19 LIMESTONE 126
The idiot brigade infested the tarnish stalks. Now the ground is coated in half-digested plant matter and we don't have any vodka. That reservoir is looking like an excellent idea, now.
24 LIMESTONE 126
Another group of caravaneers fled, battered and weeping, into Wooddeath today. The only man I could get anything coherent out of was their de facto leader, Lord Healingdirt. Lord claimed a column of centaurs almost twenty strong ambushed their caravan not eight days downriver from us. The only reason they lived was because Psyche Blacklord is a damn fine fisherhobbit, and kept them filled with trilobite filet. I have granted them asylum, and temporarily halted construction of our new inn to set up some suitable housing.
Speaking of which, I really ought to move Chiefappletree inside somewhere. He sings at night, and since he's out in the open (excuse me, sheltered snugly under a leaky awning) everyone can hear him. If I have to hear one more verse of "Tit Lovelytits' Titillating Tits", I will create the position of executioner and fill it myself. Gods, it's worse than a tom theraphosa's stridulations in mating season, I tell you...
28 LIMESTONE 126
Ye
gods, man, there's a blasted elf sitting out on the edge of our lands! Don't get me wrong, I have everything against the leafy scattertongues, but this is just ridiculous! Their caravan left two weeks ago and he's been there ever since, just...watching us.
28 SANDSTONE 126
Vomit everywhere. Freshly paved road is now a sickening shade of green. Idiots. Should never have bought those tarnish stalks - now I know why those damn traders were so eager to sell them off. A single shitty wood pipe in exchange for ten meals' worth of food? What a steal!
They stole from
us.
6 TIMBER 126
The hounds are getting bolder. I helped the idiot brigade and the new migrants move the aphididas off to a greener pasture to the east of town. Really ought to thank the lad the last caravaneers brought with them - the boy had the presence of mind enough to chuck a good-sized rock at the beasts when they got too close, and that scared them off long enough for us to act. He's like our own little ant, guarding the aphids from the ladybirds.
Also like an ant, young Wild has more brain cells than the whole brigade combined. Turns out, they
did manage to brew a barrel or two of vodka, long-lasting, potent, and every bit as unhealthy as raw stalks. I hope they all die of dehydration from the fucking oral dysentery that stuff gave them.
9 TIMBER 126
Blossom's unconscious and feverish. The trail of vomit leading to her room leads me to suspect the idiot brigade somehow talked her into having a swig of their vodka. It'd be a pity if she dies - pretty lass.
14 TIMBER 126
Another caravan arrived. Evidently, Wooddeath is founded near a fairly major road - or I assume so. It's really the only explanation that makes sense for how so many refugees keep finding us, and how so many caravans keep bumbling into us.
16 TIMBER 126
The inn has finally been completed, and I personally cudgeled the tarnish stalk rope in half at the opening ceremony. We've got furniture being custom-made for the interior, and hopefully within the season the Wounded Hound will take its place at the center of Wooddeath social life, because honestly the well area is kind of nauseating to look at. I've seen enough of the brigade's insides to last me a lifetime, and if I never hear the sound of a halfling vomiting again it'll be too soon.
19 TIMBER 126
Elves are back again. Hopefully, they'll leave quickly, and not leave any stragglers.
23 TIMBER 126
No trades completed. The halfling caravaneers are charging
41 coins for a
single pumpkin. I'd have to
be a pumpkin to buy the bugshit they're trying to sell! They say the coming winter is expected to be a cold one, and the demand for pumpkins has skyrocketed, but I'll be damned if I'm going to pay twice the standard market price for a pumpkin we can grow ourselves for free.
Bunch of godsdamned highway robbers, is what they are...
1 MOONSTONE 126
Our stocks at the onset of winter.
The well to the reservoir froze over. We're building a covering for it now, then we'll channel out the ice.
12 MOONSTONE 126
Some of the brigade have discovered the highly amusing sport of duckfighting. It's like cockfighting, except with animals that actually exist. This particular match that I observed happened inside the Wounded Hound - and I won eight coins off it, to boot!
21 MOONSTONE 126
The craftsmen have discovered a rather interesting alchemical transformation involving wood, virgin sacrifice, and the blood of a duck that died in battle. We can't eat it, but we can probably sell it, so long as we never tell anyone how it's done.
