I put off doing the next turn of the RTD so I could finish this. so yay for you guys! not so much for Lolfail who finally got in.
Excerpt 8 from the Third Diary of Terrahex the Dwarf
I led us through Mr Frog’s tunnels as quickly and quietly as I normally went about. I didn’t know where I was going, but in the wake of my argument with Rose, I didn’t really care. I didn’t hesitate at intersections before choosing a direction, not looking over my shoulder to see if my “friends” were following me. I wasn’t even sure at the moment whether or not I could call them my friends. After all, Urist was a stranger to me and had his own reasons for getting stuck down in those wretched caverns; a reason which I hoped was resolved so he wouldn’t have to repeat the experience.
Rose however, was once my friend and is still angered by me at the time of this writing. Our fight was unprecedented for us, as was the grudge that we stubbornly held onto for the next week until now as hindsight clears my thoughts.
Back in the tunnels, after a long hour of climbing through the twisty, turny tunnels, I came upon a dead end. On the wall was another one of those mushroom levers that Urist pulled to get us in these tunnels, so I walked over to it and pulled it down without hesitation.
The floor opened up beneath me and I only had time to let out a short yelp and claw the air feebly before I hit the stone floor five feet below, landing in a wrong way on my foot and smashing my burned hand onto the stone floor. I saw red in the corners of my eyes, stifling a cry of pain with tears welling up in my eyes..
“Terrahex?” Urist inquired, looking over the edge of the tunnel. I heard Rose dying of laughter behind him. I’m glad it made at least one of us feel better. “Are you okay?”
With the pain still subsiding, I forced myself up, rolling my ankle around to make sure it still worked. It hurt, but not nearly as much as my hand did. I looked up at him and nodded.
Rose and Urist took much more care in coming down than I did. We were in an off-shoot of the spiral staircase that skewered Spearbreakers like a toothpick through a cat sandwich. There were many off-shoots from the stairs where the miners had found valuable ores, and I wasn’t quite sure which one we were in, starting to walk up regardless. The majority of Spearbreakers was in the upper levels and there wasn’t really anything beside the forges worth mentioning beneath the mayor’s rooms.
We passed the mayor’s rooms soon enough. To be honest I’m not even sure who the mayor is right now, but Simon Tam held the office for so many years in a row before getting beaten it’s hard to think of it as anything else but Simon Tam’s rooms.
Directly above Simon Tam’s rooms, we reached the clover and stared, shocked, at the gruesome sight on display. There were bones and bodies and limbs everywhere on every surface. Coffins were broken open, missing, disturbed, or even gone entirely. Blood spattered some surfaces and Dwarves ran through it, spreading it everywhere with bloody foot prints as they returned bones and body parts to coffins before replacing the lid. Several military soldiers were loafing about, sitting on coffins that had been refilled. I recognized Lefton chiefly because he was the only soldier in Spearbreakers who used a sword instead of a pike or an axe or a hammer.
“What happened here?” Urist said, mouth hanging open. “We were just here only five or six hours ago!”
I stared silently at the carnage, remembering how Fischer had gone up to protect the fortress. She must’ve been going to take care of this. It was either that or The Master had turned open every single coffin for the sake of this absolute CARNAGE. At the time it seemed like each had an equal chance of happening.
“You!” Rose pointed at a dwarf hauling Bombzero’s ribcage back to her coffin. I think she was Wari, but she hasn’t been seen in awhile, so I can’t be sure. “What in Hollistic’s name happened here?”
“Necromancer must’ve got in. all the corpses began moving and whatnot.” The Wari lookalike said, looking at us strangely as if we were aliens. With the way rumors spread she must’ve thought everyone knew about the incident. I was hidden of course, so she couldn’t have seen me.
“A necromancer? They’ve never been able to reanimate corpses inside coffins! And the military’s killed every one in a hundred mile radius.” Urist said, surprise written deeply in his face.
