The Chronicles of HammerBlaze
Gold, they said. Riches beyond your wildest dreams. Moldath, the king himself, would fund your expedition. And, fool that I am, I agreed. Now, with six of my friends, our supplies are nearly gone. For the glory of the Passionate Salves and all dwarves, we strike the earth. Daily, I grab my copper pick and mine out a hovel in the ground. With each stroke of my pick, the glory of HammerBlaze shall rise.
After a year’s work I may rest. I survey my proud domain. It is but a hole in the ground, but it is a self sufficient hole in the ground. Edzul the farmer tills the fields, the craftsdwarves churn out goods for trade, and the sounds of industry come from the forges. And I, I have dug out a masterpiece. A great project. No longer shall we fear the goblins. They shall fear us! I, with my hands, my beard, and my pick have dug to the bowels of the earth itself. A great sea filled with Armok’s blood, praise his name. Myself, it was me who dug a reservoir up at the surface, and, more importantly, the casing for pumps to bring the blood of the earth up. Now there is naught to do but wait.
The waiting the time, drags at me. I will create this masterpiece, if I do it with my dying breath. The masons carve blocks of stone; the metal smiths forge pipes and screws. As they create the components for the pumps, the mechanics create the power. 64 windmills, providing over a thousands Urists of power. A network of axles connects them to where the pumps will soon be. I go talk with my friend Edzul.
“How are the farms?”
“Very good,” he says. “How are you?”
“Good, good. The project is nearly complete. It’s nice to relax with a friend.”
At last! The project is nearly done! Magma is pumped to the reservoir. The masons even now struggle to enclose the windmills in walls; it would not do for the power to be scourged from the earth by Armok’s purifying wrath. The pumps to spray the holy flames were complete.
Glorious. It was glorious. I felt I could lose my self in the glorious heat. I was the heat. I had power to rival the king. No, power to rival Armok Himself! My holy power flooded the land. All caught in its blast perished. I had power over life and death. The world was on fire. I began to laugh. My life was complete. A decade of work, paid off in an instant. I laughed harder. Tears came to my eyes, washed away by my own holy heat.
There I stood, at the fount of the flames. And there they came to me. They pledged themselves to me. I was the founder, the creator, and now the ruler of HammerBlaze. Long live its might.
All who came against us were killed. Goblins or elves, none could contain Armok’s, our wrath. I was sovereign. One and all, the invaders were slaughtered, broken. Their filth was washed from the earth by my will. But it wasn’t enough. I reveled in the flame, but it lacked control. I am sovereign. I will kill where I want! I needed power and death absolute.
Once more, began a great construction to rival the gods. Pressurized magma, boiling up through holes in the ground with the pull of a lever. But now, there was a squad of goblins burning. I could see their faces shrieking in agony. Their clothing caught fire, then their flesh. Even their bones were consumed.
“Hello.” Edzul says.
“Leave me alone. There is work to do.” I reply.
“How long have I known you? Two decades? And now you turn me away?”
“I must watch them burn. Do you see how they burn? They cannot resist my power. None can fell me. They die. Do you not love that sight? That beautiful, beautiful sight. Surely you enjoy their deaths. Let me watch their pain.” Edzul walked away from me. That was sad. But now I could watch the goblins. Their flesh melted, blood ran from their skin, until it was boiled away.
*
I love to see things grow. Not only plants, though I am a farmer, but creations too. Perhaps that was why I joined this ill-fated expedition to found HammerBlaze. Truly, it does blaze. The mayor seems stranger lately, but my job’s to feed the fortress, not question its leadership. Once he was my friend. Now, I know not what he is.
It is good to help the weak. When I farm, I help the weak plants grow to be strong. If you are strong, you help the weak. It was pounded into me as a child. My father was a great warrior. He defended the scrawny dwarves against mighty goblins. I give the strong plants to the weak fortress. The fortress is strong now.
I love my wife. She is strong; not of the body, but of the soul. She is a doctor, the Chief Medical Dwarf in fact. Every day, she tends the weak so directly. She makes them strong. The only true weakness is to not be strong for others. If you have no muscles, but still do your best, you are strong.
The plump helmets were growing nicely. They were freshly watered. Well, time for a break. I passed the mayor.
“Ha ha! Another siege!” he cried, “Pull the lever!”
“Hey! I’m on break. Get someone else to do it.” I replied. But the mayor was already gone to watch the ensuing slaughter. I didn’t care, another dwarf could do it. I walked towards the dining room. It was just as I sat down that I heard the screams.
“Goblins in the fortress! They’re— urch…” I knew my folly. The gates had fallen. I dashed and pulled the lever. But… it was not enough. Nothing is enough anymore. All is lost. 2 score of goblins scour the fortress, killing any they find. I am hiding in the farms. Peering out, I can see the destruction.
