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[highmax28]

Oh god... That image...

[Gnorm]

Oh god... That image...

Is that a positive or a negative reaction?

[Rhaken]

Somewhere down in the caverns below Steelhold...

"Keep it down, damn you!" A cloaked dwarf hisses at a woman, covering her mouth. She had been whining about her child, oh where was her poor child, had they seen her?

"She's probably with one of the other groups," Rhaken whispered. "Don't fuss about it. Just keep quiet and don't move."

"But-"

"Shut it."

"But my child-"

"Shut your fucking face, woman!"

Her eyes flared with the anger of the ignorant, but at least she was quiet now. Typical. Here they all were, trying to save her life, and she was risking getting them all killed.

Rhaken's men weren't exactly elite operatives, nor had they been able to properly prepare, but they did well enough. Firewood had been quickly gathered from cavern trees and pitched into small campfires, forming a small perimeter on an underground hill carpeted in fungus. They had followed their leader's instructions to the letter, having a dwarf set up watch between each pair of fires so the glare of the flames wouldn't impede their sight. The few not on watch duty were keeping the civilians in line. One sat by a fire, a brace of long, slender saplings by his side, a pilfered knife in one hand. One by one, he sharpened the tips of the shafts and held them over the blaze to harden. Makeshift spears. Complete crap if their foes came armored, but troglodytes had yet to learn the fundaments of tool-making. They just had their own leathery hides.

Some time went by in relative quiet. Just the crackling of the fires and the unsteady roil of cavern noises - a drip from a stalagtite high above, and endless, indistinct echoes from far away. If you were paranoid enough, you could make those echoes out to be anything. They could be cave spiders scuttling about. They could be the mating calls of crundles. Or they could be the cry of something else - some ancient creature, forgotten by dwarf and man and elf, fast approaching to claim their lives. Best not to think about it to much.

A sudden noise. The pattering of footsteps, coming from somewhere to Rhaken's left. From the fortress stairwell?

"Dwarf, I think," said one of his boys, an old army tracker and poacher. How he could tell, Rhaken would never know. He just wished the bastard had been quieter with the footfalls.

Sure enough, a dwarf was approaching. Some dumb civilian, who'd been holed up in the fortress, no doubt. Didn't seem particularly burned. He had probably huddled somewhere safe, like the garbage heap.

"I think it's clear, guys! The fires are going out and I think the baron's been dealt with!" The dwarf was a bit too happy about all this. A bit too loud, too.

Rhaken's boys gestured wildly to the other dwarf, trying to see if they could convey the message of "quiet, you fucking imbecile" before something heard him-

"Head's up! We got movement!" One of the perimeter guards, three fires away from Rhaken.

"How many?", demanded the boss.

"Three of 'em. Shit, it's trogs!"

Rhaken cursed under his breath. "Spears, boys! Look alive! Protect the civilians!" He ran to pick up a spear himself. Here's hoping they did the trick.

His boys, as well as any other former military among them, ran for the pile of spears. They formed up as best they could, forming a shabby spearwall that would make any drill sargeant throw a fit. Still better than nothing. Rhaken's remaining men went around the civilians, trying to cover them should any trogs get past the front line.

The brutish creatures were running toward them, foaming at the mouth, massive fists swinging wildly. Their wild eyes blazed. They were hungry, and keen to feast on delicious beardling. Not on my watch, Rhaken thought.

The first came barreling into the line. Too dumb to protect itself, it managed to ram three spears several inches deep into its chest. One seemed to have hit its heart, because the beast started to topple backwards, breaking the spears and taking the tips with it.

The second came. It grabbed the spear of the dwarf to Rhaken's right and swung it aside, throwing it and its wielder over and into the rest of the men. Rhaken was smart enough to duck it and thrust the spear into the creature's knee. It roared in pain and twisted, snapping off the tip. Rhaken cursed. Fortunately, his boys saw the opening and started stabbing the creature wherever they could. One got lucky and hit the windpipe, and the second troglodyte fell as well, lying beside its friend with a broken spear jutting out of its throat.

They didn't have time to reset the formation. The third of them came barreling in, throwing aside the feeble spears with a swing of its arms. Rhaken had discarded his spear shaft and taken up his shiv, but he could never get close enough without being pounded into beard pudding.

