Construction of Karak Bolguk
- Pronouns
- he/him
The Construction of Karak Bolgduk
hold name subject to change
Briny waves lapped at the steady hull of the Krakenslayer, the swaying of the waves beneath the only movement the ocean can force upon her. Like the Dawi of her crew she had one, unerring goal to reach, like the many others in the colonization fleet to the Varkaraz Drak. And as dawn rose over the horizon, so too did the isles, and with them the joyous voices of the Dawi colonists, eager to do away with the unnatural sway of the floor beneath them and onto blessedly still, if not solid, ground. The sailors grumbled at the excitement of the dohstrolli, while the faint, bone-deep hum of the golems' runework gained a strange tone of anticipation.
As the fleet made landfall in a natural harbor on the western coast of the southern most island, the one with a pile of rock that you could reasonably call a mountain if you squint and think hard enough, the Dawi colonists practically rushed off the dreaded boats! Following procedure only enough that the sailors only grumbled harshly at their disrespect and inexperience. Meanwhile the colonists were barely holding themselves from being so crass and undignified as to kiss the mostly solid, still ground beneath them. The golems were hoisted by a crane and gently set upon the sand, and the expedition formed up to make the trek to the base camp.
These colonists were only the first wave, arriving with skilled craftsmen, guards, and the majority of the golems assigned to this mission. Though the dwarves grumbled, and almost despised this place on principle, their spite towards their traitorous... kin... was a burning ember of determination stoking the sheer shame they feel at the mere thought of a single Zharr making it past the blockade. The Karaz Ankor depended upon them, now. Their efforts here would be the fulcrum upon which the fleet would be levered not just to harm the traitors, but to bring the vast wealth of the east to the coffers of the Everpeak. It was this knowledge that let them even consider founding a hold in this... mountain.
It was a mountain, it had to be a mountain. You can't build a hold anywhere else.
They slowly stomped their way through the forest, not caring about the noise or damage they made while they cut their way to that shoddy peak. The giant lizards were certainly aggressive, but they were just beasts, and a volley of flint locks usually scared them off. Sometimes one of them would get got in the eye and the expedition would butcher it for supplies. However the scouts would report when they spotted Lizardmen watching them. They did not appear to be hostile, but the expedition became more wary.
Despite that, they made it to the mountain with a few casualties only caused by youngling stupidity. A broken limb, or stomachache from poor water, but nothing serious. And at the base of that peak the golems with Dawi help, cleared a base camp, set up a shoddy temporary palisade, and then bit into proper stone.
---
Rorek True-eye was the foreman for the base camp, he kept a careful eye on the golems as they worked, more for foolishness by the Dawi working under them than the safety of the massive statues. Because of this, as he was watching the Dawi carrying away the rubble of the gateway, he caught one rushing up to him with a pensive look. He was holding a dark green chunk of rock the size of his fist.
"Foreman," The dwarf mason, Logan Stonebeard, started gruffly. "look at this." He held up the rock to the sun, which shown through the rock in a clear corona of bright, deep green. No occlusions, veins or impurities.
"Jadal." True-eye grumbled the dwarfen name for the mineral. Jade, the umgi called it along with nefral, grouping two very different rocks by their shared transparency, taken from the dwarfen name for it. The Foreman took out his scratch tester out of habit, made from quartz, anything that can either resist or scratch it is considered a decent potential construction material. Scrapping it, it resisted fairly well. "Good for trade." He said.
"It's all jadal." Stonebeard said in a breathless tone.
"All of it?" True-eye's bushy eyebrows rose quickly. That was absurd. Pure jadal was only found in small pockets, a chunk like this would be quite a prize from those. A mountain of it!?
"Everything past 15 meters so far. I think the mountain is made of it. At least, the base of it."
"All of our stone is supposed to come from the mountain." It was too heavy and logistically involved to ship it around a continent when it could just be quarried locally. What are they supposed to do if their only building supplies are their best trade good!? "Send out some prospectors." True-eye surveyed the area outside of the basecamp, and spotted a good hill less than a kilometer away. "Over there. The golems are doing good work, have the masons find some stone for us."
