Crystallake – The Final Destinationdelphonso stood huffing, trying to catch his breath. His mad eyes darted around the room. Smoke was in the air, it stung his eyes and scratched at his throat. All around him, dwarves rushed around the room out into dark hallways and back in. Madness and noise filled the room. The smoke, the flames, the growing heat – none of it mattered. In delphonso's right hand was an old lawyer's bag – one of the few sentimental objects he owned – he ripped open a desk drawer and began stuffing key papers from it into his bag. He shouted, “This one's done, too – burn the rest of it.”
A swarm of dwarves followed his call, small fires were everywhere in the office, Spookyfort was done for, and everyone was going down for it – this would at least buy them time. Dwarves poured through the drawers and burned any paper they found. If they were thorough enough, maybe some of the lower-level employees wouldn't be exiled. Even better, delphonso might die of old age before the court case sees a judge. An intern, sweat pouring down her ash-smeared face, pushed her way into the office. “A message for you, sir, it's...Splint!”
Everyone froze. The crackling of burning paper egging on further action, a dwarf coughed, and motion began again, slower and more careful now. Delphonso hesitantly plucked the scroll from her hand, then sat down and began to read. Straining his blood-shot eyes, he read Splint's latest report. He muttered a few of the words to himself. Nearby dwarves heard, “hopeless,” “liquidate,” “immediate.”
He dropped the scroll into a nearby fire. He turned around, “Paper, give me paper!”
You mentioned a few dwarves who you believe may be recruitable. Take them, and distribute the attached message among all other soldiers.
I will meet you in Lambscrushed.
Burn this message.
Alath has made the diagnosis that the presence of Sightless in the fort could guarantee transmission of the Sightless disease.
Anyone who has spent considerable time in the fort below the barracks is at risk of becoming a Sightless at any moment.
You are not allowed to leave until this has been sorted out. Do not spend time alone with anyone else.
-=-=-=-
Crystallake – Security Floor
Splint marched between training rooms. Axes swung in practiced motions and the occasional pair broke off from the group to spar. Splint made his final mental tally of who would be viable to recruit, and who would be left behind. A grim decision, but one that had to be made. It required a certain level of naivety, a desire for a good job, vulnerability to brain-washing, and a certain amount of greed. Dwarves naturally tend toward these traits and is partly why Spookyfort has been so successful. Splint made the choice – Squads 1 and 3 are full enough of good candidates to be extracted. A few of the non-military dwarves had been added to Splint's squad. Eric and Quantum having shown valuable skills in Crystallake's past – if not just a mysterious affinity with the occult.
The order went out – take refuge in Lambscrushed. Splint arranged for Security Team 2 to escort a message to Ender. He closed the doors behind him, expecting the problem to solve itself. He and his teams headed north toward Lambscrushed.
However, the unpaid and jilted contractors of Spookyfort had had enough. Having heard that there was adamantine below the Camp, by hook or by crook, they were getting paid. Splint's Security Teams met them on the surface, axes swinging wildly while the ghouls threw clouds of frost at the make-shift militia. The surface became a disastrous brawl which rolled all the way back to the Trade Depot.
Stodir's hundred eyes looked warily at the dwarves who surrounded him. The pressure – the overwhelming dread – of living in Crystallake had put everyone on edge. The dam was about to break. For some, it already had. A lackadaisical Sibrek strode naked through the Insight-Web of Terrors, completely mad. The fortress' sole voice of reason, Ender, had journeyed deep into the spiral of stairways to prove some mad theory right or wrong. On the upper levels, tantrums started to flare up, and soon it was a free-for-all. Security Team 2 got the call to rush to the surface.
Security Team 2 pushed through the doors to see a towering Ice Giant, flesh black and blue with frost-bite and eyes glowing the soft orange of undeath. At his feet lay the battered corpse of Splint, behind him, a wispy orb showed the blank, emotionless face of Eric. The orb charged the Giant, and Security Team 2 took the flank. Their axes dug into the flesh, hard as ice, and chipped away chunks of it in a grotesque shower. More contractors came through the gates. The wiser of the Security forces escaped toward Lambscrushed, while those brave or foolish enough to stay tried to dismantle the contractors. Fleeing soldiers spotted half a dozen necromancers hiding in the reeds, either come for treasure or for the fresh corpses guaranteed to be around.
Brawling and furious dwarves accused each other of being monsters, pointing to scars as proof or quirks of behavior as grounds for suspicion. Many dwarves answered these calls with a punch to the mouth, others fell into depression and tried to isolate themselves. Stodir slid her jumble of limbs inside a stone coffer and hid from the rest, fearing her presence would only make things worse. A ghostly raccoon looked on with glee in its eye. A bloodied dwarven corpse flew through the library doors, an axe tumbled from her hand. In the doorway, a birdemic bird's head shuffled in, followed by a skeletal zombull and a ghoulish Human. Everyone panicked.
Ender's pick punched through a vein of adamantine to reveal a hollow tube leading downwards. The air thick with sulfur and swirling with heinous smoke. He spotted glowing lights from deep below. Then, he heard it.
Pure madness – incomprehensible to those who believed in logic and reason. There, swirling in the chaos above a bed of cursed stones were a flying swarm of devils and demons – in their lust for violence they started burning and mutilating each other, cackling with joy and pain as they flew ever upward toward Ender.
Ender tried to rationalize what he was seeing – actors, jokers, men on strings. But there was no rhyme to these fiends – no thoroughline of any reason. A fiend ripped another apart and a statue of alpacas fell out, the pure entropy of their existence warped the mind of Ender who let loose a roar of laughter, fell and terrible.
-=-=-=-
delphonso stepped out of a black sedan, Lambscrushed was scattered with gore. It was a zombie town, some time ago, and that lot likes to keep things messy. He scanned the horizon looking for Splint and any of the survivors from Crystallake. A group of shadows appeared over an old hillock.
THE END?
See you next fear!
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Topic: Spookyfort: Inheritance (Read 28972 times)