"Here's the files to get you up to speed," A lady dwarf clad in copper armor said as she tossed a tied-shut folder onto another dwarf's prone form.
At least she'd been polite enough to undo his irons before heaving him out by his belt.
He'd been chucked out of a prison wagon, depositing a fresh batch of debtors and other petty criminals to a penal colony simply dubbed "The Overlook." The dwarf rolled over, dirtying the gray layered parchment, but wearily sat up, retreived it, and wiped the smudged durt off the large logo on the front. On his shirt was a name tag that read 'Splint' and he'd been denied his old war gear from Battlejudge.
It was an image of a dwarven ghost, though clearly a fake one, with "DFM" written over the apparent sheet, surrounded by a thick-line border. Beneath it being three words that had come to be synonymous with business disasters every ten to fifteen years.
'Delphonso Frights and Magic'
"Gods above... Not them..."
He remembered well the stories his older cousins, also named Splint, had told him in letters and tavern visits back home. From long-term tourism to business villas, DFM seemed like it was poised to try all manner of things in order to keep in the crown's good graces. Another prisoner introduced himself as Brit, apparently in for "Avolition" in the craftsdwarf guild, while his spouse had been sentenced alongside him for causing a flood that had killed a dozen cats. He excused himself, explaining he'd been promised a light sentence if he served in the militia and went to report to whoever was in charge of that.
Splint opened the file as he walked, looking over the stated purpose of this colony.
"'Scared Straight' program, huh? Well, sure isn't anything scarier than working for DFM... No wonder the sentence was so light."
That was when he passed a bizarre looking humanoid who introduced herself as Irisp. Without moving her lips.
He said nothing, merely turning away from her to ignore the strange encounter and asked for the person ostensibly in charge from a dwarf in a surgeon's apron. He was subsequently directed to the Expedition Leader Delmont Wheelgears.
"'Scuse me, Mr. Wheelgears? I'm Splint, just arrived in for orientation. The prison wagoner said I'm supposed to take over as Overseer for the year as part of my-"
Delmont threw a plate at him that was covered in slugs before storming out of his office. He complained that he was sick of being accosted by slugs and he was going to skin the pest control guy alive when he visited in autumn.
Splint couldn't help but notice Del had no pants. Or most of his outfit for that matter, but mostly his lack of pants.
Taking the absence as an invitation, Splint sifted through his desk for the Overseer's Badge and inspected the roster of penitents. He found an unusual number of medical professionals among them, who Delmont had noted apparently answered to a dwarf name Zultan Authoredmansions. They all had a laundry list of medical malpractice, which didn't make Splint feel all warm and fuzzy.
(out of this list Mosus is the MCOM and Delmont is basically a paper pusher, the rest are doctors)
Others he'd encountered when he'd arrived was someone named Bob Nourishedblockade, who went by the title "The Brewer." An inspection of his file indicated attempting to brew wood, which killed three tavern patrons in the capitol. His utter inability at brewing is probably what led to this incident.
There was also Salmeuk Windrites, convicted of misuse of his duty weapon to attempt to cut sandstone, which had resulted in destruction of a government-issue battle axe. Splint found it strange he wasn't part of the prisoner's work-release security team since he had passed basic training according to his file. Splint made a note to replace one of the doctors in the squad with him and a post-it note to just use whatever axe and shield happen to be laying around.
After that, he introduced himself to everyone as the overseer for the year, which garnered a collective shrug of indifference and made his first addition to the fort: A festive devil bursting out of fire on sublevel 2! Since he was ordered to "keep with the spirit of things." He had to convince the dig team it wasn't an elf with horns and probably did a poor job of it, but at least it'd look nice on a floor plan!
Bribing them with promises of actual quarters besides the ghost room probably helped.
He also placed a blanket order for whatever magnetite and lignite could be dug up short term on sublevel 5, so the security team would at least have some weapons available. It might be a work-release gig for those guys, but they weren't going to be much good keeping the other inmates spooked (but still breathing) with no weapons to rescue them from what was claimed to be guys in suits. Splint didn't put much stock in that since several people had been treated for serious injuries and at least one was missing 90% of his wardrobe due to said alleged suit-wearer antics.
Besides, they'd need the bars to help give The Overlook an authentic prison experience when the quarters were ready to be furnished.
I took some liberties with what some folks were in for and dwarfed who I could remember. I figured it'd be fun to come up with some bullshit and scatterbrained reasons for people to be sent to a scared straight prison with a Halloween theme (such as attempting to brew wood or cut rocks with a battle axe.)
I'm actually quite surprised by just how good a spot this is, seeing as it's lousy with iron ore, flux and lignite.
I figure my time's going to mainly be spent getting this bitch put together so we don't have a stress disaster before things have a chance to get going, though the fact people have pants missing due to monkey attacks might make things difficult (Delmont having no pants made me laugh much more than it should have though.)
EDIT: Whoever answers first gets to decide, but I got a Gray that wants to move in as an entertainer. Should we take this funky telepathic being in?
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Topic: Spookyfort IV: The Overlook - Overspookers welcome! (Read 17758 times)