It's not a nudist mania, it's a rehearsal for the Hellcannon Guardsmen's production of Princess Ida.
Thy song I doth acclaim.
Sorry about the delay, everybody. Got sick on Tuesday night, and sitting down to write was difficult.
SummerThatAussieDwarf suddenly died from his injuries. The injuries, or the deadly blood. Strangely, armageddonCounselor seems unaffected by his bath in the same blood. As for the beast he felled, no one has seen its corpse and nobody knows where it is. Very curious. Since there are no dwarves in the hospital in need of medical assistance, he and Gigozin have been lacking for things to do, so they're now on architecture duty to help get the roads done.
This place is starting to get to me. Bloody tundra's freezing all the time, for one. Earlier today some bastard who calls himself the Procrastinator thought it would be funny to punch me in the foot and run away. The nightmares, oh gods the nightmares, every night! And, with the unnatural sounds coming from beyond the walls of the main stairwell, I'd bet a cask of sunshine there's another unnatural monster somewhere in the second cavern.
I'm trying to think positively. Surely it's not so bad here, once you get used to it. Take the weird mist. Sure, it'll probably wipe your mind and turn you into a bloodless husk bent on killing all life, but from a distance, the beauty of it is mesmeric. How many places have a rolling fog of such a splendid cobaltine hue? And from the watchtower you can't see the eyeballs in the grass unless you really look.
So long as you ignore the corpses, and the skeletons and the zombies and the eyeballs in the grass and the sea of virulent slime creeping up on us from the north, it's quite a lovely place indeed.
Gods, it's like the world itself had cancer here. I want to go home. Worst thing back home was the yeti that ate all the rabbits.
I can't escape. I would. I nearly did, earlier in the day. Had a backpack with rations to last and a skin filled with our finest whip wine. But the will to leave the safety of the fort was dashed away as I watched a skeletal horse tear across the molded plain and into the encroaching slime like a gore-streaked bolt of lightning. I shook my head and resigned all hope. No earthly way can I run fast enough to outpace these creatures. We'd all have to flee into the wilds at once, and not all of us would be left to see the next morning.
Trapped in here, with just over thirty mad dwarves, a legion of animate corpses in cages, and, speaking of such, a comfortably jailed vampire whose interrogation has failed to yield anything worthwhile.
This is home now. We've built our own prison in the middle of Hell. Not literally, mind. At least not yet; wouldn't surprise me if some future overseer were mad enough to try.
Saint is on maternal leave. Yes, Saint's now a mother, having given birth to a baby girl. Before this I thought she was just a fat male. Oh well, it's hard to tell with all the armor she's wearing anyway.
So in her absence, the Valkyrie has taken over command of the marksdwarves, and when she told me there were migrants coming in from the slime, I refused to believe it. No way there are dwarves stupid enough to attempt crossing a massive stretch of unidentifiable muck in a land called the Brutal Tundras of Gristle, a land they surely must know to be haunted by evil. No way. Surely EmeraldWind is mistaking a pack of wandering zombies for actual living people.
Oh, the rage.
So they really turned out to be migrants, and not zombies, since undead don't usually scream in terror, and neither do undead attack one another the way they attacked the screaming migrants. EmeraldWind wondered aloud if we should attempt a rescue, but I saw no point.
As expected, most of them were dead after a few minutes, some of them learning the hard way how absurdly deadly the slime is. While we watched the carnage unfold in morbid fascination, a great zombified bird attacked the lookout. I always said it should have been built with walls.
Before any of them could react, the creature swept out Reason's leg and full on tackled him, sending the dwarf careening off the tower. He landed on the stone floor below, absorbing most of the impact with his skull.
He would not survive, but thanks to the Valkyrie, neither would the foul thing who slew him.
As undead birds continue even as I write to attack the dwarves in the lookout, their bodies continue to plummet from the sky, felled by our fearless sharpshooters and their truly aimed crossbows. One of their corpses fell straight through the hole in our roof. We have got to fix that. I'm starting to think we really do need to let the vampire out, if only to seal this gaping flaw in our defenses. I'd be terrified of a band of bowgoblins showing up to rain arrows down the hole, but they'd likely get slaughtered by zombies, so there's that.
If the marksdwarves weren't up there distracting their attention, the birds could jump right down into the fort at any moment. Hell, theoretically any of the monsters up there could, but thankfully they appear too dumb to realize the hole is something they could productively fall into.
One migrant managed to escape the horde while his companions were massacred, and appeared to lose his mind on the hill, staring off into space and taking no further heed of his surroundings. It took a moment to realize he might be having a strange mood. Of all the dumb luck.
