Dreampage – Chains of Power
A “Dwarf Fortress” Inspiration
Forewords…
This is a short story I wrote as an account of a lowly dwarf migrant into Dreampage, perhaps my most successful fort to date. Some strange coincidences occurred to me as I tended to the quickly surging population, possibly due to the amount of precious metals we dug and how quickly I was able to amass wealth over the region of our Mountainhome. I found myself more interested in attempting to subdue creatures in ways I felt would be entertaining, or that I rationalized in the minds of the denizens as “tributes” to the blood god.
Where my inspiration occurred, the last day I played Dwarf Fortress, was in the deep pit I discovered while exploring the first cavern level down. I sent one lowly dwarf, nicknamed “Deep Kikrost” (sort of a class-sort nomenclature Dreampage adopted, for my own managerial benefit), was set to dig a staircase straight down to the bottom of the deep pit. What he found was a dead blueberry bush, a dead birch sapling, and a dead chestnut tree. None of those things should be found underground. And what was stranger was the plumage of blood red leaves just billowing off the branches to the ground. Nearby I spotted a freshly-dead troglodyte, not unlike the one which had just been cast into the canyon to a pad on the river set with silver spears, upon which it broke to pieces and painted the stone red, as well as the river. Suddenly, my mind began drawing parallels between the desires of wealth and violence, and what came up was that which follows: a tale of one dwarf who witnessed wealth beyond measure, and the shadows of madness which surrounded it.Timber, 8th Year of His Reign I was awakened, jarredly, by the brunt of a boot, from a slumber amid the dank aroma of stilled delights in the wine store. Rather than the usual scowl of being caught sleeping behind the barrels (by which I oft take delight), I was greeted by speardwarf Tosid, who stood over me with a toothy grin. “Outta the barrels, Kik,” he said. “Come to the tavern! Bomrek’s returned from the outpost!”
“Aye, sure he has,” I says to him. “He brought us more chalky cups and stone trinkets, I’ll wager. Who’n the hell cares? Leave me be!” I rolled to me side and drank deep of the thick musk of fermented blueberry. Such an enchanting scent, I nearly faded back into my dark delusions. But then another boot struck me. “Agh! Gods! What, by the Twelve?!” I turned to him, seeing those gleaming eyes, wide and glazed with the lust and wonder only drawn by that one, striking, shaking quarry.
“
Gold. Gold!!”
Me own heart jumped, and I leapt to me feet. I jerked up me trousers and drew them overtaut, and without words I followed him to the tavern. We didn’t walk into the usual chatter, but rather an almost angry protest of an uproar. Bomrek stood center of the drinking hall over a table of shining objects of various hues. His trusted swords stood at his shoulders, ushering back the overeager. We shuffled our way into the crowd, and the hammerdwarf Tirist shouted, “Shut yer bleeding yaps, ya shites!” All ears heeded, and all mouths came to silence.
Bomrek availed the silence, “Feast your hearts’ longing upon the metals of our beloved king’s triumph. A mountain of gold, littered with silver, copper, and shining stones!” He held up a goblet of gold, encircled with bands of copper, encrusted with tiny spessartines. Several dozens of the like lay upon the table amid the various treasures forged by the labors of the outpost. Gasps, murmurs, and exasperations caressed his monologue. “Much more pours forth from Dreampage, and shall surely enrich the whole of the valley.” To the wanton hands he passed around the shimmering amulets, ornaments, figurines, and an absurd abundance of goblets, all splayed with jewels. The ramblings of amaze and rapture rippled about the drinking hall as the glimmer of precious metals reflected about their beards and eyes. “Hark!” he shouts, demanding all attentions. From a side-pouch he produced, perhaps the greatest of frivolous creations ever I’d seen with me two baubles, a tiny hammer of smoothed rock. Diorite, I’d guess.
“
This,” shouted the merchant, quelling the rabble to quiet, “is Drownedtorrid.” Aloft over his head, the tiny hammer drew all eyes. “The Competition of Distinction, they call it, there.” Such a tiny, elaborate thing, it was. Beautiful to gaze upon, it was. An innocent toy, meant to swing in play without the shadow of repose, yet menacing with spikes of silver, thirsty for the taste of blood. “A tribute to our good king, Dakost!”
