It was over so fast. Half the fortress was dead before anyone knew what had happened.
The creature must have been enraged by the vibrations of the Engine as it began to grind into gear - there was no other explanation for the speed and ferocity of its attack, when so many other creatures had made their presences known years before any aggression was offered. Finding quick passage into the fortress, the monstrous stonefly screamed up the access shaft into the guts of the fortress - perhaps by chance, perhaps by some quirk of karma, perhaps by attraction to his mystic aura, Andreus' fourth incarnation was his first target. It was perhaps an indication of the fortress' impending fate when despite his incarnation's skill with an axe and quickness of body, he fell in an instant, struck dead by the monster before he could even scream. Soul shorn from his body, he could only watch as Fikod Koganilush Dumatedod Egom, one of the fortress' champions, was dashed against the walls in a similar fashion. Two miners fell dead by the time someone had fought to raise the alarm and mobilise the militia, little knowing the beast was far, far beyond such petty interruptions. As the first squad approached, the forgotten abomination showed its true, horrifying power - releasing a shockwave of foul, cloying dust, it stopped Battlefailed's bravest sons in their tracks, those who were not set upon by the thing immediately were left choking and gasping their last as they watched their friends cut down in front of them.
Nearly every former overseer of the fort left alive until that point was killed almost simultaneously - a somewhat fitting, if macabre closure to their careers. With no serious resistance left in the fortress, its malevolent gaze turned upon the most defenceless of all the residents - the children. A dozen screams rang out through the fortress in quick succession as each child was torn limb from limb. A last-ditch effort was made to save the fortress as every remaining dwarf who could hold a weapon ran to the stockpiles and siezed whatever instrument of war they could lay their hands on, charging the beast as one, with all the courage, fury and honour a dwarf with nothing to lose can muster.
It was a brave and honourable but ultimately futile guesture. Those who did not die instantly were to die a slow, painful death as Stuzung's foul dust filled their lungs and stopped their breath.
"Nightmarebros", one of the only survivors, clung to life for days afterwards, managing to crawl up to a safe spot where he could hide from the monster as it took out its unending rage upon the dining hall, the arena and the various workshops that had once filled the place with the clamour of chisel upon stone and saw upon wood. His back was broken in several places and the beast had hacked off his leg just below the knee - dragging himself on his hands and his one good leg had taken hours of painful, agonising effort, but for now he was safe. But to what future? Should the great armies of Dastot Cog arrive this very hour he would never walk again at the very best - more likely he would die choking within the next few days, for the dust was in his lungs. The fortress as he knew it was shattered, a boneyard and a charnel-house full only of the ashes of everything he had once loved. Everyone he knew was dead or dying. His breath slipping from him in ragged, frothy gasps, he pleaded to the gods for it to end.
Whether by the gods, or the spirits, or nature, or simply the random chance of the cosmos, his wish was granted. From his eternal imprisonment burst Leesin - despite being trapped outside of time itself, he somehow possessed an instinctive knowing of what had passed in the fortress. Quietly slipping past the monster he made his way into Upper Battlefailed. Little did he remember of the place, but he knew enough of what was there to sabotage the floodwalls keeping the foul ocean above out. As the water began to seep in, he made his way to Battlefailed's military stockpile and grabbed for himself what equipment was left after the rest of the populace had ransacked it. Seizing for himself a weapon which will forever be lost in the mists of time, he marched down to the hallway outside the grand dining hall which had once echoed with the rowdy, joyous drinking songs and animated conversations of a hundred or more dwarves. There he spied the beast.
All was lost. But there was still hope - hope that justice might yet be done. As he faced the chittering abomination, Leesin spoke only two words.
"Kar Nokzamungeg" - "For Battlefailed".
He died gloriously, in battle with the beast that had murdered his people, but before his last breath, a smile crossed his lips as a distant crashing was heard.
The water was coming.
Tossing the dwarf's mangled body aside, Stuzung Menacedcave the Dreamy Abyss screeched in rage as it caught the sound of the ocean in the fortress' stale air. Screeching and flailing it cast about to slake its insane rage upon anything within reach, workshops, corpses, doors, statues. The crash echoed closer.
The water was close.
Flailing with all six of its chitinous, vile limbs, this creature, this monster from before the dawn of recorded history, instead of seeking shelter, sought with all its might to somehow avenge its inevitable fate upon its surroundings, giving voice to its frustrations with an unclean holler of vexation. But it was far too late. The crashing water had reached the level of the great hall.
The water had come.
The creature had just time to witness with its many-faceted eyes the doom that awaited it.
And then Battlefailed was gone.
----
A moment of silence, if you will, gents.
Final save.
Poll
11 (28.2%)
Author
Topic: Battlefailed (Succession) Legendary Clusterf**k, free for all reclaim (Read 631455 times)