*This is a lightly burnt leather bound book. It looks out of place amidst it's surroundings, perhaps because the pages are made from materials you don't recognize. It appears to be a journal of some kind, but the first half of the pages are missing.*
...I ran through the lichen coated caverns, ducking roots and oversized insects alike. The entrance had been sealed by the giant, sonofabitching boulder that had crashed through the temple when I picked up the idol - of that I was certain - so my only hope was to simply escape my pursuers, then try to find some crevice or collapsed sinkhole that would lead back to the surface. The laughter of the dark wizard echoed behind me, seeming to keep pace with my frantic footsteps.
I should have known better than to have come on this expedition. "You can't instruct archeology and lore unless you've spent some time witnessing it first hand," my idiot superior had said, "I'm leading a small outing to some ruins in the Hills of Loathing. You should come along - you may just learn something." I tried some well-reasoned arguments as to why my place was here, but he'd have none of it. Sure didn't make me feel too badly for him when he pulled the wrong lever at the Second Seal and got dropped into a pit to whothefuck knows where.
So anyway, here I was, the last survivor of our simple, small outing, running for my life through ruins older than the Mountainhomes, demons and zombies and the devil knows what else hot on my tails. I had nearly lost hope when I rounded a corner and slammed face first into possibly the most frightening looking slab of adamantine I'd ever lain eyes on. Admittedly, it was the only adamantine I'd ever laid eyes on, but let's not get muddled up in the little details. I rebounded off it like poor Urist had off the whirling minecarts that had assailed us at the entrance to the Third Seal, and felt a tingle of energy roll through my body as I landed unceremoniously in the dirt. Recovering, I finally reopened my eyes (they were closed because I was worried about the dust I'd stirred up getting in them, not because I was absolutely terrified I'd just run in to some forgotten beast and was about to meet my end), and took in the glory of what was in front of me full on.
I do not exaggerate when I say it was a truely horrifying sight. Whatever hands had worked the metal were surely not Dwarven, for it was covered in grotesque visages quite unlike those found in even the most depraved of fortresses. It took me several moments of inspection to realize that this was not merely a giant piece of the world's most valuable metal simply left here willy nilly, but infact, it was a massive door.
It was at that moment I realized I'd been unable to hear my pursuers for several minutes - mostly because the cacophony of their pursuit suddenly resumed. It occured to me that they must nearly be opon me, and that the devil I knew was likely far, far worse than the devil I didn't in this instance. Unless something far worse was on the other side of this portal, it seemed I would be safe there - even these foul monsters could not penetrate adamantine. Taking a deep breath, I reached into the mouth of one of the vile icons on the door, where I somehow knew a handle must be found, and pulled. The door opened with almost supernatural ease, and with far less hesitation than, in retrospect, I should have had, I stepped through it into the darkness. I last remember hearing the laugh of the necromancer sounding around me, and then I was falling, and falling, and falling.
I don't know how long I fell for. I'm sure
I passed out from fear it was a while, as I eventually grew bored, and decided to take a nap. I'd need my strength for whatever awaited me at the bottom, assuming I survived the fall. I was awoken not by the wet crack of my legs shoving themselves into my chest cavity, but by the gentle sunlight and calm air of the above ground.
Two things quickly became apparent to me - something was very, very different about the sky here. I still can't quite place my finger on it, but it's somehow... less than the sky I know. The second was that the calm air had a decidedly unpleasant stench to it, that of unwashed dwarves, stale ponds, and dead trees, all mixed with the slightest hint of sulfur. Looking around, I realized I was at the foot of possibly the largest cliff I have ever seen - it seemed to stretch forever into the dull sky. My hopes leapt as I noticed a bridge leading into the cliff face, showing the telltale signs of sturdy dwarf construction. I ran towards the fortress, overjoyed at having landed so fortuitously infront of my salvation.
"YOOPT! YOOPT! WUH YOPT WAN?" The cry came from directly in front of the entrance, more specifically from one of the filthiest, most pathetic looking dwarves I've ever seen. "WUH YOPT WAN? I RUN!" Before I could say a word, he dropped his load of stones and fled back into the fort. I was puzzled, to be frank, and decided that it would be more prudent to sit and wait to see if he came back than to follow him inside, lest there be something amiss in the fort. I was about to get up and make my way inside when the dwarf reappeared, a slight less pathetic if no less filthy companion following cautiously behind him.
"Good day, sirs.." I began, but was quickly cut off by the second dwarf.
