Okay, big update here, but it only covers about 9 days. Ezum's going to be telling a little bit of a story about what happened before year 1.
10th Malachite, 106
Morul Bellstired was walking towards the barracks to practice with the archery targets. By now, she was surely among the elite marksmen of the kingdom, yet she believed she could always improve. “Good” was rarely good enough for her.
She noticed a planter with a yellowish mound at his feet, sucking his fingers.
“What’s wrong Goden?” she asked.
“I burned me fingers on this fire imp corpse. The humies’ guards killed it on their way here.” Goden the planter said. “I was gonna butcher it. I thought its skin would make a nice pair o’ boots.”
“Is that really a good idea?”
“Hey, it’s been in the magma pipe. What manner o’ disease could survive that?”
“A firey one?” Morul suggested as she wrapped a piece of her worn giant cave spider silk sock around Goden’s burnt hand.
Goden laughed. “Nonsense. You may be a fine warrior, Morul, but yer no butcher.” He picked up the corpse once more and continued. Small puffs of smoke rose from where it touched his clothes. Morul went on to the archery range, with an imagined vision of the fort’s future in terms of supplies. There was a severe lack of booze in this image.
19th Malachite
Ezum sat at her desk eating her dinner. Children sat all around her. Children liked Ezum, and she loved children. Not because Ezum was particularly nice, or because Ezum thought children to be cute, but because of the stories. The children loved to hear Ezum tell stories. She was good at it, too.
“Tell us one about the Hundred Year War!” demanded the mayor’s son, Zuglar Lettersharks.
“Again? Well, a’right. Y’see, two hundred years ago, some hummies were havin’ some issues decidin’ who owned this nice big shiny crown, ‘The Hat o’ Power,’ after their last king died.”
“His name was Ave Kashmezkon, Ezum.” Zasit the Champion interrupted. “That’s ‘Ave Royalline’ in dwarvish, kids.”
“Shut up Zasit,” Ezum said, “these kids want a story, no’ a lecture. Besides, you always put them ta sleep talkin’ about all that stupid stuff about who married who, and why so n’ so wanted ta kill such n’ such. I tells it much better.”
Ezum continued, “Anyway, this crown was made o’ pure gold and encrusted with diamonds an’ star rubies, forged as a gift from our kingdom by the greatest smith o’ the time, Ducim Ironshields. Ye can probably guess why the humies were havin’ so much trouble figurin’ out who wanted it. So they decided ta go an’ have a war, with the armies of three richest humies in the world. But one of ‘em fought dirty, and things started fallin’ apart. There kingdom fell into three bits, an’ each one was scramblin’ fer allies ta help in the war. We fought with our good ol’ trade partners, the Opuomon. There were some elves with ‘em too. They even went so far as ta make deals with the gobbos’s.” Ezum paused at the sighs of horror, then continued.
“It all went on fer about fifty years. Then things started goin’ bad. We tried ta undermine all the enemies’ cities. All but the least experienced miners went. But it went all sortsa wrong. They were all manner o’ collapses an’ floodin’s from dwarves not payin’ attention cause they were tired or hungry or hadn’t seen there gold in too long. Same thing happened ta the other dwarven kingdoms. Turned out nearly all the good ones died.” Again, Ezum paused for the sighs.
“Aye, it was a terrible tragdy. An’ as it turned out, jus’ about everyone relied on the dwarves fer stone an’ ore an’ the like. Things started ta get desperate. Everyone was runnin’ around, tryin’ ta find new allies that might know somethin’ about minin’. They even left the continent. The gobbos found the Skakdi in some lands ta the west. The Makuta and the Bohrok followed ‘em here. The Makuta were so vicious in battle, they were said to be able to change shape!”
“No way!” Zuglar yelled.
“Aye, it’s true laddie. Things started goin’ badly fer our side. Me gran’pa hisself went to the east ta find some people ta help us out. He went farther then anyone else had e’er gone before or since. He was expectin’ ta find somethin’ amazing or terrible, like the Makuta. Instead, he jus’ found more humiess.”
“Were they some kind of super-human? Could they breath fire?” asked another child, Tosid.
“Nope. Just like the other humies. They had a weird language, though, me gran’pa said. All little symbols made o’ lines.” The children looked crestfallen, even though they had heard the story before. “But they did know how to make steel. They did it differently, though. Used glass instead
o’ limestone or dolomite. Didn’t even use calcite.”
“It must not’ve been very good.” Zuglar said with smugness.
“Actually, little man, some of it was better ‘n our steel, though most of it was as good as ours. They didn’t tell us how ta make ourselves, but they did fight with us. They were amazin’, they were. Had all kinds o’ ways ta swing a sword we didn’t have. Not that they didn’t have anythin’ to learn from us.” Ezum smiled as she said this. “Their steel helped turn the tide, but it was still awhile before the war would end. About a hundred an’ ten years ago, the matoran came with even better metal to find the Makuta. They didn't like the Makuta. Called their uber metal protosteel. They told us how to make that, and that it was best for breakin' through a Makuta's armor. We found out that there was plenty of stone all over the place, anywhere ye could find magnetite, that was used ta make it. They also had these powerful strong weapons, but they never told us how to make ‘em."
"They picked our side, ‘cause they had this huge guy with an axe that could tell if people were lyin’, an’ so he knew who the fancy crown belonged to. They sent in their Toa guardians ta fight with us. The fightin’ finally stopped when the big guy with the matorn’ fought a gobbo’s demon. The two of ‘em killed each other, but the other humies knew they couldn’t win without a unified gobbo empire.”
“Most of the outsiders left settlers behind here when they left, but them humies with the fancy swirly lookin’ steel left an’ ne’er came back. Things had changed so much durin’ the war that people started countin’ the years all over again, startin’ with the year the war ended as year one. They also started countin’ the years before that backwards, and stuck a bee an’ a dubbya on the end o’ the number.”
“That means ‘before the war’ kids!” said Zasit brightly.
They all glared at him.
I think that covers about all the back story needed. And remember, there are plenty of dwarves open t be claimed. If you really want something interesting to happen to your dwarf, I have plans for the dungeon master.
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Topic: Libash Tobat - "The Axe of Authority" - Corrupt Intentions. (community fort) (Read 22755 times)