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17th Hematite, 13~We’ve attracted the attention of the humans. Despite our dwarrf-human pact to stop orcs from breaking through this mountain range, they seemed to not want to bother trading with us until we’d shown we could hold our own on the trading front – fair, really, considering our first trades consisted of a barrel of cat food for the mountainhome and some skulls for the elves.
Nevertheless, I was determined to put up a good showing with the Submerged Nation, and I briskly made my way to the depot. They hadn’t brought much metal, but we took it all and gave them our bone jewelry as incentive to begin bringing more the next summer. We wanted all the metal we could get.
Behind me, the cabin was continuing construction. I was growing quite accustomed to it, and hoped to be able to keep it to myself once we had begun work on the castle. At the least, I wanted everyone else out. The bedrooms had gotten a little too cramped for comfort, and I’d woken up the other night as someone had kicked me in their sleep.
As I talked with Dap Bathskirt, the guild representative, I heard a cry that I had hoped not to hear for a while longer.
“Orcs! From the west, through the jungle!”
“All right, uh…” I said, mentally stalling. “We should… uh…”
I saw the swordsdwarves making their way over to me. One of them, a hothead, yelled at me. “Well, scribe? Are we going to go and deal with this? I’ve been looking for a good fight, you know.” Randall Castlesoak. I’d had a run-in with him earlier when he’d complained about the lack of armour.
“I… Well, I don’t know, I don’t know much detail yet about…”
Julius, the young mason, ran over. “Quinn! We’ve done a count, there’s… there’s a lot more of them than before.”
Our swordsdwarf army turned to look at him. He shrunk back a bit.
“Two squads… 44 orcs.”
Silence among the fighters. “Well, that’s not so bad,” started Randall.
“…and 45 of those giant spiders,” Julius finished. More silence followed, then outbursts of anger.
“We can’t just charge in there and—”
“—but if we attack from higher ground, maybe—”
“—don’t have the equipment to—”
“—Enough!” shouted one of the swordsdwarves. Sulvor Blockadedales – I’d been getting better with names. He’d volunteered to train as a castle defender in order to protect the good people of Mightygrips, as he’d phrased it. I don’t know how many of us were all that good – really, I myself was only sort-of-okay – but he’d said it with enough vindiction that I very nearly believed him. He was one of the best wrestlers in the legion, and the best swordsman as well. “We do not stand a chance. If we would rush out into battle, surely we would all be slaughtered. We have little armour, and what there is of it is makeshift. For now we must block off the bridge and hope to wait them out.”
There was much grumbling, particularily between Randall and another soldier, Angron. The two were both devoted to their duty, but were rather anxious about being able to pick a fight.
I agreed and gave the order to shut off the bridge once all dwarves were inside. I sent the farmers back to the fields, led by Gutendorf. We’d need to prepare a lot of food to survive this siege.
Dap, the human guildsman, wandered over. “Err, Mr. Shadowhelms, is everything all right? I heard a shout about orcs…?”
“We’ll be fine, Mr. Bathskirts,” I responded, then paused. “Ideally, that is.”
It would be a long summer.
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1st Malachite, 13~Ducim Oarwrings, the mason that had gotten a spinal injury during last spring’s migration wave, had kicked Julius out of his own workshop and spent the last month creating “Faithfulreleased,” a hatch cover in felsite. Worth about 37600, I’d say – quite amazing craftsdwarfship.
The humans were getting restless, ready to depart, but there was nothing I could do. They would have to wait, as we did.
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12th Malachite, 13~I’d seen him first – Urdim Pagedbent, one of our migrant masons, was waving and shouting from the hills. How we’d missed him all this time, I’ve no idea. He’d probably been hiding away on the other side of the mountain, trying to wait the siege out undetected, but must’ve gotten too hungry and finally broke.
I was hugely conflicted. If we opened the gate to let him in, the orcs would quickly follow. I didn’t know which to choose – one guilt-laden death, or thirtysomething morally-upheld deaths.
