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[+!!scientist!!+]

Sorry, but I was just wondering if I've been redorfed yet? Like I said before I would like to be Scientist mk. III, a doctor

[varnish]

((Right! That's another thing I'm trying to get sorted out: Redwarfings. Reminders are good.))

Getting Things Straight: Part Two (Of Several)

Wilberforce hadn't thought the other migrants were important, but that was not a view that they themselves shared. They'd spent weeks journeying through some of the most dangerous country in the world (which was all of it) in order to reach the fort, and had expected at least some sort of welcome. What they found was a disorganized mess. Undead ogres outside, and chaos within.

Bayar at least, was very happy to see that one of the new arrivals was a trained diagnostician. She was so happy that she was willing to ignore the fact that he was named Scientist Mk III, an odd name even by the standard of the fort.



Scientist had about two minutes to settle in before he was shoved in the direction of the "hospital". Enough time to explain that while he was a diagnostician and a decent suturer, he was not a surgeon. And enough time to be told that he would have a wonderful chance to learn about surgery, now.

................

Next: Part Threeish.

[Di]

He had been there for the fall, and, quite clearly, had lived through it. He may have been the only one, though I am not surprised. The man is a survivor.

He had survived the fall of the old fort and lived several hundreds years after? Quick, grab willow spears, this guy is a vampire!

[Remalle]

He had been there for the fall, and, quite clearly, had lived through it. He may have been the only one, though I am not surprised. The man is a survivor.

He had survived the fall of the old fort and lived several hundreds years after? Quick, grab willow spears, this guy is a vampire!

Oh!  Um, uh... steroids!  Yeah, that's how I've lived so long.

[Rhaken]

There damn well better be another doctor in that migrant wave...

[varnish]

((Yup.))

Part Three:

From the Memoirs of Wilberforce Amber Ropenourished:

I'd become determined to find answers by this point, and if that meant hunting Remalle down and beating him black and blue until he gave them to me... Well, I'm not a violent man, but these are different times, dear readers.

But I needed aid. I sought out the one person I knew I could depend on, because I was fairly sure he was someone I actually knew. Neo.

He was out on the bridge, cementing in a microline block. (Utter foolishness, them using microline. It lacks the dignity our old bridge had.) I felt there was no time for nonsense. I greeted him with a hearty "Neo! Old friend, I can't begin the say how good it is to see you!" He was surprised that I recognized him, and possibly surprised that I was myself, but not for long. We've both been through the same "dying and returning" thing, him twice now. Old news, for us.

Neo was just as clueless about our new situation as I; he was more concerned with building the bridge. I remembered that being a bit of an obsession with him before. Still, I was able to convince him to join me, after some prodding. And he was just as surprised as I was to find that Remalle was still among the living. We set off to find the damned fool together. None of the others noticed our search, as they were all too busy watching some elf merchants being torn apart by the zombie ogres.



We searched the entire fortress, I swear. For all that, we did not find Remalle. What we did find, well, readers, I find it difficult to digest.

It was a book. I found it in one of the out of the way bedrooms that had just recently been dug. What the title was, I can't say. But it was open to a page with a chapter head that read "The Fall of the Dwarf People and the Legend of Oceanbridge."

Well, our efforts there should be legendary.  It was the next part that gave me pause, and by that, I mean it made me want to run for the hills. "If The Citadel known as Oceanbridge existed, it fell, I have discovered through diligent inquiry, due to four causes: The hostile attacks of Ape-Man and Elf, the Injuries of Time and Nature, The Domestic quarrels of the Dwarfs, and the Injury and Abuse of the Wishes of the Gods. The passing of centuries may have erased its physical form, but the Echoes of its fall still sound for us today."

The rest was similar nonsense, but the simple phrase "The passing of centuries" is what stopped me in my tracks. Centuries.

Clearly, dear readers, this is an even bigger mess than I realized.


((Keep in mind, You might know what's going on. Wilberforce does not. I might not either. The story has been kind of half assed. Trying to fix that.))

[Rhaken]

I sense Identity. It draws closer with every moment. My Host now travels with several of his kind, their numbers increasing with the passing of sun and moon. The few have become many, and my interference has kept the many from becoming few once again.

I have led them to shelter each night. My spiritual presence has kept the Terrors of Night at bay. My spectral hand points the way forward, ever forward, toward their destination.

