In the Autumn of 803, Zazit Standardshoots was set upon by a Goblin ambush . The initial wave of ambushers had been torn asunder by the exceptional traps laid out by Legendary Mechanic Rith Pagecall at the Fortress Gate of Gearcleaned, and unaware that more were approaching, she set about to remove a corpse of a fallen goblin that had wedged itself in the enormous steel corkscrew trap’s mechanism.
The group of Goblin Spearmen were lead by a Goblin Pikeman, they charged at the dodging Zazit who was blessed with a great agility from her tireless record keeping, mining, stone crafting, and trading, and perhaps a little bit of divine intervention from the deity Dakost the Work of Trades, of whom she was a faithful worshipper.
Only one of the mere six solders that served the fort was nearby in the barracks, impatiently waiting for a sparring partner. She heard Zazit cry out in alarm, and made haste with her steel warhammer at the ready. As Zazit danced away from the Goblins attacks, the Champion who would come to be known as Bim Girderwebbed the Hot Women of Nights, battered the entire Goblin ambush squad into submission, sending Goblins flying through the air, launching them off the slopes of the mountain to the frozen desert plains below. By the time reinforcements arrived, Bim had slain ten Goblins, her steel plate mail, greaves, gauntlets, and boots all covered with her enemies’ blood. She casually brushed past the other five soldiers, certain that her display of martial prowess during the fourth attempted abduction at Gearcleaned would become legend.
Bim is not the center of this tale though.
Zazit, who had been the expedition leader of The Tomb of Blockades, was serving as it’s first elected mayor at the time of the attack. When Bim was finished, Zazit was amazed that she had not suffered a single scratch. In other circumstances, she would’ve wielded her iron pick against the goblins, save for one unfortunate detail. When the goblins had set upon her she had been caring Nomal Ivorybells, her infant son.
To her horror, she discovered that Nomal had apparently taken blows for her. His left upper arm had been badly pierced by a spear, but much worse was his lower body which had taken such a painful stabing that it could best be described as mangled. Looking down, Zazit discovered that as she had dodged her enemies attacks, a trail of blood followed her down the mountain slopes stemming from her poor wounded son. Racing back inside, Zazit prepared for the worst. She had to tell the Iton Rootedink, her husband what had happened.
Iton’s stoicism thankfully prevailed, and he did not berate his wife for bringing their infant son into such dangerous circumstances. Zazit held her son, gently making noises to try and distract the poor youngster from the pain he was in. At any moment Nomal might perish.
Nomal’s bleeding stopped.
Both Zazit and Iton were at a loss of what to do, when word came down that the human traders that had arrived just before the ambush were going to leave soon. In spite of the circumstances, Zazit had responsibilities, and she merely took Nomal with her as she engaged the traders, who may perhaps have intimidated by this strange dwarf woman who apparently wielded a bloody dwarf baby.
Nomal apparently would live.
It came as no surprise that Rith Pagecall, who was among the original seven and counted both Iton and Zazit friends, was elected mayor almost immediately after the incident, citing his creation of the Artifact Conjurespited, a chalk Mechanism and the traps that protected Gearcleaned’s gates as his worthyness to take up the job of Mayor.
Although the fact that Zazit carried the wounded Nomal with her at all times (whose wounds did not worsen, but also did not heal) providing a constant reminder of her lapse in judgement may have been enough on its own. Zazit still continued to serve as the broker, manager, and bookkeeper for The Tomb of Blockades.
In the autumn of 804, Nomal grew to become a child. Zazit gently placed him on the ground, and Nomal immediately collapsed. He was brought to the nearest available bed. Zazit was beside herself.
The Tomb of Blockades had no access to water. Nomal’s wounds would not heal before he died of thirst.
Zazit ran from the room, ostensibly to catch up on work orders and accounts, but mostly to get away from her own feelings of failure.
Iton however, had a plan of action.
