I started a fortress that was going to be a purely economical center, focused on trade and bartering, making crafts that are in high demand, and expanding the fortress. And all went well for the first 3 years or so, I was eventually making such high quality products that I would throw them at a caravan, and buy everything on board whether I needed it or not, and then smelt the useless things down to make my higher quality products.
I eventually had around 80+ dwarves and with my unlimited wealth I decided that each one deserved a bedroom with all of the amenities and at the highest quality. I needed to dig. I needed to dig deep. For adamantine.
So I dug and I dug, sending lines of dwarves as low as I dared, and then had them dig out as much of the ground as they could before falling to exhaustion. I found ores of all types, countless precious gems, and also a magma chamber.
Finally I found my treasure: Adamantine! Praise the miners! I began to dig the thin vein of precious metal. Before long, though, as I dug deeper I found something more sinister. A mysterious glowing pit.
I have heard stories of these pits in the past, and the dangers they hold, and so I decided I would wall off the pit and never return. I made a channel towards a magma chamber, so that if the creatures did somehow escape, I could break the thin wall dividing, and flood the chamber with magma and save my fortress. In the mean time I took my newly found metals up to the surface and began to craft my wares.
I had more wealth than I knew what to do with, and I had no problem purchasing what I needed to continue crafting. Migrants flocked to live in the wondrous fortress of Fellhammer. But the Humans must have become jealous of our work. In the 5th year, a trade caravan came, selling steel crafts of all types. Some, I recognized. They were ours. We sold them before, and now the Humans were trying to sell them back to us for ridiculous prices! They spat in our face! In righteous anger I seized everything from their caravan and sent them on their way with nothing to bring back to their king, and a warning to not insult the proud fortress again. This proved to be a mistake.
By fall of the 5th year the humans attacked. They brought many soldiers and siege engines to destroy the fort. Previously anticipating a potential attack, I had recruited a ramshackle militia, and had made three siege engines to defend myself. This was not enough. The humans fought with much more experience and ferocity then I could have imagined, and my dwarves were quickly drawn back into the fortress, awaiting their fate. With my three siege engines destroyed, and the enemy still holding two of their own, I knew there was only one chance for our survival.
I dispatched a dwarf down to the deep caverns of the magma chamber and instructed him to break down the wall, and expand it as wide as he could. Before long frog demons began to flood the fort, and the dwarf who released them was never heard from again. But I knew there was something else down there, something terrible.
And I was right. Ashengal, a lumbering, stinking poison demon raced up from the deep caverns and tore through my dwarves. I instructed them to push past the enemy lines, to pin the enemy between the dwarves and the deadly creature. The plan looked as though it would work- the seige engines were destroyed quickly, along with most of the army. But the humans were too mighty, and stuck Ashengal down. With only a handful of dwarves left, we had no chance. But then the corpse of Ashengal erupted into a cloud of poisonous miasma, and the humans continued to fall. The dwarves fought with everything they had, until finally the last humans were struck down.
There were two survivors. One, a dwarf missing an arm. Another, a dwarf missing both of his legs. The one armed dwarf carried his friend to a small clearing and built a stone hut with the rubble of the ruined fortress. He carried water to his friend day in and day out, but soon his friend passed away, unable to fight any longer.
By the end of winter, the last of the Fellhammer dwarves succumbed to his infection, and the fortress fell silent.
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Topic: The Fall of the Fortress Fellhammer *Spoilers* (Read 1474 times)