He'd known the other council members were idiots, but even HE was surprised at their decision.
"Mountains? Are they CRAZY? How, exactly, do they plan to survive in a MOUNTAIN? What are they going to eat?
Rocks?"
He chuckled to himself at the thought of the other seven councildwarves, the great and mighty founding dwarves, reduced to a feast of dirt, with-
if they were lucky- some sand mixed in.
Of course, the debate hadn't gone his way from the start. When he proposed a life in the soil layer, they practically kicked him out of the discussion. He'd never understood their obsession with rocks. You could do just as much with wood as you could do with stone, but the others didn't see it that way.
"Well," he thought, "it doesn't matter. They all left for their "mountainhomes", and since they weren't smart enough to stick with me, it won't be my fault when they all starve. For now, though...
I could use something to eat."
Zas set about gathering some plants to eat. He didn't have much experience with plants and herbs, but as he picked the berries and leaves of the shrubs around him he wondered why none of them were ever poisonous. Nevertheless, he kept at it, until he had cleared a sizeable area.
"Alright... now, let's cut down a tree or two, and see if we can't make a half-decent barrel to put some booze in. It's been ages since I had a good drink."
Zas had always been the strongest member of the council, and he had no apparent trouble chopping a handful of trees down to a more dwarfy size. He had a bit more difficulty actually constructing the barrel, but a barrel is a fairly simple enough object, and he had one built before he knew it.
"I wouldn't want to
live in it, but it should hold some beer well enough. Now, to make the actual beer..... I don't have a single clue how beer is made, come to think of it. I know it involves leaves, so, I guess I'll take some of these, and then...."
With a barrel full of what Zas hoped was beer, he leaned over and took a deep swig.
"Sppppfffff- Blech! I'm not sure what to call this, but
beer is a helluva lot nicer than the word I'd use."
Either way, Zas was thirsty, and the spring thaw hadn't yet melted the frozen pond nearby, so he didn't have much of a choice. The next thing to do, Zas decided, was to get underground. Zas grabbed his pick, and struck the frozen earth.
Zas had a long road ahead of him- "But not as long as the road the council has to take to get to the mountains!"- but he was strong, confident, and, most importantly, was
not about to let the councildwarves prove him wrong.
He would survive- no,
thrive- and THEY would wither and die in their precious mountains, with him laughing all the while.
Author
Topic: DirtTowers, or The Outcast (Read 4737 times)