Deep in a fledgling koopa fort a koopa stands before a recently excavated area.
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'Took those guys long enough to dig out the first room. Now, what was I going to put here?' Mottled Petrel contemplated the reason as to why he had ordered this first room dug out in the specific shape he had requested. 'Oh well' He turned to yell out into the hallway "Alright, this room is going to be the dining room. I want all available hands to move some of the tables and chairs into here. Leave the ones by the wall, those will go into the tavern.". He turned back to the room and began marking specifically where he wanted the new furniture. Before Mottled Petrel could even begin marking out the places for the furniture he hears a loud 'clack' from behind him, and Derpy Dev calling "Second room's done, sir". 'I guess I should set up the tavern while I'm at it as well.' Mottled Petrel thought, as he started considering the name for the new tavern. Out in the main room a passing troll cries out in surprise after stepping in a white puddle "Gahh, what the hell is this stuff?".
Mottled Petrel looks to see what he was referring to, and winces when he notices that the barrel of molding venom he had bought was leaking. 'I'm probably going to regret buying that, but it's too late now. If I actually tell anyone to dispose of it they'd probably just drink it instead.', Mottled Petrel slowly leaned back into the soon to be tavern.
After a few more minutes of thought he snapped his fingers and pulled out a piece of paper. On it he wrote 'Tavern: The Amber Brunch. Submit any better names to Mottled Petrel for vetting'. He secured the paper to the inside of the hallway wall, and left to attend to other business. Mottled Petrel hadn't done so much as open the tavern doors to leave when a shadow gnome and a tomtenisse brushed passed him and walked into the tavern.
Mottled Petrel did a double take "Who the hell are you two and what are you doing here?" neither of the visitors bothered to even look in his direction, after a few seconds of looking around the shadow gnome, Atheli Itilere, responded "We're here to check out the new tavern. I have to say, pretty sub par so far. You got any entertainers or somethin'?". Mottled Petrel stood, taken aback for a few seconds while the tomtenisse investigated the mugs in the coffer next to the door, "This tavern has been here for a total of ten fucking seconds. No it is not smoothed, no we have no entertainers, no we don't have any high quality mead for you, and no we don't have any opulent guest bedrooms. How the actual fuck did you guys even get here so quickly. For you to have learned about this tavern and arrived here so quickly after I taped that piece of paper to the wall you must have had to have been waiting across the hall.". Neither of the visitors stopped their scrutinization of the tavern "You seem to underestimate the power of a traveler's sixth sense for finding taverns." was all the shadow gnome said to that. Mottled Petrel blinked a few times "Whatever, enjoy your stay at the Amber Brunch.", the two visitors snickered at that, one of them even ventured to whisper "
that's the dumbest name I've heard yet.". Mottled Petrel didn't bother to respond to that. He left the tavern as a Kalkir pikeman brushed past him to enter the tavern as well.
On his way out one of the ninjis collapsed in front of him. 'Ah fuck, just like the dream ale' "Please, someone clean up the literal pool of venom on the floor".
Now that he looked around, Mottled Petrel saw that a lot of passing animals had white liquid plastered all over their feet. Said animals were stumbling around like they were barely holding onto their consciousness. Just as he noticed this, one of the homalocephale collapsed farther down the hall. Within a few seconds the ninji rolled over and stood back onto his feet with an exasperated groan. He noticed that Mottled Petrel was staring at him, and quickly ran to pick up the passed out dinosaur to carry it to the pasture. Across from there Mottled Petrel saw the furnace operators hard at work.
"Nuku" Mottled Petrel called "How much steel do we have now?", Nuku thought for a moment "10 bars, sire" "Good, I want you to make 8 shields and give them to the military. I want you to make it very clear to them that these shields are meant to replace the lesser metal ones they picked up from the remains of the last caravan.". Nuku stopped smelting the bar he was busy working on, and grumbled his way over to the forge. "Sir" bloop_bleep called from behind Mottled Petrel "We've finished the rooms you ordered. There was some gold and coal in the last one, but nothing really major". Mottled Petrel nodded "Alright, I want you to knock the far northern wall back a few feet, and then a two by two staircase down a few levels. I want you to dig out a decent sized room each level, and then you're going to follow ZM5 on a central staircase down until you reach the first cavern layer.". The three miners left the hallway to knock the northern wall back a few feet, it was impossible to read ZM5's expression as he did so.
Suddenly, Silverlock ran down the main ramp, and gave a flustered report to Mottled Petrel "Sir! Sir! A ferocious beast has been spotted on the surface! Those who have spotted it say it thirsts for blood and hungers for our wealth!" "Calm down, calm down, tell me. What kind of beast is it." Silverlock thought for a moment "They said it was comprised of twisted plants and had a horrible head of white tentacles.". Mottled Petrel thought about what to do for a second, but before he could come to a conclusion Scourge walked down the ramp behind him a log in his arms "Hey Mottled Petrel, there's a cottonee flutering around above the pasture. It's scaring the hell out of the animals, could you send someone to shoo it away?".
