Unknown Date, Malachite 718, Mosshill The Mines of Iron.Reached the destination He has set for me today. Another Fortress of the Dwarven Kingdoms, by the name of Mosshill the Mines of Iron.
Getting past their defences was almost pathetically easy. No walls, no moat, not even a single guard in sight – just a long line of stone-fall traps down the length of the entrance tunnel, painfully obvious even at a glance. Once past these defences, I was able to assess the fortress proper.It seems to have been quite recently founded – the layout of their workshops is haphazard in the extreme, with almost all their industrial buildings crammed into one side of the entrance hall and numerous bins and barrels strewn across the floor. Across from the forges and various workshops lie a hall of various statues, and a stockpile of weapons and armour – appropriately enough, almost all are forged from iron, and all display the craftsmanship for which the Dwarves are so renowned.
The bedrooms – or rather, the sole dormitory – were similarly cramped, with several beds shoved up against one another in a small room off the main hall. The farms, however, were far more generous with their space, as my roughly scrawled designs may indicate. The poultry was allowed to roam freely, despite a nesting room of some sort being constructed; I was repeatedly forced to step around the feathered vermin, and all too often had to resist the urge to put the next one to nearly trip me up on a pike. A Manager seemed to be the sole occupant of the fortress proper, sitting in an office and reading over the books of this place. We spoke, albeit briefly, of the surroundings and any troubles this burgeoning fortress was experiencing; he could offer little of help, knowing the names of various creatures of the night and several criminal groups, but being unable to direct me in direction of their strongholds. About the most useful thing he could tell me was the fortress government’s name – The God-Forsaken Fellowship.
Surprised as I was at the implication of Him abandoning them, they seemed woefully disconnected from the outside world – the Manager spoke of an army marching on another fortress as though it happened now, yet I know for a fact that that assault happened nearly three years ago. Accompanied by the uneasy stares towards my… abnormalities, and the still-bloodied weapons that I carried, it soon became clear that I would get no useful information out of him.
The rest of the fortress’ inhabitants were singularly unhelpful: they stood out in the rain, eyeing me uneasily and whispering to one another as I attempted to speak to them. Most of them simply repeated what I already knew, though I am quite certain I saw one of them speaking to a sheep about some matter as I made my way back into the fortress. Considering that they wore the clothes of a Gelder, I am… uncertain as to what exactly that may say about the mind of the Dwarf in question.
Even so, they have informed me of some beasts I may now hunt: The Ettin Epeve Pagesmiles the Awe-Inspiring, lurking in the cheerily-named ‘Desert of Mortality’. A bestial Minotaur in the Pale Deserts, whose name I find insignificant. They also claim there to be ‘foul goings-on’ at a fortress by the name of Faintscuffled; the Dwarf would not go into any further details than that, but he looked rather disturbed as he spoke of that place. Perhaps another coven of those accursed Necromancers, begging for His judgement? Or something more sinister?
Before I conclude this entry and begin my prayers to Him for whatever assistance He may provide, there is one final thing I must remark upon. While the upper levels of their mines seemed relatively standard for Dwarven Fortresses, there was a single staircase that easily outstripped the depth of the mine's works.
While I felt none of the evil that had lurked in the black heart of Deepvaulted, nor was the shaft as deep, I remain troubled. If these Dwarves do not know of the danger that the accursed metal brings, and continue their digging, it is possible that they may unleash calamity upon the world in time. Again.
Let us hope they will know sense.
The Mighty One protects.
Addendum: Killed a Sand Titan before He led me to Mossdeep. I feel uncertain whether to laugh or weep at the fact that it fell to a single pike-blow.
Lonelythrall stared into the campfire intently, his mouth moving in a silent litany to His glory. On the rare occasions he could not honour the Mighty One through battle or bloodshed (be it his or others), he would opt for this means of worship instead, hunching before the fire and speaking the prayers he had learned off by heart.
His presence answered his prayers. In the back of his mind, the Mighty One’s presence suddenly grew strong, almost suffocating in its mental intensity. It was like the first time in the cell; His eyes were upon him, scrutinising him down to the very bone and weighing the sincerity and devotion of his prayers. Long moment after long moment passed, the pressure growing more intense until Lonelythrall almost buckled under the force of His divine presence.
Then, without warning, it abated. There was a soft pulse of His will, an order to look closer into the fire. Loneythrall obeyed without question.
Within the flames, he could see something shifting, taking form. White-hot metal, twisting and shifting within the dancing fire as His will shaped it. Blisters arose upon its glass-smooth surface as He called upon the power He had lent another of the gods, empowering the metal with the divine energy that gave it such magnificent power. The air was thick with the scent of molten metal and the pressure of divine power, His voice whispering once more in the back of Lonelythrall’s mind.
He knew what to do. Without an instant’s hesitation, Lonelythrall plunged his hand into the fire. He had removed his gauntlets before he began his prayer, and now, he trusted only in Him to keep his hand from being burned. His fingers closed around the hot metal, and while he knew it should have been agonising even to one as dulled in the senses as him, Lonelythrall felt only mild heat. The axe still glowed a dulled red as he drew it from the fire, silently thanking Him for His latest gift.
