There were four dwarves with Kanil as he attempted to crawl up the ramp. The water was rising quickly to catch up and the cries of the drowning were covered by the water crashing into the room and swirling about it. Some of the world's greatest treasures were now lost to this watery abyss.
The dwarves ran past the crawling Kanil and one reached the hatch to the next floor up and heaved with all his might as it resisted. Water crashed into the room from above and the dwarf was knocked off the ramp into the whirlpool below where he died on impact with hard stone.
Kanil had to use all his strength to crawl past the rushing water as it pushed him back again and again. He grit his teeth and pushed hoping to not end up like the unfortunate dwarf that splattered below. He reached the floor above and did not like any of their odds:
The damage from below had traveled upwards and cracks covered the walls of these depths with water gushing out to soon flood this room. A group of demons had reached this floor, only steam demons thankfully, but they were currently beating two unconscious dwarves who had attempted to escape while another group of dwarves covered in the corner of the room from them.
There was no time to waste. Kanil crawled forward again; all blood and demonic goo long washed off him leaving only his bare injuries visible to indicate his condition.
Most of the dwarves held back eyeing the demons and the human waiting for something to save them, but a couple ran forward and these two dwarves danced with the pack of monsters that laughed, chittered and easily dodged around the dwarves.
Kanil killed one and it exploded sending steam and water flying all around. The others flew slightly away from him forcing the human to slowly crawl towards the mocking beasts. They avoided the human and laughed, but one flew into the range of the two dwarves and one with sword and other with fists, they jumped the demon stabbing and beating until it exploded and threw them back.
This drove another demon towards Kanil who cut its legs off and then its head to cause it to explode too. The rest of the demons died in short order as they were herded into closer range and killed.
The pair of dwarves that were unconscious and being beaten were warriors and nobility, in fact. Kanil tried to shake the pair awake, but they had given into their exhaustion and injuries. The water was rising and would soon leave Kanil swimming and he could not carry either of this pair "Someone drag these men! They're still alive"
a couple of hovering cowardly dwarves ran from the corners of the room to obey as the two warriors that helped him fight began making their way up the ramp. The largest geyser of water was gushing out from next to the exit of this hell hole. They'd need to push through the water pressure without getting knocked off in order to survive.
A grisly looking dwarf, dressed in rags and beard patchy stood on the ramp eyeing it and looked toward the unconscious dwarves and the great tide that was barring the way.
"No way to get them across, lordship" he said
"Can we tie ropes to a couple of you who can walk and you drag them through it?"
"Do I look like I got rope on me?" the patchy dwarf said
The others nodded no as well.
"Come on! Who doesn't bring rope on an expedition! That's one of the first lessons an adventurer learns!" Kanil yelled. He planted Cloudfought into the stone to prop himself up
"Well, where's your rope then!" Called one dwarf dressed as a farmer
Kanil scratched his head under his helmet "Fine. What can we do?"
There was silence. Too long and uncomfortable of a silence. Finally, the patchy dwarf spoke up to voice the opinion many were thinking
"Best we can do is prop them up here at the top of the ramp and hope they wake up before the water reaches them. They got a few minutes at least and if they wake up they can get through the water."
The crew were silent in response
One of the last warriors spoke up "Drowning is no way for a dwarf to die."
"I ain't kinslaying. Been enough of that for one life time." said one woman with a broken arm. Her eyes were hard and haunted by the day's events.
"Then we let the gods decide to save them or not" said one of the two last nobles alive "We move forward!" and he began walking towards the exit
The other dwarves left one by one to try their own luck.
The patchy dwarf looked at the water pouring in from above "You know" he paused and looked toward Kanil "I always wanted to see a waterfall before I died. Think this counts?"
"Yeah. It counts." Kanil said matter of factly.
The first noble to try and enter the tide was knocked off immediately. He crashed below dying on impact with slade stone.
Others tried and fell as well. Some even dragged other dwarves over the side with them.
Kanil belly crawled through it with only one arm to grip stone with and the other broken. He was pushed to the edge of the platform twice, but moved toward the exit ramp again and again.
He made it to the top and heaved with all his might as water rushed again from above! Yet, not as intense a flow as the last hatch opened and it did not push him away. He climbed to the next floor where flooding had also began, but was far less intense.
Kanil wondered for a few minutes if he would be the only one who made it out as the whole building shook and rumbled in protest of its collapse, but soon he was joined.
Seven dwarves survived the tide and began to ascend from the bottom of the earth alongside Kanil. The patchy dwarf was one and he smiled a gap toothed smile at his own fortune.
It was only as they climbed countless floors upward and neared the surface that the crew calmed enough to even speak.
The warrior spat at Kanil "Of course, my own race and country die off, but you somehow survive it all. Cursed be your name!"
Kanil pulled himself up "What's your deal?"
The warrior spat again and balled her fists "My deal?" she shouted "My entire misbegotten journey began with you! It all started with your murder and loss after loss here we are now! All my friends I followed as they followed you are dead! Yet, you still live!"
Kanil recognized the dwarf "Zon!" he shouted
"Yeah, finally remember me? I let the others convince me to ignore dwarven custom in your murdering, because they said you'd stop the necromancer queen. I relented for my friends and I dearly prayed that you'd die in battle, but you didn't. Time and again you survived as more and more of us died! I curse you, Kanil! You're the reason this happened, because we didn't do what was right that day all those years ago!"
She spat again. The other dwarves looked confused, conflicted, and outright afraid.
Zon and Kanil were the only armored people present and both had weapons. The survivors chose to continue to stare in confusion.
