In the year 446 a special child was born in the wilds to a dying elven maiden, and brought to civilization by a kangaroo doe. Her name was Tipi, and she was destined to change the world, if only little by little.
Tipi grew up in the small elven retreat of Whimlobster, where she played and laughed with all the other elven children in their gardens, learning from her caretakers and beasts alike. In time she grew to become something of a creator, taking on every aspect of crafting, even those spurned by her kin; Cutting bone and leather. Burning dead wood to make glass and pottery. All to trade with and learn from the humans of Ashenglistened. For this sin, she was abandoned by Cacame, and left to the winds of Fate. Eventually she grew bored, and turned to poetry and music. But on one fateful day, the 21st Hematite in the year 727, she could no longer be content in her little tree. She Begged the poet, Evala Eliyeamo, to let her join Evala on her tours, and was put to the test. She recited, sang and played her instruments for hours. But after all her heart, Tipi lacked practice, and she was refused, for the final time.
Tipi abandoned her home, and wandered west into the abandoned retreat of Shothoof, and found again a shrine to Ala, the human god of balance, blight and death. She remembered once a sermon she had observed in the humans' monasteries, where change, and death, was necessary to keep the world from cascading into eternal torment for lack of rest, overcrowding, and constant suffering. The humans believed they must be mortal, must die, for the world to function. Ala embodied this belief, and though sometimes he would kill their crops to thin them, he protected them in the afterlife.
Tipi walked south along the road into Ashenglistened, where she hoped to meet the usual farmers and herders and traders, but met noone. Only the lone statue of Snamoz, the Holy Calm who presided over the shrine here.
It was noon, so perhaps the humans had returned to their cabins to eat their meals. Tipi stopped by the stream, swam for an hour, drank and ate of her stash of persimmons. Still, noone returned to the fields. Which were barren. Humans had to sow their crops to survive. Something was very wrong.
Tipi jogged into town. Noone was at the well, nor the shrine, nor wandering the streets. It was as if they had all vanished. "How long have I been gone? A decade or two? They were fine then. Everyone was happy, and healthy, and well-fed." Tipi began to frantically search houses, but they were all empty, until she came upon the beast.
It was rushing to the door itself when she opened it, and immediately swung at her. She quickly backpedaled and ran around the corner and into one of the cabins, where she hid until she was sure it had left. This, then, was the state of the humans' affairs. She passed the shrine to Ala again, and begged for his mercy upon her one-time friends, but was only given an omen of doom.
Tipi fled the village proper to the "mead hall" as the humans called it, and was greeted with a familiar face
Snamoz was alive and well. Somewhat. "The human nature is to wither and die, Tipi," Snamoz explained, "there is nothing you nor I can do to change that. It is Ala's will. The people left, because of his will. Now, only I, the beast, and the bandit 'warlord' who claims this as his hamlet remain."
"What bandit warlord?" Tipi implored, but the holy woman only pointed around the corner further into the keep. There a wicked-looking goblin awaited her. Immediately after she had said hello, the warlord demanded she identify herself, then went into a frenzy saying she wasnt welcome here, and ran out of the keep. "I pray the beast finds him, I really do. His suffering would be so much less if his mind were healed in the afterlife, instead of slowly wasting away here," remarked Snamoz. Tipi spent the night, under Snamoz' protection. In the morning, she left, Snamoz shouting to her back, "Go to Championvault, in the Kindled Jungles far to the south. Seek the council of the dwarven deities, if you seek a new way in the world and the peace that evades you. Find Peace."
The monasteries outside Ashenglistened were abandoned to the wilds. The castle Icyclaps was inhabited by nothing but a single human man claiming to be a leader. Of what, he would not say. The city of Burnedmurdered contained nothing but religious leaders and empty, crumbling buildings. The hamlets of Beakwhip, Siegeskinned, and Rhymedinks were all empty of townsfolk. Rhymedinks only contained a collection of goblins, a single dwarf and a hideous experiement created by the evil human necromancers, all claiming to be religious figureheads. All that were left were the holders of these now-meaningless titles and wandering night creatures. The age of humans had passed just as surely as the age of dwarves had. Just as the elven retreats contained scant few survivors of the brutal wars and plagues.
Regardless, Tipi played and sang and spoke to them all. Some attacked her, viciously claiming she was an unwelcome intruder. But she never lifted a finger against them. But rumors abound, of a dwarven city on the far away isle in the middle of the Peaceful Waters. This place, surely, would seethe with delight at the sound of her music. There were many terrible night creatures prowling the woods, some of which stalked her for miles. At the castle of Muffinspecial, Tipi found a band of human civilians, living under the guidance of the baroness Bisan Showdays. There she stayed the night and played for the people. There was also a yak bull in the keep with a bag of beans tied around its neck.
