Office of Zero Meboddom in Zospu Smaxa Caverns
24th of Obsidian, 1051Zero stared at the object on his desk and felt the distinct impression of it staring back. The cavern master put his hand atop the object and slowly turned it's grinning face away, aiming the empty sockets at the assembly of other dwarves crowded into the unfinished room. Lofn, Dzharius, Karakzon, and Melkor; the later having only just been promoted to the rank of manager and bookkeeper for the outpost. Two of them shifted uncomfortably, Karakzon only frowned, and Melkor didn't seem to notice it at all.
Kebonluror was what everyone was calling Novod's foul creation in cautious whispers, "The Odorous Cruelty." The bulk of the helm had been carved from Mekboy's polished skull. Her jaw had been locked and her very face set to hinge so that it would close like a mask over the wears own. Finger bones rose in draconian spines from either side of the head, emerging into menacing spikes from sections of her own back bone. The thing radiated a malice more vile than any tree Zero had ever seen. He could almost hear Mekboy screaming within the skull.
"Okay," he said, returning the vile thing to the leather sack it had been delivered in only once they had all been forced to take a close look. He folded his thick fingers together atop his desk. "What do we do about this?"
"Kill him." Karakzon's response was, as always, pragmatic and violent.
Lofn quickly shook his head. "That's too much. My people would not stand for it."
"And ours
are? Your man murdered one of our own. In cold blood."
"Mekboy had been pushing him too hard," Dzharius interjected calmly, throwing never the less sad looks at the sack that held the bone helmet. "She'd been pushing
everyone too hard. It was only a matter of time before someone snapped."
"When Kubuk Ikud dwarves snap, we just yell at who we're mad at. We don't turn them into
hats."
"He was in a state! Possessed! He doesn't even remember he did it!"
Zero drummed his knuckled against the stone desktop until the others went silent. He leaned back in his chair and regarded them in silence. Some of that was to take a moment to be grateful to have a chair to lean back in - it was the only one in the cavern just yet. Finally though, he spoke. "This isn't about Kubuk Ikud dwarves and Losiszas dwarves. This is about
all dwarvenkind. We're all that's left, apart from that old mad man Lofn told us about. What we need to know, more than anything, is if we can really
afford to lose another? Melkor?"
All eyes turned to the youngest dwarf in the room. Youngest and smallest. melkor had never been made for hard labor or hard travel and that she had survived the last years of the journey that took them here was thanks largely to an icy and stubborn persistence. Her pale face was drawn tight around cold green eyes that, so far, had been more focused on the smooth stone tablets she'd brought with her than on the rest of the conversation.
"Mathematically speaking, no," she answered, not looking up. "We need as many breeding pairs as we can have and the lose of a potential birthing mother by itself has set us back considerably. By my calculations, there will already be considerable degradations of the dwarven bloodlines within a few generations, though not one beyond recovery. Most will not even notice. Troglodytes can hardly be expected to appreciate the greater stupidity of one of their own without the ability to recognize genius first."
"So we can't kill him," Zero went on.
I think. "Nor punish him in a way that might result in his death."
"Lock him up with the other animals then," Karakzon shrugged. "Feed him for the rest of his life and let him out to stud when there is no other choice. As long as we don't have to be near him."
"Also not a statistically viable option," Melkor said, looking back and forth between a pair of tablets and frowning. "As well as being low on potential mating pairs, we are also desperately short on dwarfpower. Our labor pool is too small to reduce either. I combined the numbers of dwarves and necessary jobs into over two hundred different arrangements and there is not one where a critical task is left unfinished due to the loss of a second dwarf."
"No one is going to want to work side by side with a murder," Karakzon grumbled.
Melkor sighed and finally pried her eyes from the tablet, turning an empty, icy stare onto the old soldier. "What they want does not enter the calculations. This is about what they
need to do to ensure the survival of our race."
"Enough from the both of you," Zero said, giving the table top another rap of his fist. "As much as it pains me to say it, but Melkor is probably right. We cannot, for now, afford to punish Novod no matter how much we may want to."
"His guilt is already punishing him enough," Dzharius said with a shake of his head. "It's no secret that he and Mekboy were not getting along and that he was suffering from withdrawal worse than most of us, but even at his worst, he wouldn't knowingly do...
that."
Karakzon snorted. "I think Mekboy would disagree with you on that point. Whatever the case, we shouldn't let him keep hauling a pick around. Not until we're sure this won't happen again."