23 MOONSTONE 126
We've created a fiendishly arcane and contorted underground water tunnel to a new well beneath town hall. Water is no longer a problem.
And so, the digging begins...
----------
The rock beneath my shovel was hard and unyielding. Blade and I had been chipping away at the stone for hours, carving a spiraling staircase deeper and deeper into the skin of the world. Nothing ever changed - grey stone, grey
rock, boring and dull and without a green thing growing in it. The only things that sustained me were visions of what might be down there - the stories old ma told my siblings and I at night that kindled the fires of wonder and curiosity in our hearts. What would we find? What was the underdark like? Would we find the cities of the mythical Dwarves, the diminutive masters of fire and steel? Would we find a new land, like the surface, covered with leafy trees and fascinating fauna? The dreaded reaver ants? The giant spiders that spun their webs of gold near the bottom of the world? Something worse? Something even more fantastic than the stories? We were in uncharted waters here, Blade and I, and we could both feel it. Her nervousness was almost palpable in the cramped confines of the shaft.
Eventually, we took a break, me slumping to the ground and letting the shovel clatter to the floor, her leaning back against a wall and staring vacantly up towards the frigid surface. Not that it wasn't cold down here, as well - we could see our own breath, and the rock may as well have been ice.
"What do you think we'll find, Chief?" she panted tiredly. "A few tunnels, maybe? Jaded Slade?"
"Don't know," I answered. "Maybe."
"Why are we doing this, then, if we don't know what we'll find?" she asked. She glanced down at me. "We have all the rock we need nearly a hundred feet up."
"And we'll dig down another hundred more, dammit, if that's what it takes to find the Underdark!" I exclaimed. There was a mad gleam in my eye as I stood up. "You know it's real, Blade. Where else do the Formics get that spongey wood they like so much, huh? Where do you think they found coral fungus first?"
"Aye, it's real, but we can trade for all that!" she pointed out. "What do you think we'll find? Why do we dig?"
"What will we - ye gods, Blade, haven't you heard the stories?" I stammered. "Think about it!"
"What? Those tired old tales from the "Thousand Travels of Alnebkarat"? Ha!" she laughed. "The golden spiders? The reaver ants of the tunnels? The 'pale riders'? They even sound like fictions from a children's tale - just normal creatures with a few adjectives tacked on. What makes you think you'll find any? The Formics don't even record mentions of these things."
"They are bloody real, Blade! Those tales have the ring of truth to them!" I growled. "Beneath our feet at this very moment, there could be an entire world waiting for us to settle and explore. Just one bale of golden cloth would make us wealthy beyond our wildest dreams! No more scrabbling at the ground for pumpkins, or vomiting up our last poisonous meal - the richest pies! The thickest stews! The finest clothes!"
"If those things exist," she added.
With a wordless roar, I swept up my shovel and jammed it into the rock at the ground. "They exist, and I will find them if I have to carve a tunnel from Wooddeath to Hell itself!"
With an ear-splitting crack, the shovel blade flashed blue and bit unnaturally deep into the rock. Shocked, Blade and I both leapt backwards and pressed ourselves against the far side of the shaft as a ten-by-ten section of rock cracked, splintered, and finally broke away, crumbling like chalk and plunging down into darkness. Wordlessly, we peeled ourselves off the wall and shuffled over to the edge of the sudden pit. I craned my neck, straining to see over the rim without getting too close, and finally gave up. I dropped onto my hands and knees and crawled up to the rim, and looked into the abyss.
Below me, far below me, to all extents of my vision, I could see the shadowy caps of a forest of giant black mold, like party balloons rising from the flat stone. Brightly glowing patches of cyan moss mixed with pale grey fuzz across the plain of rock, before that plain ended and dropped down into a pit of the blackest stone I've ever seen. The musty scent of a cave hit me like a ton of bricks as I, wide-eyed, looked around the underdark. It was simultaneously the most beautiful and the most eerie sight I've ever seen, and likely ever will see again.
"Wave's love," Blade murmured. "Can you see anything?"
From my position kneeling on the floor, I grinned up at her. "Yes, Blade," I nodded slowly. "Wonderful things."
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Topic: DF from scratch: The entirely player-made universe succession. (Read 524426 times)