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[Konis]

Seven times.

Edem poked at the small fire, disconsolate.  Seven times they’d been forced to flee.  Latest it had been goblins.  Before that, goblins on beak dogs with trolls to break down the walls of their little delving.  On the ground next to Edem, Nil yawned in his sleep and rolled over, accidentally twisting his beard around the tree root he was nestled into. 

Before the goblins there were the elves.  They were a ragged band of survivors, just the same as Edem and her dwarves.  They had tried to band together, eventually finding a place where the elves could perch in the tall trees and the dwarves could dig deep.  There’d been more of them, then, twenty or so instead of this mere handful.  But that had only lasted a few years before the . . . . things, the monsters . . . had found them.  They’d run, and the elves had perished.

Edem looked around the small clearing and shivered.  Their one wagon – cobbled together from pieces of the four they’d left with – loomed dark at the edge of the firelight, with their few donkeys hobbled near it.  They used to keep a watch on nights like this, but they’d given that up.  No one really cared anymore.

Before the elves . . . it was difficult to remember.  Before the elves they had settled in some tiny hill, forsaken of all the gods.  No ore, no water, no cubic for the families or space for delvings.  This was when they still had some little faith, and their mayor had promised to lead all fifty survivors to a better place.  Before the hill had been the humans, coming in great waves of migration, stealing and eating and taking.  They were running from the monsters, too.  But the dwarves couldn’t stay in the path of those great waves of the Young Ones and had left to find a better home.

Edem stared up and saw stars.  Stars.  She shivered.  Had it come to this?  Huddling around a fire, under the open sky, living off meat and aboveground berries?  How had she sunk so low?  Before the men, there had been other dwarves.  Other clans, whose survivors had numbered in the thousands, and who had come demanding hospitality and eventually demanded servitude.  Edem didn’t know what had become of them, but she hoped the things had gotten them in the end.   Edem's clan had left in a great troop, numbering nearly three hundred back then.

Before that there had been a decent mountainhome.  A place where their clan could make an empire.  But that had been too close to their old home, and was plagued by the same things.  Their old home: grand caverns in the roots of the mountains, feasts and piles of gems and their hoard.  The hoard.  Oh, the riches they’d had.  And the mechanical wonders, dreams of water wheels tumbling and clockwork dwarves dancing and windows of gems that cast color throughout the Grand Hall.  Now . . . gone.  All gone. 

Now, they trudged on the ground instead of under it, walking without a destination, keeping the path clear for the wagon because it was the only activity to be had between sunup and sundown.  Always walking underneath the open sky.  Edem had vertigo just thinking about it as she stared at the scant comfort of the fire.  Nil said they were headed toward something.  Something good.  Edem didn’t believe it for a moment.  There wasn’t anything good left. 

[Konis]

So!

The setting: I’m playing a game in Year 36 on a standard map.  As you can see from the intro, I’m assuming (for the purposes of the story) that there was a great cataclysmic event in year 0 which reset the clocks, so to speak.  So this isn’t so much the beginning of the world as the beginning of another chapter of the world. 

The rules: I’m trying to play a DF from the future, basically.  I’m including some things as I see fit from the Underground Diversity threads, enhanced Mechanicals threads, maybe a bit from the upcoming Army Arc.  Also, I’m imposing some rules to try and enhance the realism, where possible.  For example:

Using more supports (no enormous roofs without pillars, especially in sand/loam)
Waterwheels need water to fall over them, like from a mill pond.
No Atom Smashers.
Nothing silly like glass walls in magma.
Avoiding anything else that might be an exploit, and generally trying to treat things logically.

Also:

I’ve upped the difficulty for farming.  The grow duration is x4 or x5 in most cases, cluster size is smaller, and I’m not using plump helmets or quarry bushes, unless the random numbers (see below) let me.

I’m going to treat the dwarven caravan as if it were a human caravan from another empire, so 2 human civs in this story.  And some things (like seeds, or anvils), I’ll be doing some random numbers to see if I’m allowed to buy them on that turn.

