CHRONICLES OF GEMCLOD
Mid to Late Winter 262: A Grand Opening
As the end of the year drew nearer and nearer, we spent double the effort on finishing the Great Hall. Some parts still had to be dug, furniture made and placed, plans prepared for the great celebration. There were no interruptions except of one.
In a bizarre turn of event, we got attacked by another grimeling.
Again, Slaan tried to kill it.
And again, Slaan got his middle finger broken in the exact same injury as before, except this time on his left hand.
This time however, he allowed K0npeito to perform surgery in both his wounds. He screamed a little, and splashed some blood all over my office's/hospital walls, but at least now had both of his fingers operational.
CommaToes let us all know Slaan was a pansy.
In the last day of the year, we moved some furniture inside. I had Designed a nice terrace overlooking the whole of the Great Hall, and we put two tables and two chairs in it – one for me, and one for Leperfish. Those would be our offices. Tradition demanded I pass the overseership over to another dwarf, and who else could be my successor than Leperfish. I would work as his advisor and this way, with our offices on top of the Great Hall, we'd have the entire fortress below us. We would be like gods looking down on the checkerboard of dwarven lives.
The Great Hall was finished.
Late afternoon, I summoned everybody to the Hall. Everybody came: me and Leperfish, hand in hand with Enzer the axedwarf. Star Guarded and K0npeito who a year ago barely knew what a pick was but who had dug the whole Hall according to my Design. Vox Nihili who built the palisade around the fortress and advised us on many other endeavours. Pozzo the drunken sheriff and her Screamin' Beakdogs, how the group came to call themselves (in it, Willie Tomg the thief, Locomotive Breath the war peasant, and Boing the hunting peasant). Samuszoomer the orphaned baby who held Pozzo by her skirt, chewing a beag dog liver roast and cursing heavily. Angry Ed the cook&smith who was still technically part of the Beakdogs but was also the only one to ever work. Bad Munki the bookkeeper and my third detached cousin, who was still drooling because he had to pass by the statues of Deg the West Trade by the entrance. ZeeToo and Elswyyr the smiths and herbalists who saved the booze supplies. Slaan the broken-fingered recruit and Minty the able bodied one. All in all, thirteen dwarf men, three dwarf women, and one baby. Everybody came.
Everybody except CommaToes who wished to stay in his shelter by the front gate to guard the fortress while we were celebrating.
Everybody came. For some of the people there, it was the first time they got to see the Great Hall in all its splendour. Sure, there was still a lot of work to be done. We had to clean the rubble, smooth the floors, build scaffolds to smooth the walls and engrave them with pictures, and eventually perhaps pave the floor in various metals and create a magma floor heating. There would always be work to be done. But for now, the Great Hall was finished. It was great, and it was magnificent.
I climbed the staircase to my office, faced the people of Gemclod below, and then I had a long speech, and it was touching and it was beautiful, and if anybody says otherwise, they haven't remembered it correctly. And they asked me questions, and I answered them. Will there be a fortress guard station, and a bigger jail, and accommodations for the sheriff, asked Pozzo, and I said yes, there will. Will there be workshops in separate rooms and stockpiles behind doors, asked the crafters, and I said yes there will. Will there be bedrooms for everybody so we don't have to sleep in mud any more, asked Bad Munki and I said yes there will. And who will take care of all of that, asked the people, and I said Leperfish.
For it was time to give up the overseership and become a humble Great Architect again. For it was time to tear the structures above ground and start moving under the earth, where dwarvenkind was always supposed to live.
“Friends, we have established Gemclod in a swamp to last for eternity, and lived past the first year, and now nothing can ruin us any more. A lot of work is to be had, and hard times are before us. More refugees will come, and there will be more happiness, but also more death, for, do not forget, we are still at war. Several wars, actually, but never ye mind, and for this day, rejoice.”
And they rejoiced for Gemclod was now a Fortress.
