Asmel
Asmel squinted through the springtime haze. This was it, Gateivory. He didn't see no gate and Moldath be damned there was no ivory. All he saw were three blood-stained bridges. It started to rain.
There were three others that came with him but he knew not their names. The first dwarf he saw was the mayor, the muscle-bound Tulon who shook his hand.
"Welcome, welcome, welcome, to Gateivory!" said Tulon.
"Well met!" said Asmel, coming in from the rain. "You will find that I am a talented bone worker: I can't wait to get stuck in."
"I'm sure you'll get stuck in soon enough," said Tulon, a little darkly. "If you're interested in bone crafting then do speak to Udil."
The fort was a cavernous series of rooms cut into the rock above a treacherous canyon. Asmel wrinkled his nose to see corpses strewn about the corridors, miasma seeming to cling to the very walls of the fort.
"Och, I wouldnae worry about that laddie," said Lokum, a passing Armorer. "Was nae wanna ours. Prolly a trader."
"Does this happen often?" asked the bone-carver, rubbing the back of his shaven head.
"Aye, but you'll be glad of it an no mistake," replied Lokum with a wicked gleam in his eye. "Yer first task is to help us clear up the dead in the canyons. I heard a wagon loada sewer brew got dropped down there!"
After a few days of hauling treasure from the canyon, he was ready to get some real work done. He was admiring the craft workshop when a small voice piped up behind him.
"Ye'll never be as good as me!"
Asmel turned to see a short, forelorn looking child.
"I don't believe we've had the treasure--- I mean, pleasure?" Asmel said.
"Have you made a pretty? Mother dead. Sister dead. Pretty made!" jabbered the child.
"I'm sorry?"
"PRETTIES! I made that!" shouted the child, pointing to a passing soldier, 'Koboldbane' Kubukkol, who was carrying a bone buckler of such outstanding quality that Asmel wept a single tear. He was not sure if it was from joy or from the realisation that he'd never be a good enough bone-crafter to even attempt making a buckler.
Then he shrugged. The fortress might be grimy and his chances of living more than a few years were slim, but by Anrir's Cerulean Clouds, the dining halls and bedrooms were opulent and the drink was the finest in all the Furnace of Oiling. He was going to enjoy these years.
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Topic: gateivory, all is silence (CLOSED!) (Read 87507 times)