CHAPTER 94: Pacific RimWinter of 151Killcount: 99 (us) 14 (them)Bronze collossi, of course! They are the perfect creature to take on hell. They lack any anatomy, they are made of solid metal, immune to essentially all syndromes, and they are HUGE, Y'ALL.
A few modifications to the new tunnel will allow this new toy to be unleashed right into the DOOMCAVE, thanks to a leftover bridge that wasn't destroyed.
''You, right there, military person!
-I'm Vabok. How can you not know who I am?
-All military is the same to me.
-We have
two soldiers!
-Whatever. Just, step back from the giant robot, I need this thing in one piece.''
''Now bring this dude to the new tunnel, so that I can wire his cage''the merchants figure this is probably the right time to get the fuck out of here. Through... the river? Ok, whatever guys.
It's been a while. I have no idea why I have this picture of a Lye-maker hauling 30 z-levels while paralysed from the waist down and missing an eye. Oh well, carry on, little fella.
''So I know a few more things about dragons now'' announces De, animal trainer.
''Like, did you know they are angry, terrifying creatures that hate us?''Hum, we don't need the dragon right now. what we need now are
homogeneous giant monsters. Like the forgotten beast Aco over there, a glass golem. For now, it endures, facing nothing but lesser spawns.
we can,t count on nature's worst creations to do a good job, tho. Aco is clumsy and isolated. It is time to release a totally different giant homogeneous creature:
Go... A
mo!
...totally different I tell you.
Lower the bridge!
march forth, my greatest
(borrowed) creation!
A lesser demon is ambushed and begins the fight by... removing a toe from the colossus. What.
Turns out giant robots are actually clumsy. Dude can't score a single hit.
Oh wow now he lost a finger. Stop failing ugggh!
He takes out a lesser demon's leg and loses a second toe in the process.
Finally, a kill! This salt demon is destroyed, leaving the entrance tunnel littered with piles of bronze bits and salt.
Let us celebrate by declaring a new holiday! Collossus rampage day shall therefore be an official day off for all dwarves. Conveniently, it so happens to fall on the new year's celebration, making the logistics much easier to handle.
Humans simply cant deal with a double-holiday. some of them proceed to go stark raving mad, or berserk. Even their horses are unable to precess this event.
Still, some of them celebrate by rampaging and punching their horse to death. That's the spirit, kids!
An armorer is inspired by the holiday spirit, and ventures into the forge for a special project. More adamantine gear is always welcome.
Meanwhile, downstairs... It seems that part of the DOOMCAVE has evaporated completely. we shall rename this body of water to lake
''error 404''.
East of lake Error 404, battle rages. A pterosaur brute is getting pummeled by the Bronze collossus Amo.
A steam devil joins the frey, flanking the opponent. Is this the same pterosaur brute who lost its shell against a previous glass monster?
The shell is hard to find. More demons join the frey, filling the area with smoke.
Things are happening. bits are falling off. Stuff is potentially dying. Demons are joining the fight. slowly, the place fills up with more corpses and oversized bodyparts, and the fight withdraws into the entrance corridor.
Some demons are mostly outmatched in this fight. The haunts of tear, for example, mostly grapple and drink blood from their victims. they are unequipped to deal with a 10 story monster made of bronze, and get mostly bullied around.
The whole fight degenerates into a katamari machi of wrestling where about the size of a small planet made of monsters is currently rolling around in an underground complex, banging against small and exhuming about 10 different types of deadly attacks, to which everything in it is immune.
Some lesser demons are removed from the mix (aka: killed) and the ball of doom slowly rolls toward he south. some Pterosaur brutes lead the assault, as clumsy as it may be, and they suffer some moderate injuries. They are tough, however, and will not die unless a severe, direct blow to their mysterious weak spot is delivered. No pterosaur brute has ever been killed so far. The collossus is mighty and tough, but he is dumb as shit and randomly attack whatever he sees fit, unable to deliver a killing blow to the greater devils.
A pile of goo and ashes and flames and filth is left behind as the ball slowly ventures to the south.
cue 300 pages of battle reports pretty much like this one...
Reading normal reports is becoming complicated, thanks to ten thousand million things being on fire.
Despite this clusterfuck, i'm told that Whisperwhip is now worth a whooping 50 million dorfbucks.
Hey, I found the shell! At the very least, two Pterosaur Brutes are now missing their carapace. A filth devil has also been destroyed, and there are living flame bits all over the place.
Life in the fortress has been forever change. For every message about production jobs we receive, there are also 50 of them regarding stuff on fire, or enraged demons. I guess its hard to tell the dwarves to ignore whats going on downstairs. If an overblown anime was taking place in your basement, you'd be gossiping about it too.
A bit of !!!SCIENCE!! for ya: it seems that even tho demons cannot burn, nor can their remains, it is theoretically possible for parts of them to melt under extreme heat. Ladies and gentlemen, we have discovered the temperature at which demons melt.
Amo has lost 17 toes/fingers in the process. Now it just flings big fingerless fists at peo...
Wait no he,s actually strangling this dude what the hell what what what. How is he...
He doesn't have any fingers left!?!Oh hey, an adamantine cap, that's cool.
To the south, a wraith of steam has discovered the four dormant forgotten beasts. It was destroyed before it could land a significant blow. Good on you, donkeys and spiders and whatnot!
UH, OH! The Tarentula brute finally joins with its minions... This monstruous fiend has so far kept away from any fight, and I have no idea hat it's abilities are, appart from being poisonous, terrifying, and a webber. It interrupts a week of useless strangulation. (!!SCIENCE!! fact of the week, you cant strangle devils, especially if you lack 9 of your ten fingers)
Amo knocks the Tarentula Brute away, and proceed with its strangulation hobby. The other demons are scoring minor, glancing blows. I almost wish one of them knocked the giant away so he'd switch to a more useful attack.
