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[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

If we still have one free, I'd like a mechanic called Loksvig.

[[deleted]]

I love the storytelling so much.

[Iituem]

Sure, be a while before I get to his bit of the backstory (take me a while to do Danielle and Emerin yet), so feel free to pick out the various details such as equipment, personality and crime committed, Maggarg.

Any further submissions I will try to cater for at the first migrant wave.

[Iituem]

Danielle had more or less entered life on the ill side of dwarven law.  Born the daughter of the mine's main smith and its book-keeper, she had been weighed on the tronager's scales and subsequently fined for being overweight.  At the age of five her mother had failed to fulfil a work order for bismuth bronze sarcophagi and, unwilling to lose their best smith, the local Baron had ordered five strokes to Danielle as punishment.  As the young child recovered over the following months from her broken bones, the poor fortunes of her family could afford little more than the firecaps they grew on their own tiny plot within the grotto and so Danielle developed a taste for them which grew obsessive in equal measure to her skill with accountancy.

Danielle found work once she had reached the legal age of 12 replacing her father as colony book-keeper, a position in which she displayed prodigious talent but often was abused for access to the Baron, whom she inundated with requests, demands and proposals for a firecap-based economic model.  In the hope of silencing this sort of behaviour, the Baron had ordered Danielle's leg broken.  After a fashion this worked, as Danielle silently fulfilled her duties until her limb had healed, then vanished from the colony.  She would reappear, years later, having bypassed all of the King's guard and the trapped defences of the Mountainhomes and surprising the monarch within his own bedchamber with a sack of firecaps and a plea to listen to her much-elaborated treatise on firecap economics.  The king, to his credit, had calmly heard her out and dutifully promised to consider the proposal before the Royal Guard arrived to haul her away on treason charges.



Danielle had been in the Mountainhomes for a long time, drafted into the Treasury for her brilliant skill with counting despite a problematic inclination to calculate the worth of all objects based on the current rate of exchange for firecaps.  She had served as a messenger throughout the citadel in that time as well as a custodian of records and so when the gaolbreak arrived in full swing, she was able to confront the escaping Frey, Broose and Urgash and demand they take her with them.

"Why?" Broose had demanded hotly.  "We don't need extra baggage."

"How about a map?" she had asked.  "I know the Mountainhomes like the back of my hand, and I've memorised all the old records.  You want out?  I know a way, but you have to take me with you."  It had been reason enough.  Danielle had grabbed one of her immediate stashes of firecaps and a stack of paper, then bolted with them through a secret passage behind her workstation to the promise of freedom.






The heavy groaning of machinery shook Frey awake.  His inner ear was telling him that the boat had stopped rising, though in the pitch darkness of the lock it was impossible to see.  He rubbed the tiredness from his eyes and brushed down his beard.

"How long were we rising for?" he managed.

"Hard to tell without a frame of reference," came a female voice that he recognised as Emerin's.  "Maybe four hours?"

"Then we're nearly three hundred feet up," calculated Fath.  "That would put us somewhere around the upper third of the mountain."

"Do the locks go that high?" asked Frey.

"They used to," murmured Danielle.  "There were cassiterite deposits in the upper part of the mountain that used to form the foundation of the Mountainhome's industry, but when they were mined out a century ago the whole section was abandoned.  The canal should still be intact and lead out to an old trade waterway."

The mechanical groaning ceased and the boat began to drift forward, rebounding gently off the sides of the canal.  Frey fumbled in his clothing for a small glass phial and, finding it, uncorked it and shook it vigorously.  After a few seconds of agitation the dull brown liquid within began to emit a soft blue-green luminescence, horrendously pale by human standards but just strong enough for a dwarf to navigate by in pitch darkness.  Frey nudged Emerin lightly and pointed to the barely visible canal wall.

"You reckon that's chalk?" he asked.  Emerin studied it for a moment and nodded.  Producing a knife, she scraped a bit of the chalk from the passing wall into the phial, which Frey shook some more.  The liquid within began to glow a deal more brightly, illuminating the canal ahead.  With a spot of twine and the broken oar handle, Frey affixed the little glass phial of glow wine to the front of the boat where it could highlight the scene beyond.