“And just what the hells is he s’posed to bash with that,” a callous voice interjected. “Has our good king got a few rats in his cabinets?” The heckle was met with laughter.
“Aye,” answered the broker, “laugh, you, as you will. But let me ask you something! Who’d tinker up a trifle and play upon it with the metals of wealth, I ask you? Only the smelty who’s crucible cannot contain what pours from the sundered levee! More gold and silver and copper than what fathoms in the secretest whims of the fey smithy!”
The laughs died to excited murmurs again, and awestruck, we passed around the goblets to observe the uniqueness endowed upon each one. Again and again, we swapped them to see their individual grandeurs, and then again to drink from them, as soon enough the barrels were opened for celebration.
Me thoughts race on this night. Same for all’s, to be sure.
Dreampage, they calls it. Alas, the winter will soon entomb us to Vaultcity, but as the spring will spring, so, too, shall I, forth from this cold, gray mountain to find me own fortune in the hills of gold.
Granite, 9th Year of His Reign Among the cleverest, ever have I regarded meself. Alas, ours were the first beyond the river Bristlewage as we left Vaultcity in the past horizon. I confess to having fewer possession than what would fit in me pockets, and with all the sneaking ewechops over the wet winter of 8, me mates and I were feeling quite sturdier than the hoity toits in the silk rags who nibble on the berries and cold caps and horde all the finer ferments to themselves. More than hungry we were, but only for the riches what surely awaited.
A woodpile under a stone patio, way up on the hillside, that’s what we saw. A meager stack of logs, and an unusually wide canopy of rocks. “Not much to gawk at, is it?” says I. A few grumbles made retort, then we pressed on under the rain cloud what held its water no longer. How I
despise the rain.
Settling in, at last, our appetite for bedazzlement was fed by shining, golden statues erected in the Robust Berries, a beautiful drinking hall. Never had I seen such elaborate detail forged into the faces of heroes and beasts, or chiseled therein of the stone walls. Singing, plucking strings, striking drums, stomping feet, all the ruckus and ringing of mirth shook the barrels below the copper grates at our feet, stirring the decadent contents and arousing a burning fragrance about the tavern. The goblets filled and emptied, shimmering like yellow and white mirrors, and the lights of gemstones danced in time with the dancers about the walls. For a day, a night, and a day thereafter, me mates and I rejoiced, well met with new faces. When me legs could stand the dance no longer, I took a humble chair beneath a deftly-carved rendition of a bowl of cranberries.
Such a bewilderment, how the utmost mastery of a craft can be so vainly applied to even the mundanest of subjects, and still cast upon me the spell of wonder. Surveying the room in search of more for me eyes and heart to devour, I stopped upon an unfamiliar figure cast from solid gold, adorned not with jewelry or trinketry, and lacking any scrawl of titles or deeds. His eyes were sad and tired, but his face spoke of the stoic regard of a dwarf forlorn of hope. He carried both a hammer and a crossbow.
Who is this poor hunter? What has he seen? As if he heard me thoughts as I dwelt upon that golden exhibition of desolation, “Smithy, we called him,” the gruff and grizzled beard told me. I turned to see a pale-faced old dwarf, whose beard was black as moist coal. “and his is a tale of tragedy. Mine, his, and all of those who dwelt within the halls of Diamondfords.”
That was a name I’d heard only in rumor, and naturally, I craved the knowledge which then before me seemed prepared to lay itself bare in drunken sorrow. Confessionally, perhaps, seeking for an ear who might forgive some dishonorable decision. “You were there, at Diamondfords?”
“Aye, me and Zikod Thrushhollows.” Zikod, I had heard, was the only survivor from Diamondfords. “And Smithy, here, of course.” He proceeded to tell me his story. He was a celebrated miner who first discovered the caverns deep underneath the slate layers, in a world of basalt and moss. His miner mates followed him henceforth, and together they struck massive veins of limonite. Smithy was a hunter and a blacksmith, and the storyteller’s closest mate. Straightaway was Smithy taken from the forest and stuffed in a forge, a move which made him bitter, for Smithy loved the shadows under the trees moreso that those below stairs and stones. An odd dwarf, they thought him, but he was loyal and untiring. The forge made him strong and lonely, and he missed the thrill of killing. The storyteller choked up a bit when recounting that last, fateful hour. Scouting the tunnels, he awakened a sleeping giant, a cave spider. It chased him back to the mine shaft, biting off the limbs of his mates and stringing them up with slimy webbing. He could only just leave them behind. He ran to the workshop floor above, leading Toneddream, the Past Delight (a name which he dared utter hushedly) into their halls. A gangly talon pierced his shoulder, then snared his foot and severed some toes before he could slam the stone door in its foul face. Bursting through the door of the passage to the chamber halls, the webs blasted him against the opposite door, and he hung there, bleeding, awaiting his terrible fate as it squeezed its massive body into the passage, ravenous for warm, salty flesh.
