Wow, this place is fun to explore, I can see a lot of work went into this. I got a PM with a well-written background story for the fortress from Tehsapper, I will use it to write this story.
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-Silverywind-I still can't see more than three feet in this fog, The obvious thing to do is to follow the wall, looking for an entrance. I notice however that the presence of the wall does not give me a feeling of direction, and comfort, as one would expect. The ice is dark and dense, and somehow, feels wrong and corrupted. It's definitely not the crystal clear ice I had imagined.
Almost on the other side of the massive construction I find a gap in the wall. I carefully enter the massive fortress. I find it hard to accurately describe this place, as due to the fog, I only see small parts of it at a time.
I have already described the massive outer walls, these would easily survive even the greatest sieges or natural disasters. Inside however the picture is different, most of the buildings have completely or partially collapsed. Not because of their age, this place must be ancient, no judging by the way the stones are arranged this place came to a violent end. This makes me even more worried about the monsters that may be hiding in the mist.
Then there are the new buildings; There are several of them scattered about the place, also several statues have been placed that tell the story of a dwarven expedition that arrived here in 1060, only several years ago. This must be the expedition that never made it to the museum. From the statues and craft-work made by the expedition I gather that the original city was completely destroyed by a tsunami, that subsequently froze. The dwarven expedition was here to excavate the hidden treasures of this long lost city, but what happened to them?
I've drawn a simple map of the layout of the ground floor of the fortress, for as far as this was possible in the mist:
I was carefully exploring other sections of the fortress, when suddenly a creature emerged from the dense fog. I panicked and ran away only to bump into a second creature, then lost my balance and fell into the snow. When I gazed up, I saw it was a dwarf. He had an eerie empty look in his eyes, and did not seem to respond at all to our recent collision. I got up, and tried starting a conversation, but he just returned a blank gaze, occasionally muttering sentences like:
..a...a..ask me when...I have returned... to my home...While exploring the rest of the fortress I ran into more dwarves like him, most never responded to my questions, others only returned meaningless answers, several of them talked about lost family members, all had been lost in the same way:
Flee into the ocean? What happened here?
I must have met about 30 of these lost dwarves, I tried to persuade them to join me and leave this place, but most never responded. One dwarf is following me now, still with a blank stare, and mostly unresponsive.
I explored the rest of the fortress, There is a massive central tower, with doors made of solid gold, from this tower huge walkways connect to other towers, some of these seem to have collapsed during the tsunami, which shows how high the wave must have been. Even the partially collapsed towers are still impressive in height, this place must be an absolutely stunning view on a non foggy day. The unnatural fog and cold have penetrated all buildings, the view inside is as bad as outside, with one exception, the catacombs and mineshafts below the city.
Despite the darkness, I can see further down here. The dungeons are abandoned and littered with animal corpses. A rusty lever sits against one of the walls:
There's a long, muddy corridor leading south, the water tastes salty. The corridor ends in a damp room filled with strange fungal growth. There is a large floodgate here, It does not appear to be under a lot of pressure, so I use the lever near the stairwell to open it. I can't leave it open for too long, or it will flood the entire fortress, the water pressure is too strong for me to swim against, I can't get a good look at the room beyond the floodgate.
Me and the brainwashed dwarf spend the night in the central tower, I think the dwarf just stood there the entire night with that blank stare, peering into the dense fog three feet ahead of him. this must be were the king of the ancient dwarven civilization had his throne room.
The next morning I explored the northwest section of the fortress, and I am glad I did, this is were all the treasure is hidden! I found a solid gold crown, beautifully decorated, and truly a masterpiece even among dwarven craft. It must have been crafted by the dwarven expedition, to commemorate their arrival here at the fortress.
Even more important, I found an ancient artifact, this must have been created not by the expedition, but by the ancient civilization that lived here:
It is warm to the touch, somehow unaffected by the deathly cold of this forsaken place. My brainwashed companion suddenly showed a glimpse of recognition in his eyes, and muttered:
m..m..Mournsaints...the Ruler-Fire of Rewards...I think he even smiled, before returning to his blank gaze.
I think I have found what I need for the museum. We will leave this place at once.
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I won't be keeping a detailed log of the journey back, I'll just try to get there as quick as possible.
Author
Topic: The Museum: Adventure mode succession world (DF 34.11) (Read 780898 times)