A thick layer of morning fog blanketed the valley as it tended to in the rainier months. The fortress was at it's usual frenzied pace but outside the walls there was an almost sacred stillness. The tall, ancient boughs stretched towards infinity, their leafy tops imperceptible through the dense mist. The sun had begun to rise and a relaxed- almost lazy- gray haze hung over the world. The silence was interrupted periodically by the scuffling of a pebble knocked across the ground or a twig snapping under dwarven boots.
Okon and Lolor spent their first month in Arrowstockades suffering all of it's trials and indignities. Soon they found themselves clad in the magnificent, ornate, filth covered regalia common to the inhabitants of the fortress and had begun settling into the daily grind. Okon was presently assigned to accompany Dumplin on patrol while Lolor was off hauling wood.
“This fortress isn't what I was expecting,” Okon said. “All they ever talk about is how great Arrowstockades is, I never heard about any burning corpses or tallow cakes or the constant threat of violent death. And the work! In the city we work regular hours instead of constant backbreaking work for days on end and then going days just wandering around. Sure there's always the risk of vampires or night creatures but we never worried about invading armies attacking twice season. Plus, I can't help but feel people are much more comfortable about the acceptable amount of body fluids coating your belongings. There's vomit and blood everywhere and nobody seems to do anything about it. I don't know how you stand it.”
“You stop caring.”
“Well I guess I'm getting acclimated to the smell but-”
“No, you stop caring about everything. You stop thinking about your hopes and dreams and aspirations. You reset your expectations. You stop feeling entitled to a room to sleep in, or a moments rest, or any sort of fulfillment, and you get accustomed to burying your friends. You make sure you get your two servings of ale and a solid meal and as long as you aren't dying or killing anyone you accept that as fine. You accept that you can't fix anything, that you can't help anyone, that you can only scrape by just slightly closer to life than death. Your acceptable life expectancy drops from 150 years to 5 years after migrating. The madness gets to you and you stop worrying about 'normal' or 'fair.' And then you accept that one day this fortress is going to fall in a spectacle of violence and fear and there will be no survivors. You understand that this hauling, crafting, fighting, and surviving is just a stupid overly complicated game we're waiting to lose and nothing that happens in between matters. This fortress and everyone and everything in it are completely-!”
Dumplin paused suddenly. She turned cautiously and turned towards the forest. She plumbed the milky haze with her sharp eyes and held her crossbow at the ready. An almost imperceptible sound was drawing nearer. Okon's ears hadn't picked it up but he'd picked up the hint and was at the ready. What came next was the smell, the foul odor of death that immediately preceded a howl of dwarven terror.
Avuz Gravetorch joined the fortress twenty two years ago and had through luck and cunning survived in the militia fifteen of those years rising to the rank of sergeant of the First Archers. He escaped countless foes and six enemies of the fortress had found death by his steady hand. He had buried no fewer than eighteen dwarves who called themselves his friends. He knew well the nature of life and death in Arrowstockades. And so Dumplin did not need to see what he'd seen she needed only to hear the fear in that dwarf's cracking voice when he cried “the dead walk!” She broke into a dead run towards the fortress with Okon following close behind.
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Topic: The Increasingly Tragic Tale of Dumplin (Read 79091 times)