Within the society of Silentthunders the closest thing to a civilian class is the citizen's militia. Several Dwarves made it into this narrow band of society by virtue of possessing skills that were vital to the early Fort's survival. And so a few dozen Dwarves prefaced their name with C. (Citizen) instead of R. (Recruit). They were mostly all alcohol brewers, farmers and the occasional engineer, Dwarves who were privileged enough to have more time off-duty than regular soldiers in order to keep their respective industries running. One of these Dwarves was a Dwarf called Dishmab Wireduty.
Dishmab Wireduty was a mother to two called Deduk and Logem, and was herself married to Onul Portalcaves. She had the droll task of performing maintenance on the Quarry rampway that season, as it had been heavily damaged in the last attack - broken door splinters and snapped bolts littering the ramp. It was a quiet season of 439. In the aftermath of the last necromancer assault and the forgotten beast attacks, little happened of note.
Salmon had been spotted in the reservoir in record numbers. Massive layers of limestone had been stripped bare and filled with obsidian.Nunur the great alligator chose this time to ascend.
Nunur was an alligator whose hide was coated in fur, not scales. Nunur was also very big. It was nearly 170 times larger than the largest Dwarf and breathed fire. Nunur emerged from a crevice in the Quarry, crashing through the unsealed caverns, blocking Dishmab's sole exit. Dishmab reacted quickly by firing a steel bolt into the alligator's chest, tearing one of its lungs. Nunur attacked Dishmab again and again, throwing her far down the ramp. Tooth, claw and stone clashed sharply with Dwarven steel; Dishmab fired one last bolt, and she missed. Nunur swiftly caught her and battered her again and again. Dishmab hit the crocodile in vain, hits glancing off futilely, lacking the strength to cause any harm to a creature of such size. It could only end one way, Dishmab being forced closer and closer down the rampway into the magma sea. Dishmab had only one last chance and charged Nunur, right into the great alligator's jaws.
Caught in Nunur's jaws Dishmab was burnt. Dishmab was burnt again and again, her skin peeling from her flesh, her steel armour blistering her nerves and striking agonizing pain the likes of which has no equal. Her flesh was scorched to such an extent that death was certain. Only when she was on the ground prone did Dishmab cease his scorching roast, convinced she was done. She lay on the floor battered, bloody and burnt. Nunur could smell her charred muscle and fat. Nunur opened his jaws and prepared to finish its hunt by devouring Dishmab.
Dishmab had a choice to make. Be eaten by the giant furred crocodile, or be engulfed by the magma sea.
She rolled herself off the ramp and into the broiling depths below. Unlike any other Dwarf before her, the fall did not kill her as she fell from so low a height, becoming the first Dwarf of Silentthunders to reach the semi-molten rock below. The burning was so intense that the flask of river spirits she held vaporized, and the blood still left in her boiled. She did not pass out from pain. She did not die quickly. She had one last bolt to fire.
The bolt flew true and Nunur joined her in the depths. Unlike Dishmab, the fall killed the crocodile,
its body violently tearing apart.The Dwarves of the Pleated Stakes would arrive to find only a dropped door, a broken bolt, and a trail of bloody footprints leading over the edge into the magma sea below. When Dishmab did not return, she was declared missing. Everyone knows her body was taken by the lava flows, and Dishmab Wireduty is now once more a part of the Earth.
All the while this was going on, it had been nearly three years since Akrul Cerol Ragslaughter was brought to the hospital to recover. All other patients had since recovered and left long ago. All of the Fort's doctors worked tirelessly, but there was nothing that could be done - she would simply not wake from her coma. It cost very little to keep her alive, merely some freshwater and a bit of food every now and then; a drop in an ocean. Keeping a doctor at her side every day of the week every week of every month of every year however, was proving to take its toll. Her husband Doctor Tekkud would soon have to make the choice, having exhausted all other possible avenues of medicine, of letting her die. When he wasn't caring for Akrul, he was eating and drinking amongst the memorials just one floor above the hospital. It was rough. Akrul's eldest son ended up having to care for his younger brother, who was but 3 years old. One last ditch effort was made to save her life by moving her from one traction bench to another, to perhaps see if the operation could be started anew, to see if perhaps there was something Doc Onul or Doc Tekkud had missed. Something, that if they could just fix, would mean Akrul would one day awake.
There was nothing.
They had done everything.
I wrongly believed they would have the fortune to live or die together. This was far worse.
One day, against all odds, Akrul awoke... There was a quick rush to free her from her binds in the traction bench. She immediately stood up, slightly dazed, muttering strange words and orders. Attempts to placate her or reason with her failed, she dreamed of such things...
Possessed by unknown forces she made the long walk to the Magma Forges, taking over one of the obsidian masonries. There she toiled and laboured until she produced an artifact obsidian grate whose quality was of the utmost dwarvenship. Having completed her work, she returned to her squad and masonworks as normal, highly confused as to what the hell had just happened. As was I.
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Topic: Ravens are murder. [SPOILERS] (Read 169602 times)