Iton gathered together all the Miners who served the Tomb of Blockades. First among them was Imush Subtlewires, who was part of the original expedition, and was actually a farmer originally. However, having lent a hand with a pick when labor was in demand during those early days had somehow made an impression on her. And later on all were surprised as a secretive mood struck her and she came forth from the Mason’s workship, with a pick between her teeth and Singedsinews the Fist of Dangers, a magnetite throne (which is itself the focal point of Mayor’s office, which some say is of such quality that the four by four room is now a throne room fit for royalty!). The crafting done entirely with that pick had made her a miner second only to Iton, and of course Zazit.
Zan Jadeguilds and Solon Sabrehelm had arrived at Gearcleaned in the same wave of migrants. Peasents the both of them, they’d been between hauling jobs a while ago when Itol recruited them as miners. They weren’t nearly as skilled as the others, but the both of them definitely preferred the steady work of mining to that of hauling, and did not complain. Much. The both of them were good friends, and it was rumored that Zan was a little jealous that Solon had taken to sharing a bed with Tosid Whimbolt, a shy leatherworker that he doted upon.
Iton, who had never addressed the entire group before, coughed a bit before starting his speech.
“I’m not sure that this is going to work,” he said, “but I believe it’s our best chance. We’d known when we’d settled here that any dwarf laid out with a particularly slow to heal wound would be as good as dead. We’ve got no water here. However, due to our in regulating the training of our soldiers very carefully, we haven’t had any sparring accidents of any real damage, and had been lucky for the past three and a half years. Our luck has run out. My son is bedridden from his wounds from last year, and he will die of thirst soon.”
Iton appeared completely overwhelmed for a split second by the words coming from his own mouth. But bracing himself once again, he pressed on.
“When Zazit was planning the expedition, back when she and I barely knew one another, she had shown me a surveyor’s map with the stone layers and all that. I’m sure you’re familiar with that kind of thing.”
Imush spoke up, “I remember looking at it, but I didn’t study it so closely as you did, not expecting to become a miner all of a sudden.”
“Well,” said Iton, “one of the notes said that there’s a possibility of an underground river here. “
He let that sink in.
“You’ve all proven to be talented at the exploratory mining that we’ve done so far. We’ve found all that magnetite, the coal, the lignite, and those gems. We’re going to find that river. The masons have a block ready, and some buckets have been made. We have all the ropes that we’d traded for that we’d intended for our animals, and plenty of Rith’s mechanisms. We can have a well set up as soon as we find the water.”
“Iton,” said Zan, “I don’t like this at all. We’d done so well with mining so far because we’ve been thorough. We’d taken our time to section off areas with crisscrossing tunnels, and cross checking the type of stone we were mining in while we were searching. We were never on a deadline and we could afford to be patient, knowing that we had the manpower and the clues to find what the Tomb of Blockades needed. “
“Not to mention,” said Solon, “that those kinds of rivers are swarming with creatures like Snakemen and giant Olms. Breaching that river, even from above will be dangerous.”
Iton nodded and said, “I hear what you’re saying, your concerned have been noted, but I also don’t care. No one will be held responsible if we don’t find the river in time. No one will be made to breach the river without support from a soldier. Those are problems that await us in the future. Right now, the solution is striking the earth. We don’t have time for our grid array, that’s true. But we’ll hit where we’ve already tunneled and dig down, hoping to find wet stone.”
The four of them went to work.
Zazit came upon Iton digging and said, “I’ve put a lot of work orders in. This place should run itself for a little bit. Let me help, I’m far faster than Zan and Solon are.”
Iton simply nodded.
Twelve vertical shafts. Nothing. Iton began to act with desperation, at one point digging under the desert until Zazit gently reminded him that the river would have to be under the mountain proper.
They’d tried some branching horizontal tunnels, along where the thought the river might pass. Nothing.
Winter arrived.
Namol still cried out for water. Countless well meaning citizens of The Tomb of Blockades inquired unhelpfully if any water had been found yet. The husband and wife team continued to work as hard as they could, supported as best as their helpers were able.