Mottled Petrel put his hand to his face and sighed, Silverlock stood awkwardly "Sir? Should I send the fighters-" "Yes, yes, send them" Silverlock ran to get the militia. 'There's no fucking way they're going to be able to catch that thing, why am I even bothering?" Mottled Petrel thought with his face still in his hand. Up on the surface the cottonee was attacking one of the lawnmowers and one of the snow leapords. Neither could land a hit on the thing because it was flying, but the cottonee kept making the effort to damage the metal lawnmower. Before the militia could even get to the top of the ramp the snow leapord had managed to rip one of the cottonee's eyes out, which was apparently enough to kill the small grass type. When the militia saw this they all groaned, as they were hoping for the vicious creature that the squire had described. Mottled Petrel saw this, and looked around the field "KoopaUnknown, you and your guys can go kill those Watchogs over there if you want." the militia looked around until they also saw the meerkat like creatures, then they ran out to meet them with a blood thirsty cry. Mottle Petrel looked around more, to find that a few ponytas had sneaked up on the front of the fort.
These small fire horses could very easily end the fort if they were spooked into breathing flames and burning the fortress down. The koopa people had long been acquainted with the constant threat of life ending fires, but with most of the populous still without shells there would likely be horrible burns suffered if a conflict were to occur.
Thankfully, the ponytas diverted their course, for now. KoopaUnknown was the first to the rodents, and fired a volley of electricity, missing most of his shots, but creating a wicked wound in its lower body with one of them. Once close enough, he impaled the rodent's left upper leg with his trident, and then bashed his other leg with the handle of his trident, audibly breaking the leg. Needless to say, the watchog fell down and didn't get back up. KoopaUnknown took this opportunity to scratch the watchog in its lower body, tearing the front part of it to shreds and exposing the organs to the daylight they should never see. Then, with a quick jab to the head he ended it and moved to the next.
The next fight isn't so clean of a victory, as his first hit does little more than tear the skin. The watchog then slammed him in the body, shattering a good portion of his ribs. Luckily, the bone scraps didn't tear anything important. The watchog then bit one of his fingers almost clean off, but left the finger salvageable. This was followed by a vicious bite to the face that succeeded in tearing his left eye lid, but not his eye. A series of viscous bites succeeded in fracturing KoopaUnknown's skull and his middle spine bone. These blows did not discourage KoopaUnknown, instead he was lost in a fit of murderous rage, hellbent on destroying the meek rodent in front of him. KoopaUnknown did not pass out from pain, but was soon reduced to a pile of broken bones. Luckily, Wags and TheRedWolf come to KoopaUnknown's aid before he suffered any permanent damage. A few slashes is all it took to kill the watchog.
Now might be a good time to mention that watchogs are actually a good deal bigger than koopas, so it may not have been that good of an idea to casually engage them in a fight. It also might be a good time to mention that during the fight KoopaUnknown had been hit by a confusion attack, apparently making him unable to attack, but still able to continue to throw himself headlong at the enemy. Mottled Petrel called them back before it could get any worse "Alright guys, that's enough for one day. Drag him back to the hospital." KoopaUnknown was in terrible shape, but was still fully conscious. He wasn't too happy to be dragged out of the fight, but his wounds needed desperate tending to. 'Probably should have waited for the shields to have been made' Mottled Petrel thought, as his head brute bled his way down the ramp. "Nuku, make these guys some steel shells" Nuku, who was still working on the shields, grumbled as he marked down four steel shells to be made.
"Scourge" Mottled Petrel called to Scourge, who was carrying another log "I want you to make me a lot of wooden cages. It's time for operation 'catch everything'". Scourge gave an insidious grin "With pleasure". 'Fuck, now I don't have anyone to make mechanisms' Mottled Petrel walked to the in progress stair well, and called down "bloop_bleep, when you're done with this I want you to make me a ton of mechanisms.". From deep down in the mine Mottled Petrel heard a faint echo of "
okay". Silverlock tapped Mottled Petrel on the shoulder, "Sir, there's another cottonee outside."
Mottled Petrel sighed again "Alright, send them back out, but not KoopaUnknown. He needs to rest for a long while.". The militia arrived on the surface to find that Scourge had punched the cottonee so hard that it had exploded into a chunky mist over his carpenter's station.
Scrourge made no effort to clear the blood and remains from his work station, nor did it seem that he was even acknowledging it. He seemed overly enthralled in the mechanisms of the cage he was making.
A little while later Mottled Petrel thought he might as well make use of the mechanisms that hadn't been made yet "We will have a bridge near the entrance, that we will be able to raise into a wall when we need it.".
Just as he was marking the place for the bridge a human and an extremely large octopus covered in natural chitin armor clambered past him.
Somehow, the octopus managed to squeeze into the fort. 'damn tourists, we don't even have any artifacts for you to steal' Mottled Petrel thought as he shook his head. Nuku walked by, hoping to avoid eye contact with Mottled Petrel so he didn't ask him to make more armor. "Nuku" Nuku winced, but stopped "I want four steel helms" "
dammit, alright sir".
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I'm now accepting names for a tavern, library, and temple. It would be great if they're Modded Hell related names, but any names will do. I'll put the ones I like best up for vote, unless you guys unanimously agree on some before I do so. Also, about a quarter of our animals are now unconscious, I can only assume that it's the molding venom's doing.
Oh, and it seems that the visitor-pocalypse has started. If we get any long term residents and people want to be koopad as, say, a giant chitinous octopus, I would be okay with doing so.