No.
No!
Close... but NO!
This went on for hours and hours, with Feb smashing rocks together, taking a fraction of a second to judge the products, then becoming increasingly frustrated with herself and tossing the sharpened stones behind her. Hundreds, if not thousands of sharp rocks piled up, but none that satisfied the creative spirit that had suddenly possessed her. It's really a wonder that she could find that many rocks. Finally, when the crazed dwarf was just about to pass out from exhaustion and dehydration...
To be fair, it wasn't nearly as impressive as some other artifacts created by dwarves during fey moods, but it was by far the most beautiful things any dwarf from Ishenmistem had ever created, and to Feb it was priceless. She sat back and held the artifact (for indeed it was more than just a masterpiece to Feb) in her scarred and blistered hands and marveled at it for quite some time. Finally, she snapped out of her strange mood, and stood up to behold her surroundings. To her amazement, all of the snow around her had melted without her ever noticing it. She looked back to the wooden shack to see the door open and some goblins leaving it, off to plow the fields. While Feb was gorging herself on the little pond grabber meat and water she had left, from behind the doorway the goblin doctor stood, looking curiously at Feb and watching to see if she would come back to threaten him again.
Feb, full of food and ecstatic about her creation, now felt the burning desire to share the delights of her creation with others, even if those others were murderous goblins. Perhaps she could keep that doctor's secret, and put that human-product-ring-debacle behind both of them in the name of art. Just to be safe, she gathered up a few of the exceptionally crafted rocks she had tossed aside in her pursuit of perfection. She could use them as weapons if need be, but she wanted to keep her prized possession as clean of blood as possible. Then, she marked the spot where her marvelous creation had been birthed with an X of dwarven fireplaces (which can last months or longer, due to some unkown magical property).
After the construction of her fiery landmark, Feb, sharpened rocks in hand, approached the probably-vampiric goblin.
"Hi, um, sorry about the whole threatening you and your comrades with a copper spear thing. It's... a... traditional dwarven greeting, really. I meant no offense. Anyway, that's a really neat horse hair ring that definitely did not come from a sentient creature. I really like it and have no problems with you wearing it whatsoever, and I definitely will not tell anybody something ridiculous like it is made of a dead human's hair or something like that."
"Right... what do you want, dwarf?"
"Well, you see, I was lucky enough to have been possessed by the holy spirit of dwarven creation, as you saw when I last ran out of here. During this possession, I produce this:"
"Hot damn if that's not the sharpest rock I've seen in my life! The patterns you've engraved on it are beautiful! Honestly, this belongs in a museum!"
"Museum?"
"Well, it's only something I heard, but apparently there's a museum that collects all sorts of curious trinkets and treasures that adventurers find, but it's located in a human city on the other side of the world on the northeastern continent."
"A human town you say... there's no dwarven museums that you've heard of?"
"No, sorry. Just the human one in Dinnerwandered."
"Can you at least tell me of some dwarven mountainhomes around here? I'm hoping to find a place to practice my craft, stonecrafting obviously, and I'll bet that if I show up to a dwarven settlement with this baby, they'd give me a stonecrafting workshop in a heartbeat."
"Alright, I'll tell you what I know. But, I've got one condition for you."
"What's that?"
"Being an appreciator of art, as you can see I am by my clothes, I would loathe for that artifact of yours to be locked up in some dwarven vault somewhere, which it certainly will if you relinquish it to your greedy kin. If I tell you where some dwarven settlements are, you have to promise me that that masterpiece will end up in Dinnerwandered's museum for everyone to enjoy."
"Alright, fine, just tell me some places where I can settle down and enjoy some good booze for once in my life."
"Hmm... let's see if I can recall this right... There's... Silverywind a little northeast of here. I don't know anything about it other than its location on the Ashen Oceans and the fact that it's extremely cold. Other than that, legend has it that there's an uncharted island continent far to the east, on which there is only one civilized nation called Plankstirred. Supposedly, the place was founded by a bunch of extremely ambitious dwarves, who could still be there for all I know. I wouldn't reccomend going there, though. Apart from those two, I hear that there are several dwarven fortresses on the continent that Dinnerwandered is on, but you'll probably be better off asking folks once you get up there. That's all I know."
"I guess that means I'm heading to Silverywind then. One more thing before I go,
After the well-dressed doctor revealed himself as what Feb had suspected, those who had earlier drawn their knives in defense of him, now all turned to attack this abominable creature of the night, while Feb threw her two exceptionally sharp stones at the beast, but missed with each. She then decided to go collect more sharpened stones from the pile and wait to see how the fight inside turned out before rejoining.
She returned to find the footless corpse of the vampire surrounded by the angry mob that slew him. None of the peasants had suffered much damage beyond bruises and one broken nose.
Feb had heard rumors of people becoming vampires by consuming the cursed blood of other vampires, but she had no interest in becoming an undead servant of the night. Besides, drinking blood is gross. Instead, she opted to liberate the fancyass clothes from his corpse, along with his jewel-encrusted knife. She did, however, leave behind the jewelry made of human and goblin byproducts.
After spending the night in the cursed bloodstained wooden shack with her newly-made goblin friends, Feb set off once more, this time with a specific destination. She hoped with all her being that Silverywind would be a nicer settlement than Ishenmistem, and that its denizens would recognize the paralleled beauty of her creation.
The next morning, 26th of Granite, 1099, while on her way to where the late vampire, Ngokang Alrozom, said Silverywind was, Feb was attacked by a pack of wolves.
