And now, for the first tennants, the Doomed Fool. A group of 7 military dwarves, with weapons and armor, but very little supplies. Can they hold out until rescue arrives?
Gr. 1, 125I am Zon Kerligalath of The Doomed Fool. Normally I’d rather share my stories over a pint rather than a parchment, but given our circumstance, I don’t know if I’ll ever reach another tavern. Please excuse me if my writing is worse than elven cooking.
That aside, here is my tale.
Ever since I was a wee lad, I have always been enamored with the military. They all seemed to work in perfect unison, with endless faith in each-other to drive back whatever beasts had decided to try and raid our home. Naturally, as soon as I came of age, I enlisted. I took well to the axe. Now I have many tales from my year of basic training, but I won’t bother sharing them here. However, during this year, I came to become familiar with Urist Railgib. This dwarf talked constantly about how he had already learned whatever the drill for the day was from his father, who he claimed was a decorated veteran. Given that he did incredibly well in the end, we all came to believe he was a snotty noble’s child.
Come graduation, the two of us get placed into the same squad; Urist, naturally, took position as leader. Our first assignment was to scout a goblin encampment a week north, and make sure they weren’t amazing for a siege. Given a map and a months supplies (just as a precaution), we set out, confident in our ability complete a simple mission. No combat was even required; just travel there, travel back. So simple that a Golark could have lead the squad, if it knew how to read a map. It took us two weeks to finally begin to question Urist. He constantly reaffirmed us that he knew exactly what he was doing, and that we had nothing to worry about. As supplies dwindled, however, he began to unravel, until this morning he broke down.
Turns out the fucker had been lying this entire time. We were correct about the yes, he was a nobles son, but that noble was a bookkeeper. He cheated on his exams, never learned a thing, and had lead us out into the middle of nowhere because he couldn’t admit to himself that he fucked up big time. I think he expected sympathy, but we were outraged. We were now stranded Armok knows how far north, in the freezing cold, because he couldn’t admit that he’s more kobold than dwarf. My blood is still boiling as I write this. We kicked his ass out of the squad, and told him that if he found his way home, send us a rescue, or we would make sure he wound up as a vampire, and then seal him under the mountain to waste away for all eternity.
So now that I’m the one in charge, I think it’s time we stoped going north. We can’t go south yet, but we can at least build a small camp and try to resupply with the local resources. I’m sure I could put my axe to work on these trees, and one of us had the brilliant idea of using the last of our plump helmets to make a small farm, our marksdwarf can hunt wild game (just bagged us a massive hamster), and our fighter is superstitious as shit, never leaving home without their pickaxe. We all thought they were strange at the time, but they may have saved our lives. As the old saying goes, with stout labor comes sustenance, yada yada, so strike the-
Oh fuck a giant hamster we killed earlier just stood up.
Author
Topic: Tales From Passtorch, Chapter 1; A Fool's Gambit (Read 721 times)