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[Vactor]

It's been explained to me by horrified coworkers that descriptions such as, "going tits up" and "deader then the chicks in my crawl space" aren't appropriate euphemisms to use.  Whatever.  They're such squares.

Did you explain to them exactly how dead the chicks in your crawl space are? 

[Mephansteras]

Well, that sucks. I hope your spat of bad luck is over!

[Stravitch]

I think DF fried the processor. That or the snuff film rendering.

[quip]

I think DF fried the processor. That or the snuff film rendering.

DF snuff films anyone?

[ricemastah]

Considering how reproduction occurs in the game... isn't it a day to day activity for them?

[Stravitch]

As promised a digit of HF's number as motivation.

8XX-XXX-XXXX

I gave him one week free because of computer problems to be nice.  I ask fellow readers now, should he be given any lenience since he is currently participating (and on track) in NaNoWriMo this month?

If you don't know what NaNoWriMo is, here is a link

[ricemastah]

I'd give him lenience.

[Argonnek]

Lenience! Besides, giving numbers is dangerous.

[Heavy Flak]

To be fair, I did give Stravitch permission to release all those details and stuff.  He suggested I make up a Google Phone Number, but you know what I said to him?

"What the hell is a Google Number?  Are you speaking English?  STOP YELLING AT ME!  No, yeah, like, seriously, I didn't get cut THAT bad, the bleeding is going to stop at some point.  No... I'm not going to get scurvy, I've been adding lime to my bourbon and that's totally going to prevent that.  Oh.  You didn't ask that.  Yeah, no, totes, I wrote you a song, buddy.  Yeah, get on skype, let me sing it all at you and stuff.  You. Will. Love. It."

I don't think that helped explain ANYTHING...

Here's a quick update:  At the office, we're trying to find... well, I don't think I can give out any real numbers.  But we're trying to find out what happened to an amount of inventory between $500,000 and $750,000 that, somehow, has vanished between selling it and hitting the billing department.  And then there's NaNoWriMo, which is a whole 'nother kettle of fish.

I'm actually planning on updating Migrusut by the end of the week.  I've been managing it in the background while I work on other things, and I'm debating taking it into the office to run and monitor while I track down lost product.  I just haven't hit anything I can make an update out of yet.  The new 3.6ghz quadcores have boosted me almost 10FPS though, so, hey, progress! 

[Heavy Flak]

The events of the 16^th of Slate, 1076

"Enough, absolutely enough," Wallgirders growled.  No one, not a single soul, was doing any work while the corpse-camels were cavorting around outside the main entrance.  The Elves, still barricaded inside of the trading depot, cowered behind their reed barrels and sacks full of seeds.  Wallgirders turned, surveying the area behind him, but all he could see was vague cowering forms, children dashing down the steps and into the depths of the fortress.  There was not a single soldier in sight.

"Fine!" He roared.  "Just fine!  Let me go and waste my day taking care of this problem rotting outside our gates.  Let me build up another reason to put you in the stocks, you foul beasts - remember this, when you're leashed and beaten!"

He sauntered outside the walls, his slow gait bringing him up to the towering form of one of the rotting camels.  The beast stared at him, it's eyesockets vacant and uncomprehending.  Almost comically, it tilted it's head, as if it was looking at him askance.  Then it reared, and hit him in the throat with a sand-honed hoof.

Wallgirders managed a weak swing with a fist, and caught the camel on the foreleg.  The brittle bone broke, but did not seem to do any real, lasting damage.  The Guardsman vomited and toppled over himself in pain from his throat and from his now-broken hand, squirming and writhing in the sick sinking into the snad.  He began to crawl away, but the camel was following him.  It limped on it's bad leg, but it's fellows were following - of course they were.  They wanted to help.  They wanted to join in.

He kicked his legs in the air about him feebly, but it did no good.  At best, he just held them off, but with his damaged windpipe, he couldn't even manage a scream.  The beasts, the whole herd of them, loomed over him now, and he could see in the dead sockets of their eyes that they meant to trample him into a fine paste, smeared out across the red sands.  But Wallgirders was showered  by bonechips, as a bolt pierced the lead camels skull.  It crashed atop him, pinning him to the sands, leaivng him a vomiting, broken-boned witness to the carnage. 

The rain of bolts ended quickly, and Wallgirders shut his eyes to the damage being dealt above him.  He felt bodies hitting the sand, could hear the grunts of pain and the horrid, screeching cries of the camels, grinding bone-on-bone as the only way they could make noise.  When minutes began to pass without incident, he opened his eyes, his one good hand lifting up to wipe the spittle and vomit from his mouth. 

Crispin stood above him, and beside her, Luke.  The pair looked down at him disdainfully - Crispin slowly pulling bolts from carcasses and from the sand, adding them back to her quiver.

"Should we let him live, Lovey?" Luke asked.  He placed a hand on the small of her back, and she smiled at even that small gesture.
"The poor thing, he was just blindsided by the beasts.  He was only trying to protect us in the fortress."
"You know that isn't true," Luke said softly.  "He's punished us something fierce, and Jotwebe died at his hand.  He's a nasty-one, he is.  Nasty-wasty."

