"Are you sure you killed all of them?"
What kind of stupid question is that, Kogsak thought to himself. But out loud he only said:
"No way to tell. Know how many there were?"
"Not since they started... multiplying. But you did well, o dwarf."
The dwarves were honored as heroes, though they wouldn't spend much longer in Ineth Nil to enjoy their fame. It was time to continue the adventure. Adela advised them against going into the spider cave, so they dug a path through the ice tunnel and into the old gold mines.
Kogsak was busy comparing his own notes and measurements to the map, and he picked samples of minerals along the way. There was still gold in here; it called to his dwarven heart and promised wealth and prosperity and respect. He shook his head, chasing away the thought.
They came by an abandoned nest, clearly belonging to a large predator; there were bones of many small creatures littering the floor and a pile of refuse from nearby ruins serving as a place to rest. Èrith poked it with a stick and winced; the stench was unbearable. "Did whatever lived here recently die and... ewww."
As they left, two red eyes followed them, watching from the dark, unseen.
They made camp when the stench was far enough. A campfire brought warmth and respite from the cold wind howling through these tunnels. It was supposed to also frighten away predators. Unfortunately, not a manticore.
It was Ingish's watch. She didn't pay much heed to the flapping of wings; it was probably just bats. Only when a shape drew close enough to be visible in the dim light, did she understand her mistake.
"Kogsak! Èrith! Up!" She grabbed her axe, ready to take the beast on. Undeterred, it launched itself at her, but not at the face as she expected. A stinger pierced her leg; a single swing of her axe chopped it off, then Kogsak and Èrith caught up to finish the beast.
"How bad is it?" Èrith was rummaging through the medicine bag. She produced alcohol and bandages but one look at the wound made her reach for the knife.
"It's poisoned. Cog, hold her down", she heated the knife in the campfire, preparing it for bloodletting to draw the venom out, but Kogsak suddenly froze and pointed behind. The beast descending from the ceiling looked three times the size of the one they just killed.
The die is cast!
Adventurers roll: 7.
Manticore rolls: 6.Kogsak grabbed his shield and shouted to distract the manticore, drawing it away from his companions. The giant stinger swished over his head once, then stabbed into the shield, nearly knocking it out of the dwarf's hands. The otherworldly steel held; Kogsak readied his axe, so that when it'd hit the shield again, he could chop at the stinger.
The hunter and the beast circled each other. Then he heard Èrith's battlecry. Furious, she leapt under the monster's massive frame, stabbing it deep with the tip of her axe. It roared and stumbled forward, ripping the axe from her hands and nearly crushing her under its weight, the immense claws tearing a huge wound across her back. With a curse, Èrith made a desperate roll and escaped the deadly grasp, but the manticore was not yet dead.
It clambered to its feet, moving in a broken, jagged way, then stared at Kogsak. The time seemed to slow as he saw it charge, he could see every tooth in its maw. And then the flow of time resumed as Kogsak found himself in the air. He could see the steps of a ladder flashing before his eyes and then there was a sudden stop.
***
Èrith's return was met with great commotion in Idodur. Though bloodied and battered, she was able to tell the story of the adventure: how they met the Theliiri, defeated the lamias and went to the upper tunnels, slaying a manticore and its offspring. Both of her companions had perished, one from the poison and the other from falling down a mine shaft. And she brought Rërithduthnur back.
The elders were not happy. A militia squad was sent to recover the bodies and treasure (Èrith could not carry all of it back). But this unexpected and tragic occurrence had stirred something in the dwarven society, perhaps sowed the seeds of ambition again. In the future years, the Dwarves would no longer hide from the world.
Without major threats, there was a period of relative peace that lasted six years. In 77, the craftsdwarves of Idodur built a blast furnace. By 79, they were able to melt large amounts of ice and get the water where they wanted using automated pumps. And in 82 a printing machine was made that could produce new copies of books, improving the pace of education for the new generation.
Elsewhere in the world dwarves and humans experimented with gunpowder, replacing the now-ubiquitous crossbow in their armies with the musket. Both surface colonists and Galkagaval outlaws would now sport an occasional firearm.
The Theliiri slowly recovered from the calamity that befell their species. However, not all of them were at ease with industrial buildup; a few of the surviving cave-druids split off, taking their followers across the underworld to found a new enclave in hitherto unknown caves close to the surface. They found unexpected help from the hermit, Ÿare, who had experimented with man-eating plants and nethercap trees that were able to survive the harshest winter. Together they created a new sacred grove; by rumor, the carnivorous trees of the grove occasionally had to be fed living flesh but it was a small price to pay.
Those who remained began to adopt the ways of the dwarves; in time, a modest flow of trade was established between the two settlements, though the relations cooled a bit in 82 after Queen Adela disappeared without a trace. At the same time, yet more groups began arriving into the valley, hoping to stake out some unclaimed land for themselves.
The world has passed into the Age of Industry. The dwarves build a new, industrial nation with the intent to expand and exploit the yet-untapped resources of the valley. However, there will be both rival nations and rogue groups competing with the big players and each other.
(Continued later; need to make the choices interesting.)
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Topic: Oldlands: Age of Dwarves (Read 34354 times)