The door upon which he hung flung open wide, smacking his nose against the block wall before slowly closing. Smithy, our only dwarf with any inkling of martial prowess, stood before him, facing the beast with only a crossbow. He drew one steel bolt from his pocket and levered back the string. Toneddream loosed a shriek of horrid wrath, and Smithy loosed his one bolt, striking into the hairy skull of it. The shriek stopped, and the passage was quiet. Smithy dragged the storyteller through the hall, draped and inundated with blood and webs. He tended to the storyteller’s wounds as best he could, but conceded to his incompetence to stop the bleeding. Defeated by fear and tragedy, he gathered up a backpack of supplies and departed Diamondfords, leaving it to ruin. All who had lived in Diamondfords had risen to fight the spider, and all had fallen, save the three, cowards in their own right: the coward who fled at the first cry of danger, the coward who fled the danger and was stricken down, and the coward who lacked the guts to pick up the pieces and carry on. The latterest vanished, and his last words to the storyteller were mutterings of madness: stomped declarations of achieving vengeance and turning against his masters, promises to slay those who would question his resolve as a conqueror. ‘Overlord!’ he asserted himself, ‘The true master of Diamondfords, and all you weakly pukes! We, by Thun the Renowned Call, you and I, Liruk the miner, we are the Grizzly Sacks who- who- press on! Northward we embark! Blood we seek!’ The storyteller’s words ended with the shouts of the words of Smithy, drowned by singsonging what decayed to loud stammering and rambling. Waited I did, for the conclusion of his tale.
“So where did you- how did-” I turned to him, but he sat there no more. Perhaps shaken with guilt, he had fled from me, having confessed his mortal sins. Shameful, he was, and a pity, it was.
“Kikrost Letterfortunes!”
“Aye, that’s what me pa says.” I looked over me other shoulder. Then stood before me the shabbiest, most stately-like dirt mop of a dwarf ever I’d beheld. Mud-caked was his beard, well-brushed and crumbly were the silver-inlaid braids. Fiery, red shag-headed and green, googly-eyed he was. Never had I seen such a rich variety of dyes of silk on one dwarf, at least none so soiled with muck of at least as many hues. He had a stack of parchments in his grasp, and some dry-smeared spectacles upon his nose. Already on the docket, me and me mates were, I suppose.
“Follow.” He turned, and I stood to follow. “I am Mr. Stitches, but our folks here call me ‘The Boss’. It is my duty to see you placed fittingly into our concerted efforts for prosperity. What’s your profession?” asked he, while I followed.
Clever I may be, and a good gaggle of crafts had I journeyed, but none so much to say it was me profession. “Carpenter.” says I, falsely, but oh, how I love to mend the boards and bend the strips to barrels.
“Ah, excellent. So tools of the wood are among your possessions, I am sure?”
“Erm- no…” think quickly, I did, for not so many are there as clever as I. “The tales of the hill suggest that tools crafted within besmudge the caliber of those made in the Mountainhome, blessed by the Twelve. I left me meager hammers and saws behind. They’d only bring the old ways with them, I figured.”
He stopped and turned to give me a curt gaze. Those googly-eyes could see through me ruse, perhaps. He laughed a low, insincere laugh. “Hammers and saws…” He turned back to the path and we continued. “Yes, we shall provide you with tools of the highest esteem, and think, you, nothing of it.”
“Aye!” says I, to him. I think, perhaps, I’s beginning to like the muddy fellow.
He led me first to the noble’s hall, beyond two great, copper doors.
