The long shadow of tragedy has hung over Weatherwires for nearly a century, claiming countless dwarves through tantrum spirals, spectral possessions, and demonic incursions. Now, another soul has passed into the shadow, and one more crippling blow has been struck against the Diamond Cloisters.
The attack came from the east - three demons of a relatively rare breed known as the Golden Yellow Monster: a gigantic monkey covered with oval-shaped overlapping scales, twisted into humanoid form. They ceaselessly chant in the unintelligible abyssal language, and their sharp teeth drip poison. The Silvery Princesses retaliated swiftly, and at first their victory seemed assured. Queen Cog Archwayward, last of the royal Murdershot clan, decapitated one of the fiends with little effort, but a surprise attack by one of the other demons caught her offguard. With a single lucky strike of it's claw, the twisted monkey slashed open her skull, sending the queen to the slade floor amidst a pool of demonic goo. The rest of her squad successfully managed to slay the remaining demons, but the damage was been done. The mayor and monarch of Weatherwires is slain.
Thus ends the rule of the last royal family, founded in 132 when Kogsak Murdershot was appointed baron of the Diamond Cloisters. Cog Archwayward was born in 133, the second child of the duke and his wife, Domas Tickcities. Still a child, Cog looked on in 135 and 136 as the fortress tore itself apart from the inside, claiming the lives of both the duke and his youngest daughter. Cog soon became a legendary engraver, and is personally responsible for many of the engravings in the fortress - now, the duty of recording of Weatherwires' final histories falls to another. The queen's body is placed in the third burial receptacle atop the citadel - an artifact black-cap coffin known as the Last Scribe.
But it is not only the body of their queen which the dwarves inter in the black-cap coffin; it is the final hope of their civilization, finally laid to rest in the face of ultimate destruction. For, as the dwarves of Weatherwires have come to discover, there has never been any chance for utopia. There has only ever been the desperate illusion that, through perseverance and dedication, the gods might smile upon them and their curses might be lifted, and their race allowed to reign in glory forever. Through scourge after scourge, the dwarves continued to work towards the completion of the subterranean city, willingly blind to their obvious and inevitable fate, fuelled by the grand hope that the dome might one day be inhabited by their kin and progeny. It is this hope that dies, struck a final callous blow by a passing demon in the mid-winter of 330, and is interred atop the citadel in the dome forever.
If any illusions about the dwarves' fate were held by any member of the Diamond Cloisters, they fade away this day like miasma from a long-passed battle, leaving only the countless skeletons of their forbears to stare damningly at the living. Even the surviving Quakedented children, the youngest being only four years old, now bear the heavy burden of the dwarves' final duty. Perhaps it is only the plump helmet men, peaceful and serene atop the southwestern guildhall, who are ignorant of the dwarves' inevitable demise.
The queen's final orders - to complete the monument - are nearly complete.
The top of a broad hill, not far from the base of the stairwell, has been muddied with water, and will eventually be overgrown with floor fungus and cave moss. Then, the area will be paved over with roads, which will then be removed, leaving a clean area of sand and silt. So far, it seems that no shrub or tree will grow in the deeps - perhaps the prospect of an abyssal tree farm is inherently impossible. It matters not - at this point, the dwarves are content to convert an area of indestructible, undiggable slade into a moss-covered hill. Eventually, a path will lead from the curtain wall to the center of the hilltop, where a small statuary will contain whatever remnants the dwarves wish to leave behind.
For now, however, the groundcover must be allowed to grow. The flooding mechanism will be removed, and the dwarves shall retreat to the dome, temporarily sealing the passageway to hell. The deepest of deeps has already claimed too many dwarves, and more die every day - Asmel Spiralropes, legendary herbalist, and a couple merchants have perished in accidents concerning the removal of flooding elements. Even in the face of oblivion, the dwarves have a sense of self-preservation - even if it is only a result of their obligation to fulfill the queen's final order.
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Topic: The Saga of Weatherwires: Children of Dwarves (spoilers + image heavy) (Read 159469 times)