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Total Members Voted: 32

[Iituem]

Goxa Urarxost

Pain.  Endless pain and screaming, deep within pits of fire and shadow.  An unknown length of time, his skin torn from him and burned back into place.  Torment, torment and horror for daring to oppose her.

Goxa sat bolt upright in his bed, cold sweat beading on his forehead.  His eyes darted around the room, almost as if he expected his mistress to be standing there, ready to drag him back to that place once more.  But no, Sheget was not here.  She had not laid eyes on him in over forty years.  Perhaps she never would again.  Perhaps...

Goxa roused himself and sat down at his desk to eat.  As always, a meal had been prepared by his household slaves in advance of his waking, and as always he checked it carefully for traces of poison before dining.  It would not have been the first time.  As he crunched the bones of the small creature, his mind cycled through the events of the coming day.  After the morning paperwork, a brief visit to the mine to check on progress, then to Lord Axmu's residence to discuss the latest dispute over raiding rights on the human border villages.  Lunch and a complimentary massage from his host's slaves, then back home to deal with some correspondence.  In the evening, after taking a light meal with Uzulek he would retire to the torture chamber and deal with the latest victim the capital had sent his way to extract information from, a rebel by the name of Kiku.

All in all a satisfying day, if a touch heavy on the admin.  Unfortunately, there were so many sensitive documents that he could not let Zom deal with, or he could spend more time in the torture chamber.  Still, the girl had proved immensely useful in taking up the donkey work of his duties.  Someday he might even have to consider freeing her.  Not yet, though.

Goxa put his plate to one side and thumbed through the official paperwork on the desk.  Executions, torture orders, raiding slips, all very ordinary work.  He signed them off with a florid signature, condemning dozens to brutal, sometimes greatly prolonged deaths.  A voice somewhere in the back of his mind protested, but that voice had long ceased to be even a whisper.  Goxu had no place for it, or the man who used to own it.  They were both weak.

Beneath the stack of death warrants, Goxa noticed a sealed white envelope, stamped with the dark lady's seal.  He frowned, his long maroon eyebrows creasing.  He was sure he had no business with Sheget's administrator until next month.  Perhaps the man was trying to rush things along?

Goxa carefully removed the seal with a palette knife and upturned the envelope, expecting a letter.  No letter came.  Instead, a slender golden collar slipped out, beautifully crafted and with a delicate clasp.  Goxa launched himself away from the desk, the chair's legs screeching dreadfully across the floor.  The colour drained from his face as he stared at the offending piece of jewellery on the desk.

She wants me back.

Sheget was revoking his freedom.  More than four decades ago, when she had taken control of the Seductions, he had left her service.  Had he been freed?  Not exactly.  More, his mistress had simply forgotten about him in the rush of new and terrible pleasures she had embraced.  Goxa had simply slipped out of her sight, installed himself as an administrator and bargained his way to a comfortable retirement.  But now, now she wanted him back.

Why?  Had he grown too ambitious?  Did his plans interfere with hers?  Had one of his political rivals bribed his mistress into reclaiming her own?  Or had she simply remembered him and decided, on some passing whim, to have her old slave back?

It didn't matter.  He wasn't going back.  But the collar was a message, a chance for him to come back peacefully.  Goxa had no doubt that future messages would be far less peaceful.  No, it was time to leave.

But first, he thought, picking up the key to the torture chamber, I have an errand to conduct.

Spoiler: Goxa (click to show/hide)

------

Actually, there's still one last slot available, the female goblin Dostgnosp.  Once that's picked, we'll begin.

[Neyvn]

Nevermind

[Iituem]

Kiku Ustolsong

"Rebel" was such a strong word.  Just because he'd had a little disagreement with his boss over how to split the loot, and just because that disagreement had ended up with a knife in his boss' eye, everything had been blown out of proportion.  Actually nobody had cared about that.  It was the suggestion of not giving up taxes to Sheget that had wound up with him in this dungeon.

It wasn't even a particularly high quality dungeon, either.  Kiku had been in plenty of dungeons, albeit usually on the other side of the shackles.  He'd spent time in the burrows beneath the Citadel of Terrors, and he could tell you that those were dungeons worthy of the name.  Errant beasts, a maze of twisty passages (all alike), decent manacles and even rats that would try and eat your toes if you looked dead enough.  This was more of a holding cell.  Even the fish hooks used to suspend him from the ceiling looked second rate.  Honestly, it was such a disappointing place to end his life he was actually enjoying the torture.  Although he supposed that might have been the blood loss talking.

