Preface
Hi everybody! I've always lurked around this board reading the different stories, my current favorite right now is Spearbreakers, and finally I got the idea to embark in the middle of the ocean, well... to make a bridge connecting two landmasses and then putting a fort in the middle of it and then 'tax' those dirty treeloving elves when they try to cross mwahahahahaha.
Anyways if anyone wants to be dwarfed, let me know, and feel free to write your own journals. We could really make an epic story. Hopefully after a little while we can make this a succession fort. Well enough of me writing, without further ado I bring to you the +Story+ of Steelarches.
-----
Steelarches
A story of Greed and Stupidity
-This is a penguin leather bound journal. All the craftdwarfship is of questionable quality. It is bordered with bands of grasshopper-man chitin and studded with walrus bone. On the front cover is the name "Urist Bridgebuilder" in limestone. The journal has a smear of Urist Bridgebuilder's blood on the cover. On the front cover is an image of a bridge, the dwarves are working on the bridge in limestone. On the back cover is an image of elf and human ships trying to sail the ocean but the bridge is in the way. The humans and elves are perplexed, the dwarfs are laughing.3rd malachite, 114Dear Journal, my name is Urist, I build bridges. I've built lots of bridges, enough to where my fellow dwarfs seemed to have tacked on "Bridgebuilder" to the end of my name, I actually find it quite annoying but there is nothing I can do to stop it. I guess its sort of a tradition that I write a journal about every bridge that I build, it sort of kills the boredom of directing the daily monotonous tasks.
Believe it or not, I've been called out of my retirement to build one last bridge. The king insisted that I leave all of the comforts of the mountainhomes and build this bridge. To tell you the truth, I need the extra cash.
Anyways to fully explain why this particular bridge is important I need to explain the geography of the region and some of its history. Here is a clipping of the part of the known world in which concerns us.
There are a few civilizations on this continent. There are the southern humans and elves and the northern humans and elves. For a long while they traded by land via the west, however in a barren land from the land to the far south, necromancers came with large undead armies and attempted to colonize our land, the humans and elves fought against them and finally the undead settled in the area in between the north and the south. The only way for trade to continue was by boat.
This is where my story begins. The king
being the asshole that he is seeing that all ships had to pass through a straight, he ordered me to build a bridge that would bar the elves and humans from trading with eachother along with keeping any trade from the civilizations from the far north. We will then be able to tax all trade going through this area and make tons of gold. I will arrive to the team I have assembled, two masons (for building), two miners (for getting the stone) and two farmers (for growing crops and brewing beer, hey fine beer is hard to come by).
I am to arrive in a few days to the site. It will be a long trek through the ice and snow.
5th malachite, 114Dear journal, everything goes as planned, I guess its worth noting the dwarves Ive hired. They are
Monom the miner
Logem the miner
Rovod the Mason
Athel the Mason
Astesh the Brewer
Iteb the Grower
All of these dwarves come highly recommended and five are just starting out so I can pay them less, which means more money for
(the rest of the pages are covered with Urist Bridgebuilder's blood)8th malachite, 114Hello journal, I found you on the side of the road next to some poor dwarf who seemed to be mauled by some sort of animal. I am what you would call a wanderer, or as most other people put it, a hobo. Personally I'm fairly down on my luck since I've been exiled from the mountainhomes, where I was an administrator. It was an accident really, how would I know that pulling the lever would fill the prince's room with magma, I thought it was there to raise the bridge. Anyways I am going to impersonate the owner of this journal. Luckily he seemed to explain everything that he was supposed to do. He assembled a team that I hope will just know what to do. Its only a days walk from here. I hope no one notices I'm not who I'm pretending to be.
9th malachite, 114Today was quite the adventure. As I walked across the snow on the way to the meeting point I saw a fire in the distance. It was dark because the sun had just come down but the bonfire the dwarves had lit was bright so I followed the light and the laughs anyone could hear a mile away. The snow cracked and creaked as I moved towards the fire hoping that no one would notice that I'm not this Urist person.
