The following is an excerpt from
Fire and Food - The Breadbowl Story, by Uzol Laboredgilt, Historian of the Old Nets.
The truth of Breadbowls final stand are difficult for historians to pin down. Who fought whom there, even whether or not there were any survivors is in question.
But perhaps the exact events are irrelevant. Dwarves do not remember their heroes by dusty tomes, nor by chronicles of exact events, as a scholar of dwarven history such as myself well knows. Dwarves remember their heroes by tales told around the forge, by songs sung in the grand dining halls of the Old Nets. And the Fall Of Breadbowl is among the greatest and most well known of those tales.
The tales of Breadbowl's final day all
begin the same way: with the arrival of the Queen of Filth.
The Demon Goddess of the Hell of Emancipating famously took to the field at the head of a grand army of goblin and troll, put together to at last topple the walls of Breadbowl and remove the thorn of the Old Nets so firmly embedded in her empires side.
The tales speak of Breadbowl as a community of warrior farmers, legendary hero's all. This, of course, does not match what is known of dwarven culture: dwarves
specialize, becoming either warriors or farmers: rarely both. It is likely, then, that the true legendary warriors of Breadbowl were those whose names come up in every rendition of the tale. Namely:
"Big Sibrek",
"Techno",
"Gordak",
"Dirk",
"Thunk", and of course, the most famous of them all,
"Kol Copperweaver".
Here I will quote from
Breadbowl: Legend of Fire and Booze, one of the more widely known tales on the subject.
"And lo, the warrior dwarves of Breadbowl less than a hundred in total, faced down a goblin army of the Queen ten thousand strong.
But their woe was not yet complete, and a great billow of profane smoke rose behind them and parted in a flash of green fire. Wings the size of houses swept it aside as emerged the ancient one: Acathi Fortuneswelter the Jewel of Glows, the King of Dragons. And the dwarves of Breadbowl knew at last that fate had come for them, that this would be their final day in the mortal realm.
And yet not one dwarf of Breadbowl shed a tear, nor evacuated their bowels in terror. They stood resolute, skin of stone, eyes of steel, hearts of adamantine."
This is also unlikely. Dwarven bladders are notoriously sensitive.
The story continues that Acathi perched evilly upon the western wall and watched, great claws gouging marks in the stone, patiently waiting for his turn as the Queen sent her goblin minions to assault the gatehouse of Breadbowl. While this part of the tale
technically matches what little is known of the event, given the aggressive and impatient nature of dragons it is more likely that Acathi arrived during or perhaps shortly after the siege.
What is certain is that the warriors of Breadbowl fought valiantly to protect their home. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of goblins and trolls died that day, piling up before the gatehouse in great mounds, unable to land even a single scratch upon the legendary martial hero's of Breadbowl.
Enraged by the uselessness of her minions in the face of dwarven valor, the tales say the Queen of Filth herself grew impatient and entered the fray, flanked by a pair of blind cave dragons. The tales credit
Metalhead and
Gordak with the death of the cave dragons, but dwarven adamantine was useless against the filth that made up the demon's body. Unable to cut or strike the shifting mass of dirt and feces, gradually the warriors were pushed back, and many dwarves suffocated, smothered in the queen's filth.
But at this point the militia commander
Big Sibrek had an idea, and lured the queen to the top of the dumping tower. There she fought the demon queen to a standstill: the demon unable to land a hit on her agile form, she unable to damage the queen with her axe. She held the queen there long enough for her friends to pull the lever, dropping dwarf and demon both into the eternal fire of Breadbowl's incinerator, that still burns to this day.
With Commander Sibrek's sacrifice and the death of the Demon Queen of Filth, the goblin siege was broken. In the coming months, the war of Hells Emancipating against the races of the world would stutter and ultimately fail.
But the day was not yet won for Breadbowl, and the already-exhausted militia dwarves turned to face the dragon, Acathi Fortuneswelter the Jewel of Glows.
The tale continues: Acathi breathed profane green flames upon Breadbowl, the smoke of which would instantly put a normal dwarf or human to sleep. But the heroes of Breadbowl were not normal dwarves, and they resisted the smoke, though it tired them. This part of the tale is almost certainly an embellishment, and may be the result of the storytellers conflating the profane smoke of the Hill of Death, a natural weather phenomenon that does indeed induce deep sleep, with the dragonfire of Acathi.
