Politics suckWhen you're a military dwarf, dealing with the schemes and ulterior motives that are associated with positions of power can leave one feeling drained, yet rage-filled.
This is how Jester felt after his run-in with Fikod, the expedition leader. He stormed away from Fikod's office, brushing dwarves aside, heading for his designated training room on the upper level. Upon reaching it he went into the stockpile, put on his breastplate and grabbed his war hammer.
The room's armour stand stood in the middle of the room, sculpted in the shape of a dwarf. Jester walked quickly towards it, war hammer at his side. He spun, arm outstretched, swinging the hammer around in a rapid arc.
Thunk!The head of the armour stand hit the soft sand floor, sheared off by the sheer brute force of Jester's attack. Jester himself stood there, breathing deeply as he stared daggers at the decapitated head, wishing it was Fikod's.
"Something on your mind?"
Jester spun around, hammer at the ready. Hatchy was leaning against the sandy archway to the training room, clad in her breastplate, looking slightly amused. Jester slowly swung his hammer through a few infinity loops, loving the way the hammer hummed as it cut through the air, then turned and aimed a kick at the armour stand's torso, knocking it to the ground.
"Not anymore," he said. "I just want to get on with training."
Hatchy nodded, unsheathing her own sword from its scabbard. "Let's get some training in, shall we?"
===
InundatedFikod stood at the entrance to base camp with Sloth the miner going over the latest progress reports on the mine shaft. Fikod, unhappy about the depletion of the gold nugget vein, looked up in vexation. He then squinted... what was that mass of bodies on the horizon?
After a few moments, it became apparent.
Dwarves. Dozens of them. Battletrials was being invaded by fortune-seeking migrants.
They poured into the front doors like a tidal wave of hair, odour and chanting. Fikod did his best to obtain papers from each person before they swarmed into camp.
Jester and Hatchy heard the rumblings from upstairs and rushed down to the main corridor, watching in amazement as the raucous mob piled into the front doors and into their booze supplies.
When the crowd dissipated Fikod walked over to where the two were standing, carrying an armful of papers.
Hatchy blinked at the sight of Fikod staggering under the mountain of papers. "Good grief. We're in danger of becoming a legitimate town."
Fikod snorted, slowly going through the papers he had collected. Battletrials had just gone from 17 dwarves to...
(If anyone wants specific dwarf bios let me know, but I thought that putting up nearly 30 dwarf bios pro-actively would be a bit much!)
Fikod and Jester both smiled as they went through the newcomer's details, but for totally different reasons.
Seven miners... excellent.Fresh meat... excellent.Jokers and HeroesJester and Hatchy gathered some volunteers from the local population into the two training rooms. The two leaders had already agreed that they couldn't both be in the same team, so they split the 8 volunteers into two groups. Each team had three dwarves with prior combat experience, plus one dwarf with no skills who they could nurture.
The fresh-faced recruits grabbed what little equipment was around; leather armour and some bone helms. Jester and Hatchy told the recruits that they would start off with the basics, working on balance, positioning and wrestling skills.
Two recruits already had ideas in mind for their equipment.
NRDL decided he needed to be like his farm plots: simple yet efficient.
ShadowHammer told Hatchy that he wanted to show everyone that Marksdwarves are not just at-range fighters. Therefore Hatchy ordered a wooden crossbow to be made until a metal one could be traded for:
With that... they got to work. The training rooms were finally buzzing with activity as Hatchy and Jester led their charges in combat demonstrations and sparring sessions.
Rimtar, one of the new recruits, told Hatchy that he had developed a new dodging training regime. Hatchy agreed to let him show the other recruits in their group. Every advantage over the Jokers would be crucial!
===
New tiesFikod heard the clangs and cries from the barracks upstairs, but paid them no mind... he had a town to run.
He ordered a further expansion of the mines, seeking more gems and gold nuggets. Without the fuel necessary to smelt the nuggets into bars, his plan was to find enough gems to trade off for wood, coke and charcoal. Those military dwarves were also insistent on obtaining metal...
Fikod had been receiving complaints about the lack of beds. Without wood to make new beds the dwarves had been forced to hot-bunk on the few beds which had been built. That problem was soon fixed:
The graceful elven trade leader was wined and dined within Fikod's private office. The elves were impressed with the gems that Battletrials had collected, which Fikod used to pry all the wooden logs from the elven caravan.
Once trade had concluded, the trade leader and Fikod shook hands and parted ways, with Fikod promising more riches if they returned.
With the wood problem sorted:
Fikod ordered the production of beds and cage traps.
Kill two wrens with one bolt... well-rested civilians will leave me alone and Jester's cage traps can finally be built.The town of Battletrials celebrated, albeit in slightly different ways:
Ethereal influencesJester and Hatchy were walking through the main fortress corridor, comparing how their squads were doing after the first month of training.
Jester pointed to his roughly-scribbled notes. "NRDL has already shown improvements in his dodging and the usage of his spear. He's definitely the top candidate so far."
Hatchy snorted. "Are you kidding? ShadowHammer developed a combat technique where you run forward, perform a slide-tackle while shooting a crossbow, throw the empty crossbow at the target's head
while still sliding, then use a sword to hack their nads off while they're dazed and off-balance. We're calling it the "ShadowHammer Neuterific Slide-Tackle".
Jester blinked. "But what if your target is a female?"
Hatchy blinked as well. "How does that change the scenario?"
Jester was so busy trying to wrap his head around Hatchy's words that he didn't notice Edem, the potter newcomer, shuffling towards them. Jester walked into his shoulder, getting knocked into the wall of the corridor. Edem spun around repeatedly in place as Jester, snarling, turned around and drew his hammer. Hatchy grabbed Jester's arm and pinned it against the wall, stopping him from swinging.
"Don't swing," she said softly. "Look at the eyes..."
Jester squinted at Edem's eyes... they were pure white... empty...
"That's not right at all, "Jester said quietly. "Let's follow. No telling what's about to happen."
Edem, spinning momentum spent, resumed his shuffling walk towards the workshop district. Jester and Hatchy followed close behind, weapons at the ready. This continued until they reached the Craftsdwarf workshop, where Sibrek the mason was working on some rock pots.
"Get! Out!" Edem howled, his voice sounding like a thousand chains rattling inside a thousand echoing caverns.
Sibrek looked up, saw Edem's eyes, and promptly ran for his life, past a bewildered Jester and Hatchy.
Edem shuffled out in the hallway to where some loose granite stone was lying discarded by the miners. Picking up first one stone, then another, Edem set about collecting three granite blocks and returning them to the Craftsdwarf shop... he then got to work.
Jester and Hatchy watched, transfixed, as wispy tendrils emerged from Edem's eyes, nose and ears, forming into crude hands as they took up tools and started molding the granite blocks. They worked with super-human speed, almost too fast for the eyes to follow. Before long, the four granite blocks had vanished. With one last howl, the smoky appendages disappeared back into Edem. There was a bright flash and a thunderclap and was Jester watched in horror, Edem was thrown against the far wall. Jester rushed towards the slumped dwarf, who had been knocked out cold.
Hatchy herself walked over to the workbench, picking up the object that had been created. She was...
... slightly underwhelmed. She raised the flute to her lips and blew. It produced a sound that only a flute made of solid stone could make: vast amounts of saliva being splurted out of a narrow cylinder.
Edem stirred in the corner, slowly regaining consciousness. "W.. what happened?" he said, groaning as he sat up against the wall.
Hatchy turned and held the flute out to Edem. "Congratulations. You are the first member of the Battletrials orchestra."
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Topic: Battletrials - Wayward Warriors (Community) (Read 26209 times)