water. I'll believe it when I see it."
"I'm sure it is," grinned Unob. "I heard it towers up from the ground and that -"
His friend grunted in exhasperation and he stopped. He knew that she wasn't as trusting as him. She was a very bullheaded dwarf and often demanded proof when a tale seemed extraordinary.
As it was proof was close at hand. They sluggishly rounded the top of the hill, following the slightest hint of a road, and it became obvious that they had reached their goal. Rith blinked many times more than strictly necessary, as she did when she was proven wrong. Perhaps, considered a particularly delighted Unob, she was trying to cool her angry brain off – she had reknown for a somewhat legendary temper back in the mountainhomes.
He called out gleefully to those behind him, but did not turn around. He did not see the other migrants rush up the hill but had he Unob would have understood. They were all tired and they were all anxious (except for Unob) and they were all very very excited to have a brief respite after the long journey. As he stared at the structures in the valley below the others crowded around him, clouding the air with the stench of too many weeks of travel.
But he was unwilling to focus on trivial details – instead captivated by the sight below. The entrance to the fortress was hard to distinguish. There were small stone buildings clustered around a sort of tower on the west side of the valley, there was a massive pit in the center and on the east a cluster of wooden shanties. A massive wall, at least half a dozen dwarfs tall, encircled the entire mess save the north side. Huge logs lay nearby, half worked into a large gate.
Someone in the crowd muttered, "Why are we waiting?" The voice was met with agreement and soon the gaggle of dwarves was running down the hill eagerly. Some in the crowd noticed a concerning oddity – there was no movement below. Those watchful few looked to the forest that rose above the place and saw no woodcutters. For a place reknowned in the mountainhomes for extensive deforestation to power the fortress' fabled steam engines this was unthinkable. Rith, worriedly clutching her familiar crossbow, was one of those few.
Unob was not. He bounded down the hill in great strides. The road curved away from his destination momentarily and he abandoned it without hestiation, barely noticing the brush that he crashed through. Steamdriven!
He cried the name aloud, as he occasionally did when he was excited.
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Unob hardly noticed what the others did. Had he spared any thought to them he would have assumed that most would be looking for a spare bed to dump their gear near and rest. He vaguely noticed Rith leave his side as they approached, but he was busy basking in the glory of the constructions before him. He quickly found his way inside the walls. They were massive! He couldn't imagine the effort that had gone into their construction. This place must have been bustling with workers while the walls were built, dozens of workers hauling stone, fitting it into place.
He gaped at the massive pit. It was circular and almost impossibly wide, much larger than the tower. He wondered if it was where they had mined the stone for the walls and for the tower. He glanced down into dizzying darkness and felt stricken with an intense humilty. This was a place where great things were done. And now he was part of it.
The tower was a source of particular amazement. It had a sense of purpose about it and Unob was certain that it was designed for some specific task. It was no ordinary tower. Further inspection reaffirmed his thought.
Instead of the standard circular affair that he had initially expected this structure held up by six huge pylons. At the top was... something. An observatory, perhaps. He noticed glints from the structure above and decided that they must be windows. Were there dwarves living up there? It would be an amazing home. In vain he tried to imagine the view while the walls were under construction.
As he stared upwards, stricken with the impressiveness of the sight, a huge billow of steam jetted from the bottom of the lifted structure. It collected into a cloud and drifted slowly down. Unob could see a rainbow in the cloud which streched at the steam expanded. Lazily it fell until it covered him completely and the rainbow faded from sight as the cloud obscured his sight. This experience, for Unob, was life-affirming – he knew his purpose now and it was here.
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The dwarves discovered, over the next few days, that the tower's release of steam came at noon. It came without fail and many came to appreciate it. Some were overcome with a sense of foreboding at the sight, however, and especially at the noise one could sometimes hear from the pit as the jet of steam was expelled.
They discovered a number of other things as well and these little bits of knowledge struggled to remain intact as they spread through the small population. A cook spotted lead pipes mysteriously jutting out of the ground, traveling just small distance and then just as abruptly curving back down into the earth. A gem setter found strange half-completed statues depicting a strange unlikely beast in room of the stone buildings. Rith discovered the bleached bones and tattered clothing of goblins in the forests. Their armor and weaponry were mostly looted but she did manage to collect a handful of discarded crossbow bolts from their midst.
There was a period of frantic inactivity those first few days. Most of the dwarves bedded down on whatever bedding they could scavange in the stone buildings under the tower. Nobody had discovered a way below in the buildings or a way to venture into the pit or the tower and nobody had found any hint that there might still be residents of Steamdriven other than the perplexed new arrivals.
It took over half a month for the bickering over who should lead the newcomers through this crisis to die down. Eventually a young but very well-spoken dwarf convinced the others that he should hold the position. His name was Adil Bidoktirist and he was the most experienced doctor. His impromptu campaign platform was based on two talents – a small amount of knowledge in nearly every field that might be required to sustain a fortress and no small amount of deciet.
