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[DS]

Two topazolite fiends attacked the fortress, and the Royal Fortresses, led by prince Asmel, maneuvered to the defense. Kol Claspedrelief was perhaps a little too eager to join into the fray, and rushed ahead of the rest of his squad. The fiends caught him and crushed his bones beneath their towering mineral limbs. The so-called youngest dwarf was struck down by a well-placed blow that crushed his skull and propelled his body dozens of feet away. The prince and the Quakedented children destroyed the interlopers without further trouble.

[DS]

Within a day of the previous attack, two wraiths of snow struck from the west. The enormous, snowy humanoids rushed towards the curtain wall, and the military, always ready, prepared for the attack. While they were preoccupied, one of the wraiths moved around the base of the stairwell, killing a passing merchant who was participating in the construction of the temple. The two demons were quickly overcome, however - but it seems that when one threat is neutralized in hell, another appears to replace it.

For no sooner than the wraiths been destroyed, five of their snowy kin appeared from the north. The fiends took flight, shrieking out of a purple vortex towards the line of dwarves hauling the body and equipment of Kol Claspedrelief back to the fortress. The military, fresh from one battle, moves across the barren landscape to eagerly join another. The civilians scatter, and four of the demons choose the closer targets presented by the fortress' warriors, and are quickly slain. One ranges far, however, and kills two dwarves before it can be caught and destroyed.

With the military away, chasing after the wraith of snow, the forces of hell sense a weakness. A mite brute strikes from the west, and manages another kill before it can be neutralized.

When the adamantine spire was breached, the demonic army struck in force, but it was turned away like a copper arrow striking a steel shield. Now, perhaps, they have found the weakness of the dwarves, and strike blow upon blow, content to win the battle against the dwarves through attrition.

As the dwarves retreat to the relative safety of the curtain wall, the prince surveys the landscape. The plain, greyish landscape is littered with various pieces of equipment, and the maimed and severed body parts of those dwarves who dropped them in an attempt to escape their final fate. Commander Libash and a handful of military dwarves are in traction in the dome far above, and the steel foundations of the temple, rising amidst a swirling haze of purple light to the south-east, remain woefully unfinished. Perhaps it will always remain so - a final testament to the will of the dwarves, that after a hundred years of grinding fate, it was only the forces of hell, in the underworld itself, that could bring that proud race to its knees. If the temple was never completed, it would serve as a reminder to whatever damned adventurer who found his way this deep into the earth - this was what killed the dwarves, so begone, lest ye suffer the same fate.

[Mitchewawa]

I'd full on kick my computer if everyone died before the monument was erected. I just read all 25 pages of this and, needless to say, holy fucking shit. This is so awesome.

[KodKod]

I started reading this thread before I went off to work today.
I came back from work today and continued to read this thread.

I am just about to head off to bed and I have finally finished reading it. I spent all of my free time today reading this one thread.

I feel that my time was well spent.

[DS]

Glad to see people are enjoying the story.

In the hospital, while waiting to be diagnosed by a physician, Libash Dippedurns the Ageless Deep of Rhymes, for the first time for several decades, is temporarily relieved of her military duties on account of her injuries. As she lets her mind drift from the seemingly endless years of repeated weapon drills and bloody combats, a muse of inspiration descends upon her, and her nigh-forgotten skills as a carpenter, developed in the years before her migration to Weatherwires, come back to her in a flash. The militia commander, despite two broken legs, a broken arm, and a smashed ribcage, drags herself to a carpenter's workshop. Ignoring the protestations of the chief medical dwarf, Libash moves to and from the stockpiles about the dome, hauling raw materials for an artifact. Her creation (appropriately surnamed "The Hides of Perishing") may be the last that Weatherwires ever sees:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I've finished making the dome accessible to an adventurer (via a handful of routes), in the event that someone wants to try and explore it. This is all conjectural, however, as every time I've tried to abandon the fortress (so as to check things out in Legends) since the dome was flooded with magma, the game has crashed. I really, really hope this doesn't happen in the very end, but I have a kind of sick feeling that it will.

[Mapleguy555]

This is madness! Toss that nether-cap armor stand into "The Room". Light it up too.

"Insert artifact description here. It is on fire. The flames are glowing blue."

[DS]

In the mid-summer of 229, a little over three years after the centennial, the dwarves elect a new dwarf to the position of mayor; Cog Archwayward, daughter of the old duke Kogsak Murdershot, and since the death of Domas Tickcities, queen of Weatherwires. Of late, the queen has been training with the Silvery Princesses, and her skill in swordfighting is quickly nearing legendary status.

Later that summer, as the medical staff of the fortress was preoccupied with cleaning and dressing the wounds of the various other dwarves who had not crawled from the infirmary to craft an artifact, Libash Dippedurns the Ageless Deep of Rhymes, last of the original squad of knife-fighters and wrestlers, led by Vabôk Earthenfins the Tight Mechanisms of Whirling, succumbed to the wounds inflicted upon her by the vomit demons.

There are 81 dwarves left in Weatherwires - construction of the temple continues.

This is madness! Toss that nether-cap armor stand into "The Room". Light it up too.

Nether-cap items are apparently completely magma-proof.

[Mapleguy555]

Rage. Channel a hole. place the stand in the hole. Pump in a 1 - 4 layers of magma.

[DS]

The horror!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

While slaying the zombie kin of those fungal humanoids in the dome above (whose number has increased to 22), the Silvery Princesses suffered a tragedy. The zombies were hassling haulers who were gathering wood from the lowest cavern layers, and had to be dealt with.

Shortly after slaying the last of the plump helmet zombies, Ducim Lucidbooks of clan Gearguild spotted a zombie magma crab swimming along the surface of the magma vent. He ran along the narrow obsidian edge of the caldera towards the undead creature. There, standing but inches from the edge of molten death, he did battle with the creature that calls the magma sea its home.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A dwarf until the end, Ducim performs a heroic and fearless leap attack into the magma vent. Were the crab a living creature, such a blow might have killed it, but instead the dwarf scraped across his undead foe and sank into the deeps. A death in combat, and to be entombed in the semi-molten rock, is an honorable end, an end achieved by many dwarves throughout the history of Weatherwires - so it goes in a fortress built upon a volcano.

The crab still lives - after a manner - but the Diamond Cloisters holds no grudge. The dwarves of Weatherwires are above grudges or revenge - they are focused entirely now upon the completion of the temple. It will not need to be gaudy, or large, or a engineering masterpiece - the dome itself is example enough of all of these. No, the temple will be modest, in contrast to what the dwarves have achieved elsewhere in Weatherwires. Although, any who look upon it will marvel at its existence, and wonder at what methods the dwarves managed its construction.

[Poindexterity]

the temple will be modest, in contrast to what the dwarves have achieved elsewhere in Weatherwires.

modest in contrast to the other things that have been done here might still be very VERY massive indeed.

[Madventurer]

I would say something awesome, but I can just watch in awe. 

Oh, and by the way, where did that boiling dwarven wine come in that report? Flask?

[DS]

Either a flask or a waterskin, yeah. It's impossible to tell which, at this point - his body and all of his gear are gone forever.

[Mapleguy555]

I just thought of something. But first, you must splash some dreaded water over "The Room" and its contents. Then move them to the Temple.

[DS]

What, and have the 80 dwarves who still live burn to death to fulfill the wishes of a mad forumgoer? No, sir. You don't even know the nature of the temple - burning furniture would have no place in it, in any case.

[Nyxalinth]

This is incredible.  I'll be reading this to the bitter end.

Mapleguy555, how about you build a fort like this, and then you can do whatever you want?