Bodark and Sam sat next to me on the cabin’s roof, too deep in conversation to have noticed. They’d been speaking more closely lately, and I suspected them of being ‘involved.’ On top of this siege, it was rather disheartening.
“Is… that a dwarf out there?”
Bodark had seen Urdim. I was silent. I’d already made up my mind to do nothing about the straggler, but there was no way to pretend not to see Urdim now that Bodark had.
“Er… yes, it seems that way.”
“What’s he doing out there?!”
“I… I don’t know. We did a headcount – 30 dwarves, all accounted for. I have no idea how we missed him.” I paused. "Shit, Rykue's kid-- that makes 31 of us!"
“Well, what are you waiting for, man? Let the poor bastard in!”
I sat there, unresponsive, looking at my hands in my lap. Silence hung in the air as he realized what I was thinking.
Bodark spoke again, more slowly. “If that’s how it’s going to be. I’ve a job to do.” He stood and made his way to the stairs, aiming to grab the lever.
“Bodark, you can’t! It’ll doom us all!”
“And you think you’ll sleep well tonight, watching an innocent dwarf starve because you’re too cowardly to do something about it?” He threw the lever and headed outside. I was hot on his heels.
“Of course not! But it’s in the interest of all of us! Do you think any of us will survive if the orcs get in here?”
He stopped and turned his head, his gaze burning a hole through me. “Do you think I’ll be able to live with myself if I don’t try?” He walked away, mobilizing our troops. I stayed, feet frozen to the ground. “Sulvor! Round up your boys and come with me! Sparta, Ubik, up on the walls and cover us! We’re going on a rescue mission!”
I could hear creaking from the entrance as the bridge slowly extended. The orcs wouldn’t notice at first, sure, but sooner or later they’d rush us, and we wouldn’t be able to hold them back.
Bodark himself grabbed a sword and some ill-fitting leather armour. “All right,” he said, heading up the ramps, “We’re going after Urdim. He’s stuck out there on the mountain and we’re getting him back here. It’s a stealth mission, boys, but we’re expecting confrontation nonetheless. But I don’t want any of you getting any brash ideas! We’re not engaging, we’re trying…” he trailed off, standing atop the bridge. He seemed to deflate, softly. The soldiers turned, and stopped along with him.
I knew what they were looking at. They had mobilized too late.
“…nevermind,” he said. “Close the bridge. Mission’s over. Back to your posts.”
He walked past me towards the cabin, giving me a dark look. I knew what he was thinking, as clearly as if he had said it.
At least we tried.I laid awake all night.
---
Okay, I realized partway through writing this that I had way too muh material for just one update, so I’m stretching it out into two. Should have the second done before the day’s out, though. That'll take us to the end of Limestone (1st month of autumn).
Side notes: Dermonster has become the fort’s 6th legendary in wood cutting, and Ducim Oarwrings (unclaimed, incidentally) is the 7th with the fey mood in masonry.
Sam dating Bodark is kind of hilarious. Quinn did nothing but talk to her for like a year and a half, and she doesn’t even consider him a friend, whereas the last time I’d checked her relationship screen, Sam hadn’t even known Bodark at all. Quinn must be really annoying, or something.
Incidentally, I had no idea there was a dwarf outside the fort until I got the ‘Urdim Blahblahblah has been struck down.” Message and zoomed to his corpse, which was right near the fort entrance, before I realized. Made for good character development material though.
Never participated in one of these yet.. but I was wondering if I could claim Besmar (Renamed Sadok), if the fortress lives long enough for him to reach adulthood. Train him to be a legendary Swordsdwarf 
Done! Incidentally, he's got the best lastname of the family (Searcharmor, against Rykue Lostblockades and Gutendorf Rimrifts) so that's gonna be the family name now. I'll use Dwarf Companion to change the others'.
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Topic: The Castle Mightygrips: Cancelled. [community] (Read 48075 times)