Winning Vote:
[X] Plan Defense and Request
-[X] Expanding the Workshop, Defense:
-[X] [Simple] Rune. Those. Halls!:
-[X] Dragon's Blood:
…
The settling of the hold continues apace, large parts of the surface dwellings have been cleared away as clans finish moving into the mountain, the main fortress longhouse still stands and will do so until a proper set of defences for the hold are constructed from good solid stone and metal.
The first few years of the decade see you spending the majority of your time at your workshop accompanied by a group of three longbeards. A mason, a carpenter and a warrior with a combined 900 years of experience between the three of them. Together the four of you devise and plan the construction of the workshop's defences over several months before you're finally satisfied with the work and the actual constructing can begin.
It is on a crisp spring morning that a gaggle of 40 dwarf Longbeards and their troupe of apprentices bear down on your home with gusto.
Working their way inwards, they begin by clearing the land a good 100 meters around the natural entrance to your home, flattening the ground and removing any sight blockers. You've further added a series of Runes of Light all over the ground itself, denying any advantage darkness could have given a theoretical foe. As for the entrance itself, the masons carve away at the rock in a specific pattern so that in the event of a siege you could make the natural outcroppings unstable enough that they collapse outwards, crushing anything trying to break through the newly installed rune-reinforced gates. The rubble itself only adds further blockages for your foe to get through.
On either side of the gate, behind the outcroppings, are a set of watchtowers, bolt throwers and murder holes placed to offer the greatest field of vision and overlapping arcs of fire as possible. The towers themselves are accessed through hallways carved into the walls of the natural pass, the ceilings of which are rigged to cave in as the defenders move behind sets of Gromril doors. This configuration repeated itself 8 times along the path, giving the defenders the most possible fall back points as you could fit into the area given.
The pass itself is also booby-trapped. Sections of the wall are able to be detonated at will thanks to a well placed Rune of Force, tightening the passage to a single dwarf's width, ordered as to elongate the path by creating a zig-zag pattern, further funnelling your foes. At each
corner of this arrangement is the gilded visage of an Ancestor God, their mouths open in a snarl, and rigged to spit alchemical flame should a foe pass through it.
The ceiling of the pass, riddled with its natural skylights, is, of course, also rigged to blow, the falling rock meant to crush any would-be attacker as they make their way through the maze of fire and death.
When at last they reach the door to your workshop, the invaders will find a great door of granite and Gromril a meter thick emblazoned with Runes of Warding and Protection. Which, once they break through, opens into yet another door that is two meters thick, behind which your hosting area will have been converted into a killing field of Bolt Thrower Emplacements, Runes of Spite, and a reloadable mechanism that launches a ram head, capped in a piece of Brass coated Gromril bearing the snarling visage of Grimnir, towards the entrance.
It is beautiful.
Right now you cannot think of anything to add to such a magnificent array of destruction, but perhaps one day you will. As of right now, this is the best you can do but like any sensible dwarf, you've specified that room for expansion be taken into account when devising the plan.
Defence. In. Depth.
Your apprentices looked rather worried when they saw you chortling in glee at the sight of your completed defensive works.
…
During the construction of the murder maze and when you weren't busy participating in said construction, you and your apprentices were in the halls of Kraka Drakk. You, inscribing runes and them, diligently listening and following your movements on a stone tablet as you spoke the chant of each Rune for their benefit. Every few dozen runes or so you would check in on their progress, critiquing their mistakes and pointing out their errors before returning to your work.
Of course, your apprentices had to
carry all of those heavy tablets
along with the reagents required for your own work as the three of you bustled about Kraka Drakk and put down several dozens of Runes throughout the hold.
This continued for years until at last the major public areas of Kraka Drakk were runed to a degree worthy of any place that called itself a
Karak. You were certain that as the hold grew and swelled with more dwarfs that further work was to be done, but it would ultimately be negligible compared to the sheer volume of work you'd done in this timeframe. That, and hopefully a few more young master runesmiths would pick up the slack as well.
Didn't need a Runelord to light a hallway after all. Any runesmith above the rank of apprentice should be able to do that much at least,
should being the key word there.
No shoddy runework where you lived, no sir. You'd run out any beardling traipsing around as a runesmith yourself if you caught even a
whiff of poor craftsmanship.
The only places left that needed someone of your skill to get right, for now at least, were:
The Main Foundry District, mostly to manage the airflow and turn all the hot air from the forges to something useful like heating the Karak or what have you.
The Temple District, to inscribe the individual Ancestor Runes on each site. Thankfully the priesthoods would be taking up the brunt of the material cost, so the reagents necessary would be there for you to use.
Places like the Commercial district and Siege storage were well within the capability of younger runesmiths to do in your opinion.
You'd still check and make
sure of course.
