I'll wait 24 hours for Asmoth to decide what to do there. In the meantime...
"Everyone settle down!"
My commanding roar silences all but the most persistent of criminals. I needed their full attention."Listen up, you mugs. I'm not sure if you've noticed, but things are getting mighty fucking bad down here. There are fights over food and booze, and many of us have resorted to drinking and washing in the caverns. There are also a couple of ghosts wandering around-"
Hell, I could see one from here, having a seizure on the ceiling- "And we are producing nothing of value to boot."
A loud murmur of discontent from my audience. "Here's the deal. It's Hematite right now. That means that the caravan from the mountainhomes will be coming around in a few short months. With the caravan comes the inspector. And if that inspector sees this place as it is now, one of two things will happen. Either he will send the entire might of the mountainhomes down on our heads..."
I could see it in their eyes already, the damnfool notion that we could avoid that if we kill the inspector. "Or we'll kill him, and the mountainhomes will send their forces once they realize he's dead, which won't take long.
"Some of you might think we can take them. Well, newsflash, folks. There's two hundred of us, of which some ninety are children. There are two
thousand in the Queen's First Army alone. They'd wipe the floor with our asses in a matter of minutes."
More discontented simmering. I call for order again. "However! What if the inspector comes by and sees what he is meant to see - a penal colony, with dangerous dwarves under guard, and doing gruntwork in sweatshops to sell back home? What if he sees exactly what he wants to see?"
I can tell some of them are getting my drift. Really, it's so simple I'm surprised none of my predecessors tried it. Then again, they were all batshit insane."Here's what we'll do. We'll get our foodstocks back up. We'll carve out a well. We'll start producing trade goods and utilities to sell. And as long as the caravans are around, we'll behave like a penal colony should - grumbling prisoners and grumbling guards. And they will leave us to our own devices, for the most part."
It seems my audience has a heckler. That crazy bastard who made the bone bin. "That would be too suspicious. If we aren't all living in cells and acting like subdued crooks, they'll figure something is up. We need to keep it subtle. The cells have to stay. As it stands, they are already better than the slums of the mountainhomes. Only difference to a normal room is bars instead of a door."
Was that the masked one beside the heckler? I thought I saw that familiar hood at the corner of my eye, but when I looked at it, there was nobody there.
A whole lot of whispering. I let it continue for a short moment, just enough that the idea settles into their brains. Then I call for order again. "We will fool them. We will grow in power, and in numbers, all right under their self-righteous noses. And years from now, when we are strong enough, we will begin to relocate. We will found our own colonies, or take over the other penal colonies. We will emancipate. And we will be free."
I stop again, giving them time to think. Not a whole lot of it though."What say you?"
Stunned silence. Were I less of an amazing actor, I would have grinned."What say you?"
Uncertainty. Fearful gazes. Then someone in the middle of the crowd - they have no way of knowing that he's actually one of my own - starts chanting my name.
I suddenly remember an expression from back home, when I hunted yetis. 'From snowballs to avalanches'. That's what was happening in the cell block. Another dwarf picked up the chant, then a few others. Soon, damn near everyone was chanting my name. That was it then. Steelhold was mine.
The hours that followed my speech were filled with gruelling work. My lads rounded everyone up for physical evaluation and skill assessment. One of Asmoth's daughters, Melek, volunteered to help with the physicals, since her mother had gone wacko. I think I'll recruit her into my non-military forces later.
Major restructuring was in order. I assigned several dedicated stoneworkers, and sent them off to build blocks. We upped the number of planters, and told them all to handle most farmwork tasks, including building another farm. We needed some way to turn a profit with the caravans other than selling discarded crap from dead caravans, so I assigned a couple jewelers, as well as a glassmaker. Also, I found out that dozens of locals had taken up fishing in the caverns. That nonsense has been halted.
The dead were interred, or memorialized if the bodies couldn't be found. The ghosts are now gone. We have a well with fresh water in the food storage, and a new furniture storage area. The mason teams are working themselves ragged, churning out blocks for defensive structures. The depot has been relocated within our walls, and a defense system is under construction.
With Melek's help, I found some healthy dwarves to throw into my gang of armed bastards, and some less-fit dwarves to begin training with crossbows. These will act as "prison guard" during caravan season. I assigned Deler, one of my first followers, to lead them. He chose to call them The Mighty Cudgel-Roads. Whatever floats your boat, mate.
At the end of it all, I was exhausted and in desperate need of a drink. I gave a couple of miners the instructions necessary to begin digging an execution chamber, then made a beeline for the booze stocks.
I swear I didn't see the masked dwarf all day.
I took off Emdief's blindfold. The lad looked around, confusion in his eyes. Clearly, he had no idea where we were. I'm not sure he was even around when this thing was put to use."Sorry about the blindfold, lad. This isn't the sort of place I want everyone to know about."
I followed his gaze, knowing exactly what he was looking at. The center of the room. The lever. The massive system of tubes, valves and other mechanical doodads I couldn't identify, stretching upwards into darkness even the dwarven eye could not pierce, and thicker pipes snaking along the ground, some sinking into it, others entering the tunnels at the far end of the room. None of it had been dismantled. All of it gathering dust and cobwebs.
Now that I looked at it, it struck me that the whole thing kind of resembled a massive tree. Must have been Lenehan's idea of a sick joke."So, what do you make of this, lad? Do you know what this is?"
Almost three months had passed since my takeover. Progress was slow, but it was happening. We had trade goods now, as well as vast piles of food and booze. The human caravan had come, and we'd sold them vast piles of crap - some of it stolen - for supplies, wood and assorted bars of metal. The mayor even negotiated a sweet deal to get us some valley herbs. Those make pretty good contraband once processed, and the law regarding its consumption had been lifted at the mountainhomes just a few years ago. We just needed some vials.
I had spent that time training our newfound defenders - though there weren't a whole lot of them. Most of the labor force was busy keeping us afloat and fed. We didn't even have clothiers yet, and most clothing around the place was falling apart. I think I had gained some of Emdief's trust in the meantime, but it still took plenty of assurance to get him to come here, and even more assurance that we had nothing to do with the masked dwarf other than keeping his followers safe. He could cover his own hide quite admirably. Most of us hadn't seen him in weeks.
Footsteps outside, approaching fast. Tirist and I unslung our weapons, turned toward the entrance.
It was Morul, and by damn she looked flushed."There's a problem, chief,"
she told me. She sounded scared, which isn't something that happens often. Girl might be troublesome, but she has nerves of steel."What is it, lass?"
"The kid, chief,"
she says, voice quivering. "The one what went missing."
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Topic: The Insidious Sons of Steelhold -- Revival Succession Fortress (Read 297317 times)