"Ai." Stonebeard went to work.
---
A few days later True-eye is grumbling, the prospectors haven't come back. He knows they haven't been killed, he could see their camp in a different place every night. It annoyed him that they couldn't find anything suitable in the hill he pointed out, but he had a job to do, and he had to trust them with theirs.
But around noon they came back to him with baskets full of blue rocks.
"Foreman." They said, and handed him a basket. he picked one up and scratched it. Very soft.
"Skarrenduraz." Or lapis lazuli as the Araby called it. Well known and highly prized for its vibrant, deep blue color. An excellent trade good, yes, but not the construction grade stone he wanted...
"All of them?" He asked incredulously.
"Every hill within 5 kilometers at least. Every one is laden with it, can barely get an arm in before it turns blue."
Rorek could hardly tell if he was breathing, he reached out and pulled up a stool to sit on as he stared at the basket of rocks, all from different hills.
"I have to make a hold out of jadal..." He said, like a man rethinking his life choices. "Like making a pick out of gold..."
---
Five years later the golems had finally dug their way past the layer of nearly pure jadal that made up the base of the mountain. Behind them dwarves carved and smoothed out the rooms and processed scrap chunks of green stone into cups, chairs, tables, and statues.
When Rorek had seen the golems bite into decent, nonprecious stone he felt oddly relieved that there was an end to this ridiculous abundance. Hopefully there would be something normal, senisble. Like iron, or copper.
But then a miner ran up to him grinning ear to ear, with huge clear crystals the size of his ears, and True-eye got an itchy feeling in his beard.
"Foreman!" The miner shouted. "Diamonds!"
Rorek's face started turning red...
a/n: bolg means a large belly, but also has connotations of extreme wealth and duk is a low narrow tunnel. basically saying "Hold of wealthy tunnels" or "the lazy rich hold"
@Lonkas woe, omake upon thee
hold name subject to change
Briny waves lapped at the steady hull of the Krakenslayer, the swaying of the waves beneath the only movement the ocean can force upon her. Like the Dawi of her crew she had one, unerring goal to reach, like the many others in the colonization fleet to the Varkaraz Drak. And as dawn rose over the horizon, so too did the isles, and with them the joyous voices of the Dawi colonists, eager to do away with the unnatural sway of the floor beneath them and onto blessedly still, if not solid, ground. The sailors grumbled at the excitement of the dohstrolli, while the faint, bone-deep hum of the golems' runework gained a strange tone of anticipation.
As the fleet made landfall in a natural harbor on the western coast of the southern most island, the one with a pile of rock that you could reasonably call a mountain if you squint and think hard enough, the Dawi colonists practically rushed off the dreaded boats! Following procedure only enough that the sailors only grumbled harshly at their disrespect and inexperience. Meanwhile the colonists were barely holding themselves from being so crass and undignified as to kiss the mostly solid, still ground beneath them. The golems were hoisted by a crane and gently set upon the sand, and the expedition formed up to make the trek to the base camp.
These colonists were only the first wave, arriving with skilled craftsmen, guards, and the majority of the golems assigned to this mission. Though the dwarves grumbled, and almost despised this place on principle, their spite towards their traitorous... kin... was a burning ember of determination stoking the sheer shame they feel at the mere thought of a single Zharr making it past the blockade. The Karaz Ankor depended upon them, now. Their efforts here would be the fulcrum upon which the fleet would be levered not just to harm the traitors, but to bring the vast wealth of the east to the coffers of the Everpeak. It was this knowledge that let them even consider founding a hold in this... mountain.
It was a mountain, it had to be a mountain. You can't build a hold anywhere else.
