Karak Eight Peaks: The Battle of Karag Lhune, Part 2
[*] The Chiselwards below.
You're filled with indecision as you watch Clan Angrund tear down greenskin hovels. The Grand Avenue is likely to be the most perilous of the front lines that the Expedition will be holding, as the King's Gates have a dominating position overlooking the East Valley and the East Gates have only a single avenue of attack. The tunnels underneath are the home ground of both Night Goblins and Skaven, and without proper illumination the Expedition's non-Dwarf allies couldn't contribute much, so it was vital to capture a good defensive foothold down below.
In the end, however, the unknown dangers of the Chiselwards win out. It takes some understanding of Dwarves to understand why a center for childcare and education would be so worrying - an orphanage and school in Altdorf would scarcely take up a city block, after all. But Dwarf culture differs very strongly from that of the Empire, as every Dwarf child of a reputable Clan is guaranteed an education and a bed until their childhood comes to a close at the age of thirty. On top of that, the apprentice barracks of the Chiselwards were open to any Dwarf not yet a Fullbeard of seventy years. In most Holds, the majority of children would be housed by their Clan instead of the Karak, but the legendary reputation of Karak Eight Peaks, the Queen of the Silver Depths, caused the Karak to swell with refugees from the Dwarfholds that fell in the Time of Woe. Overflowing with the orphans of a thousand tragedies, the Chiselwards expanded, then expanded again, until Karag Lhune, once the temple district of the Karak, was almost entirely given over to the housing and education of an almost unmanageable underclass of refugees.
Then the Southern Holds' doom approached, and many Clans of Karak Izril and Karak Drazh sent their youngest to Karak Eight Peaks for safety, and the Chiselwards expanded one last time. Tragically, Eight Peaks was the first of the Southern Holds to fall.
So the Chiselwards were not, as one might imagine, a few communal bedrooms and a handful of classrooms. They were a sprawling warren hastily expanded time and time again until they encompassed a huge portion of Karag Lhune, and that was before three thousand years of Goblin occupation. It is for that reason that when you finally reach a decision, your destination is the maze at the root of the mountain, rather than the highway below. "Good hunting," Belegar grunts to you as you head off, unconcealed envy in his voice.
You doubt his weapons will remain unbloodied for long. There is still a great deal of fighting to be done before even a foothold is secured.
---
Ulthar Alriksson's Rangers were the first to probe the Chiselwards, and he remains in command even as killing began in earnest. A relatively young Dwarf, old enough to fight but young enough to be kept out of it if anyone could help it, stands upon the landing of the Karag's central staircase, giving directions to all comers; he gawks at you for quite some time until he remembers his job. You suppose he's no less experienced with human wizards than most dwarves, but he's yet to develop the veneer of stoic cynicism that most Dwarves would conceal their curiosity behind.
Ulthar stands in a row ankle-deep in trampled mushrooms, a slab of fallen stone serving as a desk and covered with recently-scrawled maps he's trying to reconcile. "Mm?" he says as you approach, then glances up and frowns in concern. "What is it? Trouble upstairs?"
"The opposite," you reply, and he calms slightly. "The Night Goblins hadn't finished arguing over who was going to replace the Boss I killed, so they barely put up a fight."
"One bolt at the right time can win a war," he says distractedly. "Not quite the stuff of legends, but it might be the stuff of victory. So, here to join in?"
"If I can help."
"You likely can." He gestures at the papers, and you frown as you try to make sense of the sprawling tunnels they attempt to depict. "Near as I can tell, the Chiselwards have been split roughly three ways - mushroom farms, grobi farms, and where they'd lost control."
"Grobi farms?" you echo, frowning.
[Rolling...]
[Assault so far: 84.]
"Aye, the buggers normally let it run wild but they've been here long enough that they've taken to cultivating their young. Bit of everything, as usual, but most of it's dedicated to combat Squigs - which worries the hell out of me, because we've yet to see any full-grown ones. Between how much of it there is and how long it looks like they've been doing this, there should be swarms of the damn things running about the place, but the only ones we've seen are those still rooted but grown enough to defend themselves from fire and axe, though there's still a few pockets of resistance trying to defend it."
You nod along, trying to remember your lessons on greenskin biology from long ago, when you were more interested in practising cantrips behind the lecturer's back. "And the other farms?"
[Rolling...]
[Assault so far: 60]
"Normally what the greenskins grow is just varieties of the greenskin fungus, but they've been growing all sorts of other stuff down here. Some of it are edible ones that were probably growing in the Karak before it fell, but others none of us recognize at all. The Snotlings and Goblins are fighting hard to protect it and have a few redoubts, but we're giving better than we get."
"And the rest?"
[Rolling...]
[Assault so far: 61.]
He waves at a particularly twisty set of sketched chambers. "From what we can tell, the greenskins haven't been in control of about half of the Chiselwards for some time. Instead, it's spiders. Might be cave spiders, might be escaped forest spiders, though the descriptions don't quite match either. Whatever they are, they're damn huge and they're clever enough to only fight on their terms. We've pushed them back beyond some moderately defensible choke-points but there's still a few avenues that could go either way, and the further back they retreat, the higher density they'll have when they decide to stop retreating."
You consider what he's saying carefully. On one hand, it seems like things are well in hand, especially considering the concerns you had about whether the Troll caves joined up with the Chiselwards. Perhaps you can leave all this in Ulthar's capable hands and continue downwards to the Highways. On the other, you're sure you'd still come in handy, and there might be opportunities here that won't last much longer.
[ ] Remain here and help Ulthar make sense of the reports flowing in.
[ ] Go to the Squig Caves...
-[ ] And join the attack.
-[ ] And collect samples before the Dwarves destroy them all.
[ ] Go to the Mushroom Caves...
-[ ] And join the attack.
-[ ] And collect samples in danger of being destroyed in the fighting.
[ ] Go to the Spider Caves...
-[ ] And join the attack.
-[ ] And learn what you can of the creatures.
[ ] Continue downwards to the Grand Avenue.
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