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Author Topic: Thob Goes to the Surface  (Read 57461 times)

Loam

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Re: Thob Goes to the Surface
« Reply #30 on: June 04, 2020, 06:04:06 pm »

Ouch, has it been a week since the last update? Sorry, got sidetracked a bit.



In the morning, just before dawn, Thob left Mythtin. But he hadn’t gone far from the fort when he found something odd:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
An old, half-rotten wooden hatch covered a part of the ground here, almost lost amid the undergrowth. Curious, Thob pulled on the iron handle and lifted the hatch up, revealing a tunnel crudely dug into the earth. A secret entrance to the fort, maybe, or a hidden cache of treasure or—hope against hope—alcohol?
   He climbed down the tunnel. In the muddy cave below were no treasures, but a few rusty bits of armor, some tarnished coins, scraps of ragged clothes—and one glaring scarlet eye shining out of the darkness:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
With a screech the awful creature lunged at Thob, running on its backward legs, its long tail dragging the ground. “Another dwarf,” it howled, “after so long! I’d almost forgotten the taste!”
   Thob didn’t stick around to hear more: he scurried like a mole up the earthen bank and out the hatch, letting it slam back down over the hole. Then he was away, running headlong to the south, not stopping until he could barely breathe. He stood behind a tree and listened, but there were no sounds of pursuit.
   He took back what he had thought about “tall tales”—it seemed the surface was a place of supernatural horrors.

On his way south he was more cautious. He followed an ancient dirt road for most of the way, avoiding the wilderness—not that the roads were really less wild, but they felt so, and you knew if you followed one you would wind up somewhere there was a roof over your head. But even the roads were not free of danger:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Just after crossing a narrow bridge, two humanoid creatures, gray-feathered and wiggling their branching antennae, shambled out of the brush along the path. They made for Thob, but he was wary; quickly he dashed back across the bridge and lost sight of the things amid the trees. They, too, soon gave up searching for him, and he was able to sneak off, further downstream, and cross.

Not far off the path was, according to the Eyes he’d spoken to, the lair of the supposed “hyena,” the one they called Ïngiz. Thob had learned not to discount these stories of monsters, but the hyena piqued his curiosity: he wanted to know if it had even half the weird features they attributed to it. Soon he found the den—ominously named “the Hole of Catching”—and, sneaking as best he could in his steel armor, crept down the rocky slope.
   The den wasn’t large, and at the other end Thob saw the creature:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
He wouldn’t have said it looked like a mole rat, with or without hair, but it was close enough, he guessed. It was nearly as big as he was. He crept closer. The hyena pricked up its ears, sniffed—and suddenly leapt for him!
   Instinctively Thob threw out the iron pick, raising his buckler at the same time to ward off the beast’s jaws. This proved unnecessary, because his first strike with the pick tore into its underbelly and spattered hyena guts all over the floor. The thing collapsed in a heap; in another moment, Thob brought the pick down into its chest, bursting the heart.
   So much for the dreaded hyena, he thought. It was just a wild animal, no different from dralthas or cave crocodiles.

With the rest of the day, Thob made his way east across the valley. He was nearing his destination, Scarredpaddles. When night came down he made camp by a little stream.
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Thob Goes to the Surface (Adventure Mode story, in progress)

King Zultan

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Re: Thob Goes to the Surface
« Reply #31 on: June 05, 2020, 05:04:37 am »

Its getting dangerous, what further dangers away him on his quest for booze?
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IncompetentFortressMaker

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Re: Thob Goes to the Surface
« Reply #32 on: June 05, 2020, 12:57:37 pm »

Well, he's already faced supernatural threats and indirect attacks by necromancers (their experiments keep trying to clobber him), so for all I know, next he'll find a shrine and nearly get squashed by an angry titan.

Loam

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Re: Thob Goes to the Surface
« Reply #33 on: June 10, 2020, 09:23:38 am »

I think I'll make this a weekly thing - it's easier to motivate myself to update it if I have a deadline. Updates may also get more substantial as a result.



Thob woke before dawn when he felt something cold and wet strike his face. In fact, it was striking all over his body, and the patter of it on the grass and leaves around him made a terrific din. He looked up. Water was actually falling from the sky:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
He shuddered. This was the kind of thing that could make a dwarf go mad.
   Then he saw, across the stream, a pack of those “hyena” creatures. They didn’t approach him—they just stood there in the falling droplets, as if… waiting for something. It seemed too strange a coincidence that this pack should appear not a day after he killed the big one, Ïngiz. Could Ïngiz have been important, Thob wondered, a leader or patriarch? Could these hyenas have… followed him?

