Urist scowled. He swept the enraging chalice from his table. The horrid thing, the most imperfect of all his creations, the one obsidian goblet that he would never accept, sat in a corner of the room, forgotten. Urist wasn't sure if he had snapped, or if he saw the horrible reality of his situation. All his friends and family were long gone, consumed by forgotten beasts from the depths, or worse yet, elves. Elves. Urist scowled once more. Those corpse-consuming crackpots and their silly respect for nature. After the clear-cutting of the local forest for the various beds and barrels needed so badly by the dwarves, the elves had respectfully approached them and asked them to stop. The dwarves let their axes reply. The elves returned with weapons made of branches, astride ragged unicorns with their dull horns. The dwarves emerged from the Mountainhome clad in shining steel, with adamantine axes and pikes. The three-foot-high heroes were inspiring, and the civilians looked on and cheered at first. And when the fight would not end, they returned to their life underground, with the constant threat of loss hanging over their head. The battle consumed three, four generations, children being trained for war at the tender age of twelve, and being cast into battle as early as thirteen. The battle had raged back and forth for several years, with hundreds of casualties on both sides, when the elves approached again bearing the white flag of surrender-no, Urist scoffed, the white flag of failure. The dwarves accepted the ceasefire, and continued their devilish destruction. The elves looked on with resign in their eyes before retreating to their secluded mothertrees. They were not seen again for years in this area. And the dwarves! The dwarves had much to do after that. Superstitious of the old tales, the remainder of the fortress engraved memorial slabs in the deceased’s honor. No dwarf wanted to have to battle the ghosts of the fearsome warriors, made even more invincible by their death. The dwarves were bouncing back when the horrid beast Xur arrived! A one-eyed weasel with thin wings and poisonous ichors, Xur annihilated the pitiful remainder of the military quite easily. For dessert, he had the rest of the dwarves. Urist alone had survived at the cost of everyone he ever knew, and possibly his sanity. He had thrown together a shoddy wall, of the first stone at hand, the painfully bright stone known as microcline. And when the beast had finally starved and fallen, Urist saw no reason to tear down the wall. He had muddy stone for farming, he had stone to craft things with, and he had a bed. And so, in his self-made prison, Urist worked. He made wonders that would not be seen by any other eyes for years. He crafted artifacts of immense value, and the basic tools he needed to live day-to-day. In his boredom, he engraved the entire history of the fortress on the walls of his cage. And he thought. He thought well past the limits of any dwarves' mind. You see, the dwarves do not often think. They live to work. And where the humans have time to ponder the finer realms of reality, the dwarves had neatly excised thought from their lives. And Urist thought, for the first time in years. He reflected on his loneliness, his bitterness, and his happiness-they existed in equal measures. And Urist accepted it all; the dwarves don't often think, because if they did, like Urist, they would penetrate the shallow trappings of this world, and see the pointlessness behind it all. And this is exactly what Urist saw; he saw no point in living. And quietly, very quietly, he passed away.
Many years later, a caravan from the King's Fortress arrived at the gates. Finding no guards posted, only a wide field of tree stumps and corpses, they entered the great doors. They surveyed the carnage presented with mounting horror. They gazed upon the many dwarven skeletons, the crusted blood on the walls, and the various engravings detailing the fall of Irongates, the dwarven fortress. And they looked upon a section of wall that was very hastily erected, and of a horrid bright cyan stone, most likely microcline. The traders uttered their distaste, and resolved to tear down the wall before they left. But the scene that awaited eyes eagerly was not what they expected. A dwarven skeleton, clutching broken chisels, and hammers, and other tools of a mason's trade. The lumpy, poorly made objects that tumbled in a mishmash of pointlessness around the dwarf. And the insane scratchings upon the walls, presenting no picture other than the state of the dwarf's mind at the time of his perishing. And, nearly unnoticed, the smooth black chalice in the corner of the room. Lying amid rotten plump helmets, it was almost overlooked. Imagine the trader's surprise when they found, amid a room full of trash, a chalice of legendary working. The curves drew in the eye, and entreated it to stay, as if time would stop and the beholder and the chalice could be alone together for all eternity. And so the traders gathered about the beautiful obsidian goblet. And they sat. And they wasted away. And they never thought again. And when they perished there, alone, ecstatic, comatose in their great joy, the king resolved that a horrid fate had befallen Irongates, and that no one was to venture within one hundred miles of its cursed gates. And, in a way, a horrid fate had. But in another way, the best fate there could be had befallen it.
Clocked at about 1000 words, I think. So dig in, and enjoy! Also criticize. Lots.
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Topic: Bay12 Writers Guild (Read 58874 times)