Tipi visited a volcano.
It was such a beautiful, deadly sight, but alas, volcanoes do not care for music. So she climbed down the mountain and swam many miles along the rivers until she reached the coast. Sometimes she would encounter dead fish, so she butchered them and made figurines of their bones.
Tipi reached the beach at nightfall, and spent the night at the edge of the wood, admiring the cool breeze, light rain, and warm ocean spray. At dawn she crosed the channel to The Bridled Jungles. The waters were warm and the currents slow, and she made good time. Once on the other side, Tipi set out to explore the island.
Soon, at the foot of the mountains in the middle of the island, she found a cave, and ventured inside. The cave was pitch-black, and even with the "torch" the humans taught her to make, Tipi could see little besides streaks of gold in the walls. This was the natural form of the metal, she had been told; deep-sunk fingers in the rock, that the humans would carve out and melt and press into their coins. Deeper still the rocks changed and the gold disappeared. Far, far down, she encountered a tiny goblin-like creature with great teeth, and at first they both were struck by terror at their encounter.
"I'm sorry!" Tipi cried, "Don't be mad!"
"Don't eat me! Malvo help!" cried the tiny man.
"I wont I swear! I'm only a bard! I came looking for the dwarves, to play music for them. Do you know where they are?"
"No! There are no dwarves here, though they taught our people to speak. We are only gremlins, only four, here. I am Gerry. The caverns we shared with them, but the dwarves are long gone. Deem says their halls are all empty now, and their farms feed only cavern-travellers like us. The other gremlins have not seen them either, in many generations, only the monsters from the terror below the caverns which the dwarves found."
Tipi thought for a moment. There must be dwarves somewhere, maybe this was the wrong island, the wrong cave, but the people she'd met talked about dwarves building sites in the last two decades. "They must be somewhere, the humans said they saw them themselves, travelling to new halls they were building, and humans only live for a short time, shorter than dwarves, so they must be somewhere. But do you want to hear my music? It is very good."
The gremlin agreed, and Tipi played him "And She Sang 'Greed,'" and Gerry joined, whistling after a few verses. "You're very good, Gerry, will you join me to play with the dwarves?" Tipi asked. And he did, for Gerry had never himself seen a dwarf, or an elf or a human or a goblin. He had only heard Deem's tales.
Gerry introduced Tipi to the other two gremlins present, Malvo and Ferra. Deem was out hunting. The others didn't join the trek to find the dwarves. They stayed and Tipi played some songs, and recited some poems, and shared her persimmons, but soon moved on. The climb back out of the cave was tiring, and Gerry was at first apprehensive to be out under the sun in the trees. Tipi led him across the river north and taught him to swim. "We gremlins avoid the water," he said, "there are many terrible beasts in it." The stream though was devoid of even the usual fish, and so Tipi assured him it was safe. They climbed the mountains, to the peak of the Summit of Clouting, the volcano there, where no elf, nor apparently gremlin, had ever stood before.
They then proceeded to the coast. But alas, Gerry forgot his swimming lessons, and despite all of Tipi's attempts to pull him from the surf, he was sucked under and drowned. So ended the Tale of Gerry. And though Tipi wept, she knew there was no reason to stay. The swim across the channel to the northern island, where the dwarves must be, took most of the day. The forest there, were dark and creeping with night creatures. There was, there, a lair of one such monster, and a shrine to one of the great titans of the world. The lair was empty. Perhaps abandoned, perhaps the inhabitant was out stalking the woods. The shrine, Tipi slowly approached to see the beast for herself. But it lay dead, blood pooled around it though it was nothing but bones, with the long-rotted skeleton of a human nearby. Someone had been here, and slain the titan.
Not far to the north-west, Tipi sensed another disturbance in the forest. This was where the dwarves resided. Resided in the past tense, as noone was there to greet her but a lone, fat donkey and a cat. Nothing but skeletons, stray tools and logs littered the ground, until she came upon one last survivor. Or monster?
Tipi fled, but despite all her strength and power, could not outrun the husk of a dwarf.
Tipi's curiosity and desire to satisfy her pride the with admiration of onlookers was her undoing.
That, and probably not being able to actually use the sword she took from the humans.
Author
Topic: Museum III, adventure succession game (DF 0.47.05) (Read 476104 times)