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[Iituem]

Danielle's Inventory
15th Obsidian, 353

For some reason, someone keeps sending me little slates arguing for a glowcap based economy.  I've been ignoring them so far (they should really sign their letters) but the pile is getting annoying.

We also have a bit of an absence issue; the mason Zas has disappeared from the blockworks.  Nobody knows has seen him since yesterday.  The captain has been informed.


20th Obsidian, 353

The Onolite platform over the magma vents has finally been outfitted with a pair of iron statues depicting Onol and Gigin each contributing to the creation of the first dwarf.  Ousire put her wages into funding a lot of it despite actually being a Deleran.  I can see why, though; the iron dwarf-child held by Onol bears resemblance to the unfortunate Miss Mirrorcastles.


23rd Obsidian, 353

Someone's dismantled a part of the machinery that Fath and the other mechanics have been working on.  A section of the wooden framework has been ripped out, something we cannot replace until spring when the Elven caravan arrives.



25th Obsidian, 353

A large portion of the platinum stores has been stolen.  The guard is doing a village-wide search at this point.


27th Obsidian, 353

The missing mason, the stolen wood and the platinum have all been found and all of them remade into something new.  It appears Zas retreated to the bauxite quarry and made use of the old blockery station there, carving the native platinum into a statue of Onol the Tin Silver holding up a dwarf supposedly made from steel but actually carved out of platinum.  As some sort of personal joke, Zas has depicted the created dwarf as Onol, himself holding up another smaller dwarf (who holds up a tiny dwarf, who fortunately is only holding up his hands as if holding up yet another dwarf but instead holds a vaguely dwarf-shaped doll).  All three Onols have eyes and articles of clothing carved from polished tower-cap wood (much of the original axle was wasted, it appears) and inexplicably at the base of the statue are depicted two tiny cows carved out of goblin femurs.  Perhaps this was some sort of indication of scale?

Zas has demonstrated remarkable skill in its production and displays an almost charismatic level of confidence now.  So confident, in fact, that Emerin pardoned him for the vandalism of a community project and the theft of a large quantity of precious metals.  In exchange, the village has 'claimed' the statue for the community.  A little disconcertingly, the statue itself is actually worth slightly less than the entire value of the rest of the village by my calculations.

Let's just hope the goblins don't hear about this.

[Iituem]

28th Obsidian, 353

Kel sat at the edge of the southeastern slope, periodically swigging from a tightly-sealed bottle.  His eye twitched involuntarily from time to time, a relic of the attempts to ferment snakeman venom into the rage brew.  Whie it had briefly filled him with euphoric anger (a handful of crushed desert scorpions had borne brief and intimate witness to the results), he had enjoyed about a fortnight of continual headaches and stomach cramps, the worst of which were just beginning to let up.  Kel rubbed his face in an effort to calm the tics and nodded to Fora as she clambered up the slope and sat down beside him.

"We're putting the last one in now," she said.  "How did you manage to get them forged without Danielle noticing?  She watches the work rotas like a hawk."

"Bribed the metalworkers to slip in an extra shift.  That smelter girl needed firecaps for something, probably that little tribute she did," said Kel.  "Our dear pirate friend helped us out again."

"Damn it, Kel.  You said we weren't going to do any more thefts, people will notice!"

"Not so much theft as looting," said Kel after a moment's consideration.  "Kadol had a bit of a stash buried away.  Yngwie did too.  Our girl's good at finding buried treasure."  Hopefully not too good, he added to himself, thinking of his journals.

"You paid for a dead girl's memorial using her own stolen savings?  I've got to be honest, Kel, that's just wrong."

Kel shrugged and took another swig from his bottle, slapping his eye to stop the twitching.

"Means and ends, Fora.  Means and ends.  A necessary action to bring about the sixth shrine."

"Sixth shrine?"