Fighting sleep they fought onwards, but even adamantine could not pierce the great dragons scales. The only weapons capable of even harming the dragon were the silver mace Alaknikot and the adamantine spear Kastoltegir, and even their legendary power could only dent it's scales.
It was
Techno who discovered the way to hurt the beast: enraged at the death's of his recruits, tears running down his face in mourning, the drill sergeant stood before Acathi, demanding the great beast flame him and end his suffering. Acathi obliged, and in so doing played right into Techno's steel clad hands.
With a crossbow in each hand, Techno fired two bolts
through the oncoming fireball and into the eyes of the dragon. The bone bolts themselves vanished into ash upon contact with the great beasts flame, but their metal heads sailed onward, infused with the power of dragonfire, and struck Acathi in the eyes. The dragons roar of pain was the first he had cried in many centuries.
Techno vanished into dragonfire screaming defiance, with the sacrifice of another dwarf, Acathi was blinded.
Sadly, the dragon king would not be so easily vanquished. Sight meant little to a creature that could just as easily hunt by smell and hearing, and now Acathi Fortuneswelter was
enraged. The remaining members of the militia were forced to flee underground by the beasts counter-offensive, and resolved to find a way to defeat the dragon with ingenuity rather than valor.
The legendary miner
Dirk, who had been with Breadbowl longer than any, architect-ed their plan. While the dragon raged upon the surface, smashing the fabled glass ceilings and incinerating what was left of Breadbowl's crops, the dwarves worked in secret.
Finally they were done, and when Acathi next landed upon the great central dining hall of Breadbowl, the dwarves sprung their trap.
The entire dining hall and apartment complex, the largest aboveground structure built by dwarven hands in our world, collapsed at once into the earth, taking the surprised dragon with it.
Before Acathi could recover and fly out, three dwarves rushed out of secret tunnels built into the earth. The miner
Dirk wielded the steel pick Quasar once used to strike the earth in the earliest days of Breadbowl,
Metalhead wielded Alaknikot, the silver mace of Santume, and
Gordak a masterpiece adamantine battle axe. Flinging themselves from the edge of the newly collapsed pit, they landed upon Acathi's back and set about slashing and crushing the beasts great leathery wings.
Nobody saw what became of the three heroes. Roars and shouts rose from the pit, culminating in a great pillar of green flame, and the dragon pulled itself out, injured, body emitting smoking, with broken wings.
Their mission, their sacrifice, was a success.
The king was grounded.
The fate of the dwarf known as
Thunk remains one of the most hotly contested elements of the story of Breadbowl.
Many tales feature Thunk prominently, generally for purposes of comic relief, but the description of his death changes from story to story. In many he remains a bumbling buffoon til the end, anticlimactically tripping over his own feet in his attempt to solo the dragon king.
Other tales amplify his prowess, again for comic purposes. In at least one tale, a skirt-wearing Thunk charges into battle riding his pet Giant Hamster, flanked by two war trained Grizzly Bears, and proceeds to slice off most of Acathi’s limbs with a battle axe in each hand.
This is... unlikely. Historically, there is scant direct evidence that Thunk even existed. Circumstantially, however, it is widely accepted that Breadbowl did train both Bears and Giant Hamsters for war, and indeed did forgo pants for some reason during its later years. The war hamster Ezum, believed to belong to Thunk, was in fact the only confirmed survivor of Breadbowl, found wandering the Hill of Death many years later with dozens of battle scars.
Thunks tale ends with him being snatched up in the beasts jaws, and bravely holding them open long enough to distract the dragon while Kol Copperweaver got into position. There is at least agreement on his last word, screamed defiantly into the beasts throat as Dragonfire emerged from it.
“THUUUUUNK!”
Even as Thunk was screaming his last,
Kol Copperweaver was launching his final attack. With the silver mace Alaknikot in one hand and Taupes adamantine spear Kastoltegir in the other, he dodged a swipe from the dragons tail, deflected a blow from a stray claw, and leapt at the beasts underbelly, aiming squarely for the heart.