Ah, fuck it.

Rhaken threw the shiv.

It was a stupid idea. The thing wasn't properly balanced. nor was it particularly sharp. He'd be lucky if it even hit, much less did anything. A desperate effort. Foolish, even. And now he was completely unarmed, just like most of his men, and facing a creature several times their si-

Wait. He nailed it in the eye. It ran off screaming.

"Nice shot, boss!"

"Thanks," he replied. There goes a perfectly good shiv.

Rhaken advanced on the newcomer, calm as a cavy. Then he grabbed the blundering idiot by the collar and headbutted him in the nose.

"If you hadn't done this in ignorance, I'd tear off your beard with my bare damned hands and feed it to you," he seethed at the dwarf, now bleeding on the floor. "Take us up. And keep the fuck quiet, or I'll feed you to the trogs."

Rhaken's men started stamping out the fires and rounding up the civvies. Once back in the fort, they'd probably take it upon themselves to put out the remaining fires and coordinate the cleanup effort. As for himself, he was heading straight for the baron's quarters, hoping to find either the doctor or that psycho with the mask.

Rhaken sighed. He needed a drink. And a new shiv.

[Gnorm]

Part VIII: Epilogue

Events of 28th Obsidian, 254

The former baron stood still, bleeding out in the sand. His body lay sprawled in the shallow water of the beach. When the dwarves found him, he was cold, pale, and motionless. Lenehan was dead.



The official story, according to the former baroness consort and her children, was that the baron set of on a hunting trip and died in combat against a giant tick. Moisturizer and Asmoth could hazard a guess as to what the truth was, but only Maskdwarf knew for sure. Lenehan had commited assisted suicide by a wild animal. The only clues that his wife could find as to her husband's strange behavior were scratchy drawings on his desk. Each one portrayed an ordinary scene, such as a sleeping dwarf, dwarves at a meal, or a wedding. Each drawing also contained a daemon, in plain sight, yet unnoticed by the dwarves. These daemons did horrible things out of the sight of the other dwarves; the daemons slaughtered animals, whispered terrible thoughts into other dwarves, groped the females, and committed many other sorts of unspeakable acts.

Within the first week, Lenehan's desk was found to be completely empty, raided by an intruder. Although rumors spread, no one knew the true culprit of the crime, and it is likely that no one ever truly will.

. . .

Asmoth looked tentatively at the empty phial in his hands, and at the thorough notes "bequeathed" to him by Lenehan. He had already managed to use his research on the vampire virus to cure the denizens of Steelhold, and the time had come to resume his studies. Perhaps research of Lenehan's formulae and substances could be beneficial to him.
Here is the save, for the next person
I must say, playing in this fortress and writing as Lenehan was a really fun experience. I actually didn't intend for him to die, he just ran outside, walked over to the shoreline near his tomb, and proceeded to fight his hopeless fight; perhaps he really did want to die. Nevertheless, good luck to the next player.
NOTE: We have no military now.

[highmax28]

Oh god...

And that was a good response for the image. Excellent all around!

[4maskwolf]

From the shadows, the masked dwarf watched the warriors eliminate the trogolodytes with relative ease. If this incident had proved anything, he reflected, it proved that dwarfs had indomitable spirits. They would never bow to any other species. It was incredible what fear drove dwarfs to do. Fortunately, he had a hold on the dwarven leader, which would prove invaluable in the conversion of this fortress.
The dwarfs started filing up the stairs, but the masked dwarf wasn't going yet. There were things to do... Plans to make...

[Rhaken]

A glorious turn, Gnorm. Fun to read, fun to interact with.

And you made my dwarf the hammerer. The irony of this pleases me. Greatly.

(And apparently he's married, with 4 kids. I suppose I should start mentioning it.)

Also, Jackal, my name isn't on the turn list. Could you put me there? I really want to try a turn of this place.

[Deus Asmoth]

Poor Lenehan. He may have been a bit mad, but being killed by a giant tick can't be pleasant. I kind of get the feeling that the demons could easily represent dwarves in the fortress, except I can't think of any gropers.

