Part 88

"Just one more day, by Armok's beard." Gex cried, as he tossed and turned on the stone. "Just one more day." They would send more dwarves, stronger ones, when the County of Headshoots failed to meet with the traders sent by the Mountainhome. Gex knew this; as he knew he would be safe when the screaming started if he could only flee to the Dark Places where even the undead would not go. He had taken a risk, gathering as much food and booze as he could while the fortress died around him...

...but he could not save his companions.

No, they would be sacrificed to the false gods his people had worshipped in this cursed place. The ones twisted by the fear and greed of the demons they had unleashed upon the world. Or perhapse it was Armok and the Pantheon themselves, angry at the mortals who would dare hold themselves up to their noble selves and say "We too are unbound by weakness".

For that was the sin of Headshoots. Not greed, though the dwarves had dug deep. Not wrath, though the dwarves had slain many undeserving creatures. Not envy, though the nobles did cry for more, for better, for that which was given to those most deserving. Nor was it lust, or gluttony, or sloth.

No, it was pride. The pride of the Dwarven people, personified in rock and magma. It was the pride of the Deathsmiths and Murdersmiths and Arrestsmiths, believing themselves invincible right up to the point where those they had held up as the purest examples of their might became their downfall. "How ironically appropriate" thought Gex during the first few days of his exile in the depths. He didn't think much of these things anymore. The time for thinking had come and gone. The time for the food he had smuggled down below while the screams were fresh in his mind had come and gone. The time for the booze that he had grabbed; grabbed while he watched Spoonboy beaten again and again with a rat skin backpack as he cried to Gex for help... the time for that booze had come and gone.

All that remained for Gex was the image of a dwarven rescue party, firm in his mind. They would come, and they would save him from the pride that had doomed his people. They would save him because he had not lost his faith. Because he had defeated his pride. Because when Armok told him to repent, and he had the choice between his pride and survival, he chose to run in shame.

Hunger washed over him, and he lapped up the blood of some unidentifiable vermin that had walked to close. He tasted in that blood the best alcohol he had ever drunk.

"One more day. Just one more day"