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Author Topic: NecroThreat IV: Fortress for BFEL, God of Necromancy  (Read 505630 times)

Imic

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Re: NecroThreat IV: Fortress for BFEL, God of Necromancy
« Reply #2865 on: October 28, 2018, 10:37:32 am »

Oh shit.
And that’s how to avoid a loyalty cascade.
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Enemy post

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Re: NecroThreat IV: Fortress for BFEL, God of Necromancy
« Reply #2866 on: October 28, 2018, 10:58:02 am »

Execute Order 66.
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highmax28

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Re: NecroThreat IV: Fortress for BFEL, God of Necromancy
« Reply #2867 on: October 30, 2018, 05:09:34 pm »

What have you done...
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just shot him with a balistic arrow, i think he will get stuned from that >.>

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Jee wilikers, I think Highmax is near invulnerable, must have been dunked in the river styx like achilles was.
Just make sure he wears a boot.

TD1

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Re: NecroThreat IV: Fortress for BFEL, God of Necromancy
« Reply #2868 on: November 05, 2018, 06:09:47 pm »

The way to Maesa lies deep below the green shell of the earth. Down there, the magma roils in hidden currents. Where it cools, new rock is left… and where it burns brightest, nothing is left in its path.

Maesa is a creature of destruction and creation, fiery death and rebirth.

Highmax had been reborn, and now he sought death. Feet heavy, heart leaden, he begins the trek down below the earth. Above, he hears screams sounding. It comes from the Dining Hall, he knows, and the voice of Old Highmax mutters a tale from Old Necrothreat. How Th4DwArfY1 had been driven to violence against the Forumites, and nothing could stop his anger. Until Highmax had returned from a Quest beyond the walls of death and taught him anew the power of honour and hope.

Highmax ignores the voice and continues on his plodding trek to the red sea deep below. His grave, he knows, awaits him.

***

5th Slate

Th4DwArfY1 watched from the wooden palisade of Necrothreat as a steady stream of migrants moved towards the gates. The hope on their faces was disturbing, as it seemed that he should sympathise with it… but he could not, and as the gates heaved open and the first stepped into the blood-stained courtyard he saw the dawning horror and revulsion on their sunburnt faces. This was an emotion which he could understand.

The stream of migrants would go below the earth, and never be the same again.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

24th Slate

He was right, he knew. Those migrants had been below the earth for nearly a month, and already they were indistinguishable from the tortured souls who had been there for years. New faces passed him often, each bearing streaks of blood and mud, each hollow and dejected. From far-flung rooms came the sound of howling and breaking doors. Only Apiks, the King, seemed untouched. His chainsaw shone in the dark, and his clothes were clean.

He had argued often with the Bone King in the last month. Apiks did not disapprove of his methods and tolerated Th4DwArfY1’s leadership of the common rabble. Someone had to do it, after all, while Apiks trained with weapon and mind.

But he was beginning to guess Th4DwArfY1’s aim, and that was not so well received. So long as he only guessed and did not know, all would be well... and Th4DwArfY1 knew better than most that all crowns must fall eventually.

25th Slate

Down below the earth, the stone was gleaming in the torchlight. Great statues crowded a carven floor, and the pillars were tall and strong.

Blood stained the floor, as it did everywhere else – but here it was particularly thick.

“Praise be to…” here, the words engraved deeply into the floor faded to illegibility. A farmer stood nearby, his face twisted in sorrow and despair. His name was Adil, and he had come to pray before the cleansing waters of Omer. To pray to the God that Was and clean himself of his many miseries.

His child had died; his wife was gone.

Adil had prayed long and with all the spirit he could muster. He knew the old tales, of course, of how Lord Lemonpie had touched the sick and healed them of their ills, his mouth full of the words of divinity. On his way in, he had ignored the claw-marks gouged deep into the stone of the entrance. Lemonpie would heal him, or his god would. This Adil had known.

But it had all been a lie.

Adil prayed and no one answered – he wept, and no healing waters comforted him. Instead, only the statues of Omer stared at him with mock sympathy, watched with a sneer behind their cobalt eyes.

Adil took one step, then another. He slipped on the blood of the floor, but he kept moving. He was weeping in earnest, now, his last hope torn from him like everything else. Necrothreat, the place where dreams die, he thought, remembering the first hopeful steps his family had taken here. Then he reached towards Omer’s statue and, with a strength born of rage and despair, cast the god down at his feet.

As the stone crumbled, so too did the last of Adil’s humanity.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

***

Highmax could almost taste his death.

He had spent the last month wandering lost and forlorn, a shade in the lower caverns. A haunting shape to terrify the beasts lurking in the depths. Death held the savour of forgotten memories, a chance to shirk the chains of responsibility thrown on him by those long gone.

