8th of Limestone, 125Inod lifted the hatch cover. “Hey down there! Why’re you flooring over that stairway?”
“To make room for the trade depot!” yelled Erush. “We’ll get the stairways fixed in a moment!”
“How are we supposed to get in?”
“Just... keep working up there, okay? This won’t take long!”
Shrugging, Inod returned to her woodcutting.
---------------
9th of Limestone, 125Erush had kept to his promise, at least. With a bit of careful deconstruction, the stairways were made again usable.
---------------
Erush poked his head into Kel’s workshop again. “Hey, could you take a break from blockcarving a moment? We need somebody to put together a trade depot real quick.”
“Sure thing!” said Kel, stumbling out from behind a pile of granite blocks. “What d’you want it built of?
“Eh, just use chalk,” said Erush. “There’s some right there, and we need that depot up now. No time to haul up big blocks of granite.”
Kel sighed. “Alright. Seems a shame, though...” And Kel, weaving his way through piles of his own masonry, made for the stairway.
---------------
11th of Limestone, 125Äs came running into the clearing, new blood on his hammer. “Boys and gels, we need to move.
Now.”
“What’s going on?” asked Litast.
“Remember that skunk?” said Äs. “It finally got close enough to the clearing to notice us. I killed it... but now there’s a bunch of zombie kangaroos wandering around. I can’t kill those, and they’re coming closer. So... yeah. We need to be going.”
---------------
Back in the dining hall“Were you able to make some progress up there, at least?” asked Kel.
Äs shrugged. “Sort of,” he said. “The builders were able to get up one wall, and somebody’d gotten started on a second, and Inod managed to cut down every tree on the build site but two. It’s a good start, but we’ll need to go back out there to get much really done.”
“Well, it’s a start,” said Kel. “We’ll get another chance.”
---------------
13th of Limestone, 125---------------
With a satisfied grunt Kel wrestled the last hunk of chalk into place. It had been nice to do something architectural for a change.
---------------
Äs clambered down into the dining hall. “You lot aren’t doing much of anything right now, yes?”
“I suppose not,” said Doren.
“Great. Yer all drafted. The situation up top’s bad and only going to get worse; we need soldiers. Report to me at the weapon rack.”
Unib moaned. “Please, I can’t... I can’t stand fighting..."
Äs rolled his eyes. “Fine. Yer exempt. But only because you’d probably go insane at some point if I drafted yuh."
---------------
Äs had never been in charge of a squad before. Back home, he’d not even been part of an army-- what skill he had, he’d gotten by practicing alone half-remembered drills seen through a green glass window.
He’d learned a couple things here, though; the frenzied crushing of birds and rodents had taught him fighting and discipline. He wasn’t amazing with a hammer, perhaps, but he was at least adequate for this--
and today, he was a commander for the first time.
“You have been divided into three groups of two! You will spend these coming weeks learning the basics of dodging and unarmed combat, moving into shieldwork as soon as Inod makes some shields for yuh! You will, whenever not leading or watching a demonstration, practice constantly the individual combat drills I show yuh! In this way you will prepare yerself to recieve weapons; in this way you will prepare yerself to defend the fortress and-- one day-- to wreak havoc on this world!”
---------------
14th of Limestone, 125“Are we
sure this is the right place?”
“See the clearing over there? That’s the work of dwarves. This is it. I think I see a hatch cover, too!”
“The wagons won’t fit through that!” protested a merchant. “How’re we supposed to get the goods in?”
“Leave the wagons, bring the pack animals. It’s not like anything’s gonna steal our stuff-- this place doesn’t have anything with enough brain left to try.”
“I don’t like it,” said a hammerdwarf. “This place is dead. Dwarves don’t belong here!”
The outpost liaison shrugged. “Ours not to reason why. Come on.”
Unhitching their wagons from their pack animals, the merchants set out for the hatch cover with their lightened load. The hammerdwarf watched the forest behind them, muttering: “Ours not to reason why... ours but to horribly die.”
---------------
A merchant pointed into the forest, grinning. “Hey look, kangaroos!”
“Kanga-- wait.” The hammerdwarf in front stared hard into the forest. “Those... those are
dead. And
moving.”
A merchant’s head snapped up. “
Panic!”
And they all ran around screaming for the rest of the day.
---------------
15th of Limestone, 125The merchants, having regained their senses, began slowly creeping towards the hatch cover, pack animals in tow. Three days of terrified kangaroo-dodging later, they all made it inside.
---------------
18th of Limestone, 125Atis came running down to the workshop floor. “Merchants! Merchants at the depot!”
Inod stumbled from her workshop. “Wha-- oh! Great! ...What are we supposed to sell them?”
Atis frowned. “I don’t know... we haven’t really been making trade goods,” he said. “Everything we’ve made, we need to survive.”
Inod groaned. “There’s gotta be
something... wait! Wasn’t Kel working on something in the mechanic’s?”
---------------
“What
are these things?”
Atis scrutinized the contents of the mechanic’s workshop closely. “Mechanisms,” he said. “They’re sets of components used in the construction of various devices requiring moving parts, such as levers, traps, and other more complex things.”
“Do we need them?”
“Mm... I don’t think so?”
