Spring moved quietly for the people of Battlejudge. The king took well to a steel great axe, recommended to him by Kaos, the resident steel expert, while he donned bronze armor made by both her and Urist.
"It's fine armor!" he said with a smile as he fastened Urist's finest creation to his hand. "Very fine indeed."
He had ordered since arriving a month ago, regular bolt production, already handled by the craftsmen ceaselessly churning out wooden bolts for Multi's team to train with, while Tobul, the fort's longtime tavern performer by trade (and one of the few from the homeland,) had darted off, speaking in old dwarven and building a hatch cover of gypsum before the season was out.
In the area of art, the king's chamber was also swarmed by engravers eager to do some real work, with Autz and Onol creating several masterful depictions of battles between humans and elves or the founding of the fortress. He seemed pleased, especially when several items were moved into his chambers from the museum (which as a side benefit, rendered these items slightly more secure.) But there was an odd report from a hunter who was on watch duty: A dwarf shambling about, one he didn't recognize.
Maskwolf was dispatched to investigate, due to his skill and weapon. "Pound that poor sod into a pile of slop. Don't need an undead dwarf running around." The Colonel had said.
"Should I check his pockets afterwards?" Maskwolf said jokingly upon being given the order. He fastened his masked helm on and went for the door out of the tavern.
"Couldn't hurt, he might have some good stuff." Vucar called out to him. And indeed the dwarf ha.d Maskwolf returned with four artifacts as well as news of having killed a zombie dwarf and two zombie marmots - An armorstand made of solid black zircon (somehow,) a crossbow, a scepter, and a book.
****
Asob stormed up to a hap-hazard assemblage of soldiers, not all equipped fully by the looks of them. "Where the hell is the Colonel? And Reg?"
"Bed." Gisep said, drawing her sword. Asob huffed and looked around.
"And Maskwolf?"
"Library I think." Inod answered. "He might not even know we're on alert for something serious."
"Are you fucking kidding me!?" She rubbed the bridge of her nose, clearly aggravated. "Never fuckin' fails, the bad guys always show up when the best killers are taking a damned nap..."
"Except Reg. She's not really all that great." Someone said.
"Doesn't matter. I'm acting commander. inod, you're my second. Anyoen know what we're up against?"
"Standard fare." Imimi said, readying his flail. "War beasts and some riders."
"The gods saw fit to bless us with give-away tallies!" Nidor added. "They appear to be nothing but untrained rabble, from what Onol said."
Asob grunted and ordered the milita forwards. Even if some lacked weapons or had too much gear (specifically Species, who already had a hard enough time of using a sledgehammer with both hands, nevermind one with a buckler.) In less than five minutes, battle was joined, and half a dozen elves were dead, as were their mounts, and Noloc, a recent addition was left minus several teeth, courtesy of a horse-elf who kicked him in the face. Soon the fight had devolved into more of a disorganized rout as the militia chased down the scattered and panicked elf riders.
Some were thrown from their unicorns which ran about in a panic, while those with horses were swiftly ground up by the engine of dwarven (and some human) might. In the end, Zas was seen standing atop the southern hill bellowing all would fear "The Admired Light of Salves," while several stragglers could be heard screaming about fleeing "The Mechanical Shove of Howls" as the sight of Asob.
Only a single elf on a unicorn at a full gallop escaped into Amas' domain.
He would likely not survive to return home.
The only wounds were Noloc's injured jaw, several teeth scattered about, and Dastot, who was less "injured" and more "absolutely horrified." The rest of his squad found him by the road mumbling about Species "usin' the elf's head like a golf ball" and it "popping like a rotten muskmelon." The sun-induced nausea didn't help. Nor did the sight of a bard trying to start a fist fight with Multi, who after the second punch in the chest he threatened to shoot, which given his past displays of marksmanship would be virtually guaranteed to be lethal.
The bard was hauled away by one of the Judges after he passed out in a massive - and growing - puddle of vomit. And died soon after, not to the drink, but to the Judge, who beat the bard senseless and left him gasping on the floor after throwing him into the floor with an arm lock. When Nish asked, two others said that Fikod, the bard in question, had said something to the effect of "FACK OV YA DAMNED PEG" and tried to hit Judge Ber with a stone mug.
****
Summer passed without further incident, and the palisade was raised. Soon there would only be two ways into the fortress, and the days of elf cavalry being free to rampage unchecked into the fortress would be over. Autumn however, would be significantly less quiet.