The creatures didn’t seem to pursue him when he left—but perhaps they were just hiding. Thob ventured eastward over the plains. At last he arrived at the mouth of the valley in which Scarredpaddles lay.
   Nearby was one of those abandoned monasteries, and he decided to stop there for a while before moving on. There wasn’t usually much of interest in them, but they seemed good places to rest. But as he entered the ruined temple Thob found something he’d never expected to see:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The temple was absolutely full of books! A veritable storehouse of ancient knowledge! Thob began leafing through some of the more interesting titles.
   Most of the books seemed to be written by two dwarves: Inod Atticbreached and Deduk Pleatedpage. They were curious figures: first, to judge by the dates in their works, they had apparently lived for centuries—
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
But more disturbing was some of the content—books about raising the dead that, er, “indulged the author’s fancies”:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
These, Thob reasoned, were probably just fiction - whoever heard of "raising the dead"?
   Other books were more banal, such as Deduk’s “Genius” trilogy—books about Deduk writing books:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Many books referenced “Steelpoint,” which, Thob gathered, was the name of the monastery. They must have been centers of scholarship in the old world.

Thob finished his reading and set off to the south—he should reach Scarredpaddles by dusk. But he hadn’t left the monastery far behind when a rushing noise made him turn around:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
It looked sort of like a hyena, differently colored, and it moved incredibly fast. Thob barely had time to ready himself before the beast was upon him—without time to think he swung his pick…
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
…and ripped the creature in half. The disgusting spectacle of the two halves of the once-animal flying apart stunned and almost sickened him—but, at the same time, it bolstered his confidence in the power of the pick he wielded. He’d heard some dwarves swear by the axe or sword, but the tool of his trade was all the weapon he needed.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
His destination lay before him as the sun began to go down. Scarredpaddles lay beside the old dwarven road, between two ranks of mountains; and, as he approached, Thob saw the valley opening up to the south:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The far-off mountains cradled a large marshland, and at the utter end he thought he made out the dry wastes of a desert. A few ruins stood in the interior and along the rim of the valley. It was the clearest view he’d yet had—everywhere else hills and mountains stood in the way of one’s vision.
   Scarredpaddles was, like almost everywhere else, long abandoned. The hillocks stood empty. Only in one did Thob find any trace of former inhabitation: a lone book lying in the dirt.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Thob wondered how an “unabridged” story contained only one episode and twenty-seven pages—but to judge by Fikod’s “wild ranting” he wasn’t the sanest dwarf in history.
   Unfortunately, the book was all Thob found of interest in Scarredpaddles. He looked around the mounds and bunkers of the village, in the roads and fields, but couldn’t find any of the supposed artifacts. Hardly a wonder: they had been lost three hundred years ago, and surely in that time someone could have found and taken them. There’d be no way to know now where they were. King Urvad would be disappointed, but that wasn’t Thob’s fault. As night drew on Thob called off his search, and went back into one of the hillocks to sleep.

When he awoke he was surrounded by hyenas.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
This was no coincidence. He saw it clearly now. They must have followed him, stalked him through the fields until they could strike. He saw it in their shining eyes: they wanted vengeance for their fallen chief, Ïngiz. They wanted Thob’s blood.
   The foremost charged him; he sidestepped and swung, and the beast’s leg crumpled up and it fell. He struck again and shattered it skull. But the rest of the pack was alert—yipping horribly they rushed to the attack. They were too many, Thob thought; they would surround him and drag him down. As they came nearer his mind raced…
   …and, suddenly, everything went… blank.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
He saw, heard, smelled everything more clearly, but as if at a great distance, like he wasn’t really there. His body moved, but he didn’t seem to be moving it. He felt nothing, he thought nothing: there was only the pick in his hand, and the enemies to be destroyed.
   He saw one hyena’s head sheared off—then another—a third was pierced to the brain—one had its guts ripped out by the swinging pick—one’s torso was nearly cleft in two—the pick struck and tore flesh and bone—the hyenas quavered, then bolted, dashing away in all directions, but the pick sought them out and brought them low—blood and hyena bits were tossed into the air like some grisly fountain—
   Then it was over, and Thob was back.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Early dawn sunlight filtered through the doorway, and dead hyenas littered the ground. Thob looked in amazement at the destruction he had wreaked. His enemies had fallen before him; they had come to avenge their lord, but had only met his fate.
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Superdorf

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Re: Thob Goes to the Surface
« Reply #34 on: June 10, 2020, 10:58:21 am »

What lovely carnage.

