Actually I wanted to do some testing with an adventurer in regards to dead/dying civs but DF (as always) threw some hillarious stones in my machine to distract me (once again). This game can put bugs and legends mode together to make some of the greatest stories which other games can't, even if they would try really hard - and it seems that the magic update already happened. Without further ado let me tell you the tale of Bosa Monstroustaper (not my char).
Bosa, one of the first of his kind, was as goblin as a goblin could ever be - he grew up in a society which called itself The Cruelty of Souls and cruel he was indeed. War after war against humans, dwarves and elves, he always was among the ones who shed blood and comitted the most atrocious felonies against other races. Even his own kinship wasn't spared by his knives - many goblins in Wickedsandaled were found dead in their narrow chambers they called home, bearing marks of his proficiency as a skilled assassin. He was as goblin as a goblin could ever be, except one tiny flaw: Over the course of his life he became ever more disgusted by himself. By the creature he did became, the creature he was taught to be. Wars raged on but Bosa didn't commit himself to them anymore. Instead he secluded himself from his neighbours and his family, turning inwards to find a deeper meaning in existence.
Years went past in which he tried to hide his growing discontent and reluctance from the other goblins who got more suspicious with every month Bosa neglected to wage war and bloodshed amongst the numerous enemies of his civilization - and then suddenly, if a foreign god who doesn't demand cruelty as a show of devotion had laid eyes on him to shine a light of hope into the darkness that had befallen this fortress of evil, his silent screams for salvation were answered. By a creature Bosa had never thought it could give salvation in any form: A dwarf.
Reg Arrowspikes, a wordsmith by profession, had lost his family in the last onslaught commited by the goblins and earned the questionable gift to be left alive as a prisoner. Someone among the greenskins possibly sensed that Bosa underwent some doubts in being part of the most blessed race ever walked the plains of The Mythical Dimensions and thought it to be a brilliant idea letting Bosa torturing the dwarf to bring him back to the righteous path. And, in some way, exactly this happened. Deep inside the belly of Wickedsandaled a dwarf and a goblin, enemies by nature, both learned that words can cut deeper than anything else and that friednship can grow in the most unlikely places.
Day after day they exchanged words, wary and few at first, bolder and more as weeks and months passed. Reg learned what it meant to be a goblin, Bosa learned that the world consisted of more than mere sequences made of atrocity and wickedness. In fact, he learned that the world consisted of words. Words which could describe everything, change everything and create everything, simply by being existent and used. Bosa learned and fell in love. With words. The art of poetry showed him what life could be and Reg was eager to teach him all he knew. Not just the art itself but even where to look to find the greatest poets in the world. A desire formed in Bosa: To seek them and to learn, to be someone who can throw away his own past to become something different, something so much more - content.
Bosa and Reg had to escape, a goblin and a dwarf united in their urge to flee from the evil that emanated from all around them. Plans were made and the day of their escape approached...
...but in the night before Reg already escaped. Into the arms of his god. Hope is a two-edged sword - it can bring life and it can take it away. The body of the old dwarf couldn't handle the sheer amount of gleeful anticipation and he died. Peacefully inside a dark fortress, inhabitated by an army of creatures who would have tried to revive him if they would have known that he didn't die screaming and frightened. Bosa decided that this could count as a victory noone ever could take away from his old friend and nod him fairwell, in grief and with the silent promise to tell the world how someone can be triumphant without any fight.
The next day Bosa left Wickedsandaled, unseen and unnoticed. The skills he once used to bring death among others he now used to left death behind.
To left death behind and to reach the promise of eternal life by being a poet the world would even remember in thousand years. The last gift of Reg in his head he turned eastwards, towards the realm of humankind. Towards the hamlet Ardentpant. Towards his gift: The great poet Pevit Cookconflict.
The following weeks were full of hardship. Being alone in the wilderness and among the beats that roamed the forested hills and barren plains turned out to be a trial, even for someone as skilled as Bosa was. Many times he nearly starved, surrounded by inedible and higly toxic plants or animals that seemed to mock him by staying just out of reach but always being visible. Taunting promises of delicious food that spoiled before his hands; many times he nearly injured himself heavily, dooming him to a slow and painful death in the lonelyness; many times giant predators in the shape of alligators nearly devoured him. It was a tormenting journey, full of deprivation.
But hope encouraged him and mile after mile vanished behind him.
