The events of the 9th of Slate, 1068
Dust and smoke was still spiraling into the air, three days after The Events. Rice had pulled himself out of bed, the bone in his arm mended but the wound infected. He kept it wrapped in tuber leaves soaked in brine to keep the swelling down, but the small fever had already taken it's toll. Rice looked old, haggard, his hair and beard streaked with lines of gray.
He stood at the edge of the cliff supported by Lucy. To his side stood Howard and Istrath, the pair bent over the set of blueprints that had been finalized almost a month ago. All around him, Dwarves staggered past, coughing and wheezing into kerchiefs, many with blood clotting around the corners of their mouths from lung-and-mouth damages.
"How could this happen?" Rice asked quietly. "Lucy, could it have been prevented?"
"I don't know, love," she said. "Madam Dodik, and that dock worker Rinsesilver were asking me to design the water works for their establishment. I haven't been in this hole for... since the last implosion."
"What's the count now?"
"Five dwarves recovering from concussions. The miners have recovered the bodies of a child, a jeweler, and a stone worker... I hope there aren't any more."
"One of the Orbsbarb children was snatched last week, wasn't he?" Rice asked.
"Yeah... that family is nearly extinct now."
Rice shook his head sadly. "This is a disaster. This place is crumbling. The soldiers dead, a total collapse due to negligence, goblins sneaking off with our children... it's hard to do this."
"I know it is... try not to think about it, it'll just make you depressed."
"I'm already depressed."
"Then it'll make you more depressed." Lucy sighed, and leaned in to give Rice a hug.
After a moment in the embrace, Rice slowly made his way to the pair of architects. "How does it look, Istrath."
"Amazing. Roaroak's designs are... highly unusual, so much glass, so much steel instead of good Dwarven stone... but this is, quite possibly, the most structurally sound piece of construction I have ever before looked at. It's a technical marvel."
"It has to be," Roaroak said quietly. He gave a small, insolent shrug, and drew a line from the base of the main dome up to it's tip. "This will all be under great pressure from the water run-off. Aryn's bleeding the ocean, diverting it's power to enclose this dome from the rest of the world. Of course it's a marvel - nothing else would do. You wouldn't want that much green glass imploding inwards, would you?"
"How long will my workers be toiling down there?" Rice asked.
"Hard to say. Depends on how many you have left."
"Well... there are only four of my core crew left, and Aryn has placed all but a few of the decommissioned guardsmen on masonry detail. That, along with the miners - minus Archin, gives us... almost twenty five? That should go fast."
Howard nodded once, a curt tilt of his head. "I'll go inform Aryn, then. As soon as the dust clouds clear, we'll begin work. I suspect you'll want this to go quickly, Mr. Relicmastered."
At Rice's startled look, Howard offered a small smile, a thin slash across his mouth. "Don't look surprised. You look like you need a good sleep. Some rest. to relax. Be thankful for that, Mr. Relicmastered. Some of us only know how to push, and work."
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Topic: Migrursut: What Comes After The World Ends? [Epilogue] (A Community Fort) (Read 390190 times)