Sixty-five years in service of the Seductions.  First as a slave, then a freed man, then a slavemaster, finally a second in command to a lord.  He'd been on the up and up, he had.  Everything was looking rosy for him, or at least that pinkish shade you get in very fresh, frothy blood.  A lauded fighter, a regular in the pit fights, probably would have even kept the job as Lord if he hadn't let his enthusiasm get the better of him.  Ah, well.

Light struck him across the eyes like a mace.

"Ow," he muttered.  "Could you keep the light down?  Some of us are trying to die horribly here."

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry," snorted the goblin who stepped through the door.  "I didn't realise you were enjoying yourself so much."

"Of course I'm enjoying myself, there isn't much else to enjoy around here," Kiku retorted.  "Or to suffer, besides your face.  You call this torture?  Where are the spinning blades?  Where's the pit of venomous scorpions, or magma?  Couldn't you have even managed some decent burning coals?  This a disgrace.  I have half a mind to report you in the afterlife, you know."

The torturer snickered.  He gave a helpless sort of shrug.

"Well, you know how it is.  You try to set up the acid pool, but they end up delivering you salt by mistake, and of course that kills the deadly war carp you were going to put in the pool as well, and the salt water causes the mechanisms in the mincing machine to rust up and before you know it all the interesting torture devices have ground to a halt.  And what with the limited resources I'm allocated by the capital anyway, I'm afraid you'll just have to make do with me flaying you alive with a rusty broken blade."

"Brilliant," Kiku muttered, rolling his eyes.  "Death by a thousand budget cuts.  Well, get on with it then.  Some of us don't have places to be."

"You quite sure about that?" the torturer asked.

"Oh, come on!" Kiku moaned.  "You're trying the 'false hope' routine with me?  I've done that hundreds of times, and I know how this goes.  You'll give me a chance to tell you what I know, to swear allegiance to the dark lady, and then you'll get my signature and then you'll kill me anyway.  Give me a bit of credit."

"Actually, I was wondering if you were still into the whole treason lark."  Kiku stiffened up, at least as much as the hooks digging into his flesh allowed.

"Well, that's a novel approach," Kiku admitted.  "Let's say I am.  Is the torture going to get any worse than you had planned?"

"No," replied the torturer, "but it might get better.  I'm willing to offer you a deal."

"Ah, here it comes.  Alright, humour me.  What will you offer me?  A pension for my family?  Don't have any, wouldn't care if I had.  Chance to die honourably?  Sod do I care, if I'm dead?"

"I can get you off the hook," said the torturer.

"So to speak," Kiku supplied.  "So what do you want?  Out with it man, you've held me in suspense long enough."

"Your service."

"I won't be a slave again."

"A villein, then.  Indentured servitude.  You're mine, but you keep the rights of a freeman.  I need someone who can use a weapon and doesn't have anything to lose."

"Alright.  Say you let me out of these hooks.  What's to stop me killing you and leaving?"

"Self-preservation.  You're a wanted man, and everyone who wants your bounty will be after you.  So, everyone.  I have slaves, resources and a man of my own.  You stand a better chance with us, and we'll last longer with you.  What do you say?"

Kiku mulled over the offer for a moment, then broke into a wicked grin.

"I say, what are we hanging around for?"

Spoiler: Kiku (click to show/hide)

------------

Alright.  Just one more goblin to go, then we embark.  Right now we have an iron crossbow and ten bolts, a bit of food, an old anvil, two picks, a whip and a bit of sand in the wagon.  We also still need a name for the group.

[Neyvn]

Oh god, all the bad puns, the randomness of his actions...
Its like you know me already...
I loved reading your work from Olonkulet but so far this is epic...

[darkflagrance]

I just spent the last night reading Olonkulet and Hateslaughter. I loved the flavor you gave the goblin society of the latter.

It looks like you have exceedingly Fun plans for this location in the future. It's never happened before that a community fortress got me hooked even before the embark...

[Iituem]

Thanks!  Unless anyone wants in within the next half hour, btw, I'm going to go ahead and make Dostgnosp a 'nurse slave' (healing duties) so we can get started.  I'll leave her open thereafter for the sake of anyone who wants to adopt her, though.

[Iituem]

Dostgnosp Sledasazstrog

Years and years ago, Dostgnosp had worked with Zom for Zolak Sulliedpoison.  It had been a harsh life, but what life wasn't?  Still, she had served the dark lord directly and been spared many of the harsher tasks a slave could be put to.  She had cleaned and tidied, prepared food and drink and tasted it against poison, served the master as he required it (but not serviced, one mercy for which she had her fatness to thank - the master had preferred a leaner build) and done her best to stitch up the cuts, bruises and gaping wounds the other menial slaves would suffer.