Oh, and since it’s the end of the world, no immigrants.  Well, not many.  I’ve got the cap set at 10, but after that it’s just children.

Comments welcome!  Very much welcome.  And suggestions.

[Konis]

“Gently now.  Gently!  Medtob, don’t slack off now.  Steady on . . . heave!  HEAVE!” 

The mired wagon swayed slightly forward before lifting from the shin-deep mud with an immense sucking sound.  The wagon lurched forward two paces.  The donkeys brayed loudly in protest and all the dwarves pushing from the back lost their footing and dropped into the muck.  Zuntir was up quickly and swearing loudly while trying to simultaneously wipe the mud from his chest-length beard and his heavy axe.  Medtob stood quickly as well, but Ingish tripped him and spread mud in his eyebrows and they were soon tumbling in the muck while Edem screamed at them to stop playing and beat at them with a stick.  It was a few moments before they stopped, and a few more before they realized that Nil was lying face-down in the mud and wasn’t moving. 

“Fetch the beer!  And a waterskin!” Edem called.  She was on her knees next to Nils as soon as the others had turned him over.  She pawed at his mud-caked face, cleaning the sticky ooze from mouth and nose.  “Water!” she bellowed, hand held out for the skin.  She dumped it over Nil’s face while cursing the other dwarves for the youngsters they were.  Only she and Nil were over fifty years old, and though the rest would be counted as adults on the work rolls of any dwarvenhome, they were all children when they’d left their original mountain dwelling.  “None of you has any idea what it takes to be a dwarf!” she called at them.  They stood, mumbling and chastised, while Edem tried to coax the beer between Nil’s lips.

With a cough and a splutter, Nil sat up.  He wiped at his forehead, clearing the mud.  An enormous bruise was already forming directly in the center of his forehead where it has smacked the mud-covered rock.  “He’s got a third eye . . .” Ingish said in awe. 

Edem reached out and gave his beard a sharp tug.  “He hasn’t got a third eye, you dolt.  That’s a bruise.  He must’ve gotten it when . . . Nil.  Nil!  Where are you going?”  Nil was on his feet and unsteadily stomping his way up the hill, in the direction they’d been headed with the wagon.  The others began following.  “Kogsak.  Stay with the wagon!  Oh, fine, at least tie up the donkeys first!  Imbecile.”

Nil stumbled up the mountain, shrugging off any helping hands and pressing forever forward.  The sun had barely moved a finger’s width when they crested the small hill and saw Nil perched on a rock, finger pointed down the hill, muttering.  “Seen it.  Seen it in a dream.”

Edem knelt beneath Nil on the rock.  “What is it?  What’ve you seen Nil?  Tell us.”  The others came and crowded by. 

“. . . . in a dream.  A vision.  Asen, at the doors . . . . of a great delved fortress.  And Enor Atir Likot . . . with piles of jewels.  And . . . . Astis of the light.  Light and sun . . .”

“It is a third eye, he’s havin’ a vision,” Kosoth breathed.  Edem pulled the dwarf’s ear-braid to silence him, but her heart wasn’t really in it.

“. . . even Zagith the Hateful.  With lies and deceit.  They all hover.  There.  They hove there.”  Nil’s finger never wavered.

“That’s the gods of the Ancient Hall,” Medtob said reverently.

Edem spat once.  “There is no Ancient Hall.  Those gods died with our mountainhome.  Nil’s just hit his head.”  Edem reached out and tugged sharply on his beard once, then twice.

“Ow!” Nil cried, grabbing his chin.  The pain in his head then registered.  “Oooohhwwww . . .” he moaned, clutching at the sides of his head and swaying slightly.  “What’d you go ‘n’ tug m’ beard for?  And what’s this on m’ forehead?”

“You hit your head, you clumsy lout.  And then you were spewing about the gods and pointing,” Edem answered.

“Pointing where?”  The five younger dwarves all jabbed their fingers down the hillside, and all eyes swiveled for a moment to where they pointed.  A sharp ridge like a knife struck north and south across their path – the last gasp of a mountain range that stretched off beyond the horizon to the northwest.  A small spur of the ridge ran east for a short while and a rocky plateau, scoured of vegetation, sheltered in the lee of the two ridges.  Below that the forest through which they were trudging slowly petered out an the way up the foothills of the mountains.  A streamlet ran off away to the south, a few minutes’ hike from the sheltered corner in the stone. 

