The earth roared.
Fractures reach deep into the mountains, exposing the rocky underbelly below. It pulls out the guts of the earth - the granite, the microcline, the orthoclase, the gemstones - twists them, churns them, spits them out back out onto the surface, and watches them grind each other to dust. The crust is ripped out and thrust skywards as jagged mounds, wild and beautiful in equal measure, as though it was art sculpted by the forces of the earth itself. In the face of such power, the walls could do nothing more but to buckle and collapse. Gravity spurned rushes back into Constructivory with a vengeance.
Voices, once of revelry, descended into screams that vanished into the night. Down came the blackjack tables, the stripper cages, the elaborate siege defences; they all splintered into nothing as the building folded in onto itself. A shifting miasma of gold, copper, wood and loam erupted from the site, and when it cleared, the Casa del Pollo was no more.
Locked in eternal rivalry, Towercat and the Casa del los Diablos Quesadilla de Pollo crash together in a titanic battle of ice and magma. The two icons of Constructivory fought in the frozen plains as they both crumbled into pieces. Neither emerged the winner. The bodies of children sizzled gently in their wake, covered in a melted mush of snow and stone.
As her world pitches towards the ground, Sanju scrabbles desperately against the walls, but to no avail. These walls were designed to keep her in, no matter the cost. For sixteen years it had been her only home and prison; now it too would be her tomb. When the dust cleared and settled, only rubble remained. Buried beneath was the body of Sanju Craftwards, lizard queen and last werebeast of Constructivory, never to witness the light of moon again.
For miles under, the caverns and mines were sealed once more. Virgin rock reclaimed the underground quarries, rooms and stockpiles, long torn apart by the dwarves to fuel the tower's ascent. Now the earth took its revenge, as the unlucky few like Taupe and Lord Brassroast found themselves buried alive in the rockery.
All the while, a tsunami of rock and soil sweeps across the landscape, obliterating anything that stood in its path. More powerful than any army, it rushes down towards the valley basin where the tower stood, engulfing it in dust. In mere moments the swimming pool and the ice base is entombed. It was as if the earth had swallowed it whole, leaving no hints of its former existence, apart from the faint cries of dwarves still trapped underneath.
Their voices went unheard, for Constructivory itself was under siege. The quake began to hammer at its doorstep, demanding unconditional surrender to the ground. Waves of rock and stone battered at the foundations, relentless and unyielding as the tide. The old tower creaked, trembled, and groaned to much alarm. But Constructivory held on, like a curmudgeonly old dwarf refusing to part from his tankard at the end of his dying hour. It refused to die, even as windows shattered and the Copper Bell gonged like mad, even as barrels rolled by the hundreds and blocks tumbled like rain. By the gods did it hold on.
When finally the tremors softened and the quakes receded, when nature itself threw up its hands in resignation, as an air of disbelief permeated those within the tower - who found themselves very much still alive and not suspended in mid-air - two words danced on everyone’s lips. Two words that were whispered and shouted from mouth to mouth before it rose as an echo and erupted as a roar of victory - of artificers victorious against the forces of nature.
Constructivory endures.
Dwarves stomped their feet and sung their battlesongs, as they rode the wave of euphoria up the tower’s spine. Booze flowed free from open taps and the sacred cheese wheels were cracked wide open. They laughed as the earth shook some more, jeering at its pitiful aftershocks. For in their minds, Constructivory was mighty, and they were dwarves immortal forevermore. What was a quake but a tantrum from Armok? They were conquerers of the sky; they would rebuild better towers in its steed. It was not until they cast their gaze downwards did they realise how precarious their position was.
---
Many years gone, seven dwarves arrived to build a tower high.
They drove pillars deep into the earth, one for each mind.
Bearskie
TheCheeseMaker
DDDragoni
Mobrules
Taupe
uber pye
Hiddenleafguy
Seven pillars for seven founders.
Seven pillars that now held up the sky.---
Another aftershock; this time, there was a lot less laughter.
A brief stumble.
A slight misstep.
That would be all it takes.
For those asking, the quake was a
DFhack bug using the old open-legends script (now they fixed it) - basically, the entire map is regenerated to the level of the initial embark. This has the effect of destroying all constructions standing on open terrain.
However, buildings are left intact.
Supports are buildings.
And guess who built supports in the first year.
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Topic: // Fall of the Succession Tower: Constructivory \\ (Read 278495 times)