1st Limestone, 208, Early Autumn.
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Boy, what a long summer! I can't believe so much happened in such a short time.
((DFMA)) ((Movie)) To celebrate the turn of the season, I release the militia into the bottomless pit to take care of the troglodytes. Now we should be able to lay down some animal traps and catch whatever it is Kikrost was telling me to catch!
One of the troglodytes fell six levels down and landed near the noble shower. I send Zefron Katèrith, hammerdwarf, down to finish it off.
For Armok's Sake, Zefron, it's not a toy! Just kill the damn thing!! Wouldn't you know, it survived hitting the wall and Zefron had to go and hit it again to make sure it was dead. Hammerdwarves... nobody's ever promised them to be efficient killers, but they're often the most entertaining.
We had fourteen wooden animal traps lying about. Honestly, I don't remember having them built, or why we would have constructed them in the first place... but it doesn't matter, they're being put to use now. I tell the workers where to put each one, and then for good measure I order up ten more to be forged of nickel.
Count Consort Inod has healed beautifully this season. Her limbs are no longer looking mangled, but she still has a broken
right hand and
left lower leg.Wait... what's that over the hill? Yes! The caravan from Subetrevod, The Swift Arches, is on its way! Now, maybe we can proceed with the King's mission...
"Wow, the dwarves finally came to trade!"
"Gah!" All of a sudden, Asob was right behind me. "Asob! You've got to stop doing that!"
"Doing what? I don't know why everybody's so jumpy around me anymore!"
"Uh, greetings!" One of the dwarven merchants approached us as the others unloaded their wagons. "My name is Adil Emäthsazir, known as Bandedbridges by the humans. We've come to do trade with your fort and perform inspections. May I please speak with your count?"
"Dead."
"...Oh! Really?? A fortress this size without a count? How did this happen?"
Asob butt in to try her hand at lying before I could give Adil a more believable account. "Err... troglodytes! They threw him over the edge. Of the bottomless pit. Very tragic, really. He was trying out his new shower, and out of nowhere a troglodyte attacked!"
"Troglodytes?? Unib never said anything about troglodytes... is the count's consort present?"
"Injured!" Asob piped in again. "She bumped into a goblin master thief's knife repeatedly."
"Whoa, wait," I interrupted. "Unib? As in..."
"Unib Tunrithlut, Duchess of the mountainhome of Boatstested. I suppose you hadn't heard, of course... we apologize for our delay in reaching you! There's been some... trouble... back home, you see."
"Trouble? What kind?"
"I hate to be the bearer of bad news... but King Minkot ventured away from Boatstested a few years ago, suspiciously just as Unib began spreading word of her conspiracy theories about a supposed 'baron deathtrap.' Her claim was that the King ordered the construction of a device that would kill nobles, and their spouses were being held prisoner somewhere to keep from spreading the truth."
I furrowed my brow in confusion at first, but when the pieces started coming together, a dark chill ran up my spine. "You don't say," was all I could muster...
Adil continued. "Unib charged the mayor of Boatstested himself, Obok Zirilkivish, as being an accomplice to the king's crime. At first, people would only mutter the rumors to each other, but Unib literally shouted it from the rooftops, when she wasn't dodging the city guards. And that's when the King vanished..."
"Vanished? He disappeared without any explanation whatsoever?" Asob asked, beginning to look quite uncomfortable.
"At first, we thought Unib had assassinated King Minkot, but some of the guards around the castle broke his confidence and let it slip that they had seen him fleeing the castle, dressed as a peasant."
It wasn't for the adamantine after all... that's why King Minkot hadn't really stressed its production - he wasn't interested in wealth, he needed a hideout!
That idiot If only His Majesty had thought of how his escape would make him look! My throat suddenly felt very tight. I felt as if I could foresee the bad news coming long before I was told.
"The king's departure made him look guilty, and there was an uprising. Dwarves fought each other to the death in the halls, a tantrum spiral the likes of which Subetrevod had never seen."
I caught the eye of a peasant lurking about behind the caravan, loitering near the dining hall. A peasant? But we don't have any designated peasants... unless a child grew up or something, but from here I can't recognize him, what with all that mud and vomit smeared on his face. I'll need to assign him a job later.
"That's when Unib broke up the fighting by throwing Obok Zirilkivish in the middle of an armed, angry mob. She questioned Obok about his involvement, wielding an *«≡Iron scourge≡»*taken from the body of a fallen goblin invader the year before. Every time he didn't answer a question within five seconds, she'd lash him... though horrifying to watch a dwarf do that to another, somehow the fighters were united through her act. But he kept silent, all the way to the end, until finally the mob overwhelmed and murdered him, right there in the hall."
The lurking peasant nodded to himself, as if satisfied. Wait a minute... I've seen those clothes before! That's King Minkot in his peasant disguise! How long has he been standing there?? I started to tremble... Asob's faithful hand found my shoulder.
"It's OK, Zon. We were well away from the tragedy when it happened. We only had to deal with goblin sieges for the past three years."
"And here I thought the sieges were the reason we weren't contacted sooner..."
"Well, they were a contributing factor, yes. With the nation in turmoil, we somehow lost track of your outpost, what with the guard and army working to quell the riots. The last thing we needed was to walk headlong into an area of high goblin activity! We're actually extremely thankful that you've held off the attacks as well as you did... were you not present as a buffer, surely the Swift Arches could have been overwhelmed in its state of panic."
"This is all... so sudden. And Unib has elected herself Duchess?"
"She declared a state of martial law in the King's absence. With Mayor Obok dead, this left her the interim ruling power until the king is discovered and brought to trial."
"Hold on a second!" Asob threw up her hands. "Didn't anybody question whether or not Unib
planned to have the mayor killed so that she would end up with the power?"
"Nobody would dare. She's proven herself a far more aggressive ruler than Minkot Reliccounsel ever was, and a far more profitable one to boot. It's the public opinion that they'd rather have her in charge than a cowardly king who runs and hides at the first sign of an accusation."
The peasant-King grumbled something to himself, then disappeared into the dining hall through the door.
"Anyway! I think I've taken enough of your time. I shall let Duchess Unib know that you are lacking a proper leader and have her send another straight away. You should expect one soon. In the meantime, let us trade!"
I only had seven stacks of varying types of cheese roast brought to the depot. I want to get a good feel for what I'm getting into with this cheese industry... seven low-quality roasts of cow, one-humped camel, and two-humped camel bought two-thirds of what I wanted from the caravan, and the few bins of crafts and reworked goblin clothing bought the rest as well as some additional trinkets I didn't really think we need, but bought anyway.
I can't help but wonder, though, about a lot of things... Why didn't Minkot tell anyone he left in search of adamantine? That was his excuse when he got here, and it was a convincing one! Furthermore, Unib's been here on several accounts and has even voiced her suspicions about what lies within this fortress to me. She's seen enough of this fortress that she'd put us at the top of her list.
But... why don't her people know this? The merchants regard us as a city that they've merely lost contact with during the upheaval of the King's position, nothing more. They suspect nothing. Clearly, she has the clout to rally her new nation to battle, so if she wanted she could probably rout us straight off the face of the World of Typhoons.
Why is Unib keeping her suspicions a secret from her people?