I must try adventure mode some day, though the ASCII would kill me.
You have to make your own stories with it, although that goes for all of DF. But if you've got a decent imagination (and a high tolerance for buggy behavior) you can have some really memorable adventures.
On the Road Again The next morning Thob set out on his journey. To get around the mountains he would first have to return to Scarredpaddles, across the desert. It was a trek, but a familiar one; and when night began to fall he was safely at the old fortress. He took another look around the place, to see if he could turn up anything else—last time he had only been looking for booze, and stumbled upon the swords. Sure enough, searching the main hall he found a magnificent mug, clearly an artifact of value:
In the morning Thob crossed over the mountains to the east, and after several hours found himself facing another desert. The rough dirt track that led through the peaks ended at another dwarven fortress, while in the distance he could see another strange tower.
The fortress, as the ancient roadsigns told him, was called Postrelieved, and it was laid out much like Dawngloves or Stoneclasped. There was a small chapel in the upper cavern, dedicated to a certain “Sizet the Sugary Dessert”—not a deity Thob was familiar with, but he sounded enticing nonetheless.
There was, unfortunately, no sweet cinnamon in the church, but there were some books. Thob picked up a bit of mathematics before moving on.
The lower floors of the fortress were in serious disrepair: stairs that led nowhere, piles of junk left in the hallways and (somehow) stuck into the walls… but among the rubble Thob found a shiny pair of steel boots to replace his iron ones.
He considered where to go next:
Brightplums was only a short ways to the east: although the king had warned him about the place, his curiosity was piqued, and anyways this “Chieftess Onget” was supposed to have many treasures in her keep. Scarredpaddles was much further to the south. Still, Thob thought it prudent to go after the relics there, then perhaps pass by Brightplums on his way back, just to scope it out.
He decided to head south overland to a nearby fortress; then by tunnels to another on the other side of the mountains, and from there make his way south to Scarredpaddles. He wanted to go from fortress to fortress to check on their beer supplies—if they had any. There was none in Postrelieved.
It took him longer to reach the first fort, called Basementfree, than he had thought. The country was divided into little valleys with impassable mountain walls between them, which he had to go around—journeys sometimes of several miles. Basementfree was at the end of one such valley, situated in a desert of black sand.
There was another chapel here: the “Chapel of Radiance,” built by the Light Sect, as he read on the signs. Engravings on the walls depicted ancient dwarves fighting many battles. Losing many battles, actually:
Thob noted grimly that most of these conquests were the work of the Plates of Scouring—the old enemy of the Sandaled Key, as King Urvad claimed, of which Onget of Brightplums was chieftess. But these battles took place six or seven centuries ago! Had they really been fighting the Plates for so long? And if the Plates had been so unstoppable then, how had they been finally driven back, as they evidently had?
Thob slept at the fortress; when day came he descended the long spiral stair to the caverns, and set off through the tunnels beneath the mountains. It was refreshing to be back in the close, damp, faintly rot-scented air of the caverns, in the darkness under a roof of good, solid stone. The fungi and great mushroom trees, variously colored, seemed to greet him like old friends.
He traveled south through the mazy tunnels for many hours, until he stumbled at last upon the most homely of sights: a field of stubby plump helmets stretching before him and vanishing into the gloom.
Nearby was the entrance to a deep hall, a place just liked Lawmined. It made Thob feel positively nostalgic.
That is, until he took a closer look around.
Hovering in the air over the road was one of those eyeless creatures, like he had seen on the surface. This one, however, wore clothes of dwarven fashion. Was it civilized, then? He knew the things could talk: warily, Thob hailed the creature.
“Hello, there. My name’s Thob.”
“Greetings,” replied the thing civilly. “I’m Zaneg the glassmaker.”
There was a pause. “I’m a dwarf,” ventured Thob.
“Yes, I know,” said Zaneg slowly, as though Thob had said something obvious.
Another pause. “Ah,” said Thob, “could I ask, maybe… what are
you?”
“The dwarves call us ‘Èzum’s Eyes’,” it said. It chuckled. “I guess Èzum had a sense of humor.”
“Dwarves? There are dwarves around here?”
“Used to be. Mistress Vabôk and some others went off to Mythtin a few weeks ago—an old fort east of here they wanted to rebuild. Personally it’s not a journey I’d want to make. There’s talk of dangerous folk about, brigands and the like.”
“Brigands? In the caverns?”
“Yes,” said Zaneg. “Hiding out in some mountain hall up north—”
“—by the way,” it asked, “where did you come from?”
“I, uh, should be going,” said Thob hastily.
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Topic: Thob Goes to the Surface (Read 62230 times)