"Aye.  Have you not noticed?  One to each of the gods here now, each of Them making Their presence felt.  Onol atop His would-be pillar of fire, lording it over the rest.  Gigin surrounded by the fallen, relishing in their suffering while not a street away Nakas sings and dances and dares ignore the misery in the world with bright lights and liquor.  Nish sits in Her gaudy throne, eternally reaching for the ever-distant dream of Wealth while below everyone's feet Deler slinks around in the dark, waiting."  Kel made a grand, satirical gesture towards the brass pillars on the plateau below them.

"So here we are," he said, "completing the set.  A dream given form, an anchor for one formless and removed, moreso even than the others.  In the end, do you reckon it will matter, Fora?  Do you suppose it will even make a difference?"

"If anyone can make a difference," said Fora, "surely it would be the gods."

"Surely," murmured Kel.  "Though these pillars were not wrought by Zas' hand."

He stood up and stoppered his drink tucking the bottle into his belt.  Kel squeezed Fora's shoulder lightly and managed a half-grin before trudging back toward the village.  Fora shook her head and gazed at the finished shrine, the shadowed figures who had erected the last pillar paling in comparison to the brilliant brass standards, gleaming in the filtered light of the moon.  She stared at the icon at the centre, not quite as it had been in the dream but close enough for the concept to come to life for her, heightened by the senses of reality. 

Cool, crisp air filled her lungs as she breathed in, touched faintly by the aroma of roasting hound from the village kitchens and the welcoming scent of fermenting bourbon at the stills.  She wanted to run up to the pillars and run her hands over the cold, polished metal, basking in the concrete proof of their existence.  The night was near silent save the distant flowing of the wind, a stillness of the air that only served to accentuate the scrabbling behind her.

Fora spun around quickly, her eyes darting across the barren plain.


Nothing could be seen but the stones.



--------

Olonkulet after three years.

[Kel the Oblivious]

Beautiful. All I can say. Pragmatic bastard with his feet on the ground.

Paying for it with a dead girl's caps? Not like she needs them.

And when will my happy little following come face to face with the horrors that hide in their shadows?

[Iituem]

Chapter Four: War Machine

12th Granite, 353

The mood in the Beerhall that evening was at best subdued and at worst mournful.  Dwarves nursed mugs and wounds alike and wore their throats thin trying to answer the question on everyone's lips:

"What happened?"



"I was only there for the first part," grunted Broose, one of the few dwarves who had come out of the events unscathed.  He sat at one of the corner tables, trying to explain what had happened to Frey and Emerin.

"You'll get my report later," he continued, "but the first we heard of it was the pit traps firing and the hounds baying, same as usual.  We need bleeding watchmen on the walls.  So these goblin slaves rush in and get caught up fighting off the dogs long enough for the kid with the weird spear to get onto the scene..."


"<Get off me, you stupid mutt!>" shouted Ngoso as he repeatedly punched the hound's eyes.  The dog's jaw had locked on his leg and refused to let go while bolts hurtled through the air around him, both from the marksgoblins behind firing at the dogs and the two marksdwarves that had arrived firing at the marksgoblins.  Acutely aware of his precarious position, he finally managed to shake the dog loose and turned just in time to receive a spearblade through his chest.  The blade twisted, Ngoso spasmed and he fell.

Khain wrenched the spear out of the goblin's chest and raised his shield against the hail of bolts from both sides.  Struggling against the grip of a third slave fighter, Khain stabbed the wretch in the leg, then again and again through the chest until it lay still.  About him Datan and the guardsman Ascubis ran forward, axe and flail in hand to fight the foes.  Datan charged the marksgoblins and the dwarf that led them, grabbing the latter by the shoulder and throwing him bodily into one of the pits.  Success!  A captured prisoner!  As reward, Datan received a bolt glancing across his belly and was staggered.  He glanced down and praised Gigin; a sharp gash ran along the leather, missing his flesh by a hair's breadth.

Ragna did not fare so well, the bolt that struck her piercing the flesh above her hip by half an inch.  The strength of the blow made her throw up and forced her to retreat back into the fort.  The marksgoblins stoof their ground and fired until one met a swift death at Khain's spear and the other a prolonged and messy one at the brutal bludgeoning of Ascubis' flail.


