1st Moonstone*click...ta-tick... click*
The sounds of the picks rattled in the lock, their metallic tacking just audible over the soft whine of the dog tied outside of the small house. With deft hands the stout figured worked on the locks, soft oaths being muttered to the sky.
"Damned locks. I'm a trapmaker... not a thief. What does you expect me to do?" Ukat struggled against the stone door, slamming one hands on it in frustration as she resettled the lockpicks and tried again.
"Just keep at it." the a rough male voice responded from the corner of the house, his eyes constantly looking up and down the street, watching for any signs of another awake dwarf while the Mechanic worked on the lock. "You said you can work with any mechnical thing, didn't you?"
"A lock is different from a trap, is different from a catapult. You and Abod made this, not me. Why don't you have the key?" Ukat replied testily, feeling the first tumbler drop under her fingers.
"Frea took the keys, and Abod refuses to help. She says its for the best that Rikkir not see Pete until his madness has passed. I wouldn't be asking for you to lend a hand if I could do it myself, would I?" Mulch sounded defeated, his voice tired as he glanced down the empty, moonlit street once again.
"You think differently? Rikkir hasn't been the same since the time she left."
"I do. She's not as different as some of you have put on. Yes, she's more religious, more determined now than ever, but she's still Rikkir underneath. She still has the same doubts and foibles."
"...and the religious fanatic thing?" Ukat snipped as she felt the second tumbler lock into place.
"Quiet" Mulch held up a hand as another dwarf crossed the street a short distance away, the face of Echo shining in the torchlight as she finished her night shift and headed to her home. A moment later she had entered her house and mulch allowed himself a sigh of relief. "We don't know any more than you do Ukat, but Pete is my closest friend and Rikkir is my Wife. I need to do what I feel is best for them."
Ukat shook her head as the third tumbler clicked and the door swung open, "I don't know how you two always manage to rope me into these things. I swear one day you two will be the end of me. Rikkir! Wake up!"
The house was small, occupied by a single dwarf and a bed. Awake and dressed, Rikkir Esker sat on her bed, wearing a set of white robes with an expectant look on her face. As the door opened she stood and quickly ran to it, brushing past Ukat and embracing Mulch. A moment later they broke apart, her face was awash with concern and excitement.
"I knew you'd come! How is Pete?"
The faces of her two friends were a mixture of happiness and stern worry as both of them tried to answer her at once.
"The same." Ukat started, her next sentence overridden by Mulch's.
"He's still in his workshop. Screaming at the walls."
"We're starting to think he might go insane."
"More insane, he's already halfway there now."
"We've tried everything we can do."
Rikkir held up her hands as the two of them spoke in rapid sucession, their voices overlapping. As a pause came up in their speech she reached into her robe and pulled out a small book, 'The Scriptures of Likot' written neatly on the cover in Rikkir's handwriting. With a quick gesture and a simple motion the Priestess of Likot waved her hand and nodded towards the Clothier's shop.
"Take me to him."
...
Chanting.
Frea had been listening to the chanting for hours, every night. The doors to the workshop were locked, and no matter how much she wanted to have a restful sleep, nothing could be done about the sounds that were directly next to her bed. It was maddening. A steady beat, like a heartbeat, a thrum of a familier voice chanting words in an unfamilier tounge. The words of a demon, a voice like an angel, the sounds of Adamantine, who's secrets were so long ago lost to her kind. It was enough to drive a dwarf mad.
And of course, she could do nothing. That chanting, that music that reminded her of her every failure as a leader. Of the times she was forced to blame others for her own failings, and of the times that she took responsibility where none was necessary. The cries of goblins, men, and elves as they died over and over again.The screams of pain, of agony, as her own husband worked on a project so secret that nobody could know. Nobody would know. His only words had been to not let Rikkir interfere. The only time he had been lucid enough for Frea to understand had been in his plea that the resurrected one not be allowed to stop what would come. The couppance that would come.
It was garbled. The sounds, the smells, the memories. The words and images all twisted into one confusing whole as Frea tried to force sleep onto her exhausted frame, fighting the chanting that was going on in the other room. The incessant and persistent chanting, the product of obsession and possession.
