Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Lord_lemonpie]

Ptw

[Baffler]

Posting to watch. This is really great, btw, keep up the good work!

Edit: This isn't just over, is it? That would be depressing, yet oddly fitting.

[Broseph Stalin]

Posting to watch. This is really great, btw, keep up the good work!

Edit: This isn't just over, is it? That would be depressing, yet oddly fitting.

No. I have gone temporarily insane and it's interrupted my writing. This story will not under any circumstances end prematurely.

[Meph]

Posting to watch. This is really great, btw, keep up the good work!

Edit: This isn't just over, is it? That would be depressing, yet oddly fitting.

No. I have gone temporarily insane and it's interrupted my writing. This story will not under any circumstances end prematurely.

That is good to hear. I am still waiting, patiently, for it to finish, then bundle it up, make it a .pdf and put it to MDF somehow. Or at least urge you to upload it to dfstories.com

[Broseph Stalin]

Lolor made an odd face and went about collecting her equipment.
“I don't know about all this militia business,” Okon said. “You aren't a warrior.”
“Well I told that to the One-Eyed Dwarf-”
“Feb One-Eye.” Dumplin said.
“Thank you. I told Mister Feb One-Eye-”
“He's terrible.” Dumplin interrupted.
“Um, thank you. I told Feb that I don't have any experience fighting but he didn't seem to think that mannered. I'll probably just be telling rowdy dwarves to behave at parties or something like that. Dumplin? I think I have my equipment.”
Lolor had succeeded in donning a suit of bronze armor and was holding a sword and shield.
“Off to the barracks then.” Dumplin said already working her way up the stairs. She didn't bother stopping this time when they looked out across the landscape in awe.

“Dumplin!” Came the familiar frantic voice of Degel. “I'm trying to organize a demonstration but all the baboons are ignoring me, they say they're doing individual training but their just standing around and chatting!”

“I don't care.” Dumplin replied. “I have to show these two around.”
“Hello,” said Lolor. “I'm Lolor and this is Okon, we're new arrivals.”
“Have you heard any rumors about me?” He asked cautiously.
“What sort of rumors?” Okon asked.
“Elf or fondling based rumors.”
“What?” Lolor asked,
“Never mind.” Degel said. “Always happy to see fresh new faces.”
“I see you're wearing armor,” Lolor said. “Are you part of the militia?”
“I'm Captain Degel.” Degel said proudly. “I lead the Hairless Baboons.”
“Why do they call you the Harless Baboons?” Okon asked.
“Because we can't stop them.” Degel replied.
“The barracks are over there.” Dumplin said pointing. “Find your squad leader.”
“I'll meet you in the dining hall dearest.” Lolor said with a kiss before heading off to train.
“It's a shame we can't work together.” Okon said. “We used to work in the same shop in the city.”
Dumplin stared at Degel for an inordinate amount of time before a spark took root in his brain with a big idiotic smile.
“Well if you'd like to join my squad we could arrange it so you train at the same time.”
“Well that would be fantastic Mr. -Er Captain Degel.”
“Excellent!” Degel clapped excitedly. “Find some armor and I'll fetch you when it's time to train, I was worried we'd never fill out the squad.”
“Oh?” Okon asked.
“Well one of our members was killed in a training accident that hospitalized me and got one of us arrested then Athel was stabbed to death.”
“Oh.”
“Maybe if I can find another migrant who hasn't heard those rumors yet we can fill out the squad before the day is out!”
“About those rumors-”
“Well I don't fondle elves I just think their marital bonds are sort of neat I don't think like about marrying an elf, like meeting one of the traders and running away together.”
“That's a specific thing to not think about.”
“Well that proves the rumors aren't true. Now I have to go see if Iral will let me back in the barracks.” Degel concluded.
“I may have made a poor decision.” Okon said.
“Several.” Dumplin replied.

[Baffler]

I don't check this board for a couple of days, and look what happened! Glad to see this moving along.

[Broseph Stalin]

“What exactly do the Hairless Baboons do?” Okon had followed Dumplin to the stockpiles for a wheelbarrow and begun the descent to the caverns.
“Die horribly.” Dumplin replied.

Okon plotted his response briefly. “Well what are we supposed to do?”

“Die horribly and slowly.” Dumplin replied. “Keeps the siegers busy.” She explained.

“Well, what aside from dying are we supposed to do?”

“Patrol, man the guard towers, train, and suffer grievous injury.”

The strata was changing colors during their descent, Okon had no way of knowing but Dumplin knew exactly how many flights of stairs were left. As the stairs became more irregular and the landings took on more irregular shapes the staircase grew bereft of the masterful craftsmanship and care that was woven into each of the more important facets of the fortress. The sudden lack of interest in quality marked the approach to the caverns.

“Well do we see combat?” Okon asked.

“That would be one source of grievous injury and horrible death.” Dumplin replied.

“If, hypothetically, someone decided to leave the militia how would they go about doing that?”

