"Moldath V", Part IV, Turn 99The Trek to Treatyseed5th Felsite 937I clear the final dregs of demonic filth from the hellish outpost in Ironwards - some surprisingly chatty clear brutes fall to my axe. I inhale a thick cloud of boiling iguana demon extract, and I retch up blood from my rotten lungs. It will take more than that to lay me low.
I travel north towards Treatyseed, picking off a few goblins on the way.
On the outskirts of the capital, I am assailed by a headless blighted thrall fell one. It raises a fog and then promptly collapses when I drive my adamantine sword into its leg. Within Treatyseed itself, there has been some clean up since last I visited. Human militia commanders now patrol the corridors. I search for any sign of the king, but I find that he has died long ago! A new king sits on the throne of the Walled Dye.
In one of the many forgehalls, I find the skeleton of a great warrior clad in adamantine. Between her hands is an enormous adamantine runeaxe, encrusted with multicoloured diamonds!
Sadly the warrior's corpse is too shattered for my death magic to reanimate. I take her skeleton and armour and vow to find a fitting place to put her to rest. The axe is light as a feather and sharp as death. It will be a fine weapon.
I finally catch up with the so-called new king and interrogate him on his values. He cries for a drink, and that his hands are restless from lack of crafting. Strong dwarvish traits. He values knowledge and martial prowess, that much we agree on, but baulks at the importance of power. I discover from the chittering nobles that the Walled Dye are beset on all sides by war.
War against the humans of the Creamy Confederacy and The Empire of Peeks, not to mention the ever present threat of the goblins. Perhaps a king who valued power would not have allowed this to come to pass. But I will spill no blood here. I am not like the evil scorpion and his subterfuge and coups!
I leave through the central staircase to some commotion. A necromancer baron has ressurected the corpse pile! After I have cleaned up the mess, and raised a few unfortunate bystanders into a new productive life, I press on. I think it might be time to pay the Empire of Peeks a visit.
8th Felsite 937I arrive at Faithtalk, capital of the Empire of Peeks, to have a polite chat with their law-giver. Several gaunt zombies roam the surrounds and are quickly dispatched. Arriving at the mead hall, I find it in disarray - goblin skeletons and blighted thralls are slaughtering the humans. I heft the huge adamantine greataxe over my shoulder and wade in.
A muscular head advisor necromancer - Ashi Slidsoapy - makes things even more confusing by ressurecting yet more corpses! The guild-representative is indeed a blighted thrall, as is the law-giver.
He has a blank look on his face as he pets the severed head of a goblin, before his own joins it on the floor. In the commotion I hear another necromancer squealing. I shall cleanse this corrupt place. I step down the stairs and suddenly the room is teaming with Gaunt Zombies. Slibtu Helplearns the necromancer is to blame.
It takes several hours before all the corpses are burning on a funeral pyre. I find evidence of the handiwork of Jamas the elk man. I wonder if the Ghoul-Father has anything to do with the infiltration of the Empire of Peeks? A short distance northeast is the town of Councilenjoyed, where goblin priests are being feasted on by blighted thralls. More work for me.
10th Felsite 937After a short jaunt through some dark pits, I head westward and arrive at the town of Bitemother. Unsurprisingly it is infested with blighted thralls. It is another town of The Empire of Peeks, recently fallen to the Creamy Confederacy. Both are enemies of the dwarves, so I take grim satisfaction in cleansing this place.
In one small house I am surprised to see two giant wolves fighting with blighted thralls. The wolves are bitten by the thralls and succumb to the ghoulish plague, but their assault is unrelenting. I am forced to slay them all.
A short distance away from Bitemother, I am ambushed. There are three completely naked human wrestlers who seem a little sheepish and reluctant to attack, when out of nowhere a huge giant wolf appears. Another one? This wolf makes short work of the first wrestler as I look on dumbfounded. This is a seriously weird town.
The great wolf kills all three of my would be nude assassins, and I try to calm it to no avail. I am forced to strangle it. Raising into undeath, it will make a fine steed to carry me over the great mountains to the north. We travel over the mountains by night, the wolf's stride untiring, before arriving in the sinister desert of The Waste of Strangeness. We have reached our destination and I silently snap the wolfs neck, the magic animating it vanishing.
11th Felsite 937Arriving at the foul cave of The Doom of Murk I spot many slaughtered elves, some of the skeletons bear the marks of a bear-like creature. One such elf claims to be a prisoner and begs to return home to his wife in Glacialtempests, capital of the Squeezing Ford. I have never seen eye to eye with elves but this could be intriguing. If the elf doesnt mind slaughtering some goblins on the way. Sure, we will visit Glacialtempests, eventually. Apparently his wife, Eliye Mobbean, is the diplomat for the queen of the elves. That could be interesting leverage!
We press on north through the evil desert. Thick pools of dwarf blood pock the landscape, raining from the sky of this horrible place. Animals skitter away leaving trails of dwarf blood in their wake; it coats our flesh and dribbles into our eyes. What a miserable land.
Less than half a day north, the land sprawls with dark pits. We stumble on a camp of troll and goblin blighted thralls. The skinny elf does not last long. He is bitten by a troll and his face twists as the ghoulish curse takes hold. It is not safe to return him home now. I take no pleasure in ending his suffering - he could have been a valuable asset in ending the war between the Squeezing Fords and the Nations of Honoring.
The closest Dark Fortress is a short distance to the west, Dreadyouth. I begin scouring the goblin filth. One particularly unfortunate fellow has his arm ripped off, jammed into his chest and then his skull bitten in half. I do relish in the suffering of goblins!
