Several months ago, in the bedroom of Imic II
The Dwarf sat, alone, in his room. The Book, the object of his curiosity, obsession, and confusion, lay before him. Beside it sat a bowl of piping hot stew. The stew was made from... something. There was meat and probably vegetables, but it was hard to tell, and at the end of the day, not worth it to ask. The stews were always delicious, and that was all the answer anyone
really needed. As he sat, pondering the work laid out before him, there was a knock on the door.
‘Come in.’ He barely noticed himself saying the words, it was almost a surprise to him when the door opened and the Bookkeeper came in.
‘This is the late Imic’s, and is now yours. We found it in a hidden part of his room.’
The stack contained mostly papers and clothing, with a few odds and ends to spice it up. It would probably take some time to sort through it all. He sighed.
‘All right, thank you for bringing it here. Could I-‘ he started, but the Bookkeeper, once emptied of her load, disappeared to return to her work. He sighed again. He was tired, and his mind couldn’t stop thinking about the book, and about the sad ending of Imic I. His mind flashed back to, not long ago, when he made the hatch cover. Maybe this person had lived in some now-ruined Fortress, and he had come here after his friends had gone. Maybe he was a refugee from some distant continent, speaking an unknown dialect of Dwarfish. Maybe he was just a crazy orphan with a thing for making codes. Imic II, it seemed, was the only person with any interest in Imic I. No-one had known him very well or knew much about him, except that he was reserved, generally pleasant, enjoyed dark humour, and swore like a Miner who worked the day shift in a surface village. He never really spoke of any past, never revealed any juicy little storylets about his childhood, never engaged in drunken reminiscing, never told anyone anything, and no-one had ever thought to ask. Other than a few jokes remembered and repeated, as well as the first tunnels of the fortress, nothing remained of him now, except this book, and the hatch cover propecting the very peak of the Fortress’s gate. It was an intriguing mystery, but it was an intoxicating one. Books and acrolls and advice on codes, on language, on history, and more had all simply fallen flat of what he needed. He wanted an answer, he wanted an ending to this... Confusing mess of a story.
He sat there, trying to justify his obsession with this incredibly unimportant detail, for some time. But as his arguments expanded, and this whole endevour seemed less and less important, he felt the distress well up inside of him. Why was he really doing this. Why did any of this matter? Why? Why was this any of his business? Was he trying to make himself feel better for murdering someone? Was he trying to pity himself? Why was this any of his right to do, after what he did?
And with that thought, the sound of the old Imic’s body breaking under the falling rocks quietly echoed as the memories of the last moment began to worm their way through the seams of his focus, overpowering all thought under their leaden weight. Under the barrage of sound, the cracking of bone welled up in his mind. He choked back tears as the broken body was dug up again by the memories of his comrades as he stood, paralyzed, staring at the fellow Dwarf that he had killed. He hadn’t screamed as the rocks hit him. His corpse had looked almost peaceful, under the blood. There had just been a crunch. A sickening, echoing, tortured crunch. The tears came down freely, as his mind began to flash the thoughts, the events, the memory, over and over again in his head. Unimportant. Obsessed. Stupid. Worthless. Murderer.
Crash.
thump.crunch.As he cried, and cried, his food grew colder and colder. Its smell became sickening. The pile of papers and clothes would remain untouched, hidden until nearly a third of the way into the next year. If he had looked just a little sooner, the letter that Imic I had left in his pocket containing the brief few paragraphs of his last will and testament would have been found much sooner, and many, many questions would hqve been answered much, much before they eventually were, and a small piece of the dark history of the Fortress of Doomhollow would have been given a satisfying ending long before it eventually came. Small to many, but to the dozen or so people it affected in the end, it meant the world. Perhaps more.
This hurt a little bit to write.
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Topic: The Doom of Doomhollow - Year 10 - [Finished] (Read 51589 times)