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| Fortress:
Project Superbowl II - Part 2
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Shurikane |
08
...And I knew just how.
END
Submitted by:
Shurikane
- 2016-09-19
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07
In fact, I could not bear to endure the existence of this perversion. The entire place was a straight affront to our values.
This damned place had to vanish...
Submitted by:
Shurikane
- 2016-09-19
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06
I walked down the stairs, lost in my own thoughts. I could not find the rumble pleasant in any way. I had all too well seen the strange spell put onto its citizens, causing them to ruin their lives to a cause without reward. They had nothing to live for anymore. For most of these now elderly, broken dwarves, naught but the pain of old age awaited them.
And yet, they feasted and partied.
I could not bear to stand near them.
Submitted by:
Shurikane
- 2016-09-19
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05
In the dining hall, a great feast spread a melody in the mountainhome. Cooks opened barrels and pulled out their finest roasts. Bretheren drank whisky by the mug.
I looked around. Even Mace had opted to join in the festivities.
The instruments felt out of tune, if ever so little. I took a bite from a passing meal, and it tasted... metallic. Artificial.
This whole machine had been built on a foundation of chaos.
Submitted by:
Shurikane
- 2016-09-19
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04
I don't know for how long I stared at the display. A crowd passed around me, cleaning the last layers of vomit from the floor.
The work was done. Around me, the glimmering eyes returned. Smiles on faces, many dwarves peacefully sleeping, and even lazing in their rooms.
Submitted by:
Shurikane
- 2016-09-19
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03
And it became a mountainhome. This farce, this charade, this... Project Superbowl II, Project Glory Hole, whatever they damn well call it. It became the capital of our civilization. This vulgar lump of green glass.
Submitted by:
Shurikane
- 2016-09-19
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02
So many overworked dwarves, so many years of effort, all for this. All for this.
Submitted by:
Shurikane
- 2016-09-19
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01
No. No no no no no. You all can't possibly be serious. This is insane. This is what the workers had slaved on for a hundred and fifteen years?
Submitted by:
Shurikane
- 2016-09-19
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| Fortress:
Project Superbowl II - Part 1
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|
Shurikane |
17 - Arrested Development
This part of the fortress lay unfinished.
They had discovered adamantine. Adamantine! And the foolish workers had stopped the project just shy of collecting the precious metal. This was a disgrace. There was no reason in the world for a dwarf to find something more important to do than collecting adamantine...
"Hey, youse!" yelled a dwarf in the stairway. "Come upstairs! We're about to activate the project!"
Come to think of it, the familiar rumbling had stopped...
Continued in Part 2...
Submitted by:
Shurikane
- 2016-09-19
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16 - The Other Vault
Another door into dark and bare rock.
This time, I shot it opened, took the blacksmith by the scruff of his neck, and dragged him inside.
I closed the door behind me, bathing the two of us in perfect, oppressing darkness.
"You tell me about this place." I whispered. "Else we shall step further into it - and I will leave you there."
"No! NO! Please don't! Anything but this!"
"Start talking."
"Some... some of us, they'd been bitten by werebeasts. We couldn't do anything against them. They... they been our brothers! We couldn't be killin' them!"
"So what does this have to do with the place?"
"We didn't mean them no harm! Honest! We just led them here, and, and we told the lot of 'em to wait. I did it once, it's the only reason I be knowin'. Please let me go!"
I shoved him out, grabbed Mace, and went further in.
Inside, the torch revealed smooth slabs of stone among the rock. From them came no sound... except one, a tune hummed quietly, alone.
We listened further. Faintly, we heard, "What a mighty fine drawbridge. Never get tired of seein' it."
I turned back, motioning Mace behind me.
"Let's get out of here. This place gives me the chills."
Submitted by:
Shurikane
- 2016-09-19
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14 - Samantha Fisher
Curiously, this door led into a narrow hallway cut into bare rock.
"Don't go in there." warned the blacksmith. "Manager's orders."
"What's beyond?" I asked.
"No one remembers. We were told to forget."
Mace sighed. "Surely you can share with outsiders! Y'all don't even have a hammerer! Nobody's gonna yell at you if you tell us! So are ya gonna spill the beans or not?"
No answer. Silence. Except for a haunting wail coming from the dark corridor's bowels.
We all froze. The plaintive moan turned into a full-blown crying fit, a fit of unbridled rage, a plead for help, a litany of threats and curses. All in under a minute.
The blacksmith made for the stairs.
"Keep talking whenever you pass through here." he said.
Submitted by:
Shurikane
- 2016-09-19
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13 - Mausoleum
The blacksmith had admitted he had no work to do at the time. So, we dragged him along.
Further, much further down was the burial chamber.
I stood aghast. "Are all of these coffins filled?"
The blacksmith nodded. "For the most part, aye. Them's about half our long gone bretheren."
"And the other half?"
"Disappeared. From one day to the next, just, poof, never to be seen again. Their memorials be on the floor below."
Submitted by:
Shurikane
- 2016-09-19
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12 - Sleeping Quarters
Without surprise, the accommodations for the populace had been fashioned with simple efficiency. Every dwarf deserved a bed, two cabinets, and two chests for their belongings. Only the queen was the exception. Everyone else, even the head manager, had one of these anonymous apartments.
Curiously, some ill-shaped rooms sat empty. At times, the door led to nowhere, opening on a solid wall. There, we could hear the rumble more fiercely than usual.
An idea struck.
"Who had the bedroom beyond this door?" I yelled out, pointing at one of those useless entryways. "Show yourself!"
A dirty, stout blacksmith came up the stairway. "'Twas my room once, aye. What are ye wishin' ta know?"
"What's there now?"
"That? Them's the pumps, my man. They bored the machinery straight through the quarters."
Submitted by:
Shurikane
- 2016-09-19
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11 - Reservoir
The air was warm down below. Warmer than what a cave should've been.
We had ended up in a storage area. No cause for alarm. Still, we took a moment to spread out and verify the contents. Blocks, blocks, and more blocks. Most of them had never been used before, simply kept as some way to clear the stone out from everyone's path.
We found a corridor on the west wall. It used a green glass ceiling, allowing us to witness the source of the heat: a magma reservoir.
"What in the world are they hoping to accomplish with that?" said Mace.
I shrugged. I was becoming desensitized to the surprises already. What was one more on top of the pile?
Anyway it's not like a band of dwarves can be so reckless as to dig out a whole mountain to turn it into a magma storage.
Submitted by:
Shurikane
- 2016-09-19
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