Excerpt from the text "Histories of Violence and Fecundity: Dwarves Throughout the Ages" by Cog Bridledlenses; Chapter 11 "Rebellions and Uprisings," Sec. 6, "The Waterhalls of Drowning." For a dwarf who has spent their life underneath the comforting stone sky, dwelling only in the enveloping stone halls securely sealed away from the blueness of the Above, the ocean is an incredible and terrifying thing! It is the antithesis of the mountain range: extending in deep spikes and broad plateaus in the opposite direction towards a sky that is forever locked into a starless night. There is no clean and fair breeze below the waves but chilling suffocation. The beasts that dwell within the ocean are truly alien, even compared to the crundles and long lost abominations of the mountain caverns.
I have heard, too, that the oceans possess a sort of numbing effect upon their very surroundings: the longer one spends in sight of its splendour the more time seems to slow down, moment by moment, frame by frame . . .
Even worse is when the denizens of the ill seas stand on two fins and pursue you, fleshless, around in circles until you're out of breath and can't find the way back down to safety. Then, as legend tells, they bludgeon you to death with their very bones. These are the unspeakables that dwell within the Lamentation, the great sea that no ship dare sail.
I cannot imagine the depths of loneliness and isolation those seven must have felt upon arriving on those shores. I've only heard the tale, myself, and such personal details were omitted. We mountainfolk are not so forthcoming with such feelings as these. We will admit to our passion for drunken revelry or perhaps the jealousy we feel towards another's finely woven sock, but to openly admit to suffering the angst of exile and the terror inherent to witnessing a dark and bubbling sea festering with the very necromantic evil of the Disloyal Horns, well . . .
it'd just be so
elflike.
The caravan leader, although only in name for none of these seven were talented leaders of any remark, bid them take refuge in a small alcove just below the cliff's edge at shore-level. Behind them loomed row upon row of palms wavering in the jungle heat.
I can only imagine their manner as they mingled together, sharing a moment's break before commencing with the deeds that would make them legend amongst the many who still trudged oppressed in the mire of the old empire:
Doctor Enolic, a sharp-mannered but stoic sort, regarded his surroundings with nothing more than a snort and the swatting of mosquitos. It was a fetid, filthy place and completely unfit for his practice. No doubt, he thought, they would need to dig out some sort of temporary hovel for the many injuries that would surely follow. Lacking any manner of soap, he grimaced at the thought of performing his duties in the coming days. But he had sworn an oath on Limar to do his best to save the life of any dwarf in need.
Even if that meant knowing when to pull the lever on them.
Cleaning her fingernails of always present dirt,
Eliza was already considering the soil: how would the salt winds affect seasonal growth? Would the oceanside soil support the mountainhomes' own plants? Long had she wanted the responsibility and satisfaction of feeding an entire fortress.
In Midor she trusted they would survive this place by the sweat of her brow and that she would make a humble but great name for herself. Speaking of sweat, she wondered how much booze they had left. The jungle heat dehydrated like a
bitch.
Valrandir took a moment to admire the leather armor and crossbow he'd swiped from the Merchantsalves armory. Very nice. Perfectly purloined through the clever use of official looking papers. If Merchantsalves had one thing, it was a bureaucracy like riverside claystone. Feeling distracted by the waves and his unusual surroundings he took a short walk to the top of the cliff and peered into the jungle. A few birds, nothing else. The groundwater here, he thought, will take some ingenuity to bypass in order to access some solid, cold stone. In his mind designs were already coming together: somewhere down there was magma, and with the correct construction it could be diverted . . . with a proper spout . . . to form a cast. From that could rise a fortress truly independent from all known dwarf society surrounded by a circumference of surf.
Although uneducated in Architecture his imagination drew up lines, blueprints, the latticework of possibility rising from the earth like the ghost of an unborn child.
Taricus chewed at the corner of his thumbnail and stared down at the water. With his other hand he swept the sand back and forth, feeling its texture between his fingers. He brought his hand up to his face, examined the grains, and cleaned it off in the water again before sweeping up a deep handful of them. His eye focused on the individual grains themselves, noting the color, shape, and variety of them before dumping the lot back in and turning cliffside. To any other he looked as if he was staring at nothing.
Guudespelur passed him by as he squinted at the layers of stone. "Got a bug in yer eye?" he said.
"No, no bug. There's iron down below, though."
Guudespelur scoffed, "Sure as there's whip vines growing out of the mule's ass."
He shrugged, and decided not to add anything about the marble deposits he'd soon be grinding to pebbles for pig iron.
