Confound it! The beast is loose upstairs all because of a handful of mad cats with a vendetta against the fort. I look at unconscious form of Andreus and I consider my options. I’m Overseer now, I need to figure out what went wrong with the Failday Plan. He’s probably the only one who knows. *grumble* I really don’t like taking to this guy, but I must. I step into his dreaming mind.
What I find is bizarre. It is a spherical room with furniture on the inside surface of the sphere. No wonder this guy is so odd. A dwarven mind is meant to be a perfect cube. He has no corners and even more appalling he has no walls! It’s all floor!
“Ah, EmeraldWind right? I haven’t seen you around since you died. I had begun to think you had more sense than half this lot.” Andreus chuckled from a throne sitting such that he was looking up at me though I was looking straight at him.
“I do,” I remark quickly. “I was named Overseer somehow. After I died, I remembered my past lives in Failcannon. Now that I’m here, I’m sure the Failday Plan was a mistake.”
“Ah, I know more about that than you do” Andreus said looking still pleased with himself. “You were already dead twice over by the time Failday was formulated.”
“Three times you bastard.”
“Three?”
“You remember... I know you do,” I grit my teeth. “You split my soul in half as an experiment.”
“Oh yes. There were two of you running around at once at some point wasn’t there?”
“You know damn well there was. I never asked to be revived either. You set up all up for the fall.”
“No. I had no idea what was going on. I never realized I was giving a goddess of death more power.”
“We did defeat her, but the plan backfired.” I said out loud.
“Well, yes… but the original intention of Failday wasn’t to just destroy the goddess of death. The god, Thoth had the idea of re-initializing the world. To undo all of the effects that Ura caused. But ultimately, Failday… failed.”
“But why?”
“Well, someone pulled the lever too early. That vile fortress of Failcannon wasn’t ready to die. Forts as they endure become conduits for life energy. Killing the fort that withstood all forms of death itself would have resulted in enough energy to turn back the clock and start the world anew. But this world wasn’t completely fixed.”
“So this isn’t a fully reset Aluonra?”
“No,” Andreus shook his head. “It should be, but somehow isn’t. Even this fort Hellcannon is somehow a fragment of the old world that didn’t get reconstructed. It somehow existed in both this and the previous world, but even though it’s geographical location is different. Hellcannon still pulses with the life energy of Failcannon.”
“Wait are you saying that Hellcannon and Failcannon are connected?”
“No,” he said plainly. “I’m saying Hellcannon is Failcannon. It has been reborn in this world just the same as you and me. And now, it is dying. Just like its predecessor fort, Battlefailed.”
I realize what this means and I’m excited by it.
“So,” I say triumphantly. “When this fort dies, it will finish the work of Failday!”
Andreus looks nervous. No… he looks terrified.
“Yes,” he says with his voice quivering. “The Failday Effect will finish rewriting the world and reset it once again. The Windy World will rise again. But… something is wrong. There is something in this world that wasn’t here before. Like a bit of mold growing on bread. I think that the first Failday left us open to it somehow.”
“What does that mean?” I question him. My excitement begins to deflate. “Isn’t Failday supposed to also reset the evil in the world too? Isn’t it supposed to take away the taint that Ura left behind?”
“Yes,” Andreus said quietly. He took a deep breath and continued. “I fear that Ura was merely a pawn. There is something going wrong in all the new worlds created since Ura’s reign. I think that what we thought was giving Ura power was also feeding something worse. Something that has been around a long time. Something that exists… outside of the worlds.”
I make a strange gulping noise… Now that he mentions it… I feel something with the Oversight. It has been there the whole time. Something watching me. The whole time… something has been watching me!
“I fear that when the world resets this time. Things will be worse!” Andreus says and then laughs.
I leave his dream and go back to Overseeing the destruction. Will the world end on my watch, I begin to wonder. Am I the last Overseer of Hellcannon?
Not if I can help it.
I find the giant mockingbird as it just finished off another cat.
I realize now that the mocking bird is in a dead end! If I can get a wall built at the right spot the damned creature will be stuck and that threat thwarted with less loss of space of the fort to boot. Maybe I should thank the cats after all!
The master builds the wall and seals in the beast. Yes. Now I need to figure out what else I can fix!
That sounded like a cat slamming against the wall.
Ugh, not again!
A tanager brute managed to make its way here too.
Wall building seems to do the trick. So I’ll try it again.
Ledi seems to be filling the vacancies in her cat army.
The Master uses build wall! It’s SUPER EFFECTIVE! I am on a roll!
Actually, I think I stabilized the fort with that! Yay!
This flood is pretty much done as the pumps can’t get water up to this floor fast enough to continue the flood.
My next order of business is to save CMD Epithemius II.
The Master hops right to the tasks of releasing the good Doctor.
The Master sure likes to work, doesn’t she?
Eventually Mego shows up and kicks the Master out of the tunnel for being slow.
I am not sure how we lost this dwarf as there seems to be enough drink to last a while.
I heard more cats screaming in the distance. And look what I find another ancient doom beast invading the fort.
It is right where Andreus was “fighting” the last one.
There must be an actual breach somewhere near here.
Um wait what? Where? How? Which beast? I am very confused here.
This is a freaking sinking ship isn’t it?
I decided it is time to mobilize the El Presidente!
The one FB continues to throw cats against the wall for fun.
Farewell Feline Warriors! May glory reach you in the hereafter.
As I watch this I notice this hole.
These FBs can fly. Right through this giant hole. This big old hole and I completely ignored it.
I have realized this far too late.
The President is being an arse. He decided to “Conducting Meeting” instead of fighting the FB.
I wonder who with?
Oh! That kind of meeting! Never mind, I take it back. Go El Presidente!
The battle is still going hot when a liaison walks into the room.
El Presidente moves his back to the door blocking both the FB and the liaison in the room with him.
Our great president continues to impress me with his versatile fighting style.
He gives one good kick to the beast’s head and it dies.
BEHOLD EL PRESIDENTE IN ALL HIS DWARVEN GLORY!
Now that is how you take out an FB!
The liaison runs out in terror and never looks back.
Poll
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Topic: Hellcannon (Succession: Battlefailed 3) (0.31.25) (DEAD) (Read 797742 times)