(Hah, thought I wasn't going to reclaim, did you?)
The story didn't end there.
The merchant's families became worried at the end of the month, and very worried by the end of Slate. They filed missing persons reports, and the mountainhomes started investigating on the 12th. After a year, The small army has finally found their quarry, but not without resistance...
Log of Vylka Metobmegid, 28th Granite
Well, sorry I haven't reported in a while, Diary. This whole fiasco has kept me a tad busy. We were sent to look for some lost merchants, expecting to find them screwing around in the wood, or captured and eaten by those treacharous elves. We returned only with dead bodies wolf bites, and confused elves who'd never heard of the merchants. We then tried the desert, thinking the dwarves couldv'e been ambused by goblins, only to have more dwarves killed and a bunch of supplies lost due to getting rash and wandering too close to a gobbo fort. With low spirits and numbers, we desperately asked around what possible other location the merchants would be in. One human merchant directed us to the sinister badlands to the north. We really had no other ideas. The badlands claimed more lives, and we were about ready to abandon the search when we spotted a shape off in the distance. upon closer inspection, it was a broken wagon, with the dusty and tattered banners of the mountainhome, barrels falling out the side of the decrepit thing. Unfortunately, as soon as we got close enough to the wagon to reclaim the goods in it, Skeleatal fish sprung out of the rivir, killing what was left of out poor pets and another few dwarves-not to mention breaking the wheels of our own wagon, tipping it over and rendering it immobile. We suspect this is the same thin that happened to the merchants. We would've assumed that the merchants had died then and there, but another dwarf spotted a hole in the ground in the distance. I explored the hole myself. There was a skeleton of a dwarf beard and clothing still clinging to it, many of the bones broken, and one of the arms detached from the resto of the skeleton completely. By the corpse, on the wall, there was horrible writing in blood, most of it rubbed away by time, wind, and signs of struggle but still barely legible.
Ru...ay...
...is pla....curse...
...e...rie...cut ti...e...
W...e... Mis...ken...
Learn fr...m...ake...
...et awa...fr...ere...
...ever...com...ack...
From this we assume they tried to cut across the badlands to save time or something. We found a faded papyrus note with more warnings.
To say the least, all of this talk of curses and death certainly hasn't been good on our already failing morale.
Two of us have subbcumbed to despair, sulking around the cave entrance, waiting for death to take them. Another has gone mad, yelling warnings, singing disturbing songs in haunting tones all the while ripping off this armor and clothing. Several others have started bursting out into tears and violence, killing and injuring more people, not to mention just hurting morale more.
I don't see much hope, but I've decided to hold out. I've found etchings of a plan in the basement, where the vestiges of bedrooms were, and there were plans of a watery deathtrap and plans of a gigantic tomb area-a necropolis. Setting my hobby to good use, I started working loose stone into mechanisms so I can create a retracting bridge to seal the small fort. We'll survive this disaster yet.
I christen this place Flamewastes. We shall survive!
( Also, I'm not going to post certain dwarves right now because most of them are spiraling into madness or are injured. After everything cools down and the dwarves are back to a relative level of sanity, I'll post specific dwarves.
For now, we have Marksdwarves, Axedwarves, Swordsdwarves and Hammerdwarves. Request a military skill and a gender along with a name, And I'll try to find a non-insane/tantruming dwarf like that. )
Author
Topic: Keshanlidod - Braving the Badlands (Read 2189 times)