After his long wanderings, he had finally found a clear path downwards. A path towards his death. It was at the very moment that he took his first steps down that he heard a sound. Unlike the cries of maddened Forumites which he had become accustomed to, this was a deep blast of primal rage, animalistic in its fury. He knew it instinctively, a knowledge which cut through the despondency gripping his heart. A werebeast was loose in Necrothreat once again.

There will be a new Highmax, but his name will not be Morul Ropejumps

Highmax took another step downwards.

***

Adil did not know himself anymore. He was no longer a farmer. No more would he sow and reap for the people of Necrothreat. Now… now, he would harvest only a crop of blood. His family was dead, and this place had brought them to their end.

His fury fed that of the beast, and none could stand against him. He used his horn to smash down doors and threw peasants into the air. His teeth bit and tore and rent and killed. No military opposed him, for Th4DwArfY1 had only laughed as the number of dead increased.

Six. Seven. Eight.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)


The thing which had once been Adil was looming over number nine, the ivory of his great horn shining as it fell with the force of a hundred warhammers, when something – impossibly, inconceivably! – something shone in front of his nose and deflected the blow. Sparks flew as the great horn scraped harmlessly against the wall before crashing to the floor.

Adil roared in unbridled fury and turned to meet his foe.

***

Highmax stood before the beast. He had not taken many steps before he had remembered. The Guardian of Necrothreat. Highmax the Blue. Highmax the Honourable.

He would never abandon Necrothreat, not so long as a weapon was to hand or an enemy within reach.

The Highmax who spoke to him… he was a tool of Armok. The true Highmax was no man’s tool, but fashioned for himself the fate he wanted. Highmax was Morul Ropejumps, and Morul Ropejumps would fight for her home.

As the Wererhinocerous charged, Highmax smiled a secret smile and spoke softly for himself alone.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

He raised an axe and cut twice, swiftly and surely. It was no sword, but it seemed right. A new weapon for a new start. The cycle could be changed, and Highmax could write his own fate.

One stroke took off a great, gnarled leg at the knee. Highmax slid past and jabbed upwards, releasing a great gout of black blood. The wererhino struggled on, breathing heavily through flared nostrils.

The axe fell once more, and it was over.

Adil bled to death on the floor of Necrothreat, watering the stones of the place he had grown to hate.

There was much to hate, Highmax knew. But there was also much to defend.

Through the black coating of Were-blood, the blade of Highmax’s axe seemed to pulse once, softly, with a deep blue light.
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highmax28

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Re: NecroThreat IV: Fortress for BFEL, God of Necromancy
« Reply #2869 on: November 06, 2018, 10:32:38 am »

Did Highmax escape unscathed? If so, this is someone who had no military experience a month ago go on a rampage punching everything, got SOME fighting skill, and then killed a wererhino unscathed, unlike forumites that fought Lemonpie and Bearbane who were all trained military who DID get hurt
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just shot him with a balistic arrow, i think he will get stuned from that >.>

"Guardian" and Sigfriend Of Necrothreat
Jee wilikers, I think Highmax is near invulnerable, must have been dunked in the river styx like achilles was.
Just make sure he wears a boot.

TD1

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Re: NecroThreat IV: Fortress for BFEL, God of Necromancy
« Reply #2870 on: November 06, 2018, 10:35:08 am »

Yep. Imagine a teenage Forumite, seeing a monster and picking up an axe for the first time.

And then kicking that monster's ass.

Highmax is 14, and she took off a wererhino's leg in one swing.
« Last Edit: November 06, 2018, 10:46:10 am by Th4DwArfY1 »
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Imic

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Re: NecroThreat IV: Fortress for BFEL, God of Necromancy
« Reply #2871 on: November 06, 2018, 11:14:53 am »

This is the horror and melancholy of Dwarf Fortress.
This is Necrothreat,
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TheRedwolf

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Re: NecroThreat IV: Fortress for BFEL, God of Necromancy
« Reply #2872 on: November 18, 2018, 06:20:58 pm »

could I be dorfed as a sniper (marksdwarf) in the dwarven army?
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TD1

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Re: NecroThreat IV: Fortress for BFEL, God of Necromancy
« Reply #2873 on: November 18, 2018, 07:04:09 pm »

I am sorry to inform you that that might be a short lived tenancy.
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TD1

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Re: NecroThreat IV: Fortress for BFEL, God of Necromancy
« Reply #2874 on: November 19, 2018, 03:58:41 pm »

Death drives me.

The migrants are dying. The people are dying. More migrants came, more souls as grist for the mill of Necrothreat. Let them die. Let them burn. I no longer care.

But somebody does.

From his throne, Apiks glowers at passersby. His faithful chainsaw lies beside his seat. His fingers drum a staccato beat against the white armrest.