And then the beast swatted him away with it's other claw.
After bouncing several times Kol rolled to a stop. The heroic dwarf got back on his feet, lifted both weapons and charged the beast again. Acathi Fortuneswelter the Jewel of Glows narrowed his eyes at the tiny dwarf running at him, and again swatted him with a claw, flinging Kol away.
Again Kol charged, and again Acathi swatted him, crushing him into the ground. And so it went. Over, and over, Kol would stand, ignoring his injuries, and launch himself at the dragon king, only to be effortlessly thrown back.
Bruised, broken and nearing collapse from exhaustion, fueled by nothing more than a desperate, overwhelming need to avenge his home, Kol forced himself to his feet once again and stumbled forward towards his enemy. Acathi narrowed his red eyes at the dwarf, and then the tales say the dragon king did something never seen before nor since from any of his kind.
Acathi Fortuneswelter bowed his head in respect to a mortal dwarf.
Kol stood and stared blankly, weapons hanging limply at his side, as Acathi reared to his full height. Light began to glow at the back of the great beasts throat, and the dragon released a great burst of green fire towards the dwarf.
Kol vanished, enveloped completely in the writhing flames.
And then the flames burst apart, revealing Kol, spear and mace crossed before him. Green dragonfire rose from both weapons and from Kol’s body, fire of such intensity that it should by all rights have melted silver and vaporized flesh in an instance. It burned with fierce, evil wrath, and yet it could not consume the dwarf.
Kol Copperweaver strode forward, and Acathi’s terrible eyes glinted with something the ancient dragon had never felt before in his life:
fear. The dragon unleashed another fireball, but it was effortlessly deflected by the two artefact weapons.
Behind Kol shapes formed admist the smoke and fire. Indistinct, fleeting shapes, the size of dwarves. Gordak. Sibrek. Metalhead. Dirk. And behind them, more dwarves. Hundreds. Quasar. Neblime. Bearskie. SQMan. Sanctume. Duke Gwolfski. Commander Taupe. Even the King, Sibrek Logemtad, walked alongside his subjects, their equal in death.
As Kol strode forward, ignoring the flames that fought to consume him, the dead of Breadbowl strode with him. Acathi turned to flee, but an otherworldly power pulled him back, held him as Kol strode up to the struggling dragons chest.
Only now were the flames consuming Kol, his flesh, fat and sinew melting away, exposing white bone which rapidly turned black. But it didn’t matter: the body fell away, but the
dwarf was still there. All of them were. And with Acathi struggling and helpless before him, Kol swung Alaknikot, breaking a single scale on the beasts breast. Acathi froze.
Carefully, gently, what remained of Kol Copperweaver placed Commander Taupe’s spear against the broken scale. Acathi, defeated at last, accepted his fate, nodded slightly, and closed his eyes.
And the last dwarf of Breadbowl plunged Kastoltegir into the dragon king’s heart.
The creatures dying explosion scythed all remaining life from Breadbowl, felling the walls, it’s heat penetrating the ground and collapsing the underground caverns. Nothing survived. Breadbowl, once a thriving farming community like no other in the world, was reduced to a lifeless crater beneath a rising mushroom cloud, visible for miles in all directions.
On that day, far from the comfortable hillocks of the Old Nets, the armies of Hells Emancipating were broken, and the Old Nets most ancient enemy was destroyed. The safety of our civilisation was ensured by the sacrifice of the noble dwarves of Breadbowl.
Perhaps more importantly, however, after year of subsisting on highest quality tropical food the Dwarves of the Old Nets would never again be satisfied eating Plump Helmets. In subsequent years, the new King ordered multiple expeditions into the remote places of the world, to grow and cook the rarest, most delicious foods.
Breadbowl might be gone, but it’s legacy endures in every one of those remote outposts, in every caravan of masterwork roasts pouring into Hallpondered. It will forever be remembered, in song, in story and in the shared warcry of every remote dwarven farmer of the Old Nets.
“For Breadbowl!”
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Topic: Breadbowl: a Succession Farm [42.06] - Breadbowl Ends (Read 424637 times)