Well, time to end this. I'm sorry again, all five of my loyal fans.
28th Obsidian, 16
Today is the day. Our plans are in place. Thirty-seven of us left, thirty seven dwarves. We have just finished the installation of the supports and carving the defenses. Lor was there with the mayor, leading the rest. I saw the duke with a gem encrusted sword and his personal collection of crowns. Everybody was armed with whatever is left. Traps have been laid on the floor with any spare weapons. We built a barricade to slow down the demons from their ascent through this floor. This was the floor that we will stop them in. This will be our last stand.
I am here, at the back, next to the lever. This lever controls the supports. I pull this, and the entire level collapses on itself, like a lung out of air, and it will crush everybody beneath her. I only hope it does not come to that, but the grim reality of this fort tends to sink in every now and again. I have thought about this countless times. Played this in my head for as much as I can play it out. All scenarios are the same. None of them involve us leaving here alive.
Today is the last day of the year. The 28th of Obsidian. Tomorrow shall be spring. A glorious, yet silent spring. Obsidian is an apt name. The black stone describes our fates perfectly. There is no more time to waste. I can hear the demons, their incessant cackling and roar getting louder each passing moment. I can feel the ground warm up as they slowly converge to our position. From the last count, there must be over seventy of these damned harbingers of death.
Death. All year I have seen nothing but death. All my life, I have seen nothing but death. Death is as natural a part of life as life itself. We dwarves, we worship death. We worship the God of Blood, of course, but blood is the life force that sustains us, and the force that sustains life is death. Death pushes us. The prospect of dying gloriously, or the fear of dying, these are motivations that compel us to do great deeds. In the end, we dwarves are death-worshippers, subscribers to the enterprise of demise. I've seen the faces of these dwarves. They fear no death. If they do, like me, then they wouldn't be here. They would be behind me, waiting for the demons to come and we'd all pull the lever. But I fear death. I may be no stranger to it, but the prospect of dying terrifies me.
I finally finished that dream. After the roc lands and roars at the sky, the sun goes down and day turns into night. Then the mountain turns into flame and engulfs the roc while it is sleeping. Morning comes and the ashes are scattered by the winds, never to meet again. Then I wake up. It makes so much sense.
Lor was screaming for the dwarves to get into position. Black smoke and hellfire. They're here. I feel a trembling in my liver. A fireball. It hit the baker, and his face lit up. He was screaming, and it was unnerving. The dwarves braced themselves and let the demons charge through. First there was one. Then another one. Then two. Three. Four, five, soon the entire battalion was here, and I can only watch helplessly as they all got slaughtered.
Somebody yelled at me to pull the lever. I can't. I don't want to kill my friends. I don't want to kill Lor. More than that, I was frozen in place. I've seen this sight before, but this was different. Slowly I can feel myself being more and more alone. This is really happening. This is really happening. Another yell, drowned in the screaming frenzy of demonic beasts. Then, a familiar figure. It was Lor. He was walking to me, calmly, swatting the demons away from him with his shield. He leaned in close and told me, he told me these words I can never forget. The same words he told me when I first got here. The words he told me when I broke my arm.
"When life gets too hard and drinking's not enough. Lean on me."
Lean on me. Then he went back, and I saw one of those demons rip his arm out right from the socket. He passed out from the pain and another demon finished him off, eviscerating him. That was the end for Lor Relicsnarled, Force Commander of Charcoalstandards.
That was when I pulled the lever. At first I thought it didn't work, since nothing happened, then I heard a rumble, and the rocks slowly fell. Everybody stopped, and I ran. I ran as the entire fortress collapsed on itself, a sinkhole in the ground meant to plug in the worst of all ills. As I raced towards the front door of this once proud fort, I can't help but notice how wide the corridors really were. I can't believe it. These halls were usually so crowded. I can't believe that I'm here at all, in fact. I should be dead. We all should be dead. All those scenarios in my head ended in me dying, but not this one. This one ends in me running away. I reached the door, and looked back. I didn't need to run at all, actually. The ground level was still stable, but the staircase should be unusable in a few moments, what with the cave-in and the water and all. I breathed a last sigh of relief. This was it. It's over. I opened the door, and was amazed of what I saw.
It was spring.
This was the last entry.
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And that's the anticlimactic ending to this story! I'm sorry for making you tune in. I'm sorry for "lean on me". I'm sure there are a few Radiohead references I should be sorry for too.
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Topic: The End of Charcoalstandards [SPOILERS] (Read 4226 times)