They slowly stomped their way through the forest, not caring about the noise or damage they made while they cut their way to that shoddy peak. The giant lizards were certainly aggressive, but they were just beasts, and a volley of flint locks usually scared them off. Sometimes one of them would get got in the eye and the expedition would butcher it for supplies. However the scouts would report when they spotted Lizardmen watching them. They did not appear to be hostile, but the expedition became more wary.
Despite that, they made it to the mountain with a few casualties only caused by youngling stupidity. A broken limb, or stomachache from poor water, but nothing serious. And at the base of that peak the golems with Dawi help, cleared a base camp, set up a shoddy temporary palisade, and then bit into proper stone.
---
Rorek True-eye was the foreman for the base camp, he kept a careful eye on the golems as they worked, more for foolishness by the Dawi working under them than the safety of the massive statues. Because of this, as he was watching the Dawi carrying away the rubble of the gateway, he caught one rushing up to him with a pensive look. He was holding a dark green chunk of rock the size of his fist.
"Foreman," The dwarf mason, Logan Stonebeard, started gruffly. "look at this." He held up the rock to the sun, which shown through the rock in a clear corona of bright, deep green. No occlusions, veins or impurities.
"Jadal." True-eye grumbled the dwarfen name for the mineral. Jade, the umgi called it along with nefral, grouping two very different rocks by their shared transparency, taken from the dwarfen name for it. The Foreman took out his scratch tester out of habit, made from quartz, anything that can either resist or scratch it is considered a decent potential construction material. Scrapping it, it resisted fairly well. "Good for trade." He said.
"It's all jadal." Stonebeard said in a breathless tone.
"All of it?" True-eye's bushy eyebrows rose quickly. That was absurd. Pure jadal was only found in small pockets, a chunk like this would be quite a prize from those. A mountain of it!?
"Everything past 15 meters so far. I think the mountain is made of it. At least, the base of it."
"All of our stone is supposed to come from the mountain." It was too heavy and logistically involved to ship it around a continent when it could just be quarried locally. What are they supposed to do if their only building supplies are their best trade good!? "Send out some prospectors." True-eye surveyed the area outside of the basecamp, and spotted a good hill less than a kilometer away. "Over there. The golems are doing good work, have the masons find some stone for us."
"Ai." Stonebeard went to work.
---
A few days later True-eye is grumbling, the prospectors haven't come back. He knows they haven't been killed, he could see their camp in a different place every night. It annoyed him that they couldn't find anything suitable in the hill he pointed out, but he had a job to do, and he had to trust them with theirs.
But around noon they came back to him with baskets full of blue rocks.
"Foreman." They said, and handed him a basket. he picked one up and scratched it. Very soft.
"Skarrenduraz." Or lapis lazuli as the Araby called it. Well known and highly prized for its vibrant, deep blue color. An excellent trade good, yes, but not the construction grade stone he wanted...
"All of them?" He asked incredulously.
"Every hill within 5 kilometers at least. Every one is laden with it, can barely get an arm in before it turns blue."
Rorek could hardly tell if he was breathing, he reached out and pulled up a stool to sit on as he stared at the basket of rocks, all from different hills.
"I have to make a hold out of jadal..." He said, like a man rethinking his life choices. "Like making a pick out of gold..."
---
Five years later the golems had finally dug their way past the layer of nearly pure jadal that made up the base of the mountain. Behind them dwarves carved and smoothed out the rooms and processed scrap chunks of green stone into cups, chairs, tables, and statues.
When Rorek had seen the golems bite into decent, nonprecious stone he felt oddly relieved that there was an end to this ridiculous abundance. Hopefully there would be something normal, senisble. Like iron, or copper.
But then a miner ran up to him grinning ear to ear, with huge clear crystals the size of his ears, and True-eye got an itchy feeling in his beard.
"Foreman!" The miner shouted. "Diamonds!"
Rorek's face started turning red...
a/n: bolg means a large belly, but also has connotations of extreme wealth and duk is a low narrow tunnel. basically saying "Hold of wealthy tunnels" or "the lazy rich hold"
@Lonkas woe, omake upon thee
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