"I broke off then," finished Broose.  "Quiver was emptied, figured I had better resupply.  Khain, dumb fool, was in high spirits and opted to do a quick scouting run by himself to check for stragglers.  My fault for letting him go, was in command, but nothing to be done with that now.  When the rest of it played out, I was still in the damned armoury stocking up on fresh bolts."




"So I went scouting," said Khain, lifting a mug with his good arm.  "Got jumped by a full squad of gobbers and another of those stotting traitors.  I yell out for help, but there are four of the bastards firing at me and I go all red in the eyes and start charging them.  Stupid, stupid..."


Khain managed to spear the advancing slavegoblin through the shoulder, crying out for help from the other militiadwarves.  The enemy sergeant, a traitor dwarf in jade uniform, barked commands in goblin to the marksgoblins raining bolts upon the speardwarf.  One struck Khain hard in the bicep, eliciting a shriek.  Instinct told Khain he could fight no longer, so he butted the slave in the temple with the spear haft and ran as quickly as he could, cradling his spear and mangled arm as the crossbow fire rained upon the nearby plain, leaving pockmarks in the stone.

"Hold on!" came a cry from the north.  Khain spared a brief turn of the head as he ran and spied Jora and Goden running towards the squad.  Brave but few, he cursed inwardly.  Where the hell are the others?

Goden fired a single bolt towards the row of marksgoblins before a bolt sundered his knee and he went to ground.  The bolt flew true and lodged itself neatly in a marksgoblin's throat, the victim slumping to the ground and gurgling to his grave.  Jora leapt after the slave, slicing away his limbs in her signature move and beginning to strike at the marksgoblin corps when she felt a sharp pain in her arm and saw the blood leaking from the wound.


"It was the first time she ever actually got hit," said Khain darkly.  "For all she showboats, she's always had armour on her side, never been faced by insane odds before.  Well, she broke.  Ran for the walls, the coward, while I had to watch them put bolt after bolt into his body..."

Khain broke up, rubbing his eyes with his working hand and then cradling the mess of bandaging, plaster and poultice covering the ruins of his other arm.  Kulet, having no words, refilled his mug with ale in a gesture of dwarven solidarity.  Khain sniffed and accepted it.

"Then the other squad showed up."



"Everything went mad at that point," Ascubis explained to Stug and Ousire.  "We heard Khain's cry and grabbed things to go assist, but nobody saw the other squad approaching.  They opened fire straight up on the guard dogs and the slave goblins charged straight over the triggered pits.  The only one there to answer was the captain, still hurting from that bolt to the gut.

"Well, she answered the cry anyway.  Captain ran straight into the fray, sword at hand, and cut the guts from the first two slaves in two neat slices.  Then this other gobber?  He's beating up on a kid, taking his time, the bastard.  So she charges at him, bolts from his backup flying all around her and runs him through.  The prick's eyeballs practically burst from their head, I'll tell you that.  She heads straight for the marksgobbers after that and I swear she kicked that traitor leading them into one of the trap pits without even touching him. 

"Well, the gobbers broke and ran after that.  One of them got away, but the other got sight of Khain struggling away from the battle and tried to give him a parting shot, so bam!  I got in there with the flail, bone splinters and brains all over the battlefield!"  Ascubis leant back with a satisfied grin and drained his mug.  "Shame about Goden, though."



The doors swung open and all heads turned to Captain Ragna, freshly washed and bandaged and looking like the wrath of the gods.  She pointed roughly at Broose, Stug, Ascubis and Frey.

"You, you, you and you," she commanded.  "Finish your drinks.  It's time we interrogated the prisoners."

[Boksi]

Is it exposition time yet?

[Iituem]

The dwarves entered the cell block, where the two dwarven soldiers and the goblin slave captured during the attack were manacled to the wall.  Ragna picked up the gaol's latrine bucket and threw the contents over the prisoners.

