Can Doogie Bronzesiege Save the World?, a pitchblende-bound codex.
This is a 2 page essay entitled Can Doogie Bronzesiege Save the World? authored by “Doogie” Bronzesiege. It concerns the life of the dwarf “Doogie” Bronzesiege. The writing has a somewhat serious tone. Overall, the prose is amateurish at best.
The sun sets as I write on the 28th of Obsidian, hours ahead of the new year. Now is the time for all dwarves to take stock of ourselves and resolve to change for the better.
I am only twelve-and-a-half, young even by human standards, and my fellow dwarves consider me a child. Yet sometimes I feel I’ve got more ability in my medium-length mustache than they have in their whole bodies. These dwarves came to Smallhands as migrants, becoming molded and scarred by the traumas of this place. But I was raised here, in the company of forlorn ghouls and beakdogs and captive necromancers. I have no memories of my father, and mother would never talk of him. I was orphaned when I was eight: the goblins hacked my mother apart right in front of me and chopped off my foot. Although I oft malign the Chief Medical Dwarf, he was able to keep me from bleeding to death at least. I have mourned for her every day since, but tonight will be the last time. I will leave my grief behind me along with my childhood. I paid her a final visit tonight.
And afterwards visited the museum where we keep her greatest achievement.
I felt the familiar wave of pride and sorrow rip through me and allowed the tears to fall. After tonight I will have no time for tears. I wiped them away and left only purpose firm to honor mother with my deeds. When my life is done history will say Asmel Oddomal gave two great gifts to dwarvenkind.
I left the museum and stood outside the hospital where I’d nearly bled to death years ago. Spending so much time in the hospital left its impression on me, and even before my maiming I could tell that healing was my vocation. My mother began calling me Doogie, after a character from a human story she once heard from a bard. Doogie was a Human Child who lived in a hospital, and he was so smart that all of the human doctors asked him what to do. Eventually they made Doogie a doctor too, and he was the greatest doctor in all the land. I started to read at age four, and, as we had no story books in the Smallhands library, I had to make with Start Your Day With Wound Wrapping. I was obsessed with it; I must have read it a thousand times. I couldn’t get over the idea that life-saving information could be held in the timeless pages of a bituminous coal-bound codex, and I wanted to memorize everything that might help another dwarf. I wanted to be a Doogie. My only limit was the number of books in the library, so instead I incessantly bothered the doctors with technical questions… but I found they didn’t know half as much as the books, and thus hit the other limit of my education. Though they’d never admit it, for the past couple of years I’ve made most of the medical decisions in Smallhands; “Doctor” Quarque and Chief Medical Dwarf Salmeuk merely take credit. I will admit that Doctor Quarque has definitely improved over the past couple of years, though it took some very gruesome trial and error to reach this point.
Dwarven law dictates that I am technically old enough to hold titles of nobility, and I am sure Salmeuk will relinquish the post to me with some convincing. I have respect for the dwarf as our longest-residing citizen, but truth be told he is an amateur doctor, and I suspect he will be relieved once I tell him I want to take over.
Salmeuk’s generation turned a stinking purple charnel pit into to the richest little fortress in the world. My generation could see it become something far greater, but we need leadership. I intend to seize not just the CMD post, but the position of Overseer of Smallhands. I have ideas for an ambitious healthcare system, and I’ll need to wield serious organizational power to make it happen. One year under my supervision should be enough to get us on track, at which point I plan to relinquish command and focus on the hospital full-time. I’ve spent the past six months studying our thirty-four-year history and reading the journals of all our past overseers. I feel more confidence in claiming the office: one of our past rulers was an alpaca. It served two terms. I believe they will accept a twelve-year-old.
Our community was founded on the principle that the best things in this world are smallest, and I plan to prove our founders right: by becoming the youngest doctor in all the dwarven world! My small hands will bind our people’s wounds of flesh and mind. These are the final thoughts of Ast the child; the sun will rise on Doctor Doogie Bronzesiege.
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Topic: Smallhands - nearly 40 years and still tiny! (Read 441033 times)