Asob raised the alarm and quickly readied herself. "Come and get me treefuckers! I LAUGH IN THE FACE OF DEATH!" She shouted as she charged the elves. A barrage of arrows flew comically off in the wrong directions, with only one needing any real effort to avoid on Asob's part. A flurry of dodges and exchanged blows later left two elves paralyzed and a horse unable to stand, while Ryukan charged in from behind, slamming her greatsword like a club into a spearelf's leg, snapping it like the pine his greaves were made of.
Vucar wasn't far behind, bellowing a war cry in old dwarven as he went, getting to see Asob leap from a stump and a large boulder to bring her flail down like a meteor into a swordelf's head, causing it to faceplant into the back of the elf's startled elephant and slump off its saddle. The battle raged from there, with someone yelling Maskwolf was coming with Morul and Fath as well as they retreated into the fortress. In but a few swift, hard movements though, the elves' mounts were becoming unruly, and some even trying to force their mounts onwards only for the beasts to flee.
But Asob was still alone, surrounded by enemies and over-exerted. An Elf managed to punch her once, causing her helmet to dig into her neck slightly, and another blow from the same elf injured her knee, not that it mattered as she couldn't stand fully anyway due to mounting fatigue. However, when the elf (now confident she couldn't chase him,) tried to flee, all he heard was "OH NO YA DON'T!" and felt the impact of a metal ball with his thigh from behind.
But that was Asob's final action, as she faceplanted thereafter, and there was nobody to stop the elephant - one of the few not panicking - and the elf riding it from stomping her into paste, as Maskwolf, Morul, and Fath were trying to keep two elephants and their riders from getting through the palisade gate, and Ryukan and Vucar hadn't finished the last rider and elephant they were faced with. As it fell, Vucar wrenched his sword out of the beast's head and looked up to check on her.
"KILL THAT FUCKING ELEPHANT!" Be bellowed in a rage and charged the elves. Ryukan followed close behind as an elephant by the gate breathed its last thanks to a hammer blow from Morul. The trio heard the colonel yelling "WE WILL HAVE REVENGE!" over the general din of panicked beasts. Meanwhile, one of the royal guards, the still-untrained Sazir, had herded a group of unicorn riders towards the southern gate, where Multi, Onget, and Mafol took up positions and shot a unicorn out from under an elf, who galloped out of cover and shot at them - only to find his mount disabled as a steel bolt from Multi and a silver one from Mafol hit the front and back right leg respectively.
The elf fired a shot at Multi, but to his surprise as he looked up at the inbound arrow, a dwarf's form suddenly blocked his vision: Lokum, with one of the Judges, was barreling towards the elves, and caught the arrow with her mail shirt. He took the opportunity to send another steel bolt sailing over them into the unicorn's head, sending it tumbling down the hill. An angry mob consisting of Lokum, Ber, Dredd himself, and Catten the Fisherdwarf quickly formed and beat the elf (and resultant zombie,) to death.
The last thing of note from the chaotic battle was Kivish the farmer, who had managed to disable a saddled up unicorn despite a puncture in his side. Fath found him, and after dispatching the unicorn before it regained consciousness and finished the unarmed farmer off, helped him to his feet. "So." She said, sheathing her sword. "Looking for a change in jobs?"****
"Two wounded dogs, cross them out, no caretakers..." The head physician said as he went through the list.
"Kivish, Farmer." he hummed as he looked the irritated and visibly pained dwarf over. "Fractured right false ribs, puncture wound... Stitches, dressing, possible traction."
"Catten, Fisher. Neck, cut from arrow. head, two cuts, arrow. Ankle, broken. Probably a kick.... Set bones, crutch. Stitches and dressing too." He continued on. "Dredd, Judge. Head cut, arrow. Stitches and dressing."
He sighed and shook his head. Drunkeness and bravado caused by elite soldiers being at hand. "Rofa, poet. Head, neck, upper body, and left leg, caused by wrestling an undead elf. Stitches, possible reset for the ankle. Crutch and dressing." He sighed when he looked at Ber. "Ber, Judge. Kicked by elf. Ankle broken. Set bone, needs a crutch."****
When the autumn caravans came, most of the remains had already been cleaned up, and the caravaneers marveled at the palisade and new stonework that had risen since last year. Trade wen smoothly, the usual exchange of bone and pottery baubles and the scant metal crafts for drink and metal. The king regularly mandated the production of bolts, his love for the item leading to a regular standing order for bolts instead of the periodic orders for them from the mayor's office.
