Prelude: Brief history of Udirdatur, in the second founding, page 2 of 2.
Year 149:
Seventh wave of migrants arrive. Population of Nicazsudir now number over a hundred, and it is reckoned that most of the surviving members of the Dragon Cult are now gathered here at Onol Insél. The pit has reached 350 feet into the ground, and with the farms enlarged and the kitchens kept perpetually busy the leadership agrees the settlement can handle more dwarves being drafted as dedicated minors. 36 miners work tirelessly day and night digging down through granite and pulling the stones up to surface level to be carved into trinkets by the craftsdwarves for sale to the elves. However, they are nearing the level where shaft 5 discovered the underground cavern layer back in 144 and would be breaching soon. Steel armor originally intended for sale to the humans are given to the miners so they may fare better in battle in case some unspeakable monster sprang out of the dark roots of the mountain. Corumvant traders only recieved poor quality mail and some leftover swords this year.
In Limestone, the cavern is breached as expected, at 450 feet below ground. Fortunately, the caves were devoid of creatures; mushrooms were the only form of life that could be seen down there. A wall was erected around the pit and the miners were allowed to continue deeper.
Years 150-154: Uneventful. Iron mines in shaft 4 are depleted. Goblin sieges begin to occur, but now that Nicazsudir has a dedicated force of soldiers they merely serve to replenish the settlement's iron and copper supplies. The Great Pit is dug all the way to the 1000th feet below ground.
Year 155:
A goblin siege arrives, but this time its scale is unprecedented, with four seperate groups of goblins accompanied by slave human warriors wielding mauls and whips, and two full squads of trolls approaching from the west. The entrance corridor was lined with traps last year, but it is unlikely to hold off all of the enemy forces at once. In a desperate action, the leadership of the settlement order the militia to attack them while they're still organizing their ranks, before they gather into an unstoppable horde. This meant going after the three goblin squads to the east, in the Cold Hills.
The militiamen charge at the goblins, whose copper and iron weapons proved ineffective against the steel plate mail of the dwarves. Although five of the 29 soldiers fell to the ground, they still breathed, and were hauled to the hospital within the mountain while the rest trudged towards the southern stream where a group of trolls have begun their advance. The other troll squad was already hammering down the main gates; the reserve militia within huddled behind the third gate hoping the main force would arrive in time. The leadership began issuing crossbows to the remaining populace, in case the reserves are broken.
A goblin ambush caught the main group off guard, and their arrows killed three and critically wounded four more before being routed. Now with the gates within sight, the militiamen knew the situation down there and belayed their original battle plan and descended upon the trolls at the gate, who had just broken the third door. As the reserve soldiers fired their hail of bolts, the hammerdwarves clashed into the ranks of the besiegers, and though losses were heavy, they were defeated. The last remaining siege group, the second squad of trolls, retreated after learning the rest of their army were dead or fleeing.
When the day seemed theirs, however, the dwarves were horrified when the surviving militiadwarves were pulled to the ground by dismembered goblin and human body parts. The corpses have risen! Curse the Cold Hills! The militia scrambled to keep them in check while civilians desperately tried to reach the dieing warriors before they expired, to no avail. After the last of the corpses stopped moving, there were only 2 left standing amogst the initial 29 sent out. They also represented the most experienced of the miners, and their loss was crippling to the pit digging project. With so many dead to bury and mourn, the leadership gives in to the demands of the protesters and halt all digging in the Great Pit. They also decide to concentrate on surviving and recuperating for the next few years. No further migrants are expected, as they are sure the Prophets already sent everyone they could find to the accursed volcano.
Year 156: Uneventful year for Nicazsudir, but the decades-long war between Rimadtholtig and the Corumvant Empire ends; after suffering several setbacks in the recent years due to a ferocious counterattack by the Dwarf-Elf alliance, the humans agreed to end the war and restore occupied territories to their respective former owners in return for the dwarven vanguard not pushing further towards the Imperial capital. Now with the war settled and peace returned to the realm, the kingdom decides to take care of its internal matters, including the issue of the surviving Dragon Cult.
The investigating officer who had escaped into the Cold Hills had survived; through combination of skill, good thinking, and shear luck, he managed to find a way out of the haunted and zombie-infested woods and back to his home city. Although the still raging war kept the King's attention elsewhere for many years, now that he had won (sort of) his eyes were upon the Cult and their new home of Nicazsudir; but he wasn't going to send his battered armies to besiege a dwarven settlement, be it inhabited by heretic renegades or no. He had better uses for his soldiers, and even better uses for a steel manufactory. And he knew how to get his hands on it without unnecessary bloodshed.
