Going to include the first entry as an example:
From the translated journal of Kumil Umderdomas
28th of Obsidian, 250
My name is Kumil Umerdomas. I am seventy-eight years old, having been born on the…ah, Ital’s fine-weight! No one but my children will care about *that*, I’ll leave it for the appendix or something. I’m the Militia Commander for the Yellow Roughness expedition (Editor’s note: Dwarven nomenclature, while often quite poetic in the original, rarely survives translation as anything but clunky) which is *finally* nearing its destin…
(here the manuscript is marred by the sort of large ink blot that indicates a sharp jarring motion)
…drives a wagon like a drunken gremlin. Anyway, we’re almost there. Middle of nowhere, probably infested by wild Istam-knows-what, farther from the Mountainhomes than any of us want to think about. But they tell us there’s iron here, and coal to smelt it with, and probably even the makings for good steel. I hope the Stone-ken sages knew their art, and that we’re being given the truth. Plenty of these little ventures just leave and don’t come back. Or just leave leavings. Or end up carving out lairs for some goblin tribe….or dragon….or worse. And here’s our little conquering band, with two whole battle-axes between the seven of us and exactly one who knows how to use one. Well, still better than prison, but I….
“Hey, Kumil! You tryin’ to steal my idea there?” Kumil looked up into the smiling, dark-blue eyes of Edem Ingizfath, who was ambling along just behind the wagon. They were just level; Kumil’s head was higher than normal with him seated on the rear lip of the wagon, but Edem was quite tall. That, and thin, though it wasn’t the iron-corded, wiry slenderness that Kumil possessed; more a sort of flabby lacking. “I know you don’t *need* to write everything down, not the way I do. You’ve got a pretty good memory. From what I remember.” She laughed, and took a long swig straight from her hip flask.
“Yeah, well, no memory’s perfect, and I thought, ‘Hell’s depths, Kumil, what if this little outpost actually *succeeds*? You’ll want a record of it, right? Or someone will. And if it doesn’t well…I’d like to be remembered as more than just a stain smeared over an engraved entrance hall.”
“Ewwww, don’t be so morbid. Besides, I’ve been reading up on traps. With any luck, we can be smearing goblins or whatever down the entrance instead.” Edem mimed the slide of gore by running one hand flat along her palm.
Kumil returned her grimace at this. “Ewww yourself. Beware the nice ones, I guess. I’m a soldier, or the closest we’ve got. I thought I was supposed to be the grisly one.”
Edem laughed and shook her head. “Maybe, but I can set lots of traps and we only got one of you. I bet I rack up a higher smear-count until you get some actual, you know, subordinates.”
“Unless you screw up your runes and end up with traps that lash out at every passing beetle. Or at us. Besides, you’ll have to put something *in* the traps. We don’t have a weaponsmith. We don’t have *any* kind of smith. So until we get one, or one of us decides to try it from a tome…” Kumil reached behind himself and patted the oilskin-wrapped stack of books behind him on the wagon, “….you’re going to be stuck with falling rocks. Or wooden stuff, I guess. Better get on good terms with Unib.”
Edem glanced over at the carpenter, who was walking a couple paces to the side of one of the horses, fingering his tankard where it was looped into his belt and slowly drifting away into his own world. “Yeah, I guess. Probably have to wait until he’s made some beds, though. And chairs. And barrels. And whatever else.”
“And I’ll have to chop down the trees so he can do it.” Kumil rested one hand briefly on the leather-sheathed head of his axe. “Because hey, that’s what ‘Axedwarf’ means now.”
“At least trees don’t chop back. If you’re lucky, this whole ‘Militia’ thing will be a hat you don’t have to wear for a while.”
Kumil gave a short, punctuated bark of a laugh. “If we’re *all* lucky. But if we were *all* lucky, we wouldn’t be here in the first place. Well, I take that back. We’re out of prison. So maybe the Gods are just half-smiling. I guess we’ll see.”
Edem stomped her boot down into the grass with a frown. “Hey, I don’t need reminding of that place. You had it easy. You can fight! You’re strong! You’re tough! I was the skinny one in a pond of big, nasty….”
“Enough.” Kumil cut her off, his voice flat and gruff. He cleared his throat, then continued more gently. “I was in a military prison. It’s not the same thing, Edem. Sorry for bringing it up though.”
“Oh. Well.” Edem said, shrugging her lanky shoulders. “Let’s talk about something else. Like idea-stealing. Admit it, you just don’t want mine to be the whole story of Oiledsystem. You’re trying to hog some of the stage for our great and legendary outpost founding.”
Kumil sighed, half-exasperated, half-amused. “I don’t know why in the depths of Hell Uvash agreed to that name.”
“Because it’s auspicious. And she couldn’t come up with much herself. And neither could you. Besides, what could be better than a place that functions like a well-oiled machine?”
Kumil hiccuped at a particularly harsh jolt of the wagon, then patted his beard-draped stomach. “A place that’s nice to live? Who wants to live in a runework contraption? Not even you, I’d bet.”
Edem swatted Kumil lightly on the knee and made a face. “Lots of things need oiling. Your axe. Your armor, if you ever get any. Hinges. Wagon wheels. You haven’t heard a single squeak from ‘em the whole journey, have you?”
Kumil let out another abbreviated, barking laugh. “Squeaks! Hah! With Sibrek driving, squeaky wheels are the least of our troubles!”
“She’s just taking her turn. She may not exactly have a way with animals, but we’re almost there anyway. Unib’s just going to use it for spare wood. I’m gonna keep the wheels and axles, though. Could come in handy.”
“Great, let’s just emphasize what a one-way trip this is. No, never mind that again. Better here than home. Actually, to correct myself *again*, better home here than home there.”
“Soon, I hope. But for now, I just hope you still haven’t got your fill of dirt mattresses.”
Author
Topic: StoneTrance- A fortress narrative (Read 990 times)