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[jrrocks05]

A demon who does not want to hurt anyone only drain them of their souls you know nothing painful!

[Gnorm]

A demon who does not want to hurt anyone only drain them of their souls you know nothing painful!

Now that's humanity!

[peregarrett]

Has anyone used the artifact tin axe? I just found out that it was my dwarf that made it, and if it hasn't been used I have... story... to use it for.

I was thinking of using it as a ritual symbol, or a decoration to some hall. What's your story?

Writing the entry plot with an axcursion all over the fortress. Maybe will have to re-write according to last Rhaken's post (hell where's he? I dunno how to react to some curious things I met in the depth)

I don't know, but I think that whatever he has to say will pertain more to the state of history or to the world than it will your updates. You can probably go ahead and start.

Oh, and the tower of glory is beautiful!

What is the tower of glory?

Tower with statues and gem windows on the surface


Okay, here's the post
During their usual “evening prayer”, Tarmid suddenly silenced and staring at Cornelius’ eyes said:
- Have I told you that you’re The Chief here, from now on?
- Are you that drunk already? Come on, we’ve just started the barrel…
- No, I’m serious. You are the Chief now. I quit.
- Why? why so sudden? We’ve just opened the School…
- There are… reasons, why I shoud leave my positin and spend some time as an ordinary dwarf. I don’t quit my teacher position, so School keeps developing. In fact, I can spent more time with studies and teaching if I’m not  busy with overseer’s job.
- Well… But that job goes to me then! Why me?
- Because you’re a priest here, and everyone knows you for good. Nobody objects your rulership, and if someone does, you can persuade him.
- Damn, I don’t even know what to do! You’re throwing me in a deep water without knowing how to swim!
- You’ll learn. That’s easy! Ask Brezen or Vlad on military tactics, ask me, ask someone who you think experienced. That’s the most thing in being overseer - find who’s capable, ask his advise and order him to do things. Also, that’s just for the single year.And as a historian, I ask you to write your records thoroughly and regularly! Not like you do your hospital journal. It helps to organize things, really.
- … but...
- Oh, look, a fresh open barrel! It’s time to celebrate!

Next day, 1st of Granite 657 there was official transfer of authority. Tarmid passed the keys to Cornelius, everyone applause, there was a banquet, and then everyone proceeded with their regular job. Except Cornelius, who wanted to examine the fort. He grabbed a writing plate with some paper and went on his way.
Every dwarf he met was happy to have a small talk with new overseer. Looks like Tarmid was right.

Mesthos Inkedpages, Siege engineer: - Good morning, Padre! *meeeeeow!!!* oh damned cat! *plop*

Hey, help him someone, before he drowns!

Oh, I’ve seen a note to stockpile seeds closer to farms. That’s a nice place,I think


You know what makes dwarves increadibly happy? Some exotic booze! Sunshine, for example. Here we will grow sunberries! Just don’t step on them while hauling stuff.


Why masons have to carry their boulder through main stairwell? Better build some stairs here in place.


Oh, that’s my hospital and a chapel. Everything’s fine. Maybe should mint some more coins? Haven’t done that last year.


That’s living quarters. First, I take one of those room for my office, second, our captain of guard needs an office and other things captain should have.


Here’s the prison. Empty, hope it will remain empty for long


A… training room? There’s blood, someone must have been injured here. Nobody asked for medicine though... ((OOC: that's Corley's cell, obviously))


A silver door to someones tomb. Who’s that?! I don’t remember the ceremony

((OOC: And that's Corley's tomb. Since Rhaken said nothing about his death, I don't know if Cornelius participated in that burial.))

[Rhaken]

Corley was never in a cell, you know.

And you more or less nailed the scene I had in mind for Tarmid's passing of power to Cornelius. You just saved me some time!

...Yes I'm writing now. No I can't guarantee that I'll post it soon. Just know that the vampire has been dealt with. That's all my story post is about. It's taking ages because I am a busy man these days.

PS: Dear MDFI. Stop. Being. Hilarious. I'm tired of falling from my chair.

[peregarrett]

Corley was never in a cell, you know.

And you more or less nailed the scene I had in mind for Tarmid's passing of power to Cornelius. You just saved me some time!

...Yes I'm writing now. No I can't guarantee that I'll post it soon. Just know that the vampire has been dealt with. That's all my story post is about. It's taking ages because I am a busy man these days.

PS: Dear MDFI. Stop. Being. Hilarious. I'm tired of falling from my chair.

Oh, I mean that vampire, who disguised himself as a Dodok and made an artifact gem. It's hard to keep tracks of characters, even with wiki.
Just tell me, does Cornelius knows about him, or that's a total surprize to him?

[Rhaken]

Corley was never in a cell, you know.

