Part 94: Sirocco: Update 28
Sirocco's Year: Part Twenty-Eight
The siege had happened at a bad time. The merchants were still making their way up the ramp into the gatehouse.
'What do you MEAN it's not supposed to happen yet?!' tehsid demanded as we alerted the merchants to the imminent invasion. 'It's the Spawn for crying out loud! When have you ever seen them follow a timetable?'
'I just thought maybe they'd, uh, like to come during winter or something, ha ha ha!' I laughed nervously. We had got the right bridges raised this time but I hadn't had the chance to get a proper defence set up. My original plans involved cage traps, stone traps, pits covered with snow, ANYTHING to slow down their advance.
But they had come early. It was almost as if they had been... forewarned. I walked out on to the bridge and looked around, using Patsy to shield my eyes from the sun. I looked towards my gazebo on its little precipice and saw... a movement. There was someone up there, watching the fortress.
'How long until the Spawn get here?' I asked.
'About an hour, give or take.'
'I'll be back in thirty minutes. I need to do something.'
'What the- where the hell are you going?! Sirocco!'
I kept walking.
'SIROCCO!!!'
Bobbin Threadbare wrote :-
It was most certainly NOT a dream. I remembered far too much, far too clearly. Other dwarves seemed to be affected too; of special note was a mother of two who had apparently returned to life. As she walked through the halls, other dwarves would stop and stare at her, as though her simple existence proved the flaws of reality itself.
And more importantly to my own efforts, the reconnaissance I had performed in the lower levels was still fresh in my mind, and the tunnels still ran the paths I remembered. Parasol had been responsible for this latest disturbance, I knew it. However, none of the secrets I had uncovered lent themselves to explaining the event. I would need to do further exploration, and quickly, before what happened could occur again.
But it was not until dwarves started dying again that I fully realized how important my sojourns would be. It was obvious from his change in demeanor and the difference in his actions that our current Overseer, one known only as Sirocco, was one of few who had clear memories of the alternate state of affairs. Yet in spite of these changes, dwarves were dying, seemingly in the same numbers as had occurred before his actions. It was clear to me that his changes were not helping matters at all; fate would demand its share, and by altering our actions, we became unprepared for their consequences. Nothing was being prevented at all. Our only hope was that perhaps what caused the Event laid somewhere in the bowels of Parasol's secret passages, and that if I could find it, somehow the final destruction could be averted. To be honest, I knew not why I felt the rush of Spawn might stand unconnected to the regular deaths dictated by Fate, but I had to try. To give up would only have brought despair.
But first, Sirocco had to be warned of his actions. If I was right, his changes were only dooming other innocent dwarves to die, rather than preventing anything outright. However, I could not know his allegiance in this matter; it might have been that he was under orders of the Weskerdwarf himself to make alterations and record the different results. Therefore, I approached his room at night, and slipped a hastily scrawled note under his door. He seemed aware of this movement, and opened his door, but I was safely out of sight by then. If he continued to change the future and Fate turned her dark eyes on me--my searching had to continue. At any cost.