(Gneiss Walls is a planned series of tales centred around fortresses in the most inhospitable of locations.)
Gneiss Walls
Crymsoncrypt
An account of events as recorded by Vucar Fikodegom
Chapter One
Olm Sweet Olm
It was an oft-repeated tale within the taverns of Abaltekkud that the fortress' founder, Urist the Sunken, died in a battle with a necromancer and that his consequentially haunted bones were taken to Thestarmomuz, the Crimsoncrypt.
It's
crundleshit. But that didn't stop me and five others from following Inod Othakrul—under the new banner of the Charcoal Picks—up north to investigate. Arnok curse that dwarf and his silver tongue.
Giant bat tallow provides the wax for this candle in front of me. I'd never even heard of giant bats before I came! I'm sitting here, several years later, in the Migrant's Rest, wishing I was back home in Abaltekkud, lazily admitting the next patient, or fast asleep in my
own quarters.
We know this plane of existence as Ceretelina, the Infinite Land. The ending 'of Suffering' is missing, if you ask me.
The Crimsoncrypt is located on the fringe of the Glacier of Suckers, which only adds salt to the wound, because that's exactly what we were for following Inod Othakrul to our almost certain demises.
"Look all that lush, warm forest."
"Hey, mortals!"
"Yeah?"
"Fuck you."Inod halts the wagon.
"Here," he says in that hoarse tone of his, "this is it."
We disembark and take a few moments to drink in the sights and smells of our new home. It doesn't take long, because it's non-descript ice as far as the eye can see, and most of us have colds thanks to weeks travelling in cold conditions. Inod, Ilral and Fikod strike the earth with their picks, starting on a tunnel that'll hopefully guard us from the chill.
The Crimsoncrypt soon lives up to its namesake. Half of it, at least. A malodorous sludge—as I like to call it—starts to rain down on us from above, in red, viscous clumps. The others think it's blood, but the consistency is totally foreign and it smells
dire. Worse than goblinshit smeared over a hundred alchemists' armpits.
"I don't see any bones."
"What's that smell?"It's not long before we all fall sick. This doesn't mar our morale, however, as we're all delighted to have reached our destination, even if it is bleeding down sludge on us.
"Goddamn you, sludge."It takes a week or so for the picks to carve out a shelter. We stagger inside, coated in sludge and vomit, dragging our supplies with us. Inod designates the central hall as a temporary stockpile and pen for the animals. We have no axes, because—surprise, surprise—there are no trees. We
do have a bronze spear. It belongs to Kib the guardsman. Inod was wise enough to pack around fifty logs of wood before we set off from Abaltekkud.
Reg quickly sets up shop and hammers together a few beds. A side chamber houses our sleeping quarters, which Inod jokily calls 'The Migrant's Respite', like it's a tavern. Once we're all indoors, we seal the exit.
"There's a reason you're a miner and not a jester."
"The Migrant's Respite, at peak hour."The next phase of Inod's plan involves locating an underground cavern. He speculates that the ground will be fertile enough to grow crops on. Once more, the three get to work, digging blindly downwards while we sit idly in the Migrant's Respite. I try to help alleviate some sludge-induced symptoms—there's still smears of blood and vomit on the walls, and one of the cats lost its ribs somehow—but we have little in the way of medicine.
A few days later, we receive the news.
"Dibs on this room."Preliminary maps of the cavern are drawn up, and the shaft is sealed at the junction.
"If a Forgotten Beast gets in, at least we know it definitely wasn't through here."A viable area is selected, and a second, safer shaft is carved out in order to access it. We all set about plugging up the nooks and crannies. Anything that can fly will have no trouble getting in, but Inod states that most of the nasties will be repelled, leaving Kib to pick off the wingèd stagglers.
Afterwards, we knock down a section of the surface wall to let a handful of errant migrants in.
"It's off to work we go."
"Cheese Maker Squad, reporting in."The wall still incomplete, a gang of troglodytes emerge from below. We tell Kib, and he rushes down and runs them all through with his spear. He remains there as a sentry while we return to work.
"Looks like these troglodytes have troglodied."
"Fuck off, Kib."Before we can finish the project, we hear a strange, slithering sound. Naturally, we all leg it up the shaft. Kib tosses the laurels of his troglodyte victory onto the ground, crushes them with his boot, and sets off northwards in search of new ones. Did he pierce the intruders' skull with two quick jabs and thus save our lives?
No, he gets ripped to shreds.
A cave crocodile, with a giant olm in tow, promptly scampers up the shaft, fixing its slavering jowls around all instances of dwarfkind and taking limbs and heads where its hunger saw fit.
In the end, it was Ilral who split the bastard's head open.
"It's fucking sludge o'clock."
"No time for bad crocodile-based puns, the giant olm's on its way."Thankfully, we'd neglected to seal up the surface wall after we let the migrants in, so we slide out through the main entrance to escape the voracious salamander bounding after us.
Thank Arnok for what happened next. As soon as the giant olm sets foot on the mushy turf of blood, vomit, sludge and snow, it forgets its senseless vendetta against the Charcoal Picks and meanders off into the distance. We hurry back inside.
"Where was I?"
"The Carnage Files: Dead Dwarves"
"The Carnage Files: More Dead Dwarves"
"The Carnage Files: The Not Dead Dwarves"So Concludes Chapter One
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Topic: Gneiss Walls: Crymsoncrypt - Chapter One: Olm Sweet Olm (Read 1684 times)