I felt a hand on my shoulder and a deep groggy voice say 'yer late.'
He then yelled "Hey everyone! Our great patron is here, open a keg and show 'em that he is among friends."
The dwarf then pushed me over to the campfire and bellowed "sit" and shoved me down on the leather skin that lay on the snow. Then he exclaimed "Drink first, introductions later." The booze was some of the best I've ever tasted in a long time. It was a bit strange how Rovod (one of the masons) stared at me the entire night without saying anything which was really creepy. Well after a long time of drinking and partying the sun started rising and everyone was asleep. I was still awake trying to think of what to do, then I realized it. We were sitting on a large block of ice. We were on top of the frozen ocean which was melting!
I got a pot and a hammer and started banging on it and everyone woke up. Monom the miner who had been sleeping on the wagon sprung up and accidentally kicked the anvil off the caravan and it hit the melting ice. There was a large cracking noise, followed by a long silence and pause. I yelled "grab something and move it to the mountain!" All of us grabbed food and booze and whatever was the first thing we could get our hands on and made a break for it. Athel yelled "Save the booze!" and both Logem and Athel both grabbed a barrel in each arm and ran off to land.
It was our seventh time running back and forth to the wagon when everything started to give way. We hadent gotten all of the supplies out of the wagon yet but we had a fair amount. I decided it was too dangerous to go back and get more but then I realized and I guess I shouted it out "the anvil!" It was still out by the wagon.
Right then Logem took off towards the wagon exclaiming something about being the fastest dwarf in the mountainhomes and actually managed to get to the anvil. He yanked and pulled at it and got it free from the sleet along with a loud and echoing crack. He took off running and shortly after the ice under the wagon gave way. He jumped from iceberg to iceberg finally making it to land. All of us looked back and watch the wagon slowly sink into the water.
Logem and Athel were celebrating how they got most of the booze off the wagon (apparently they are related somehow)
Monom was sleeping again
Rovod was still giving me the evil eye and holding some sort of stuffed animal tightly
Iteb was counting how many seeds we had saved (he took a large stockpile with him) and Astesh was on his knees crying and sniffling about how we had lost his family's heirloom brewing kit, poor guy.
Overall I guess everything is going fairly well.
11th malachite, 114I decided I should do the one thing I actually knew how to do and thats administrate. I've overseen some projects but nothing like building a bridge over a huge landmass like this. All I can say is that I'll do the best I can.
I ordered Monom and Logem to start digging out a place for the farm and Rovod and Athel to go on hauling duty for now. Astesh should look around for plants that he thinks we can use to eat and make more booze and told Iteb to start chopping trees. What did I do? I counted what we had and made sure everyone was doing the job I gave them.
21st malachite, 114Hello journal, I haven't written anything for a while. A few things happened over the last few days. The good news is that we got the farm area dug out
the bad news is that Astesh spotted some of those dirty grasshopper people hopping across the plains. I've ordered both Rovod and Athel to mass produce blocks to build a wall.
Its still snowing on the other side of the ocean.
Iteb started a farm and is growing all sorts of crops, Astesh is drawing up sketches for a new still and Monom and Logem are digging out a proper meeting hall and sleeping area.
I've been marking out areas to build the wall.
27th malachite, 114Our first month here is almost finally over
The wall is almost complete, I've had all of the masons working around the clock making blocks and placing them up. Athel was complaining about me being a slavedriver and I said "Oooooh wait until we start building the bridge" and he just cringed.
Both of our intrepid miners finished carving out the new meeting area.
I pulled out some plans I had drawn out and both of them groaned and reluctantly started digging.
Astesh managed to make a new still out of stone but the booze isn't nearly as good as his old alcohol. He says its something about it not having years of use and being made out of stone instead of brass.
-----
There is a migrant wave that came in so there is plenty of room for people who want to be dwarfed, just leave a post
Any feedback is appreciated
Author
Topic: Steelarches - A story about a fortress in the middle of the ocean (Read 2198 times)