Bodies fill the halls. Tears stream down my face. There lies my friend, Lor the woodcutter. He helped me many times, bringing water to me when I was sick. Now he is dead. Why? I see blood dripping down the stairs, a river of it. I can see corpses, so mutilated I can barely tell they were once dwarves. Their arms lie hacked off, their legs broken so they couldn’t run. Their faces are so coated in blood I cannot make out who they are. But where is my wife?
She would be in the hospital. She is always so caring, so kind. And now? She may be dead. I must get to her. A squad of goblins chases some poor dwarf’s pet down the halls. Now! The coast is clear. I dash to hospital foyer. The corpses block the door. I am separated from my wife by a wall of the dead. Miasma clouds the foyer. I stagger back. No! I must get to my wife.
I can’t bear to look at those I’m moving. Armok! Was that Atir’s head I just tossed aside so casually? Don’t look. Just don’t look. I must be hard as steel. Harder. As hard as adamantine. I empty my stomach. I can see light from the other side; I must be close. But a few of my fallen friends, and I shall be through. An arm falls on me; I jump and madly scramble the rest of the way through.
Covered in blood, I must be a fearsome sight as I scream, “Where is my wife?” But no one answers. There are perhaps ten dwarves in here, nearly all unconscious. All with gruesome injuries. One, with his intestines spilling out and his jaw torn half-off, slowly raises an arm. Then points behind me.
With dawning horror I turn. “No.” I whisper. But there she is. Lying there, in the pile of bodies I had ripped through so callously. “No!” This cannot be. Those who did this shall pay. They shall pay! “Give her back!” I shout at the earth. “Give her back!” Sobbing, I turn on the dwarf who pointed this out to me. “Why? How?” Another dwarf spoke up. “She died of thirst. She broke her legs and couldn’t get water.” This is his fault. He should have saved her. He was stronger than her! He could have gotten her water! She tended him when he was sick, why could he not repay the favor? He failed. He made the whole fortress weaker. Traitor! He is no better than the goblins! Worse! I punched him in the face, then ripped his intestines all the way out. They would pay!
The other dwarves are too injured to resist me. I fly at them, flailing, kicking. They cower on the ground, trying to crawl away from me in vain. I twist one’s head a hundred eighty degrees around. I stab another in the gut with my belt knife. They lie on the floor, all dead now. I do not care; I kick them, stab them still. They shall pay! My wife is dead, my kinsfolk slaughtered. They did this to themselves, not I. They deserve it. When they could have been strong, instead they were weak!
A squad of goblins marches into the room. Covered in blood, I give a feral scream. I launch myself at them, taking one through the eye before they know I’m there. Another draws his sword slashing at me. I roll, dodging the blow, kicking his knees in then his face. The other goblins swear, flee. I chase them through the fortress, taking them down one by one. I hunt them. They have killed my wife. I will kill them! I will hunt them down to extinction.
As we near the food stores, I am struck from behind. The hammerlord! The leader of the siege. I am struck again. I can hear my leg snapping from the blow. But still, I must go forward. I launch towards the hammerlord. I strike down another goblin, and then I am upon him. I stab. The hammerlord strikes me again and again, snapping my bones, crushing them to a powder. I do not care. I slash the hammerlord across the face. He steps back. I cannot follow.
“Come back you coward!” I cry. “Kill me!” The hammerlord ignores me. I must die! I cannot live with my pain. In desperation, I throw my dagger at him. The dagger flies true. It arcs across the air puncturing his jugular neatly. I can see the blood spurting into the air. I give a bark of laughter; we have enough blood of our own. The goblin lord falls to his knees.
The goblins are retreating. They have suffered many losses. But Armok, why, why did they not kill me. Why did they not end my pain? Where will it end, the pain. Not of the body, but of the soul. Armok! What have I done? I killed my fellow dwarves. They lay defenseless before me, and I killed them. Some of them were my friends! They were my friends, carp take you! My friends!
*
What happened here? What tragedy, what apocalypse, what death? I came on this journey because I heard HammerBlaze was stronger than the Mountainhome itself. Instead, I only found only ashes. Ashes and the dead. Some of the bodies were still warm. Are there any survivors? I started to lose hope, when I found a gibbering dwarf hiding among the dead.
“What happened here?”
“Dead. All dead.” He gave a wild laugh. “All dead.” Before I could investigate further, he had fallen into my lap. I checked his pulse. As he said, dead. I consulted with my fellow migrants. I told them that we couldn’t leave the bodies piled up in the halls like this. Some of the rooms were unnavigable because of the dead.
Looking back, it is strange how easily the mantle of command fell upon my shoulders. I suppose everybody else was too shocked; somebody had to maintain order. I told one to start making coffins. The others would help me with the clothing. The clothes were all blood soaked, smelling of death. I told them to throw them in the magma. I could smell burning flesh as the goblins were incinerated.
At last, the bodies were clear, the ghosts put to rest. What happened, I shall never know. And I like it that way. I want to live, without fear of what happened, to kill a fort hundreds strong. At least, I am beginning to make out the arcane scribblings my predecessor left. It involves magma. Lots of it. But that is for later. HammerBlaze lives on. Shaky and weakened, but it lives on.
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