"Start talking!" she commanded.  "I want to know who you are, where you're from and what in Onol's name you're doing here!"

"Good for you," muttered one of the dwarves, spitting urine off his lips.  "We're not talking!"

"Is that so, corporal?" said Ragna, noting the rank on the uniform.  She looked to the other.  "You, sergeant?"  The other dwarf remained silent and stared directly ahead, not even responding.

"He won't talk!" jeered the corporal, "and neither will I!  Not even over torture!"

"Oh, you think we'd sink to that, do you?  So used to hanging around greenskins you've forgotten how real dwarves act?  You miserable excuse for a traitor, you should be ashamed."

"Ashamed?  That's rich coming from a bunch of elf-lovers.  Or worse, cowards.  At least we had the stones to fight back, at least we didn't run!"

"No, you sold your souls to gobbers instead!  Have you started wholesale cannibalism yet, or are they weaning you into it a finger at time?"

The corporal spat at Ragna aggressively, but the sergeant remained silent, staring at a fixed point on the wall.  The captain threw up her hands.

"Some of us remember what it is to be a dwarf.  Loyalty, justice.  Compassion.  We don't kill our brothers and we don't make friends with gobbers.  Well, you'll be fed and watered.  Maybe you'll soften up after a few weeks here.  Guards, put them back in their- what the hell are you doing, Frey?"

Frey strode nonchalantly toward the corporal, pick-axe in hand.

"Hey!" shouted the corporal, eyeing the advancing miner.  "What's he doing?  I don't like - aaaaaargh!"

Frey wrenched the pick out of the corporal's leg, inspected it carefully, then drove it back in again.

"Oh gods, what are you doing!"

Frey ripped downward and then struck at the dwarf's limbs with precision, rending flesh and cracking bones and singing the 'hi-ho' song whilst he did it.

"Aaaugh!  The pain!"

"Hi-ho, hi-ho-"

"Please stop!"

"-it's off to work we go-"

"Why won't anyone help me?!"

"-with a shovel and a pick I'll make this quick-"  Frey held the pick up above the bleeding dwarf.

"You promise?" he cried desperately.

"No," confessed Frey and drove the pick into the corporal's hand.

"Aaaaargh!"

"Hi-ho," he sang, driving the pick into a different limb with each syllable, "hi-ho-hi-ho hi-ho..."

Another shriek filled the cells to the horror of all onlookers, this time from the chained goblin, who began screeching desperately in his native tongue.  Frey drew the pick out of the bloodied and soon-to-be unconscious mangled heap of a corporal and turned to Stug, who had rushed over to the goblin.

"What's he saying?" asked Frey.

"Will talk," said Stug.  "Asks not hurt."

"Get him to tell you what's going on.  What these dwarves are doing here, where he's from."

"Says dwarves with head dwarf," said Stug in between questioning the prisoner rapidly in the harsh goblin dialect.  "General... Rock-crusher?"

"Stonebreaker," growled Broose.  "Keep going, kid."

"Dwarves make war-friends with togu- goblins, command army.  General set up big camp in desert, away from Queen Elf.  Wage war against other dwarves.  Looking for town, wants to take, make fortress.  Start own kingdom."

"Alright," said Frey.  "Stug, take the goblin away and give him some water and food, keep him on the chain so he doesn't get away.  Get details from him.  Numbers, troop movements, how big the camp is and how it's set out.  As much as you can.  Ascubis, Broose, get these dwarves back to their cages and try and patch the corporal up as much as you can."

"As for you," said Ragna stiffly to him, "My office, right now."



"What the hell were you doing in there?" Ragna shouted.

"Cleaning up your mess," said Frey.  "You made a pig's ear of that interrogation."

"I didn't bloody torture them, you maniac!"

"No, you made it necessary for me to torture them.  First up, you completely failed to isolate your subjects.  The corporal could've broken if the sergeant hadn't been there for him to draw support from.  Second, you didn't bother establishing any rapport.  You didn't make the subjects identify with you, you didn't make them inclined to talk - hell, you actually made them adverserial with that stunt with the piss bucket."