In the nineteenth year of recorded history, Zolak Sulliedpoison had been out riding a new mount he had received as a gift; a yellow llama.  Dostgnosp imagined his surprise when the llama had taken him into the fortress' central square and thrown him off, then stood up on its hind legs and burned him to a crisp before the watching eyes of all his kind.  The security of her servitude had been shaken, and like many of the palace staff she feared she would be sold on, perhaps straight to the mines with the rest.

As it happened she was sold, but into the service of a new goblin, one who had arrived with the new dark lady.  He had noticed the skill of the book-slave Zom and bid for her purchase.  Dostgnosp had simply come as part of the package of slaves that came with her, but it was still an escape.

Escape had been the theme of the last two weeks, journeying north into the frozen wastes.  When the horses had fallen dead from exhaustion, she had joined the other slaves in dragging the cart.  Limited as their supplies were, the master himself had fallen to butchering the horses for meat, but that was almost gone now.  She winced at the weight of the yoke on her shoulders, then paused as she spotted something in the distance.  Was that a plume?

The whip cracked behind her, and she trudged on a little further, but soon enough she caught sight of it again.  A plume of smoke, or maybe steam, and figures dotted on the horizon.  She turned around to alert the whipmaster, but he was already staring intently toward them.

Spoiler: Dostgnosp (click to show/hide)

[Iituem]

Trolls.  Dozens of trolls, clustered around the rim of a great fiery pit amidst the ice.  If Goxa were a religious sort (and his patron 'deity' weren't the very reason he were here) he might have called it a sign.  As it was, it was a major problem in the way of them getting any further.

"Ever killed a troll before?" Goxa asked.

"A few," Uzulek commented.

"Ever killed sixty?" Kiku asked.

"Bit out of my standard list of accomplishments, that.  You?"

"Can't say I have either.  Any ideas, other than a suicidal rush for new troll-based upholstery?"

"I might be able to take out the one," Uzulek offered.

"You reckon the other fifty-nine aren't going to be a problem, then?" Goxa asked.

"Not if it's the right one.  You see the one with the big horns?"  Uzulek pointed.  One of the trolls had huge, impressively curled horns, distinct from the shorter crests of the other trolls.  "Alpha male.  Only male at that, must have killed all the competitors."

"So what are the rest of them?" Goxa asked.

"His harem," said Kiku with a grin and a wink.  "Fellow with horns that big, no wonder the ladies are flocking to him.  There's a man living the dream and no doubt."

"Plan's pretty simple," Uzulek explained.  "I get close enough to him, within striking distance-"

"Then you kill him?" said Goxa.

"No, then I leap on his back and ride him like a wild bull until he gives in."

Goxa and Kiku gave him a pair of long stares.

"You've done this before, have you?" Goxa asked, his voice heavy with scepticism.

"No," Uzulek admitted, "but I'm pretty sure I can manage it."

"I say go for it," said Kiku.  "The worst that'll happen is the old horny bastard turns him into a shishkebob and we've one less mouth to feed.  If we're lucky enough they don't eat the corpse themselves, might keep us going for another week."

"Your concern for my welfare is noted," Uzulek said drily.  "Any other words of encouragement?"

"Don't screw it up," Goxa said, shrugging.  Uzulek rolled his eyes and laid down his crossbow in the wagon.  He stripped off his clothes so that his ash grey skin was less visible against the snow and, doing his best not to shiver from the cold, crept toward the trolls.

He got within twenty paces before the first one noticed him.  After that he broke into a run, trollish tusks and horns swiping at him from all angles until at last he reached the alpha, leapt into the air and caught him heavily by the horns.  The massive creature let out a terrible roar and began trying to shake him off its head, thrashing and trying to bat him away with its fists.  Uzulek held tight and kept moving, preparing himself for the long ride ahead.  The other trolls had stepped back, watching the contest intently.



Six hours later, the beast finally gave in, sinking to its knees and making a few last tired swipes at its victor before submitting.  Uzulek carefully climbed off the troll's head and gave it a long, level stare.  The troll grunted angrily, but lowered its eyes in acceptance.  The rest of the tribe followed suit, sinking to their knees in submission.  Uzulek wiped the sweat from his brow and began trudging back toward the wagon, where the others had already tucked into some of the remaining horseflesh and had grown bored of the spectacle.

"Well, it's done," he said hoarsely.  "Give me my clothes back, I can feel my sweat freezing into ice crystals already."

"Sure thing," Goxa said, passing him the bundle of belongings.  "You'll be happy to know the wagon's front axle broke and we've nothing to repair it with.  It looks like we might be holed up here for a while."

"Hole being the imperative," Kiku pointed out.  "We're not going to last the next snowstorm up here, and I certainly don't want to get my bits as chilly as yours.  They look like they might break off in a stiff breeze.  Any chance your horny new friend can help out with the digging?"

