Part three: They'll be dwarves sometime!
What is the cog of history’s wheel? The fates of nations and races can be begun, ended, or rebuilt by the strangest of things. Life is not digital, it’s analog or clockwork. This spark, this catalyst that would allow the dwarves of the Chaste Orb to rebuild was two-fold: Greed, and Food.
It had been forty years sense the last fortress at Gildlove had fallen. Ale had found that the land was poorly suited for much of anything. The tunnels made good enough slave chambers, but not even the trees could grow very well. Only the Hometree that the overseer possessed had flourished, fertilized by the blood of the rock born? Really, the only thing that took to the area was the dwarves. Since starting with only a score of slaves who weren’t fit to eat, Ale’s ‘flock’ had grown to over a hundred. Damn things bred like rabbits. The sort who destroyed Nature, in all of her glory.
Ironically, dwarves weren’t all that good to eat. In any case, it was taboo to eat captives (mind you, if they resisted, it was another story). The captives however, drank, and ate, and drank. Ale gave the dwarves one cup of grog a week. Tradition showed that the best way to break the spirit was to deny drink, yet they continued. Food was an even bigger problem. The preferred elven diet of berries could not sustain them, even with careful fertilization. Ale couldn’t starve the things to death; they were, somehow, valuable
. She had eventually allowed the dwarves to grow elven crops. Only underground of course, with an armed elf to every three farmers. The bloated tubers did not grow well in the gloom and muck of the cave river, yet the amount of food that the dwarves produced was surprising. Ale and her newly promoted sub-overseer Cana were careful to restrict the trade. They couldn’t have them brewing anything or growing anything dwarven. Happy slaves might try something stupid.
While the dwarves bred fast, the elves (helped in large part thanks to appeasement ending the war with the humans and BEING IMORTAL) bred faster. The forest retreats quickly looked more like squalid tent cities. Unfortunately, the land that was able to grow trees suitable for the elves was also the most productive of the berry bush land. The Elven Empire was faced, not with war, but with an increasing populace and decreasing agricultural area.
Ale was greedy. In the year 98, she decided that the cost of importing food to Gildlove was far too much. She ordered twenty dwarves and twenty elves (with the promise of killing everyone’s family should things go awry) to move out and dig new cells in a forest a fair distance away. Within 6 months, the forest’s farms were producing goodly supplies of food and had much better holding facilities for the dwarves. Ale Rocksberries abandoned Gildlove and moved everything to the retreat.
Ale decided to supervise the last of the slaves leaving their quarters. With three soldiers behind her she told the wretched being that they had ten minutes to gather their things. While she waited, she noticed something in the corner. It was that same corner where she had ordered that engraving destroyed. There was a small fire pit, fed with some dry chaff. By it there was a small pot with some food inside. Some sort of dried mushroom was sprinkled on top. One of the guards whispered to her “Mi lady, it’s a plump helmet.”
“I know that it’s a plump helmet you idiot. Just for that, you get to try whatever the hell is in the pot.”
Gulping in worry, yet loyal, the hapless chap took a taste. He pronounced it delicious. Ale waited a minute (it might be poisoned) then tried a taste. Her cold, calculating mind determined that it would be worth a fortune in the capital. Even more so, after interrogating the dwarves, she discovered that the purple mushrooms were productive even in the dark caves. The small mushroom would probably raise 20 crowns in the capital, and the stewish thing ten times that.
After the dwarves and elves were settled into their new home (and Ale into her new tree), Ale thought it over. The Head Druid would not take kindly to dwarven food. Ale Rocksberries would be stripped of her title if she were caught. Therefore, she would have to do it in secret. She would send small party of dwarves to produce foodstuffs to be smuggled into the capital . . .
((I'll be starting to write about the fort soon. I'm going to accept requests. If you would like one of the starting seven, you may want to reconsider. It's about year two (I think) now and you may have died. Obviously, I won't be able to change what your dwarf did inthe begining. There are still a goodly number of dwarves in the fort (if have to worry about running out, then DAMN!) so request whatever you want. It'd be nice if you would leave backstory out for now, as I'll be trying to fit their journey to the fort (called Sunnysteel by the way). After we (I) get going with the tale, you can backstoryize to your hearts content))
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Topic: After the War (Sunnysteel) {Community} (Read 1198 times)