Rith Pagecall himself asked about their progress. Iton was a little aggravated though, but he kept his anger and check and merely said, “Don’t you have a Fortress to run, Rith?”
“No actually,” said Rith, “I’ve been replaced. Fikod Sackwhisper was angry with me over the lack of work, so he started complaining to anybody that would listen over in that chalk statue garden.”
“The crossbow maker?” asked Iton, suddenly finding himself quite pleased to have something else to focus on, “He wasn’t pleased with Zazit when she wouldn’t even let him build a bowyer’s workshop.”
“Well,” said Rith with a wry chuckle, “he wasn’t pleased with me either when I did the same thing. To stick it to me he’s having me take down all the weapon traps and replace them with his crossbows.”
The two dwarves laughed out loud at that turn of events.
“Admittedly,” Rith said, “it’s not that bad of an idea. With the crossbows as well as the ordinary bows we’d taken from our Goblin visitors, we won’t have any corpses getting stuck in the mechanisms so that…”
Rith gulped as he shamefully whispered, “… no one will get caught out there trying to pry a body from the traps.” He hadn’t realized what he’d been saying until too late.
Iton looked his friend in the eye and said, “It’s not your fault, Rith. Zazit blames herself, not you.”
Rith looked at the rough chalk wall of the tunnel that he’d found Iton in, a vein of Hematite was visible, but with all the Magnetite that the Tomb of Blockades currently had waiting for smelting, the Iron ore hadn’t been in demand enough to have been dug out.
“Do you remember Sigun?” Rith asked.
Iton winced. Sigun Womenglazed had been the other miner that had originally come on the expedition. Iton had originally fancied her, but strangely enough she’d been drawn to Rith from the very start of the expedition. Iton and Sigun had been channeling out the mountain over what would become Gearcleaned’s barracks. It had been their first wave of migrants, and everyone was scrambling to get things in place as quickly as they could. Zazit had wanted the barracks to be lie between the Trade Depot and the gate, so that both traders, invaders, and thieves would have to pass right through the Tomb of Blockade’s military in order to approach Gearcleaned proper. The long entry hall in the mountain needed widening, and the roof needed to be channeled out according to Zazit’s specifications so that the sparring soldiers would be exposed to natural light (“Our enemies won’t hesitate to attack while our soldiers are nauseated by the sun” she’d said,) with a retractable bridge put in place overhead to keep out the deadly cold. It was taking some time to complete, so both Zazit and Imush had grabbed picks to help. Iton then quickly instructed the two then-inexperienced would-be miners on how not to stab themselves in the face with their picks, and then went back to work.
Sigun, and the floor she stood on, crashed through four layers of fortress. When the stone section she’d been standing on dropped, it punched through the previously tunneled out rooms, turning a fall short enough to laugh off and then get back to work into a terminal descent. Rith burst from the Carpenter’s Workshop where he had been constructing beds as quickly as he could (he’d been pulling double duty there along with his mechanisms.) The cloud of dust cleared, and Sigun, Rith’s lover, was completely lifeless. When the three other miners arrived, Rith looked from one to the next.
Imush’s mouth was open in shock. Iton’s face winced. But it was Zazit whose flesh had gone ashen white. Without even having to ask or make an accusation, Rith knew with absolutely certainty that it was she who had landed the careless blow onto the stone, sending his beloved Sigun tumbling to her death.
Iton watched as Rith let the knowledge sink in of who was responsible for his loss. But Iton was amazed to see that Rith did not burst into rage, but only approached Sigun, and gently closed her eyes and brushed the chalk dust from her hair.
Iton approached the wall near where Sigun had fallen, and mined out a catacomb between the walls. It was there that Sigun Womenglazed’s bones rested. It was where his first born son would be taken to join her if they did not find that blasted hidden river.
“Of course, Rith,” said Iton, “of course I remember her.”
“She, too, was a follower of Dakost the Work of Trades, just like Zazit is. Just like your son Namol is. I am sure if your son should perish, Sigun will gladly help guide him into Dakost’s Halls.”
