If you don't want to be spoiled, don't scroll down.I made another thread in the fortress mode forum when I founded this place, but I felt like doing a story about it so I thought it would fit better here. If you want to download the original save, head over
to that thread. There's also one save there with the finished fort. Paint art by Heffaklumpen, thanks a lot!
Descent to hell
On orders from the queen, we had traveled to Dakostkatthir, mountainhome of the Akamegståkkol dwarves, where I saw these events that would fill my nightmares for years. These dwarves were known for producing two things, the world's finest jewelry and gallons of blood and gore. An expedition had moved to this utterly lifeless tundra 22 years ago to work on a project we knew nothing about, but which caused hundreds of goblins to attack relentlessly. During the time the outpost had grown into their mountainhome, pleasantly few trees had been harmed, so relations were fairly good and we would return every year to trade. This year, however, we had received word that they had finally finished their project, and instead of trading at the surface they had invited us to come deep into the earth.
The first sight when approaching the fortress was as always the stuff of nightmares. Dead goblins and trolls stacked on top of each other, lakes of blood and wounded animals limping around the place their master had died, everything covered in ashes. I met a giant leopard on the bridge that I myself had foolishly sold to the dwarves. Its left leg was ripped off and one eye was reduced to a gaping hole of pus. With the soul-crushing sorrow of knowing that these beasts are the only thing keeping goblins from taking over the world, we kept going.
For the first time, we were inside the dwarven home. This had obviously been a large settlement but was now completely abandoned. It warmed my heart to see trees reclaiming the rooms where the dwarves used to live, but the old refuse room was a horrifying reminder of the amount of death the dwarves constantly lived in. Even more frightening was seeing some of the creatures the dwarves had killed and harvested. Twisted, horrible creatures of flame and salt, giant insects and other monsters had been chopped into pieces and stored in this room. We hesitated a long time before going deeper into the mountain.
Past the frozen aquifer we saw the remnants of an enormous battle. Not only had the dwarves produced an unbelievable amount of death, here row after row of coffins filled the rooms. More dwarves seemed to have died than lived here at any one time.
We kept going deeper into the caverns below, filled with fear and a mixture of disgust and awe. We passed over bridges of gold, covering endless caverns, always surrounded by the stench of death and the rough dwarven art that told the story of the mountainhome. Apart from mundane events, battles were carved into the walls, showing us dwarves burning, screaming, weeping, but more importantly enduring and standing victorious.
After travelling for what seemed like days in the near total darkness, a dwarven squad came to meet us. We had previously seen adamantine, this most magical of metals and worshipped by the dwarves to the point of idolatry, but these dwarves were covered in it. Platemails, weaponry, even sewn into their flesh, this metal was everywhere. Clearly this was not an ordinary dwarven settlement. They had fought to near madness for this metal, as dwarves are wont to, but now they stood victorious, basking in a glory that even a creature of the forest like myself can't help but be captivated by. They told us the grave news, yet another goblin attack was just a few days away.
We gripped our bows and readied ourselves to join the fight, but the dwarves told us to just go deeper and trade while they took care of it. They assured us that we would only get hurt by their machinery, so we accepted and continued downwards.
After passing through a maze of water and magma channels, that had turned the very core of the earth into a passage of stone, we reached the trade depot where I must admit that I fell under the spell of adamantine. For one piece of art I gave up elven riches beyond comprehension. It hurts my very soul to say it, but even our queen would risk our lives and sanity to send us into this dwarven maze of death for a piece of adamantine.
We heard machinery click and whine, and the dwarves started screaming with joy. Apparently the goblins had walked in a compact formation on top of the same golden bridge we had passed. It gave way and while the leaders fell to their death, the other goblins scattered and fled.
Squads hurried up to the old abandoned fortress to finish off the trolls, while a crossbow squad mercilessly ended the suffering of the goblins that had survived the fall. Not one single dwarf had died in the massacre. We did not see the fight ourselves, but the smiling faces of the returning soldiers, their entire bodies covered in the light blue troll blood, sent a chill down my spine. While I wanted nothing else than to leave, I still had orders from the queen to try to find out what the dwarven project really was. I talked to Èrith Idenasob, their broker, and in his good mood after the slaughter, he agreed to show me their new home.
I followed Èrith down through a tube of semi-molten rock, the heat beating against my skin and burning the hair from my arms. After endless flights of stairs in this cramped space, suddenly we had arrived and a new world opened up beyond this one. I stood in silence for minutes. I couldn't move. These dwarves had found hell, literally found hell, they had fought it, they had won and now they lived in it.
We stood on top of a huge house, stretching from the bottom to the top of hell, with clear glass windows that offered the most spectacular sight I had ever seen. A giant colony in this gods-forsaken nightmare, with floors of microcline and walls of adamantine. Walls! This divine metal that made us give up years of food, animal friends and all the wood we could spare for just a chance to own a piece of it, and these dwarves had built a castle out of it. I couldn't believe my eyes.
Outside, I could see the price they had paid. Where the indescribable beasts roamed, dozens of dwarves lay ripped apart and abandoned, covered in rivers of blood.
I was shown past the workshop hall to the bowels of the fortress, where they stored their food, and they asked me to stop by and pay my respects at the very bottom of a glowing pit. Down there, their biggest hero was resting. In an adamantine coffin, so fine it brought tears to my eyes, one of the dwarves that had torn apart demons with his own bare hands lay. I couldn't help myself, I wept openly for the fallen. The adamantine had conquered my mind, and for years I would remember how I cried for the fallen beast, how I for a minute started to love the dwarves.
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Topic: Descent to *SPOILER* (Read 33970 times)