Kobold Cave in the High Tooth Mountains
3rd of Granite, 1151
"Strike the Earth!" Kiratha proclaimed, a broad finger aimed resolutely towards the heavens.
"What do you think I'm doing?" Sognard groused, hefting the blue stone pick off his shoulder and slamming it's point into the cavern floor. Kiratha dropped his finger and grinned through his bushy beard. Kobolds milled all around them. The braver among them inching closer to the pair of dwarves to peek around Kiratha's legs to watch Sognard steadily pounding at the stone floor.
It had taken them a few days to unload the cart closer to the cave. They'd sent their human guide, Eram, back to the village to tell the other dwarves they'd found a place to settle. The leggy ranger had looked hesitant at the notion of leaving them in among a gaggle of kobolds, but gone off at their insistence.
Sognard had been sent in first to cut their way down through the lower levels and into the great caverns that lay below. Kirthason had come along, according to him, to supervise. Sognard gave the grinning mechanic the evil eye. "Maybe if you pitched in to help me, this would-Whoa!"
"Sognard!" the mechanic jumped forward and siezed the back of Sognard's shirt, pulling him back as the floor caved right up to the toes of the miner's boots. Kobold barks filled the air like a pack of toy dogs. Some fled for the cave entrance with their arms flailing above their heads, while the braver simply scampered back to the other side of the cave. Only one stuck around, a pair of tiny hands grasping Kirathason's leg and tugging at it valiantly, if uselessly, to help.
Sognard stumbled back a step, then steadied himself, casting his fellow a grateful look. Both dwarves inched for the edge of the pit that had opened up, billowing dust huffing out of the hole in the floor. The kobold, Sognard couldn't tell one from another to figure out which it was, crept up as well. The floor had dropped out from under Sognard's pick, breaking off into a single sloping slab of stone. It wasn't the sort of sculpted ramp Sognard had been trying for. He'd been expecting there to be a whole lot more floor to cut through.
"Be damned," Sognard muttered, scratching at his beard. "Go tell the others. There is a lot more cave here than we thought."
Hidden Cave Beneath the Kobold Cave
19th of Granite, 1151
Xil was busy directing the other five dwarves in where to haul and store their supplies, so Karakzon had to wait to make his report. The effort seemed a little wasted to him, given that they were soon to move it all again to the lower levels, but he trusted the doctor to know what she was doing. The Hidden Cave hadn't shown any signs of the usual sort of habitation. No bones or old skins and the only droppings on the floors were the tiny pellets of rats. It had seemed safe enough to move in.
Karakzon and Dzharius had explored to the bottom earlier in that week. Eight floors in total they found, then a short hall before the whole thing opened up into a cavern whose floors were thick with fungal growth. Water from one of the countless cave pools washed against the shore of a level expanse of cave floor that would be perfect for growing crops. It was exactly the sort of place they'd been hoping for. Rain had said the description reminded her a lot of Zopsu Smaxa. Even she didn't seem to know how to think about that comparison.
Everything had seemed perfect, except for the webs.
Massive white strands of gooey silk stretched between the towering mushroom trees that grew on one side of the cavern. Karakzon had never actually seen a giant cave spider's web before. It was beautiful, in it's own way. He could see why their ancestors might have made gods from such beasts. Or maybe it had more to do with the rampant slaughter such monsters tended to commit on unprepared dwarves. The webs had looked empty, but they weren't about to take the risk they were not.
While the two military dwarves had stood guard, Kirathason had carved out some rough mechanisms and cages from their supplies and assembled a few traps around the narrow cavern entrance. The problem had been figuring out how to lure. Finally, with no other choice, Karakzon had set his armor and crossbow aside and gone down himself. He'd never felt anything quiet like the soft, spongy floor of the cavern. The thick moss was damp and brackish water issued out from under his boots with every step. The air smelled musty and sour with rotting plants, mingled with the dry funk of the towering mushrooms around him. A small stone in hand, Karakzon had taken aim for the wall of massive webs and let fly, ready to flee back into the hidden caves above the moment so much as a rat scurried near by.
Xil finished helping Cheveux get a barrel of dwarven vodka down the slope from the floor above, shooing a kobold off the burly old dwarf's shoulder, then turned back to Karakzon. "So?"
"No giant spiders," he reported, his calm voice belaying the relief he felt at that. No telling how fast one of those things could have moved. If he had found one. "Looks like we can head in when you're ready."
"Looks like Urist's old god chased out all his children for us," Xil smiled, a rare expression for her. She didn't keep it long. "Fine. Good. I'll send Sognard down to start carving out chambers. I want you and Dzharius to help finishing bringing everything in, then get back on duty guarding down there. Much as I don't trust those kobolds not to steal everything we leave laying topside, I trust those caverns not to start disgorging horrors on us even more. I've listened to the stories about Momuz enough to be careful."
Karakzon "I don't think Dzharius and I will be able to do much if there is another dark god down there."
