4th Granite 273
Skanky Burns walked into the great pantry of Gemclod. Rows and rows of food barrels filled the room from one end to the other. A familiar dwarf was already in there, digging through a barrel and stuffing her face.
"Yeol? Is that you?" she asked.
"Uh huh", the other dwarf replied between mouthfuls.
Skanky Burns walked closer. Yeol's dusty food barrel was full of the roasted entrails of various animals. Skanky Burns immediately recognized the dust on the barrel for what it was.
"Uh... Yeol... you might want to be careful with that barrel. Trust me, you don't want to get any of that dust on you."
"Uh dom't cauh, uh'm stahvung," Yeol replied with her mouth full.
"No, really. That dust is deadly. It killed about thirty dwarves already. Seriously."
"Uh'll buh cuhfull."
---
5th Granite 273
MortuusLupus and FebrezeNinja sat at their desks, a look of absolute boredom on each of their faces.
"There's nothing for us to do here," FebrezeNinja complained. "The old bookkeeper's books were all up to date. Whenever someone has a drink or eats a meal, I slide a bead over to the other side of the abacus, and my job is done for the day."
"At least you get to slide beads around," MortuusLupus replied. "There are only two able-bodied workers here -- well, three if Yeol ever stops eating -- so as manager, there's nothing for me to manage. And I doubt we'll ever see any more traders here, so there's nothing for me to broker."
"Want to trade jobs?"
"What would be the point?"
"Well, uh... if we traded jobs, it would give you practice with trading something."
"Yeah, but then you'd be the fortress's trader instead of me, so it wouldn't do me any good."
"Ah. Good point."
---
6th Granite 273
Spermy Smurf was beginning to get the hang of this.
He paused for a moment to look proudly upon his creation. The stone slab was engraved with passable images that could plausibly have come from one of the great battles with the Arrogant Ones.
It was no masterpiece, but it was far better than he had thought he was capable of, and it was certainly an adequate memorial.
According to the old stories, the memorial would still have to be planted in the earth like a tombstone in order to send its respective spirit to eternal rest. Skanky Burns would take care of that part once she was finished feeding the wounded.
Spermy Smurf put the completed memorial aside, and began to work on the next one.
---
7th Granite 273
Skanky Burns finished filling in the hole at the base of the memorial, ensuring that it would remain anchored in place. Somewhere in another part of the fortress, a restless spirit finally found its eternal rest.
Skanky Burns made her way back upstairs. As she entered the main chamber, she saw Yeol at the far end of the room, walking in the other direction.
"Hey, Yeol!" she called.
"Yes?" Yeol replied, turning around with an irritated look on her face.
"You didn't get any of that dust on you, did you?
"I told you I'd be careful."
"Well, good... glad you were able to get something to eat, and hope you're feeling better and all that. Now, we've only had two able-bodied dwarves in the fortress for the last several months, but I figure that with your help, we'd be fifty percent more productive, and --"
"I'll help out later. I'm still hungry."
"For the last few days, you've done nothing but eat. You finished a quarter of an entire roasted goat all by yourself."
"It was a scrawny goat. Look, you have no idea what I've been through. Just let me get my strength back, and then we'll talk."
Skanky Burns sighed. "Alright, alright... just let me know when you're ready. We could sure use an extra hand around here."
---
8th Granite 273
MortuusLupus and FebrezeNinja sat at their desks in their office.
"You remember the old tradition of having a different overseer every year?" FebrezeNinja asked.
"Yeah," replied MortuusLupus.
"Why did they abandon that?"
"I don't know. Probably because there's only two dwarves doing any real work right now."
"But we're not doing any real work right now."
"I know that. I wasn't talking about us."
---
9th Granite 273
The spectre continued to wander through the empty halls of the abandoned old hospital of Gemclod. Up ahead, the door to one of the rooms stood open.
The peaceful sawing sound of a snoring Dwarf emanated from the open room.
The spectre let out a piercing banshee-like shriek, and began drifting towards the open door. An icy gust of wind blew into the room from the hallway.
Nimby woke with a start, and sat up straight in her bed. "Who's there?" she shouted, a trace of panic in her voice.
---
Skanky Burns looked at the memorial slab and frowned. This one wasn't as good as Spermy Smurf's first effort, but it would have to do.
She finished filling in the earth around its base, and patted down the dirt with her shovel so that it would remain secured.
---
Nimby looked around, fully expecting a demon or a forgotten beast or a fell haunt to enter her bedchamber. But nothing came. There was nothing but an eerie silence.
Must have been a nightmare... Nimby thought to herself, and eventually drifted back to sleep.
---
10th Granite 273
MortuusLupus and FebrezeNinja sat at their desks in their office. MortuusLupus lazily tossed a coin in the air with his good hand, catching it on the way back down. FebrezeNinja shook his head from side to side, as if keeping beat with some inaudible tune.
"So, you know all those other wounded dwarves who can't move their legs?" FebrezeNinja asked.
"Yeah?" replied MortuusLupus.
"What if there was a way that we could get them to walk with their hands?"
"Huh? How would that work?"
"I don't know... maybe they could use some kind of tool or something."
"Like what?"
"I don't know. I'll give it some more thought."
---
11th Granite 273
At the well, Skanky Burns filled yet another bucket full of water, this one to be delivered to the wounded Dirt5o8.
As Skanky Burns walked into the main chamber, she saw Yeol enter the main chamber at the same time from the dining room door across from her. Yeol's head was hung low.
"Hey, Yeol!" she called out. "Glad to see you've finished eating. I was just thinking, if you have time, since I'm busy feeding the wounded, there's another memorial slab that needs to be --"
"Not right now. I'm tired."
Skanky Burns rolled her eyes. "Okay, well, get some rest then... but we could really use your help."
---
12th Granite 273
MortuusLupus and FebrezeNinja sat at their desks in their office. FebrezeNinja twiddled his thumbs. MortuusLupus hummed the melody to Sirocco's old classic tune, Watch Out For That Spider.
"So, do you think Gemclod will make it through this?" FebrezeNinja said.
"Yeah, probably. As long as nobody does anything stupid like open the gates," MortuusLupus replied.
"Are you sure that everything is sealed off, though?"
"I think so. Nothing has attacked us in a while, anyway, and those Winged Demons outside haven't found a way in."
"Do you think anything could attack us from below?"
"I'm pretty sure that's all been sealed off now, too."
"But what about the waterfall? The one that drains into the caverns?"
MortuusLupus thought for a moment. "Good point. But I doubt that anything will come up that way. In order for anything to come up through there, it would need to be able to fly. And it would also need to be strong enough to make its way upstream against all that falling water, so that rules out the giant bats. There shouldn't be anything to worry about."
---
Far beneath the office of FebrezeNinja and MortuusLupus, a slavering beast, half-mad with hunger, fluttered its wings. Not very far away, a great waterfall splashed to the cavern floor from some unseen place high above.
ElPottoGrande wrote :-
Really, really liking the down-to-earth, more personal look now that we've got a smaller fortress and less insanity is going on.
Sirocco wrote :-
