I mentioned this already. I thought she was a hammerdwarf. Turns out she wasn't but I left it alone since you were insistant she be given a proper posting rather than being relgated to hauler duty. She has enough other skills to make her a decent enough teacher.
E: Ninja'd by Sus, with a few humerous remarks in there making me lol.
I won't lie, I'm considering writing a story where Fischer messes up the mercenaries (there's bound to be more hunting V, those three just happened to be caught chasing a fortress resident around.)
And now, a choppy rushed story detailing how Ecem, Bugi, Aret, and Koth became Ballpoint Tech. contractors.
There was fire everywhere. That's all Ecem remembered. Fire on almost everything.. The civilians had retreated to the townwatch barracks deep in the hill, and the Shocktowns Militia found itself pressed to the breaking point, an endless assault of crundles and troglodytes, exacerbated by a rampaging fire imp and a troll that seemed to be coercing the other cavern beasts up the settlement's ass, was also facing a massive army of goblins had led to this. Shockedtowns was dying. The buildings outside lay in smouldering ruins, much of the internal wooden structures burning as well, and the four surviving soldiers, trapped in the mess hall, knew the civilians were all as good as dead. The watchmen were all brave, but they were only a bunch of teenagers and only numbered 6 if Splint was included. "He warned us this might happen when he led us here." Aret said while he held down Koth. "Let me up damn it! I can still fight!" She protested between coughing fits. She had a broken arm from a goblin's olm falling on her and two arrows had pierced one of her lungs. "We know Aret, you said that twice now." Bugi said as she proped more tables against the doors. "Let me up!" Koth managed to half yell again, only to be shoved, more roughly than before, back to the ground. "Koth, listen to me. If you fight in this condition, You. Will. Die." "So what if I die fighting? I'd rather-" She was interrupted by another coughing fit. "Look, we all would rather die fighting if it'd make a difference, but at this point it won't. Fighting is pointless now, so all we can do is wait them out." Ecem said as he hauled a chair to on of the other doors to help brace it. Koth finally seemed either too tired or resigned enough to lay on the floor where she was. "It.... it wasn't supposed to end this way..." She said weakly. "No... No it wasn't." Bugi said in agreement as she open her pack and took out a bit of meat. "Any ideas on how long we'll be stuck in here boss?" She said as she bit into the dried food. "However long it takes the goblins and trogs to kill eachother, or for the goblins to get bored and leave." Ecem replied, slumping against the wall. "That could take months..." Aret muttered. He had the look in his eyes... He was about ready to completely give up on life. "And we've got enough supplies to weather the storm with. We're on top of the food stores after all." Bugi said when she finished her meat. "Any ideas?"
-
It had been nearly three months, the sounds of fighting waxing and waning daily. Aret had managed to avoid slipping into an unsalvagable state of melancholy once they used some of the old furnishing to suit thier needs. An old wooden box was set up and served as thier training space, a bin of cloth, left unattended at some point years before, was used to make a splint for Koth's arm, now fully healed, and the cloth used to make some makeshift beds from whatever tables hadn't been turned into kindling or barricades. But things seemed strange... The fighting had died down to an unusually low lull. But then there was another terrifying sound, numerous loud bangs and someone shouting.... In dwarven? "Dwarves here? What the hell are they doing here now???" Koth said as she let her whip unfurl. Then a terrible flash and thier wooden barricades flying apart stunned them, Aret sent skidding accross the ground into the beds. Bugi and Ecem prepared to face thier attackers, when they saw something.... Unusal. A little quadruped about the size of a large mastiff with a strange arm bolted to its should that followed where its head pointed was staring at them. "Hey! I got live ones here!" It said quickly, the same horrible bangs as before being a constant. "Impossible, there should only be one survivor!" Came a masculine voice. A human this time, dressed in strange gray armor and attire stepped through the hole. "You four! Come with us!" He ordered. "You can't stay here! 3rd squad, get in here and port these fools out. Move it!" The man said quickly before heading back out into the hall. Two more of the small animals and an intimidating mantid creature came in with another human with a very fancy backpack. "Come on, grab you shit, we gotta go." One of the animals said. "Cala Hik!" The mantid said, clearly agitated. "In standard asshole. And if you're telling me to hurry, I CAN'T. These stupid things take time to set up." The human said. He bagan unfolding collapsable poles from the pack and hooking up a strange tablet to it. After a time, and a yowling troll being blasted through the wall with most of its midsection missing, the pack looked more like a door and a little red tear began to form in the air between the poles. "What's that thing doing!?" Koth said as she took a step back. "What'd she say?" One of the little creatures said. Clearly they didn't understand the humans' native language. "She's just freaked out, don't worry about it. Chifa, grab the girl with the whip. I don't think she'll come through otherwise." The mantid nodded and grabbed koth by the arm, resulting in her letting out a string of obscentities in dwarven that had the human the quads taken aback. "Foul mouthed little bitch aren't you." The pack operator said. He turned to the halberdiers, Shockedtowns' best." You three, through the portal. We have a proposition for you."