Until, one rainy day, he got sight of a buzzing little village full of humans. The directions provided by his dead friend had been correct. He had found Ardenpant, his new home and the beginning of a new life. Joyful he mustered all of his strength he could msuter after the long trek and approached the village. It was indeed Ardentpant and asking for the renowned Pevit got him the desired answer in no time. The humans didn't seem to be concerned that a battered goblin noone ever saw before moved about openly amongst them and Bosa took this as a sign that his decision to leave his former life behind was the right one.
Night began to fell as Bosa finally stood before an old wooden door at the outskirts of this hamlet. Adjusting his worn clothes he steeled himself and knocked. The last thump couldn't even fade away - the door opened hastily and a wrinkled, little man appeared, looked at Bosa, grimaced despicable and snorred: "No peddlers! No beggars! And no apprentices! I work alone! And now: Bugger off!" The door slammed shut.
The following days passed without any notice by Bosa. Mechanically he lived from day to day, seeking to sweep up the shards of his dream that kept him alive in the wilderness. It took nearly two weeks before he began to realize that poets , especially old ones, maybe really were a solitary folks. That you had to be a solitary for becoming a real talent. "Yes", Bosa confirmed himself, "this sounds logical."
It took nearly two days before he met Kol Fountainworks at the market who cheerfully told him that he got "...an apprenticeship under the legendary Pevit Cookconflict! Can you imagine? I just knocked at his door and before I could say something he announced me as his new apprentice! What a life! Wait...are you okay? You look odd. Did you eat something rotten? My mother always told me to lo..."
Bosa didn't know how he reached the ramshackle hut at the other side of Ardenpant. He didn't know how and why. Maybe it was the mead? The innkeeper had said something about strong spirits in this booze brewed by dwarvens, this Bosa remembered. Just this. Everything after that blurred into darkness, as dark as his thoughts had became. As dark as his thoughts had been in his past of which he thought he had overcome. What a fool he had been by believing he could change his life and the lifes of others by showing them the beauty that lives inside of words. A stupid fool, yes. Tricked into believing such idiocy. Tricked by a dwarf who now looks down from above and laughs about this little goblin. Laughs that he had made him believe dwarves and goblins could be friends and coexist. Laughs that he had made him abandon his family, his own race. Laughs that he had died unpunished by Bosa.
A creak loudly sounded throughout the foggy dusk, accompanied by a raspy whisper: "Hello, Bosa Monstroustaper, I've waited for you. Let me introduce myself: I'm Rakust Couragesabre. And now I introduce you to myself: You are my new apprentice." The fog swallowed everything.
"IDENTIFY YOURSELF!", Bosa screamed and the mental blow echoed through the mead hall where Ini Banklimes, the local lord, resided. The humans who were attendant at the moment stiffened as the dark beauty in this magical command forced them to open their mouths and to start a constant babbling, assuming new identies with every new sentence. "IDENTIFY YOURSELF!", Bosa shouted again. And again. The fiendish smile in his face widened as his eyes started to glow in the colour of blood soon to be spilled. "Yes, identify yourself, identify yourself, identify yourself..." his words ended in cackling.
Cackling that intensified as the magic burned the brains of the humans and turned them against each other.
Cackling that almost sounded like crying as if some small part in Bosa realised what he had become and what opportunity he now had lost.
Cackling that turned into ringing laughter as the first victim to fall under the brutal swings of the houseguards was a newly trained poet with the name of Kol Fountainworks.
Laughter that endet abruptly as someone appeared at the entrance to this hall. A silhouette in the shape of a dwarf, clad in leather, holding an iron spear and dropping the lifeless body of a cat to the floor.
"The party already started?", a voice as deep as the pits back in Wickedsandaled blew across from this strange silhouette. "Then I guess it's time to join..."
(The "Identify yourself!"-bug was the most hillarious bug I've ever encountered, but nothing in comparison to the excitement I had when I checked legends to make some sense out of this, as there also should had been an insurrection at that time, and to find out that this bloody mess in the mead hall actually did made sense - you know, if you ignore the fact that it's a bug for a short moment. A murderous goblin, who wanted to find salvation and become a poet, gets denied by a master and seeks revenge by slaughtering the inncocent townsfolk (and Kol Fountainworks) after finding a new master with knowledge in much darker arts. This is what makes DF so much fun - and for some moments I remembered the fun times with 34.xx where such bloody and stupid slaughter happened not only on rare occasions.
Another interesting day in DF.)
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Topic: What's going on in your adventure? (Read 2134456 times)