A particular favourite is using my death magic to propel the snivelling beasts from atop their wicked towers. How satisfying.
The goblins huddle in the centre of their fortress but the adamantine tide is relentless. Nothing is coming to save them. The walls are smeared in blood when I am finished. The hordes are unrelenting, and eventually I decide to leave this place. I do not have the patience to slaughter five thousand beak dogs.
13th Felsite 937Posionuttered is the capital of the Most Sin, but it is mostly deserted. The Dark Tower is infested with trolls and I find only a handful of goblins. I do take the skull of their fat master, Ngom Profaneslugs. I leave and am chased by curious defenders. A named beak dog assaults me and is hacked down, followed by a group of troll soldiers in copper armour lead by Doxon Phraseveiled the troll hefting a copper morningstar. The goblins must be truly desperate to allow these dull creatures to lead their armies.
14th Felsite 937I head north in the direction of the Mong Uthros territories. On the outskirts of Lipbraided I am accosted by blighted thralls. The blight has never taken hold this far north before. This is troubling news. Lipbraided's main keep is also infested, as are a few local villages. This whole land must be purged.
16th Felsite 937Several goblins, thralls and howling freaks have been put down and eventually I arrive at Drillshrine. This town is the secondary capital of Mong Uthros, with all the constant upheaval in Atticmuffins. The new law giver, amusingly, is an elf disguised as a frail criminal. He greets me as a fellow worshipper of Ala, so he can keep his head for now. The facade is ruined by his justicar asking for him by his real name.
A polititian masquerading as a criminal... finally, an honest law-giver. At least the plague has not reached here yet. I am not so certain about Atticmuffins, which is my next stop.
Sadly, Atticmuffins is overrun by hand of planesgift priests, and half of them are blighted thralls. The group that Kothvir installed, the Greatest Attic of Muffins, are nowhere to be seen. I slaughter the thralls, and leave the other priests untouched. They greet me coldly - even as a legend, they cannot forgive my mercy killing.
In the refugee camps I meet the Lady of Atticmuffins, Siti Seizegorged. She seems happy to see me. Perhaps now the thralls are dealt with, she can return to her keep. It certainly seems that Erod Ambercrows was a... divisive figure. The thrall threat near Atticmuffins seems neutralised at least, and I spend a day or two checking nearby villages.
18th Felsite 937I arrive at Releaseteachers, home of the Coven of Frothing. When I enter the hall, a blighted thrall priest is attacking the Holy Raunch, who quickly dispatches it with his iron pike. This grim priest is heavily armoured and has a short, muscular body. I entrusted the bronze slab Uklasut to the Holy Raunch Sushsath Routeenbraced here nearly forty years ago. Of her, there is no sign, and the new priest is not forthcoming. More worringly, there is no trace of the slab to be found. What has happened to it?
I travel eastwards, and arrive at Northmanor the Unholy Cathedral. To my dismay, it is crawling with goblin soldiers, mercenaries, and bizarrely a goblin who claims to be a tavern keeper. On his corpse is yet more evidence of the scorpion's vile plots.
By the time I have purged the goblins from this dwarven fort, I have 11 pouches full of coins bearing the grinning visage of the pincered menace.
20th Felsite 937I leave Northmanor and head east, a very short distance away is a fort that I am familiar with. Fragmented memories come flooding back as I arrive on the outskirts of Balancehammer, where I was imprisoned and flayed alive for many years. The dwarves here hail from the resurgent Page of Tiredness.
They have clearcutted a huge swathe of bamboo forest and a proud basalt fortress rises from the earth. I meet a frail hammerer who claims not to know me. Entering the fort, I am confronted by a series of well crafted bridges which seem designed to drop unwelcome visitors into the icy depths below - surely enough to rid the fort of any goblin vermin who might drop by!
The flowing water is used expertly to create a waterfall of mist through the central spire - I cannot help grinning as my rotten flesh is washed by the caress of the river, and steam envelopes me instead of miasma. Fine adamantine and steel weapons litter the hallways, a sign of this places wealth and power. I remember little of this... only fleeting glimpses in my shattered mind of being chained to the "surgeon's" table. I spend some time exploring.
In the central courtyard, an enormous basalt spire juts skyward; truly an impressive sight. In one of the bedrooms is a familiar looking object. A rope reed quire that was written by my own hand! I quickly place it within my pack.
I fully explore the fortress. It is well stocked and well defended, and there are no beasts to slay. I stumble into a room which makes my head spin. A statue of my own twisted form stands before me, next to one of heroic dwarves and a final edifice of the dread wyrm Faci, destroyer of Keyconjure. Memories flood my rotten brain in an unwelcome torrent. Imprisoned, tortured like some plaything. In one corner is a room with a bed, throne and table, leading to a corridor with a loathsome trapped floor. One pull of a lever will drop whoever stands upon it into a cage trap. Is this how they kept me prisoner?
Somehow I feel this is not the only secret here. I am compelled to retrace my steps to the entrance, and high above the goblin-drowning trap I stumble along a precarious set of bridges into a quiet, cold stone room. Bookcases line the wall and the remnnants of a cage trap are visible in the centre of the prison. A statue leers at me, a reproduction of the event that forced me into servitude for many decades in Eskon. This place was my jail. It takes every ounce of my superdwarven willpower not to lay waste to the cowards who call this place home. I leave before my will breaks.
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Topic: Museum III, adventure succession game (DF 0.47.05) (Read 409929 times)