Nil coughed once, then ran his finger about the inside of his mouth, pulled it out, and flicked mud from it.  “Well, if it was my idea, it musta been a good one.  Let’s try it!”  The five dwarves tried to loose a cheer (which fell flat as the immediately felt ridiculous) and headed back to the wagon to haul it up the hill.

“Nil, what did you really see?” Edem asked, bent over her friend.

“Truthfully?”  Nil stared down the hill at the knife of stone thrusting out of the earth.  “Truthfully, I have no idea.  Can’t remember a thing between pushin’ that damned cart and you pullin’ my loverly beard out by the roots.”  He glanced up at Edem.  “But maybe we’ll find someplace we can finally teach this lot what bein’ a dwarf is about, eh?”

[Lord Dullard]

Wow.. neat story, so far!

Keep writing!

[Eita]

The immigrant cap needs to be set to 20 or higher. It doesn't work if set to lower.

[Konis]

The immigrant cap needs to be set to 20 or higher. It doesn't work if set to lower.

Can anyone confirm this?  I've played through 3 years or so on another game capped at 10 and I've consistently had no migrants show up after the first 3.  Could be because I'm keeping the wealth low, though . . .

[Konis]

It took nearly two full days to dwarfhandle the wagon down the hill and across to the spot Nil had pointed out.  The donkeys protested the whole way, Nil got sidetracked gathering some prickleberries off their path, and Medtob and Zuntir managed to get in a wrestling match over a colony of stinging ants.  They had to spend an hour picking the tiny creatures out of beards and ear hair.

It was only mid-afternoon when Edem called a halt to survey the surroundings with Nil.  Despite the time, however, the small rock shelf was in deep shadow because of the sharp ridge to the west.  That explained the lack of vegetation.

“Mind the wagon while we’re gone.  And stay out of the beer!  There ain’t much left,” Edem warned as she and Nil left to survey the site.  “That goes double for you, Kosoth.  I’ll tug out your toe-hair out one at a time if you’ve gotten into it.”  With that, the two left for a small outcropping of exposed rock.

“You’re quite harsh on young Kosoth, ain’t ye?” Nil chided as they walked along.  “Taken a bit of a fancy to ‘im?”

“I’ll yell at him ‘til he breaks, I think, then maybe shack up with him once he does.  Like my mother did with me father,” Edem answered.  “Jealous?”  She cast a sideways glance at Nil, but he was staring intently at a rock face and didn’t notice.  Edem and Nil were good friends, and were the only two dwarves who really understood each other, since they had clear memories of the time before the Troubles and of their original mountainhome.

He snorted, causing his long beard to rustle.  “Not a bit!  Yer too much women for me.”  He ran stubby fingers over a long strip of shale, then broke a bit off and crumbled it under his nose.  “Besides, yer the only she-dwarf for leagues.  Ye’ve got yer pick of us men.”  Nil squatted back of his haunches and rubbed the dirt lazily.  “’sides, I’ve no need of women since I lost my sweet three homes ago.  Or four.  Can’t remember it, really . . . . . don’t want to, neither . . . . . . . . what’s this now?” 

Nil scooped the dirt aside quickly, shuffling through the loose layer like a bloodhound after a scent.  He crawled on hands and knees for a bit while Edem followed him, before following a vein up a rock face and standing up.

“Ech.  Nevermind.  Just a bit o’ cinnabar.  That false red always gets m’ hopes up,” Nil said.

“You mean, you were hoping it was this?” Edem asked.  She picked away at a bit of loose soil on a sheer rock face and exposed a dusty red gleam in the rock.

