Project Superbowl II - Part 1 - 615 Mid Spring by Shurikane

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Points of Interest

• Δ 151. 09 - The Vault
  "Now, that's more like it!"
  
  Everyone sprang forth to admire the incredible plethora of items laid out each in their own display case. Gemstones of the highest quality, precious artifacts, clothing decorated with infinite care - there must've been millions' worth in this room alone.
  
  Well, if anything, they have not lost their sense for craftsdwarfship.
  
  But so far, this was the only normality in this mad place. And this, in and of itself, was suspicious.
  
  It was like this was the last bastion of their culture, their origins. And they had merely tucked it away in a convenient box. - Shurikane
• Δ 140. 08 - Whippit Version 2.0
  We made for the silver cube on the eastern end of the courtyard.
  
  Inside was another cube, made of lead.
  
  We found a level, and pulled it. Right away, our macedwarf outstretched a hand to bar the passage. "It is littered with traps. Watch your step."
  
  "What is the point of this?" I said. "This doesn't make much sense."
  
  He stepped forward, carefully working around the various plates and gears laid out in the floor. Meanwhile, we searched the other floors of the structure. It turned out to be a classical drop bit: lever-activated hatches, cage slots, and platforms linked to retractable machinery.
  
  "That's peculiar." said the macedwarf. "They didn't design this chamber to kill their prisoners quickly."
  
  "What makes you say that?" I asked.
  
  "The traps... they each contain one, and only one whip." - Shurikane
• Δ 138. 07 - Inner Courtyard
  We bolted upstairs as fast as we could. The stairs took us to the very top of the mountain.
  
  No one had told us it was a volcano. And now, no one could guess it was one. Everything had been neatly covered up in green glass through and through, making the whole place look artificially made. What little nature remained consisted of the ground's bare rock, untouched and raw.
  
  At the far end of the plateau, we witnessed a large tower of solid gold. Surely the noble quarters. But to the right, we saw... dwarves in a cage.
  
  Once again, we stopped a passing worker. "Excuse me, what are these dwarves in the cage over there?"
  
  "Prisoners." he said without turning to look at us, simply continuing on his way. "They were with a goblin siege party."
  
  "And... how long have they been in there?"
  
  "'Bout 110 years." - Shurikane
• Δ 128. 04 - Home
  A contingent of seasoned veterans formed our welcoming party. They lowered their weapons upon recognizing us. We could just barely catch a glimpse of a civilian dragging the bloody corpse of an ettin away into the darkness.
  
  "The cartos, you are?" said the militia commander. "Help yourselves. We'll pretend you don't exist."
  
  "Is there no one to show us around." I asked.
  
  "No." he flatly answered. "The place has got no use for paper pushers. Fall in line while you can."
  
  I am a master cartographer. I hold a Grand Master title in architecture. My purpose is to map, and describe. Nobody hates cartographers. What've I done to deserve this treatment?
  
  I looked at him, and only saw glazed-over eyes that looked right through me, disacknowledging my existence the moment the conversation was over. The poor commander had been worked to the bone for so long, that it had become his life.
  
  Past the depot, the barracks awaited. The militia practiced on one another, rather than training dummies. They always held live, deadly weapons. Whoever dared attack the place would never make it past this room.
  
  Beyond were signs of constant, corrupted renovations. The entrance had been a bedroom, a hall, a storage depot, and a little of all of those at once for a time. The stones did not sit quite right anymore. It was difficult to tell where the original design ended, and where the new ones began.
  
  More troubling however were the green glass sections boring straight through the hall. From there, the rumble was at its loudest.
  
  "What is this?" I asked a passerby, pointing at the glass.
  
  The dwarf answered gruffly. "Dry-run test. We'll be ready to go in an hour"
  
  "To go? Where?"
  
  But already, the dwarf was gone. - Shurikane
• Δ 128. 10 - Room of Curious Materials
  There was no more to see in the courtyard. We took the northern stairway.
  