"Oi, yeh moron. That's not a goblin. That's a fancy dwarf. One what bathes and eats sometimes." he barked to the first dwarf, swatting him on the back. "Git back to loading them stone traps or we'll both be troll food." The first dwarf scampered away, stopping only to pick up his load of stone. "Yeh gotta to excuse him. He ain't quite right in the head. Dunno what happened meself, but I think 'e took a good whack to the noggin while setting one of them traps."
"I see, it's quite alright." I replied. "I appear to be a little lost, good sir. Could you by chance tell me where we are?"
"Ya mean yeh don't know? Yeh don't know about the best fortress ever to grace dwarfdom?! Yer at BOARPAINTS, ya fool. We've got the finest of doors, traps, and dining rooms in all the kingdom, not to mention the finest of dwarves, if I do say so meself. We've even got some of the finest of the fine admantine! I truely am ecstatic to live in such a wondrous place."
I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. Fine goods, fine company, and even glorious adamantine. Truely, I'd found a sanctuary. "Thank Litsat I've found your fortress. You must muster your forces and bar your fine doors, for I may have been persued here by a deadly foe!"
The dwarf glanced over my shoulder in a disturbingly unconcerned fashion. "Yeh mean them unicorns? Don't worry much about that, they know to stay away from here. DON'T YEH, YEH STUPID BASTARDS!"
((OOC: About four pages of that.))
I whirled around, trying to figure out who exactly he was yelling at, but saw nothing. It was beginning to occur to me that my welcoming party was perhaps playing some kind of joke on me.
"My good dwarf, this is of the utmost seriousness. I have reason to believe that I'm being pursued by a necromancer and his minions, and they could be..."
"Well, I dunno anything about that. Why don't yeh come have a drink and calm yer teats?"
"SIR," I was beginning to grow annoyed, "If you don't have any interest in defending the fortress, then point me to your guard Captain. This is no laughing matter."
"Can't," he replied, "dunno where we stuck him anymore."
"What?"
"E's over there someplace, but I dunno which one no more." he gestured behind him vaguely. "I'm off to find me that drink."
With nothing else to do, I followed him into the fort. The only words I could truely find to describe what awaited me inside are simple: WHAT THE UTTER FUCK HAPPENED HERE? The halls were a mess, items and bone strewn about, and utterly deserted. We passed workshops, quarters, and stores, which in any other fort would have been bustling with life, but here were decrepit, empty, and coated with a thin layer of ash and dust, betraying how long they'd been silent. I did not have much time to take in my surroundings as my guide moved at a brisk pace, and for that I was almost thankful. Finally, we arrived at what I took to be the dining room, and my host produced two mugs of some foul brew that resembled liquor seemingly from thin air.
"There now, much better," he said, taking a swig, "Now tell me why yeh are so worked up again."
I gave him a quick recount of the events that had led me here, during which he nodded and hmmed as though he held complete comprehension and that what had happened to me was a simple part of daily life. After I finished, he took another pull of his drink.
"So, yeh say yeh fell. No wonder yeh's so loopy. I meself get pretty shook up sometimes too, always trippin' over all this shite and fallin' on me face." He kicked away one of the many empty mugs littering the floor, as if for emphasis.
I sunk my face into my hands. "No, I mean I fell as if through some kind of magic portal. When I awoke, here I was."
He smiled knowingly. "Yeh, I know all about how falling can seem magic, and about wakin' up some place I wasn't before. Why, just the other day I had a little much of the ol' spirit here and nearly tumbled in the chasm. Woke up OUTSIDE of all places. Dunno what happened there."
I had pretty much given up on this particular conversation. "I see. Say, is there by chance a doctor here I could speak to? I think I may have hurt my head during the fall."
"Doctor? Well, I dunno anything about that."
"You know, a medical professional? The fellow who helps the sick?"
"Oh. Well, I gotta bucket and some water if that'll make you feel better. It's what we usually do for fool dwarves who've gotten themselves sick."
Ugh. "How about your mayor? Surely he might be able to shed some light on how I got here."
"OH!" he exclaimed, "Yeh, we had one of thems. Think e's over near the guard cap'n, if'n you can find him." He gestured behind him vaguely again. It finally dawned on me that he was gesturing to one of the many coffins that lined the dining room in a rather morbid form of decoration.
"Wait, you mean to say he's dead? And buried right next to where you eat?!"
"Well, I know e's a deadie. I dunno if e's in one of these, or over there," he pointed back at the way we'd come, "or over there," he pointed behind him, "or someplace else I's forgot. E's around somewhere though, 'less 'e burned up. Dunno what good it'll do yeh to find him though."