“That’s why Fischer’s so worried. She thinks that a necromancer from someplace far away must’ve somehow slipped in past her airtight defenses and continued down the main stair undetected until the bastard reached the clover and the proximity made the coffins ineffective.”
“That’s impossible.” Urist said, glancing around. I was sure that he must’ve been thinking of me and my uncanny ability to hide in plain sight, so it wasn’t so impossible as he claimed it to be.
The dwarf shrugged. “It’s just what Fischer thinks. They haven’t captured the Necromancer, so she’s on a goose hunt right now.”
“Was anyone hurt?” Urist asked.
“Not really. All the skulkers left the clover when The Master rose from the grave. Really, the only one hurt was just that Talvi girl. Fischer was bringing her up from the stairs and she…”
I didn’t hear the rest. I was already running up the stairs. The pain from my ankle and hand suddenly left with all the worry that consumed me. Honestly, Rose is the best friend I’ve ever had, but Talvi was the first and I just couldn’t let her go, no matter how foul the acts she’d done in the past.
I burst through the doors of the hospital only moments later. At that point, staying hidden was the furthest thing from my mind. I scanned the various people in the beds. I identified Talvi easily, seeing the blood-soaked bandages wrapped around her shoulder from where I was. A sob shook through me uncontrollably, everything bad that happened that day was coming back to me in an instant with this moment standing at the top.
“Can I help you?” The chief medical dwarf asked me. I jumped in fright, not recalling that I wasn’t hidden. “You appear to be injured.”
“It’s… nothing. I’m only here to… see Talvi.” I said, gasping for breath from the long run up the stairs. I felt faint, but I wasn’t sure whether that was from the run, stress, or interaction with someone new.
Normally when dwarves so much as stubbed their toe they came in for medical treatment, so this modest self diagnosis must’ve come as a shock to the CMD. As the adrenaline faded, I could truly start to feel my injuries once more and I questioned whether or not I actually did need medical help. I haven’t received medical treatment since I rejoined dwarven society, but that streak could easily be interrupted.
I ignored anything else the CMD said, walking over to Talvi’s bed and gratefully collapsing into a chair pulled up beside it. She was dressed in those same clothes that she had been in when she was leading us down into the depths of Spearbreakers, those same clothes that she wore scuttling through the cavy tunnels while the rest of us lagged behind her. Now they were soaked thoroughly with Talvi’s own blood now. Bandages had been wrapped in odd angles across her body to stop the bleeding from a hole in her shoulder. Her eyes were shut and her mouth was open slightly, her stomach rising and falling slowly. Dwarves never were creatures of the sun, but she seemed to be pale even by dwarven standards.
“She’s in bad shape.” The CMD said in my ear, once more making me jump from fright. He continued on without noticing. “She’s lost a lot of blood and, though zombieism isn’t contagious, a rotting corpse isn’t the most sanitary of things to be bitten by. It’ll be a miracle if she doesn’t get infected and she’ll be lucky if she survives if she does.”
I nodded to the doctor, not trusting my stumbling tongue to convey my thoughts. Tears pooled in my eyes, but I wouldn’t let them run down my cheeks in front of people that could see me. The doctor pestered me one more time to get me to accept medical treatment, but I didn’t want to leave Talvi’s side for a second.
When she slept, she looked too much like the girl she was before her Armok damned overseership. And then I did weep.
Many hours later, my hand was treated professionally and my ankle was examined. I had consented to it solely because every time the doctors came near me to ask if I was okay, I got a little more sick each time I answered. The CMD asked how I was injured, but I didn’t tell him, and no amount of pestering would get that out of me. After painfully smearing my burned skin with some ointment, he rewrapped my hand in clean bandages, throwing out the hem of Urist’s shirt.
Urist and Han came in to say hi to me. I think they only did it because Rose put them up to it; to see if I was okay. She didn’t actually come in herself. They told me that they had only the finest hopes for Talvi’s recovery. Urist also said that he actually did find evidence down in those damnable caverns but didn’t say what it actually was. I didn’t press him about it because I didn’t really care. Han set a couple of carrots on the table beside her bed for her cavies.