Using a combination of her sharpened rocks, rocks she scooped off the ground while scrambling away from the canine terrors, and her two knives, she was miraculously able to slay all of the wolves, despite having no military experience to her name. She did not succeed in fending them off without taking quite a beating, however. She possessed heavy bruises on her legs, hands, and body, and her right ear was smashed to pieces after being gnawed on by a wolf. At least she now had some breakfast after butchering the things. She ate and continued her trek, without even resting or bandaging her ear. She desperately wanted to get out of the cold and underground as fast as possible, even if that meant traveling while wounded. Besides, she didn't feel safe resting in wolf territory.
Hours later, after escaping the Beautiful Jungles and entering the tundra, Feb had another unfortunate encounter with wildlife. This time, the predator was much more intimidating.
Feb tried to run once again, but the thing proved faster than her. It would eventually overtake and eat her; she had to fight. She flung her knives behind her in an attempt to slow the beast down. The jeweled one struck it in the leg, chipping the bone. This offered an opportunity to escape, but Feb's dwarven greed got the better of her and she went back for the valuable knife. Luckily, the thing was writhing in pain and slipping in and out of consciousness, so the retrieval wouldn't be too dangerous. She probably could have even slit the thing's throat in its sleep, but she didn't want to take any chances and ran the hell away from that thing.
After another encounter with wolves, which Feb was able to escape due to a martial trance, Feb was extremely close to the location Silverywind was supposed to be, though she could not see it. Night had already fallen, and she was anxious to find the fortress before she was surrounded by cackling. Finally, she saw it off in the distance: a towering structure made of dark blue stone. Although she could see it even in the darkness of night, she was separated from it by the arctic Ashen Ocean.
A few hours of navigating along the frozen coast in the dark later, Feb arrived at what she hoped would be her new home. Stumbling towards it in the darkness, she saw in the moonlight another figure of her stature: another dwarf! So, the goblin was right, and this settlement was populated, which meant that they would certainly have room for a stonecrafter!
Feb called to the dwarf in her excitement and ran to meet him. She threw a barrage of questions at him, but he gave extremely strange answers. He refused to speak of Silverywind or the capital of his civilization, instead responding, "Ask me when I've returned home", suggesting to Feb that perhaps he was lost, insane, or both. When she asked him if she could contribute her services (as a stonecrafter), he told her to go kill an impala. She was uncertain as to whether this was some sort of local insult, or if he was just crazy. Extremely disappointed with this encounter, Feb left the poor lost dwarf out in the snow and approached the fortress itself.
She finally reached the wall of the fortress, which was cold to the touch. Upon closer inspection, discovered that the wall was in fact made of solid ice!
Surely dwarves with the architectural knowledge and the planning skills to construct a fortress out of
ice would possess unimaginable riches. Feb decided that the soap maker she had met was probably just the local idiot, and that the dwarves inside would be those of high class; the kind of dwarves that would appreciate her artifact.Her assumption that the fortress was rich was extenuated by the fact that there was a raw gemstone lying out in the snow, as if someone had carelessly dropped it there.
She decided that it probably wouldn't be missed, and stuffed it into her backpack.
Feb's next objective was finding a way into the fort. She saw nothing but a vast wall of smoothed ice when she looked around her. She decided to walk around the perimeter of the place and see if the other walls were more promising. On her walk, she met another dwarf, this one a young peasant. This dwarf also responded to any of Feb's questions with "ask me when I've returned home!" and he likewise asked her to "kill the impala". Feb began to feel as if someone was playing a joke on her, but decided just to ignore this dwarf as well and progress onward into the fort. Maybe all of the sane people were hiding inside, which made sense; what kind of a dwarf walks around outdoors on the coast of an arctic ocean?
Past the insane peasant, Feb spotted a lump on the ground, covered with snow. After swiping it clean, it was revealed to be a turkey skeleton.
Feb wasn't sure what to think of that.
After walking all the way around the fortress's outer walls, Feb finally located the entrance and walked inside, looking for whoever was in charge.
The fortress's courtyard was littered with vermin corpses. On closer inspection, however, Feb determined that these were no ordinary vermin; they were the fabled fluffy wamblers, who were rumored to hail only from the lands blessed by the gods. Perhaps this tundra was indeed blessed. That would certainly explain why anyone would settle a fortress all the way out here despite the cold.
The question struck Feb as to why nobody had cleaned up this refuse. There was also a turkey corpse, this one not quite skeletal, lying in the courtyard. A turkey skeleton lying outside the fortress is one thing, having turkey remains lying around inside the courtyard is something very different. Something was extremely wrong with this place.
Feb carried on looking for the leader of this place, but she did so much more cautiously.
Near the south end of the courtyard, she spotted a dwarf sleeping, lying up against the icy wall and covered in snow. "Hey!" Feb called to him, but there was no response. When she arrived, she saw why.
The corpse was still fresh, no doubt preserved by the region's climate, and was covered in his own blood. But, in addition to the blood was something strange; some kind of purple mucus was splattered about his body. Perhaps there was some sort of titanic beast or demon dwelling in the ice fortress that omitted the stuff.
At this point, Feb was extremely tempted to leave immediately before she had to find out what killed that poor dwarf or what had caused the two dwarves outside to lose their minds. However, she could not stop thinking about the gem she had found outside or the mysterious material out of which the fort was constructed. She had caught a whiff of their wealth, and knew there had to be more somewhere in this fort. It was illogical and stupid, but that is simply the manner all dwarves behave in when gems or precious metals are involved. She decided to delve deeper into Silverywind. After all, if those mad dwarves outside had survived, surely at least one dwarf with his mental faculties intact survived within the place.
Part 4
Author
Topic: The Museum: Adventure mode succession world (DF 34.11) (Read 782566 times)