A koopa stands in front of a small cage holding a bird. Using a small stick, he pokes it a few times. The bird isn't amused, but otherwise doesn't react.
---
'What the fuck are we going to do with this thing?' Mottled Petrel wondered as he watched the kestrel preen its feathers back into position where he had poked it. Behind him about five wagons ground their way down the narrow hallway at once, as a merchant or two tumbled down in front of them. A human stood at the bottom of the ramp and tried his best to guide down one of the wagons "You're good, you're good, you're good.
Annnnnnd... STOP! Don't worry captain, we'll buff of those scratches.". The human said to the disgruntled captain whose wagon was now missing most of its side planks. Amid the mess of wagons and pack animals, a tall humanoid covered in tight black clothes approached Mottled Petrel. He bowed, probably as an honor thing, and then threw himself headlong back into the throng of merchants.
Mottled Petrel scratched his head in confusion, and then shrugged and turned back around, only to have a rock thrown at the back of his head. Mottled Petrel picked up the rock to find a note tied to it '
I can't fucking stand this, next time get a bigger fucking entrance. -An unhappy diplomat'.
'I'm sure this is going to come back to haunt us' Mottled Petrel thought, and was then approached by the most recent demon koopa migrant "Hello sir, here are my preferences, I thought you might like to know for my mandates.". Mottled Petrel was about to discard it, but then did a double take "Wait, mandates?".
Nokomek made a triumphant pose "Yup! I just won the mayoral election! And my first act as mayor was to exile that koopa with the nice clothes who was pestering me!". Mottled Petrel thought for a moment, and then buried his face in his hands "Are you serious!? That was the fucking outpost liaison! What are we going to do when the king hears that you sent the outpost liaison into exile!?". Nokomek shrugged "It don't really care, I've got a mayoral bed chamber to go enjoy", he then left (My current theory on the liaison leaving unhappy is that the mayor switched right as he was about to do the meeting, and it fucked something up the game wasn't prepared to handle). 'I think I liked the god of discord and strife better' Mottled Petrel thought, as he looked down at the preference sheet in his hands.
'Might as well go see if any traders are ready' Mottled Petrel thought as he got up.
At the trade depot chamber it looked like half of a city was trying to squeeze itself into a small three urist by three urist wooden box. The ninji broker stood uncomfortably next to the trade depot as even more merchants tried to squeeze their way in. "Lets make this quick, you, human, what do you-" a high pitched, girly scream came from behind Mottled Petrel "
OHMIGOD! A REAL HUMAN!" squealed Moony, who I would like to specify is a full grown male koopa. He excitedly pushed his way past some of the merchants and practically tackled the human merchant that Mottled Petrel was trying to trade with. After a few minutes, Mottled Petrel and the ninji managed to pry Moony off of the bewildered human and shoo him away. The rest of the humans looked a lot more uncomfortable than they were already "Uh, sorry about that, he's a bit of a-" Mottled Petrel leaned in to whisper into the human's ear "
-weeb for human culture". The human looked like he didn't recognize the term, but understood that it probably wasn't in his best interest to linger around Moony "Can we just trade so we can get out of here?" asked the human.
"Sure, let's see what you have. Actually, lets see what we have first." Mottled Petrel said, as he pried off the lid to the trade goods bin next to him.
"Uhhh, where did we get this? You know what, let's just use gems this time. Alright, what do you have.".
"Uhh, can we actually use this as oil?" the humans looked at each other, and then one replied "We don't know, we just ran one of them over on the way here and scooped it into a barrel". "Well, that's usually the answer. We'll take it anyways. Uhhh, the rest of this stuff is actually kinda lame, but we'll take this book too. That's it really.
NEXT!". One of the gunfolk merchants fired a blank to catch Mottled Petrel's attention, and managed to scare the hell out of all of the other traders. "
Fuck, please never do that again. Yes, we'll trade with you next. As much as I know that we're going to regret this, we'll take the gunpowder cat, goose, and goat. Uhh...".
