Hematite 26, 110
The fortress has flourished.
It has been ten years since the Fortress of Clawedgears was founded, at least according to the calendar. Not all of that time has progressed in a linear manner, of course, thanks to the Doc and his wonderous time device. Sometimes, we prolonged a day to last a month in order to finish a project in anticipation of an incoming enemy. Other times, we skipped ahead, living out ten days in the time of one, watching as the sun spun across the heavens, bewildered caravans and invaders arriving in rapid succession. Our military has grown, outfitted in powered armor and armed with various deadly weapons, and are more than capable of defending our fort against most foes, and the traps take care of the rest. Meph himself has killed over 50 enemies with a mithril vibroblade in one hand and a slade-spewing dark matter caster in the other.
And that was where we made our big mistake.
"Doc," Meph grunted from the back of the room, dumping the corpse of his freshly-killed mammoth on the floor.
"Ah, Meph! So sorry to hear about your loss. I'm not even going to ask how you managed to carry it in here." He paused. "So, why are you here? You've never shown much interest in my work."
"Doc. I need you to turn back time."
"Ah." Doc frowned. "You want me to bring back your pet. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that the machine doesn't work like that. You can't simply bring back a dead creature by infusing it with residual chronal energy."
"Why not? I saw you do it with Arcvasti."
"Arcvasti," Doc explained, "died of old age. All the machine did was pull his personal timeline forward so that he was born later, and therefore wouldn't have died of old age at that time. By the look of it, your mammoth died of severe blood loss and a massive blow to the head. Pushing his birthday forward wouldn't have helped that."
"..."
"Furthermore, the machine doesn't actually work on corpses. It locks on to the point the creature was alive in the past. In Arcvasti's case, it only worked because he was already here. If you recall, that was the entire point of the experiment -"
"LIAR!" Meph shouted, dragging the corpse of the mammoth toward the crackling, spinning Cosmic Gear. "Every time I want to get a mighty creature to-"
Meph and the mammoth vanished. The Doc stood for a few moments, sighing.
"Doc," Meph grunted from the back of the room, dumping the corpse of his freshly-killed mammoth on the floor. "Doc. I need you to turn back time."
"Listen, Meph. I'm afraid you won't be able to-"
"DON'T TRY AND TELL ME WHAT I CAN OR CANNOT DO!" Meph shouted, dragging the corpse of the mammoth toward the crackling, spinning Cosmic Gear. "Every time I want to get a mighty-"
He vanished. The Doc whistled a short tune.
"Doc," Meph grunted from the back of the room, dumping the corpse of his freshly-killed mammoth on the floor. "Doc. I need you to -"
"Turn back time, I know. Listen, Meph, perhaps you shouldn't get too close to the naked storm of residual time energy."
"Um." Meph scratched his beard. "I've done this already, haven't I."
"Twice. You keep getting thrown backward. The door's open, remember?"
"Oh, right. Well, the lever's over there, so I guess you should probably step outside. I'll handle this myself."
"You can't -"
"DON'T TRY AND TELL ME WHAT I CAN OR CANNOT DO!" Meph shouted, grabbing the Doc and shoving him out of the room. The door slammed shut with a loud bang.
"Meph?" Doc said, knocking on the door. The sound of time being turned inside-out came from the room. "Meph, open the... oh, what's the use." The Doc sighed and slumped against a wall. "The poor kid's going to be in for a disappointment, but I guess when he's older he'll understand." He paused for a second, scrunching up his face. "Wait. Oh dear. The druid. I understand now. Oh dear oh dear. This is not good. This is not good at all."
"Is something wrong?"
"Havis, my dear. Thank goodness you've come. Listen, we have to get the children together. Go quickly! I have to try and get this door off its hinges."
"What's the problem?"
"It's Meph. He's locked himself inside the negative time chamber and in only a few moment's he'll be - "
"Meph? The boy wonder?"
"Yes, who did you think?" The Doc slammed on the door. "Meph! Open the door this instant! You're going to be saturated with negative time and in a few moments -"
"Not coming out 'till Stompy comes back," a child's voice said from inside the room.
"He's not coming back! Listen, if you come out right now, I think there might be another way. If you can bring me to the place where the creature who killed him died then we might be able to invert...oh, gods, I'm too late, I'm too late..." The sound of a baby crying came from inside the room. "No, no, no, no!"
"What's the matter, Doc?"
The Doc paused, looking a little confused. "Um. I, er, locked myself out?"
"Well, dat's dissapointing," said the large orc hiding in the shadows. "Guess you won't be able to hide in dere, huh?"
"Good gods! Where did YOU come from?"
"Been hiding dere." The orc said, scratching his head. "Been hiding dere for... uh... six years?" He shrugged. "Don't matta. Gonna chop you up now." He grinned horribly.
EPILOGUE
By the time you're reading this, I won't have been born yet.
Clawedgears fell. Will fall. You know what, let's just say it fell. It was conquered years ago, but for some reason nobody noticed the monsters and fiends that have been wandering our halls the whole time. To be honest, I think something's fishy about the whole business. It smells of temporal weirdness and cheese. To the best of my understanding, a hero could have saved us, but was never born due to some time-related accident. And so we had to take... other measures, to clear the fort of foes. Measures involving a drill to the center of the world, and copious amounts of magma.
I took/will take precautions to save myself and my family, of course, though it was/will be a deadly gambit. I erased/will erase us all from the timestream, save this message. You will find the machine in the basement, though how it got there, I cannot say, since I will never have existed. And in another sense... I am already there.
Reverse the machine's polarity and turn it on. If my calculations are correct, it should move our birthdays backwards in time, aging us all back into existence.
If that doesn't work, I'd just like to say it's been a fun ride, if a short one.
Good luck!
Doc
P.S.: If the rumors are true, reality itself may soon undergo a massive rewriting. It is unlikely that all my inventions will operate without a hitch in the new world. If you find yourself unable to push any levers in the fortress, it may be a cause of para-dimensional chronal backlash, suggesting that actually doing so will destroy the world. If this is indeed the case, I suggest restraining yourself.
Author
Topic: Clawedgears: A Gnome Artifice (Masterwork DF) (Read 21111 times)