By Reg, me thoughts rejoiced,
by Etur, by Utost the Parched-Wealth Walk! A great hall with a deep cistern, the water fell from the ceiling therein and the mist kissed me face with cool respite. Me eyes began to dazzle at the statues, rose-gold and black bronze, of heroes sung and unsung, beasts from before the world, and godly faces revealed in reverent countenances. Some nobles mingled about in silks of purple and blue, wearing crowns like trifled ornaments of silver and gold. Each one greeted me with politeness of nods and names, and I returned me own name, childlike and ere speechless. Nevermind that a few of them were muddy-bearded as Stitches, for reasons I needed not.
“The basin, there,” pointed Stitches, “is off-limits, unless otherwise commanded. It needs a good cleaning thrice a year, or so. But that won’t be your job, my dear Kikrost. Fear not, however, for this chamber is not disbarring you, for you, too, shall we see in this floor from time to time, I am sure.”
Me, mingling with the nobles? Me smile persisted, and I drank in the visage of the large metallic doors of every noble’s own chamber.
The tales are true! Everyone is wealthy! Utost’s visions have been realized! Mr. Stitches led me down the stairs, through a mine of tetrahedrite, past the great water wheel, turning above the canyon channel what split the hill in two. It fed the screw pumps in the dugout, feeding the waters of the noble floor, I am sure. He led me through the halls wherein great piles of bars of gold, silver, rose-gold, bronze, black-bronze, copper, and even
steel were stacked about the place.
The floor below was betwixt two training barracks and a scarce-seen hospital. As we passed down the stairs I saw the three heaviest, steel-clad bruisers of dwarves on this sacred earth, cursing and laughing among themselves. They carried maces of steel and silver, and donned armors of the like. I offered them a smile and a nod, as I’d seen of the nobles, but their condescension lacked any discretion as they regarded me comparatively meek stature. Disregarded it, I did.
Stitches brought me to a stair and said, “Below you shall find the common quarters. Your name shall be marked upon a plate, set upon your door. Your tools shall be inside your cabinet, and you shall report to the work floor surrounding the Robust Berries. I bid you farewell, for now.”
I found me room at the end of the last hall, just as the smoothed floor yielded and the hall became dirt. Me door did, indeed, have a copper plate nailed upon it with an engraving of, ‘Deep Kikrost’.
Deep? With a brief reconnaissance I saw that every name upon every plate of every door was dubbed ‘Deep Udib’, or ‘Deep Mikrist’, or the like. I didn’t perceive it to be some sort of mockery, but rather a way to, perhaps, separate the new stock from the ones who built the place. In either case, such a bestowment sat sour on me stomach. But what sank me cloud back to the earth, that night, were the contents of me finely-masoned cabinetry.
What’s this? A scrub brush? A mop? A fucking bucket? Tools of the wood, indeed!Galena, 9th Year of His Reign A master cleaner, I am. Someone spills the lye in the garden, I spring to me feet and mop it up. A macedwarf has a bit too much of the millet beer, I scrub the chunks from every crack. Mr. Stitches has even gifted me a fine set of silk clothes and boar leather shoes. I haven’t gone hungry, and not a day have I suffered sobriety. Perhaps the deep denizens of Dreampage, though not highly regarded by the nobility, shall find our humble fortune within these peaceful halls. Eleventy-one of us there are, under the hill, and forty of us in the deep chambers proudly touting that unfortunate name. I wouldn’t call it unhappiness, or discontent. Perhaps the new drinking hall, the Stirred Peach, has sated our desire for our own fulfillment, at least to some pertinent degree.
A whisper I heard, passed around with the cups of the Peach, was about our good king, Dakost Ultrapages. Our illustrious hill was foreseen by our king in a dream, visions of gold erupting from a mountaintop as the angered volcano awakens. The very night he caught tale of the loss of Diamondfords, he fevered in shame and guilt, having sent a handful of his closest mates to the promising outpost on the sunrise side of the mountains. He awoke from his burning slumber and summoned the scribe, and laid out in details great and small the nature of the hill. On the following morning arrived the scouts from their southern expedition. Before the king, his wife, the children, the scribe, the commanders, and all the nobles of Vaultcity, they described a hill what flaked native gold and tetrahedrite with every strike, and a flowing river within a canyon teeming with delicious fish and turtles. “As if a page had been ripped forth and displayed from Your very own dreams, Your Grace.” said the scribe. And thus, Dreampage got its name and our good king’s heart’s affections.