"Then lets hope all you have to deal with are giant flesh eating spiders," Xil answered, watching as Rain came down the slope, wobbly under the weight of a massive stack of bound leathers. The doctor looked back at Karakzon and nodded her head towards the elder dwarf.
"Right, think positive," Karakzon chuckled drily as he shucked his shirt and hurried over to keep Rain from rolling the rest of the way down the slope.
Cavern Excavation in the Dwarven Outpost
20th of Malachite, 1151
Sweat poured off Sognard's hairy chest as his thick arms threw the pickaxe towards the cavern wall with a steady rhythm. Stone crumbled in massive chunks from the wall with every impact of the pick, tumbling into piles at the floor that were almost immediately cleared away by the dwarves at work on the walls of the open cavern outside. Xil had insisted they wall off the two entrances to the deep-caverns that flanked their little slice of home and recruited almost everyone to help build it. Only Sognard had been excused, much to his own merriment. The only trained mason in the whole fort was left hacking out stone chambers while those who had no idea what they were doing built the barrier that was supposed to protect them from the monsters of the deep-cave.
Not that he minded. Building walls was back breaking, uncreative work. About the only thing he found more unfulfilling was hauling barrels to the stockpile and his status as their only miner was going to get him out of that little chore as well.
"Yip!" a voice barked over his shoulder in greeting as a kobold in tiny leathers and a stone dagger on his hips swaggered, as much as a kobold could swagger, into the half-finished dining chamber.
"Well, hello Kilifichramin."
The kobold's lips curled back from it's needle fangs in the rather grotesque mimicry of a smile. Kilifichramin probably wasn't his's real name, just the one Rain had given to him. She seemed intent on naming all the lizard-dogs, though she seemed to be the only one who ever knew which was which. Except for Kilifichramin. Sognard was never sure just what the kobold warrior's actual position among it's people was, but he seemed to be someone of standing. He was the only one who'd braved the caverns to visit them so far, though most had started moving in to the Hidden Cave levels above, now that the dwarves were abandoning them.
"Shedim!" the kobold ruffed at Sognard's back as the dwarf returned to work.
"Shedim to you too," he grunted, striking the wall and freeing another load of rock onto the floor.
"Shedim!" Kilifichramin barked more insistently.
"Of course. Shedim. Shedim is good, I guess," Sognard answered. He'd never really been much for the hokey old gods. Urdim Uzolzes Asen Nelas, the fire-imp trickster, and the Jeweled Lady Tobul Dakasbal had always appealed to him more. The kobold growled and yammered behind him.
Sognard struck the wall a third time, but by then he realized he having to work around the piles of stone that had built up steadily on the ground. The uncleared rock choked at his ankles until he finally gave up and stepped back, glaring around at the mess. He craned his neck to look out into the cavern, but there was no sign of movement beyond the darkened hall. "Where the hell is everyone?"
A tiny clawed hand grabbed his wrist and yanked, cutting the skin a little. Sognard tugged his arm away quickly, glaring down Kilifichramin. The kobold didn't shrink like most of his kind would, but pointed a boney claw upwards and barked once again. "Shedim."
A frown carved itself into Sognard's face. Why would everyone up and go visit with the kobolds? Outside of Rain, most of them barely tolerated the barking, yowling little beasts. The only word any of them could speak was the name of the old spider god and the only time they said that was...
... was when there were dwarves around.
Sognard could have slapped himself. That was what the kobold had been trying to tell him. There were dwarves up there. More dwarves. Their people had arrived.
"Guess you're not so useless after all," Sognard told Kilifichramin, giving the lizard-dog a passing pat on his head. The kobold flinched away from the gesture somewhat and stood up tall on his legs, growling. The miner pulled back his hand with a roll of his eyes. "Right, sorry. Dignity of the office? Guess people in charge at the same everywhere. Well, lets go see who arrived..."
"Shedim!" the kobold agreed.
----
Nothing too interesting so far, beyond the migrant wave arriving. There was the oddity of a much larger cave network hidden under the kobold cave, but it was also uninhabited. What little we've explored of the first cave level has been too. After the Great Krundle War in Zopsu Smaxa, it's both a relief and disappointing that this cave has been so easy thus far. Still, the presence of multiple patches of giant cave spider webs leaves me hopeful some of those nasty critters are hiding near by.
Eight new dwarves, mostly female and including 2 children. I'll upload the profiles if/when I get the chance, but for basic we've got:
Domas Megidamost: Waxworker/Glassmaker/Fish Cleaner, Male
Edem Athamkivish: Gem Cutter/Cook/Miller/Potash Maker, Female
Goden Inalgeshud & Kivish Tishisunib: Edem's two children, Female
Kadol Lularezum: Grand Master Carpenter/Cheese Maker, Female
Kel Dakononol: Potter/Gem Setter/Miller, Female
Limul Kolbidok: Bee Keeper/Engraver/Mason/Herbalist, Female
Minkot Dakostasol: High Master Ly Maker/Clothier, Female
No one with military skills and Edem appears to be a single mother.
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Topic: Clan of the Cave Spider - Community Cavern Fortress (Read 9606 times)