Oddon was miserable... His wife Ral had somehow suckered him into agreeing to her latest crazy scheme to get her hands on Gems... She had always been scheming about gems, she had even studied to become a jeweler, despite the rampant unemployment among members of that guild... Oddon didn't know why so many dwarves were attracted to the Jewelling profession, even though most of his coworkers were jewelers... He was, of course, a rock hauler.
It was just him, his wife, and her two friends, Vabok and Vucar... At least Vabok could farm... between Vucar and Ral, all they could do was make expensive trinkets... Oddon supposed that was actually the plan... He sighed. Of course he would be stuck with all the odd jobs, having no skills of his own...
"Ah, here we are!" Ral sounded victorious.
"Hurrah! we knew you could find the place!" Vabok always seemed to speak in the first person plural... Was she speaking for Vucar, Oddon wondered, or did she think herself a queen?
"Hurrah!" Echoed Vucar.
Oddon sighed. "So what were we going to do about the homicidal maniac living in there?" he asked.
Ral's friends glared at him. Ral herself said, "There, there, no need to be so pessimistic. Don't you trust me?"
No, thought Oddon, but he decided it was smarter to keep quiet.
---
Urist had found that plants thrived even in the mud from the water that had been used to execute the stinking thieves (She kicked one of the skulls as she passed the now-rotted corpses), she had been poking about in the mud all the way up the hallway, but despite many promising looking plants, she hadn't found anything she could brew yet... Ah, but there in one of her old work areas, there was a mushroom growing that looked quite promising!
"That's good Vabok! No, not like that Vucar, with your shoulder down more."
"Why aren't you doing this?"
"There, there, you're always irritated aren't you? Well, the fact is, someone has to organize you all."
"..."
"Now then, one, two, three, charge!"
There was a rather dull thump at the door... Apparently more stinking thieves had arrived. This group of dwarves seemed particularly incompetent, but their mere intentions sent Urist into a blind rage.
"Okay... I think it moved a little, let's line up again. One, two, three, charge!"
Urist threw open the door, and three dwarves stumbled onto the ground in front of her. A fourth stood looking rather shocked.
"You!" Urist shouted at the only dwarf not prostrate, "You stinking thief! What makes you-"
"No!" The dwarf shouted back with surprising determination, "You thief! You think I'll let you keep them all for yourself!? You think you can keep them all for yourself!? HA!"
Urist was stunned, what was this mad dwarf talking about?
"Vabok, Vucar, get up and take out the Mad Dwarf!" The dwarves weren't doing anything of the sort, still in a tangled mass on the ground, getting in each other's way of standing.
Urist had seen enough. She rushed down the tunnel, sure that the stinking thieves would follow.
---
Oddon continued to be miserable... He was covered in mud, as Vabok and Vucar had used him as a means to get up... They had even pushed his face in the mud as the mad dwarf had shown up, so he hadn't been able to see her...
"Hurry, hurry, she's getting away!" Ral shouted.
"We're running as fast as we can!" Vabok replied. They were all running, on Ral's insistence, deeper and deeper down a narrow muddy tunnel. It was narrow enough that they had to go single file, and for some unfathomable reason, Oddon had been shoved in first... Vabok's implied jab at his speed hurt- he prided himself on his speedy stone hauling...
Suddenly in the darkness he tripped over something and tumbled a few more feet ahead.
"What are you doing!?" His wife shrieked, "She's getting away!"
"Ugh!" Oddon shuddered, "Bones!"
"What are you talking..." Ral had evidently felt them herself...
"It's a trap, we're caught in the Mad Dwarf's trap!" Vabok cried.
"Traped!" Vucar echoed.
*Click*
Oddon was completely and totally miserable.
---
Urist was brooding... That dwarf had called her a thief! Urist had never done anything wrong, she was always the victim!
She was also discouraged by the lack of plants (turns out the one in the workshop was just a damn dimple cup), and so, capitalizing on her already set up hallway flooding devised, decided to build a large cavern off of it that would fill with water and hopefully produce plants eventually.
As she worked, the dwarf's words echoed through her head. What had Urist ever stolen? Could that dwarf have known!? How could she... nobody knew... She continued to dig, shaking as she swung her pick... Nobody knew, how could they... She made sure they hadn't... Her father was dead, they couldn't know. Her father was dead, but she was still wracked with guilt... because she had taken his pride and joy, his pick... The very instrument she now used, the one she had driven through her father's skull... She was just a little dwarf... she was only playing with it, she wasn't going to loose it... Her father didn't understand, he'd never understood anything... She was bedridden for a month... a month of agonizing pain... Why couldn't her father understand!?
...
And now... did they know? Did they know she had stolen it? She had felt a deep dreadful pit in her stomach- had she been caught?
She finished up the cave she was digging and went off to sleep an uneasy sleep.
The Eighth Night.
---
I played for much longer, but decided to cut today's story down so these events wouldn't be overshadowed by what's to come...
(For the record I would never be so cruel as to tease my readers... probably)
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Topic: One Dwarf Against the World (Read 245633 times)