Img 1: The prisoner, 'Maloy' Fernboulder Part 1: Rise of the PrisonerThere was a dwarf, sitting in the damp twilight of a wooden cell, remembering. There was little to do but remember.
Fernboulder reminisced the time when she wondered at her origins. She thought she could live writing poems in the mountain hall of Perfectlash. But already by the age of 19 she had braved the horrors of combat and seen that there was more to life than writing books about fish gods with titles like “Mongrel: Only The Sea Foretells Afterward”.
She remembered how she first suspected her real parents were refugees from the dying civilization of Lorbam Egul. Her “mother”, Minkot, was the baroness of Perfectlash, with the means to buy off children from desperate parents and raise them as her own. That must have happened to Fern as well!
Fernboulder grew tired of the weakness of the Superior Salves, their failure of losing the fortress Hallbolt to the eyeless gecko demon and its goblins. Fern’s father was a spy, a real con artist who gained access to Hallbolt under a false name. Then he divorced Minkot to marry the queen and become the king consort.
Fern had given up the lies and failures of the Salves and traveled the desert, lending her strength to the brave resistance of Lorbam Egul in Gateheaven.
Strength.
She remembered taking the name of ‘Maloy’, and leading the blood-stained fortress in its battles.
I reached this place only a year ago.
Gateheaven...to reach this place I had to walk through fields of corpses in a blasted desert.
Before this I watched as the last sparks of my people were stomped out.
Some were devoured by the cannibalistic elves and others enslaved by the human empire.
I walk these halls which are part tomb and part home. Myself and those others who have come here have nothing and most do not even remember the names of their families. All we have is a lifetime of running.
I stand in front of his tomb: He lived a great life, but died a meaningless death. I have lived a meaningless life and yet still live; So, perhaps we can find something new together?
I place my hand upon his stone coffin "By the gods do I hereby take up your name for my own. Just as I take your name I ask you to be my ancestor that we might both achieve what neither of us could do alone. I throw aside old names, titles and clans. Hereby shall I be known as: Maloy Fernboulder"
She remembered what it was like to face defeat in battle and lose everything, and be locked away by the enemy, for years.
Written by Nish Lancerbridged:
“
I returned to the City of the Dead. This time I avoided the long corridors of coffins, and instead visited the mausoleums of the overseers. ‘Maloy’, ‘Neblime’, ‘Salmeuk’, ‘Kesperan’… All killed in the most cruel and undignified ways, while I continue to cheat death. I feel tired.
I heard mumbling in the adjoining tomb-chamber. “I throw aside old names, titles and clans. Hereby shall I be known as: Maloy Fernboulder!”
I step into the torch-light, to protect the peace of the mausoleum. “Who are you?”
“I am ‘Maloy’. I’ve taken the name. Who are you?”
“I’m Lancerbridged, the former expedition leader, I’ve been running things for the past year and a half.”
I had a conversation with the strange dwarf, and during the course of it, I must have expressed my deep desire to stand down and rest. At the end of it, this Fernboulder touched my shoulder and relieved me of duty. I saw that he was determined to lead the fort. I had no reason to contest this.
The following months were brutal, with armies marching in and out of the mesa, necromancers and death. Maloy’s military tactics brought sites under Inoddasel’s control, but he himself became a prisoner of the goblin-humans of the ‘Union of Frenzy’ at Luteglen. Then our queen was killed by the elven war animals in a foolhardy assault on their groves.
The kingship was contested again and the one who claimed it was a human, from our hated enemy, the Union. There is some great irony in that, don’t you think?
”
She had been imprisoned in Luteglen, and then moved to an unknown location when the castle was reclaimed by dwarves. For years she was a prisoner until she was able to escape.
After traveling for a while, she found herself in Stirpulled, a decrepit abandoned human town, half reclaimed by desert.
Fern remembered that she was not in a cell, not anymore, but in an abandoned house she had wandered into. She was free. There was nothing here but dust and mold. She left the shade of the empty house and started her new adventure.
Img 2: Ruined town Part 2: Travels of the PrisonerI was in Stirpulled, an abandoned hamlet. I exited the town, and visited the Wordy Aura in the outskirts. Near the mead hall I found a slim horse. I greeted and petted it, as one should, and then mounted it. Shortly after, a human woman approached Fern. I had found your companion Radir. “This is the life for me”, she told Fernboulder when asked about traveling together.
Inside the crowded mead hall, I asked the bowman Agsal Cratermoments to join me. I started traveling, using the horse as a pack animal. We bullied a pack of wild elephants and butchered one, piling the meat on the horse. Oddly enough, elephants run very fast, faster than us for sure. I was lucky to cut one down in one strike.
Img 3: Radir, the fierce hunter 
Img 4: Agsal... Fern carved some elephant bone figurines to keep her hands busy after the long captivity. On the way to Strappedsun, Radir spoke of war, and Agsal complained about the rain, remarking he wished nothing exciting would happen.
I went to the mead hall outside Strappedsun, where I met the hillock’s leader, ‘Mangointango’ Beriseth, and the local human lord of the Union of Frenzy.
The lord at the doorway instantly protested the drawn weapons of the party, claiming he knew nothing about the dwarven rulers of the town. But ‘Mangointango’ welcomed us in, as he had taken an immediate interest in the horse, telling it all about his troubles and anxieties.
Img 5: Troubles of 'Mangointango' Beriseth I grabbed some of the bags lying there and filled them with water from the river, in case I ended up traveling far. I briefly explored Strappedsun itself: it was sparsely populated, but it was clean and hadn’t fallen to disrepair.
Traveling west, I crossed a river at a forest retreat. I found a group of elves staring at a diminutive coffee tree sapling that was supposed to house them. Serves them right for purchasing an apartment before it’s fully grown. One of them told Radir that life can be unfair and sometimes forces your hand, but that one should strive for balance. “Thank you for your kind words”, she responded, and we moved on.
Fernboulder thought about the stories Agsal had been telling, and the ones she heard in the Wordy Aura, about moon men and horrors of evil. She didn’t yearn back to a life of war just yet. She would cling to her freedom for a while and explore, and maybe hunt down the monsters of the night. Yes, that was good. They crossed the bridge and ventured further afield into the jungles.
So yeah, sorry about playing on and then writing fanfiction about your character... I hope i haven't ruined the dwarf with my ramblings, and i thought her file in legends mode was pretty interesting
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Topic: Longnight the Umbral Souls: Building the largest world conquest fort series (Read 32422 times)