Quite suddenly the chanting stopped, in it's place came the voices of others. A commanding voice that demanded both respect and fear. One that no dwarf could hear and not understand it's power. A voice so ancient, so powerful, that all she could do was weep at it's strength. It was great and terrible.
However Behind it, a counterbalance came. A soft voice, a stubborn and determined voice which refused the demands of the strength. When the first voice raged, the second stood fast. It's feminine words seeming to infuse themselves with the very stone around it. A familiar voice, one that she heard every day it seemed. At once Frea snapped to full alertness, her eyes quickly clearing as she rushed to the door that separated her bedroom from the workshops. With a heave she drove her shoulder into the rock door. Striking it three times before the sturdy hinges broke.
She had walked into a scene from a carnival house.
Cloth covered the small house from top to bottum, it's red and green hues filling every side of the building with pig tail. Opals were strewn across the floor, and deep within the workshops a red glow shone out malevolently. Noise, carnival music, filled every crease and fold of the workshops, adding even more malevolence to the scene.
In the center of it all were Pete and Rikkir, the two locked hand to hand several feet above the ground. Rikkir's white robes flew out wildly in every direction, the her book of scriptures in her right hand as she shouted to the man. Her words lost in the roar of sound. Across from her was Pete, his features hardly recognizable behind a thick gauzy veil, studded with opals and drinking in the red light like dwarven wine. The only visible part of his face were the eyes, grim red eyes, that burned through his headgear like two embers torn from the heart of the earth. As Rikkir spoke softly, he roared, as she pulled out her holy symbol, a disk of Prase carefully crafted into an amulet, he writhed and fought. He grabbed for her hair, her beard, and her eyes; ripping and gouging like an animal while she fought off his advances with vicious attacks of her own.
Across the room a stunned Mulch and Ukat stood, their faces filled with the terror that Frea felt. The red glow lighting their features with terror as they watched the battle above. Mulch's hand was on the sword at his waist, but her had not drawn it, and the crossbow on Ukat's back was not loaded. The sight having paralyzed even the most basic of defenses that the two military-trained dwarves had.
Above the fight reached a climax, Pete having driven Rikkir back towards the ceiling, his eyes filled with triumph as the Woodcutter and Weaver threw the Priestess towards the floor, her body no longer supported by the forces that had animated it a second before. She landed with a sickening crunch, her body going limp as the Pete howled in triumph and dove in for the kill.
The next moment all Frea remembered was a flash of light illuminating the smile on Rikkir's face as the Priestess shouted the first clear words that she had heard all battle. "Return Ziril ibmat Vush! Your time in this world ended in 430! Begone in the name of the true gods of dwarves, oh long-dead child of flames!"
2nd Moonstone - Frea's Log Last night... last night I will never talk about diary. Never to you, never to myself, never to any of my children, and especially never to Rikkir, Pete, Mulch, or Ukat. It suffices to say that Rikkir has went against my wishes for Pete to leave his insanity, and I am glad she did. I can see now that I was a fool for not trusting her. Although I did deck her after her stunt, and I have rationed all of them to biscuits for a week, as is my right, I still see that I was wrong, and they right.
She may be prone to making mistakes, having delusions of grandeur, and trusting much to foolhardyness. But she is my friend, and I have mistreated her. I don't know what she did, and I don't want to know. Whatever path she has started down I have no intention of ever following, and whatever goals she has I must trust that she and I share the same results.
Either way, Pete has left his insanity. Leaving his deranged state with only two memories.
The first is tangable, the veil he wore on the fateful night when Rikkir saved his life.
The second is a name, Lalatol Vathemoth, Southtrue the saturnine Knots.
May no dwarf, man, goblin, or elf ever wear it.
20th Moonstone - Frea's LogAs our year comes to a close, I've decided that, due to the lack of goblin ambushes this year, we may be safe enough to begin work on the wall.
The copious number of blocks that Mulch and Rikkir have made are ideal for such a project, and I've reminded them that we can hold off on building more houses since our current housing needs are about equal to our capacity.
20th Obsidian - Frea's LogAn uneventful end to an uneventful year.
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Topic: Last Dwarves in the world. Ulogeshud[Community Fortress] (Read 50701 times)