It is best, when travelling alone in the wilds, to surround yourself with a barricade of campfires before you sleep.
You won't always get warning of the incoming peril. I've had quite a few adventurers in past that went to sleep in dog territory... and never woke up.
« Last Edit: June 10, 2020, 11:11:40 am by Superdorf »
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mightymushroom

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Re: Thob Goes to the Surface
« Reply #35 on: June 10, 2020, 12:08:45 pm »

I love all those books.
"Genius for Everyone": it's a book about writing a book about writing a book. If you can untangle all the layers of allegory, it will have done it's job.
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King Zultan

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Re: Thob Goes to the Surface
« Reply #36 on: June 11, 2020, 07:20:40 am »

Seems like all that's left to remind us of anyone in this world are a bunch of old books.
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Make sure not to step on any errant blood stains before we find our LIFE EXTINGUSHER.
but anyway, if you'll excuse me, I need to commit sebbaku.
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Loam

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Re: Thob Goes to the Surface
« Reply #37 on: June 11, 2020, 08:44:16 am »

Trust me, there are a lot more books in Thob's future.

It is best, when travelling alone in the wilds, to surround yourself with a barricade of campfires before you sleep.
You won't always get warning of the incoming peril. I've had quite a few adventurers in past that went to sleep in dog territory... and never woke up.
You know, I've never done this and never really had to. Maybe I've just been lucky?

(In any case, Thob's no longer alone - but that's in a future episode!)
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Loam

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Re: Thob Goes to the Surface
« Reply #38 on: June 17, 2020, 06:25:49 pm »

Scarredpaddles itself had been a disappointment, but Thob was glad he made the journey. Despite the dangers, he felt much more confident in the new world of the surface—which was good, since it looked like he was going to be up here a while before he found any alcohol. It was time to head back to Dawngloves, but he’d take a new route this time, going north along the east side of the valley. There were many old forts to explore in that region.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The first of these was Controliron, in which, he had been told, a “giant” lived. Thob entered cautiously, but there was no sign of anyone.
   As in the other forts he’d been to, a temple stood in the main cavern; its markings said it was for “the Creed of Sweat,” a religion worshipping Ôggon Bridemenace—not a deity Thob was familiar with. Indeed, the architecture of the place, the designs on the temple walls, the shape of the letters, were all subtly foreign. This fort must have belonged to a different tribe of dwarves, not to the Sandaled Key.
   This was affirmed, more or less, by a book Thob found in the temple (what was it with books in temples?). It was a hefty tome, entitled “The Ring of Chance When It Counts”:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
A “monument to concision” indeed, since it only covered four events—yet somehow took 306 pages to talk about them? Still, Thob knew now he was in the lands of the Ring of Chance. Not that it much mattered these days, he supposed.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
   The lower floors still held some fine treasures: in particular Thob found a beautiful, finely-crafted pick of the best dwarven steel. This, he bet, could pierce the toughest hides, and most armor as well.
   There were a few more books scattered around also. “On the Trees” talked about something called a “forest retreat,” whatever that was (for that matter, what was a forest?). Then there was “Errors in the Dwarves,” which called itself a chronicle but only contained one chapter:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
As lacking as many of these books were in detail, they were the only source of information on the old world that Thob had. It seemed a shame, he thought, to let them molder in obscurity like this. If someone gathered all the books in one place, all the knowledge of the ancients preserved for anyone to read, that’d be a great help to dwarven advancement. And why shouldn’t he be that someone? Thob picked up a bag and put the books he had into it: from now on he’d keep the books he found until he could store them somewhere. This could be the start of something good.

