Technical note: For the record, we're down to a measly 18-20 FPS by the end of this 'page'.96
When you first came to this island, all those years ago, you were seven dwarves. Seven dwarves with barely a handful of supplies but dreams of glory as wide as the world. You worked, you joked, and you struggled. Now you live in the halls of millionaires and so, so many more are dead.
Today you and the other miners begin digging out a grander tomb for them than the dusty corner half of them are currently shoved into. It's located deeper underground than the bulk of your exploratory mining and you've splint up to clear two separate levels. The top will be primarily decorative, with a large hall and circular rooms full of offerings for the afterlife. The bodies of the bravest dwarves will rest in the lower level. The two largest chambers will be prepared or reserved for Foureyes and Fourguts, four medium rooms for the King's dwarves who begun the journey with you, while sixteen smaller tombs will house the military and their closest friends.
You do not feel the need to dig yourself a grave. You worry sometimes you already have.
Once the digging is under way you briefly return to the main fortress to give further orders. Masons are to begin constructing furniture and statues for the tomb, while other dwarves will haul out the rubble. The two levels together are fairly large and you can already see this is going to take a while. It doesn't help that most of the civilians are a little too cheery about the work - you dug two tunnels into the tombs, but every time you glance back at them one is empty while the other is full of dwarves gaily playing leapfrog.
After the digging is finished and clearing nearing completion, you return to the fortress entrance and check on the goblin invaders. They're still lurking to the west of your fortress. Worryingly, you can't see their lasher leader anywhere. The others look bored and cold. You step back from the peep hole and ponder your defences. Monom scrambles under your legs then stands on her toes to see outside.
"Hey. I spy with my little eye, something beginning with 'g'," Monom sings with a twisted grin. You stare at her for a moment before giving the obvious answer. "Not unless goblins are suddenly gigantic shit-sticky turtles who just fucked coral."
Monom laughs and runs away while you stare outside. A massive figure towers on the horizon, wandering carelessly towards your fortress. As it strides far too quickly closer you can make out the ocean titan's angry sneer. And pretty, multicoloured coral belt. You're going to have some trouble taking this particular reawaken menace seriously.
The titan stops and looms over your garden, giving you a good view up its literally sparkling clean nostrils. It chuckles deep enough to shake the hallways, all the while producing a cheery jingling sound against its shell. It steps around your garden with exaggerated care and unintentional cuteness. Your spear traps prove utterly helpless against the titan's massive girth, until its web sticks them to its feet like toilet paper.
Your fortress is so screwed.
Then suddenly from the shadows, the smallest challenger appears. A cinnamon blur that dashes staunchly towards the impossibly larger attacker. The ocean titan snarls and charges in reply, fists clenched. Their heavy weight slams down, but the blur is already gone and the cat who you still swear is a ninja stands mockingly clear. The titan charges again and the cat dodges easily. As the titan leans down the cat leaps into the air and latches on its left upper leg, tearing the flesh open and fracturing the bone. The titan roars and swings again. The cat-
Splat.
Thump, shinnck. Dismay washes over you and your whole body feels numb. Not like this. Not to such a sudden, ridiculous foe. Not through your mistake. You hear a sorrowful goblin shriek from the cages, and a fainter one from catapult range. The ocean titan steps uncaring over the cat's corpse and smashes aside the floodgate.
There is no consolation when the titan fails to destroy your wall. There is no relief when it wanders off and leaves the fortress. There is, okay, a little satisfaction in seeing the idle goblin army swarming the monster and swiftly hacking both of its hands and one foot off then repeatedly shattering its coral body until it stops flailing, but that's somewhat balanced out by how scary those goblins actually are versus your entirely civilian population.
With a heavy heart, you join the smoothing and engraving of the tombs. These are far from the first walls to receive the treatment but there are no especially skilled engravers among you - instead dozens of novices work and mourn together. Perhaps it's better this way. They'd only be idle otherwise.