"I couldn't agree more," Zero nodded. "Melkor, take him off mining duty from now and keep him away from the weapon stockpiles. Have him work with Bob on her farm. She's been saying she needs help out there and it will keep him away from most of the other dwarves."
Besides, with Eric practically living with Bob out there as it was, if Novod
did go mad again, there would be someone on hand who could stop him. They went over a few more things around the outpost, small details to take their minds off the events that had transpired, before Zero dismissed them all from his office. Karakzon, last from the room, paused at the door and tipped his head to the leather sack on the floor.
"You want me to get rid of that?"
"No, I'll deal with it in my own way," Zero said, waving the soldier off distractedly and turning his attention to the floor plans for the new dining hall he'd been scratching onto his tabletop. He saw Karakzon hesitate a moment more, then shuffle from the room and vanish out into the hall; the office had no door yet. Zero was silent, the skin stretched tight on his ears as he listened to Karakzon's diminishing foootsteps until they vanished completely. The marking stone dropped from his hand at once and he turned in his chair to heft the leather sack. His had reached in and emerged with Kebonluror. Mekboy's empty eyes stared desperately at him, her mouth seemingly open wide to scream. Zero smiled at her and touched a finger to the eye socket. "Hello, old friend."
The administrator took another glance at the door and listened, making sure no one else was coming, before he lifted the fell artifact and slowly slid it into place over. "I always did want to see what was going on inside your head..."
---
Office of Zero Meboddom in Zospu Smaxa Caverns
25th of Felcite, 1051Kiratha and Shaman stood before the rows of black-cap cages and watched as the mishappen creatures within sulked and squated within. One in particular seemed the calmest, with blue eyes that stared at them with a sleepy sort of intelligence and a pin-head that tilted to the side curiously. The engineer tapped Shaman on the shoulder, motioning for him to stay put, then took a deliberate step closer to the cage. The yeti continued to stare calmly and Kiratha took another step closer, the toes of his boots passing into the shadow of the prison.
The change was almost instantaneous. All at once the muscular brute let out a honking roar and threw itself at the bars of the cage, it's long limbs stretching out for Kiratha. Standing calmly, the engineer merely watched as the dark hands with their chipped and ruined nails grasped and clawed at the air mere inches from his face. He turned to look back at the wild dwarf behind him.
"So you can see they're pretty vicious."
"Yes," Shaman nodded, looking almost bored by the reaction of the beast. "We have stories of soldiers doing battle with these brutes for generations. Tales of them ripping hammerlords in half. Eating children whole."
"Yeah, that seems to be what most of my peoples stories are of too. One thing our another ripping this person in half, eating that person whole. Everything from dragons to elk-birds. Zero even made a few up about trees killing some ancient king. Wouldn't know they were fake if you didn't know zero," Kiratha chuckled darkly. He took a step back from the cage, though the yeti continued to howl and thrash, and stood next to Shaman again. "Do you think you can tame them?"
The wild dwarf considered the question, scratching at his beard. No, picking at it apparently. He pulled a wriggling beetle from the matted hair and casually tossed it into his mouth, crunching on the shell thoughtfully. Kiratha didn't question the meal, but the source made him a little nauseous.
"They are not of the caves," Shaman said after a moment. "They are spirits of the ice and snow. They do not speak to me as the crundle and the mole rat do. I could force their obedience, but never tame their souls."
Kiratha could never even pretend to know what the wild dwarf was talking about. He almost wish he'd asked Bob or Eric to come along just to translate Crazy Mystic into Dwarven, but they both had their own jobs to deal with just now. "Well... would that keep them from attacking anyone?"
"Yes," Shaman said, bobbing his head. "Or at least none you do not wish them to, but it would be very blunt, very crude."
"That's enough for me," Kiratha sighed in relief.
Shaman was his last hope for doing something with the raging fur bags who kept trying to invade the upper levels of the caves. With all the wood going to make beds, they'd run out of empty cages. After one had gotten in thanks to a trap never getting reloaded and Elfeater had injured his hand putting it down, Kiratha knew they had to clear out the other yeti somehow. It was either tame them or throw them off a cliff. With almost all the fancies dead fighting crundles, having more guard animals around was preferable than just more dead animals.
He smiled at the wild dwarf and padded a dirty shoulder. Something crawled under his hand and he quickly pulled it off, rubbing his palm hurriedly against his pant leg. "Melkor already said to just take whatever you need out of the food stockpiles. Just be sure to let me know when you've got the first one tamed, so I can get the cage cleared and back into a trap."
