ASMELOTTEM
AUTUMN
Asmelottem. Merchant Sanctum, the great mountainhall. In the span of a mere 25 years, it grew from a small outpost of seven dwarves, to a bustling trading city, to the residence of the King of Dwarves himself. It's said that every race to walk the surface of Romthadar the Ageless Planet has representatives within the citizenry of Asmelottem, from Elves and Dwarves to Humans and Goblins. There are embassies from every nation, every city and dark tower. Asmelottem is the jewel of the continent, everyone wants to live there.
The wagon trundles slowly, the yak tasked with pulling the wagon lethargic and weary from their long journey. Many of the dwarves you travel with show similar weariness, eyelids heavy and mouths dry. The trees are changing color, a rainbow of crimson and gold, as full of splendor as the old throne room of the king. The stone road at your feet slowly changes from the light brown of mudstone to deep gray slate, pockets of autumn rain staining the mortar so dark as to be almost black. Badgers rustle through the morning dew and overhead fly a rainbow of birds. The forest around you is full of life.
You and your companions have traveled through the night to reach Asmelottem. Two days now, without sleep, but it's worth it for the rush you feel when the cry comes, “The spires! I can see the spires!”
You climb over the trade goods, not for the first time cursing yourself for leaving with the merchant caravan rather than a more traditional migration. You've never been a religious one, but the gods are evidenced well enough, and surely breaking with the dwarven tradition did not please them. You hope Asen the Yak of the Mountain will forgive you.
One of the pack yaks fills the air with a foul stench. You suppose that answers that. You pass through the miasma just in time to notice the spires come into view over the tops of the trees.
You take a deep breath, for a moment forgetting Asens curse. Slate and granite soar into the air, as high as any human castle, a wall almost 18 feet tall ringing a complex filled with drunken rowdiness, the calls of dwarven mothers, ringing tools of iron and steel and the singing of elves. The road draws closer to the wall through the woodland, clearing some distance from the wall and revealing a multitude of wooden shacks, squatting amongst the trees like small hills. Some humans can't fit through the tight dwarven passages, built for the squat, stocky dwarves. In lieu of the fortress proper, the Mudhold was founded, essentially a farming village of humans and elves, and the occasional outdoorsy dwarf. The road threads through the huts and shacks, curling around the southeastern spire of the fortress proper.
The bridge is bright yellow fungiwood, shale mechanisms connecting the gold chains to the control room somewhere underground. A pair of swordsdwarves guard the way, clad in shimmering, burnished iron and steel plate. Solid helms of steel rest upon their heads, ringed with a thin silver strip and engraved with a image of wings. The swirling midnight blue cloak of the Asmelottem military pools at their feet, the stitched image of two echidnas declaring their allegiance to the Tools of Robustness. They nod at you as you pass.
You hop off the cart as you enter the gate, bidding farewell to the merchants who so kindly allowed you to hitchhike. You toss a small bag of silver, your last savings, into the cart as payment. The cart driver smiles at you, and bids you farewell. “May our fortunes rise and fall together.”
You return the good-bye and head towards the massive spiral stairwell in the center of the courtyard. The stair curls like a pigs tail around a dizzying fall, farther than you can see, the bottom regressing into the black depths. The stair has long since been recarved from shaped slate, allowing even the tallest elf to pass freely, and so you head downwards. Three flights later you find yourself in the bustling hub of the fortress, the walls paved and plastered with slate blocks and mortar. Signposts point in all directions. The workshops to the north noisily saw away at stone and wood, crackling flame and acrid smoke issuing from the forges. To the south is the Dining Hall, where you suppose you will be spending most of your time, as well as the hospital, which you hope will remain Terra Incognita. The smell of cooking food combined with the helpful signposts tells you the kitchens are that direction as well. Your stomach rumbles softly at the thought of what the capital could cook for you, but your empty pockets remind you that you have more pressing concerns. A floor below are the bedrooms and the well. Beds are free for every dwarf, but to get more than a bed and a door with your name on it you must prove your worth to the fortress in at least some minor way. And before you can get anything, you must speak to the fortress Manager.
The Managerial Offices are to the east, your left, and so you find yourself swiftly in front of a plain slate door. Impressed in the wall beside it is a small stone slab. Office hours are from 10 Sunrise to 5 Sunset, every day. It is currently 12:30 Sunset, so you knock on the door.
“Come in.” Grumbles the Manager, his tone and accent obviously dwarven. You open the door as politely as you know how, nervous in this new place.
The Manager looks you over. “Migrant?” You nod. “Ye have the look about ye. I got some forms for ye to fill out, and know that ye made my day that much longer. Ye just put us over the pop cap.”
“Pop cap?” You ask, taking the paper and examining it. Paper is fairly rare, but a recent innovation (from here, if your memory serves,) made it common enough for officials to abandon the old heavy stone tablets and parchment.
“Aye. Three hundred dwarves, no more, no less. Can't support a bigger population, and don't want to drain the outer forts either.” The Manager draws out more sheets of paper, these looking far more official. He sets them on his desk and walks over to the corner. He lifts a small mallet and strikes a silver pipe set into the wall, setting it ringing a pure, musical tone. He lifts a small door in the pipe and shouts, “Shorast, tell Gil to set the word with the merchants; We just hit our pop cap!”
A shout rings back up the pipe, tone distorted by the silver. “Aye, Manager! Gil has the word!” The Manager snaps the pipe shut, and hits it with the mallet again, twice this time.
You sit at his desk, and he hands you a spare quill and some ink. You suppose it's time to officially join the Asmelottem Merchants. The very thought makes you smile.
The paper is complex. You will need to put some thought into this.
RACE: (Dwarf/Human/Elf/Goblin/Other (please explain) __________ )
NAME: ______ “_____” ______________
SKILL: (Up to professional in any three in-game skills, up to proficient in any five skills, or dabbler in any number of any skill)
JOB: (any possessed skill, or military)
The Manager looks at you. “And I'll have ye put a self-description on there too. It's too bright in here for my old eyes to see much detail.”
Asmelottem is a suggestion-driven story, hopefully reminiscent of a Visual Novel, minus the visual part, sort of like how "They Said I Could Be Anything" was. It'll update on my weekend, and the writing should be high-quality and refined, since I'll work on it over the week. The spaces between choices are going to be large, but this medium allows me to at least give you the option to customize your character somewhat. Note that there's some amount of gameplay and story segregation going on; your choice in race won't particularly effect where you can go, but it will effect how people react to you, and the amount of effort the MC will need to exert to get places. Luckily, most of the things you'll be fighting don't fit in those small places really well either, so you won't have to fight a Snow Spectre in a small sub-tunnel, for example. Asmelottem is huge, but once you know of a area you should be able to go there any time you like. Depending on where you go, different events will happen and I'll put different flags in my little notepad here, and I'll give you a different ending. I'm not going to autosave for you, so remember to save any time it seems dangerous. You can also load any time you like. What I will do is allow as many replays as you like, so if you get a bad end or just a end you don't like, you can always reload and try for another one.
And do try not to anger Gil. He may seem useless, but his reputation has powers all it's own...
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Topic: Amselottem "Merchant-sanctum" : I can see the Spires! (Read 1190 times)