Yes, this is another of my DF related short stories, hope you guys like it.
The fortress of Orbfilters had been building and prospering for over 20 years now. Nothing could harm it. The wildlife was quickly subdued, and the various ambushes and sieges had all been repelled through effective usage of weapon traps and marksdwarves. The dwarf that I would like to draw attention to is one Mosus Foggyflame, the greatest miner the fort had ever seen. He could mine out the toughest stone in less than a second, and his superdwarven strength and speed, combined with his skill with a pick, made him more dangerous than any adamantine clad soldier. But, his mining skills were far too valuable for him to die, and so he was never drafted.
For all his 67 years of life, Mosus had always wondered what lay beyond the stony walls of his fortress, of the world, even. This endless wondering made him melancholy, and he would have killed himself years ago had it not been for Ikod, the love of his life. They had no children, sadly, but their love for each other was enough to sustain them.
As I was saying, the fortress was so powerful and so prosperous, that all the dwarves, including Mosus, thought that it would never fall. Until Armok decreed that it would.
It began with that sensation that every dwarf knew intimately. A tingling sort of sensation, delivered to them directly from the God of Blood. Mosus loved this feeling, and the fact that he obeyed it without question. It gave him a purpose, it's what had started him out on his mining career after all. But to his horror, Armok had commanded the fortress mechanic to open the floodgates, releasing the lava. This would doom the fort, Mosus knew, and he was powerless to stop it.
He tried to reach the lever, and close the floodgate, but he couldn't take so much as a step forward. Armok had decreed that the fortress would die by lava, and no dwarf could defy their master. Realizing just how powerless he was, Mosus seethed with anger. Not even Ikod's consoling, which had always calmed him before, worked. His fury was irrational, illogical, and absolutely unexplainable to all but Mosus himself.
He hated his master, Armok. He hated the God of Blood for damning the fortress, which Mosus had watched grow and thrive, to death by lava, just for his sick amusement. Suddenly, Mosus felt that tingling sensation, which he had grown to despise. Apparently, Armok wanted him to dig even deeper. His master wanted him to dig, that was what Mosus would do.
Brimming with fury, he crashed his pick into the helpless stone walls, destroying them all within seconds. He dug with absolute determination, concentration, and hatred. He dug for the fortress, for himself, for Ikod, for all his dwarven brethren whom he knew would die a slow painful death.
Just as Mosus was about to be finished, he came upon a peculiar crack. It was like nothing he had ever seen. There was just...nothing, there. Literally nothing, not even air or light. Cautiously, he placed his hand through it, and was immediately sucked in.
When Mosus woke up, he was not in his fortress anymore. He was in some sort of communal living space. There was not a hint of dirt or stone in it, in fact, he was on the surface. There was even sunlight. He took a look around. There was a few tables, some chairs, a strange box-like thing which we know as a television set, and in the corner, with a look of absolute shock on the being's face, was a human.
The human was a scrawny thing, wearing casual clothes, and an armband with the words "NRDL" on them. Mosus took a look at the thing the human was next to, which we know as a computer. He saw the blinking smiley faces, and knew them for his fellow dwarves, by instinct alone. Continuing with this train of thought, he realized just who the human was.
"Armok..."
Suddenly, Armok ran for it, but Mosus was much, much faster. He caught him by the shirt, and threw him across the room like a rag doll. Superdwarven strength doesn't count for nothing. The human was completely terrified, pissing his pants.
"Please don't kill me...", Armok said.
"Why? You doomed everyone I knew, including Ikod, why should I spare you?"
"It's just a game...losing is fun..."
"Not for us."
Mosus then raised his trusty pick into the air, and slammed it into the God of Blood's head.
With his master dead, Mosus turned to the screen. He saw the various dwarves, running around, screaming for their lives, all of them except one. It was Ikod, Mosus knew immediately, and she just froze on the screen, doing nothing, staring at Mosus through different levels of reality.
Mosus placed his callous, rough hand on the screen, and began to cry, knowing that he could never go back, and that he could never feel his lover's warmth again, never drink a good barrel of beer, never again. He cried with for what seemed like hours, before realizing what he had to do.
Raising his pick high, he slammed it into the computer, ending his fortress, quickly, painlessly.
They are dead...no, not dead, free., he thought to himself.
Walking out the door, he looked at Armok, whose blood and brain fluid he had just spilled, with a look of sheer scorn.
Epilogue
Some say that Mosus is still alive, to this day, hunting down all the Armoks and Gods of Blood that dared to treat his brothers and sisters like mere toys. And when he was finally done with all of them ( not an easy task, due to their sheer number ), he would go after the mighty Toad himself, and free all the Slaves of Armok.
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Topic: Dwarf's Revenge: A Short Story (Read 1461 times)