…
"Dolgi, give this to Borri Kholbeard, that trader we met last week, while you're out for supplies." You say handing off a sealed letter to your apprentice.
"Yes Master," he intones seriously before heading off.
"And hurry up about it, when you get back Fjolla
should be finished and then it'll be your turn," you shout after him as he leaves through the door.
Not even a 'Goodbye Master?'
Bah. Beardlings these days.
With Dolgi out, you walk back towards the workshop, where even now you can hear the quiet yet steady chanting of your other apprentice. Walking in silently as to not disturb her, you watch impassively as the beardling's hammer strikes the chisel to the tune of the chant.
Your eyes scan for even the slightest error, the most minute lag, the tiniest hiccup, and to your private satisfaction, you find none. Well, none you'd expect from an early apprentice. Plenty from the perspective of grading a
senior apprentice.
Acceptable, though you'll never tell the girl until she's a master herself.
The Rune of Stone, something of special significance to not only your guild but your people as a whole.
From stone, the Father of Mountains, the first rock of the world, was your race born from,
by stone were you shrouded from the coming of fel magic and
to stone where every dwarf will return. It should be no surprise then that the Rune of Stone is the first Rune an apprentice shall ever make, just as it was the First Rune discovered by Thungni. From here the journey truly begins, every step, every bruise, every lesson culminating into this one moment.
You remember your trial as clear as a stream of fresh snowmelt. The presence of everything fading away into nothingness, your mind, body and soul devoted to that single act of creation. The feeling of reaching into something
greater than yourself and bringing back this most precious souvenir. An echo, a pale look at that most wonderful
ideal. The moment you, no
every Runesmith, knew they would chase that feeling until the ending of the world if they could.
Blessings to Thungni. Now, forever and always.
You are drawn from your own bout of internal reverence by the sound of the final verses of the chant, eyes focusing back onto the steady form of your apprentice as she strikes the final time and the telltale glow of a completed Rune brought into the world.
Perhaps it is a trick of the light, perhaps not, but out of the corner of your eye, you swear you see the eyes of the statue of Thungni you erected for his shrine glow in contentment.
Stepping behind him you place an arm on her shoulder, not even startling the girl as she stares reverently at the glowing rune on the surface of the breastplate.
You take a dramatic sniff and remark, "A bit shallow beardling, were you using a hammer or a hunk of limestone?"
"Yes Master, I understand Master. I'll strike harder Master," Fjolla says, eyes still fixed upon the rune. Your sage advice not seeming to dim her spirits in the slightest.
You understood all too well, not even Yorri's Pocket Troll Tongue took the joy away from you in that moment.
"Well then apprentice, get this place cleaned up! Dolgi will be back any time now, and any Runesmith worth their plaits doesn't leave a dirty workshop now do they?!"
"Yes master!" the youth says with a start, trance broken, she sets down the breastplate gently before scrambling off to work with heady vigour.
…
The decade is a productive one. With Dwarfs settled, the main hold secured and your home
defended you can say that your time was spent productively. Soon, you think, your apprentices will be more than just simple material jockeys and a source of entertainment, and will finally go about inscribing runes their very own. Maybe they may even contribu-
-HA! You can't even finish the thought, it's too hilarious.
...Maybe Fjolla, Dolgi in a year or two.
Three decades and already their first rune. A small surge of pride at the thought.
You were a
fantastic teacher.
Gain:
-
Defence. In. Depth. Your home is as fortified as can be right now unless a truly paradigm-shifting development occurs you're...still probably not doing anything until it's proven itself after a good half millennia of testing. Barring a catastrophe of course.
- Bedazzling Be-runed Karak. The main sections of Kraka Drakk are runed to a standard you deem well done, but work yet remains for a Karak is more than just its feasting hall and throne room.
- The work begins. Your apprentices have both forged their first true Rune. They're sad little things, but by the barest margins break into the barely acceptable category, Fjolla's though lands squarely in acceptable, which you will never dare tell her until she's a master but still. Either way, they're an achievement for any apprentice.
- Extra work unlocked for the hold. Temple and Foundry District both require the quality and touch only a Runelord can bring. Any specialist tasks are locked until their respective districts are complete.
- Work on some good solid
Permanent defences is rumoured to be starting in a decade or two. You may have to put your foot down and push for
Defence. In. Depth. be applied. Couldn't stand to live in a Karak that had a standard defensive setup in a place as inhospitable as this.
AN: C&C as always, and thanks to the people who helped me with some stuff, because of whom there are now five +5 bonuses to your RER's this coming turn. Also, let me know if you see any Imperial measurements. I'm serious about the Metric thing. I may have to change what my standard reward is if this keeps up. That or get more stingy idk. The turn should be up in a few hours, gonna go eat lunch.