"Look, I-"

"And there's another thing!  You let them talk!  Never let them talk until they're willing to give you the information you need.  Never let them protest, never let them finish a protest because it gives them confidence.  You gave them no real incentives to talk when they were the best shot we had at gaining intelligence.  An interrogation isn't a chance to force your personal philosophy, captain, it's something you do to get information."

"Oh, and your stunt with the pickaxe really worked!  The sergeant still didn't talk!"

"The sergeant was never going to talk in that situation, captain.  It's going to take me weeks to get anything out of him now and I had to ruin the bloody corporal to get the information I was after."

"Why?  You said he was the one most willing to talk."

"He was, but attacking the sergeant would only have made him more resolute and I don't speak goblin well enough to communicate motivation.  It worked, crudely.  Frightened the damn slave enough to get him to sing, but he only possesses basic intelligence.  I would have preferred to interrogate the corporal, but we don't have the luxury of time.  We need what the sergeant knows and thanks to you we might never get it."

Frey turned to leave but Ragna grabbed him by the shoulder.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?  I'm arresting you for stotting torture, you madman."

"Oh really?  You think you can-  No, wait.  That's brilliant."

"What?  You want to go to gaol?"

"Just make sure my cage is next to that sergeant's, aye.  Look, you want to punish me for what you forced me into doing?  Be my guest, but make it constructive.  I can at least take a shot at getting what we need from that sergeant while I'm in there."

"I can't believe you-  You know what?  Fine.  Rot in there, I don't care.  So long as I don't have to look at you.  Turn around, I'm going to bind your hands."

Frey chuckled and did so, commenting as she tied a threadmoss rope around his wrists.

"See you in six months."

"Try a year, you bastard."

[Aldaris]

I can already imagine that torture scene as a  movie.
Good move at bringing the fact most of these guys are convicts back to the foreground without breaking the flow of the story.

[Eagle]

Ragna's notes

Dammit, I havent been this badly wounded for a while. Least i can still walk. We need more training and soldiers, that battle was terrible. We also need better organization. Gotta interrogate those prisoners.

-----------------

Gods dammit Frey. Why did he have to do that? I know HOW to torture people properly, and how to get them to talk. Hell, ive lived through some of those methods myself! I just hate USING them. Least we got some decent information, and Frey will be out of sight for a while; maybe he'll cool down. Seems like the resident's criminal pasts are surfacing again. Must stay alert. Must watch stockpiles also; stuff has been disappearing again.

-----------------

Stug's made advancements learning Dwarven, and i even saw him writing a journal a few days ago. He's also become a fairly competent translator of Goblin to Dwarf.

-----------------

That dark edge i felt in the Force is back. It had disappeared when we had started building the shrines, but its back now, and it rasps across my nerves. It worries me; it seems to be getting stronger.





So, is Ragna strong enough to still move? Or is she hospitalized?

[Iituem]

Oh, she's good after a few days of vomiting blood.  Khain'll be bedridden for months, though - mangled left arm.


Not a whole lot is happening in the fort right now, which means you'll be getting 'filler' things like plot and character development instead.

[Keita]

holy...carp

I'm copying these and making them into a book, they fugging rock

Journal of Khain:
Damn, my arm is smashed to pieces! I hope this heals, otherwise I'm only gonna be useful at lugging things around and Goden...poor poor Goden. I hope he finds peace.

[Aldaris]

Book? How about a movie?
Seriously, if we got the makers of the big forts to put their posts together into a single document and edit the lot of it for slightly better story flow and minor mistakes you could sell that as a series.
Each fort it's own little book.

Problem is, the damn things would have to fall first. Except maybe Nist Akath, that's a series of it's own.

I'd buy both Nist Akath or Olonkulet if they were ever novelized, although I'm not sure how many others would, especially non-DF fans.

Still epic as always.