The boat had now left the higher walled section of the canal and drifted into a portion of the old city.  Lit by the sallow twilight of the glowbottle, the once-revered edifices of the Mountainhomes seemed eerie and unwelcoming in their abandonment.  The crew huddled together in the safety of the boat and began dividing up a ration of firecaps, mouthing prayers to Deler the Tin Oil, God of Mountains & Caverns, as they passed his silent shrine.

[Iituem]

Olonkulet Appendix Notes - Glow Wine

Glowcaps are a type of mushroom-forming fungus known for their bioluminescent properties.  Under ordinary light conditions, the glowcap mushroom appears to be a pale brown toadstool, but in darkness a glowcap emits a soft green luminescence.  Once picked this luminescence fades quickly and the mushrooms themselves are quite bitter and unappealing for raw consumption.  The trick of glowcaps lies in their preparation.  Dwarves regularly ferment glowcaps in large open trays of rotting fungus, collecting the run-off from the fermentation process at the base of the tray (1).  During the degradation process, the body of the mushrooms is broken down, releasing cell membranes into the mushy run-off from the process, as well as the calcium deposits within the fungus.  The fermenting vats and the extracted liquor both glow brightly as a result of the renewed bioluminescent action of the disintegrated fungus.

On a molecular level, the cell membranes of the glowcap are specialised to contain lumens (2) into which calcium can diffuse (3).  As calcium diffuses into the lumen, a reaction is powered that generates bioluminescence in the form of pale blue-green light.  This will continue until the system has reached equilibrium (4), whereupon no more light will be emitted.  Dwarves can restart the process by shaking a bottle of glow wine or mixing about some of the glow mash (5), breaking the lumens and releasing fresh calcium.  This will only work a certain number of times before the capacity of the glow wine/mash to produce light is lost.  Another way is to add raw calcium (in the form of chalk or another calcium compound) to the mixture.

Glow caps are a staple of the dwarven diet and dwarven agriculture.  Highly limited as the variety of viable underground crops are, glow caps provide much-needed booze, light and food (as the liquor can be dried and cooked as a sort of powder) in an environment drastically short on all three.


1) A solid substrate fermentation process, similar to the production of sake.
2) Small enclosed spaces within the cell.
3) Diffusion is where molecules travel from a high concentration to a low concentration.
4) i.e. There are equal concentrations of Calcium ions on either side of the lumen membrane.
5) Leftover solid mush from the fermentation that did not go into the glow wine, but still glows.  This was the mash present in the glowbowls in the very first scene.

[scuba]

i will take a fugitive

nickname:ascubis(real name is unknown)
reason: "accidently" caused a cave in on a pack of wardogs and guards
carries:a iron pick, some rum, some plump helmets.
likes/dislikes: likes dogs,plump helmet spawn, rum, and the outdoors.
dislikes, GCS' and people who get on his nerves.

[Danneh]

Loving the storytelling, and the images add to it well.

[scuba]

i really like the story. if only the other community forts were likes this

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

Is this within Olonkulet, or are they the dwarves that began Olonkulet, far back in history.
I love the way you're writing this, far better than I could.

[Broose]

This thread is getting me hoping to have boats in the next few versions.

[Iituem]

Emerin had been a 'treasure hunter' for Baron Likot for a year after learning that not only did she have an eye for gemstones but a fine spot of skill with negotiations.  Throughout the year, the Baron's rival Count Kogan repeatedly found himself being losing gemstones to the 'secure' vault, protected by a pair of guard dogs who were rather stereotypically vulnerable to the old 'piece of hoary marmot meat trick.  Count Kogan did not suffer a net loss of jewels however, as a trader would usually turn up shortly beforehand or afterwards to sell him a completely different set of jewels at an affordable price.  At the same time, Baron Likot strangely never found himself with more jewels than he started with and never managed to learn not to keep letting Emerin 'put these gemstones in the vault for you'.  Emerin was eventually caught more or less by accident, as she timed her last robbery such that it coincided with the kobold Sluicyjuices' attempt to make off with Kogan's blue diamond-encrusted platinum back scratcher and the entire vault locked itself down until the guards arrived to take her to the gaols and Sluicyjuices' various parts to the corpse pile.