As he stood there, an undead porcupine approached, to which he paid no mind until it moved to bite him, when he broke it in half with a single punch. I was impressed enough to try and save his life. Maybe he'll make another stupidly amazing axe we can all drool over.
I ordered the hatch unlocked to coax him inside. A moody dwarf should have an innate sense of the nearest workshop they need. Sure enough, the lock was thrown open and the poor slime-covered dwarf made his way over to the hatch. It was at this point that Tasrak decided he was some kind of hero and ventured out into wilderness with naught but a spear in hand, saying only he needed "to get something."
Why a spear and not a sword when he's known for his swordplay? Not a clue. We have plenty of swords. Tasrak's a bit eccentric. Thinks he's a wizard, you see. I swear he better not be going out there for a sock. If he is and he somehow makes it back here alive, I'm feeding him to the titan zombies.
Actually, watching him fight, maybe he
is some kind of hero.
First thing he did was temporarily clear away the undead vermin gathered around the very hatch through which my party and I first entered the fortress of Hellcannon. It's where the migrants are going to have to come in through, since I still can't find the bloody lever that operates the west gate and our sorry lot of engineers can't attach a new linkage to the bridge because, and I quote, they "can't reach the location." I may use them to test the traps in the new entrance once they're done building it.
We watched as Tasrak suddenly yelled "The drop off is inaccessible!" and made a return to the hatch. By now, the undead were once again massing in the area, dragging their rotten entrails across the unblinking eyes staring out from the sod.
The marksdwarves are up providing cover fire, but I can't send the guards out now. Too many undead near the hatch. I can't risk all of their lives to save a single dwarf.
As the undead drew closer and Tasrak bolted away from the entrance in utter bawling cowardice, I ordered the hatch locked, feeling sick and certain of his fate. Alas, poor Tasrak. So close, so close to survival. Had you been faster, or braver, you might have made it back in time for dinner instead of wasting a perfectly good spear.
I have not eaten since condemning the dwarf to his fate. I have, however, had plenty of wine.
Happily, the lone migrant had already made it safely inside, the single member of his group to survive. Whatever drove his foolish journey to this place, I hope it was worth the life of Tasrak and those of all his comrades.
Once again, Space was kicked out of his forge by a crazed weaponsmith, and the moody dwarf set to work as little Andreus watched with curiosity. Let us pray he makes something useful. Space went off in a rage to take the first break I've seen him take since my arrival.
Another caravan of lunatic merchants unsound enough to dare this place have come into view. Humans, this time, as expected. Humans always come in the summer. Dwarves always come in the fall. Elves come only in Spring and they usually have a hostile troop of goblins trailing behind them. Life is predictable that way.
The forest outside is too thick for their wagons. We sure as hell aren't going out there to thin the wood, so we might never see wagons, unless we give the vampire an axe and tell it to build a road. It's a shame that ghosts are incapable of meaningful labor. This is the most haunted fort in the world. The moaning spirit of Bates the Innkeeper has taken to following me around wherever I go, I'm so lucky.
We've got a breathtaking new Trade Depot wrought of shimmering rose gold, but it hasn't seen any use. Typically, all the human traders died before they ever got near the fort. The caravan guards put up a brief struggle, but were utterly decimated by the skeletons. Some were chased into the slime, and will undoubtedly join the ranks of shamblers in short order. The ogre skeleton responsible for most of their deaths eventually sauntered over to the entrance hatch and has remained there ever since, a menacing sentry just outside the range of our snipers.
For the time being, unless it decides to move somewhere else or we find that elusive lever, no one is getting in or out of here. That thing took out a full squad of heavily armed men and even if we did manage to kill it, our losses could be tremendous. We need to trap the entrances, no later than now.
Still, we have a very fine Trade Depot, and a thoughtfully placed statue garden nearby should brighten the day of any dwarf who passes by. The old Depot was a mishmash of materials probably assembled just so the dwarves could plunder the first caravan to make it inside and unload.
The migrant weaponsmith managed to complete his artifact without going berserk. I went down to see it soon as I heard the news.
An adamantine mace! Of course! Priceless metal with the density of sea foam and the sharpest honed edge known to dwarfkind,
of course you make a mace out of it!
Well, I'll need to speak with him soon and orient him to his exciting new life here. If this one remembers the work he's done, we'll at least have another weaponsmith
in case anything once something happens to Space. Let's not kid ourselves, it's inevitable.
I need to go and yell at the walls in my room for a while before I lose my last shred of composure. I'd say sanity, but let us not kid ourselves here, either. None of us are sane anymore.
Author
Topic: Horrorfailed the Battle-Cannon of Hell - Please do not feed the nobles (Read 578234 times)