When I arrived at Gloomdiamonds on the 9th of Malachite, my first impression was that it was a fine enough settlement. I mean, the livestock were still above ground, which was a shame, and the second outbuilding seemed a little unnecessary at first, but I soon came to understand how important it was to protect the lime-pickers while they did their work protecting the rest of us from scurvy.
It wasn’t until I got a bit closer that I saw the first true sin against dwarven tradition: our trade depot.
Our trade depot. Outside under the dizzying sun, carved out of rough chert stones, covered in our vomit and our hard-bargained-for booze and paper, completely open for kobold thieves, keas, bears and monkeys to take as much as they wish from us. This was a disgrace
I should probably introduce myself…
Ms. Pyrite Boarpaddled, at your service. Just a simple dwarf, taught the crafts of wood and metal working by my father, who also instilled in me the importance of Dwarven tradition, of how things are to be done, and why.
The filthy, brightly-lit trade depot wasn’t the last or gravest offense against our proud traditions and best practices. Not by far.
Our entrance was a literal hole in the ground. Packed silt walls and a carpet of cave moss. I’ve been informed that this fortress is well into the fourth year since it’s founding, and we should long ago have rebuilt this entryway with stone blocks into a much more impressive and defensible structure. This is the only way into or out of the fortress, people. This is the first thing anyone sees when they visit Gloomdiamond.
It gets worse as you go down. An array of ladders, carved out of dirt, covered in cave moss. These things aren’t just an eyesore, they’re a safety hazard. I’ve almost lost my grip dozens of times going up and down them, and I can only imagine the difficulty a crutch-bound or one-handed war-hero would have.
The greenhouse is unconventional, but at least it’s an interesting feature. The light filtered through the green glass won’t set off our cave adaptation, but should theoretically be able to make surface plants grow.
The glass statues of an implausible number of cats are even more unconventional. I swear, I tried to figure out just how many cats were in one of them once and I kept losing count in the hundreds. When you stare into the glass you see more cats somehow carved beneath the surface. It’s cats all the way down.
Our main stockpile, a cramped hole in the clay-loam that would be better served as host to our farms or livestock.
Our furnace hole, because I refuse to call anything excavated out of pressed dirt a ‘room’. This place gets unbearably hot, and my deepest pity goes out to the poor dwarves who have to work here, not even mentioning all the cave flora doing their best to grow into the flames and start a fungus fire.
And then we have this, our penultimate sin against Dwarven architecture. A vast, triangular cavern dug mostly out of dirt, with one corner of stone. I’ve been informed that this area is planned to be a great stockpile, though I can’t imagine the resources we would need to accumulate in order to fill even a quarter of this space. When I asked what was holding the ceiling up, considering the complete lack of supports, I was informed that the broker had donated the remains of a strange human curiosity they’d called ‘chewing gum’, which had been applied to key points to keep the place from collapsing in on itself.
The next level was no better…
I said the last one was ‘penultimate’, because this is the ultimate travesty. A vast stone cavern cut into a space still touching the soil, the ceiling a patchwork of mud and stone, with more chewing gum holding the ceiling above our heads.
Pure madness…
And here, I suspect, is the source of the madness. The iron-walled room is the home of Scourge, the leader of the cult of Starcats, and the dwarf in charge of this hole in the ground for the last year that I’ve lived here. The other buildings are chambers for breeding cats. My father spoke to me of the devastation caused by cats… I know if I move against Scourge’s cat cult, I will face serious issues, but I must act to prevent the legendary catsplosion from happening here.
This, however, was the final straw, and the issue that allowed me to push the dwarves for change. These… closets we’ve been asked to live in, the barest space for a bed and nothing else. In another fort this might be seen as a necessary privation, but in this one, with it’s vast caverns carved out just above us, the tight quarters were an insult.
I went ahead and circled my own room, where I’ve had to go to sleep for the last few months. I started rallying the populace from day one, and the dwarves in the rooms next to mine were quite receptive. Which was lucky, because really I was just cursing my situation aloud.
We began having meetings at the fortresses watering hole, and I quickly found myself the center of attention. I think I was just the dwarf who was most willing to speak up, and so everydwarf saw me as a way of addressing their own problems. Our designated inn rooms are apparently located next to the catacombs, our entrance into the caverns is only protected by a double layer of cave traps and troglodytes had been spotted down there, the cat cult nominated their mad leader, Scourge, as our baron, and there’s talk that the mayor is a vampire, suspected of being involved in the deaths of a pair of dwarves.
It was clear that it was time for change. For an overseer who had the best interests of the common dwarves at heart, rather than just the elite, or a bunch of cats for that matter.
It was time to Make Gloomdiamonds Great for the First Time!
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Topic: Gloomdiamonds: The End of the Story (Finished) (Read 52670 times)