Speaking of
Guudespelur, he was busy swinging his pick. One, two, three. As he swung he did his best to chat with the others and keep spirits high, uncomfortable as it made him. He liked a good chat but he preferred the solitude of a freshly cracked tunnel. Salmongod was huddled on a rock looking at a tide pool, far away as could be. Eliza kept sniffing the soil and Taricus didn't seem to be able to get a joke. He wanted to strike the earth already, but the Doc had told him to wait until they'd gotten their bearings. Bearings? Who needs bearings? If they didn't get a hole dug soon they'd be eaten alive by Armok knows what.
Considering the thought of "Armok knows what," Guudespelur suddenly remembered that the only axe they'd brought was a cheap tool and wouldn't do a damn thing against a hungry jaguar. His impatience grew tenfold.
Salmongod adjusted his lenses and sighed while sitting as far away from both the jungle and the ocean as he could, which meant sitting perched on a large lump of dry conglomerate overlooking a tide pool. The jungle felt imposing and, oddly enough for a dwarf, claustrophobic. He was familiar with tunnels and dwellings, not thorny bushes and clusters of trees barely supporting an overarching and oppressive blue vastness. The journey had rubbed his nerves raw with its perils and the spectre of their dissent against the ancient Merchantsalves oligarchy had him on edge. Wouldn't they send spies? Could these seven trust any newcomers as rebels true to the cause? The life of the queen was already forfeit and they were only here in the spirit of loyalty to her. Thoughts of an entire nation against just their seven made him even more edgy.
He began counting the mussels in the pool wondering when he'd have an office to hide in, away from all these cursed flies.
Metalmilitia was the only dwarf standing wilfully in full view of the ocean and the jungle both. The thrill of adventure was in her. She stood apart from the others, overjoyed at the opportunity they possessed to start a new society free from the bureaucracy and corruption of the Wet Papers.
If only they had a dining room.
The doctor, finally satisfied with having a moment's breather, drew the seven together for what was intended to be an inspirational talk:
"So, we're . . . *ahem* here."
They exchanged glances, scratched their heads, tapped their feet. Whistled.
"We're . . . here at this, er, place and we're going to build something great. Really quite impressive. Our queen . . . Limar rest her courageous soul-"
"Don't talk such nonsense," Eliza snapped at him, "Surely she's gone into exile. She always had a plan."
"Exile? If she'd wanted to go into exile she would have helped us carry the booze," muttered Salmongod.
Guudespelur fidgeted with his pick, "Look, Doc, this, uh, team-spirit stuff is great and all but I'm sweltering out here. Lets get to digging before the rats get into the fly brain."
"Momuz rest her soul!" continued the doctor through clenched teeth, "Look, we've got to . . . ah, Valrandir? Are you even listening?"
"What's there to listen to?" he said as he began scribbling a diagram, "I'll call you when I need a band-aid for my paper cut. We've got magma to pump."
"Where's Taricus?" sighed the Doc.
"Watching the conglomerate smush together," said Salmongod waving away a fly with one hand as he unfogged a lens with the other, "I'm going to catch a fever with all these mosquitos."
Eliza was already tossing barrels out of the wagon. Metalmilitia followed as the group began disassembling the wagon and Enolic found himself alone, sighing to himself, wondering which of these rubes was going to end up on his surgery table first.
OOC
Well, like I said: quality over quantity. I haven't started the fort yet but I wanted everyone's dorf to be presented in style. Let me know if I made any mistakes or unacceptable decisions regarding your dwarf's character and I'll retcon it. Or if I've made any other mistakes. I'm very known to do that.
I'm going to update season-by-season and present the highlights of each season in story format with screenies for flava'. I'm also going to take a hint from the Web of Pages which recently got put on hiatus, although a looser form of it: if you tell me what duties you want your dorf to perform, I will follow them. I may not follow them to a T depending on need, but as the fort develops I'm into letting anyone invested in their guy to have some direct control over their behaviour.
Eliza wanted to know the pantheon of gods, so here they are:
And who worships who:
Taricus - Shazak, Midor
Doc - Alod, Limar
salmon - Momuz, Nadak
Metal - Alod, Lumnum
Valrandir - Momuz, Bekom
Eliza - Midor, Limar
Guude - Shazak, Limnumr
Right now everyone's friends with everyone to some degree. A lot of people are friends with Enolic which can't be a bad thing considering he's the bonesaw.
I've embarked with picks, an anvil, a lot of barrels full of food, seeds, a training hatchet by axe-ident please shoot me for typing that, subterranean plants, some sand bags and that's pretty much it besides Valrandir's free gear. Oh, yeah, some cave spider silk and some metal bars in case of strange moods. I don't want anybody dying off to one of those.
I'll start playing for realz tomorrow! Enjoy!
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Topic: Areliton Ador, Community Fort - XXXXU: [The End] (Read 32849 times)