Entry amok know which of the year 5 of god knows what day
i don't know how it all ended abrubtly. Maybe it was the pandamens. Or pandawomans. Maybe it was the goblin. Maybe the forgotten beasts of the cavern. Maybe it was just those dead merchants. I don't know. What i know is that that madmen of Sarvesh will die. We are the only two still alive down here. And he will go down. If i ever get to leave my room that is. Project acquifer. I shiver recalling it. He did everything behind my back. Without even asking help from anyone. He grabbed a pick a break through it. And we didn't notice. It was winter. everything was frozen. But then...he also made a big 3 level deep pool to keep the water confined in the beginning. nobody saw what happened, it was behind a door all the time. Our cats and dogs busy with the snatchers. Nobody realised what was going to happen. And then, as some mentioned afterwards, a strange locked door appeared, and behind the door, a wall. We didn't care. We thought it was strange. We didn't realize a stark raving mad sarvesh would have been our fall.
And he even seemed sane enough.
We recieved our first goblin siege, and it was quite simple, our woodcutter chopped them off himself, before returning to cutting wood. Chopping goblins or trees might have been the same for him. Maybe. Not seing sarvesh, i had thought he had finally calmed down. Truth be told, he was plotting something. When the mason started mass producing statues of forgotten beast, while none were still to be seen for a long time, i started worrying. It was only later that i stumbled into a squared room filled with those statues and engraved with images of cheese, flies, and dwarfs screaming in agony. i would have removed everything, were it not that the authors of the masterworks would have gotten angry. what shocked me the most was the single lever placed in the center of the room, surrounded by the statues, i dared not touch it, and left it there. i didn't know what forces would be unleashed by moving it...and that's why i didn't.
Later somebody complained that a dwarf was missing, and strange noises were coming from behind the misterious wall...but nobody dared to look.
We welcomed the new migrants, and set up a working military for the next siege. Drafting and training them in danger rooms. They weren't happy, but the legendary dining room and statue garden made them happy, and furthermore, a post it was applied on the lever in the center of the statue garden, saying "DO NOT TOUCH BY AMOK'S BLOOD!" Years passed, merchants passed, sieges passed, and we finally struck the caverns. Just when we became a barony. Nobles were happy, that to be said that I was happy of my gold room, because gold veins where everywhere in the mountain. everywhere. and silver. I enjoy silver. I love it so much i prohibit it's export. But it's the only thing i do. Strangely, when i order silver items, silver floodgates are made, and connected to something. and then scratching is heard again, and again from behind the wall...amok knows why. Now i don't care, i have beautiful wife...and childrens...oh yes...i had them...but they are right here with me now, so it's all going to be fine. They are all on my scepter, their figures, and they talk to me, you see, they tell me they want me, the childrens are missing their daddy. And i'm going to come to them, i'm going to unlock the door and reach them, i can swim, you see, i should have known, i should have acted before, but the only thing i could do was sense something, and order a channel of water dug out nearly everywhere, to train dwarfs to swim. it was hard at first, but then everybody accepted it. i should have known those channel would have been our downfall. Too much water, it had to come from somewhere.
Mood came and went, artifacts were build. like Shiningwhite, an artifact buckler made of bones. Or Truewood, a cabinet which is still here, in my room, it's looking at me, his encrusted with gems, and silver and gold bands, and has spikes of wood, bone, and lead. He has images of the foundation of this amokdamn place...and of that damn artifact, the lost one, the Artifact floodgate. Made of cinnabar, red as blood, and menacing with spikes of tin. It was there, it looked at me, and it disappeared. Nobody knew where. But he knew, Sarvesh had to know! Then a room suddenly appeared near the strange wall. It was found out after digging a hole in the caverns wall. it was a lake. a lake, a really big lake. And there were levers, lot's of levers. and bit's of food and booze were down there...and a bed. Somebody was living there, but we couldn't ponder much about it...because somebody came. or maybe something, would have been better. I still hear the screams in my head when i think about it! a beast forgotten by time itself! a dreaded creature of the water, with tentacles, and acidic skin. it's body resembling a slug, but filled with teeths and spikes. the survivor claimed to have seen, before running away, a red floodgate, showing in the dept of the pool. somebody had piled up floodgate after floodgate. somebody, was it to trap the creature, but who could have done it? who could have swam, or found a way around, and build that thing? WHO!? i didn't know at the time, i didn't remember about project acquifer. I was too taken by my family, my nice things, my mandates and prohibition, i enjoyed applying laws, and justice. yes. i was truly happy. but it didn't last much. Then, one dreaded day, an ambush claimed the farmers and a siege closed us in. We were trapped. But thought our military would provide. We were wrong. terribly wrong. Our military were fighting the forgotten beast deep in its cave, swimming around it, fighting it. But they were in her element, and while she stood dead, so did much of our strenght...and then the captain of the guard tantrummed. i checked and understood why. His wife was a guard like him, and died against the monster, and he had never been quite the soldier. furthermore...she was carrying her baby with her! dwarfs don't make good mothers. or fathers...but still...he tantrummed, ravaging and ripping apart a couple of levers, before he was stopped. and killed.