In the last month of spring, Deep Gershum lost his wits. He walked the halls with his bucket, talking on and on about his designs for a silver axe and spikes of steel. Cliffsplinters, he called it, even before its manifestation. “But Gershum,” I says to him, “the steels are forbidden to denizens in the deep chambers.”
“
Bah!” says he to me, before running away, forsaking his bucket and mop. Disregarded it, I did, assuming he’d come to his sense of duty. It saddens me, how wrong I was. Poor Gershum never persuaded the noble hammers to spare him a bar of steel, and he spent his last days running amok, chasing the ghosts of his wits. “
A superior battleaxe it be! Finer than the shimmer on the reeds as the sun cast its glow upon the dew! Stronger than the waters themselves, what carve the mountains in twain!” The rambles were heartfelt, his passion was true. I call it a waste of ambition, perhaps the greatest weapon to be forged within the hill, lost before the first fall of the hammer what was to forge it. Eventually he quit his babbling and took refuge among the stockpiles of chalk stones below the deep chambers. His dried up corpse was discovered when we followed the putrid stench of his rot, clenching a forging hammer and sitting atop a bar of copper.
In the early summer, I got me first chance to mingle with the nobles, albeit a shameful affair by which I was admitted therein. As I scrubbed up a dribbling of muck from the temple floor to the mushroom gardens, shocked I was when Gimbol, the macelord, barged into the garden from outside the hill, speckled in blood and smudged with dirt, laughing, cursing, and carrying on about his latest feat. Ironpunch, the commander of all soldiers, helped carry him along. Gimbol’s left boot was gone, and three toes upon his foot were bent back and bleeding across the floor. Mr. Stitches followed after, then looked at me and said, “Follow the commander, whence he goes, quickly!” I gave him an odd look, and pointed to poor Gimbol’s foot. “The commander suffers an aversion to the sunlight, now go!” Stitches took Gimbol by the shoulder and carried him downstairs, and me mates fell in behind scrubbing up the trail what bled upon the stone.
“Come, now, Scrubby,” commanded the thunderous Ironpunch, right before vomiting on the floor before me, “get that up, and follow along. I’ll tell you the tale of how Gimbol the Giant Slayer lost his left, big toe!” While I followed him up the stairs, he did tell me what he saw upon the hilltop, interjecting his recount with spurts of puke and heaves. A scout had spotted a wandering giant, tall as the trees, lumbering his way to our hill. The crushing squad, Ironpunch’s bunch, were dispatched to avert the unwanted visitor. Gimbol, famished for battle, ran ahead and headed off the giant as he topped the hill. The giant took a blow to his own foot, but snatched up Gimbol by his left boot and held him upside down, babbling giant gibberish and snarling and the like. With a fell swing of his mace, Gimbol struck the giant across his bulging left eye, but was hastily flung away a dozen yards or more. Mangled foot and all, Gimbol rose quickly and charged the giant what lurched in a daze, doubled over. Again, the mace came down on the giant’s hind-skull, forcing him to a face-full of moist earth. Again, the mace came down on the giant’s hind skull, this time splitting it asunder. Again, the mace came down on the giant’s skull cavity, mashing the quivering innards and erupting in a bloody, gory mess atop the hill.
The cool mist of the noble hall washed over us as we entered. Ironpunch’s burst of bile had lessened, only twice he stopped to wretch. The second time seemed to pain him so, so I placed me hand upon his back as he strained a deep heave. I offered him me only silk cloth for to tend to his whiskers, and he accepted, standing upright and eyeing whilst he did so. “We’re from different cuts of the stones, you and I,” said he. “But neither, I say, be any more good nor bad.”
“What mean you, Lord?” I asked him.
“Some of our kind are fond of the treasures what shine in precious hues, born of the fires and presses of the mountains. Some are far fonder of the crimson what flows from the wounds our treasures inflict. Both fancies are a thirst for power, but each quench the parchedness of their own, true desires.” We stood before his own chamber, and I pondered these words, and still I do. A golden door, north and center of the hall, swung open violently. “That’s Mr. Mayor. I leave you my thanks for your kindness.” Straightaway, Ironpunch retired to his chamber, closing the door behind him.
