Over the night, a few other survivors make their way to the mountainhomes, each bearing rather similar tales about monstruous beast, curses, and the imminent fall of Doomforest. The Minister of Not Dying Horribly spend most of his day interviewing the refugees. One of them is a smith...
''The milicia was mobilised, but without access to their gear, they were pretty much pointless. We only had a few weapons upstairs, the rest was still littered around or in the forge below. Successive mass-slaughters will do that, yasee...''
A troubling tale, but they already knew doomforest had some serious issues with horrible deaths. That's why the king got their ministry on the case in the first place.
Maybe if I tell him that by the time we got there, the fort had already fallen... Would that lessen the damage to my reputation? The smith continues his tale:
''the Forgotten Beast spent a lot of time behind the door, not touching it. For a time we all hoped it would hold, but after a day or two of staring at it, the Beast must have figured out what it was, and tore it to pieces. M'ster Taupe seemed like a decent enough fellow, and at least his idea of a door gave us bit of extra time. Tis what saved me really. when I got at the top and saw 6 dwarves with no training holding to their sword with no armor on, I knew we were done. The masons tried to block the entrance, but I wasn't sure they'd have enough time. all me family was dead, sir ministry, so I had a pretty good idea of what was gonna happen to us. so I fled.''
And so was the tale of the weary blacksmith, one of the sanest refugee they had around. His story seemed to suggest that Doomforest met it's namesake (not talking about the forest yo) once the beast got into the fort proper.
If only this was so simple... they had other, more troubling tales tho, of child murder and insanity. The whole story was a mess. The next dwarf on the list was a brewer, and he was greeted coldly by the minister.
''We are told that your fort fell to a forgotten beast, is that correct?
-Oh, no, sir, not at all. The beast wasn't in the fort yet when I ran away. Twas the overseer going insane that told me we were dead if we stayed, yesir. So when i saw this polite man from the mountainhomes come here to help us and then beat a fucking child to death, i knew this wasn't gonna be pretty after that. they say he locked a bonecarver inside the baron's room so the poor guy would starve to death.
-Beating a child to death?
-Not sure how it all began, really, but the overseer was just wailing on this child like he had gone insane, and tried to smash him against the wall a couple time. I grabbed my shit and I left before they could close the gate, tis true.
-You
are talking about Taupe, the MNDH agent, right? why would he beat a child to death?
-Dunno. Never trusted him, tho. Too polite, to reserved, too snobby. First thing he did was take his nice office away from our great soap bringer, then he named Senshuken head of the military, which was a poor decision really. his first order was to sacrifice people down the shaft as a distraction so he could grab the loot down there and run away. Bloody coward, both of them!
-And what happened next?
-Dunno, sir, i was already gone.
Next is a guy named StupidElves. Stupidelves has a lot of things to say about hating elves in general, but even more so about his friend the trapper, who died because of a curse.
''Ok, so, this girl Sazir, she was a trapper, but also pretty good with people. We were all trying to do some damage control. a monster was incoming, the best masons were trying to patch the caverns before it was too late, the overseer was taking care of Thikub cause he was kinda going crazy after losing his brothers... Me I was trying to bury some corpses to stop people from going mad as fucks, And Sazir looks at me, and she says ''run'' like dead serious. Now this is doomforest, and when someone says that, you fucking trust em, trust me man.
-And what were you fleing from?
-The wereantelope, sir. The fucking cursed beast of Doomforest. We killed the original, but someone must have been bit or stuff and didn't say so to the others, cause just as we were trying to prepare for da giant snail, this furry mad zebra shit turns a corner and starts to fucking tear Sazir a new one. Twas a full moon, that I saw clearly when I made a run for it straight to here. didnt grab any shit. Last thing I saw was that girl getting murdered by this thing. I saw a wereantellope clear the fortress once, wasn't gonna stay there for a second dish. I'm so fucking glad none of the other refugees turned into one as we fled. Twould have been some shitty luck.
Slowly a puzzle was assembling in the minister's head, and it wasn't portraying anything pretty.
Just how many monsters are there in this fort? StupidElves is excused, and his replacement enters, a dwarf barely able to walk without fumbling to the ground. He looks mad, and even after a bath and some new clothes, he is still covered in blood and vomit.
He's the one we got yesterday, for sure... The survivor sits down with pain, chugs the beer he is offered, and stares at the wall for a moment. ''So, hum, I'm told the fort fell to a werebeast, is that correct?
Sobbing and shaking, the man slowly tells a semi-coherent tale, about a trapper (no doubt the aforementionned Sazir) who tried to fend off a monstruos antelope. It's clear that the beast saw no real challenge or threat in the trapper, and started to merely toy with her, before it got tired and started to bash her head in repeatedly. The storyteller claims he was there all along, hiding under a wheelbarrow, staring in horror. Trying to learn where the beast came from only conjures up a darker tale still...
The poor man, who cannot even manage to remember his own name, claims that he saw a child carrying a body to the graves from the farms. When he passed the main gate and saw the sky, he dropped his hauled corpse, howled to the moon, and instantly transformed into a nightmarish mammal. After a while, it turned back to it's original form, but even as a child, he could still manage to wrestle down and brutally assault Sazir. The minister heard his share of tragedies over the years, but they all pale when compared to the details weaved into this tear-soaked story... He had met Sazir before, when his underling Taupe would bring his lovely wife to the office's parties. to think of her now...
At this point, the child was using Sazir's comatose body as a mere doll, shredding and smashing it for it's own entertainment...
That's when Taupe the overseer tried to join in. He started charging and punching the dwarf, trying to free
his spouse from the child's grip. He almost succeeded, even tho the child's strenght and stamina were clearly superdwarven. He would have saved Sazir too, if not for...
If not for a potter, one of the recruits under Senshuken. When he arrived, the first thing he saw was this crazy dude trying to strangle a baby with the rage of a thousand dwarves. He jumped on the overseer, stabbed him in the hand with hs sword, twisted, and soon the kid was free. It ran away to hide and stealthed back into the fort's population, all of those who knew of his identity dead or fled. After another blow to the arm, the potter brings her sword backward and aims for the head...
...Taupe's head is cut clean off, and flies across the main hall, bouncing against the wall with a macabre ''plonk''. The man takes a long pause, then stares at the minister with an otherwordly look in his eyes...
''I fled... that's when I fled. I left my friends to die there, i... I ....
-it's fine, you did all you could. your story is invaluable to us. We may be able to save them still.''
No we are not. Doomforest is gone. As we speak, they may already be all dead... Well, the third week is almost complete, everything is going swimmingly. But just in case, maybe you guys should start thinking about the sequel just sayin.
PS: the game actually crashed after two weeks, which prompted me to redo the second week, but better. The same beast showed up, and there was no stopping it. The save is just so fucked, it's so not even funny it's hilarious. I'm going to see if I can salvage this, but it's not happening. doomforest is fucking boned. I'll try to make it nice and fitting, but no matter how I write it, this is the last turn. there's a flying beast with 7 entry point to the main fort, god knows how many wereantelope waiting to transform, and there was a tantrum spiral before that.
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Topic: The Hastening of Doomforests (Read 452392 times)