XXX

On one occasion, Apiks could stand no more. Leaping from his seat, he roared – loud and growling, like a bear assaulted in its den.

“Bring Th4DwArfY1 to me!” he cried. “Bring the overseer!”

Th4DwArfY1 came. Once, there would have been a disobedient, almost excited smile on his face. The butting of heads between Th4DwArfY1 and Apiks, between idealist and realist, had become almost legendary amongst the Forumites. Some popular engravings had a white-wreathed figure confronting one of red, their arms outstretched and challenge in every line.

Apiks assumed just such a stance, but Th4DwArfY1 simply watched.

 “You,” snarled the king, “are not doing the job of the overseer. You are to protect. To defend. To bring prosperity and peace to the people, if you are able. To kill those who challenge you, perhaps, to see whatever brand of justice you want meted out put to use.”

“I did so swear.” Th4DwArfY1 tilted his head to one side, but there was no gleam of curiosity to his eyes.

“Well you aren’t!” Apiks drew his chainsaw and let its ominous growl fill his audience chamber. Bones in the corners seemed to shiver in remembered terror. He jumped from his throne, standing before his old competitor for power.

“You aren’t.” This was said softer, for Th4DwArfY1 alone. “Dwarfy, you remember the fight, don’t you? Armok and Ur. Gods damn it, Forumite, I don’t care what excesses you indulge. But you must. remember. the. fight.” He gripped his overseer’s shoulder with a firm and calloused hand. “Come. We can come to an arrangement. The chainsaw need not be used; I grow weary of its overuse, and it needs much maintenance after each kill. Speak your terms.”

Surprise, perhaps, flitted through Th4DwArfY1’s eyes, and he shouted one loud, abrupt bark of laughter. As its echoes came back tenfold, he thought with dry amusement on how all his passioned pleas for reason had fallen on deaf ears. Apiks would not talk. All knew this.

Now he offered terms.

He stepped back and Apiks’ hand fell from his shoulder. “You have grown weak,” he said as the King drew himself up once more. “I have admired your strength, these last weeks, remembering your simple philosophy. I have come to embrace it.

“Well, parts of it.

“No terms, Apiks. No terms.”

As he left, footsteps echoing through the bone-strewn room, Apiks whispered six words to himself.

“So it is war between us.”

Despite their frequent conflict, he had never thought that Dwarfy posed a threat to the war.

He did now.

-----------------------------

Yes, yes. Let's all act surprised. Dwarfy v. Apiks, tale as old as time.
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Enemy post

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Re: NecroThreat IV: Fortress for BFEL, God of Necromancy
« Reply #2875 on: November 19, 2018, 07:48:40 pm »

Dwarfy v. Apiks, tale as old as time.

Song as old as rhyme.
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TD1

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Re: NecroThreat IV: Fortress for BFEL, God of Necromancy
« Reply #2876 on: November 20, 2018, 06:35:38 am »

Beaaaaaauty and the beaaaaast.

Sorry Apiks, I call Beauty. I'm not Byronic enough for the Beast.
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Glass

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Re: NecroThreat IV: Fortress for BFEL, God of Necromancy
« Reply #2877 on: November 20, 2018, 08:39:20 am »

It has been several years since I cut off connections with the fort above. I do not know how things are proceeding up there.

I wonder, did they ever fix the flooding?

No matter. However deep they dig, they will not find us. I don’t think we’re actually contiguous with reality any more, to be truthful. If we are, then certainly not in the same place that we used to be connected to.

The years and my work have been long. I used to suspect this world was changed; I know it as fact now. I know that we were dwarves; we cannot be any longer, for the world has changed to much for us not to change with it, but it is good to keep a hold on what was true before.

I believe the Forumechs are nearing functionality. I do not know, however. I do not know if there is a way to truly know.

I wonder what still lives in the fortress. Probably still some number of forumites; they’re too hardy and stubborn to not still be around. The days are in likelyhood numbered for them, though.

No matter. Events will advance, perhaps swiftly or slowly. It is unimportant.

The Mechanical Heart beats still. So long as it does so, not Armok nor Ur will be able to claim that fortress, no matter how many hellions or abominations infest its depths.

Here’s to hoping there is better life to be found elsewhere. I think I would enjoy being alive again.

-EQ
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TheFlame52

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Re: NecroThreat IV: Fortress for BFEL, God of Necromancy
« Reply #2878 on: November 28, 2018, 07:52:49 pm »

Put me on the turn list.

TD1

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Re: NecroThreat IV: Fortress for BFEL, God of Necromancy
« Reply #2879 on: November 28, 2018, 08:03:51 pm »

That would be problematic given the.... emmm.... status of the fort atm.

Also, apologies on update delay - Christmas exams, yech. Will be done by next week and should be posting again. In the meantime the write up goes slowly, but I anticipate it will be my final one.
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