The initial panic that occured when hell was breached is definitely over for the dwarves. Many of the idlers are tired of this state of stand-by, and seek distractions. A large group of miners and haulers are dispatched to gather ores and flux stone. Gwolsfky assembles the guild of furnace operators and begins smelting. A small taskforce of masons remain on standby to refill the crushing traps.
The tarentula brute is getting annoying. Amo the collossus let go of his ''grip'' and start shoving the beast around, shattering the chitin protecting the demon.
A flame devil begins poking the giant, inflicting no damage whatsoever with its fiery touch. It is dispatched after a moment, cloving its burning body asunder.
I take a look at the reports by Squiddwarf. According to his bookkeeping, 46 demons have been slain so far, out of about 100. sure, most of them are lesser demons, but that's still a minor victory. Three filth devils (medium fiends) and a Tarentula Brute have recently been slain. the elusive and fierce Pterosaur brutes remain undefeated, despite some shells being removed. Those demons are truly the most terrifying of the horde.
Amo the collossus lies upon a pile of corpses, among which a tarentula Brute carcass, shred to pieces. Apparently, the metal giant is now missing an ankle. Oups. Looks like the Tarentula brute wasnt such an easy prey after all.
Many stronger demons are piling up, preventing the collossus from retaliating, and tearing it appart. Within moments, the beast loses two eyes, two ears, a nose, and most of its limbs. It seems that the damage caused by Amo has come to an end. No further demons will die to its hand (unless someone falls over it I guess). still, destroying this massive magical statue could take a while, as the core is solid and near-indestructible.
This gives me an idea. He may yet act as bait. If most nearby demons are busy with the remains of this statue, there could be some major things to be done by using this distraction. Reclaiming the spire, perhaps? Still, this is pretty risky. the statue could die at any moment, or some devils could disengage and seek easier preys. There is also the problem of four-snow devils occupying the center of the spire. We'd need to defeat them., and I,m not sure we can.
I give Vabok a call, and tell him to mobilise. It is time we put his 30 million dorfbuck worth of adamantine gear to the test. it is time for Vabok to avenge his numerous fallen comrades.
Be ready to venture downstairs, buddy. The time has come to fight back against hell, one demon at a time.
Or in this case, two. No demons can join the frey, for the artefact hatch cover is sealed at the moment. Time to test our might....
Ugh, goblin siege... what a terrible timing. Our entire militia of one is locked downstairs with a group of demons. It's time to test operation FLASHFIRE, I suppose.
''Get the dragon in position!
-Ma'am, the dragon ran into the potash-making facility.
-Uggh, get it back!''
demons of snow are fast and deadly in close combat, but they are frail, and lack a ranged attack. Vabok unleashes a few bolts and scores two kills. A good thing too, for he would have died a horrible death had they come a few tiles closer. With a friend and some good accuracy, he may be able to station at the north of the spire tunnel, and take on six snow demons before they can reach him. In order to do this, we will have to unseal the tunnel and quickly patch the hole leading to the new tunnel. failing to do this quicjkly will unleash hell into the fort. This is risky. If only one demon makes it inside, this will spell doom for Whisperwhip. Is adamantine worth it? There is little time for decisions. This option is forever gone once the decoy that is Amo the colossus dies.
Project FLASHFIRE is a disaster. The dragon cannot shoot through two layers of fortification, and so refuses to set fire to our foes. the next, dangerous solution will be to move the dragon in front of the gate, and lower it. Hopefully he will set fire to most goblins. should he fail, he'll probably get damaged heavily and the goblins will swarm the fortress. we have one locked-away soldier to stop them, and a bunch of human guards and war animals atop the hill. Is this safe?
''Yeah, hum, we sort of lost the dragon again after we removed it from the little gatehouse''Can you guess where the dragon went?
Why, in the Armok-damned Quern Hall, of course. The room's legendary soothing effect on animals must have drawn the dragon there.
The beast ignores the trainer meant to shackle it, and runs all the way to the forges. it takes about a week to drag it back to the surface, at which point it is showing signs of semi-wildness.
This whole plan is becoming rather sketchy. Many bold moves await the Citadel of Clutches, but an ill-advised decision will inevitably destroy the fortress for good.
Retaking the spire is possible, but the death of amo, or a somewhat alert demon, or any amount of dwarven lazyness will doom us all.
Even if we succeed, our only competent soldier will have to snipe four demons of snow to secure the spire. Even if he succeeds, the bottom of the spire has not been revealed. there may be more demons in hell, waiting to spawn or swarm the fortress.
* * * * * *
Finally, we have a chance to destroy most goblins invaders, but a stupid move on the dragon's part, or poor timing, will lead to the slaughter of many. here's a screenshot of me attempting it, however keep in midn that I had to change the heat sink of my cpu and many crashes happened at this point. I'm honestly not sure what happens after this exact very moment, nor am I sure I want to retry it. It may be smarter to revamp project FLASHFIRE and create small guard towers where the dragon can shoot down and then be locked using bridges, without relying on fortifications.
In any case, I'm quite sorry for the lack of updates. I had a small case of ''my basement caught on fire'' and I had to repair my computer in the process, and then wait for a lot of repairs to get electricity plug. I also had a small concert to prepare for, leaving me little to no time for videogames. On the bright side, you can follow the link in my signature to find my Youtube channel, where I'll be uploading music covers periodically, if that's a thing you like.
This was a weird chapter to play and to write, but i think we probably all learned a thing or two about demons and/or megabeasts and the way they interact.
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