Journal of Stool the Dairy Guard, adventurer of the High Tools, 18 Limestone 202Well, we've been trapped in here for a week now, and nobody's gone crazy, so I thought I'd tentatively set chisel to rock and say what's going on.
I'm Stool, warrior of cheese and fish. Hi, it's nice to meet you. I got that keen Bowie fellow to sketch me on the proviso that he could later carve a statue from the notes he took. This is me:
I'm standing in front of the western stairs at the entrance of the Place Of Filth. There's patches of cave moss and floor fungus coming along nicely, and you can see a few young nether-caps sprouting up. Most of the fungus is actually growing on fluffy wambler corpses. I don't know who let wamblers into the fortress before we buried it in magma, but there's a bit of an infestation, which the cats have been seeing to. Could be worse, I suppose. Could be
bats.
Admiring my dress? I know I am. Snappy clothiery is important. That dress was passed down from my father and my father's father, and the toga, cloak and gloves are of finest silk. And is that a turkeyskin cap on my head? Why yes, thanks for noticing.
But I swear, if that stupid herbalist calls me a fop one more time, it's his teeth on the filthy floor, for all that he's five years younger than me. I shan't deign to speak his bastard name here. I could break the fellow with one hand tied behind my back.
After all, didn't I spend thirty years adventuring in the outer wilds? I took a warhammer along for protection (got to love warhammers) but never needed it. I drove off vultures, lynxes and vicious goats with wit and bravado. Survived by catching wild maggots, milking them and making cheese in my hat. Oh, and fishing, of course.
A novice cheese maker and fisherdwarf, that's me. But I am no mere catcher of fish. I am a smiter of all that is piscine, a relentless blistering whirlwind of fish-bludgeoning activity.
Of course, surrounded by magma on all six sides, those days may be past.
Still, I love a challenge! Even coming to Rockfalls has been an experience. I adventured my way here and when the time comes, I'll adventure my way out again. I just hope I don't go crazy, pent up in a small space for an indeterminate time. Ha ha ha ha ha!
Anyway, in between furniture moving, I've been standing around drinking with my friends Skink-killer and Jitters, two of the dwarves who helped hew out this amazing place.
Skink-killer is our leader Goden's wife. She's quite pretty, with long, light brown hair I'm frankly envious of. She likes large gems, especially clear garnet. She mainly drinks dwarven beer, and does so with incredible finesse. My own preference is for a nice swamp whiskey, but there's no accounting for taste. The miner girl told us the story of how she got her name. Apparently, she likes mountain gnomes for their ability to hold their liquor (no surprises), so she sought out a tribe of them and got in a drinking contest with the entire clan. Her forfeit, when they drunk her under the table, was to eat a live skink. And since then, she's killed lizards on sight.
Skink-killer always knows exactly what's going on around her. Her sense of space helped design this place, along with her legendary mining skill, and capability as an engraver and a mason. She'll also be doing most of the brewing in the fortress (again, no surprises there). She's a bit disorganised, though, which is a worrying trait for somebody with a job as important as maintaining the whiskey supply. Skink-killer can read people, but has lousy intuition and only really seems to open up to Goden, staying guarded around everyone else.
Jitters McHighland is quite a contrast to her. Jitters comes from the bleak northern dwarves, och aye, and has their purple eyes and square chin. She's a miner, siege operator and warrior, and worships one of the north gods - Asen the Mountain of Mining, a female dwarf associated with minerals. She admires the traditions of the northern fanes, and accordingly brings a sheep with her wherever she goes. The ewe's name is apparently Fath Furnaceshaken, a name with a story behind it if I ever heard one. The moors have left her with a love of sheep and water buffaloes, and a taste for swamp whiskey that rivals my own.
Jitters is very weak and incredibly clumsy, which makes her fall down a lot. She always bounces back again, though – it's those northern bones – and as a result, she's indefatigable, tough and rarely sick. Her whole body is like a mass of scarred knuckles. Apparently she killed a buzzard here, completely by accident. Just wasn't looking where she was going. Jitters seems a bit of a pushover, really – she has no willpower and an iffy memory, and doesn't handle stress well, although she has lots of patience, social ability and intuition.
I can't tell if she's actually bad with words, as such, or if her accent is so thick that “Ah cannae stan' corroaches, thae always starchtle me, ye ken” actually means something. It's quite a pleasant rolling burr. Jitters isn't married, but word is that she's seeing Yarf the cook. Pity... Skink-killer tells me the northern lass is pretty keen on the old phallic symbols, sceptres and unicorn horns mainly. Maybe that's just a reflection on old Yarf.
The third dwarf who carved out this place is called Squadron Leader. She's also in charge of the military, and approaches everything with a keen, confident energy. She's married to some herbalist – not the bastard one, the other – and bustles around telling everyone what to do.
Apparently she's planning to put everyone on an exercise regime, so we don't get fat and lazy in these cramped confines. I'm going to try to excel, and become the warrior I was always meant to be.
For now, though, there's still a lot to be done to set up home. I love tables, personally – who in their right mind wouldn't – and we've been moving all these beautiful bits of furniture upstairs, away from the muck. We're also installing doors so people don't track filth around the fortress. All the rural types, obviously. Personally, I'm going to avoid the lower floor, since my clothes are so fine and there's nowhere to wash them.
Speaking of rural types, I've just gone to check on Surray. She's the friendly, fat old green-eyed biddy who's been running around the past fortnight like a blue-eyed bat with a bee in her bonnet, trying to find
exactly the right piece of hide. She found what she needed a while ago, though, and is now sitting in a workshop hammering and sewing things.
Anyway, here's me in the new combination bedroom, dining room, pool and hospital. That last bit I'm not too happy about. I suppose it makes sense to have the sick bay next to the watersource, though. Apparently the precise grooves those engravers have been carving in the walls will channel enough condensation to fill a fifth of a bucket per year. Yeah, about two cups drinking water. Skink-killer better be on the ball with her brewing, or we're in deep muck.
On the right of the picture is Surray working busily away, surrounded by those animals and rolling gardens she loves so much. Surray looks dry as a bone, poor thing. She has the look of a dwarf who's been without a drink for far, far too long. Must be all this manic work she's been doing. I don't have the heart to tell her to slow down, though. She's simply too affable. She likes everyone, and everything.
Except rats.
From what she's said, she also worships Gembish Autumnalrains, goddess of food, agriculture and fertility. And not just Gembish, too, but the goddess Ust. Ust the Cloudy Cacti is a female dwarf representing animals, plants, the rain, storms, lightning and luck. Something for everyone there. I suppose that particular bit of devotion just reflects Surray's love of pretty much everything that can be found on the surface. Cacao, unicorn horns and coral from the tropics in the east, llamas from the south, mead from the north, sun berries from the humans to the west, the moon in the sky, the shadow trolls that haunt the plains... incredible.
An outsider at heart, she's at home with the plants and birds and fruit-squeezing and things. I assume she's going to take over the beekeeping and fowlery around here once she's finished her little project. She's got two stacks of leather from giant toads and the ragged hide of that buzzard Jitters accidentally killed, and she's stitching them every which way.
Whoops, Squadron Leader's marching over with that fierce look in her eyes. Clearly I look like I've been slacking.
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Topic: Rockfalls the Depths of Volcanoes ~ The story of 20 dwarves in a pressure cooker (Read 70151 times)