During this time there was a tiny amount of autonomous action from the dwarves, almost entirely related to immediate survival. Rith and another, whose name constantly escaped her, combed the forest for prey. An aspiring alchemist strolled the meadows just outside the walls looking for edible roots and her brother laboured at building a still out of a meager collection of lumber ripped from one of the shanties.
Unob, if noone else, was outrageously happy that first week. Not uncharacteristic of him in the least, of course, but this was brought about by the glorious lack of direction that faced the group. While many of the others were daunted by the lack of order he thrived in it – namely because he was free to act as he wished.
He spent this time busily dashing about the strange valley in tasks of his own choosing. He conferred with the alchemist and devised a way to produce a rough parchment from the fiber of the broadleafed grasses in the outlying meadows and convinced a moderately talented carpenter to help him build a simple press and drying rack for this process. He managed to find an abundant, though highly inedible, berry that he could squeeze a passable red ink from. He found and cut to shape a suitable quill from some large bird that his friend had discovered during her hunts. And when he had his supplies he spent his time sketching the contents of the valley.
His drawings were sometimes meticulous and sometimes fanciful. Rith's favorite was a rendering of the daily steam cloud settling over a crowd of dwarves that had climbed to the top of one of the closer buildings to the odd tower. Unob thought that this was because it had been her idea to climb up there and also that he had put more detail into depicting her, pointing upwards with one arm and cradling her beloved crossbow with the other, than any of the other dwarves in the scene. When she asked to see it a second time he didn't ask her to return it.
His days were spotted with bustling activity to build up his supply of sketching materials and his evenings were filled with idle chatter with his friend and occasionally other dwarves who felt the urge to thank the hunter for providing them with sustenance. The two had found a little room in the back of one of the outlying stone buildings with a small stockpile of varied dusty goods. It looked picked through but they discovered a couple of bushy oversized fur cloaks, which Rith assured him were made by humans, that were quickly turned into a makeshift sleeping pad and blanket. In the evenings the two friends huddled together for warmth, as they occasionally had during the long journey to their new home, but as on the road neither pursued anything further.
Much to Rith's dismay the two were woken from sleep one day by her occasional hunting companion barging in on their secluded little room. It was early and the dwarf looked irritable. He said, with unmistakable distaste in his words, "We've got assignments. You and me – we're drafted. Still hunters. We're to comb the woods from dawn to dusk. And you." He glared at a groggy Unob pointedly. "You're on chopping duty."
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Someone had discovered a pitifully made copper axe discarded near the edge of the forest and it was unceremoniously given to Unob with vague instructions that he was to provide the carpenters with fresh timber. He was not particularly pleased with the task but kept his spirits up with frequent gazes at the wonder of the valley's constructions. Not once did he miss the midday expulsion of steam from the tower and he managed, in hurried bouts while the carpenters were busy and sometimes after it became to late in the day to work outside, to find time to continue exploring the valley.
Although initially drawn to the tower and the pit he found himself investigating the odd wooden shantytown to the east with the same fervor he had once reserved for the other constructions. By this point many of the dwarves refused to enter the area citing a vague dream from one dwarf and the strange noises that many heard occasionally drifting from the buildings.
Unob had no such concerns with the place until once, during a late evening, he noticed curious glimmering eyes peering out from one of the buildings as he strolled by. Several tense moments passed before he realized they seemed unwilling to come out in the open and he hastily sketched the building and the oddity. Rather than the fear that showed in the faces of many of the dwarves when they saw his depiction of this Unob felt even more compelled to investigate the strange area.
At his request Rith accompanied him for most of his trips into the shanties after that. She was more nervous than he by far. Although she didn't entirely believe him at first she had admitted that she was hard put to remember a time when he had lied to her, especially about something so important, and deigned to trust his judgement. The cluster of eyes did not show themselves again until he was alone one evening.
Rith had been ordered to patrol the edge of the pit at the behest of the young doctor and Unob found himself unable to sit still for long. He wagered that since the two of them had seen no trouble it would be the same should he go back there alone. Quickly he slipped off into the dimming valley, careful to skirt around the edges of the walls so as not to alarm his friend, and made his way to the shanties.
The haphazard organization of the structures was one more source of unease for many of the others. It seemed very unplanned and many deemed it entirely undwarfy, preferring to stay near the slightly more organized cluster of stone buildings near the tower. Unob himself found the place almost mystical and very pleasant. It was different, he agreed, from any other buildings in the valley but the wooden town held a peculiar alure to him and he had to discover why.
He spent several uneventful hours there, well after darkness had settled over the valley, and decided to return to the room he and Rith had claimed. This was when the curious eyes appeared to him again. He swore it was the same building as before but there was not quite enough light to discern any details of the place. He clutched his little copper axe firmly but stood his ground.
The eyes in the building, flashing pale greens and yellows as they moved, met his unwavering stare. A great deal of time passed before Unob realized that his legs and back ached from staying still and rigid for so long. He realized again how late it had become and turned to leave. An itching sensation made him suspect that the eyes watched him during much of the stroll back.
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That's all for now!
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Topic: The Mystery of Steamdriven (DF Inspired Story) (Read 1023 times)