Tulon made an armour stand out of gypsum. Well that's a thing.
Even I must admit it is somewhat impressive, so I had it installed by the dining room entrance as a morale booster for the minions.
Deus and his fellow militiamen are not feeling so well: the fever seems to be exhausting them.
Medically, it's probably not advisable to spar aboveground in the ever-present blizzard while you have a fever. Scientifically, I see no reason to make them stop. The test is more interesting this way.
Besides, I have no reason to believe they won't live. Their symptoms are mild.
"Honeymoon! Honeymoon!"
It shouldn't be possible to shout a whisper, but Udil was trying it. Honeymoon turned away from her books and raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"Problem... with... the place... the well..."
"Okay, okay, slow down. Take a breath and-"
"Flooding!" Udil said, waving his arms frantically. "The miners broke into the cavern pools early! The Place! The lower levels! It's all flooding!"
Honeymoons eyes went wide and she stood sharply, knocking her rock throne over.
"You
idiots! You were supposed to block it up the moment-"
"We tried! The lower pressure gates were too tight! The water overflowed before we could block it off!"
"This is bad. We could lose the forges... the bar stockpiles... everything! We need to get down there and brick it up before..." her eyes caught a figure making a beeline across the dining hall for her. "Oh no."
"Honeymoon! You're vaguely more intelligent than the average around here," said the overseer. "Do you have a moment to discuss-"
"No, professor! Far too busy right now!"
The overseers smile hardened slightly. "Come now, I'm your overseer. What could possibly be more important than-"
Honeymoon made a split-second decision. She didn't have time to rationalise it, so she went with her gut.
"A mistake was made. The lower levels are flooding. If we are to save the forges, we need as many people down there to seal the area off as we can get."
To her relief, the professor didn't hesitate or even bother with questions. "Minions! On me! To the lower levels!"
"Brick it up! Make it watertight!"
"Udib! I need you to to dig west until I tell you to stop! Then a staircase upward!"
"Honeymoon! There's
kids in there!"
"Test subjects? Good heavens, what were they doing down here?"
"I know! Udib, stop! Dig upwards!"
"I'm through!"
"Block up that tunnel before it floods any further!"
"It's too deep! The water's running too fast!"
"Keep trying dammit!"
"Excellent! The deluge is contained. Good work, minions. But... what is this place, Honeymoon? It doesn't show up on any of your maps. And why are so many of my test subjects down here?"
Honeymoon's mind had been running on adreneline for the last hour. She hadn't given any consious thought to what she would tell the overseer, but her subconsious had been working on the problem and presented her with the words she needed.
"We call it the Place. It's... it's an experiment, professor."
"An... experiment?" the professor narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "What sort of experiment?"
Honeymoon turned towards the professor, making eye contact. "Isolation. We are- our
hypothesis is that if the chil- test subjects are isolated from the rest of Icehold, they will be unaffected by the... criminal pathologies of Icehold."
Professor Honoredglaze stared suspiciously at Honeymoon for a long moment, before his eyes glazed in thought. "Criminal pathologies... by Armok you're right! I'd wondered why there were so many insane children in icehold. That's a brilliant deduction, Honeymoon!"
Honeymoon smiled. After carefully managing an entire cartel, the professor was easy to steer. Just point him in the right direction, and he would come to the conclusion you wanted him to on his own.
"Well, this embarassing flooding incident notwithstanding, I am impressed! Perhaps my standards have been lowered by my time here, but seeing that my scientific prowess has rubbed off on you has thoroughly cheered me up! I feel much better!"
"Well I'm flattered sir, but I'm not the one who set all this up. I just helped, you understand."
"You're not? Then who?"
"Onul Battleglazes, sir."
There was silence for a few moments as the professor stared at Honeymoon in apparent shock. He swallowed and glanced away.
"She was always shouting at me. I had... I had no idea she was a fellow scientist."
He grit his teeth in determination.
"Well then! We need to wake her up so she can bring this experiment to it's conclusion! To the hospital!"
Overheard in the dining room"Hahaha! I killed a forgotten beast with a single punch! Tremble before me!"
"You're embarassing yourself. It was made of snow."
"Don't care! Totally killed a forgotten beast! Bow before Cilob, slayer of forgotten beasts!"
"You are insane," said Black Pat in a dull voice, staring at the contraption that had been added to her hospital. It was brutal in it's simplicity.
"Absolutely not! I check every day!" said Quasar excitedly, testing the mechanism. "Although I will certainly admit I have been rather out of it lately. I was too afraid of hurting Onul to
save her!"
"There's no way this is going to work."
"No, no that's the thing: it's a scientifically verified method! The medical literature is very clear on the matter: a surge of adreneline, caused by sudden pain or injury, is capable of flushing out the humours, kickstarting the brain and awakening the subject from a coma, hahaha!"
"Just to be sure... you're not making this up? There's really a book somewhere that says this?" Honeymoon said nervously.
"Exactly! Haaahaha!" said Quasar, carefully moving the menacing iron spike over Onul's sleeping form. Honeymoon winced at the sight of several kilograms of iron spike pointed downwards at a sleeping dwarf. "Pat, Honeymoon: be ready to diagnose the wound! Igor!"
"Yeth marthter?"
"Stand by next to the lever. Is everyone ready?"