"I will let you know when their flesh has submitted to my hand. Your wait will never end if you wish to know only when they have been tamed."
"... riiiiiiight," Kiratha nodded slowly. He took a step back to make his exit, though not with any great haste. Just because he didn't
understand Shaman didn't mean the dwarf scared him. He was the good sort of crazy, at the end of the day. "If you need anything else, I'll be up in the carpenters workshop, shaping more beds...
Shedim."
Kirath'a mouth stayed open after he uttered the name of the Cave Spider God and he stopped mid-step as the yetis all abruptly went mad. He'd never seen anything quiet like it before. All at once, the white furred beasts started tearing at their cages and rocking them back and forth. None of them were lunging at Shaman as the one had for Kiratha himself though, but instead seemed to be trying to run after Kiratha himself. To flee up into the caves. The cages were holding strong, but the sheer intensity of their thrashing sent a cold chill running up the engineer's spine.
"All I need, the caves will provide," Shaman spoke loudly, shaking Kiratha out from his worried fascination. The wild dwarf looked up, smiled somewhat and waved a hand to see him off. Kiratha blinked and waved back, glad for the... dismissal? That was what the gesture had been, he realized. It seemed a bit strange coming from Shaman, but he wasn't about to question. Anything not to be trapped in a room with half a ton of snow-ape gone mad.
---
Shaman continued to stand at stare towards the cages for sometime, though he was not looking at the panicking yeti. Cave-cloud mushrooms churned through his blood and made his jade eyes tremble, seeing into the Far-Beyond where the great Force lay.
"You can come out," he said out loud. "I know you're there."
Yes.The panic of the yeti only redoubled as an amorphous gray cloud billowed from the cracks in the floor and rolled between the rows of cages. Cave mists were hardly rare, but this one moved in a way too deliberate to be mistake for natural. The creeping tendrils of gray fog reached for Shaman, but drew up short as they pressed against some invisible field of tension around him.
"You cannot have me," Shaman said softly, his voice sympathetic but resolved. "You cannot have any of us."
The mist rose up and spread out through an intangible mold, fleshing out the figure and face of a dwarf. A dwarf with a hole pierced through her head. White mist bled out from the ghostly figure's wound.
Help.Shaman shook his haed. "I cannot help you, Mekboy Kolmeng. You are already dead."
Mekboys face twisted. Not in the fashion of living flesh, with muscles tightening, but a complete transformation into something undwarven and alien. As if a crundle and a dwarf had somehow been bred together. Insubstantial hands reached for Shaman in a gesture that was both plea and threat.
Help. Or else."You are dead," Shaman repeated. "No one mourns you so greatly as to give you strenth. You can do nothing."
The ghost's face fell, the alien features slagging off into a falling mist as Mekboy's own reemerged. The ghostly formed shivered, then with wide eyes looked back up.
Warning."Of what?"
Momuz.The Goddess of Suicide of the Kubuk Ikud. Shaman knew all the names of those little spirits. "From her?"
The ghost shook it's head.
About."Tell me your warning then," the wild dwarf bid. Things of spirit had greater insight into the machinations of the gods.
Another shake of her head.
Help."I can help you to rest."
"No!" Mekboy answered, her voice so sharp with anger it actually passed beyond spirit and whispered into the room. The back of Shaman's neck tingled.
"Then what?"
Vengeance.Shaman sat and leaned back onto his arms. "Hm."
---
The ghost of Mekboy appears!
Beginning to think I need to think of a new way to format how I write these though. Takes so long to get through some things, which is to say plotty things, that catching up with recent day-to-day events in the fortress is a lot harder. I've seen some people do quick journal-style entries, so maybe I should try that...
can my dwarf pull a practical joke?
I want to give the helm to someone to freak them out when i tell them how it was made.
with a serious and straight face naturaly. ^^
Sorry to spoil that plan, though with only 20 dwarves in the whole fort now I sort of think everyone would know about the helmet and where it came from. When your whole race lives in a cramped hole in the ground, it's a lot harder to cover up the news that someone murdered someone else and turned them into a piece of designer apparel.
Can I be dwarfed up? My card is here: *snip*
Well, we've got three dwarves left: A butcher, a glazer, and a leatherworker, all female. I can dorf you as one of those, but if you want to be male you're going to have to wait till filks start having babies.
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Topic: Clan of the Cave Spider - Community Cavern Fortress (Read 9636 times)