NomekastChapter the Second
At War with Nothing
10th Hematite 678 - Afternoon"No, no, no," Stronghammer said firmly, not stopping his pace as he moved to the exit of Ugo Sosleng's lab, an Alliance Dwarf and the Human Ahra behind him, the two of them clad in plate armour stamped with the insignia of the Iron Guard.
"I must protest!" Ugo said, hurrying to keep up and stay at the Mayor's side. "When I went to tell you about this incident it was under the impression that you'd assign another guard, and maybe tell everyone to be extra careful; not destroy valuable scientific experiments!"
Stronghammer stopped at the threshold of the lab. The sound of the forging industry and the sulphurous smell of the magma lay beyond. "A heart is not a scientific experiment, Mr. Sosleng. A Forgotten Beast's heart even less so. A Forgotten Beast's heart that has shown evidence of some kind of demonic or Nothing infection even less than that. This-" he held up a pig-tail bag that contained the heart of the beast Opeya - "is going straight into the magma, as will the rest of the corpse once the rest of the Iron Guard arrive."
"How can we be expected to protect ourselves in the future if we cannot even study these monsters properly!?" Ugo protested again. Besides him, Fori added a half-hearted agreement. The Elf was still slightly shaken by the entire incident, especially since traditional Elven culture would have insisted that Opeya - being a fallen foe - should be eaten. The idea of eating a heart that leaked black goo and spoke was all too much.
Stronghammer ran his free hand through his hair, staying silent for a few second while he thought through Ugo's statement. Then he spoke, voice still firm, "There is 'studying a monster' and there is 'being threatened by the monster's possessed heart'. I'm Mayor, my first duty is to the people, and to protect those people whether it be from enemies outside or within. I can't in good faith let a possibly dangerous thing such as this heart stay here."
"But-" the Goblin scientist was cut off as Stronghammer strode through the doorway and up to the lip of the magma pool. "Wait! No, don't-"
With a strong throw, the industrialist threw the bag through the air in a wide arc. It fell almost in the centre of the volcanic lake, seeming to float for the barest second, before sinking under the magma, disappearing from view. Ugo stared at the spot where the heart had been for a while, grimacing.
Stronghammer gave a firm nod, happy that the cursed object was gone without any apparent final tricks, then he turned to the Goblin besides him. "This work of yours is starting to get dangerous," he said, his voice a low and firm rumble, "and I think the best course at this moment would be to close the lab down and have it properly cleansed."
Ugo let out a growl of fury. "
I beg your pardon?" he asked, his voice likewise very low.
Fori stared at the two, still caught between sharing Ugo's fury that a possible source of future knowledge had been destroyed and Stronghammer's insistence that something that had proven possibly dangerous could not be allowed to remain in the fort, before she tried to intervene. "Stronghammer, Ugo, please-"
"Mr. Sosleng, I'm afraid that your laboratory is increasingly a hazard to the fort - and I will
not allow a potentially dangerous situation to develop here in the
heart of Nomekast, much less
next to the
forges."
"You-you-you philistine!" Ugo spat, shaking with fury, "The work we're doing here is paramount to finding a way to stop these creatures! Or would you rather we bury our heads in the sand and simply be happy with killing them when they break in? A tactic - it seems - that has worked wonders in the past, as our graveyard and still-ill friends gladly demonstrate, I'm sure!"
"Mr. Sosleng, please, I'm not taking this decision lightly, perhaps in time we can relocate the laboratory somewhere safer, but for now it is simply too dangerous to let these experiments of yours continue."
"The work Fori and I are doing here outweighs any dangers! This isn't the world your grandpa told travelling-stories about, Fireforge, things have changed now! We can't just sit around reacting like we have in the past! We need new knowledge. Why, just recently I have been reading the journals of BranRhi's father, whose work on the concept of 'physical Gods' is-"
Stronghammer gave a dismissive snort. "Steve sent me a memo about that. Personally, I wouldn't trust everything you read, if I were you."
Ugo stood silent for a few seconds, then with a frustrated snarl, he spun round on his heel and stormed back into the lab. Fori offered Stronghammer a half-hearted shrug, then likewise turned round and followed after Ugo into the lab. Stronghammer watched them go and gave a pained sigh at the whole affair, tramping off back to overseeing the community and direct the Iron Guard and militia in closing down the lab and torching it clean of the Nothing's influence.
Hematite and Malachite 678Work dominated the schedules of Nomekast's diverse population throughout the Summer. Under Fori's supervision the farms were seeded with the crops to be harvested in Autumn. The now-vacant and empty Thieves' Guild had been cleared out of anything left and the entrance enlarged so that it was no longer hidden in a crevasse; Ibruk and his followers continued to dig deep, gradually carving out their cathedral, while Brosso and the Iron Guard continued to clear the Alliance's future headquarters of the stone left by the excavation of the halls. An uneasy truce had been struck between those manning the forges and the Elves under Imiwa, with Stronghammer agreeing to Brosso's suggestion to close the wood-burners for the time being. Meanwhile under Spartan's mining expertise the Human temple was quickly being excavated and cleared of rubble; while the forges continued to pump out weaponry and armour. All jobs in the fortress were very much a communal effort, there were no particular tests of peoples' skill before they could be allowed to work.
No place was this more obvious than at the forges, where anyone who had a desire to smelt could do so provided they did not waste resources. As thus, alongside Tarran, Muenster and Stronghammer, you had people such as the surgeon Kingfisher who smelted armour or the blind maddwarf Arsethotheles who - with some apparently unbelievable luck - had become quite good at smithing bolts. He certainly had plenty of opportunities to practice, as ranged weapons and bolts in particular were being smelted: the new winged Nothings had made it clear being able to fire from a distance was a good idea. All this took large amounts of resources, and so at the same time mining expeditions protected by the militia were chartered, going out into the Fiery Cistern to mine for such invaluable ores as tetrahedrite or malachite which where then hauled back to the forges to be smelted and then forged into weaponry and armour. By the light of the magma the community was preparing a war to retake the surface.
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