  Our first stop was this sober room. Pillars had been constructed in a decidedly purposeful fashion, but I could see little reason behind the design. An unfinished room, perhaps?
  
  And then it dawned on us. All the materials making up the pillars were rare. Some of them could not be found in the area at all.
  
  Huh. Neat. - Shurikane
• Δ 125. 05 - The Hall
  We quickly walked by a disorganized mess - probably some ill-planned staging area meant for the trade depot. At least here, we were within recognizable civilization. The floor tiles depicted elements of our culture in ways that displayed flawless technique. The barrels let away this lingering smell of mixed alcohols, and a few others peppered the air with scent of roasts, of chopped quarry bush leaves, and of dwarven syrup.
  
  Something did not sit quite right, however. The crowd ceaselessly changed. We tracked one fresh arrival to verify. He went to a barrel, chugged a drink, and walked away. He took a roast from another barrel, sat down at a table, and ate through it at a frightening speed. The moment he was done, he got up, and disappeared back into the stairway.
  
  We saw dwarf, after dwarf, after dwarf, eating without tasting, slaved to their occupation, and never once slowing down to enjoy one another. No party, no gathering, no idle time.
  
  Everyone worked, worked, worked.
  
  And for what?
  
  We approached the central window, and we peered. - Shurikane
• Δ 125. 06 - Hello, World
  By the gods... - Shurikane
• Δ 119. 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. - Shurikane
• Δ 110. 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." - Shurikane
• ¶ 70. 01 - INTRO
  Behold: Project Superbowl II. Also known as: Project Gloryhole. Grand beacon of Growlworks, mountainhome, and magnum opus of the Furnaces of Charcoal. Founded in the year 500, it was to be a mere monument to the flame, a shrine amidst a treacherous mountain pass to give caravans and adventurers some hope, and share the dwarven culture. The initial party begrudgingly set out. The king, to rally them, said these words: "Nothing is too great for the gods."
  
  The dwarves listened.
  
  Things got slightly out of hand. - Shurikane
• Δ 70. 03 - Stairway to Hell
  The stench followed us as we ascended the ramp. I ordered the men to scrape some of the vomit from the floor. Underneath the caked layer was a neatly constructed structure of basalt, lined in the middle with solid gold. If only anyone could've seen this gold...
  
  The ascension seemed endless. The citadel loomed, becoming ever greater in size.
  
  We had vastly underestimated the sheer grandeur of the project. We could hear a constant rumble from the very ground. The entire landscape quaked without cease. There was machinery at work. Too much machinery.
  
  This was not a shrine. This was not a monument. This was madness. - Shurikane
• Δ 98. 02 - The Nasty Arrival
  A pit surrounded the entry ramp. It was filled with molten rock. How it got there, no one could explain. No sign, no statue outlined the site's identity. All that one could see was the gigantic citadel looming not at the mountaintop, but around it. There was an otherworldly, daresay infernal mystery to the place. Not that it wasn't meant to be, but that whoever put this plan into action had long since become... a little unhinged.
  
  One of the macedwarves sarcastically remarked that the grandiose structure must've been due to the expedition leader's small penis. I informed him that the honorable Besmar Riddlebanner had been a woman, and that it was a grave break of form to speak ill of her memory.
  
  A faint, but putrid stench filled the air. The detritus surrounding the ramp had basked in seasons of sunlight, becoming part of the landscape itself. So many arrows pointing back to their origins. - Shurikane
• Δ 86. 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." - Shurikane
• Δ 75. 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. - Shurikane
• Δ 69. 15 - Seventy-Eight Thousand Power
  For a moment, I thought they were attempting to launch a dwarf into space. - Shurikane
• Δ 48. 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... - Shurikane
• Δ 44. 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." - Shurikane

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Project Superbowl II - Part 1

• 615 Mid Spring [R]

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Map details:

• Fortress Name: Project Superbowl II - Part 1
• Map Year: 615 Mid Spring
• Author: Shurikane
• Submitted by: Shurikane
• Date Added: 18/09/2016