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[Eiba]

...

Melbil was so hungry...

Had Urist forgotten about him? That was just as well, Melbil had forgotten about himself too. He'd forgotten why he still existed. He'd coated the walls and floor of his cell long ago, he had nowhere left to engrave... Why did he still exist, when existing was so miserable.

He looked around at the skeletons, his only company, and decided that they had the right idea. The river was right there, so he might as well just...

But what was all that commotion outside?

What the...

Through the pure white steam of the boiling river, a brilliant, blinding light shone through...

Melbil didn't look away, though it hurt his eyes. He had no idea what was going on, and he really had no way of beginning to attempt to figure it out.

The light looked at him and rushed towards him, and Melbil knew it was going to kill him.

It was a pretty good light.

Melbil had nothing that could be taken from him- even loosing his life was a net gain... But... burning alive hurt a lot. That was just his luck.

[Eiba]

And there you have it. Bad End and all that.

I'm a bit tired now, but tomorrow or sometime I'll explain a lot of stuff related to this.

[FlamingKittenMittin]

Great ending Eiba ,I felt somtheing like this would happen.

[Sukasa]

Whoa.  That's...  Painful.

At any rate, now I know what'll happen if I hit those pits.  :eek:

[Necro]

And dwarves on fire set fire to other dwarves.. and run into fire to collect fallen comrade's gear.

An epic end Eiba. For an epic dwarf.

[Balathustrius]

I just found this tonight and read the whole thing at a sitting...

Brilliant.

[Solara]

Is it...can it be...yes, yes, it's an update! Or rather, three updates!  

I'd just about given up on this thread, there was a bump every once and awhile but it was usually just someone pining for another installment, so I didn't even bother to check this until I wondered why there were suddenly a bunch of new posts all at once.

Thanks so much for finishing this Eiba! It was a fitting end for Urist, brought on by greed and hubris as it was, even if I still feel bad for poor Melbil...poor guy never caught a break.

[Bricktop]

Very good update. Well done Eiba, glad we got the end finally.

Its a good ending to  

[Endiqua]

Does it make me insane that I teared up a little bit during Melbil's final moments?

Excellent wrap-up and perfect ending.

[Gaulgath]

Great ending, Eiba! Glad to see this project is officially over. Maybe you can start a new one?

[Eiba]

Okay, first thank you all for your high praise.
Heck, I probably wouldn't have finished this if it weren't for all the mournful bumps...

Why the delay? I didn't like where it was going. The next update was going to be Urist's back story, and her paranoia re: Melbil's carvings. Melbil had actually carved two pictures of dwarves making plaintive gestures and a picture of a pick on the back wall, I was going to have them generally reflect Urist's past, but when it came time to actually write it it all just felt silly and fan-fic-y (nothing against fan fiction, but that's not how you want a dark back story to sound).

So instead of salvaging it, I just stopped. Probably not the best idea but whatever.

What were the longterm plans? Urist's fantasy reflected the actual floor plans for the fortress, which were already planned out. Urist liked gold and green glass, so those were going to be the building materials, Melbil was a pretty good engraver... Also, dwarves wasting away reflect instances when the engraver was hungry... That's why I kept depriving Melbil of food, so he'd carve a bunch of wasting dwarves all over the wall.

I was also going to let immigrants settle near the entrance- this mainly because I found out you needed the mayor for sieges, so the humans would never siege Urist alone. In fact, Melbil's party was supposed to begin this- the fact that all of them but Melbil died horrible deaths was, in fact, purely accidental, a rather spectacular failure, in fact, but it worked out nicely, story wise, so...

The little fortress would have holed up, while the humans rushed into Urist's lair, and Urist would capture some, slaughter others with traps and lava, and generally have a wonderful time... But alas, it was not meant to be.

Why did I finally update when I did? Two reasons, the immediate one was that I had to write an essay and memorize 10 kanji (for different classes) and writing the final chapter of this story seemed like less work.

The more general reason was that I wanted to wrap this up before the new version came out, not just because it will eat up all my time, but because I do think I'm going to do something similar with the next version.

It'll probably be with seven dwarves, instead of one, but it will take place in the icy wastes, to prevent trade. Oh, and it will be under a goblin tower.

Look forward to it.

[puke]

puke has been happy lately.  puke has admired a masterfully crafted story by Eiba recently.

[JadeFalcon]

Glad to see it all tied up but sad also was a great story  

I always had it in the back of my head that Urist would turn out to be that last little child playing in the bone pile at the finale of boatmurdered  

[Sappho]

Ah, closure.

Thanks Eiba.  You may have even inspired me to return to my own stories...  I doubt they could live up to this one, but stories are still fun!  And this one was spectacular.

[Teh Dwarf Chunk]

now i can die without regrets