“Iron!  Right here in the open . . .”  Nil stared at it, then leaned back and peered up the mountain.  “An upthrust ridge, that’d expose it.  Hematite, I think it is.  And this here’s gone t’ rust, but a few paces in . . . . it could be a big ‘un.”  Nil glanced back at the wagon and down into the small valley they’d crossed.  “And the wind isn’t blowing here.  The mountain shields it.  I bet there’s a stiff breeze running up the back o’ this ridge.  Not a bad place for a delving, I say.”  Nil glanced over at Edem.

She sniffed.  “Could be.”  She rubbed her fingers together, then blew the ferrous rock from the tips.  “But I doubt it.  Not far enough from our last, and them beak dogs must still be about.  And it takes more than a scrap of wind and some rusty iron dust to make a delving.”

“Edem, we walked for two seasons, we did.  All winter.  And we’re nearly outta beer, and what we have is overland swill, and most of our good dwarfy seeds are used up.  Might not be a bad idea to call a halt, at least for the summer.  We can delve a bit, just to rest a while.  Feel the mountain over our heads again.”

Edem kicked at a stone.  “Oh, alright.  I dunno why you’re asking, though.  Yer the leader of these fools, and they all do whatever you say.”

“Yeah, but if you don’t like what I says, I gotta listen to yer bellyachin’ all winter long, and that’ll get on anyone’s . . . hey now, don’t you throw that at . . . ouch!  Oh yeah!  Well, here’s this for ya . . . eh, it’s nought but what you deserve for . . . hey, that’s m’ shin . . !”

* * * * * *

Edem and Nil sat perched on the edge of the wagon with the five younger dwarves arrayed at their feet.  “Right then, lads,” Nil began, “we’ll delve here for a bit, just to get outta this spring rain and to feel like proper dwarfs for a while.  Which means Medtob, you get to digging.  Edem’s got the plans in ‘er head, like, so ask her first.  But you know, room for sleeping, room for eating, room for working, room for storing.  All that.

“I’ll be out finding s’more food, since you lot eat like it grows on stones.  Kosoth, you’ll need to cook up and brew up whatever I find, but when yer not doin’ that, help out with the minin’.  It’s a shame we haven’t a real cook around, but you’ll have to do.  Same with you, Ingish.  Count up what’s in the wagon since yer good with sums, but keep that pick handy.  Zuntir, get some o’ them trees down since you like that axe so much, and try make some cots, too.  I know you haven’t an idea what yer doin’, but nor do any of us.  Just keep in mind, three legs at least, this time?  Please?

“We’ll knock down the wagon, too, but keep them parts handy in case we need to leave in a hurry.  Speakin’ of which, Zuntir, you stay in whatever armor we’ve got while yore out gatherin’ wood.  And if we see anything threatening, Medtob get yer hammer, Kogsak get that crossbow we stole from the goblins, and everyone else swing a pick if ye can find one.  But if we get inside quick and cover our tracks, we shouldn’t have too much troubles from anyone.”

“Alright, louts.  Off ter work with ye.  And no grumbling or I’ll let Edem at yer beards!”

[Konis]

Edem and Nils were in the little nook that was serving as kitchen, still, and butcher, sampling a but of Kosoth’s latest fare.  “Tastes like . . .” Edem smacked her lips a few times, “. . . well, tastes like a donkey’s arse.”

“That’s what ‘tis, though,” Kosoth said indignantly.  “I mean, it’s a donkey’s arse, and that’s what it tastes like, ya?”

Edem reached for his beard but Nil stopped her.  “Y’see, Kosoth.  If ye were making a mug, then ya.  We’d want it to look and feel like a mug, ‘cause that’s what it is.  Like Kogsak over there.  He’s making mugs.  So the more . . . muggy it is, the better.  But cooking is different.  With some things, we wants it not to taste like what it is.  ‘Cause if y’ go outside and lick that donkey, it’s not tasty, right?”

“Inside, actually,” Edem cut in.  “Medtob brought all the donkeys into the eating hall.”

Nil opened his mouth for a moment, cocked his head, shut his mouth, then decided to just keep talking.  “Right, either way.  But, m’ point is, do y’see m’ point?  If it is the back end of a donkey, ye’d rather have it not taste like the back end of a donkey.  Ye’d rather have it taste like dinner.”