"No."
"Nup."
"No, marthter."
"Excellent!! PULL THE LEVER!!! AAAAAARRRRHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!!!"
*CLANG* "Huh. Well, that didn't work," said Honeymoon. "Perhaps we should remove her armour?"
"What? No! Just... pull it again," said Quasar, going bright red at the suggestion.
"Yeth Marthter,"
*CLANG* "Yeah this isn't working. Pat, perhaps if we..."
"Pull it one more time!"
*SQUITCH*"AAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGHH!"
"
MWAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!! SHE'S ALIVE!!! SHE'S ALLLLIIIIIIIIVVVEEEEE!!!!"
Onul gradually awoke, pulling herself out from a nightmare of pain and screaming. She looked about her. The hospital. Okay, so something had happened to her. Nobody else was here.
The giant cave spider. She had fought it to keep it from attacking anyone else, and then it had grabbed her, wrapped her tightly in it's silk, and then... her hip. One of it's legs had crushed her hip, and she'd lost consiousness. The last thing she remembered was an unarmoured dwarf with a silver mace diving towards the thing...
So then, if it had broken her hip, why did her arm hurt?
There was an iron crutch waiting by her bed. She stood, putting her weight on it, feeling weaker than she ever had in her life. How long had she been lying in bed?
Honeymoon entered and caught her eye.
"You're up," she said simply.
"Yes," said Onul. "How long was I out?"
"Better part of two months," the younger dwarf said in a matter-of-fact tone. Onul winced at the news. No wonder her muscles felt stiff.
"I want some answers. Everything that happened while I was out. How is the..." she lowered her voice. "How is the Place coming along?"
"Finished. Got the last of the tables and chairs in this morning."
"Finished? How on earth did you manage that so quickly without the overseer knowing?"
"Well... sit down. There's some things you need to know about."
"What! Why would you tell that madman that?"
"That 'madman' saved your life," Honeymoon chided. "Twice."
"But now he knows about the Place... the kids..."
"Yes. And he wants it to go ahead. He's agreed to
help us isolate the kids. He see's it all as a big decades-long experiment."
"And he doesn't interrupt an ongoing experiment..." said Onul faintly, remembering what Limul had told her.
"Precisely. And... there's another thing you should know. A childs corpse
was found in the caverns one and a half months ago."
"What? He killed a child?!"
"No. We worked out later what had happened. When that firebreathing termite arrived three months back we had the caverns sealed off, and forgot to open them again. The child starved to death outside. It was a tragic accident, nothing more."
Honeymoon paused for a moment before continuing, watching Onul's reaction.
"But the professor... he thought he had killed the kid. And gotten you hurt by not getting to you fast enough. Between that and your injuries... I saw genuine regret. Sadness. I don't think even
he knew what it was he was feeling. I gather it was an emotion he'd never experienced before."
Onul stayed silent, waiting for Honeymoon to finish.
"He's a long way from being a good person... we all are here, every one of us... but there is a spark of it in him."
"It... it feels weird to hear somebody talking about goodness here in Icehold."
"It doesn't matter to most of us here, Onul, but I thought it might matter to you."
Onul nodded. "Thank you. I suppose it does."
Onul winced in pain as she made her way down the neverending staircase, leaning heavily on her iron crutch as she did so.
A figure was coming up, followed by the sound of barking and a tide of dogs.
She hesitated as he stopped on the stair below her, then said "Professor."
"Onul."
She narrowed her eyes.
"I can't fight any longer. So I intend to protect the Place. I intend to ensure those children are protected there, away from the rest of this prison, from you and those worse than you. You cannot stop me."
"No need to explain, Onul!" he said happily. "Your test is inspired, you know? And I wouldn't dare interfere with a colleagues experiment. I only wish you'd trusted me to help you with it!"
"Uh right," Onul gave him a lopsided smile. "You're mad, you know that?"
The professor grinned back. "Of course. I check every day. Now if you'll excuse me, I have an overseership to surrender."
The professor left. Onul shook her head in puzzlement. He had done terrible things, but somehow she couldn't bring herself to hate him anymore.
Oh well. She'd have plenty of time to sort out her thoughts in the Place.
She continued down the staircase, towards the sound of laughing children.
Save here: [to be uploaded later tonight, when I have access to my other machine]
Notes:Sorry for taking an extra 6 days in the spring: I really wanted to get Onul into the Place and lock her in (she's really slow and it's a really long staircase), but at the last moment she decided to turn back (she's *really* disobedient), and then a siege arrived, at which point I gave up.
The drawbridges are closed, so the siege can't get in. They can shoot dwarves who are going to the surface to dump things, though. Be careful about that.
Pretty much everyone is on dumping duty, with all their other labors turned off. I kind of neglected refuse dumping during my turn, so I tried to get it all taken care of in the last month. It didn't work.
Final statistics:Goblins Murdered: 20
Goblins Escaped: 2
Trolls Murdered: 10
Giant Cave Spiders Murdered: 2
Forgotten Beasts Arrived: 5
Forgotten Beasts Murdered: 8
Vampire Queens Annoyed: 1
Baron Imposters Murdered: 1
Children killed by science: 0
Children driven insane by science: 3
Children killed by negligence: 1
Adamantine Spires Flooded: 1