“Are they valuable?”
“Perhaps?” said Atis. “I’m told a good mechanism is a fearsome device indeed, if used properly.”
Inod shrugged. “Good enough, I s’pose. We’ll see what Tun can get for ‘em.”
“Tun?”
“Tun,” said Inod. “Apparently Erush appointed her broker.”
---------------
Tink. Tink. Tink. Copper on stone, down in the magma.
“Greetings from the mountainhome, Erush Kizestlikot.”
Erush whirled. “What the-- who are you?”
“Tun Deduknoton, outpost liaison,” said the liaison.
“...How did you even get down here?”
“I walked.”
“Oh.” Erush looked uncomfortable. “Well.”
The liaison leaned against a wall. “We have much to discuss,” she said.
“Is this about the stealing-a-wagon-full-of-junk thing? Because I’ll have you know...”
“This is
not about the stealing-a-wagon-full-of-junk thing,” said the liaison. “Those charges have been lifted. I came here to discuss something else-- something perhaps a bit more serious.”
“...What’s going on?”
“Tell me,” said the liaison. “Of all the places you could have possibly settled... why here?”
“Er. Would you believe we were drunk at the time?”
The liaison raised her eyebrows. “No, I’m not sure I would. But nevermind that-- tell me, when was the last time you slept?”
“Uh. Why do you need to know?”
“When was the last time you slept?”“...A week ago,” said Erush. “But look, I don’t see why you’re asking about--”
“Your stonecrafter. The dwarf up trading with the merchants right now. How good is she at stonecrafting?”
“Oh, pretty adept at her craft by now. She’s been turning out some really exceptional rock pots lately.”
“Adept, you say. How good was she at stonecrafting when she came here?”
“Eh... just a novice, really. Why do you ask?"
“Do you have
any idea,” said the liaison, “how quickly she’s been learning? I saw those pots on the way down here. The quality of those things is nigh-unparalleled,
anywhere. That dwarf’s only been here for half a year-- at the rate she’s going, she’ll be turning out masterworks by spring! It takes most dwarves a
lifetime to learn to produce masterworks, and most never do!"
The outpost liaison paused, breathing deeply. “You came here to found a fortress, something that’s not been done since the beginning of recorded history, on a drunken bet. You chose for your fortress a location nobody in their right minds would set
foot in. You only eat, drink, or sleep what-- every week or two?”
“Wait,” said Erush, “how did you know about the eating and drinki--”
“Your stonecrafter has learned to rival the old masters of her trade in
six months, and she’s not the only one who’s learning fast. Your mason, your carpenter-- the furniture here is of unusual quality, and according to my records those two were rank novices at their crafts when you left the mountainhome.
This isn’t normal.”
“Look, are you getting at something here?”
The liaison sighed. “There’s... old stories of this sort of thing happening. Folk tales. Nobody’s been able to connect those stories to reality, and a lot of people don’t really believe them to be true-- but those stories described exactly the same sort of thing as what seems to be happening here.”
“Wait. Do you mean that one with the elepha--”
“Yes, yes, that’s one of them,” said the liaison. “There’s a bunch of stories like that: stories about dwarven fortresses, fortresses founded in strange and inhospitable places, fortresses that didn’t follow the patterns of the mountainhomes. Sometimes the fortresses will be carefully designed, following some strange and exotic pattern. Sometimes the fortresses will be convoluted messes, seemingly without rhyme or reason, as if designed by madmen each with a deep hatred for the last ruler’s madness. But always-- always-- the stories tell of bloodshed. And always-- always-- one name appears in every story of this kind:
Ar-mok.”
The magma bubbled.
Erush frowned. “Ar-mok?”
“
Ar-mok,” said the liason, nodding. “Tell me, Erush Kizestlikot: do you know what lies hidden in the magma?”
This was an old drill; Erush had learned it as a child. “Adamantine,” said Erush. “This we have been taught since time began, and never have we touched it.”
“And why have we never touched it? Do you know, Erush Kizestlikot, what lies under the adamantine?”
“The underworld,” said Erush. “This we have learned from the goblins, spawn of the slade towers.”
The liaison nodded. “So we are told. But tell me, Erush Kizestlikot: do you know what is beneath the underworld?”
Erush frowned; this was not part of the drill. “...No.”
“
Ar-mok. Ar-mok is beneath the underworld.”
---------------
“What?”
“So they say, anyway,” said the liaison, shrugging. “The stories. I never really believed it... but now I’m not so sure. They say Armok is a being with many faces; they say Armok created this world and many like it for its own amusement. And they say that sometimes-- after 5 years, or 125 years, or 250, or 550, or 1050-- Armok takes seven dwarves, and puts his bloodlust in them, and sends them to an unforgiving land, and takes a fortress for his own.”
“Wait,” said Erush. “Are you saying that we--”
“I don’t know. I’ve no idea. Maybe. But Erush?”
“...Yes?”
“Call off that war against the elves. It’d be the ruin of our civilization.”
“I’ll... consider it.”
“The fortresses of
Ar-mok only ever export one thing in the stories, Erush: death. Remember that.”
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Topic: Hammertooth: Uh, that map's upside down (Read 2846 times)