Emerin had, like Urgash and Frey, been put to work primarily in the mines on the sandstone level.  She had successfully smuggled a number of gemstones out of the quarries over the two years of her sentence, cutting them and using them to bribe the guards for various favours.  By the time the gaolbreak happened, she had been moved into a spacious cell with only one other cellmate, a cheesemaker named Urist who had defrauded the Crown out of twenty years' taxes.  So comfortably settled had she become, she had actually bribed an inmate to forge a copy of her own cell key.  It was by chance recognition of Urgash and Frey that she and Urist joined the party of escapees when Dannielle's escape tunnel opened up right into her own cell!  Quickly grabbing a bag of gemstones stashed behind a stone, Emerin unlocked the cell door and escaped with the others.






Light filtered in from the end of the tunnel, obscuring the dim twilight of the glowbottle in richer colours.  The distant sound of rushing water could be heard and the canal flowed more readily towards the tunnel's mouth.  A mild dispute had broken out amongst the gathered dwarves over the issue of food.

"Not one of us thought to bring fruit or vegetables?" frowned Emerin.

"We were in a bit of a hurry," snapped Broose.  "Be glad we have food at all."

"We have firecaps!" piped Danielle cheerfully.  "What else could we need?"  That comment garnered her a number of looks from the rest of the party, vocalised best in Frey's retort;

"Personally, I like food that doesn't make it hurt to visit the outhouse afterwards.  They call them firecaps for a reason."

"Shame we didn't bring any redbulbs," sighed Fath.  "Flour would be a godsend.  Crumpets or, by Nish's beard, scones would be ideal.  I would happily kill for some tea and scones."

"I grabbed what I could from the kitchens," said Urgash.  "It's a moot point anyhow, we're coming up to the canal mouth."

The boat drifted with the current up to the mouth of the canal where it broadened out and joined a natural stream on the surface.  A series of stalagmites that had grown around the mouth of the canal blocked their progress, but Emerin and Frey waded into the water and broke them with their picks before clambering back onto the passing boat.  Up ahead, the waterfall loomed dangerously.

"Please tell me you're kidding me," demanded Broose.  Danielle shook her head.

"There are about six of them, according to the maps," she explained.  "The boat should be able to take it, but we'll need to hang on tight.  Once we get past the falls we can just ride out the river until we reach somewhere safe to disembark."

"Great," muttered Broose as the edge of the 'fall approached.  He gripped the edge of the boat tight and yelled back to the others.

"Hold onto your beards!  We're going dooooooowwwwnnnn...."

[Iituem]

We haven't even reached Olonkulet yet.  This story is chronicling the effort to escape the Mountainhomes by the seven dwarves who will end up founding Olonkulet in a desperate effort to survive.  Once we actually get there, I'll disclose the map of the location (4x4, for my poor CPU).  Maggarg, feel free to add in any specifics for skills or the crime your dwarf was imprisoned for and I'll try and write it into the last backstory.  Scuba, your dwarf will have to wait for an immigration wave.


I'm quite enjoying the ASCII fiction style, however, so there may be more short narrative-based vignettes taking place after the fortress proper has started to give it more flavour and story.


Also, boats will be -yeeears- before they arrive, but I envisioned this midnight canal chase when I was searching for a first line.  Thus, there are midnight canals.  Huzzah!

[Enzo]

Please choose a name, skill ranks (up to 10 available for everyone) and 200* worth of equipment, as well as listing the crime for which you were imprisoned in the Mountainhomes.  If you don't want to try and work out equipment values, just say what you'd like and I'll try and fit it in.

So...since two people requested the last dwarf but neither did this...Well, it's your call Iituem.
EDIT : Oh, I guess you addressed that in your last post. My bad.

I love the storytelling so much.

Loving the storytelling, and the images add to it well.

i really like the story. if only the other community forts were likes this

What they said. Pretty epic considering the escape is just the backstory.

[scuba]

lol not pretty epic epically epic

[Broose]

Also, boats will be -yeeears- before they arrive, but I envisioned this midnight canal chase when I was searching for a first line.  Thus, there are midnight canals.  Huzzah!

The thing that made it so appealing was the ascii art you made. I really like this fort and we have not even embarked yet.