"Isn't this kinda like, you know, selling your kids?". The gunfolk blinked, clearly not picking up on how unethical a gun selling smaller guns was. To put it into context, it would be like a koopa selling a much smaller koopa, that you would squeeze to shoot lightning. "Whatever, none of us here actually know how to shoot, so we're going to pass on that.".
"I don't think we can wear those. Actually, you know what, we'll just take the gunpowder animals and some paper. There's just too big of a cultural barrier for me to try to actually find a use for most of these gun parts.
Next.". No one else was ready for trading, so they all tried to avoid direct eye contact. A troll walked into the room and saved the merchants from the awkward moment "Sir, we managed to actually drop a floor on bloop_bleep. But he's still refusing to move even after the floors knocked him out.".
Mottled Petrel shook his head "Well there isn't much more we can do to save him then...
YOU, NINJA! Don't think I don't see that you're ready to trade. Let me see what you have.".
"Alright, I have no fucking idea what any of this stuff is. We'll just take all of your paper.
Next.". The bubblainians never ceased to amaze with their unbelievably weird assortment of trade goods.
"Uhhh... We'll take that wyrdlight pike and see how we like it. I still haven't the faintest clue how good any of these items are, so I'm not going to waste our money on them. And now for the koopa caravan, what's the hold up?.". There was one koopa who seemed to be counting the other merchant koopas in the depot, eventually he turned around and shrugged "I think one of our merchants is stuck in a tree.". Mottled Petrel blinked "But all of your trade goods are here, we can still trade.". The merchanct shook his head "It's the merchant way to not trade unless all of his fellow merchants are here. That being said, if who ever is missing doesn't turn up by the time we're ready to leave we have no moral troubles with leaving them in the tree.". Mottled Petrel wasn't really as surprised by this as he thought he was going to be, and this greatly concerned him "Well, I've got other stuff I have to do. Tell me if you're ready to trade. Broker, you stay here.". Mottled Petrel made it no farther than 2 feet before the demon koopa mayor made his first mandate.
Mottled Petrel scratched his head "I'm not even sure if the leather works are built yet".
After more searching than was probably warranted, the leather works was located behind the gardener's workshop that had still seen no use. It was still to be seen if anyone in the fort even knew how to work leather.
The missing merchant was never found, and the merchants eventually left as they had arrived: suddenly, and full of weird, useless garbage. Mottled Petrel was about to authorize an expensive and useless project
because he was bored to commemorate the event, when the caves showed another monster that was previously unknown to the koopas.
Another ghost like thing, this one called a witchlight by one of the troll children, and the name stuck. The military was called down to the caves in the hopes of getting there in time, but it looked like bloop_bleep was going to be put out of his state of limbo. Soon after, a second witchlight coalesced from the mist on the far side of the underground lake.
Unlike the Lo's that had harassed the koopas the last time, the witchlights were incredibly slow. So slow, in fact, that Mottled Petrel had enough time to systematically blueprint an entire housing complex off of the empty room above the main hall.
Derpy Dev gave Mottled Petrel a hardy pat on the back when he got the blueprints "It's about time we got these, my mind's been
bed ridden just thinking about having my own room!". Mottled Petrel had forgotten that Derpy Dev was a pun guy, he'd been in the mines too often to really show it to people. One of the other new guys was also a pun guy, but Mottled Petrel couldn't really remember which one it was. Either way, he didn't really care to hear them. Across the room SQman suddenly threw himself at a craftskoopa workshop and began meticulously arranging the tools.
'Was SQman the secondary pun guy? No, it wasn't him. Fuck, this is going to bother me all day.' Even with the most recent bone wagon gun that no one knew how to operate, Mottled Petrel knew that craftskoopa workshops usually yielded useless artifacts. In the midst of his brain racking, the military koopas walked back into the main hall from the main stairway. Mottled Petrel barely turned his head "Oh, hey guys. Did you kill that thing?" "Uhhh, we're not sure. It hovered over the water for a little, and then touched the water and died." responded Lord_Lemonpie (I have no idea what happened, but it literally touched the water and then instantly died, I think it might have been made out of fire or something).