He left Controliron and went north, following the road. Toward evening he arrived at another fortress, nestled at the end of a short valley. As he approached he heard, unexpectedly, the shuffling sounds of footsteps:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Dwarves! They were dressed fairly well, like the nobles at Dawngloves. Thob addressed the nearest of them, a friendly-looking old fellow:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
   “Uh…” said Thob, “sorry, I must of heard you wrong. Praise what?”
   “Lust!” replied King Aban enthusiastically. “Lust, for the glory of Ôggon Bridemenace!”
   It turned out that Ôggon was very popular with the nobles of the Ring of Chance: nearly all of the half-dozen or so dwarves Thob met in Quakegloves (which was the name of this fortress—it was the ancient capital of the Ring) worshipped the Goddess of Lust, and the temple here was also dedicated to her. Thob didn’t consider himself a prude, but it was a little disturbing to find a whole civilization of dwarves not just candid about their urges, but actually worshipping them. It wasn’t something he’d ever do.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
   Still, he got on well with the dwarves here. They were eager to hear of his adventures: like the nobles at Dawngloves, few of them had ever explored the world.
   “I hear it’s crawling with horrible monsters out there,” said a certain Baron Onul. “Did you run into anything dreadful out there?”
   “Oh,” said Thob, “nothing my trusty pick couldn’t handle. Actually,” he continued, letting a note of pride enter his voice, “not but a few days ago I managed to kill the King of the Hyenas.”
   “The whatnow?”
   “You know—the one they called Ïngiz. His whole pack set upon me, but I fended them off.”
   “Must have been some fight,” said King Aban, not without admiration.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)



More soon, just felt I should break up the episode - it was getting long.
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IncompetentFortressMaker

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Re: Thob Goes to the Surface
« Reply #39 on: June 18, 2020, 11:37:22 am »

Has Thob recovered from the shock of these dwarves' culture yet? Looked like he got a little thrown for a loop there when the king cheerily mentioned he was worshiping a goddess of lust.

IncompetentFortressMaker

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Re: Thob Goes to the Surface
« Reply #40 on: June 18, 2020, 01:07:42 pm »

Also, is it me or does Thob have an unerring tendency to run into kings?

Loam

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Re: Thob Goes to the Surface
« Reply #41 on: June 18, 2020, 06:08:03 pm »

Has Thob recovered from the shock of these dwarves' culture yet? Looked like he got a little thrown for a loop there when the king cheerily mentioned he was worshiping a goddess of lust.
He's coping alright, though we haven't heard the last of Ôggon yet.

Also, is it me or does Thob have an unerring tendency to run into kings?
He's had that dubious pleasure more often than usual. Although whether they're truly "kings" is its own quandary.



There was a small building in the north corner of the cavern: in it were a few tables and chairs, and a chest full of blank scrolls and quires of parchment. The dwarves at Quakegloves said it was the old “library”—a place where books used to be stored, and where scholars would come to research and write. It sounded just like the thing Thob wanted to start himself. There were no books in it now, but the dwarves said that some were scattered here and there through the fort.
   The temple of Ôggon stood to the south. Despite his reservations about the lust-goddesses cult, Thob decided to check it out. A series of ramps went down into lower and lower basements and sub-basements, one after another, for several floors; when finally Thob reached the bottom, he found to his astonishment—another massive pile of books:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
(Author’s note: this is nowhere near the full list of books there were)
The titles ranged over all conceivable topics, and several inconceivable ones as well. Thob began searching the stacks for the most promising works.

   Among the scientific and technical treatises Thob read: Secret Breathing (on pulmonary medicine); Mysteries of the Voice (on the source of the voice); Surgical Tools, My Love (take a guess); To Glue and Glory!, a manual about preparing glue that somehow managed to convey “a hint of viciousness”; and, Thob’s personal favorite:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Then there were works of philosophy, questioning or promoting all sorts of dwarven values:
   The History of the Truth, an essay on the value of truth (despite its bombastic title);
   The Wizard’s Guide to Ignorance, which emphasized the value of knowledge;
   Better Rules, on the value of laws; and
   Toil: My Only Mistake, an essay on the value of hard work.

But perhaps the most interesting, to Thob’s taste anyway, were the histories—biography, chronicle, cultural comparison, and many other forms. These he read voraciously, eagerly soaking up their knowledge of the ancient world. Among these works one name stood out, more prominent than all the other authors: Shorast Blademansion, apparently an ancient dwarven historian of no small renown. Quite a number of the histories were his work:
   The Dwarves, Abridged: a serious cultural history of the Ring of Chance, covering the first fifty years of its history, from the very foundation of Quakegloves in year one.
   On The Dwarf: a history of the first general of the Ring, Shem Lockhelms. It was serious enough, but rather self-indulgent and not very well written—perhaps it was an early work?
   Meditations on the Dwarf: another history, this one about an infamous cheetah attack in year 88.
Shorast also wrote about his craft, in several manuals of historiographical practice, like Family in the Modern Era (how to compile family lineages and display them) and Could It Be Reliability? (about finding reliable sources of information).
   There was also an interesting biography that Shorast had written about himself—a form called “autobiography” which Thob had never heard of before: Shorast Blademansion and the Spattered Ear, a dense five-part volume covering Shorast’s career, from his start as a historian in 36, working at the Quakegloves library, to his retirement fifty years later, and discussing some of the discoveries he made along the way (he was, apparently, the very first dwarf to write a biography).

