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20th Opal, 14~Ubik sits in the sand, idly drawing lines with a stray bolt. She hasn’t seemed to have gotten over the loss of Sparta, whose body we have been unable to retrieve – which was hard enough on us all, so I couldn’t really imagine the pain Ubik was feeling.
It has been nearly a month, and the orcs have not shown the slightest signs of retreating. Based on our last encounter with them, it could be another three months before they left. Admittedly, we’ve nothing out there we need, and as the elves bring nothing worth possessing and the humans are at war with us, we could wait another year with the bridge raised… but it’s hard on morale. For myself as well.
Life isn’t wonderful, but it’s not as miserable as it once was. I’ve been plotting out the land to build the hovels, though we won’t be able to start construction until the orcs have left us alone. Irwin and Morul, our bone carver, have married. I didn’t even know they were dating. I suppose it’s not that unlike Irwin to be attracted to someone who chisels bones into cute little toys for a living. I myself have been… perhaps feeling a little fond of a recent migrant, Sodel Steelheals the carpenter. She dropped into my office the other day just to say hi. It was the first visit I’ve had in four years that wasn’t business-related. I’ll admit I’m a bit of a sucker for flattery… or hell, even some vague form of appreciation, but I can’t help but loath her pet kitten. I wonder if I can get Irwin to do something about it.
On this particular day I’d not a lot to do, so I was heading over to see Fath Fountainfold, our glassmaker who’d apparently made a rather impressive grate out of green glass. She’d stuck little pictures of our original team making out way to the foot of the mountain and fighting off orcs as we built the castle walls. I would’ve felt sentimental, having not talked to Rykue, Gutendorf, Bodark, or Dermonster lately… but admittedly, none were that fond of me. I liked my chats with Jyrvus, who always kept me sane, but he’d spent the last few months in the smithy, smelting iron bars. Irwin… well, conversations with him beat the glares I got from most of villagers.
Fath met me as I approached. “All right, Quinn, check this out, man. I’m thinking like, worth 30k or something. You see this here? That’s bands of black bear leather, man.
Black bear leather. You ever worn black bear leather? Softest loincloth you’ll ever own.”
“I’d say more like… 22800 buckers. I don’t really get what the alunite represents, but…”
Fath held up both hands, waving them in front of me. She was very enthusiastic, but I didn’t really have the time to sit and listen to her rant about the artistry inherent in the grate. “No, you gotta just listen to me for a sec, I…”
“Quinn!”
Thank you, I mouthed upwards briefly, before turning to see who’d saved me from Fath. It was Ubik, somewhat surprisingly.
“I have a plan. This is what we’ll do.”
She walked me to the doodles she’d made in the sand – and I saw that they were not doodles, but battle plans.
“The orcs are outside the gates, yes?”
“The gate, yeah.”
“No, sir. The gate-ssss. Plural.”
I looked at her, puzzled. She pointed to her diagrams.
“We build a new gate here, on the other side of the couryard, then lure them in. Dig a moat around the interior of the courtyard. Meanwhile, they can not shoot this deep into the fort, so we build elevated fortifications on the wall. Once they are here… we move the ammunition closer.”
I stared. It seemed to be a fine plan, for what my thoughts were worth. But it wasn’t about defending the castle to Ubik. To her, it was about avenging Sparta. The orcs weren’t being lured in to be easier to deal with, they were lured in to be trapped. And Ubik meant to watch them scream as she killed them one by one, agonizingly, aiming for ankle and kneecaps. It would be horrific.
I approved of the plan and ordered it carried out immediately.
The knights stood by our new courtyard entrance gate, as backup in case Ubik took a fatal arrow. We managed to get a handful of fortifications up, but nothing that made her safe so much as vaguely-less-in-danger. The moat was dug, though it was just as dry as our outer one.
Then we let the orcs in. Through her new plate mail, I swear I could feel her hatred. She let them creep closer. Closer. Closer still. Even as the gates shut behind them, she waited for them to get closer.
“What are you waiting for,” I called up from my safe perch behind the walls. She didn’t answer – but I suddenly knew. She wanted to see the whites of their eyes.
Cracks flew through the air and hard against my earlobe as her crossbow unlesahed its fury.
Instantly, spiders and orcs were gushing blood all over. Ubik said nothing, merely firing away into the horde. After emptying a full quiver into the mass, she hopped off the walls and ran around behind them, coming at the bewildered orcs from a different angle.
Ubik was picking them off one by one, leaving one orc for last – Soldierwraith, the slayer of Sparta. Running around to a makeshift fortification, she prepared her final assault. But Soldierwraith was good – the sniper was firing bolts of dwarf bone right back through the tiny fortification slit and striking Ubik back.
“I am not afraid of you, dwarf!” it hissed. “I have killed many more than yourself. I fear nothing!”
Ubik lowered her body, bracing the crossbow deep against her shoulder. “Prove it,” she snarled back. A single bolt flew out into the courtyard, striking the creature in the eye. It began shrieking, and writhing in pain on the ground. The knights were restless, anxious to slaughter something, but nobody could take this kill away from Ubik. Another bolt struck the creature in the throat, blood spewing out.
“You took my friend from me. I will take your future.” A final bolt shot out, hitting it in the forehead. The monster went limp, leaving nothing but corpses in the courtyard.
At the same moment Soldierwraith fell, the orcs in the mountains scattered. Though they still had more than enough number to scatter us, Ubik’s display had triggered something lost-lost in their synapses. Fear.
I could feel it within my bones as the orcs ran. An overwhelming sensation of freshness, redemption, innocence. This year would be different. Spring had arrived.
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I think I’m going to remove the ability to web from the spiders. It’s fun watching Ubik slaughter everyone, but it’s too easy. The knights need to have some fun. Incidentally, Ubik killed 12 orcs and 10 spiders in that siege, putting her up to 34 orcs and 38 spiders total.
Monom Blotpaints and Bomrek Purewinds are now legendary miners, coming in at numbers 16 and 17 after Fath the glassmaker. Next on the to-do list is improving the courtyard shooting gallery.
The castle itself looks wonderful, and you plan on making it 10 z levels high. o.O just awesome. I look forward to it.
The main reason I embarked on a mountain was for building height :D 10z is nothing!
Yeah, so I accidentally passed out while playing
Epic
-_-
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Topic: The Castle Mightygrips: Cancelled. [community] (Read 48133 times)