Kosoth twirled his eyebrow for a moment.  “Even if dinner is . . .”

Nil grabbed Edem’s hand before she could strike.  “Yes, Kosoth.  Even if it really is the arse of a donkey.”  He patted him on the hand.  “I know you ain’t never really ate that well, us bein’ on the move.  But don’t you remember even a little?  Decent dwarfish food?”

“Well, ya,” Kosoth said.  “But not the how t’ do it.  I’m good at eatin’ it, though.”

“Just try it a bit,” Nil said, then dragged Edem away by the hand.  “I know, I know.  I think this lot might be particularly daft, even for young ‘uns.”

The two ducked out of Kosoth’s cooking area and into the low storage hall they’d built.  The entire contents of the wagon – and the pieces of the wagon itself – were splayed along the floor in neat stacks.  “At least they’re good a moving things,” Edem said.  There were a few half-formed tables and chairs that Edem was finishing, as well as two doors that still had to be fitted to their stone hinges.  There was a great pile of empty bags which served to highlight how much they no longer had, since at some point they’d all been full.  On a special shelf were three bags of pig-tail cloth, tightly bound and wrapped in a mat of mud to slow both growth and decay.  These were all the dwarfish seeds Nil had left from their last farm – a handful of cave wheat seeds, some dimple cups, and a few sweet pods for syrup.  A growing stack of logs from Zuntir’s handiwork occupied another corner, and their few barrels of food and drink were placed near the entrance to their tiny dining hall.

The last corner was filled with the din and ring of picks on fresh stone, and Edem’s heart was a bit lighter to see it.  Medtob and Ingish were hacking out the last of their storage space as they watched.  Ingish, wearing the spectacles he’d had since he was a child, seemed an unlikely miner.  But Medtob had the build of a typical dwarf, and Edem recognized a decent technique when she say it.

She was turning away to go back to polishing a felsite table when Medtob gave a small cry and dropped to the floor.  “Ingish, what’d you do?” she cried, running over.

“Nothing, not a thing, not one thing!  I was over here and my pick hasn’t slipped outta my hand in ages and ages, most of an hour!”  Medtob was on the ground, pick discarded, rooting through the floor.  Suddenly he squeaked again and came up with a fist-sized stone clutched in his hand.

“Oooo, whatsit whatsit?” he said, holding it between thumb and forefinger at arms length.  It caught the dim torchlight and cast tiny glints of green and red from within a milky core.  Most of the gem was still caught up in the rock, but enough was visible to see that it was some form of jewel.

“I don’t know, really,” Edem said.  “Mechanics are my suit.  Some sort of opal, I think.  I’d guess fire from the red, but we’d really need a jeweler to break it free and see.”

“You think der’s more, eh?” Medtob asked.

“Could be, Medtob,” Edem said cautiously.  Medtob was the youngest of the dwarves, and a bit slow at times.  He had only joined their clan with another band of refugees a few years back, as a youngster then.  “Be very, very careful with your pick and see if you’ll find s’more.”

“Righty, righty yeah.  More opals, I’ll get ‘em, I will.  Not you Ingish, you swing funny.  Lemme do it.”  The young dwarf turned back to the wall and began cracking sheets of rock from the face.  Ingish look at Edem, who shrugged, then he dropped his pick and went to help Nil’s gathering efforts.  Edem took a last look at Medtob swinging away, then went back to smoothing down her table.

[Konis]

OOC: This one is related, I swear.

The five gods trudged up the ramp with slow, dragging steps.  They were shackled one to another, ankle to ankle, with small, incredibly dense weights hung to the chains to fetter their nearly-omnipotent physical bodies.  Shapes loomed evil and dark around them, some cackling, others ominously silent, all prodding and herding the five gods up the ramp and into the cavernous hall above. 

A dark sun burned with red flame high overhead, but even that was within the expanse of the hall.  Pillars reached away into the sky, impossibly high, holding the arched dome of Sky and all its stars.  Five more gods were seated in the center of the hall at a mountainous table.  The center, a pulsing shadow of black cloud and lightning, solidified a hand and flicked it toward the guards.  The five chained gods rattled to a stop in front of the table.

