Welp, I'm already dead. I'll try and build an interesting fortress in secret and get that uploaded in the next couple days.
The Short, Sad Tale of Datan Warmthtorch
Ugh...my head is throbbing. Where am I, anyway?
...ah. In the middle of the deep roads, surrounded by dead troglodytes, with my aunt's old sword and shield. That...that must've been some new year's party. I wonder which way I came from. Oh no! By Etom! I need to get home! I promised my parents I'd visit them
yesterday to have a quiet, family New Year's Eve, but in all the excitement of the big New Year's Eve party in the dining hall, I just forgot! They must be worried, and mom'll give me that awful look she does. Okay, keep calm. I'll just pick a direction, and ask for help at the first fort I find. No problem. I'll get back in time for dinner, and we'll all have a laugh about my binge and black-out, and I'll be in time to resume duty on the third.
(It's a good thing she forgot her portable clockwork calendar, or she'd
really freak out.)
It seems like I've been traveling down here for days. I come across a huge field of plump helmets, so I call out again and again hoping to find the farmer tending them, but no one comes. I guess the fort that grew them must be abandoned. For no reason I can explain I set several of them on fire. I mean, I
loathe the things, ever since I lived in that one fort where all we ate was plump helmets and all we drank was wine, but arson? That's not me. It must be the caverns getting to me.
You have to be kidding me! How did they build the road
through a magma pipe‽ Oh, Etom, no! The magma is spreading! It held its form until I got here, and then suddenly it all came rushing towards me! How will I ever escape?
(Fun fact: you can fast travel through a magma pipe, as long as it's on a road!)
Finally, at very the end of the road, I come across a ramp to the surface. The fortress here is also abandoned, save for one drunk not fit to give me any helpful information. Day is dawning as I emerge onto the surface, and it takes my eyes a while to adjust to the light, which is why it takes me a bit to notice where I am.
The Dead Lands. I decide to run for it. I've heard rumors of human holdings to the east of this blighted waste, and if I can make it there, maybe they can help me get ho--