It was the Architect that brought me the bad news. I'd been digging out that new cassiterite vein that'd do wonders for our economy if only we had some copper to go with it, so I was sleeping the sleep of the just and dreaming of this girl from back home. We were digging out a vein of gold, side by side, just the two of us, her long silky beard whipping my face with every stroke of her pick... like gossamer, that beard, not like real life, had a beard like raw pigtail on her she did... and suddenly she turns to me and takes my shoulders in her strong womanly hands.
"Kogan," she says, in a voice smoky as magma. "I've got something to tell you."
"Anything. You can tell me anything, darling."
She frowned and gave me a shake. "Stop fooling around, Kogan." She shook me harder. "Kogan. Kogan! WAKE UP!"
I open my eyes and see The Architect, not six inches away. That put the ice in my drawers right quick. He let go and backed away to a comfortable distance.
"I can't tell you how pleased I am, Kogan," he said, "Everybody here thinks you've been doing a super job." I looked around to see if my wallet was missing. "That work you've done, mining out this marvelous fortress, just masterful. So we all got together and agreed that you were absolutely the right person to lead us in this new year." He grabbed my hand and started pumping my arm like he expected water to gush out of my mouth. "Congratulations! I'd like to be the first to call you 'Boss'." He dropped my hand and headed for the door, then stopped and turned around. "Oh, by the way, we usually celebrate these kinds of events with a round of drinks. Funny thing... turns out there's not a drop of booze left in the fort. Folks are getting a bit grumpy, so you should probably take care of that before a mob gets together to, oh I don't know, maybe throw the new Mayor into the magma pipe or something. You know how we dwarves get when we get sober." He grinned and jabbed a grimy "Thumb's Up!" "Go get 'em, tiger!"
He was right. Not a single Armok-be-damned drop of booze anywhere. No barrels to brew more, either, nor logs for making barrels. And I hate like hell to make metal barrels when we've got barely enough iron to equip a small squad. Right. Nobody eats from full barrels, OK? Just onesies and twosies or out come the tongs.
[OOC: it's taking me a little while to get into this, with work and such, but I'll get my year done in a day or two.]
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Topic: Glazeviper, Succession and Community (sponsored) (Read 6110 times)