   According to his autobiography, Shorast had taken an apprentice late in his career—another historian named Mafol Crabguild. Mafol’s works were also well-represented in the collection. Many of them, despite being histories, also supported Mafol’s own philosophical views: his Book of the Ring of Chance, a cultural history, emphasized the value of truth, while his autobiography The Dwarves emphasized the value of knowledge—a good thing for a historian to value, Thob guessed.
   Mafol also wrote a biography of his old master: The Birth of Shorast Blademansion. Despite the title, it began with Shorast’s marriage, not his birth. Thob guessed it was metaphorical—Shorast’s “birth” as a historian.
   Thob was impressed by what he learned of Shorast and the other historians. What knowledge and scholarship the ancients possessed! To think that it might all have been lost, in the thousand years between their time and his. More than ever Thob realized how important his “library” would be, if ever the world were to be resettled.

When he had read his fill, Thob went down the central stairs to explore the rest of Quakegloves.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
He was surprised when, on the way down, he found a small shrine to Egesh, goddess of his own religion, the Communion of Saints. He wasn’t particularly religious, but it was comforting to find a familiar image so far from home.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Lower Quakegloves was, intriguingly, open directly to the cavern road—unorthodox construction, and in Thob’s opinion pretty bad security. It must date from a time of prosperity, when there were still strong dwarven armies to guard the depths.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The main hall was littered with scattered scrolls, for some reason not kept with the others. A few of the Ring nobility lived down here, including two very old-looking dwarves. Thob introduced himself to one. “Ah, hello,” he replied gruffly, “I am Inod Atticbreached, baron of Glazetin.”
   “Wait a minute,” said Thob, “I know that name… yes, I remember! You wrote all those books—I found them in a monastery!”
   “Yes, I was a rather prolific author in my day. Now if you’ll excuse—.”
   “But that can’t be right,” said Thob, mostly to himself. “The books said Inod Atticbreached lived in the fourth century…”
   “Scribal error.”
   “…and that he could raise the dead.”
   “Oh… ah… sorry, I must take my leave.” Before Thob could ask another question, Inod had disappeared down the hall.

   Thob was still wondering about this strange encounter when another very old dwarf hailed him. “Greetings, stranger!” he said with a flourish. “I am Count Deduk Pleatedpage—humble servant of Ôggon Bridemenace. My!” he exclaimed, regarding Thob, “that ostrich leather cloak simply makes the outfit!”
   “Uh, thanks? My name's… wait.” This was too weird. “Deduk Pleatedpage? I’ve read some of your books, too.”
   “Oh… really?” said the old dwarf, suddenly looking nervous.
   “The ones you wrote about three hundred years ago?”
   “Ha, ha! What a joker you are! Well it’s been a lovely chat, Mr.…”
   “Thob.”
   “… Mr. Bob, but I’m afraid I must be off!” And he, too, disappeared.

Very likely, thought Thob, neither dwarf was who they claimed to be. He bet they weren’t even nobles. They’d picked up these old names somewhere to impress the king and get a place at court. That’s why they bolted from Thob—he’d caught them in their lie.
   That had to be it. Dwarves couldn’t live for three hundred years. Right?



Apologies for the wall of text in the middle. I didn't want to take pictures of all those books.
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Superdorf

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Re: Thob Goes to the Surface
« Reply #42 on: June 18, 2020, 06:59:02 pm »

Ah Thob, you wonderful oblivious creature. Whatever will you do when you realize at last the nature of these furtive scholars?  :))
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IncompetentFortressMaker

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Re: Thob Goes to the Surface
« Reply #43 on: June 18, 2020, 07:24:47 pm »

Oblivious indeed. Well, he'll learn quick when - and if - he meets a walking corpse following the old dwarves' orders

King Zultan

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Re: Thob Goes to the Surface
« Reply #44 on: June 19, 2020, 07:25:46 am »

We might have to start calling this thing Thob's Quest for Edification.
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The Lawyer opens a briefcase. It's full of lemons, the justice fruit only lawyers may touch.
Make sure not to step on any errant blood stains before we find our LIFE EXTINGUSHER.
but anyway, if you'll excuse me, I need to commit sebbaku.
Quote from: Leodanny
Can I have the sword when you’re done?
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