"Don't think they speak Goblin well enough to communicate that," Uzulek grumbled.  "If you want to try and beat them into doing it, good luck, though.  No, get the slaves to do the digging, it's what they're there for.  Don't suppose we have anything useful in terms of supplies?"

"Ozo, the weapon-slave I bought?" said Goxa.  "Reckons he can bend some of the wagon's springs into a couple of picks for digging work, and there's a bit of rope here and there he can splice together.  We've still got the emergency axes, in case we meet anything less friendly than our cheerful band of trollish associates.  Oh, and Skrunge did a bit of digging inside the sandbags we were using as bedding.  Turns out there were a couple of jars of pickled fish and cave lobsters still hidden from an old raiding run we did, maybe nine months back?"

"Yeah, I remember that.  Hitting that fishing village by the sea.  Great fun.  Still, that's all we've got?  We sound pretty doomed."

"Well, at least we'll be warm," Kiku noted, striding over to the edge of the fiery bit and smirking.  "Here I was, afraid of a frosty reception."

"Ha ha, very funny," Uzulek muttered.  He winced and wiggled his fingers.  "Ah, damn it!  Feeling coming back into my fingers after all the cold and gripping.  Bleeding frostbite."

"Hah," snorted Goxa.  "Yeah, that'll do."

"Do for what?"

"A name for this hole.  Sharp, burning pain amidst the ice?  Frostbite it is."

Uzulek rolled his eyes and picked up his whip.  It was time for the slaves to get to work.







Sheget's breath!  So many trolls...

[Dbuhos]

Fifty Nine trolls ? Holy shit. With my fortress playing skills I would have been whipped out in few seconds.
Also I love the story It's detailed and has many dialogs, I like.

[TALLPANZER]

When I saw your write up on Skrunge I was very impressed, I showed others. I loved it, you really brought him to life.

Skrunge was watching the trolls as they milled about. The thought crossed his mind to try and milk one, but then his eyes wandered. Horns, big and sharp. He stared at the horns, he wanted the horns. The horns would go on his hat, a nice steel skull cap with those nice horns to decorate it. With a stick, Skrunge tried to draw the horned skull cap, but he just could not draw it the right size. So the troll keeps his horns, until Skrunge can draw better. Skrunge stopped wasting time thinking and continued to look for rocks. Rocks for bashing. The bashing could start at any time.

[OmnipotentGrue]

Fifty Nine trolls ? Holy shit. With my fortress playing skills I would have been whipped out in few seconds.
Also I love the story It's detailed and has many dialogs, I like.

There are sixty trolls.

[Neyvn]

And he didn't fight them, they were embark items, that he wrote as something else for the story side of things...

[Iituem]

7th Granite, 70th year of goblin reign.
Journal of Goxa Urarxost

Been stuck at this hole a week now.  The great irony is that for all the water around here, none of it's wet enough to drink.  Lucky we hit that great big firepit, isn't it?  Ozo stumbled across a solution to this one; dig out a trench directly beneath an ice floe, fill it with magma from the pit and catch the meltwater in a basin above.  If it weren't for how long the damn pit took to excavate, I'd be a much happier man.  As it is, we've had to sleep using trolls as bedding and comfort and we all stink to high heaven now.  What are we even going to do with all these trolls?


23rd Granite

After a fair bit of work, Ozo and Smanges have hollowed out a sort of rough building from the ice.  They've built up the walls around it, and honestly it's surprisingly effective at keeping the cold out.  We drove some poles of ice into the, uh, ice, and chained the alpha troll and seventeen of his favourite females up to them for now.  The rest... I'm thinking we're going to need to cull their population a bit soon.





-----------------

Good lord, fighting sixty trolls?  That would certainly have been Fun, but no, not today.


Edit:  A little fun with Stonesense really brings this to life...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Iituem]

Ugh, crap.  We've run into a serious problem.  I deliberately didn't include STRAND_EXTRACTOR in the labours in the entity defs (well, why would I?), but as a result it's turned off all the crafting labours in the 'set labours' menu.  Unless there's another way to do this I think I'm going to have to try and recreate the entire world from seed and respawn the characters (which means personalities will be re-randomised, I'm afraid).

That or I can try and make do without leatherworking, woodcrafting, stonecrafting, bonecarving, glassmaking, weaving and clothesmaking for the rest of the game.

What do we reckon?  We alright with a cold restart on this?  All characters will be remade as close to as they were as I can manage, but there will be some differences in personality types etc.

[Jim Groovester]

I'd say restart. I'm not so attached to my character that I couldn't stand to see her replaced with a slightly different version.