Iton didn’t know what to say to that. Both of them stood there, silently, awkwardly. Iton began to feel aware of the press of time once again, but he didn’t know how to end the conversation.
Fortunately, Rith finally said, “Well, I bet right about now Fikod, our new Mayor, must be getting cross with me seeing how I haven’t changed over those weapon traps yet. So, I’d best be on my way. Be sure to find me so we can have a Dwarven Beer together, Iton, I understand you’re quite fond of those.”
As Rith walked down the chalk tunnel, Iton finally found the words, “Thank you, Rith!”
Rith waved it off with a weak grin.
Iton went back to digging.
He did not find the river.
The miners gathered together again, and this time Zazit attended. Iton did not know how she kept her focus. Perhaps it’s because she had suddenly given birth to a daughter, Thob Rhymemirrored, as she dug away at another vertical shaft. They’d found that from one already made shaft, they could complete another even quicker if one miner worked from the top and the other cut across from the bottom of an established shaft and back up to meet in the middle. They’d done a general layout first, and finding nothing they had no choice to attack the most empty space that had the greatest potential for the hidden river.
Nothing.
“Okay,” said Zazit, taking control of the meeting even though Iton was the senior miner, “We’ve tried what we can, and we don’t know how much time we have left. I’m suggesting that we continue searching with our normal pattern, the ones we used to find all our ores.“
“But I thought were weren’t doing that because it’s too time consuming?” asked Solon incredulously, looking over at Iton who Solon felt should’ve been leading the meeting.
“First of all,” said Zazit, “what we’ve been doing, with the scattered shafts clearly isn’t working. So we’ve got to try what we know will work. Even if we can’t save my son, a water supply will help this fortress and prevent any other tragedies to come.”
“Secondly,” she said, “while I don’t have a copy of the surveyor’s map we’d used when we Embarked on our journey, I believe that I can recall that the river was alleged to be west of where we originally arrived. Our tight grid pattern will be put on the western side of our established escavations, and we’ll continue down as far as we can go from there.”
This was the first Iton had heard of the river being to the west, “Why didn’t you mention the location before?” he asked.
Zazit looked away, something she normally never did while engaged in conversation.
“Well?” Iton asked, trying to keep his voice calm.
“I wasn’t sure. But the fact that we haven’t found anything yet made me try my best to remember every detail and I’d remembered something. That the original surveyor map had an aquifer to the west of where we wanted to choose our site, and we found that undesirable. So we’d shifted our location of choice just a bit to the east.”
“But that could mean…?” asked Zan whose mouth dropped open.
“Yes,” said Zazit, “that the adjustment potentially means that the river isn’t actually in this region.”
Iton remembered too. He’d not wanted any part of an aquifer; they were a source of incredible frustration to miners. Even with the cold freezing the exposed water enough to make it manageable, he’d agreed when Zazit had mentioned wanting to move further east of it. This deviation from the surveyor’s map could’ve been enough to put the underground river out of reach. How absurd it felt to have wanted to avoid a water source so much, one that they’d now gladly tolerate to save their only son.
“Boosh!” added Thob from Zazit’s hip, seemingly wanting to remind everyone that she was there and was at least as important as Namol.
“I don’t see why you’re ordering us around,” said Solon, “last I heard your title was `Clerk’ and you answered to Mayor Likod.”
“Don’t trifle with me, Solon,” said Zazit, “I’m very much your superior in skill when it comes to striking the Earth. In case you didn’t know, because of a tragic accident, I had to take up the pick long before you arrived on the scene hearing of the wealth of Gearcleaned and-“
“Yeah,’ said Solon, “I’d heard all about that `accident’. Accidents just seem to happen around you a lot don’t they, Zazit? In fact, every single accident in this place has you involved in it somehow.”
“Solon,” Iton interrupted, “I won’t have that kind of talk at my wife. So I’m telling you now, before I start making some accidents of my own around here, to stop it. We know what we have to do dwarves, let’s get to work.”