“Slabs, Stitches,” shouted the old dwarf, “Slabs!
And chains!” His clothes were deep red, rung with golden bands. His boots were shining black, like polished coals. His beard was long, braided, snowy white, and caked with gray mud from tip to top.
Mr. Stitches abandoned his discourse with his noble mates and ran over to Mr. Mayor. “Yes, my lord! How many shall I order from the crafters?”
“Make them! The realm demands it!” Mr. Mayor’s voice was trilly and trumpet-like. Unsure, I was, if his voice rang of elation or despair.
“What shall be done with them, my lord?”
“Not for sale! Store them in the entry hall for the newcomers to see!”
“But… why-”
“Slabs for the dead!
And chains of silver for the living!”
Mr. Stitches hurried past me, straight for the stairwell. Unusual, it is, to pass up the chance to cut me a hot glare, but this time his face was fraught with confused terror. Never had I seen him so shaken. Mr. Mayor belted out some jittery laughs, then muttered away while retreating into his chamber. The noble hall was quiet, as the scholars, too had retreated to the library hall, west of the falls. Me ears perked up, hearing hushed giggles from within the great cistern, hidden by the mist. Hardly, but surely, I saw two nobles, perhaps a husband and wife, embraced behind the falls from me, soaking in the splashing of mist upon the copper grates. They did not notice my staring, and feeling alone, they began to dance.
These are strange times, and stranger are the dwarves of Dreampage.Limestone, 9th Year of His Reign The humans came, of course, over the summer. Greedy and arrogant swindlers, they are. Their boozes are quite numerous in variety, but none so potent as the spirits evoked by our own brewers. Ten to one trades of libatious barrels, and Talky the Broker calls it robbing them. I say its a shame we pass on what fine drink we brew ourselves in a pass of quality for quantity. Perhaps those brewers in the work floor, masterful as they are, are just lazy, and buddying up to the nobles gives them a pass.
And cruel! The damnable men cannot control their violence at even the slightest glimpse of unknown fears. As the merchants packed away their undeserved exchanges, their crooked smiles beneath their meager whiskers turned to scowls and shouts of murder as Melbist the trainer led a lowly cave-dweller past the depot. Unsure, I am, as to where they were leading the poor beast-man, but a cruel fate such as what befell it, I am sure, it did not deserve. Bronze whips brandished from three of the lanky brutes of men, and crying for its blood, they whipped the wretch to shreds, speckling its blood across the berries and cabbages of the patch. Melbist pleaded with them to halt, but the ignoramuses struck until its lungs let loose its final breath, and its bowels let loose its final meal. A bad day to be a scrubby, it was.
“Damnable men,” one of the gardeners cursed, “not an inkling of restraint.”
Talky shook his head and said, “Lucky we be if they show up next year.”
I disagreed to meself, and hopped to me knees and began me duties. Stitches arrived to survey the remnants of the spectacle for himself. He approached Melbist and chastised him, saying, “Next time, walk up the hill! Don’t bring that filth into our halls! Begone! Tend your hogs!” Melbist lowered his head and walked away. Stitches stared at the lifeless, bleeding troglodyte, mumbling to himself.
“Want me to haul it away, Boss?” asked I.
“No, dear Kikrost. It was an offering to Armok. Let the blood stay for all to see.”
Something dark rang from his words. Firstly, Armok is no god ever I’d heard tale of. Secondly, but not lesserly, no one, at least of me deep mates, favored the sight of spilled blood. Perhaps a way to harden our hearts, it was. A means to soften the shock of the sight of death. A need to know, I felt, what was atop the hill what needed the blood of a beast-man.
I finished me duty and caught meself some downtime for to fill me goblet. Rather than tarry in the Stirred Peach, I took a stroll in the rain while all the rest stayed under the hill. Atop the hill I found a stone-block pad overhanging the canyon. Walking upon the stone to overlook the waters below, me eyes were drawn to a block pad set upon the water, with a bunch of silver spikes rising from its center. The mist from the falls and the water of the channel splashed upon the stone and silver.
What could this be but a spike for the unfortunate beast-man? Or for bloody tributes henceforth? A grizzly thought, it was, but no other explanation could I fathom.