The next few weeks pass slowly, in a frustrated daze. A second army of goblins surrounds your fortress. There are dozens of new invaders, some with bows and every single one mounted on a bird, bat or cave crawler. They occasionally circle your fortress and taunt it, daring you to emerge.
According to Fourguts' calenders, by the time you have finished the slow process of engraving the walls and floors of the tomb the Age of Hydra has officially begun. It doesn't feel like a beginning in your cosy, quiet fortress.
You oversee the repositioning of coffins into their new tombs and it goes ... rather poorly. The haulers take their commands a little too literally and, when asked to remove the coffins from their current location, dump the partial skeletons out and leave them behind. To make things worse, when you try to order them returned to the coffins you find them confoundingly unwilling to assign a tomb to any dwarf who is actually
dead. The result is a procession of coincidentally ecstatic dwarves shoving the remains of their loved ones in random stone boxes.
"H a v e I j u s t d r u n k t o o m u c h f u c k i n g c o f f e e t h i s m o r n i n g , o r i s t h i s h a u l i n g t a k i n g w a y t o o l o o o n g ?" Monom irritably comments once. The question startles you, because you had assumed it was only your mood. But as haulers beginning carrying armour stands and weapon racks, cabinets and coffers down to furnish the tombs, you take note of their speed. Without even realising it, they shuffle instead of run. Outside, the same sunset becomes too familiar. And the goblins ...
"What haven't you told me?" Fourguts demands when night finally falls. You put on a perplexed expression, but he is undeterred. "You're not a fool enough to believe our victory - we're as trapped in here as our caged friend. Yet outside I just saw the first goblin squad break and flee in terror! Our crops outside are withering, our animals haven't given birth for weeks and unless I am very much mistaken something is screwing with our perception of time. Meanwhile, you stand here casually using dozens of reserved gems in decorative windows like you know the King isn't coming. Now you had better tell me
why or I swear to Armok I will throw you outside and pray that I'm next idiot to be brainwashed."
Because suffering comes from two sides, you realise now. Death is finite. Seven dwarves were seven dwarves and never enough to spill the blood this island demanded. It could control you, it could give you just enough ore to slay the goblins you were blindly leading here, but if that were all then this would have ended long before you ever set out for glory. But life ... Birth and growth and the renewing of races was all that drenched the island, and what other form than a cat to take? Ninja cat didn't save you because you owed him, he saved you because you dug too deep and the island's darkness ran free. He wanted you to finish the goblins so that their blight's other side would starve and die with them. But now that cat is dead, and everything is unbalanced. That dark, manipulative power, that feaster on blood, that beast that rest of the world forgot can finally escape unchecked and devour everything and everyone until there is nothing left to consume but itself.
"The island is dying," Fourguts mouths slowly. Dread dawns on his face, but he fights to keep it under control. Crease lines form on his forehead and he paces while rapping them. "The ocean titan must have been controlled. Then why did it bother fighting the goblins? For the beast to continue feasting? To ... no, to pit the island's strongest powers against each other. Anything help prisoner for so long would escape if it could, the death must speed its release. Then we are all that's left. And the goblins, but assume they can't reproduce, at least not enough to stop
it." Fourguts suddenly lets out a frustrated scream, then breathes deeply and continues pacing.
"We can send merchants for help, but we might not have time and the goblins will never trust anyone from outside. Our migrants ... ugh, too slow, too unreliable, and nobody will come when they realise it's a deathtrap. Animals won't complain but they can't be enough or you wouldn't have the goblins in the first place. There's nothing - we have no counterbalance. So. The only possible win condition is to remove the danger altogether," Fourguts stops and stares at you, his face unnaturally even. You speak the conclusion together.
You have to kill the forgotten beast.
If you equip your miners and attempt a direct attack, turn to page 301.
If you move your cage full of wildlife and release them into the caverns, turn to page 302.
If you install remote controls and lure the beast into your cave-in traps, turn to page 303.
If you connect the mineshaft to the surface and let the goblins defeat their torturer, turn to page 304.
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Topic: Choose Your Own DF - Goblin Blight Island (Read 43249 times)