User:Geekwad

Sirep Turotratheg Shagthoelbusbel Thrithur, bronze colosus

Engraved on the wall is an masterfully designed image of a dwarf and a bronze colosus by Id Eturtath. The bronze colosus is striking down the dwarf.

Engraved on the wall is an exceptionally designed image of a dwarf by Id Eturtath. The dwarf is falling.

Engraved on the wall is an exceptionally designed image of a bronze colosus and a dwarf by Id Eturtath. The bronze colosus is making a plaintive gesture. The dwarf is laughing.

Engraved on the wall is an masterfully designed image of a bronze colosus by Id Eturtath. The bronze colosus is falling.

Engraved on the wall is an exceptionally designed image of a bronze colosus by Id Eturtath. The bronze colosus is withering away.

I did not know whether to expect a caravan, or an army. The last group of elves had met a very mysteriously end as they left here a year earlier. One of their donkeys suddenly went berserk, and slew them all. I had to expend a bone bolt to put the animal down, but of course the trade that the elves had been hauling out more than made up for that expense. As such, I was feeling magnanimous, and did not send a bill to the elven queen.

These kinds of things happen in dangerous parts of the world like the area outside my fortress. This is no place for a delicate elf, and I mean to make them understand that. Even if it takes a heroic saga of mysteries to convey the point. But, some do not care for my diplomatic way of phrasing things, and to those I must speak more forcefully. I was preparing for the possibility of such conversation in the early spring of 1056.

There is only one approach to my fortress; from the south. I posted my Champions and their squads across the narrow pass to wait for news of the elves' decision. Troops or traders? As it happened, they would be escorting a peaceful party of merchant elves to a specially designed "trade depot". The same one their colleagues had visited a year prior.

I could have lowered the bridges, but instead I made the merchants traverse the army-slowing maze of channels between the pass and my depot. They gingerly picked their way through the fields of rock fall traps that carpet the maze. It was small of me considering what was in store for them, but they just bugged me. They fopped their way across the narrow bridge that provides the only access to the trade depot and began to unload.

The first wretched bag of rat weed that hit the gleaming marble floor was accompanied by a grating roar. With the flick of my finger I had retracted the bridge that was their only escape. They blinked uncomprehendingly, then continued to unload. I had tried to terrorize last year's group, but it proved pointless. They are too stupid.

The depot that was their new permanent home was perched on a pillar, in a deep pit carved by my truly legendary miners -- ahh, you've heard of them, I can see it in your expression. Yes, it's true, they dug it in only one day. Even though I bid them dig it so deep, the bottom could not be seen from the depot. Half as deep would have been sufficient, it was purely for dramatic effect. My flair for drama may well have saved the entire city of Noblogem.

The elves were locked down to cure. (I find it takes about three months to properly cure an elf.) There would be no invasion this spring. I took my military off alert, and they made their way back back to our deep halls. Had I let them loiter on the great plaza between the depots and the headframe, they may have seen her coming a hundred miles off. But that is the domain of the sun, and I am as good to my men as I am cruel to my enemies.

Instead, the first warning was sounded by a miner in our deepest shafts. The roots of the mountain were shaking. Our magma priests assured me it was not the familiar pulse of our lifeblood. My chief engineer swore vile oaths it was not caused by his great works.

I had a suspicion. My grandfather told me long tales about defending his fortress against a Titan, and of how the ground shook when it fell, down to his deepest halls. The tales of others told me a less glorious tale. He used a stream of peasants, one at a time, to tire the godling into unconsciousness. Then he sent the entire fortress to tear it limb from limb.

I was going to carve a more glorious image in history. There was no escape from our box canyon. Not for elves, not for us, and by the Blood of Armok, not for Titans. If a titan would come, we would meet it with our greatest Champions, and we would show it what a real gods fight like.

Ah, but a titan is a thing of flesh and blood. A titan tires. A titan bleeds.

The bronze colossus Sirep Turotratheg has come!

She was ... She was beautiful! Nothing half as fine has otherwise crossed these eyes. She was a masterful bronze statue endowed with life. I saw her, and I loved her. I don't know why she came to me, and I did not know if any of us would survive it, but I shouted my thanks to her from my tower across the battlefield.

She brushed aside fully grown pine and larch as though they were blades of longland grass. My squads were still assembling in the depths, but I had forgotten them. I watched her from my tower, entranced. My room quaked with her footfalls. She carved a path through maybe thirty traps in my maze without only a single dent. Then, before my captivated eyes, the dent flowed and reformed. She was perfect again.

I tore myself from the spell. I would not be worthy of her visit by hiding behind fortifications. A tiny wave of my wrist, and the main gates of the fortress fall open. But rather than a great roaring wave of Dwarf, the courtyard contains only a Clerk and a mule.