Mottled Petrel's face wrinkled in confusion "Well, I guess you guys can go back to doing what you were doing before. Oh, and be on your toes guys, I'm planning the next raid currently. I wanted to run it by the outpost liaison, but SOMEONE-" Mottled Petrel stared accusingly at the demon koopa who was busy trying on the backpacks that he had ordered made "-decided to exile the him. So it looks like we're on our own.". The army koopas looked at each other, they were gone for three months the last time they went out, and none of them looked like they wanted to sleep in the woods for that long again. Eventually, they went back to training and tried to forget about the implications of another raid.
While he was waiting for the other witchlight to do something, Mottled Petrel wondered if he could find if the missing merchant was still in the trees. A solid thirty minutes of looking yielded no results, but while he was outside he decided to look at the entrance to the fort. The tower was still being built, and would likely have no function until a markskoopa squad had been trained. To help cover up the look of the unfinished tower, and to attract more future traders, Mottled Petrel decided to have a road into the fort built. But not just any paved road, a road paved entirely of copper.
'If this gaudy waste of useful resources doesn't proclaim to the world that we're actually a functioning fortress, I don't know what will' Mottled Petrel thought, as he wondered how this show of riches would affect them. After a little more thought, he decided to find out just how much material wealth the fortress actually had. After a little digging around the bookkeeper's office, Mottled Petrel found the most recent document.
"
Fuck, really? How the hell are we worth this much?" Mottled Petrel exclaimed to himself. Outside two koopas walked across the the main hall, speaking unnecessarily loudly and matter-of-factly, almost as if they were deliberately trying to convey a message to anyone nearby "
WOW! I CAN'T WAIT TO GO LOOK AT THOSE SUPER EXPENSIVE ARTIFACTS WE HAVE!" "
YEAH, ME TOO! I JUST LOVE THOSE SHINY, SOLID PLATINUM PEDESTALS THEY'RE ON!". Two trolls going the opposite way had a similarly loud conversation "
BOY I JUST LOVE READING OUR BOOKS, I ESPECIALLY LOVE READING THAT ONE THAT IS BOUND IN SOLID GOLD AND ENCRUSTED WITH CLEAR DIAMONDS! BUT BEFORE WE GET THERE, I'D LIKE TO CHECK OUT ONE OF THE 10 EXTRA SETS OF STEEL ARMOR WE HAVE LAYING AROUND!". Still in the bookkeeper's office, and well within earshot of the conversations outside, Mottled Petrel exclaimed to himself again "I just don't get it, how do we have so much wealth!? Oh well, it doesn't really matter.".
Before he could leave, a ninja walked into the bookkeeper's office "Uh, are you the bookkeeper? I've been told by a few *nervous cough* uh, a few people that there's a lot of money in this fort. I was wondering if, uh, maybe I could look through it to see if there's any, uh, fakes?" "I'm the overseer, and no, we don't let guests look through our money." "Uh, well, how about if I petitioned to live here. Can I look through it then?".
Mottled Petrel thought for a moment, the entire conversation the ninja had been shiftily looking around the room and he overall just reeked of sketchiness "Sure, welcome aboard. We keep all of our valuables in that pile over there." Mottled Petrel said, as he gestured to the growing main horde. As the ninja ran off, Mottled Petrel considered the very real possibility that the ninja he had just talked to had the intention to rob them. But then he shrugged 'good luck getting past all the fucking helmet snakes who live in that pile'. Almost as if he was being answered, a chorus of angry hisses erupted from the main stockpile, and the ninja jumped back from the pile of gems he was looking through.
And as if the tavern was feeling empty now that a single guest had become a resident, about five more visitors showed up. On their way in they brought news that the gunfolk caravan had ran into a group of wild stegocerases.
Needless to say, the stegocerases didn't make it.
Next in line to see Mottled Petrel was SQman, looking confused "I don't really remember doing so, but apparently I made this ring. Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty good ring and I'd sell it to you for cheap if I thought you'd actually buy it, but I wanted my lifetime's artifact to be smelted, not chiseled. It at least has metal on it, but I don't think I can live with it as a reminder that I am now apparently a legendary stonecrafter. I'm going back to the smelter, please, just keep this out of my sight." SQman said in a tired and surprisingly polite manner that was very unlike him. Mottled Petrel looked down at the ring in his hands.