Asmoth's Log, 29th of Obsidian, 254

Lenehan is... no, the story is well known enough by now. No need to record it here. Instead, I shall let this be known: the man was a genius. Depraved, perhaps. Mad, certainly. But a genius nonetheless. To think I believed his compound was a poison when I first saw it! His chosen species was clearly misguided, though. Why settle for elven immortality when we can have that and more? Dragonfire, the wings of a roc, the hydra's healing... the possibilities are endless. Lenehan's research shall be our salvation, though he did not know it.

Onto my other project. I've so far been unable to replicate the masked dwarf's resurrection circle. I have conducted three ceremonies so far, each conducted by as close to the average dwarf as I've been able to find. Of the performers, only one survived, and she appears to have been driven mad by the experience, screaming about the Truth until I put her down. None of the targets revived, so I must have missed some vital component, either of the circle or of the ritual itself. I shall persevere. I was blind before. What do the differences between elves and goblins mean, when I shall soon be able to break the barriers between life and death?

[4maskwolf]

Lenehan was dead. This was... Unfortunate. Perhaps he had resisted the gods influence enough to cause his death. He would likely never know, the masked dwarf reflected. Binding souls was tricky buisness, and many things could go wrong.
Nonetheless, he was still the prophet. These dwarfs would see the light. It didn't matter how long it took, time was no constraint for him. First, however, he had a task to attend to. Lenehan may have left evidence against him, which would have to be removed as soon as possible.
As he skulked the corridors, he pondered his next step. He had stayed out of sight of the other dwarfs since the incident, better that they think him dead. The incident had proven the value of biding ones time, waiting for the opportune moment to strike. Or, in his case, to teach.

Having searched Lenehan's quarters, the masked dwarf put a hand to the wall. Shadows coalesced around him, and he was gone, leaving only the smell of brimstone behind.

In the weeks that followed, rumors flew about the fortress.  While few had met the masked dwarf in person, many had heard of him, and the sudden cessetion of sightings caused rumors to fly. Some said he had died in the fire, others said that he had fled into the caverns. A few proposed that Lenehan had been the masked dwarf. However, dark whispers persisted that the masked dwarf was still alive, watching them, unseen. Nobody knew the truth, or if they did, they weren't saying.

Edit: Shining, could you remove my dwarf as a named dwarf in the fortress? I'm not trying to avoid him dying (he'll die well enough), but I have a plan for him when my turn comes around. Plus, I'm probably going on an update hiatus from this posting for a while, at least with regards to my dwarf.

[highmax28]

...the next thing Modi was aware of was that she was no longer in her new body. She let out a blood chortling screech that made the dead stir... Provided they heard her. Sarrak stood watching but said nothing. Modi raged and thrashed about, screaming about her loss of revenge, having it stolen by that masked bastard. after her tantrum, she dropped to her knees and wept. She wept not for her vengeance or her death or the loss of her second body, but for Jackal. She could've been left to rot and Jackal could've been returned, but instead they chose her. The return of a guard? That was blasphemy to the convicts... But if he did return, he would've made everything back to order.

It was then she felt a hand on her ghostly shoulder and heard something call her name. She looked up and saw Jackal smiling.

"Modi dear, you have much to do still. Perhaps I will aid you, or even return myself, but not now... Come, let us watch the end of the elf lover's reign." And the two of them walked towards the body of Lenehan, the Elf Lover, hand in hand.

And Modi, for once in a very, very long time, felt no anger or hate; just happiness...

[4maskwolf]

Is it bad that I felt really happy for Modi right then?

[Gnorm]

Reunited with her lover in Heaven at last, how nice. I wonder what Dwarven Heaven is like; perhaps it is an enormous fortress made out of dragon tallow soap built into a mountain made of pure adamantine.

[highmax28]

I see it like Valhalla... A place of endless drinking, talk and fighting. The golden hall standing tall at the end of a rainbow bridge, and heroes all commune together like family...

[Gnorm]

What about Hell? The only Hell seen in Dwarf Fortress is a prison for daemons, not damned souls. Armok has never sounded like an all-sin-forgiving sort of god, so I imagine there is a place for them.

[4maskwolf]

Who says demons aren't damned souls?