Oh, here's a sample from my write up of my reclaim.
Today I witnessed one of the most profound displays of dwarven stupidity it has ever been my misfortune to experience.
The story starts on one of many rainy mornings in Malachite. I was working on a headstone for one of the countless ghosts wandering our halls when I heard screaming from somewhere inside the fort. Now, in Swordthunders, screaming is nothing out of the ordinary; beyond the tormented howls of the spirits within the fortress proper, there’s the occasional scream when somewhere awakens from sleep only to see a translucent bleeding corpse floating above them, sees a floating axe stalking them, or when a ghostly white hand suddenly surges through the finely prepared fish they were about to eat and attempts to strangle them (that last instance comes from personal experience). Of course, it’s never wise to ignore screaming, especially considering the fact that the bleeding corpse, floating axe, or ghostly hands suddenly behave as if they have substance. Beyond the ghosts, there are any number of horrors that could be lurking within Swordthunders proper, and one must not forget the even present threat of goblins. Regardless, I should have responded more quickly. I took my time climbing the hill I came to regret this as soon as I could see over the crest of the hill between New Swordthunders and Swordthunders proper.
Two of my dwarves, Adan and Sodel, respectively a miner and a farmer, were running for their lives from a massive creature, which later came to be known as Ab Musoostrot, made of what appeared to be amber. The beast’s emaciated body rode about ten dwarves high atop four spindly legs, between which there was a think trunk bearing what I hope was a stinger. For a moment, I was paralyzed with fear; what few traps we had were not the sort that would work against such a creature, and the idea of two dwarves and a trio of war dogs standing against it seemed laughable. Yet Swordthunders could not afford to fall; another reclamation attempt was well beyond the means of the Mountainhome, and without its vast wealth, Irlomomon would surely fall to the elves or the goblins. Hardening myself in anticipation of imminent tragedy, I spoke an order to the speardwarves:
“To arms sons of Irlomomon, To arms! Hold the line, no matter the cost, for the Mountainhomes and all of dwarfkind are counting on us!”
Of course, as it turned out, amber is not a particularly sturdy material, a weakness that was compounded by the beast’s awkward anatomy. I scold myself, a trained physician, to this day for not realizing this immediately. The fight was short and brutal. The creature didn’t even have time to use its stinger before Zaneg, one of the speardwarves, had taken out the creature’s legs with a sweep of her spear. As it staggered to its feet, the hounds tackled it, shredding through its delicate torso. While the creature thrashed about for nearly an hour, it finally fell to a savage blow from Zaneg’s spear, which impaled it from the bottom up. In the end, the only injuries were bruised extremities. Now this might sound like a story of dwarven martial prowess rather than dwarven stupidity, but bear with me, I still haven’t explained why Ab Musoostrot was after Adan and Sodel. Apparently, the pair had decided that when I decreed that plump helmets were appropriate to eat, that it was a good idea to plunder the unexplored ruins of Swordthunders for food, rather than the three or so barrels of helmets at the entrance to the new Fortress. When the first told me this I laughed and demanded that they tell me the real reason the beast was after them; had they been trying to claim some portion of the fortress’ treasure for themselves? Apparently not; I had the both of them thoroughly searched, and neither was carrying something that hadn’t been accounted for in the record books. I am once again amazed by the depths of our kind’s capacity for utter stupidity.
Author
Topic: The Community Reclaims Swordthunders - We need more lunatics to run this asylum! (Read 188440 times)