A day came where the work floor dwarves were all quiet. Wooly the Weaver, and Soapy the Lye-maker had been found after a spell of missing. Married, they were. Both were found dangling naked from the falls above the channel, pale and bloated, having drowned below the basin of the noble hall. Me thoughts returned to the dancers in the basin that day the mayor issued a decree for slabs and chains. Saw, he, something before it came to pass, perhaps?
The following days were eerie for all within Dreampage. Songs what Wooly sang echoed in empty passages. Some dwarves abandoned their shops, claiming to have spied an incorporeal Wooly laughing in their faces as they bound cloth and leather together for garments. It is said that none live, now, who could match the master weaving of Wooly the Weaver.
“
Pricedscours!” The dwarves called out the name of Wooly’s last, great creation. “
Find the sock!” The common cry brought all production of garments and threads to a halt, as the living mates of Wooly turned table, chair, chest, and stone in search of the lost artifact. Fate, it may be, that I happened to be cleaning the fear-induced vomit from the silk bins whence the prized sock had washed up. No doubt, had I, once spotting it and lifting it up to admire. It was a brawny, single sock, with no mate. Clad of and threaded by pigtail fiber, all craftsdwarfship was of the highest quality. It menaced with spikes of frog leather. On it was threaded an image of dwarves, and the dwarves were singing.
“I have it!” shouted I, and a few dwarves scrambled in after it. “Careful, now!”
“We must take it,” said Tosid, the apprentice of Wooly, “it belongs with him.” Delicately, Tosid took the sock in his palms. He had brought with him a mass of tearful mates, and with him they followed him to the crypts. Neglecting me duty, briefly, I followed them into the hall to see them depart.
“Told them, I have!
You saw! You heard!” I turned in the direction of that familiar, trilly, trumpety voice. Mr. Mayor stood pointing in our direction. “Slabs for the dead! For blood they demand, and blood shall they return by the favor! Leave them, now, to their chains, scrubby! Even more chains are wrought by the day!” He turned to the stairwell and ascended, laughing and muttering.
Opal, 10th Year of His Reign The dwarven caravan came and went. Wooly’s beautiful sock had been lain with him to calm his restless spirit. Winter has arrived with the fullness of its cold, unyielding wrath. Rain and snow are unending outside, but it is no longer a matter. The miners found a cavern, deep below the hill, wherein groves of tall mushrooms grow, so no more did they have need to face the elements what fall from the sky. The boss gave us deep dwarves a new order. Pick up stones, cut them into slabs, pave the cavern road to the
great pit.
Inquiring as to the nature of the
great pit, I learned from the miners that a dark, ‘bottomless’ pit had been discovered. The mayor demands we build a road to it. Something to do with sending the blood deep into the roots of the earth, I had heard whispered. Our labors were halted by the thumps and grumbles of an underworld denizen. A massive, blind cave ogre, it was! Fearsome and roaring, as I would be had a mob of stompers shaken me own home and bed. Ran to the stairs, we did, stepping aside as Ironpunch, Gimbol, Goden, and the other macedwarves arrived. I stood in the stairwell of the deep chamber, a place in the cavern built and locked up for protection, and listened to them, curious enough to take me chances.
“Our trappers have been busy, crushers,” spoke Ironpunch, “Beyond this door dangles a leaden cage above. One of you must go out and make a ruckus to draw it toward this chamber.”
Gimbol stepped forward.
“Not you, you giant-slaying bastard. You’ve seen your glory for a day, let one of this lot rise.”
Gimbol grunted and backed away, then smiled at the others. Goden, Gimbol’s younger, but fatter, brother stepped forward. Gimbol’s smiled left his face.
“Don’t grief him, Gimbol. Your brother’s as strong as you, if not stronger.”
“Aye,” said Gimbol, “No one can break off a turkey’s leg as fiercely as he.” Everyone laughed at that, meself included. Forgot to be quiet I did, but only Ironpunch passed glance to me, and he said nothing, blessed by the Twelve. “Go on, then, you runt!” Gimbol slapped a gauntlet upon Goden’s plate with a
clank.