'Guess I'll get another platinum pedestal.'.
"Sir, former mayor Eris just got jumped by a stegecarus, and is now being hunted down my a mismagius." SilverlockII said to Mottled Petrel, who was busy pushing a hardboiled egg breakfast into his mouth "*hmph* I hate those things. Send everyone out, but they probably won't be able to catch it.". Before the message could even be sent, it was learned that the mismagius had inadvertently found one of the members of the koopa caravan who had been lost. That being said, being hit with confuse ray and then a shadow ball that broke one of his legs didn't help the koopa find his way home. Even while incapacitated, the koopa wasn't stopped on his quest to eradicate evil. Even while under the influence of confuse ray, the koopa pulled out a heavy copper pistol of a caliber rated for use on large dinosaurs, and fired a silver bullet clean through the mismagius (I was going to make a Ghostbusters, Resident Evil, or some kind of other abomination hunter reference here, but then realized I didn't really know enough about any of them to do so).
However, it wasn't enough. When the mismagius got within melee range it took twisted pleasure in driving the koopa's own ribs through his heart.
The mismagius then flew up into the air, and began shooting down tame thrash doves with its shadow ball. As the military koopas arrived, the mismagius descended a little in hopes of more easy prey. KoopaUnknown swatted it clean out of the air with one lightning fast trident strike. After creating a crater where it landed almost 8 Urists away, KoopaUnknown grabbed one of his shields by the rim and crushed the mismagius with an overhead strike. KoopaUnknown then wiped off his shield in the grass, as if he had just squashed a particuarly large fly. It wasn't necessary though, because the dead mismagius promptly dissolved into smoke.
After a little while, the more aggressive wildlife was replaced by a normal herd of horses. Mottled Petrel immediately sent the military out to kill them. "I don't trust them, they're too mundane and nonthreatening." Was all he offered the troops. Needless to say, the horses were annihilated.
The next group of animals was more kangaskhan and a flying ? block. Mottled Petrel decided to have them killed to-
"
-BOOOO!". An apparition of Stingpie erupted from a wall adjacent to where Mottled Petrel was giving his orders, almost giving him a heart attack. "*gasp* *gasp* *heavy gasp*
What the hell man! You were buried, why the fuck are you here!" Stingpie's ghost looked amused, "First of all, no you didn't, my coffin is empty, I checked myself. Second of all, I had a note telling you
specifically not to bury or memorialize me, I WATCHED YOU READ IT!". Mottled Petrel's ears were still ringing "Fine, I'll tear down your coffin and let you be a ghost if that's what you want to do, but if you go around scaring people out of their mind like you just did me I'm going to personally engrave your tombstone in the middle of the dining hall!". Stingpie folded his arms in annoyance, but eventually floated down the hallway and through a wall.
While he was doing this, Mottled Petrel collected enough of his senses to realize that Stingpie was completely naked, either by choice or that was the natural state of ghosts Mottled Petrel didn't know. The mountainhome was usually pretty good about keeping ghosts away, so Mottled Petrel never really learned anything about them, but he gathered enough in those few moments to make a note that Stingpie was not what the youngsters called a 'ghost in a shell'. 'Or was it hero in a half shell? Shelldon J. Plankton? Gods, for a society based entirely around shells, you'd think I'd be able to learn at least a few of the shell names we give things!' Mottled Petrel thought, enraged because he was still incredibly startled by ghostly Stingpie. That little bit of anger on top of his shaken state was too much for him, and with that, Mottled Petrel blacked out.
---
Looks like we're back to it, from here on updates should be more frequent and I'll be around more to plan for the future of the fort. Speaking of which, there's a certain dark tower not too far to the east of us... What do you guys think, if I post some pictures of the books located at the site could we have a vote on which one we think is most likely to be necromantic? I'd love to have a separate mini fort of necromancerkoopas that we can toss our unused corpses into
.
Poll
5 (6.4%)
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Topic: The Resurgence of Modded Hell (Back, Still Broken, Now With Giant Butterflies) (Read 301539 times)