18 Slate, 918
Entry Six
My leading theory right now is that the fortress, which most likely pierced the caverns –owing to the sheer amount of metal production and the fact that blood thorns and nether caps, as well as the more common tower caps, were growing in the areas we discovered—a particularly nasty forgotten beast attacked. This region of the world has almost no inhabitants, and indeed, no human I talked to during my journey knew of this place. Thus, it is possible that in this remote region of the world, there could have survived many forgotten beasts from before creation.
The fortress had evidently fought off others before, as demonstrated by the strange scales and feathers I found scattered around, as well as the piece of chitin I noticed underneath the depot. I set off later in the day, expecting trouble as we went below ground. I had told my men to be prepared, but humans are nervous creatures and do not take well to being underground for long. I had the axemen go out and find trees to make into torches, and each of us armed with a torch, we went below.
The first level down was the hospital. 16 beds and 8 traction benches, but no sign of soap or thread. Then again, a lot is missing from this fortress, so this did not come as a surprise. We also found a door with water leaking out from under it, but decided for the better. More than likely, that door was meant to keep the water out…
The next level was the lowest for this staircase. Having clung to the warm obsidian walls of the volcano, we came out into a vast open area. Shattered, decayed furniture, much of it sticky with blood was strewn about. Remains of a stockpile, most likely. On the right, the massive area was thickly grown with cavern plants, and hundreds more bins littered the area. After ordering the men to search through them, we finally had some success! A half of a single gold bar! So this, too, must have been a metal bar stockpile… The wealth of this fortress was perhaps underestimated even by me.
It was on this level that we found dozens of dwarf corpses, as well as other domestic animals. More feathers, scales, and even, despite the heat from the volcano, some snow. Ashes were everywhere, and many of the skeletons were charred. If it was indeed a Forgotten Beast, it was a powerful one…
We proceeded to the other end of the vast room, were we found the wreckage of several workshops. Most likely, it was here that the fortress had its craft and mason’s shops, and we found a few mechanisms, too. But most importantly, one of the guards was investigating a tower-cap bin and found cut jewels by the dozens! I allowed the humans to take as many as they could carry, knowing that if there was this much wealth by the surface, then there must have been millions and billions of Urists more in the caverns below. I could feel the damp air and the sigh of gently flowing water waft up the staircase, and knew that we were nearly there.
Down, down, down, no fewer than 20 Urists, we found a small room with more stairs going down. There was also a peculiar corpse. The only one outfitted in military garb I’ve yet seen. It was equipped with all steel equipment save for the mail shirt, which was bronze. The steel sword was bent and melted somewhat, and the corpse’s skull was nowhere to be found. The helm was, though…
I hushed my guards and told them to be very cautious on the next level. We sent down one of the lashers with torches, and he was able to find columns with empty braziers. We quickly had them going and illuminated one of the largest and most ornate rooms yet. I ordered the men to fan out in groups to explore the corridors while I examined the utterly incredible engravings. Admittedly, they had been worn, scratched, and cracked over time, but they were some of the most beautiful and masterful engravings I had ever seen. They were EVERYWHERE, and were a veritable history of the world. Many depicted the reign of the Megabeasts in the early centuries after the Creation, but I found a few describing the fort and its foundation.
There was indeed appointed a baroness, but one of the engravings, dated 912, shows the Baroness, one ‘Nauglamir’ Fairflags, went insane and having her throat torn out by a war dog. A gruesome end to a promising barony.
A pair of neighbouring engravings showed this: the first, the deposal of the mayor, one of the original colonists named ‘Elessar,’ and the second shows the accession of the Bowsmith ‘Eregion’ to the mayorship. The engraver of the former must have been mistaken, because I saw another engraving several Urists away which showed the dwarf ‘Elessar’ being killed by a horde of crundles. It seems that these crundles were eventually captured and tamed, and perhaps used as a fortress defence, because I saw outside the fortress a cage with the bones of dozens of crundles inside.
By the time I had examined some of the engravings, the parties came back, reporting that the entire place was a giant bedchamber. The beds were in various states of repair, apparently. Some were dusty, some were burned, and some were broken. Some even had dwarves inside. One of the macemen reported that he found an intact bed with an emaciated corpse of a child inside. It must have died of hunger after the fort had fallen…
At that point, one of the swordsmen asked about his friend, who had gone off to explore one of the corridors with another human. Not oblivious to the danger, I sent another two to look around, and had the rest keep them in eyesight. Terrified, the humans complied. When they got to the last corridor, they froze.
I called out to them “What’s wrong?” and they did not respond. Terror was even creeping up in me. I motioned for some of the others to go grab them, which they did, though obviously reluctant. A cold sweat broke out on my forehead and my beard began to itch, a sure sign of danger. The other humans having brought back the two, shaking patrolmen, we retreated up to the workshop level, just in time to see and feel a great conflagration suddenly erupt on the bedroom level.
The humans screamed in horror and ran for the light of the stairwell to the surface, their pouches of plundered jewels slipping from their belts and bursting open on the packed dirt floor. I started right after them, but was frozen in my tracks by a sound. A roar perhaps. One that I never want to hear again in the rest of my life. Never in my 672 years have I heard such a thing. It must have been nearly subsonic, because I felt an intense throbbing in my ears and a powerful, but low sound. Enchanted by the sound, I was rooted.
The humans had already reached the stairs, and one of them turned around and shouted at me. Awakening from my reverie, I pulled up my belt, tucked in my beard, and ran as fast as I my dwarf legs could carry me. I ran with tears of terror streaming from my eyes. And as I reached the stairs, I turned around and saw two flaming humanoids some four Urists tall emerge from the stairs and roar in my direction. These roars were followed by a wall of blue flame which lit the entire chamber, showing a floor littered with massive beaks, piles of ooze, and the eternal screams of the horrific dead.
I cleared the stairs in an instant, and not an instant too soon, as the blue flames nearly burned my feet off. Choking in the heat, with my feet singed, I nevertheless found myself running toward the depot behind some of the other humans, running through the pain. I have no idea what became of the other humans, but I can only imagine that in their terror, they fled to other parts of the fortress and not to the exit. As I fled across the gold bridge, I stopped and looked back. There was no sign of the monsters.
At that moment, the bridge retracted toward the fort, leaving only a dozen-Urist drop into the river. I noticed levers somewhere, but as to why the humans would have pulled them, well, who knows… Dwarves too, are known, in the throes of insanity, to run around babbling mindlessly, pulling levers, and jumping off cliffs. The three remaining humans had run ahead, long since having lost their weapons. Now as I sit in our empty camp, I doubt that I will see them again. It means that the journey home will be hazardous and lonely.
Now, however, sleep is coming. I’ve put out the fire and hidden myself in a crevice and blocked it with a stone I found. I should be safe. Tomorrow I will write my analysis about Timnarmuthkat.
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Well, no pictures, but more artistic freedom.