Part 89

((Wee, Coffee + Boredom + DwarfFortress = Random urge to write.))

Journal of the 4th Investigation and Reclamation Expedition.

Day 1:

We've finally arrived on the outskirts of the area designated on our maps as 'Headshoots' Our task is to find out what happened to the two search parties and one rescue party that came before us. Unlike those parties though, we have brought some real dwarven soldiers, rather than some militia recruits and caravan guards. Two squads of five lead by Hammerlords should be sufficient protection for the rest of us.

We have all heard the stories of headshoots, how demons and undead cower in the surrounding areas in fear of the fortress... How their champions have slain dragons and titans single handedly... Let me state that is nothing but fairy tales made to scare our children into not wandering off into the wilds. I have no doubt that there are dangers out here, undead wildlife and such. But they are hardly a threat to skilled and attentive dwarves. Those before us must have let their guard down, a foolish and elven mistake.

We'll be setting up camp outside the blighted ground before beginning our search in earnest. I doubt we could get any real rest under the bleak and stormy sky that seems to permanently hover over the entire region.

Day 2:

Goblins! When we first laid eyes upon the rag-tag group of skittish little green monsters, we thought that they may have been the reason for the disappearance of one of our previous groups, but when they saw us, they all screamed in what could only be described as absolute terror and fled in all directions. I heard one yell something about 'The Detective has found us!' No one among us was sure what that meant. Hell, we weren't even aware goblins knew any words longer than six letters apart from their own convoluted names. They did leave behind their possessions though, so we decided to add what little food the things had left to our own packs.

The ground beneath our feet, which looked like stone at first, actually crumbled a bit beneath us! It was a mixture of dead soil and ash, so barren that it looked like solid rock from a distance. (One of the dwarves protecting us made a snarky comment about me having 'cave adaptation'. There's nothing wrong with my vision! He won't be receiving rations tonight.)

Consulting our maps and what reports we had, the entrance would 'be impossible to miss', but we also noted that there were supposed to be several other entrances that were otherwise sealed or concealed. Perhaps we should take one of those? Whatever befell our comrades, they likely must have went straight for the front entrance... and if even a tiny fraction of what we heard is true, that might be certain death.

Day 3:

Well, we found the local wildlife. Or rather, they found us.

Various undead creatures assaulted our group this afternoon, most notable some skeletal fire imps. (Which made me wonder how the hell that works... These things can still fling fire at us despite just being a bunch of barely held together bones?) Our soldiers earned their keep today, although one of the green recruits got burned pretty badly by a couple of those imps who thought it would be funny to take turns throwing jets of fire at his backside. He's being taken care of by the party's doctor for now.

Someone in our group brought up the question of why they were all centered around here and not attacking us anywhere else in this wasteland. A bit of searching revealed them to be nest and gathering around a hill with a strangely flat top. Closer inspection showed a concealed passage leading down! It was beginning to get late by then, however, so we've decided to set up nearby and wait till tomorrow morning to go in.

Day 5:
Shit.

Turns out what was above was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. There are tons of zombified animals down here. A lot of undead cats for some reason... which is bizarre since I've never seen an undead cat before, and also, why so many? Was Headshoots breeding these things for profit? One of our diggers was ambushed and devoured before we could reach him, and in the ensuing struggle, two of our guards were killed. More were coming in behind us from some path we didn't notice before, so we had to keep moving in till we found a place to hole up.

We found a room with a strong door and shut ourselves inside. Someone had smashed a hole into the door somehow, but one of our hammerlords took the opportunity to smash any zombies who poked their heads through it. Of course, this was yesterday and they're still at it, trying to claw down the door while our soldiers take turns keeping anything from getting through the hole that was slowly getting bigger...

Guess we know what happened to the others, huh?

This room... Is strange. There's a lot of bones in here, and many of them look dwarven, but not all of them. At least they arent pulling together and getting up to bash our heads in.

Day 8:
Fuck this place.

The noise ceased after another day of killing undead animals trying to claw through the door. It looked like they had stopped coming. Well, they DID, but that didn't mean they were gone. We didn't think of that though... ha..

We decided to move on, but before we left, I noticed a small journal much like this one clutched in a skeletal hand. I grabbed it before catching up with the rest of the group. It could make for some reading, I thought, once we stop again.

Well that didn't take long. We noticed that the further we went down, the more it looked like we were going through mining tunnels. We finally came upon one level where it seemed more dug through than the others. Closely inspecting the walls, we noticed there were traces of an adamanite vein! It looked to be only the tip, the rest going down deeper into the tunnels below. It was only then did I notice that what we had been walking through earlier looked like it was... dug more recently than the rest. This tunnel in particular was a good contrast. But the way the debris was laid out, it looked like the newer tunnels were being dug upwards instead...

Got a good reason as to why fairly quickly.

Fucking tentacle demon. Yes, one of those nightmarish elven sexual fantasies was lurking that floor! That poor swordsdwarf recruit... The thing picked him up and literally ripped his head and spine out from the rest of his body before hurling it at us. This was before any of us could react. Our guards had more guts than the rest of us did, because they immediately charged the damned thing. Being ganged up on, it didn't even have the chance to strike again... Oh if only that were a straggler.

Yes, there were at least 2 more nearby by that came slithering along to join the brawl. Being attacked from two sides, we lost a couple more soldiers and our second to last digger before they were subdued. But of course, that couldn't just be it.. oh no. Somehow, one was coming DOWN the stairs we had just came from! He set his sights on our last miner... Armok bless that dwarf, he knew he was fucked, so he took his pickaxe and went down the next flight of stairs to the area below us... The thing followed him right down, ignoring us. Lots of unholy screeches and growls rose up suddenly as he left our sight. There were a couple of grunts from the dwarf before the floor shook a little. The stairwell, and the supports around it, collapsed on top of him and the monster after him, effectively sealing off the lower levels, since we had no miners left. (Or at least, no digging implements anyway. Why were we given only three?)

Well, now we can't go back up, because the bastards somehow came in behind us... we're stuck here. By Armok we are fucked...

DaY Eleven:

Hahaha, shit... No more food. And guess what? That room we were in with all those bones? THAT WAS THE FIRST SEARCH PARTY! Yes, we basically walked right into the same goddamn death trap that they did. That journal I picked up was theirs. What luck! Of course, I couldn't have told everyone to stop and let me read it, therefore avoiding all this. Oh no, that would make SENSE.

And sense is obviously something that this fort doesn't have.

We couldn't even get into the main part of the fort... If this is the mining tunnels, which they obviously sealed off any path leading into the fort... Then what the fuck happened up there to make them all disappear...?

We've had to eat one of our slain comrades to survive, so now we're cannibals too. Half of our team has gone nuts and killed themselves, and half of what was left turned on each other. I know better though... It's just me, our cook, and our last Hammerlord now. We won't be the last to come here, I know it... Someone will come... although we are running out of corpses to eat. We'll have to find something else... maybe our Hammerlord? It's not like we'll be fighting anything while sit-

(The rest of the page is splattered in blood. The corpse found over it had it's head smashed in and various pieces of it's body were consumed.)

((Ok ok, I'll stop now.))