[Iituem]

Don't take this the wrong way, but I wouldn't (for Olonkulet).  Not yet, at any rate.  If I can ever polish off serialised fiction techniques maybe, but right now I'm having to improvise a lot when things come up ingame and it shows.  The format lacks the advantages of a novel or similar work - you don't have a lot of time to draft and redraft if you want to meet the thrice-weekly (or daily!) schedule for serial work that would put you on par with, say, webcomics.


Which is not to say I'm not going to try!  I've just not been overzealously happy with the way that last chapter turned out, so I'm going to take a while to do some heavy design work and see if I can't tune this up a bit.  Updates will continue as expected.


Also, Kanute, would you mind awfully if I delayed your character until the Baron eventually arrives?  Would work easier and better if I can start him off as a trader right away with a shop, which I need the economy active for.

[ousire]

well this was interesting O_o i like the fact that he sang will attacking, just adds that little insane fun to the thing!  and now that we were so badly attacked, is this when the walls and traps start to appear? >_>

[Kel the Oblivious]

A small chalk slab, smaller then the rest. On it are stylized images of the six shrines, a dwarf being struck down, and Kel's own rendition of the torture scene. It was different, involving a thin dagger, and what looks like the removal of flesh one square inch at a time.

Journal of Kel Ragebrew

I spoke with Fora a while back. She was distressed that I would use the funds of the dead to make it so their memorial would be good. Not like she will need them in the here after... None of them will. And just having all the caps returned to the communal coffer does little good outside of make it so we don't have to dry out as many caps to keep even currency wise. I have had supper in there. We can afford to grow a couple extra stacks.

I had been far outside when the goblins had attacked. I thank my lucky stones that I was far enough away they did not notice the dusty figure picking through shrubs. If worse had come to worse, I still have my axe. My skills may be rusty, but I know I could take down a couple before dying myself. Maybe I should enlist into the military, show these softies how I survived for months on the run through a haunted swamp. Although I think that is bad idea at the same time... Someone might get hurt. One death is already attributed to me, if indirectly. I do not want to make one of our few defenders a bed ridden sap on resources. Or become one myself.

I returned just in time to be in the beer hall when the good captain Ragna took a few of her chosen and went to wrestle some information out of our turn coats. While not in the room myself, I did get it quite clearly. If anything, poor bastard got what was coming to him. When I hear that we have learned everything of use from them, I will offer these thirsty soldiers a drink. I still have enough snakeman venom to make it their last one. I will stay my hand until I KNOW they are no longer of use besides consuming resources and taking up room in the prison. Cold hearted, yes, indwarven, yes. Justifed, oh yes. I know the moment they are found dead, there will be a man hunt to find whoever did the deed. I will be sure to burn the barrel one shard at a time. I will use one of the copper flasks I had comissioned and hold the vile green substance in it. I will just have to make sure I know what one it is. Maybe a drawing of a nightshadow plant. Like nightshade, only with thorns and roots that seem to cling to you. I know no one here will know what it is. Or at least I hope.

(A couple of doodles cover the space between, all of them drawings of the same plant)

I could have become an engraver here... Oh well, no matter. I may be good with the stick, but chisel and hammer? Maybe no so much. Oh well. The night grows old, and I grow tired.

Kel rose from his bed and made his way outside, basking in the cold night air, letting the wisps of his breath dance before him before fading off into nothingness. For a long moment he stood there, chalk slab under his arm, before walking off to his hiding spot. He had to dig it deeper, and was almost to the bare stone beneath. "I will need a new stash hole..." He muttered under his breath, before digging it out, placing the slab tenderly within, and burying it once more. With a whistle and a soft drumming on the matching flasks hanging from his belt, the medicine dwarf did a few laps around the wall before turning in for the night, passing by the nightwatchmen with a simple statement of "I swear sometimes I feel like an elf. I need a nice walk under the stars before bed. Too much time above the earth, am I right?" He shared a chuckle and finished his rounds, returning to his bed to fall into a deep sleep.

[Kanute]

Whatever works  best for the story!