10th Slate, 202Have designated the old quarry for use as a sparring pit. The five
smanges fighting for freedom will duke it out there until the issue is sorted.
28th Slate, 202It is agreed by all that the strongest and most skilled of the fighters is Amxu, who has been granted freedom and the rank of
Fass. She has decreed that she will require chambers to oversee our work, so we are preparing a basic set of rooms on the ground floor of the fortifications. The old butchering area will do nicely, now that the meatworks has been moved to the first floor.
24th Felsite, 202Disconcertingly, and yet with a certain aesthetic appeal, the river runs red with the blood of slaughtered deer. It was about time those bloody animals stopped harassing us when we went to get water. On that note, the well still isn't ready.
1st Haematite, 202Axmu was a good choice, it seems. She has risen quickly as a pugilist and her harsh, but informative lessons to the fighters under her command have certainly paid off. In celebration of their status as elites, she has granted them the rank of
ror-smang, a stepping stone to the attainment of freedom. She is, however, getting impatient regarding her rooms.
9th Haematite, 202Once again the scene came to pass. The deer descended to the river to drink and the strange green-skinned creatures approached. Once again, the deer knew, they would bray and the strange creatures would yell, and both would stay away from one another until the time was right to take their drinks separately. So it had happened before, so it would happen again.
Except that, this time, it didn't. The deer found the green-skinned creatures lumbering towards them with speed they had not before seen, and instict took hold. They fled, running in all directions as the predators made pursuit. One of them fled south, making it to the flood plain of the stream before a lithe, sharp-nailed hand gripped it by the flank - and tore that flank clear off.
The river ran red once again, and that night the goblins ate fresh meat once again.
14th Haematite, 202The seasonal raider caravan has arrived. There look to be about six of them. Additionally, one of the original smanges, Song, has become increasingly withdrawn and furtive. She has started stealing away portions of supplies for her own use, I am certain of it, but have not yet been able to link the thefts to her specifically.
16th Haematite, 202Song has physically kicked one of the
smanges out of the first floor carpentry shop and started working on something. She refuses to discuss what it is, even under threat of torture, but assures us that it is "for Uslot's glory". It had better be, or she's going on the altar.
19th Haematite, 202 A crowd had gathered around the carpenter's workshop. Song had been working for three nights straight now, without rest or food, but in the last hour she had begun working much faster than before. Over the last three days she had gathered a number of samples of lumber, discarding whole logs save for a few scraps of wood here and there. She had constructed a strange varnish from boiled bones and a quart of her own blood, struck with fire from the offering brazier of the shrine, then worked into the wood at all stages. In the last twenty minutes she had abandoned her tools in favour of shaving the last details of the piece with her bare nails.
At last she stood back, calling the piece's name to the world.
"
Oslesudast Lobug Stusto," she intoned with a dark, driven voice, as thunder above crescendoed dramatically. There was a stunned silence from all around.
"It's... a door," Fortis pointed out pragmatically.
"It's a dedication to Uslot's might and majesty, a representation of His power," coughed Song, frowning at him.
"Also, a door."
"Look, it's a very evil door, okay?"
"If you say so."
"It is pretty disturbing," Scuba conceded. The front of the door was indeed extremely disturbing, portraying a disconcertingly lifelike depiction of the demon Uslot Flickerglowed, their sadistic and all-powerful master. What was particularly worrying about the image was that the shadows cast by the raised intaglio of the carving seemed to follow you no matter where you looked. Sometimes they changed shape, too. Scuba could swear one of them was winking at him.
"The shrine does need a door," Kat considered, stepping through the crowd to look it over. "What say you,
Fass?"
"It was born of Uslot's inspiration," Axmu decreed. "Let us render unto Uslot what is Uslot's. The shrine it is."
20th Haematite, 202The unhallowed door has been affixed to the shrine, where we may now all feel Uslot's terrifying presence on a daily basis. Axmu has granted Song her freedom, as is custom to those who have performed an act which can be undeniably said to serve Uslot directly. She is now an
am.
23rd Haematite, 202Bosa, one of the fighters, has been decreed a champion by the
Fass and granted his freedom. It seems likely the remainder of the group will follow suit in the coming months. The
Fass has issued instructions to prepare crossbows for marksmanship training.
5th Malachite, 202Each of the defending fighters has passed Axmu's tests, including Axmu herself, and been granted freedom and the rank of
Ror. The warriors are now being set upon the archery buttes in the old quarry for further discipline.