Crispin thought this over.  "Yes he is, but, he can't even talk - look at that.  He's vomiting up his insides right now, all over his face.  Let's just let him rest. Maybe Mr. Wallgirders will learn a thing or two about respect in the sick beds."
"Now, that's a fine idea," Luke said, his voice taking on a chipper tone.  "And if he doesn't, why, the camels never stop.  We can just beat him senseless and leave him out here for them to trample on.  An excellent idea, lovey!"

She smiled brightly, and pulled the last of the bolts that she could find free.  With her quiver loaded, she gave her husband a hug.  "Let's go find some food, protecting the town leaves me just starving."
"I couldn't agree more, dearest.  I couldn't agree more."

trapped under the cadavers, the bones and rotting meat pressing into him, Wallgirders was trapped.  Between his shattered hand and crushed throat, the twisted knee and ankle, he felt he would be laying here forever.  And perhaps he would - the corpses around him were removed, the items, the bones, the skin.  But he was left till last.  And even then, he was not touched, leaving him to stand on his own, and slowly, painfully, limp down to the sick beds under his own power. 

[Mephansteras]

Oooh, now there's a fine justice in that.

[Heavy Flak]

The events of the 18^th of Felsite, 1076

"GO ON, NOW!  GIT!  Git outa' here!" Cokho Roknut hollered.  His gnarled fingers wrapped around a stone and he hurled it hard.  The Elves, their forms emaciated husks, their eyes hollow, took no notice to the assault.  Even as the rock bounced off a forehead and left a small bloodied gash, they took no notice.  The had become like the trees they loved - rooted to the very earth.  He threw his hands up with exasperation.

"They just stay here, doin' who knows what.  Just sitting here, all silent and stony.  Isn't natural."

Mookie watched the elves with a growing fascination, her arms wrapped around her midsection.  She tapped a foot on the stones, the hard leather sole making a steady stuccato. 

"You've been trying the rocks, yes?" she asked.
"Of course!  Every time I have to come through her."
"What about small explosives, like, like..."

"Fire-started Crackers," Lucy added.  She had stopped nearby, lugging a large grease covered gear.  "Or, perhaps, one of the sky flowers?"
"Of course, I shot it into their tent!  One burned and then it went out, and they just stared into their barrels of sunshine juice and... and spider web blankets.  The beasts.  THE BEASTS!" he shouted at them, hurling another rock.  It sailed overhead.

Other Dwarves were gathering at this exchange.  Other solutions began to spring from the crowd, blossoming like flowers.

"Maybe you could douse them in water?"
"Or magma!  Elves hate magma!"
"Eat their camels, Cokho!  They are allergic to their camels being eaten!"
"Oh, no, steal their shoes.  Then they will be cold."
"Shut up Erith - don't listen to him, steal their pants"

But the crowd died down, as it always did.  The fumes of rum hit them before Stravitch's shirtless form did, and he tried to push his way through the crowd, his eye downcast, bare feet dragging on the stones.  But he was no longer the feared monstrosity of old - hidden, as he was, in his living tomb, rarely seen.  The whispers floating about?  The Old Goat's horns had been clipped. 

Snickers began to rise from the group, a jest - previously unheard of - sending a titter through some of the dwarves.  The boldest, as always, was the whore, and Mookie pressed a hand to his hairy shoulder. 

"Hey, sugar, you're a big smart guy... how would you get rid of the elves?"
"Elves?" his voice was hoarse from lack of use.  He turned a single bleary eye on the crowd, and then to the trading depot.  "What elves?"

"Maybe if he sobered up he might see 'em!" someone called.  Laughter.  A small tint of red began to form, deepening the sun burnt skin at Stravitchs' neck.  "Probably doesn't remember what an elf is" another voice called.  More laughter.

In days of old, the motion would have been smooth and seamless.  Raw power distilled into pure talent.  Today, it was a ham-sized hand fumbling at the hilt of a power-imbued mace.  It caught briefly in it's thong, before it was tugged free.  It almost seemed as if he was remembering how to use these muscles as he brought his arm back, the mace high above his head.  With a raw throated roar, Stravitch took a single step forward, smashing his great mace through one of the support pillars.

The depot creaked.  Leaned, ever so slightly.  Then it began to fall, and the elves underneath, seeing what had been their ceiling, their sky, collapsing in on them, shrieked and ran out from under it.  They watched as their goods, their animals, everything was buried underneath the rubble.  And as if their heads were cleared, they turned, slowly stumbling out of the fortress.

In the silence that followed, a single voice called out.  It was Mookie, and a painted nail pointed outwards, towards the waste.

"They're heading towards one a' them herds of rotting camels.  They'll probably get mauled."
"Camels?" Stravitch asked, taking three tries to thread his mace handle back at his side.  He turned, stumbling towards the steps.  "What camels?"

[Jim Groovester]

Wasn't Stravitch's eye dangling out of its socket at some point? I don't remember that ever getting healed.

[Heavy Flak]

Wasn't Stravitch's eye dangling out of its socket at some point? I don't remember that ever getting healed.

I was sure I'd made reference to the single eye, but caught an instance of "eyes".  Stupid fingers, writing out words for completely whole beings!

[Knick]

Wasn't Stravitch's eye dangling out of its socket at some point? I don't remember that ever getting healed.

"Was" is the operable word.  As I recall, he snapped it off the little dangly nerves.  Then went for some eyescreme.

Heh.  Sounds like a typical discussion on the forums on how to deal with elves.  Good ol' Stravitch, cutting the gordian knot.