=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=The first thing Goden told us, back in the suddenly-welcoming sunlight, was that we would have to make some changes.
We had, nonoptimally, lost access to the resources of a valuable team member, he said. It sounded like he was randomly quoting terms from one of those modern foreman's management books. He didn't even look at the corpse of the boy. Cogwheel. Cogadoodle. Thing.
The changes, apparently, meant that our carpenter's apprentice would now become a miner. To fill the carpenter's boots, I would step in. Since I would not then have time to keep records, our mason would have to do that. Because good masonry blocks weren't going to produce themselves, our farmer would have to step up to the platter. Our last 'valuable team member', the doctor, became a military trainee, and would help Goden guard the camp. When the time came to need farming, we'd all shuffle around again.
It all worked, see.
In hindsight, that was probably the most reasonable of all of Goden's plans, ever.
=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=Days passed. Five slugmen swarmed down the hill, made boogly eyes at us, and fought back in slow motion when attacked. Goden added five new notches to his axe handle. Tiny marks, not even in a traditional skull shape, but at this rate he'd need a new handle by winter.
In our spare time, we'd each approach the bubbling magma lake and pick fascinatedly at bits of the glittery crust. This was pig-adamantine, mainly extremely short strands all mucked up in bits of peat and conglomerate and rapidly-cooled crystal. Still more valuable than diamonds, of course, but it wouldn't go far towards refining into the pure metal.
Goden told us that the further down we went, the better it would get, and suggested for a few days that we address him as 'King Goden The Magnificent'. Then he went quiet, which was worse in a way.
He sent the once-able-farmer-now-barely-able-to-hold-a-chisel-the-right-way-mason down to map the caves. We'd already found the tunnel complex trailed off into deep, murky water. There was no going forward, and nothing to horribly butcher.
Well, at the time. After all, we recovered the map from the ex-farmer's body.
His markedly headless body. There were big, slippery footprints nearby.
Onol, I think his name was. The ravages of time have me wrapped up in their fuzzy carpet. I recall his face: large and flabby, blonde-bearded, with a nose like a huge plum. The name's hazy, though. Maybe it was Onal.
=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=As the heat of summer rolled over us and then died away to make room for autumn's mists, we dug in, fast.
The fountain of youth, or spring of magic, as Goden insisted we call it – the adamantine fishpond, as we called it amongst ourselves – continued to entrance us and lent marrow to our spines when we were slow or feeble. Even when the
drink ran out, we kept going.
We worked in shifts to butcher the carcasses Goden dragged in, before they went manky and rotten. We preserved some in salt, lime or a pickling fluid made from snailman glands. Others decomposed where they lay; there were simply too many to cope with. Every second step crunched on bones. Everyone's hands and clothes were permanently bloodstained.
It was truly horrible.
My days became a blur of ham-handed hammering and clumsy-as-sod sawing as I struggled to fill the carpentry needs of our small population. Eventually, I pride myself that I developed some talent.
Goden, meanwhile, strode around, axe in hand, swinging at dandelions and muttering to himself. Before long, he had seized a workbench and was stringing together a complex pump system.
‘Testing,’ he explained. ‘We shall see what purity, what fluid turbulence, what minerals are required. What grades of adamantium we can produce. We will find the optimum ratio and balances. We will harvest the magma as it flows and produce a pile of adamantine the size of a hill. And then...’ he trailed off, eyes gleaming.
Coming from anyone else, wishful thinking. Babble.
Coming from anyone else standing before this very real morass of magic molten metal, enough to inspire an eternity of avarice in an average dwarf.
His words sent a shiver up and down my beard, though.
=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=Testing began as winter wrapped its supple toes playfully around us.
Goden's howls of success were indistinguishable from any of his other howls. He has taken to pacing the muddy sand limits of our hole in the ground, talking to the withered skulls of his enemies.
This is better, I think.
It was at this point that I began to keep a journal, a personal account of all that would happen at Rocksfall The Spring Of Magic. I still have it here, secure beneath the boulder I use for a pillow.
Where memory fails, the graven words of the past will prevail.
The adamantine, when we hastily dug it out, falling upon the hot stone with shirts wrapped around our hands for protection and faces lit up with glee, was perfectly usable. It seems to be... real, perfect, utterly strong adamantine. ...it smelled like it. It tasted like it. There was no trick. It was
for real.
We had struck it rich. Infinitely, renewably, unimaginably rich.
- Lor Kasbenonul
=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~==~= DIARY OF LOR KASBENONUL, 7 Sandstone 351 =~=Goden's pump has begun to smoulder. This is surprising.
Or not surprising, in as far as it is made of wood and has been pumping superheated molten rock.
Surprising in that it worked at all, is what I'm trying to say.
I fear for my life and thank the gods I have no children to fear for. With great adamantine comes great terror. Unimaginable trouble looms, I feel it in my bowels.
This is wisdom for our lifetimes.
- Lor Kasbenonul
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Topic: ~~~ Rocksfall The Spring Of Magic: Strip-Mining The Fountain Of Youth ~~~ (Read 8194 times)