And you more or less nailed the scene I had in mind for Tarmid's passing of power to Cornelius. You just saved me some time!

...Yes I'm writing now. No I can't guarantee that I'll post it soon. Just know that the vampire has been dealt with. That's all my story post is about. It's taking ages because I am a busy man these days.

PS: Dear MDFI. Stop. Being. Hilarious. I'm tired of falling from my chair.

Oh, I mean that vampire, who disguised himself as a Dodok and made an artifact gem. It's hard to keep tracks of characters, even with wiki.
Just tell me, does Cornelius knows about him, or that's a total surprize to him?

The arrest at the start of the year was fairly public, though nobody knows exactly what happened to the vampire. Many of the hunters and stoneworkers (folks who tend to work down there) know there's a locked off area of the fort, but they don't know it's a cell. Tarmid and Brenzen hauled most of the equipment down there themselves to preserve secrecy. Brenzen dodges any questions about the vampire. Tarmid talks circles around them. Works out pretty good.

[MDFification]

PS: Dear MDFI. Stop. Being. Hilarious. I'm tired of falling from my chair.

It was all a plot. To make you fall out of your chair, striking the ground with your buttocks. Bruising the fat.

[Rhaken]

Tarmid studied the devices ahead of him. Marvelous works of ingenuity, adapted from the works of Emdief Twiceborn. To the average observer, they looked like decorative arrays of gems. One of wood opals, one of heliotropes, or bloodstones, as they were more commonly known. But a trained member of the Order knew better.

The wood opal array was derived from a much smaller device called a thaumometer, designed to pick up magical signatures in the surrounding area. It had gone berserk since its activation several weeks past, but had dropped considerably some days back. Around the same time he had gone hunting for Joyce's quarters and found nothing. The entire room was neat and clean, as if it had remained unoccupied but maintained for months.

The other device operated on a similar principle. In the presence of vampires in the surrounding area, the blood-red speckles on the heliotropes would begin to subtly shift. The more vampires in the area, the more intense and rapid the shifting. Around the time of Joyce's disappearance, the patterns had begun to slow in their roil.

Tarmid pulled the tarps back over the devices. These changes gave rise to several conclusions, many of which he suspected. Joyce was a confirmed magic user. He was also a vampire, or perhaps worse. And even with his disappearance, someone in Demongate was still tapping into forbidden powers.

The scribe sighed, rubbed at his temples. This would be a day for answers, it seemed.


"Let's try this again. Name?"

"Dodok Blowinggold."

A slap across the face.

"Name?"

"Olon Ironbronze."

Slap. Tears in the eyes. Ragged breaths.

"Name."

"Unib Paddlelanterns."

The hand raised. The vampire recoiled in horror.

"Ingiz Laststeel! Ingiz Laststeel! Just please, stop! Stop..."

"Thank you."

After all these months, the vampire had finally cracked. Months of pain and isolation had chewed away his resolve like carrion on a carcass. The final sting of humiliation had pushed him over the edge.

"Now, Ingiz. Why did you come to Demongate?" There was no menace to Tarmid's tone, but any disobedience would be met with more strikes.

"To watch. I came here to keep watch over the place."

"For whom?"

Ingiz squeezed his lips shut. Brenzen raised his hand. The vampire recoiled and started blabbing again.

"Testtrumpets! The necromancers of Testtrumpets sent me here to watch you!"

Tarmid's jaw dropped.

Ingiz told them everything. He resisted sometimes, but any sudden movements from Brenzen or Tarmid cracked him open again.

"Fikod Trumpettrammels sent me. I've been working for him for four centuries now, spying on cities all over the world, moving on before I overstay my welcome."

Tarmid's hand shook as he wrote. Fikod Trumpettrammels was the founder and first king of The First Iron. He still lived, it seems, and had devoted his time to mastering life and death. And spying on the kingdom he helped form.

"But why is Fikod so interested in our affairs?" Tarmid was taking notes as fast as he could, working double time to keep his voice steady.

"Because you were sent to hold back the Bloodkin." Again, the disgusted sneer. "I highly doubt you'll succeed, but Fikod wants to know what you've got here."

"What is his interest in the Bloodkin?" Brenzen this time.

"I have no idea. I'm just a field agent."

Brenzen cuffed him. "Answer me, vampire. My temper is short."

Ingiz shrunk in on himself. "I'm telling the truth, damn your self-righteous hide!"

Tarmid signaled to Sir Brenzen that he believed the vampire, and the knight backed down. The interrogation continued at length on this matter, and they learned much of Ingiz's history. He had slain thousands over the centuries, mostly to sate his unnatural appetites, though some errant Bloodkin had died at his hands over the years. Mostly due to blind luck, Tarmid surmised. If Ingiz was any real warrior, he wouldn't have gotten himself neutralized by a sleepy, anemic scribe wielding a piece of furniture.