Oceanbridge.

I know that name. It is a name heavy with History and Memory and even Identity. I can sense it. I can smell it. It is as if that name alone has awakened a sense I have not used since I was of flesh and blood.

Not much longer now. Oceanbridge calls. And with it, Identity. I feel myself stirring and shifting in unfamiliar ways.

Is this what mortals call anxiety?

[Argelflirth]

Or ADHD (had to say it)

[Blead]

Could I perhaps be dwarfed as well? I don't mind the dwarf being male or female, but I would appreciate it if the dwarf were to join the military. Keep up with the good story telling. 

[peregarrett]

Any news from Gar? And his precious machinery?

[varnish]

Meanwhile, Everyone Else!

Gar, sick of being ignored, had taken matters into his own hands. Building a long corridor of pressure plates, traps and other associated undead destroyers meant putting together a lot of a mechanisms. Tedious work, but necessary. Even more tedious when he was the only one doing it.

Unfortunately he had no help at all from Rushmik, who was still traumatized by... something or other. He'd been trying to meet with Bayar for weeks.



Why he was trying to meet with her in the mason's workshops was anyone's guess.

..............................

Counselor emerged from the depths, a small reddish brown rock in his hands. "Hematite! It's about forty dwarf lengths down, but we've got metal!"



Bayar (who was still confined to the bed in the middle of the food stockpile) clapped her hands. "Excellent work, Counselor! Now we just need a few dozen bars of that, plus some fuel so we can actually make the bars, and a blacksmith skilled enough to make the armor, and we might finally be safe!"

Counselor dropped the heavy stone. "All right, I know! Just give me time. The way things go here, it'll be weeks before I find more." He went back down the stairs grumbling.

Bayar shrugged. "I wasn't being sarcastic," she said, to no one in particular.

............................

A Message from the Department of Kilnworks and Witchhunting

Could any witches or vampires out there report to the office of Goldhammer? Please? The Minister is getting bored as all hell.

.........................

Next: What's up with... Everyone Else! And More Dwarfings.

[Argelflirth]

whistlewhistlewhistle (vaiting for dorfing)

[Dermonster]

whistlewhistlewhistle (vaiting for dorfingposessing)

[varnish]

((No more whistling. Whistling is banned!))

Everyone Else! (Still)

Ishar kept himself busy by patrolling, even though the gate was closed. The undead were a constant threat. If they weren't shambling over the ground, they were crawling up from the refuse pits, or flying over the damn walls so they could peck your brains out.

Today he had company on the patrol; the just named militia commander. There was something off about the man, Ishar decided as they marched up and down the yellow sandy beach. Maybe it was the fact that Ishar still wan't sure who he was. Easy enough to clear up.

"So, what's your name, commander?

"Derm."

Or maybe that was what was off. "Derm? Sounds a lot like our old commander, Dermonster. You know him?"

Derm shrugged. "Derm's who I am."



Any further conversation was interrupted by a rather horrifying screech. Ishar looked up and saw a skeletal peregrine falcon diving at his head, (I'm getting pretty good with the damn bird names, he thought), as he jumped out of its path. It crashed into the sand, then stood and faced Derm and Ishar, somehow staring at them with its empty eye sockets.

Derm's reaction was quick, and brutal, and quite effective. Ishar was a bit surprised.



Derm shook his hand, wincing slightly. "Need to get me an axe."

........................

Aussie Evil had big dreams, involving massive engravings. The battles of the Gods, complete with demons and beasts raging through the boiling sky, while lowly mortals cowered beneath them.

What he'd been assigned to do was smooth the floor of the dining hall.

Someone was going to pay for this. When he started his engraving, he was going to do a scathing one of Bayar surrounded by roaches, or cows, or whatever the hell she was afraid of. That would teach her.

........................

Migrants

The surgeon sighed with... relief, he decided, when he saw the walls in the distance. That had to be Oceanbridge. It had been a long, long journey.

"That's the place" he said, turning to his companion, whose name, he had just learned, was Argel. Yes, they'd been traveling together for weeks, but he'd just learned it all the same.



Argel frowned, leaning on her spear for support. "Not much to look at, is it Croaker?"



"I don't know... I think it's got a lot of potential."

.........................

Next: Moods! Yak Skins! More Dwarfs!

[Corai]

Dwarf me as one of the poor sods that have to build the bridge.