Goden beamed and pulled his spiked, silver helmet over his head. We watched from the fortifications carved through the chamber walls, even I as I crept in behind a column to see. At quiet a distance away, I could hardly see them, but I saw them. The ogre stood at the bottom of a short cliff, sniffing and listening. Its head, rising just above the elevated stone of the ground upon which Goden trod, turned at the sound of Goden’s fat stomping.
“He hears you,” called Ironpunch, “He knows where you are! Bring him this way!”
Uncertain, it is, whether Goden was stricken with panic, or if his eyes went full red, but rather than backing away and waiting, he charged full on. His silver boot drew back, he skipped forward on his other foot, and he thrust, with all the ferocity of a great avalanche what falls from the sheer drop of the sundered mountain, his mighty boot into the head of that blind ogre. A crack like the striking bolt of thunder echoed from every tunnel about the cavern, and down went the ogre. Goden leapt from the cliff, and I heard the echo of crunch what happened beyond me sight.
Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch, on and on it went as the macedwarves ran forth to rescue their mate. I ran up the stairs, for surely they were coming this way soon after.
The door to the stairwell opened and Gimbol led his brother Goden in. Gimbol was grinning and calling him
Little Ogre, beating his chest. Goden was beating his chest, covered with blood-spray and gore. Jiggling, red bits clung to his mace. All the rest but Ironpunch followed them to through the wood shop. Ironpunch stopped and looked at me, despondent, and perhaps, dejected.
“You’ve got some iron in you, scrubby,” Ironpunch said to me, “Ought I to have you punished for standing in the midst of danger?”
“As you must, my lord.” Not about to question his judgement, was I.
“Bah, no reason for it I suppose.” He stood, seemingly unsure of whence he should go.
“What happened? Did anyone get hurt?”
“Oh gods no, Goden minced his head into pulp. By Thun, that creature stood no match. A waste, it is, that it had to perish. A lot of value in keeping a deep beast in chains, nowadays. Ogres eat the likes of goblins, and gremlins, and such. My crushers are stronger than ogres and giants, but they lack restraint, and ignore reason. They wear the blood of their foes like the raiment of saints.”
“I’ll clean the stairs.”
“Aye, do that. And be proud, scrubby. Wash the blood from our halls so we might be lessened in savagery.” He left, following after the rest of the macelords.
That night, I felt it placed upon me heart to pray to Agoth, the Baker of Flinging. I needed to give thanks for me bed, me warm home, and clear me head of all the blood, vomit, and shit. In the temple hall below the barracks, twelve golden doors there are, and all but one get used, and one gets used for reasons I don’t understand. Agoth’s was the center of five on the left, so I entered and knelt before the tiny, golden figurine. A fine rendition it was, she held a horn of ale in one hand, and a loaf of bread in the other, both outstretched to the sky, and her face was bright and smiling. Melbist was there, praying as well, so we embraced and voiced our fears and woes together, and sang a song of the night, the sky, the wind, and a warm hearth. Leaving together, we stopped to allow passage of some of the nobles, including Mr. Stitches, who glanced at me briefly as he passed. Their faces were caked in still-wet mud, and it clung chunkily to their beards.
“Mel,” asked I once the nobles had ascended the stairs, “why do nobles soil themselves with muck?”
“They are followers of Eb,” he says, “and many of the work floor dwarves are as well.”
Followers of Snotphlegms, wollowers of the muck. Like overfed hogs in a mansion of a sty. “Why, of all the Twelve but the Depraved One, do they worship Eb?”
“It keeps them humble. They have all the wealth they’d ever need acquire, and manage a city in want for nothing. Not food, not drink, not wealth, nor trinketry. They tarnish themselves with the refuse of the earth to remind themselves that they are subjects to its generosity.”
More for me to ponder, I suppose. To this day I try to understand these words. Wise Melbist seems to have them figured out, but I cannot fathom staining me own luxuries with mud, muck, and phlegm. “Crazy, those nobles! Not at all surprising, I say. Even the mayor seems off.”
Fate, it may be, that I uttered these unkind words as Mr. Mayor himself pressed past from behind, staring me down through a mask of mud what covered his beard. He said nothing as he walked, and simply returned to the stairs.
“He’s gonna engrave me a slab, or put me in chains.”
Melbist laughed at me, “Indeed, poor Kikrost, you are fucked, now, mate!”
Continued...
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Topic: Dreampage (Read 1153 times)