“Well they could die horribly-”

“Just assume this hypothetical person has no interest in horrible death.”

“Then they could be grievously injured and provided they didn't die horribly they would be expelled from the militia.”

“How grievously would they have to be injured?”

“Enough to die horribly,” Dumplin clarified.

“You know the stories about Arrowstockades don't mention much horrible death.”

“I know,” Dumplin replied. “It's a horrible oversight.”

The stairs finally let out into a small room and Dumplin pushed open the doors breaking the seal between the grand staircase from the caverns. Okon looked out in awe at the glimmering mineral formations, faintly luminous mushrooms, and still waters of the caverns. Dumplin walked forward unaffected to a mound of raw silver and waste stone giving it a pat.

“Load the wheelbarrow and take it up the stairs.”

Okon looked towards the staircase, wheelbarrow, and stone all in turn before uttering a bemused, “Pardon?”

[ShadowHammer]

Does it make me a horrible person if I found that discussion centered on horrible death completely hilarious?

[Broseph Stalin]

Does it make me a horrible person if I found that discussion centered on horrible death completely hilarious?

Yes but it makes you an excellent Df player.

[Meme]

Well that was hilarious, can't wait for more! I'm so happy that this hasn't stopped!

[Timeless Bob]

Circular logic?  In DF? Never!

[CaptainLambcake]

i miss this and likot soapeater

[Broseph Stalin]

Dumplin ,having a wealth of knowledge on the long and miserable journey up the stairs, could have told Okon exactly how to expedite the process but she simply couldn't muster up enough concern to care. Instead Dumplin chose to alternate between looking at her shoes and Obok ,who she'd all but forgotten had an eternal seat perched upon her. She mused for a bit on how completely unobtrusive a dwarven baby was and after poking him to ensure he was alive turned her attention back to Okon.
   He was still struggling impotently on the first step having made it as far as the third before sliding back down. Dumplin busied herself staring at walls and various mosses and making rough estimates of how long it would take the miners to deplete the new vein. Following that she thought of the average miners speed , how long it took a garbage dwarf to haul away large boulders, and how quickly a mason could smooth and engrave one square urist to calculate how long each part of the fortress had taken to construct.
   “Dumplin,” Okon finally said defeatedly. “I can't get up the stairs.”

“If you can't they'll make you live down here.” Dumplin said pointing towards the cavern dwarves. She did not bother to note his expression or listen to his horrified response.She had no real interest in another warm body to feed the evil machine that was Arrowstockades. Eventually Okon began rising slowly and steadily towards the fortress and his inevitable death.
   “They should put in a ramp.” Okon said heavily. “One with landings every so often. Let the miners use the staircase and the haulers use the ramp.”
She thought wistfully about how she'd tried to fix the fortress once.  There was something outstandingly liberating about experience, about understanding the futility of certain paths and knowing not to walk them. Instead of paying attention to him she listened for the faint but rapid strikes of picks far above them. She'd noticed it some time ago and had realized the mausoleum was being expanded.
    It did not escape her that she could tell Okon just how horrible everything was, explain how hopelessly and needlessly every facet of the fortress was. How this bastard oasis deceived the world, how the mountainhome was built on blood and death. How miserably worthless a single dwarven cog was to the monolithic machine. How every moment of peace was heavy with the realization the enemy was about to strike. She could have told him to run from the never ending sieges and a lifetime of hard labor and and from an ignominious death. She could have warned him to disappear into the black deep forests where the wound in the was perpetually growing to house more dwarven dead. Even if she cared about the poor fool carelessly wandering into the spiders web he would ignore her.
   Had their roles been reversed she would have ignored him, there is no more dire a failing of the dwarven language then that it cannot adequately express the horrors of Arrowstockades. It convinced you time and time again that things could get better leaving a spark of hope just bright enough to encourage you to descend deeper and deeper into the stygian depths and when it finally had you body and soul it snuffed that light out and put you in a stone box in a long corridor. It nailed you down to a sickly husband and a newborn child and a band of idiots who without your guidance would surely die and by the time you stopped caring about any of them you had lost the will to run.
   Okon turned his wheelbarrow over to the furnace operators and collapsed in a heap. His right foot bulged out of his shoe in an unseemly fashion, likely broken when he vainly tried to catch himself sliding downward. After the miserable trek even breathing was unpleasant and chest became reluctant to rise after it fell but eventually he found his feet and Dumplin escorted him to the dining hall. There he and his foolish wife would discuss training accidents and long falls and cave ins and the overpowering smell of burning carcasses but they would talk one another out of leaving and then they would die.

[darkflagrance]

Is this the end? I only just discovered this story and greatly enjoyed reading it.  Frankly, I am astounded her son didn't die. That should give her some hope still?

[Broseph Stalin]

Is this the end? I only just discovered this story and greatly enjoyed reading it.  Frankly, I am astounded her son didn't die. That should give her some hope still?

School is crazy. I know exactly how the story is going to end and it's not ending until it's done.