Chapter I
Litast looked around with obvious distaste at their new surroundings. There was green everywhere. Trees, shrubs, grass... The image of flames flashed into her mind for a moment before she shook it off and turned to see her little band of dwarves.
"Listen up now, we've got a lot to do, but first I want to lay down some guidelines. You may have noticed that we didn't bring a lot of... plants with us. From this point out we do not eat plants. We eat meat cooked with alcohol flavorings and nothing more." She paused for a moment to judge the reactions of her dwarves. Several looked unhappy, but none voiced a complaint. She continued: "We brought seeds for growing plump helmets, which will be used for brewing wine, and we will acquire seeds from other plants from the traders later. As for a meat source, we will work on trapping some of the local creatures. This is a fairly tame area, so that shouldn't be a problem. Until we can rely on wildlife, we will breed and eat the animals we brought with us." Another pause. One or two of the dwarves looked sadly at the adorable dogs that had been brought with them, but again no objection was raised. This group had discipline.
"Alright, then, time for your individual orders. We need to get established before we get to our primary mission here." She was about to start giving orders when the farmer, Dastot, cleared his throat.
"Excuse me, Litast, but what precisely is our mission here?" Questioning murmurs were let out by the other dwarves.
Litast hesitated, the image of burning trees still not quite gone from her mind. Finally, with a glimmer in her eye, she looked at Dastot and said, "The King sent us here to make use of the ore he believes will be found underground." Before he could ask anything more, she started giving out orders.
The two miners were given directions on how to set up the outpost underground, clearing an area for plump helmet farming and workshops in the soil before digging down to the rock and working on the bedrooms. While they got to work, she turned to the rest of the group. "While we wait for space to build workshops, everyone else get to work gathering edible plants -- but not for food! Dastot, as soon as you can get a still ready, I want this garbage turned into something dwarven." Dastot nodded his understanding. "Stinthad, start clearing out these trees. I want their corpses turned into beds and barrels as quickly as possible." Stinthad winced at the use of the word 'corpse,' but nodded fearfully and ran to the nearest tree. For all her supposed skill, she was nervous and made slow progress, chips of wood flying onto the grass with each strike of the axe. Litast watched, entranced, and within minutes found herself relieving Sinthad of her axe.
"What are you doing? You're going to lose a finger! Just give me the axe, I'll take care of the trees. Go gather berries and whatnot with the others." Relieved to be given a safer job, Stinthad nodded quickly and ran to the nearest berry bush without a word.
Litast held the axe in her hands for a moment, feeling its familiar weight and eying the notch in the tree's trunk. At last she swung the weapon back, and hit the tree with such ferocity that the blade ran clean through the trunk. She grinned as she saw it crash to the ground. 'I'm going to like it here,' she thought to herself as she walked to her next victim.
***
Bomrek and Zasit didn't take long to dig out an area for the farm and the first few workshops before heading straight down, as they had been instructed, until they hit rock a few levels below and began to carve out the bedrooms. One by one the other dwarves stopped gathering plants and started building and running their workshops. Within a few days, everyone had plenty of work to do, and the stockpile of food and booze was steadily growing.
Litast spent every hour of the days chopping down trees, pausing only to give orders or eat, relishing each swing of the axe. Stinthad gave up completely on her former woodcutting profession, focusing her efforts instead on crafting everyone a bed, then churning out barrel after barrel. Near the end of spring Litast told her to make cages for a while instead, to use for traps. There were plenty of wild animals around just begging to be caught and slaughtered.
In the heat of summer, once the dining room was complete and all the necessary rooms had doors, Litast burst into Ineth's workshop and told him to stop what he was doing and focus all of his efforts on carving smooth stone blocks.
"Blocks?" responded Ineth confusedly. "For what?"
Litast tried not to grin too wickedly. "We ought to pave a nice road for the caravan wagons to use to get to our depot, eh?"
Ineth was a little worried about the expression on Litast's face, but did as he was told and started churning out stone blocks.
In order to ensure that they had enough stone, the miners were directed to start carving out large areas in the lower levels, and to preserve as much of the stone as possible.
As soon as Litast was back outside chopping trees, Bomrek set down his pick for a minute and turned to Zasit. "So... What exactly do we need this stone for?"
Zasit shrugged. "Who knows," she said, pausing to swing his pick at the wall. "I heard her say something to Ineth about stone blocks. Maybe we're building above ground?" She took another swing and the granite wall collapsed perfectly.
Bomrek shook his head slowly, staring at the floor. "There's something odd about her, isn't there? I've never seen a dwarf enjoy being outside cutting trees so much, and some of my best friends are carpenters."
Another crash as Zasit's pick collapsed more granite. She leaned on her pick for a moment to wipe some of the sweat from her beard. "Know what I think, Bomrek?"
"No," he replied. "What do you think?"
She smiled and lifted her pick once more. "I think you should stop talking so much and get back to work."
He laughed, shrugged, and swung his pick against the wall.
***
"THIEF!" Dastot cried out as he ran from the hideous thing creeping down the staircase. "KOBOLD THIEF!"
The ugly creature was startled by the yell and, knowing it had been spotted, took off at a run away from the outpost. It was several minutes before Zulban, the butcher, was able to calm the farmer down. "Relax, pal, it's gone." He chuckled at his cowering friend. "I'll go talk to Litast about getting some security around here."
He found her, unsurprisingly, brutally smashing the trunk of an already-fallen tree to pulp. "I think it's dead, boss," he said, making her jump.
"What do you want? I'm busy." She turned to the next tree, intending to ignore him.
He sighed. There was something not quite right about her, he was sure of that, but it seemed harmless enough. "Dastot caught a kobold trying to steal some of our supplies. I think we ought to do something to keep them out. We haven't put any effort into security at all since we've been here."
Litast nodded distractedly. "Sure, whatever you want, go take care of it." He walked away without another word as she began to swing again.
"I'm setting up a kennel," he said to the others when they asked what she had said. "I'll train a few of the dogs to hunt the little buggers. We should build some stone-fall traps around the entrance, too, just in case." This sounded perfectly reasonable to the others, so they didn't bother to ask for details about their conversation. No one had much luck talking to Litast anymore.
It was over a month before the little creeps dared to visit Ashenplants again. Ineth laughed as he saw the hunting dogs take off after the intruder. The beasts seemed disappointed that it got away.
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Topic: Ashenplants, or How Litast Dealt With The Trees (a story) (Read 1641 times)