Spring:
I don't remember well...it was so soon after the change... All I remember is that there were so many. Two forces came to destroy us: one from above, one from below
We had to do it. We simply had no choice but to do it. I lead my squad armed with all the unholy powers that came with the change
Imp, meanwhile, used his new escape form to flee deeper into the fort and pull the necessary levers
The orcs were in no hurry, the had caught a drow shielddancer apart from the caravan. One of the orcs was angrily torturing the miserable drow, while the others merely watched. We saw that the orcs were lead by a powerful man, and our new senses told us he too was a vampire. The orcs deferred to him as though he were a god:
Meanwhile some of us were having a hard time with the change. One of the warriors in the bloodguard changed into a bat and attacked our tame giant eagle. We got lucky because no loyalty cascade happened
Their melee drew the attention of all our animals and the fledgling vampire was torn to shreds
Our enemies gathered. Maybe the hiveguard would hate the orcs? Maybe the orcs would hate the hiveguard. Nope. Best friends they are:
Well, we've got our own friends. The drow caravan never left and when we sealed the bridges, they started getting a little antsy. So I had the bridge opened again and sent them right out. Turns out the drow really minded their guard getting tortured, since their glaivemaster took it out on every orc and hiver in sight:
The drow cuts their way right out and left. Left us plenty of orcs to worry about too...So we sealed up again and took stock of our losses. Sir Blue has yet again died
The vampire we tormented and bled to accomplish our change has returned as a ghost and haunts the "juicer":
All in all, we more more than 70 able-bodied kobolds and we could have done the hivers ourselves, but the orcs brought skilled archers and rode mighty bats. Perhaps if we took advantage of their leader, the vampire lord, and struck him down, the siege would fall apart. Surely it was worth trying. We waited for the right moment and opened the gate once more.
The orc army began to march, but the deity, moving at preternatural speeds ran far ahead of them and past our bridge and into the compound. We quickly had the gate sealed behind him. Curiously the vampire lord ran into, but did not harass the human ambassador who was just then leaving:
The deity ran right into our defenses, was swarmed by ogres and proved more than able. Striking with insane speeds he broke bones and tossed aside war ogres before the mighty hulks could strike
Armed with just an earring, the orc god proved a worthy opponent for our trained beasts:
Not our cage trap though. We caught it just as soon as it entered.
I thought of juicing it for its sweet, sweet blood, but it seemed lifting the siege was more important than contriving an elaborate torture, so I contrived a simple torture and bound it in the ogre cave, ready to be released:
For some reason the workers refused to wire the lever to the cage, so I released it manually, expecting the ogres to quickly dispatch it. The thing was far too fast, and it ran across the entire breadth of the fort, panicking civilians while a horde of ogres and soldiers and even us vampires pursued it. We caught and swarmed it killing a few of our snakes in a narrow hallway. I do not know who got the credit for the kill since the creature bled to death surrounded by a horde of beasts and kobolds: thus fell an orc deity
The death of their god did little to dissuade the orcs. They hung about, riding their horrible bats and seemed pretty unbothered that their god entered and never left our burrow. To our joy the caverns spat our yet another horror, but this one went straight for the orcs:
To our horror, the orcish bats swarmed and killed it with little trouble:
We had our own problems to worry about. Almost no one in the fort was happy. Seems kobolds started to mind the consequences of security as our change began to take its toll on our people:
I had them start building a private sanctum for the vampire lords, while setting up small rooms for the peasants. It seems our old barracks became increasingly littered with bloodless corpses. Hell, I helped out too. All the other vampires like feeding there, so why not me.
Meanwhile, the orc siege suddenly collapsed on itself. Seems the blightbats had been there long enough to start breeding, but their offspring weren't as trained or loyal as their parents:
This caused a loyalty cascade:
Before long the bats were biting and clawing at each other *and* their children and the orcs just up and left.
We cheered and rejoiced and welcomed Autumn.
Despite the violence of the last few months, and our own unspeakable hungers pushing the population below 50, some brave souls came drawn by our prosperity:
To keep the masses entertained I ordered and mass pitting and execution of the hiveguards which were cluttering up our cage stockpiles:
I also made an effort to turn our steel stocks into armor though orders were performed slowly as our workforce increasingly turned to...dinner.
Killing the hivers went well, with all our archers scoring many kills and becoming much more skilled, however we almost lost our giant eagle when he dove into the pit and was badly injured by a queensguard:
Good thing our iron bola dismember those ugly bugs like they are made of butter. Funny thing though: when my fellow vampires pit an enemy, they panic as soon as the enemy is in the pit, turn into a bat and fly away.
Perhaps because we kill so many, another siege of hivespawn comes from the depths. On the surface we are invaded by a gang of gun wielding humans lead by a master archer riding a dragon raptor. The bastards! I knew I should have worried when the orc vampire god did nothing to the human ambassador!
Despite sealing off, the humans manage to catch four or five kobolds outside and even kill an ogre (the dragon raptor tore off his head, literally):
This, along with the steady stream of kobolds drained of blood increases the tensions in the burrow until they explode in a particularly perverse way:
A digger laughed, fell and terrible, grabbed a two year old child, dragged him to a butcher shop and fashioned the poor boy into a ring called "the Putrid Profanity". The horror...
Still nice ring!
Winter went on with no more events. I wasn't planning to test the human's gunpowder, so I kept the doors shut and built the vampire sanctum. When spring came, our fort had a great achievement: a kobold died of old age:
Too bad we can't build coffins fast enough to keep up with the dying, down to 35 kobolds now. Vampires must eat too, you know. At least the sanctum is mostly done:
[spoiler]
[/spoiler]
The lower level has a chapel to a few of our gods that may yet look at our curse and blessing with mercy:
It is spring now, and time to let another rule. I must go feed....
________________
We might have a very small fort soon. We are still under two sieges, and have no real way of dealing with the human siege without massive losses. Let us just hope they leave We have many hungry, hungry vampires and few new migrants, our population halved in a year. I am building nothing but coffins but they aren't getting done fast enough. Enjoy!
http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=7731
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Topic: (Vampire) Kobold Camp Succession Fort, Scrinimontena (Read 11137 times)