Year 157:
On early Timber the dwarven caravan flying the flag of Rimadtholtig arrived at Nicazsudir. The settlers were bewildered of its arrival, and even more when they let it in; the leader of the caravan revealed himself to be a herald of King Asob I and announced the king's offer of pardon to all inhabitants of the settlement if they only just renounced their faith in the draconic pantheon and and pledged to return to the kingdom's fold as loyal law-abiding subjects. This sparked immediate argument amongst the Cultists, which intensified when the caravan declared its intention to trade and promised to return next year to hear of the settlers' decisions. The leaders themselves were divided over the issue, and soon the population were split in two, with Cultists on one side and Loyalists on the other. After the caravan left, the strife amongst the inhabitants of Nicazsudir grew ever more heated until the leadership feared the settlers would erupt into a violent riot if left unchecked any longer. None of their three options of putting down the Loyalists, putting down the Cultists, or simply running away from the settlement seemed any more attractive than the others.
Unfortunately, they did not live long enough to make any decision.
Year 158:
The Cultists declared their intention to take over the fort when rumors spread that the leadership was considering surrendering to the King. They slightly outnumbered the Loyalists and counted amongst them the three survivors of the siege of 155, and thus was considered to have the upper hand if it ever came to physical clash between the two factions. They demanded the current leadership support their cause or step down. Eventually the mayor was cowed, and she relented. When the takeover was announced at the great hall, many Loyalists knew it was their cue to leave the settlement, and they did over the course of the next few days.
When the new leaders realized the population of the fort was rapidly dwindling, they chose a most radical option and activated the emergency isolation mechanisms, caving in the entrance corridor and sealing Nicazsudir from the outside world. While the rest of the settlement was still in chaos over what had happened, they quickly sealed the armory and took complete control of all weapons within. Now with complete monopoly over means of exerting force, they told the populace that they only had one choice remaining, to dig the Great Pit as the Prophets have ordered, and to await the Prophets' eventual arrival. They made it sure that they are willing to kill off every single living being in the trapped settlement if their will was not obeyed. The people understood, and they obeyed.
The sealed passageways were opened up, and the digging of the Great Pit resumed at a sluggish pace.
Year 159:
The King was definantly angry when he heard that the Loyalists have bugged out of Nicazsudir and the Cultists have sealed the entrance with a cave-in. He was hoping the Loyalists would take over or the two factions would fight it out. Now he had a bunch of criminal scum he had no love nor use of and a steelmaking outpost he still had no control over. He ordered all the Loyalists who got out hammered to death and also sentenced the stupid herald, who failed his simple-enough mission, to life-long sand-gathering labour under the scorching sun of the kingdom's northernmost outposts.
He'd have sent his army to besiege the accursed lizard-lovers in their dirty hole if only his relations with the elves weren't deteriorating fast. One of the territory the humans relented in the peace treaty was formerly contested land between the elves and the dwarves, and it was causing problems amongst the once allies as to whom it now belonged to. Of course, Asob himself thought it naturally belonged to him - the dwarves did most of the heavy fighting in the last years of the war, and it was they who had last control of the region before the Empire took it. The elves however had very different ideas, and they also kept nagging on about how their current steel and glass production methods swallowed up thousands of innocent trees. They kept insisting the dwarves use coal. Did they not know coal was rare and expensive, not to mention dangerous? Besides, the trees are just... trees. The elves were not exactly known for intelligent behavior, but this rubbish about trees being alive was too much. Hmph. Anyways, bringing an army that deep into their sphere of influence would tick them off. He'd rather not do that when the Corumvant Empire still stood strong to the north.
But luckily for him the King did not have to wait long nor put much effort into getting what he wanted.
In the summer of the year, the Pit has breached another cavern, about 1200 feet below ground. The air smelled different from the first cavern... in fact, it was very difficult to even breathe in it. The flora was different as well - towering crimson-red vines with sharp thorns loomed over the heads of the miners, and on the walls were great webs of size unimaginable for normal spiders. One of the miners who used to live in one of the great deep-shaft thaigs of the southwest recognized the webs for that of giant cave spiders. The leadership did not think the threat of any immediate danger and ordered the miners to continue digging while a meager team of five masons worked to wall off the caverns. And that was a mistake.
In fall (the dwarves within lost accurate track of time since they had no access to sunlight), when only half of the wall was completed, the ground of the second cavern began shaking violently. The miners recognized the earthquake for what it was and immediately took shelter beneath cover, but when it subsided almost immediatley they knew something was wrong. And they were proven in the most disastrous way when a great worm of hideous size and eight flapping wings each bigger than a troll burst forth from the darkness and began rampaging through the hapless dwarves. It was one of the feared Forgotten Beasts of legend, which were sealed away in the Imprisoning Wars.
By the time the Beast reached the surface levels and made its way into the masonry workshops, any chance of defeating it was destroyed. The rest of Nicazsudir despararetely loosed their crossbow bolts upon the monster, but they all glanced away. One by one they were consumed by the ancient abomination, and none could escape for the entrance was sealed. As a last resort, the leadership sealed the entrances to their council chambers and committed suicide before the beast learned they were there. The last of them left a detailed account of what he could learn about what terrible fate befell their settlement, and when the beast began hammering at the stone door, threw the book into a steel coffer and too killed himself.
So ended Nicazsudir's second incarnation, without the outside world knowing.
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Topic: Journal of Udirdatur, Prison Fortress. (story) (Read 3083 times)