Was feeling creative, so I decided to novelize my latest experience in Fortress mode.
Warning: Some partially detailed descriptions of mortal wounds foreward. Though if you're the sensitive type, I reccomend you find another game to play other than Dwarf Fortress.
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"Ambush! AMMMBUUUUSSHHH!" Catten's cry was cut short as the lead goblin grabbed his throat with both of his bare hands, and squeezed. The hellspawned creatures it no doubt knew as comrades moved to flank him, encircling him. One bolt flew from his crossbow as he - even while being throttled - squeezed the trigger gently, so used to shooting groundhogs, wolves and deer, and embedded itself in a goblin's body. It fell to the ground shrieking like a bat.
Then the goblins - barehanded, he noticed now, not even a weapon among them - closed on him. The pain as the shrieking goblins pounced on him and ripped him to shreds with their bare hands, clawing and punching and kicking and strangling was mercifully cut short as he fell into darkness.
-
"AMBUSH!" Yelled the sheriff, communicating the call from the now-deceased hunter from woodcutter to herbalist to fortress. Instantly the military dwarves roused themselves from a dull day of sparring and target shooting and clamored out into the fortress proper. One of the Founding Seven, a master axedwarf named Adil, immediately took control and began issuing orders.
"Marksdwarves, behind us. Sheriff, you will be with my squad. Fath, get everyone who has a weapon organized and get them on me - I want us mobile in the next five minutes."
There was the clank of armor being donned, weapons being grabbed, and finally multiple "clacks" as iron bolts were loaded into crossbows and winched back. The first skirmish that the fortress Steelshield had ever seen. Adil prayed it would not be a bloody one.
-
Grunge looked up from the dead, stinky dwarf who his brothers were still kicking to make sure it was dead. Scrag lay nearby, bleeding and screaming in pain from the wooden bolt lodged in his abdomen - ignored. He barked to his warband. "We's getting out of here, dwarfy hunters too numerous. We move in more, keel some farmers, and get out. Kalar?"
"Kalar!" The warband hissed back at him in a hushed tone, all at once, save for the wounded one who clawed at the ground, dragging himself away from the dead hunter.
"But boss, what about Yikris?"
"That fool can try to kill more dwarfies if he wants, not our business. He attacks, we use diversion to get away! Now come!" The lead goblin kicked the dissenter in the face once before moving on. The goblin yowled in pain and followed, rubbing his bruised forehead.
A fly lands on Cattan's vacant remaining eye, and then buzzes away...
-
"Goblins." Hissed Adil as he saw a leathery ear poke out behind a boulder and then skitter inside. These goblins were not so skilled at stealth that they would be missed by Adil's eyes. "Weapons ready... Wait until they get closer..."
Whispered words in the goblin's native tongue came rolling down the grassy slope on the wind. Adil knew not what they said, but he knew what their intentions were. Whether to retreat or to attack, they would have to go through the fortress's surrounding lands to get there - the path towards the nearby dark fortress was cut off by the surrounding mountainside.
As the goblins skittered from rock onto soil, Adil screamed. "GOBLINS! YOU'VE PICKED THE WRONG DWARF TO CROSSSSS!" He raised his axe as the goblins looked up in alarm. Yelling war-cries to Armok, his dwarves fanned out and charged behind him, crossbowdwarves emptying bolts into the fray as battle was joined.
Adil laughed as he grabbed one goblin's hand, fingers clutching for his eyes which he kept just out of reach, and snapped the hellspawn's wrist with a quick movement. They didn't even have weapons! Their only advantage was in numbers, and he would rectify that. The goblin wrestler didn't even get a chance to scream before Adil's axe cut into his lungs, shattering his ribs and taking his breath away. As the creature lay bleeding, suffocating and writhing around on the ground, he brought his blood-soaked axe out of the goblin and screamed again as he swung at another goblin at neck level, instantly decapitating him, a terrifying war-cry. No words this time. He no longer needed words. Just blood.
He was tired of goblins. Tired of those humans who came looking for lands and nothing else. Tired of the damn elves who couldn't learn to leave well enough alone. He didn't care about worldly affairs. All he cared about was spilling the blood of
every last one of the hellspawn that would
dare try to take anything else away from him.
Fath buried his steel short sword in the belly of a goblin, kicking it off his blade. A speardwarf was twisting his stuck spear around in a dying goblin's belly. The crack of a hammer meeting skulls reached Adil's ears, and he knew Zon had entered the fray. Bolts rained down. Blood was everywhere. It was chaos, and Adil loved chaos.