only three soldiers remained, legendary soldiers, maybe, but still soldiers. They were sent out, through a newly dug exit, to attack the siege and drive it back. They never returned. And the stair was never closed...somebody just had to go and take a quick nap, didn't you, SARVESH!? you were behind it all! you amok-damn elf-*uck**! the goblins came in from the stair, with the ambush squad, and it was an utter massacre...we were closed inside the meeting hall, our burrow. When you, Sarvesh, said words i will remember until i gut you out. "i have an idea...let's pull that lever" he said, pointing to it nonchalantly, like you didn't know what it did! "we don't know what it does, and amok damn i'm tired of seeing levers!" i spouted back at him. "better than to stay here and die of thirst and hunger..." he replied, at which point, a couple of dwarf tantrummed "i don't want to die here noooo!" and were put down, by the crowd. we were still 80 dwarf, it would have pretty much soon turned into a blood bath. "fine, to hell with it. pull the amok damn lever" and a dwarf obliged...
the noise, i will still remember it, first, the clanking of at least ten floodgates operating and opening. then, the swooosh of water being freed by it's constraint, then, through grates, through bars, through the same doors left open, following the channels...water flew in. from down below, the acquifer pumped and pumped water. And water came. and we heard goblin screaming as they were drowning. we heard them yell, and run, and we felt happy as the siege was lifted...but then..."now let's press the lever again and close everything" but a dwarf..."NOoooo we are all going to die in the water...they'll come back, we are going to dieeeee!" and broke the lever in two pieces...silence fell in the hall. the swooshh who seemed so nice and helpful now became dreaded noise of doom...he was killed, while blood filled the room, and miasma from the already rotting corpses came through.
many dwarfs went mad, and many were killed. "open the door, i'm out!" "NOOOO" and the door flew open, water pouring in, sarvesh and i were the only legendary swimmers. So we swam, out of the current, and while i went for my room, i saw him going somewhere else... "WERE BLUBLBU ARE YOU GOING SARVESH?!" "TO THE SAFETY LEVERS!" he yelled, it didnt' strike me know. i had to reach my room. i closed myself in, sealing the water out, thankful for my room to be in the upper side of the fortress. and when i paused i muttered "safety...levers?" those levers that the ravaging soldier destroyed? not all of them, but quite a lot of them. and here i am now...writing my last will and testament. BEWARE of Sarvesh, the acquifer dwarf, beware if he were to ever reach your fort, in any way. remember, my last words, and may amok help you, if you read this, for i am going to end this, once and for all...the swoosh has grown less intense now, maybe something was done, but i don't know what. i'm going out. i'm finishing this. to anyone who finds this diary...i died a brave Baron.
later on...
"sarvesh...so here you are" i said, looking at him, next to the levers, many pulled, while he was drinking beer and eating lavish meals from his stocks... "oh my, baron of nothing is here! so, did you like it? my Project acquifer? a pity you destroyed some of my safety levers...we are now stuck here. But you can look from the windows, the water is now on a stable level, given time, the fort will dry up, and migrants will arrive." "no" "what did you say?" "i said no." "what?! do you think it was funny for me?" "this madness ends now. I lost my family to your project" "you lost your fort, to my project, to be precise. Had it been my fort, it would have survived" "you...you did this for revenge?" "no, i did it for progress." "SAY THE TRUTH AT LEAST ONCE!!" grabbing him by the robe snarling at him "progress has many faces...but is impartial, i assure you" "you...you...YOUUUUUUU ARGHHH" and a battle of fists, teeths, and strikes began...
later on still
an adventurer stumbles upon the muddy entrance of a lost fort, walking his way through broken stairways, and ruins and moved furniture, through ancient artifacts, and claiming an artifact buckler while at it, he stumbles upon a cavern...entering the cavern, he follows a trail of a sort of paved road, to a little underground room filled with broken levers. There lies the skeleton of a dwarf, holding tightly in its claws the skeleton of another dwarfs arm... "what happened down here?" "do you truly want to know, brave one?" whispers a voice behind him. Turning quickly, he cannot strike as fast or protect himself against the one armed dwarf, who's eyes glint in the red of madness, and after the adventurers dies, disregarding his rations, the dwarf starts eating the body of the human. "project acquifer...will start as new...as soon as i get my strenght back...ahahahahahahahmwuahuahuaauhauhauah"
the end.
my five years fort crumbled ç_ç while narratively written, the events are pretty much summarized well. the ending is a bit of a writers concession, still, i found it fitting.
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Topic: The history of Cosmosabbey, the angel of age. (Read 563 times)