"What do we do boss?" Bugi said apprehensivly. Koth had already been dragged through. "Anything's better than this. Let's go." Ecem said. The group walked through, nearly tumbling over eachother on the otherside and were followed by the animals. The last thing Ecem heard before he got kicked in the head by Aret as he tripped his way through the portal was hearing the human say "Survivors clear! Tearing down now!" As the world faded to black the tear faded from existence, and with it any evidence shockedtowns was ever a battleground.
-
"I like the uniforms." Koth said as she buttoned up her jacket. "They fit much better than our old ones ever did." "That's because they were made for someone like Ecem or Bugi in mind, not a rail like you." Aret replied, still trying to figure out the buckles on his armor. "And just what the hell is that supposed to mean?" She said, obviously offended. "He means if you had spent more time on the wieghts your uniform would have actually fit." Bugi said. She'd had the easiest time figuring out thier new equipment and was rigging up her 'combat webbing' as the quartermaster called it. "Pff. I'm proud of the fact I'm small thank you very much. I'm harder to shoot, unlike Miss Bugi McBoltsponge." "Says the girl who got shot twice in the same minute." "Shut up..." It had been almost like they'd never left Shockedtowns since they arrived a week ago. They'd been given time to adjust to thier new surroundings up until now, and they were gearing up for training. "Wish they would have left us our halberds..." Ecem said sadly. He'd had that halberd for years, and now they wouldn't even let him touch it. A woman came in, a dwarf, as they finished kitting up and told them to follow her to the lift, and that they'd be negoiating thier terms of employment. "Employment?" Aret asked. The concept of soldiers being employed was unfamiliar to him, since he'd always been a milita man. "Yes, employment. You people are historical MIAs, just the kind of people we like to have. You should have died with that settlement." The dwarf was clearly annoyed at thier seeming lack of worldliness. The elevator ride was quiet, mostly because the quartet was worried that if they upset the dwarf by asking questions, she'd shoot them.
"Down the hall, third door from the end on the right." She said and more or less booted the group out. They did as they were told, and entered the room. It was dark, with most of the artificial lighting being turned off, save a fairly strong desk lamp. "Ah, there's my aspiring new contractors!" A dwarf said, looking up from a little tablet. "Contractors. What the hell does that mean?" Koth blurted out. "Why it means you four have just joined one of this corporation's main sources of revenue, the Ballpoint Technologies Security Corperation." The dwarf said cheerfully. He must've been good and drunk. "That doesn't really answer our question sir." Ecem said. "Yes yes, I mean you four are now mercenaries and employees of Ballpoint Technologies, in exchange for our search teams rescuing you." "Why were your people searching the ruins of our settlement?" He asked. he'd have his questions answered. "Well, we were looking for you overseer, the man legends simply call Splint. I have many officers who were named after that strange fellow. Oddly enough he was the only one we couldn't find, though it was clear he wasn't gone much longer than a few days before we found you." This was all horribly confusing to the group. Between the culture shock, talking animals and space demons they were all overwhelmed. "Ok.... Well I have one last question: Who are you exactly?" The dwarf smiled, adjusted his spectacles and said quite matter of factly "My name is Iden Bronzeclasped, CEO of Ballpoint Technologies and your new... Overseer if you prefer that term. And I am someone quite hopeful that you four will be good additions and well worth the two Sythod we lost searching the settlement."
They knew as he said that, that there was no way out of this. They were his now, and for better or worse, they would die as they lived.
Pardon the suckage, spelling errors and what not. I just felt the need to write something and this sprung to mind.
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Topic: [34.11] Spearbreakers - It shudders and begins to move (Read 2281504 times)