Vucar Rashalath stared at the plump helmet. The inestimable evil of the hideous plant was now plain to her. She had felt its dark influence from the moment she had set foot in Crystalfire, but only now did she realize its source. It all made sense now.
Crystalfire was damned from the very beginning. She had heard tales of how the first dwarves set out, painstakingly sketching a fortress that could only be entered through a drawbridge, but had suddenly discovered a underground river coursing through the heart of the fortress-to-be. To sane dwarves, well, they would build around this obstacle, but the plump helmet, then a mere seed, had already spread its influence to the expedition leader. He saw four waterfalls falling through the dining room level to fall out into the chasm below the bridge. Stunned by the beauty of his words, all of the other dwarves in the expedition agreed to help tap the river. They knew that the dining room renovations would be worth the body count.
As the months passed, the the system was being set up. Truly, the plans were foolproof - mistakes would have been impossible. But the plump helmet's evil reached out to cloud the mind of a miner, who struck a wall he shouldn't have, then forgot to mention it to the others when the time came to tap the river. The pipes draining into the chasm simply weren't enough to stop the dining room from filling up. The dwarves panicked, mortaring up the center stairwell before too many monsters escaped.
The plump helmet seed reached out once again towards the mind of the expedition leader. Surely, he thought, surely if I build pumps next to the river I can drain it enough to drain the dining room. And the river edge would be too far up for the snakemen and olmmans to climb. It was constructed, but sadly, he was wrong. They stormed up through the water tunnels and began to slaughter the defenseless dwarves, when the next design of the plump helmet became apparent. Orcs swarmed into Crystalfire at that moment, and slaughtered every dwarf.
Vucar Rashalath stared at the plant in her hand. It was pure luck that she had picked it up to take to the main food stockpile and then truly saw it for what it was. Other faraway dwarves didn't get orcs; they didn't know what orcs were. This clearly was the plump helmet's design. How far had its evil spread?
The civilization had sent out a group of seven axedwarves to reclaim the fortress and kill off the creatures that had moved in. The pumping tunnel was finished, then another was built when the first was not sufficient. The winter froze the water as it poured out of the mountain and blocking the draining tunnel out: the temperature clearly manipulated by the plump helmet. A ceiling was erected to cover the tunnel exits to prevent the water from over the entrance of the tunnels. Finally, the river was rendered low enough to install a floor and wall to prevent the dining room from flooding. Three dwarves had died trying to mine out the pumping tunnels while they were operating; one glassmaker had died from throwing himself in the water, mad from not finding the sand his possessing spirit demanded; and five had died in an unrelated goblin ambush. A Legendary++ dining room was in their grasp.
Then the orcs returned. Fighting the onrushing water, they took advantage of the differing heights of some pump tunnels to force their way into the fortress. The military, a 28-strong swarm of leather-clad wrestlers, was perforated by orc snipers who began to close in on the fortress.
The fault for this lay in Vucar Rashalath's fingers. She began to laugh insanely, staring at the plant. A passing mason stopped in confusion and asked if she was all right.
Vucar Rashalath's maddened eyes repeatedl flickered from the plant to the mason, then settled on the mason. She advanced on the mason, pinning him into a corner as he stared at her. Her words came forth in a wave of maddened certainty. "It all makes sense now. Do not be seduced by the plump helmet!" Only then did she see what he was carrying. A plump helmet, laughing at her through its squishy purple flesh.
She screamed, flinging down the plant of damnation she carried. The plump helmet had already seduced him into its wily vegetative grasp. Her hands locked around his throat. He would be better off this way. She looked up from her kill, spattered with blood in two places. She was right by the farms; that was the plump helmet's center of power. She had to escape.
She charged down the and over the bridge through the chasm. A mere child was wandering down them carrying several plump helmet seeds. Vucar stopped to warn the child of the terror of the plump helmet, then saw what she had to do. The child stared at the charging dwarf, then tossed the seeds and ran.
The child's screams alerted the whole fortress. Soon, every dwarf turned their attention to the mad dwarf and away from the invading orcs. She saw the taint of the plump helmet in them, but she realized that she was outnumbered. She turned to run, to tell the dwarven civilization about the horrors of the plump helmet, to say to them that they needed to wear tinfoil hats against its evil. A short, sharp yap drew her attention. The puppies were in the way. And in their fur... she could almost make out... with a bit of squinting... The Sign of the Plump Helmet.
She gasped in horror. The plump helmet had taken these puppies. Before she returned, they would be too numerous to fight. They would breed and take over the whole mountain range. They had to die.
She grabbed the closest puppy, trying to use it to batter all the other ones away. But there were too many. The yapping, bloodthirsty horde leapt on her, first mangling her left leg, then her right arm. As her pain-muddled brain began to shut down, she thought she saw a friendly dwarf above her through the frenzied puppies. She gurgled her last words.
"Tell them... don't eat... the *plump helmet wine roast*."
From then on, Crystalfire would be known as Plump-Helmetdamned the Cursed.
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Topic: The Crystalfire Plump Helmet Strangler (Read 1677 times)