A dormitory was ordered to be built, and Kivish enlisted with the militia to replace Asob (who now had a monument witht eh trusk of her killer by the main gate, apparently to "Prove to her she was avenged." This lead to many to believe Vucar was becoming a touch superstitious. There was also midwinter's uproar in the form of a kea attack which left two dwarves covered in cuts and scratches save for two in the incident - Sergeant Multi, who made number of displays of marksmanship, mostly in the form of killing every undead kea with two bolts save for two, which he took down with a single bolt each, decapitating both.
There was also Rith the planter, who found herself in the King's guard along with a human who had gained citzenship after rescuing on of Kaos' children, Shem, from an undead eagle two weeks after helping slay the keas. Duto as a result felt the need to prove she could face the undead as well and struck down a zombie owl, wolverine, and kingsnake within a few days, and added an armadillo in for good measure, and actually complained about a lack of ice wolf zombies.
There was also an expansion of housing as well, as weather anyone wanted to admit it or not, the fortress now had a massive underclass of musicians and performers. One of whom died of old age, and left four dwarves and a human hospitalized, with many people involved having several teeth knocked out by the old dwarf's corpse, which was laid back to rest by a treasure hunter visitng the temple, who crushed his head with her sledgehammer. Sadly, Tun Wiltedgem, one of the wounded, died en route to the hospital, as did one of the dogs in the temple at the time.
When spring came around at least, many were more at ease with several squads activating for yearly training, with the passing of the year being celebrated wioth an artifact.
OKAY! So, update's late. My bad on that guys.
So we have so far killed nearly 200 elves and war animals. Which frankly is less than I was hoping for by now, but the civ screen seems to indicate massive offensives against the elves everywhere north of us, and it looks like two mountainhalls have fallen, likely to some kind of megabeast. We have a ton of artifacts now, the militia's expanded to three full melee squads, Multi's full ranger squad, and two half squads (the Judges and the Royal Guard.)
Major construction is more or less complete and came out looking wonky, but kinda nice, since the fortress is predominantly made of dolomite (and gypsum/diorite, but we don't talk about those stones.) As such, with the completion of the palisade, made from a myriad of different wood types, and all nobles are nice and housed adequately. I've also ordered all donkeys to be slaughtered to get rid of them, and built a dorm and slum housing
Raids have stopped because I found out that sending units on raids disowns their quarters, which is irritating, cause it seemed like the best way to agitate the elves into attacking us, though given all the attacks apparently going on against them, they may just have too many fires to put out to worry about us, apart from that last attack which claimed the venerable warrior Asob, who to her credit still managed to take down several elves and animals and held off elephant cavalry while reinforcements made their way to her. Had it been anyone else, the attack would have been much bloodier for our side.
Overall though I'm now in the tedium state of the fortress, having nothing better to do and nothing on hand to press forward a story, since the objective was met - getting our civ involved tipped things massively against the elves.
However, I do need to ask you guys how you feel about the fort.
Personally I'm getting annoyed with it because of some design choices I flubbed on (I have found I love columns and it's too late to redesign the fort around a nice fancy main hallway,) as well as issues with equipping the military and launching raids, in addition to my rubberstamp practically leaving me inundated with people I have little to no use for and too numerous to screen for military service unless one does something particularly brave and amazing. Basically avoidable mistakes in hindight, but you know what they say about that.
Additionally, Meph's asked me to run a fort to showcase his tileset mod, and I have an excuse to employ my prehistoric critter pack, as well as test a few other things, and employ ZM5's What Lurks Below and Lands of Duality mods, settling in a savage good biome most likely.
So, do you guys want me to continue on and try to improvize something for a story from here? Would you guys like to open this up to a succession mode? Would someone else want to take over the fort in general? Retire it with the goal being fulfilled more or less?
Aha! A new Splint fort! Wonderful.
I haven’t been active on here for awhile. I just joined the Marine Corps so most of the past few months have been spent with absolutely no technology whatsoever. Glad I could get back in time to get in on this relatively early.
I’d like to claim one of the warrior bards. Name them Jolly.
You're a braver man than I. A mixture of cowardice and an unwillingness to part with my private shower kept me from enlisting.
Timing's awful for here though, depending on how opinion goes.
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Topic: Nokzamzatthud - Battlejudge - Retirement Plan (Read 27102 times)