Fischer came in and questioned me about what happened down in those caves. I was sure that Urist and Rose had already told her, but I could see no reason not to tell her any way. I kept things vague, not mentioning magic at all. By the time I finished by saying that we got out using some of Mr Frog’s tunnels, a few nurses were hovering around us. I got sick of course, throwing up twice, but I finished the story.
Fischer shooed the nurses off, apologized for not keeping Talvi safe. She told me that Talvi had practically lain down on a silver platter with an apple in her mouth for the zombies, but I didn’t really listen to her.
I slept all through the night in that chair. Or day. I’m not sure which, but I didn’t sleep for long. Nightmares of flaming zombies chasing me through the halls of Spearbreakers permeated my dreams. Sometimes I heard Talvi screaming far off in the halls and I would startle awake to find Talvi still sleeping soundly before me. I’d soon nod off again, only to be reawaked an undetermined amount of time later for the same reason.
The doctors checked on Talvi constantly and consistently, changing her saturated bandages often. I eventually regained control of myself and hid in that chair, feeling peace once I was in the shadows again. Once Talvi awoke and they tried to feed her, but she was delirious from the loss of blood and refused to eat.
I left her side only occasionally in the next few days to report to Splint about her condition. He gave me down time because I was injured, but I knew that he was actually doing it so I could stay by Talvi. Rose still didn’t talk to me, which depressed me greatly.
Finally on the fourth day of Talvi being in the hospital she spoke to me: “Terrahex?”
I nearly jumped for joy. Her voice sounded steady unlike the other times she woke up when she was hysterical. “I’m here, Talvi.” I took hold of her hand, eyeing her pale face intently.
“Why can’t I see you?”
“Because your eyes are closed.” I nearly laughed.
A smile ghosted across her face when she opened her eyes. “Oh, there you are!” She laughed for a few seconds before it turned into sobbing, tears soaking her pillow.
“Hey, Shhh. It’s all right.” I shushed. “Everything is going to be all right.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She said louder than before, catching the eyes of a few nurses. I made myself more visible so they’d go away, seeing that she was being attended.
“Shhhh, it’s not your fault.” She gripped my left hand tightly. My other hand was still healing, but the bandages had been removed to show blistered pink skin that itched fiercely.
“Yes, yes it is. I thought I could control them!” She cried more. “I thought that they were mine.”
“Don’t worry now. You’re safe. I won’t let anything hurt you.”
“I raisded them, Terrahex, I swears I did.” She went still suddenly, her crying subsiding slowly.
“What do you mean you raised them?”
“I’m sorry.” She said sleepily. “I’m sorrys Terra…” She drifted off, her grip going slack, and I got no more words out of her.
She raised them? She raised them? Forcing a swallow past a lump in my throat, I reached out and pulled back the sleeve of her shirt. She had a tattoo there. It was much like the tattoos I have on my left arm, and I had a sinking feeling I knew what it was for.
Talvi, despite all the terribly stupid odds, had gotten her hands on a necromancy book and had read the only passage that was written in universal and wasn’t encoded.
She was the one who raised the dead dwarves in the clover, but she didn’t know how to control them. With that rune, she was a danger to not only herself, but to everyone around her. I didn’t want to admit it, but a nagging voice in my head said What makes you think you’re different from her?
I ignored it. I reached for my dagger in my sheath, gripping the hilt in my left hand so hard my knuckles whitened. I was doing this for Talvi, I told myself, but still part of me questioned whether I really was. I slashed the rune once vertically then again horizontally just to be sure. Blood welled up in the cuts and ran down her arm, staining the sheets of her bed. I grabbed some nearby bandages and wrapped them tightly about her arm.
I was doing it for her.
I also started watching Doctor Who. Doctor Who is proof that God exists and wants us to be happy.
Poll
55 (71.4%)
Author
Topic: [34.11] Spearbreakers - It shudders and begins to move (Read 2192582 times)