“We have brought you hear so that you may tell us of your submission,” the shadow god flickered.  To its right, a great one-eyed titan snorted in derision at the chained gods.

Asen stood, back straight, and answered.  “We may be defeated, but we are not banished.  You haven’t the power left to do so, and you won’t!”  She stood defiant, long, plaited beard tucked into her belt, radiant, masterfully-forged armor dented and cracked. 

“We do not need that power, Little Ones,” the shadowy god pulsed.  “We are only the beginning.  We have served our purpose.  We have paved the way for the One Who Comes After.”  At the mention, the other gods hissed and chortled and sputtered.  The great snake god wound itself around a table leg, and the god in the form of a harpy laughed a shrieking, grating laugh.

“Your only hope is to submit.  If you would be our pets, then the One would grant you your lives, that you may serve as our playthings.”

“We will never . . !” Asen began again.

“May we confer, your greatness?” called Zagith, the Deceiver.  The shadowy god crackled.

The five gods found themselves hanging in the air, far from the ground, and suddenly falling.  Their chains still bound them.  “Zagith, the Hateful Wisp!  You would have us bow to them?” Asen bellowed above the rushing wind.

Astis of the light flailed and shrieked as she fell, but managed to say, “They are an affront to nature!  They cannot last!  Balance will be restored, and once again they will return to the depths!”

“I ask only for consideration,” Zagith answered, with a small smile on his face.  He had folded his legs and drifted as if seated while the others thrashed.  “Of what use are we now?  Our followers number only a handful, and of those only some dozen have a mountainhome.  Enor Atir is naked, bereft of his cloak of jewels, and there is no trade in this world for him to oversee.  Why do we fight on?  The other gods have probably turned already.”

Ozor, goddess of twilight, turned her sleepy eyes from the quickly approaching ground and glared at Zagith.  “More lies!  You were always true to your name.  The Young Ones would never turn, they are too proud.  And the Old Ones are too concerned with their trees and their animals.  They would rather die.”

“Then what does it profit us to stand with them?” Zagith asked.  “We might as well . . .” the ground rushed to meet them, and Zagith never finished his thought.  When each of the dwarfish gods was the width of a fly’s wing away from hitting the ground, they found themselves suddenly back in the enormous hall.  This time, they were standing on the mountain-sized table, being stared at by the five victorious gods.  The shadow, the titan, the snake, the harpy, and the last . . . the cloaked god, true to no ends but his own.

“Your decision?” the shadowy got spat.

“If I may . . .” Zagith the deceiver said, holding up his chains.  The one-eyed titan reached down and snapped the chain between thumb and forefinger, leaving Zagith to roam and the other four to sit.  “Your great and wondrous majesties, I fear that it is not possible for my colleagues to submit to you.  I, on the other hand . . . I am not a proud and stubborn creature, as they are.”  Zagith began walking the length of the table, picking his way over and among the remnants of meals and games and battles of divine proportions.  “I am malleable, with pliant knees, which bend to my will.  But I do not believe, in truth, in all that you say.  Perhaps, if you could provide me with some proof of this One Who Comes After?” Zagith asked, turning toward the shadow god with a look of supplication.  The great black cloud puffed up, then, and struck even before the titan could reach out to swat Zagith.

A shaft of lightning struck Zagith the Hateful, purveyor of lies and deceit, directly in the chest, sizzling a hole in his beard.  Zagith was thrown backwards.  He slid through the debris on the table, bouncing off godly mugs and enormous trenchers before coming to rest before the cloaked god.  Through the smoke of his burning, godly flesh, Zagith cracked one eye and looked out.  He say a tiny idol of a lizard-man and darted his hand out.  He clutched it to his chest as the titan lifted him and threw him back to the table next to the other four gods.

“Chain him and throw them all back in their own dungeons!” thundered the shadowy god.  Minions great and small rushed from the shadows, rebound the five gods together, and began marching them down the stairs around the table’s leg and into the dungeons.  “This will do,” muttered Zagith as he slid the kobold totem into his vest pocket.