Fine with me Fortis; I don't know how the Dwarves'll react to an Elf, but that's part of the fun.
Urist Imiknorris, you're in too. All I need now are some migrants who'll dare to cross through the Nothings.
On the subject of Nothing (he he), I've finally solved some problems that were bothering me. Firstly, the Nothings were far, far too weak. I then noticed that they were attacking by
pushing their enemy, which, if they're
very lucky, might bruise a Dwarf's hand or something. Some jiggery-pokery later and now they attack by clawing with their tentacles, which is much better.
Secondly; they weren't aggressive enough. They would roam and if a Dwarf came near them, then maybe two out of three would attack the Dwarf while the rest ignored it. Some more jiggery-pokery and now; well, judge for yourself:
Barely had I opened the drawbridge that a swarm charged through, with more and more joining every seconds. The poor dorfs were submerged and the extremely sadistic Nothings then broke just about every bone in their body before finally strangling them. Shin and Spartan, perhaps the cleverer ones, promptly ran away, despite everyone having been conscripted in the army, and Rovod slept through the whole thing before Nothings battered his room door down and attacked him. It seems that the Nothings will now actively charge towards any pathable Dwarf on the map. Fun, Fun, Fun! (but not for migrants.) Of course, this now means I need to put the cluster_size down if migrants are to stand any chance at getting to the fortress whatsoever; so now there'll be (rare) times when the map only has a handful of Nothings, rather than the old minimum of at least thirty at all times.
Of course, the above attack by the Nothings didn't actually happen storywise.
22nd Galena 673 - MorningSpartan froze solid at the screech, calling for the others. A Dwarven voice underground carried far, and soon most of the group were assembled, including Shin, Doc. Steve and Muenster, the newcomers. Muenster gave a whistle,
"Quite a caver-" he begun, before Spartan shushed him,
"Can you hear that?" he whispered urgently. They all listened intently, in the distance, magnified by the echoes, there was a rhythmic splashing noise, something was swimming.
"Probably just an olm." Rovod said.
"Or a giant olm, or worse, an olmman!" Spartan spat.
"Most probably just cave fish." Ibruk assured him, "It was fine work getting here, now we need to prepare ramps down to the ground floor."
It was at that point Rion arrived,
"I don't want to be the voice of bad tidings, but have any of you
bothered to check the food supplies?"
"We're either gonna starve-"
"The harvest will be here soon, trust the go-" Ibruk started,
"Or more likely, we're gonna dehydrate." the axedwarf finished.
"We need a well!" Torvold declared, "It's simple, just a tunnel from the river into the fortress and-"
"No!" Reg cried, "Last time we trusted you with plumbing, you almost flooded the place and damn-near drowned me!"
"I did not almost drown you."
"Oh? Well explain to me why I was submerged underwater!"
"Because you were slow! It's people like you who keep science back for fear of getting wet!"
Ibruk interrupted them,
"Pilgrims! Pilgrims, please! Let us not bicker! We need a stable source of water and Torvold's plans are the easiest way."
"There's probably water down here somewhere." Shin commented, peering into the gloom of the expansive cavern.
"There's probably batmen down there somewhere." Doc. Steve added sarcastically.
"To get down here we'll need some kind of causeway." Torvold said pensively, scratching his beard.
"Just get on with the well."
24th Galena 673 - NoonIt had been two days and the well was still not finished. Everybody was parched; Dwarves were creatures of drink, and having nothing to drink for two days, not even water, was a torture beyond what the Nothing's could be. So it was decided that they had to,
had to leave the safety of the cavern for the cooling waters of Squeezemunch. The drawbridge was opened just a crack to let Tarran look out,
"What can you see?" Rion whispered to him, his axe ready.
"No-nothing! As in there's nothing there, not a creature, not a Nothing." the swordsdwarf replied.
It took Rion a few seconds to make sense of this confusing phrase and then,
"Lower it a bit more." Torvold did so, lowering the bridge more. True to Tarran's words, there was nothing there.
"It's a trap!" Doc. Steve hissed, retreating before the sight of...absolutely no Nothings, "They're gonna wait 'till we come out!"
Taking a deep breath, Tarran stepped out, and looked all around. There were no black blobs, nothing at all. No red eyes glinted at him and no tentacles tried to attack him. That was when he saw them.
There were four of them, one appeared to be a Human woman, the other three were Dwarves. They were all shouting at him, waving their arms. Behind them a black mass slowly wound its way down the valley sides.
"There's three people on the other side of the river! That's where the Nothings have gone! We need to save them!" he cried. Muenster, followed by Rovod and Shin quickly brought stone with which to build a causeway over Squeezemunch. They weren't quick enough though, and it seemed that the three Dwarves and Human would be killed, but two of them, both Dwarves, suddenly moved away, and ignoring the shouts of the other two, engaged the Nothings.
They managed to stall them for some time, but it still seemed lost until a third Dwarf came sprinting down the mountain, waving her fists in fury. She charged into the Nothings, stopping them in their tracks. The three of them however, were soon submerged, and their cries of pain permeated the valley. Once they were dead, the Nothings turned swiftly back to the remaining two, moving towards them. The two shared a glance and then sprinted opposite ways, each pursued by at least half-a-dozen Nothings, with more joining the chase per second.
It took five more minutes before the stone causeway was finished. At the same time, Shin was building a haphazard wall above the fortress entrance, to clearly mark the entrance for all to see. It wasn't particularly well-built, and as an architect she knew she ought to be ashamed, but there was no time for well-built walls; all they needed was some sign that there was civilization to be found here.
Pursued by the swarm, the remaining Dwarf and woman charged across and into the safety of the fortress, and the drawbridge was slammed shut seconds later.
Breathing heavily, everyone collapsed onto the cool rock floor. Silence for a few minutes, and then Doc. Steve made a sound half-way between a gasp and a cough,
"Hey! You're an Elf!" he accused the tall woman. She stared at him,
"Yes? I am Fori, and this is Urist Imki, er, Ikmi-"
"Urist Imiknorris." the Dwarf said, pulling himself up. Ibruk also heaved himself up to give his usual speech about Godly intervention when Muenster stopped him,
"Well, you're all welcome here, Elf or Dwarf. Anyways, we have a well we need to finish, and then we have a cavern to explore."
This has to be the most difficult chapter I've had to write yet, getting Fori and Urist to survive was sheer luck and needed the deaths of the three other Dwarf migrants, and even then it wasn't enough. Also, Fori's and Urist's prfiles are up on the first post.
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Topic: [Community] Nomekast - At War with Nothing (Read 175142 times)