"What about your manager?"
"Dead."
"Your trader?"
"Dead."
"A NOBLE, EVEN?"
His face lit up. "OH YEAH. They's dead too." He grinned slightly disturbingly.
"Well, you said you had the finest of dwarves here. Where are they?"
"Well, I's here still, and I's about the finest folk I've ever met, if I do say so meself. And ol' Loopy ain't so bad, even if he ain't much for conversation."
"Wait, are you saying everyone else is dead?"
"Yup. Gotta couple-a horses here someplace, and a whack of them goblin invaders caged up somewhere too, but 'sides that it's just me an' Loopy."
What. The. Fuck. "WHAT THE FUCK. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?" I'm not ashamed to admit that I was beginning to lose my grip. The story he told didn't help, and I'm fairly sure I was in shock for most of it. I did catch mention of killed unicorns, never-ending sieges, and some kind of horrible, horrible event involving fire, followed by a massive flood. When I came back to reality, he was just finishing his tale.
"...and that's why I ain't ever gonna touch one of them levers again." he slugged down the last of his drink. "Anyway, think that about covers it. So now it's just Loopy, them horses, and meself."
"Holy goddess. Why didn't you just dig up, away from the fires?" My mind was reeling. There's no way this disaster could have actually happened.
"Up? Yeh mean north? We done that. How'd yeh think we got the pretty magma out to kill the unicorns?"
"No, up! As in towards the sky!" I gestured at the crude ceiling above us. It suddenly occurred to me that I'd seen no upwards stairs, or anything leading to the passages that were surely below us.
"HAH!" he bellowed out a laugh, "That'sa good joke. Yeh can't dig the sky."
"No, I mean..." I struggled to think of a way to explain such a simple concept. "When you dig mines, you dig down. When you dig to escape something below you, such as whatever the fuck happened here, you dig up, which is the opposite."
He thought for a moment, then looked at me with a soft smile, as if I was a child or a simpleton. "Yeh know, yeh can dig mines north and east too, not justa the south. Yeh can even go to the west a ways if you start far enough back towards the east."
The conversation carried on this way for a while, but I could not seem to get him to understand the basic concept of three dimensional space, be it through examples of simple illustrations. Finally, it was as though a lightbulb came on, and he lept up without a word, dashing down the hall. Shortly he returned with a charred piece of parchment.
"'Ere it is! Yeh ain't the first to talk about these "ups" and "downs"." He thrust the parchment under my face. A quick glance revealed it to be a journal of some kind, but he quickly whisked it away again and continued "And now 'ere you are, and we can get the fort up into fort-shape again!"
After he calmed down, he explained that there had previously been several dwarves present who'd understood the concept of three dimensions, as well as being unsure as to how they'd arrived, and that they'd been elevated to a position known as "Overseer", responsible for the direction of the fortress. Under them, it had prospered.
"Least till I got into them levers." My host looked sheepish. "Anyway, ways I see it, yeh can be the overseer and fix the troubles we've been havin'."
And so, I somehow found myself the Overseer of Boarpaints, in charge of a brain damaged simpleton who I was told was a farmer of some sort, and likely the most obnoxiously optimistic leather worker I'd ever encountered. Untill I could ascertain what had happened to me, it seemed to be as good a position as any to be in. My first act was to take count of exactly where the fortress stood in terms of supplies.
My second act was to sketch out a quick map of the fortress, with the help of my new companion NCommander, who despite his exuberance and seeming ignorance of the situation we were in, proved surprisingly familiar with every inch of the fortress itself.
My third act was to get some rest. I was going to be very busy for the foreseeable future.
((OOC: This post is gameplay light because I'm going to need a bit of time to figure out what the fuck is going on in this place. The pictures do not do this place justice - to put it bluntly, this is a beautiful, terrifying clusterfuck of a fort and I'm pretty sure touching anything at this point will result in killing the two guys who are left - BTW, if anyone wants to be dwarfed, there's a perfectly good braindamaged invalid staggering around and I'd be happy to oblige. Tomorrow, I'm going to work on figuring out the godawful mess of levers going on here, then I think I'm just going to lock everyone behind the river and wait for migrants. I might even break down and read the thread because I have no idea how else I'm going to figure out what's going on here.))
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Topic: !!THROWBACK FORTRESS!! (v0.23a | FINALE COMING SOOOOOOOOON!) (Read 115984 times)