Zon was one of the original warriors who had joined Kanil in the beginning. He overthrew the goblin occupying government, which had him dubbed as an anarchist and murderer by the dwarven kingdom, but he had still convinced many warriors including Ingiz to join him to fight evils across the land. Kanil had had enough of this nonsense
"You wanna try it, Zon! I'm right here and even with one arm and one leg I'll still break you!" Zon shouted in response, but Kanil socked her in the chest and she was pushed back. She threw a punch for his head, but Kanil rolled.
Seeing it was a fist fight the patchy dwarf ran in to help Kanil win, but Zon entered a martial trance
Kanil punched over and over, but none of his blows could connect and he spat and yelled at Zon "You think you're the only one who lost? Ingiz was my best friend and brother. Yet, I have to return to the surface with you instead!"
"You should be dead down there, instead of one of us, human criminal!" Zon cursed as she caught a fist on her shield and punched Kanil only for the human to dodge around at the last second.
"Criminal? I saved you! I saved you all! You were slaves of goblins and I killed the leader! I killed the armies of the dead who were wiping you all out! I fought hell itself for you today, you stupid ungrateful-"
Zon hit Kanil's arm. The patchy dwarf had stopped assisting as one dwarf pulled him back and shook her head at him. This was a personal bout.
"Saved us, huh? You mean from the goblins that had only a few soldiers in a farm full of warriors like us? You mean from the army of dwarves heading east to come liberate it? We were waiting for them to arrive! We wanted reinforcements so we could reinforce the farm from future invasions from the north! Then you came in and started chaos! Then you run into the army that was sent to save us and what do you do when they try to arrest you? You kill! All you do is kill! You killed the plump helmet man emissary from the caverns and then you killed my cousin!"
Zon kept dodging every punch, but she could not hit Kanil a second time
"You'd have had me just let myself die to them? Ridiculous! You and your stupid laws and customs! I killed a tyrant and you can't hold it together, because I didn't kill him the way you all wanted"
"If you can't understand our ways of doing things then don't get involved!" Zon retorted
Kanil threw a punch that landed. The fist hit with such strength that even past her steel armor her bones groaned in pain and bruised
"What about you, Zon? Where were you? Our friends are dead and I didn't see you. Why didn't you stop Cor, or Tumam, or rescue the kidnapped children or save Ingiz from the demon?"
The dwarf had the wind knocked out of her and she tried to gain it back as tears filled her eyes
"I-" She coughed and sucked in air "I hid." she said
"What?"
"I hid in the battle. While everyone else fought those demons I stayed at the back of the warband so I didn't have to fight." She fell to her knees and began speaking more to herself, or to her gods maybe, than Kanil "I didn't want to die. I wanted to live and those monsters were so scary. I just wanted to live"
Kanil didn't know how to feel about the dwarf, but knew he was glad to get all these feelings out of himself "We're through here." he said simply
Zon didn't look up from the floor, but nodded her head
"I think we're all cowards here, warrior" said the woman dwarf with the broken arm from earlier
"Aye" said the patchy dwarf "I'm from the north. Was born in Leapbodice, my pa was the leader of the cult there, before the goblins took me as a kid. Raised me in the north and I spent my days living in frozen slums. Got out just in time to find out my pa was killed by the union warriors and got pulled into this expedition"
One peasant wrinkled his nose in disgust and looked at the patchy dwarf "You're not just a traitor? You're the child of the worst traitor of all! Double the betrayal just in your birth and raising!"
Patchwork laughed "Aye. Ironic that I was the one that lived, right? Thought I'd die some noble death and be a hero of legend, but here all the heroes are dead." he looked toward Kanil "Human heroes being excluded in the count, lordship"
The woman with the broken arm stepped forward "I don't deserve to be here either. I was also from the north. Taken as a babe and raised there. I didn't even try to escape like a dwarf should. I was pregnant and stayed to raise my daughter. Only left when the trolls got riled up by that rhino monster"
"You can't even be 30, lass!" said the patchwork
"I'm 17" she said smiling sadly "My daughter was almost 5. She was taken to be sacrificed so I came here and pretended to be from the homeland to rescue her."
"Sounds like you at least got something to go home to" said a fisherdwarf
"No." she said simply as horror gripped her face "My daughter was terrified of being separated from me again and she snuck away from the children to follow us down."
Silenced gripped the group as none dared ask her to continue, but she did anyway after a moment
"She was torn limb from limb by a demon." She said and looked at Kanil "The one you killed, Lord." Tears began streaming down her face and Kanil felt some of his own welling up watching the pure grief seizing her "I wish that I had died down there too. I don't deserve to be one of the last of us"
Another dwarf stepped up "I am the grandson of Rovod Pulleyroofs" the entire room gasped, other than Kanil who did not know his history. "I am the grandson of one of the worst killers and necromancers in dwarven history. I do not deserve to be one of the last dwarves"
Another stepped up "I'm a common criminal. I was living in a human prison before I was released to come here. I don't deserve to be one the last dwarves"
Then another "I am a coward. I hid while the rest of our kin died in this battle. I don't deserve to be one of the last dwarves"
"I am also a coward that hid during battle I watched a demon kill my brother and ran away"
Zon laughed bitterly "Cowards, deserters, and traitors all of us! What cruel fate have the gods cursed us to"
"I don't know, but there are a lot of children up there, now orphans, who need someone in their lives. Cowards or not you're better than nothing and they need something" Kanil said
None of the dwarves looked at each other, but looked at their feet or into space as they contemplated.
The last seven dwarves would have to live even if they were unworthy of it.
Only dwarf fortress with its random generation could ensure the only seven survivors of these few hundred deaths would be people with actually very interesting back stories and misfits who you absolutely would not have expected to survive at all! Zon came back! Forgot about her until she started spitting at me and challenging me!
Poll
0 (0%)
Author
Topic: In Search of Fairy Tales - Adelaathira - Recruiting Players (Read 54198 times)