His power pulsed in a wordless reply, mixed with a warning: while He was mighty indeed, there was only so much He could do. When Lonelythrall went to confront that antediluvian pit of evil in Deepvaulted, He could offer little to no help – whatever monsters waited in that infernal realm, His devotee would have to face their evil alone, with only the strength of his arm and his faith in Him to guard against death.
Even the slab he had retrieved would be no help, for some accursed wretch among the Divines had spirited it away from the Castle of Relics, using their godly magics to shroud it from His sight - the only way to retrieve it while maintaining the world would be to withdraw His blessings and power from Lonelythrall, leaving him exposed to the wrath of His more petty or vengeful creations among the Divines.
It was regrettable, but inevitable - both God and man alike knew that, and as He departed once again, Lonelythrall returned to his prayers, even more fervently than before.
He would not be found wanting when the time for His final judgement came, be it in the depths of Hel or the Halls of Valour.
Used DFHack to bring a blistered metal battle axe into the game, so that I could get around the glitch with Vault HFS where no Axeman-type Angels have, well, axes. I debated this decision for quite some time before choosing to do it on the grounds of 'I would have gotten it anyway if it wasn't bugged, this kinda-sorta-not really fixes it'. Nonetheless, I apologise if this comes off as cheating to you.
Also, my thanks to Imic for providing the RP explanation for the Slab's absence. Sorry about not going into much detail about Mosshill, but there wasn't really that much to write home about - at least, not much that came up in conversation or when looking around the fort. I did try, but most of the stuff they knew was either outdated or not related to the fort.
Snodub Ruthlessputrid was, quite frankly, happy that the day was over.
Labour in a Dark Fortress was, after all, back-breaking: the Master in the central tower never seemed satisfied no matter how hard they worked, forever raising their work quotas and demanding more of them. The whips of the overseers saw that the Master’s will was enforced until late at night, when they were finally allowed to scurry back to their burrows until the next morning.
It didn’t help that his Pit’s overseer was a petty tyrant, revelling in what little power he had – more than one worker, Snodub included, had felt his lash scorching across their backs whenever he deemed them to be working too slow. He was quite certain at least half the work crew were plotting to murder him. Quite frankly, if he felt that lash one more time, he’d join them.
“Bastard tells us to work harder, then beats us bloody,” He muttered under his breath, stalking towards the stone building that served as an unofficial tavern for the workers. “Going to-”
He stopped dead. There was a smell coming from the tavern, one he was intimately familiar with. It was the coppery scent of blood.
Snodub approached the stairs leading into the building with a much greater level of caution than before. Each step sounded far too loud to him as he reached the bottom of the stairs, edging around the corner. The ground felt wet under his boots as he began to move in, and a foul smell hung in the air.
Wait a moment, Snodub thought, eyes narrowing in confusion.
There hasn’t been rainfall here in days. So why…?The answer became clear as soon as he rounded the corner, but he immediately wished it hadn’t.
The building had become an abattoir. Corpses lay on the floor, easily stacked seven deep – most were Goblin, a few of them Human. Many were in pieces, bones and organs spread out in neat little piles of offal here and there, some lacking entire limbs or bearing repeated strikes from a blade to the chest or back. Blood flowed in streams from each body, deep enough that he could feel it soaking through his shoes and painting his feet red.
The Goblin scrambled back in terror, chest heaving as he began to hyperventilate. His foot tripped on something, sending himself sprawling face-first into the blood; it tasted coppery as it slipped through his lips. Then he saw what he’d tripped over, his already terrified breaths quickening even further as he laid eyes upon his work-partner’s freshly-severed head. Her eyes were still open in terror, though glazing over with death, and the ragged cut directly across her neck was still weeping fresh blood.
Snodub scrambled to his feet, almost falling again in his desperation to get up. He could see other familiar faces, now, as his eyes adapted to the darkness - Stozub, hacked to pieces in the corner; Dostngop, face-down in a slick of drying gore; Azstrog-
Something pressed against his back. It was cold and slick, wet with fresh blood.
Snodub was vaguely aware of a warm trickling down his leg as a monster arose from the pools of red fluid: black-scaled and winged, armoured in blistered, night-dark metal and carrying a pair of heavy axes in its hands. The beast’s axes dripped, wet with fresh blood, as it arose from within the piles of corpses, a pair of malevolent eyes glaring from beneath a snarling iron helm. The thin wings of painfully-stretched skin at its back twitched at the sight of him, and the long slit of its mouth opened to reveal far too many fangs, fixed in a malevolent grin.
Strodno had just enough time to scream before the beast lunged forwards. There was the sound of iron cutting through meat, a wet thunk, and then silence.
The commands of the Mighty One burning fresh in his mind, Lonelythrall the Hideous laid down among the corpses once more, waiting for the next Goblin to enter.
OOC: Let’s be frank, a high-tier adventurer that’s out to train their axe skills on any Gobbo they come across in a Dark Fortress is a complete Mook Horror Show. Something like three-quarters of my kill list is now nothing but Goblins (I wasn't exaggerating the seven bodies deep thing), and they didn’t even have the decency to die slowly.
...Then again, maybe that was due to the fort having a metric tonne of civilians and little to no soldiers.
Also, add another four five dead night trolls to my tally overall. They breed like rats, and now they die like them too.
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Topic: Museum III, adventure succession game (DF 0.47.05) (Read 473628 times)