From the notes of Fortis Uraroslem:
19th Malachite, 202
After over a year of planning, excavation and production, the waterways are complete. The Fass pulled the lever today in commemoration of the occasion, bringing water to the fort and setting the stage for future work. We took the opportunity presented by the change in water pressure to finally dam the overflow at the southern end of the river, stopping the seasonal floods to the southern plains and the human settlements there. Take that, pinkies.
It does me proud, in its own way, to see this all coming into effect. Really... dwarven, I suppose. The only shame is that that strastnas-uzun Olngo doesn't have a room of her own, because I would sure like to give her a personal water supply. Maybe with a nice, concealed lever.
Part two of the project is well underway, and I'm looking forward to it.
4th Galena, 202.A small group of eight
smanges arrived today from the south. It seems their
Fass was killed during a raid on a human village. Hearing about our encampment, they chose to join our workforce. What concerns me is that they have heard about our encampment. If they know, who else does? What sort of unexpected visitors should we expect?
5th Galena, 202 "The tale I tell now is that which has always been told and that will be told again. This is the story of the Togu, the gods-forsaken. This is our story."
The shrine was packed to the brim with gathered goblins, clustered around the stone altar where the Fass, Axmu, stood behind and spoke in lieu of a priest. Terrible obsidian statues of tartaran figures flanked the room, and the oaken walls had been carved into scenes of horror and deprivation. Dried ruddy stains upon the black altar's surface told tales of the regular offerings made unto it. Yet now, the offerings had been made, the blood drained away, the bones and meat carefully parcelled out by rank amongst the goblins. In this serene moment, mere minutes after the frenetic orgy of ritual celebration, the old tale would be told.
"All that has happened before will happen again. Before this world there was another, much like our own. It too had races great and small, and from them came the first. The first of the
togu, our fathers and mothers and the
zn't were born of this world, as were the first of the
'bang and the
damstos, the dwarves and elves. In that world, great civilisations spanned the realm and tales can still be remembered of legendary Olonkulet and Nist Akath, where so many of our kin were slain. There, too, were gods and once there had been also fiends and great titanic beasts as are even today but myth and rare sightings. Yet by the end times, all these were gone.
"That world came to an end amidst a great Cataclysm, a war between the gods that called upon all the races of the world; a war of destiny that would forever shape the world to come. All took their sides and fought, and the cosmos was shifted once again by the forces of titans. The great beasts of the world were remade and pitted against one another. Gods rose and gods fell, and with them the fortunes of their allies. Ultimately, four fates befell their kind.
"Those gods who were victorious descended to the fertile plains and their people became fruitful and tall. These became human and lived but seventy years, burning brightly in the love of their masters.
"Those gods who were defeated but survived retreated to the dark caverns of the mountains and sealed away their wrathful servants in cages of the strongest kind, deep beneath the world where none should ever dig. Their people became stunted and driven to intoxication, and became the dwarves who live to three hundred years before the weight of their callow gods breaks their earthly form.
"Then there were those who deceived and betrayed their gods, the
damsto, who are called elves. Despairing of victory and hungry for power, they slew their divine masters and poured the blood into the rivers and the streams, where they became one with the forces of the earth. They drank from these streams and were transformed into the nightmares we see today; tall, possessed of unnatural speed and slavishly tied to the health of the forests that grant them their eternal life. In deicide they found immortality, but with it a far greater bind - for if their forests should ever die, so shall they all.
"Finally there were those whose gods failed them and were lost, or slain, or abandoned them. They passed through the Cataclysm without the embrace of a god, forsaken as togu. They changed into what we are today, lost and forgotten, burdened with the rage and emptiness of godlessness and forced to walk eternity alone." A general chorus of murmuring and snarls arose from the crowd. Old wounds ran deep.
"But we prevail," Axmu stated fiercely. "We survive, despite those who have forgotten or betrayed us. We fight on under Uslot's guidance and we will survive. It is but ten thousand years until the Cataclysm returns, togus. Old age will never harry us, our flesh shall never grow weak from divine fire. So we will survive. We will wait out the world and when the time returns, we will fight again and this time - this time, we might win, and know the embrace of a deity." Axmu let the silence hang for a few moments, then raised her voice imperiously. "Bring me the scroll."
All heads turned to the archway, where the
am Song waited with a cracked, aged scroll. One of the refugees had rescued it from the temple before the elves had destroyed the settlement, and so it had been brought here. Song approached with care, reverentially handing the scroll to Axmu, who unfurled it and read the contents solemnly. All ears were held in rapture as the sacred words were spoken.
"This is the four thousand, six hundred and forty-ninth iteration of this tale."
Author
Topic: Hateslaughter [Goblin Dark Fortress] (Read 3434 times)