It was migrant day at Archcrystal - and they descended down the into the fortress for the first time in over 4 centuries.
Stinthad marched down the immense glass staircase of the tower, marveling at the structure along with the other refugees that she followed. She had heard King Zan's proclamation that the crystal spire was accepting new comers, although briefly, and came to see for herself how the capital had flourished and withstood their infinite enemies. She had listened intently as the messenger to her refugee camp had described the king's "Final Offensive" against all the enemies of the dwarves calling on all who were willing to fight to come to the tower to, at last, strike back against the civilizations of the world who would dare attack the eternal fortress.
The first attacks against the goblins of the Feral Doom came swiftly and conquered the northern pits, catching the enemy off guard and unprepared. The battles were fierce and short with the dwarven attackers being far better equipped and trained thoroughly by skilled commanders within the tower. Most of the defenders surrendered quickly and the rest were publicly executed in front of their former strongholds.
Many of the weapons were running out of spaces for recorded kills.
The dwarven refugee camps of the Dipped Spears suddenly proclaimed their territory of the land which they inhabited with wooden palisades and high guard towers.
They were determined to aid their vertical empire of glass in its inevitable and crushing reach outwards across the land. Finally, the kingdom that had conquered hell extended its barbed roots outwards to bend the weakened claims of the surface into servitude of dwarven order. This new order of industry and design had similar motives to other conquerors, but it attacked with an efficacy that was previously unknown to the residents of the world. Battles and sieges that once took months and years now took days or merely hours.
The siege camps around Archcrystal recalled their armies, such as they were now, for the defense of their own threatened territories. Fear had gripped the world as the dwarven invaders blitzed across the central continent unchecked and undefeated.
These thoughts brightened Stinthad’s descent down the glass tower into hell - a trip that was usually foreboding to newcomers. She could here a faint shouting as she walked down the stairs through the magma sea and past the heroes of old who lay in clear tombs of glass. The shouting became louder and more rhythmic the further she got to the entrance hall. Eventually they were herded to the main temple where the source of the shouting revealed itself.
“All migrants form a line!”
“Combat experience to the left!”
“All others to the right!”
“Children to the center!”
“You will be re-united with your children once they reach combat age!”
Kib the general barked his commands at the huddled mass of new comers.
The ones with fighting experience were given command of their squads as everyone was outfitted with armor and weapons.
Zefon had been busy forging new suits of steel armor non-stop for the last year since the migrants were taken in. They lacked the ornate decoration of the suits of old, but were still embedded with hydra bone and studded with copper to give a fierce look to them.
Weapons were easier to come by. The former king Ushrir Dikeguards has been a master weapon smith who loved spears and bismuth bronze. He had filled his own mandates for these weapons for decades over 150 years ago. Now they were given to the newcomers. Masterpieces, all of them that blazed with the decoration of countless materials. The newcomers who received them stared in awe at their new weapons which gave them a confidence created by the dwarves of Archcrystal down through the centuries. They also finally had a chance to gaze upon the constructions of the glass fortress in hell. The tower was completely floored and the second level was nearing completion.
Petty crimes were way down as well. The guard were no longer delivering beatings non-stop, and the spirits of the dwarves were soaring again. King Zan had successfully appeased the population at last, and the answer was so simple: war. They were united and driven by the promise of conquest. Why he had never thought about it before eluded him. But, on the outside, it looked like a master stroke of tactics. For hundreds of years armies of goblins had broken themselves in an attempt to take the tower, and now their forces were so depleted that they could not withstand the powerful dwarven offensive that was washing over their strongholds.
While the mood among the citizens of Archcrystal was focused and happy, the migrants were scared and separated. Children as young as two were being torn from the arms of their parents and placed into general care rooms. Screaming toddlers were being forced from sobbing mothers. The children watched without comprehension as their parents were forcibly outfitted with weapons and armor and commanded to train far away from them. The scene was a horrific blend of efficiency and raw emotion. Infants had no understanding of the events and the parents had no way of giving them meaningful assurance. The many elaborate toys given to them were also of little distraction as they longed for their mothers.
King Zan consoled himself by thinking it was necessary, but many around him questioned his methods.
“They will realize eventually that it was for the greater good,” he would say.
Fath was one of the first to doubt this. He raised the question with his followers who would respond with downward looks and muted responses. He took upon himself to confront the king and tell him their concerns. He watched closely as another squad of migrants marched out of the front gate resplendent in their shiny new armor. He could see the longing of the parents who looked back one last time to where their children were. He shook his head and retired to his library.
Edzul, the great mathematician of Archcrystal, visited Fath in the Heart-Amory of Oblivion. It was a regular occurrence, one that Fath looked forward to.
They would debate time and consequences for hours, and given Fath’s immortality, each discussion would take on new meaning. However, Edzul was a “once in a generation” mind capable of accurately comparing observations beyond the best scholars of the world.
“Those children will grow to hate us, Fath.”
“I agree with you, Edzul, but the king may be right. I have seen that time is infinite and therefore smoothes over our concerns. In a century they may see his views as correct.”
“Bullshit. Grudges are not forgotten so easily. Even infinite time is constricted by boundaries.”
“Ha! Infinite time would crush every vengeance. You of all people should know this. Given infinite time, everything becomes not only possible but assured. If the chance of you being reborn is 0.000001% then an infinite number of chances to create that makes it a certainty.”
“Time may have borders that we don’t know of, Fath.”
“What borders could exist with infinite time?”
Edzul sipped his plump helmet wine thoughtfully before answering, “You are using mathematics to justify your meaning. It doesn’t work like that, my friend. There are no absolutes even in mathematics. Infinite numbers do not equal infinite possibilities, as much as zero is not a void - zero must still exist for there to be nothing.”
Fath drank his own wine which did nothing for him as a necromancer. He suspected Edzul knew about his secret immortality, but said nothing except, “You still haven’t answered me,” he paused, “about infinity.”
“Think of it this way, Fath: if you take decimals, there are an infinite amount of numbers between 3 and 4”
Edzul pauses before taking another sip, “But none of them are 5.”
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Topic: Archcrystal: 500 years in a fortress [SPOILERS] Finished (Read 477359 times)