"Onto another line of questioning." Tarmid lifted the vampire's chin, stared him in the eyes to read into his mind. "Joyce."

Ingiz said nothing at first, but his pupils contracted. He recognized the name.

"Talk."

Nothing. Brenzen cuffed Ingiz again.

"I've heard the name before. Centuries ago. I don't know who exactly it was, but I've heard it before. Something Fikod said once, I think."

"Context?"

"How should I know? This was three hundred years ago, dammit." Tarmid believed him.

"Do you consider Testtrumpets to be an ally of the Bloodkin?"

"I have no idea. I've worked to aid the Kin. I've worked to thwart them. It varies. I haven't the slightest idea why, I just do what I'm told."

"How admirable."

"Fuck you."

"Not so admirable."

Tarmid's countenance darkened. He had one more line of inquiry. A rather pertinent one.

"How did you get from city to city?"

"The caverns beneath the world."

The color drained from Tarmid's face. He could see the dots connecting in the map of the mystery, and he didn't like the connections he was seeing.

"The cavern system. How far does it stretch?"

"Everywhere. It stretches on even under the ocean, as far as I know."

Shit.

"Thank you for your cooperation, Ingiz." Tarmid tried not to shake as he spoke. He wasn't entirely sure he succeeded.

"Great. So you'll let me go, right?" The vampire lit up. He seemed relieved for the first time in almost a year.

Tarmid approached a lever.

"Right?"

"No."

Tarmid pulled.

"Ingiz Laststeel, for your crimes against the dwarves of The First Iron and dwarvenkind in general, by the power vested in me by the Order of Saint Zane, I hereby sentence you to die. May the Gods and Saints have mercy on your soul, for we cannot."

A flurry of whirring gears, and a massive spike descended from the ceiling. Ingiz looked up, sealed his eyes, and adjusted the position of his head. He had enough time to resign to his fate before the tip destroyed his brain.


The two dwarves of the Order paced rapidly through the fortress, toward the scribe's office. The shine was still going strong in the wood opal device, and the heliotrope array had ceased shifting its pattern. There were still magic users in the vicinity, but no vampires or Bloodkin. Yet.

"Is this why the thaumometer stopped spiking?" Brenzen asked.

"I believe so. We must warn the Order and the capital.  I fear Joyce might bring his friends next time he drops by Demongate."

"What do we do about Ingiz?"

"We inter him. Tonight. And I know just the place."


In the wee hours of a late winter's night, Tarmid and Brenzen descended to the lowest constructed level of Demongate. Resting above its pit, the sterling silver sarcophagus reeked of decaying flesh. The knight and the scribe dropped the shroud carrying Ingiz's body and hefted the lid from the coffin. Inside, they found a long-dead dwarf.

"Must be that Blackmore fellow from last year," Tarmid concluded.

"You think Joyce did this?"

"That is the most logical conclusion, yes."

"But where did he come from?"

"From what I can tell, Sir Brenzen," Tarmid stated matter-of-factly, "He was in there right from the start."

It was quick, but messy work. They extracted what they could of Blackmore's corpse into a large urn, ready to consign to a proper burial. They consecrated the coffin and deposited the slain vampire within. Then they knelt and prayed. They prayed for hours, until the first chill rays of dawn reached out to the world above.

They parted ways then. Brenzen had training to attend to, and Tarmid has his own business. In a matter of days it would be the spring equinox. Today, the scribe would sleep. Then he would join Cornelius for evening prayers, and hand control of Demongate over to the good doctor.

Tarmid had bigger problems to attend to.

[peregarrett]

Oh. Nice bits of the story, fits right in.
Now have to think how Cornelius should be about all this.

[Sarrak]

Perfect. Just perfect. And, once in a while, we have an overseer who actually puta in-play pictures into his ramblings. Hope that you'll continue doing this, peregarrett!

[4maskwolf]

The most important question: Has anyone messed with the vault?

[Rhaken]

Notice in the above screenshots: Tarmid inspecting the bloodstone array.

[peregarrett]

Notice in the above screenshots: Tarmid inspecting the bloodstone array.

WUT?

[MDFification]

Not Pictured: Vlad, being the sanest, most sociopathic dwarf in the fortress.

[Gnorm]

I believe that you still haven't told me why those things were put in Gnora's office. An oversight on your part, I assume, though if it came down to it, she would probably be happy to have them if Tarmid simply told her that they were pretty little gifts from one dwarf to another.

EDIT: Also, either that vampire was more afraid of Corley than he was of the Order, or I was too subtle in the two's implied connections.