Nearly two centuries passed. In the year 250, an expedition calling itself The Cavernous Canyons arrived at Esteemeddye. The seven dwarves claim to hail from The Dye of Owning, but anyone who remembers that name probably associates it with decades of ambitious hill-dwelling humans who were routinely slaughtered by the armies of the turtle fiend Ushmal Phantompukes.The fact that it had originally been a mighty dwarven civilization has receded into the age of myth. History provides no way to prove this, but I like to think that these seven are descendants of those dwarves, who have been living as outcasts scattered across human and goblin settlements.
They easily found the ruins. Indeed, the dwarves of old built their fortress entrances to stand out from the landscape, presumably to encourage trade with the surface peoples. Indeed, what else could this have been but a bazaar, considering the only entrance is 3 Urist wide, just wide enough for a wagon caravan? Most likely, then, this great warehouse is The Bulbous Straw, the great market that history says the dwarves established here all the way back in 11.
Oh yes, please don't mind the mess. The expedition dwarves, in their eagerness to recolonize their old realm, didn't bother sending back maps until autumn, by which time they had already set up shop on the surface. Since a legendary monster supposedly lives here, you can't really blame them for wanting to train for a bit before venturing into the long-silent halls in the depths. On the plus side, for the first time in almost 200 years, the trade depot is again accepting merchants!
So imagine the pristine ruin, a vast boxy construction two stories tall and quite some walk across, all built of polished gabbro. It was quite empty when they arrived, the only features inside being the pillars in the center, surrounding an unadorned ramp that plunges steeply into the earth. You'll also have to imagine the exterior somewhat less colorful. Those splotches are fruit, quite unusable for now, dropped by the many trees.
That ramp spirals around a straight shaft, boring deep into the earth. One who lost their footing here might die of boredom before exploding messily into gore on the bottom. Down, down, down it goes, mostly through alternating layers of granite and microcline. Mostly the stone is roughly hewn, but in places it has been polished to a fine sheen.
When they first arrived the dwarves simply built a hatch over the ramps. But come autumn they ventured down at last and finally set eyes on the primordial dwarven architecture of Esteemeddye.
At the level of the first cavern, natural stone is filled in with constructed walls until, at last, the ramp intersects a broad tunnel bored through the caves. They say it leads to another old fortress, long since conquered. Just below, a single narrow passage and a hatch control access to the bulk of the fortress. The blood is recent, left by a cave croc that had parked itself on the hatch cover.
Truly, the design is quite curious to the eye of a modern fortress overseer. The passages are narrow and twisty, designed without any apparent thought to how far dwarves must walk in going about their tasks. After being pillaged dozens of times, there's no telling which rooms were originally stockpiles and which were legendary dining halls. The output and wealth of Esteemeddye must have been enormous, though, judging by the sheer number of forges. Also, all those yellow veins running through the fortress? Native gold. If that multitude of little square rooms represents the old living quarters, they lived in opulence indeed!
Next up, we explore deeper, and take a closer look at some curious aspects of ancient dwarven construction.
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Topic: The fall and rise of Esteemeddye - 0.40 reclaim fortress tour (Read 1126 times)