Iton hadn’t liked threatening Solon, who might very well complain to Likod, but he felt he didn’t have much choice. Solon’s place in this community wasn’t as historied as either him or Zazit, and Likod definitely liked having Zazit’s skills at his disposal. But for now, Iton had to concentrate on the digging. He was certain Zazit was correct about the change in tactics. They’d had a technique that had worked previously for exploratory mining, and in the face of this crisis they’d abandoned it. The shafts dug out at random, trying to guess where the river might be were far apart, meaning they’d lost time walking to and fro from one to the other. Furthermore, only one miner could dig out a single shaft until they started meeting up at the bottom and joining the shafts with cross tunnels. Their grid left very little room for errors. If the river was here, they’d find it sooner or later.
For Nomal’s sake, he hoped for sooner.
Zazit loved the grid. Back as the seven of them rode their wagon out over the wilderness, she’d laid out the grid pattern for digging out the fortress. She wasn’t obsessed with squares, as someone might believe, but she liked making all their rooms modular, with space for both workshops and stockpiles. The rooms were eleven paces by eleven paces, with an exit in each cardinal direction, each leading to staircase, and then beyond another eleven by eleven room. She wasn’t obsessed with the number eleven either, but it allowed a nice path right down the middle, with ample space to either side, and it just felt right to her. Iton had originally balked at this, feeling that the Fortress should take shape by the way of the earth it was dug into, tunnels cut as needed, depending on what the picks revealed behind each section of stone. But she’d persisted in it, and Sigun had supported her, so they’d do it as she’d specified. Both of the expeditions miners had been a little irritated to find themselves digging what seemed to be far too much space out to accommodate the needs of merely seven dwarves, but Zazit persisted in the design saying that soon they’d be glad for all that space. She’d been right. They’d found three types of iron ore, they’d layer upon layer of chalk for flux, not a tree in sight, but they’d delved for coal or lignite and had found plenty of both. Her ambition brought them wealth. So maybe she was a little impulsive. That impulsiveness paid off, didn’t it? Most of the time?
The grid was in place, and the miners were all working feverishly in their race against time. Thus, they were the last to know that on the Twenty Eighth of Moonstone, in the middle of the Winter of 804, while several squads of Goblins were decimated by the crossbow traps of Likod, Nomal died of thirst.
He was found by a peasent named Olin Worshippedceilings, who had just moments before given birth to a girl Edem Gatepet (her second child, the first a boy named Rimtar Taxpost.)
Putting her babies on her shoulders, she cradled Nomal and carried him three steps down the hallway before dropping him on the stone floor because she had a sudden and irresistible urge to imbibe some Strawberry Wine. (It was a truly decadent drink, as it turned out.)
He was found lying there by Zazit Ringplunges, a Butcher said to be exceptionally courteous and kind by all who knew him (not to be confused with the other Zazit, the mother of the deceased.) Our friendly butcher brought the boy to his final resting place in the catacombs, shared by the bones of Sigul and someone’s dead puppy. Mr Ringplunges looked back and forth, and with no instructions forthcoming from beyond the grave, nor any from the deity shared by both deceased dwarves, Dakost the Work of Trade, he placed Nomal’s body next to the puppy’s bones.
Nomal Ivorybells died unhappy. Everyone was in such an uproar over his thirst for water, that no one noticed that he was also starving for food. In spite of that he’d managed to heal the wound in his left upper arm, but the mangling of his lower body remained ghastly and unhealed. His one moment of comfort was a short conversation with his mother, Zazit, before she ran off to take control of the exploratory mining for the underground river. Nomal liked slate, electrum, goshenite, amber, the color aquamarine, bucklers, and horses for their strength. He had a preference for Dwarven Cheese and Dwarven Syrup.
Nomal Ivorybells never once had the opportunity to rise from his bed and have his first taste of alcohol.
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Topic: Namol Ivorybells doesn't really care about anything anymore. (Read 1358 times)