CHRONICLES OF GEMCLOD
Mid-spring 262: The Bloodsuckers, part I
But even exploring the murky pools and meeting local animals won't keep one occupied forever. Several weeks later, the works had progressed noticeably. Star Guarded and K0npeito had grown accustomed to their picks and had started excavating Floor -2. CommaToes and Enzer had murdered all of the trees nearby and went to cut near the brook.
That left me and Leperfish, once again thinking how to occupy ourselves. Then I thought of a Design.
A bed-house so we can finally sleep under a stone roof, as dwarves are supposed to! Designed by yours truly, built by Leperfish, it is an epitome of dwarven ingenuity. It has four entrances, but only one of them is a real one, the other three are trapped. If you enter through a wrong one, a rock falls on your head. Brilliant, if I may say so!
“But we don't have any beds,” said Vox Nihili as we were inspecting our work. For some reason, he always seems to be around where we're not working. I suspect he might occasionally give to procrastination.
“I'm a good carpenter, you know,” he said.
We left him handle the bed making business.
We spent the next days exploring our home bog once again. One afternoon, as we were discussing the pros and cons of using mud as a building material, we saw a couple of other large animals we haven't seen before.
“What are those birds, Leperfish,” I asked?
“I don't think they are birds, Markus.”
We ran back home, to heroically alert others. But there was nobody to be seen except Vox Nihili, who was sitting in the wagon and drinking rum. The miners were in the excavation pit, the woodcutter outside in the swamp, he said.
“Don't worry, I'm sure CommaToes will handle this,” he sad, passing me a mug.
And indeed, we saw CommaToes coming up from behind a tree, his axe in hand. He saw the harpies, nodded, then proceeded to remove his steel cap, his chainmail... and in the end, he even dropped his axe. Then, completely naked except shoes, he charged.
“...or not?”, added Vox Nihili. He sputtered the rum and spilled his pig tail shirt.
At first, CommaToes fought well, but he was soon covered in scratches and bleeding head to toes.
We had to do something, and I was the only leader around! I climbed on the wagon, raised my mug and cried: “Dwarves! Cease everything you're doing and help CommaToes! To battle! Charge, even if you have to fight with your bare hands!”
Pity, I think they must have misunderstood me, because they all dropped their picks and axes and went to fight barehanded.
“You think we should help them?” asked Vox.
Fenbab wrote :-
Bad Munki posted:
'Bout a million to one against consciousness, give or take.
Noo! After such a marvelous performance CommaToes deserves to live! At least long enough to see himself immortalized in an engraving! Here, I made you a Get Well Soon card 
