Almost two seasons ago, the Council of The Corridor of Enchanting dispatched seven dwarves to the Obscene Horns, a mountain located in a range that many tend to avoid, and for a good reason. This was mostly because it happens to be located in an area deemed “undesirable and questionable” by the Council’s finest land surveyors.
The leader of this expedition was a humble dwarf by the name of Zan Tekkudsashas, a subject of the Council who was not good at anything in particular, despite having an appealing personality. Being quite unimportant was one of the reasons she was chosen to lead the expedition. That and the fact that nobody else was willing to take on this project. Zan would soon find out just how “complicated” the task she was assigned to was, but not before it became her responsibility and she had no way out of the situation.
A caravan passed through the area to make sure that the colony hadn’t failed already. By this time, Zan and her fellow settlers were almost fully aware of the surroundings in which their new mountainhome was located in. The caravan arrived back at the Council’s lands on the 5th of Obsidian of the year 62 and recounted Zan’s summary of the Autumn months:
“One of the first things that our brave settlers noticed was that the native wildlife were for the most part of the undead variety. Rotting falcons assaulted the dwarves, but were quickly dispatched. A large stone hatch was placed over the main stairway’s connection to the entrance tunnel. At the command of Zan, it was engineered to raise and lower at the flick of a lever. Our migrants seem to have made it safely to Snarlpaints as well. Some travelling humans are taking shelter in the dining room too.”
By the time this report was delivered to the Council, things at Snarlpaints had steadily declined from “bad” to “pretty darn horrifying”. On the 5th of Granite, 63, two whole seasons since her arrival, Zan found the least dusty spot on the floor of the still rubble-ridden dining room and wrote down her experiences so far:
Chapter 1, Part 1: The Murky Mountain
Hidden behind layers of fog, the Murky Mountain, as I call it, contains glistening gems and shining metals. However, we have already witnessed that good things don’t come free of charge. The mountains want their minerals to remain untouched and their caverns to remain unearthed. They bring great misfortune upon those who seek wealth too greedily. I say that we can’t expect these mountains to take mercy on us either.
I can see why this isn’t the most popular place to live. Not only is it foggy and gloomy all the time, but it constantly rains feverish muck. Everyone is still on edge after the incident we had a while ago in the dining room. It happened after we kept the yaks from grazing too long and both of them died of starvation. What was I going to do, let them eat out in the fever slush? However, that’s not what I’m trying to say here. One of the yak cows twitched and Erib our cook refused to butcher it. Soon the corpse groaned and huffed as it stood up, reanimated. Our dwarves took notice and assaulted the shuffling crime against nature. Several hits and all of the creature’s teeth fell out of its mouth, as if nothing was holding them in place at all. Etur’s child Stinthad was wounded badly and Rith received a hand injury. Stinthad died of his injuries, but Etur’s torment did not end. His own son stood up as a corpse and attacked him one last time. The corpse was mutilated in a fight and sealed in a coffin shortly afterwards. I talked to Etur about it a while later. He seemed like he was totally numb. “I could do without all of those creatures…”, he told me. Armok bless his stoic heart. Kol, a participant in the fight, appears to dispatch reanimated corpses with no fear at all.
The strength of my fellow dwarves gives me hope for our settlement. I think calmer days will come upon us soon.
END OF INTRODUCTION
Author's note: I started to write the story down after I already played for a while. This started out as a personal fort but I decided to try something new and do a community fort. I'm expecting a ton of !!FUN!! Also, since 43.05, the version that I
insist on using, has no compatible Dwarf Therapist version, I'll manage my dorfs the old fashioned way, with a spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11dzu_uiyyzQBhiRwA_q2gtgNB-IZQQU3o3ElvUBpFOo/pubhtmlOh yeah, almost forgot! Get dorfed if you want! Tell me what dwarf you want and I'll try to match that dwarf to the best of my ability. They are in short supply, so get them while they are available and not dead.