-
Across from the battlefield, Yikris scowled, cast in shadow, hugging his crossbow to himself. He raised a hand, and his squad of goblins emerged from hiding, cautious. Some had crossbows, but the rest had no weapons at all - they were the best he could find, though. At least they were better than that damn fool Grunge's party.
"Seems like that idiot Grunge had a little bit of trouble..." He sneered, snickering as he heard the long, high death scream of a goblin. His squad chuckled uneasily.
Yikris moved to take a step out from the shadows of the boulder, but then paused. He heard footsteps. Quickly, he raised a hand, and his band dispersed into the shadow of the boulder.
Out in the fields, a dwarf woman stepped from shrub to shrub, her infant with him as she seemed to try to teach him words in Dwarven, the child imitating her as she stooped to pick a batch of wild strawberries.
Yikris grinned. "Easy pickin's... take her out. Leave the child alive, we could take it back." He leaned out as his warband burst from cover and fired a single shot, which whizzed inches from the mother's face. She screamed. She ran, bolts and goblins at her heels as her child wailed. Yikris was just pondering what he would do with the child - an apprentice crossbowuser, perhaps? - when a bolt - an _unfamiliar_ bolt - whizzed by and caught the goblin leading the chase for the mother in the throat. Poor Rakash fell to the ground, clutching at his throat and gurgling.
"YOU'LL NOT TAKE HER LIFE, HELLSPAWN!" Screamed a dwarf who stood there next to a nearby pond, crossbow gleaming in the morning sun as he winched back another bolt. Clad in leather armor with a buckler by his side - a military crossbowdwarf, not a hunter. No, not even a he for that matter - a she. Yikris cursed and dove for cover in the grass as a bolt struck a goblin in the leg. The mother's screams faded into the distance, and Yikris cursed again, louder. Things were NOT going according to plan. That dwarf must have split off from the ground attacking the other party when she heard the woman's screams. He should have silenced her!
Rakash was dead - the goblin who had been hit in the leg was dead too, his chest run through with another well-placed bolt. Nothing stood between Yikris and the marksdwarf save for a few blades of grass. His band was already retreating, screeching in alarm.
He raised his head up and saw a massive dwarf with a blood-soaked axe running towards him. In his eyes he saw burning hatred.
Yikris had had enough of this. It was time to get out of here. He turned, screamed and ran with the rest of his band. Distantly, he felt something hard and sharp poke into his left kidney, and knew he had been shot. His legs quaked, but he ran on even as the bolt protruded from his abdomen.
-
Adil was fast for a dwarf of his bulk. The hellspawn would not get away, especially not since Mistem (Author's note: I only now notice how amusing this name is on a marksdwarf), one of the most talented marksdwarves in the milita and one of the only females. Her bolt struck true and speared the thing's abdomen, but it kept running. It didn't matter - it was crippled. Adil would finish what she had started. She was indeed wise to save that mother and her child, but he could commend her later. Right now it was time for blood.
Bolts flew inches from the goblin's limbs as he ran in a panic. Even Mistem could not hit a target when both goblin and dwarf were moving. It was up to Adil to end it. Running on it's stunted little legs, he closed in, slowly, slowly...
And then it was gone. The hellspawn had survived. Hiding somewhere, no doubt. After a few moments of fruitless searching, Adil walked back towards Mistem without a word. She said nothing. She knew it was time for their leader to be alone with his thoughts.
Life continued on in Steelshield. The poor ambushed hunter was given full military honors, and a tomb in the second level underground, made of pure dolomite, was given two statues commissioned by the mayor, a master mason, in his honor. He was buried along with the other heroes who gave their lives for the growing fortress on the frontier.
Adil has been quieter recently. His bloodthirst has not abated. He is still boisterous and commanding, a worthy leader. But on his free time he rarely says anything. Many theories abound in the small military from dwarf to dwarf, but the general consensus is that Adil is always thinking about the one who got away.
-
Yikris panted... and smiled. He had outwitted that damn dwarf. He would be back - someday, when the wound had healed. He grimaced as the bolt was pulled out. The dwarves would pay for the loss of his kidney... and he would find that one child who's damnable mother got away.
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Topic: [Story] Goblin Ambush at Steelshield (Read 952 times)