Spring 1058, in which Alegate meets its ultimate challenge.

Maltose, Duke – It is the spring equinox, and Founding Day!

Eight years ago, the Queen sent us to guard this crossing. By pick, block, and axe we have done that. Now, it has been more than a year since the enemy has dared to attack Alegate. Drink a toast to yourselves, hardy citizens!

This day we also reflect on the passing of one of our eldest dwarves. Though we may keep ourselves safe from hunger, thirst, and foe, there is one thing dwarves cannot evade forever: age.

Zas the bard, father of 20 grown children, passed away peacefully at the age of 167. We all knew him — he is the one who wore that forgotten beast hide cloak, with the broad orange feathers. When wood gatherers found his body in our pristine southeast woods, it looked like he had curled up in his favorite cloak for a nap.

It has been eleven years since his wife passed on. May he enjoy her company again in the afterlife.

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The southeast forest, in summer blossom.

We are sorry to see our friend pass on, but this is a kind of victory, too. Despite all the threats, our people can still live their full, natural lives. And the monsters that would try to slay us? We make cloaks from their hides!

So refill your cups, citizens, and fill your plates with meats from the deep. This is a day to celebrate!

Fark, Chief Medical Dwarf – I’ll take my crundle-ka-bobs to go, thanks. I’ll be in the hospital, making sure we have enough bandages and splints. Spring time is siege time.

Thornbeard, Scout – The wind carries a strange sound from the south. It is like a vast pack of wolves howling at the moon, but with the voices of hawks and eagles.

Click here for battle report.

Argus, Broker – After the battle, I found squad leader Adil outside the fort, sitting on a pile of beak dog pieces. He needed to be carried to the hospital.

I wonder how beak dog tastes. There is a lot of it around right now.

Fark, Chief Medical Dwarf – We lost two of our dwarves to the invaders. Trolls can do terrible things.

Squad leader Adil will recover. Without steel armor, that beak could have cut him in half.

The planter will need time to recover from the broken bones, but he will be okay, too.

Ezum, that one-armed mace lord, is too impatient for his own good. He got hurt in the battle, but did not stay in the hospital long enough to finish treatment. He’s up in the training field already, undressed wounds and all. Foolishness!

Argus, Broker – Up in the training yard, we were having a good workout. The forest fire was roaring north of the river. The thick smoke passing overhead made the sunlight flicker on our shining steel and blue godmetal.

To make things even better, one-armed Ezum rejoined us already! We thought he would need a lot longer in the hospital. Now that’s dwarfishness!

Thornbeard, Scout – The hound that was struck by so many arrows — Hammermoral — survived. He will bear many scars from this battle. He is beginning to look like his grandsire did.

Maltose, Duke – As it is my duty to know the morale of the fort, I often report to the Drowned Langur to watch the citizens as they go there for more ale. It is fortunate that my beloved Gel often joins me for these investigations.

This time, I learned there is a new flavor in the Drowned Langur: beak dog.

We would never eat troll, as trolls have their own intelligence. It is even said that rare trolls have learned trades. And of course goblin flesh is no use to us (we are not elves, after all!) But the beak dogs are another matter. The butchers are carving as many of the creatures as possible before they go bad.

Those colorful hides are going straight to the tannery. Now that the military is fully uniformed, the wearing of tough leather cloaks has become fashionable among the citizens. Those hides are going to make a lot of exotic cloaks.

Fark, Chief Medical Dwarf – Lokum and I were relaxing beside my favorite statue of Argus. Then architect Hana and his assistants paraded by with a wheelbarrow full of water, a bunch of buckets, and a chalkboard.

I did not want to know. Lokum was curious, though, so we followed.

A walk through the busy grand hall.

The strange party went to the butcher shops and collected uncooked beak dog parts. They laid these out on the floor, like they were going to build a new beak dog. At that point, I was certain that I did not want to know more.

What they did next was complicated, and involved putting beak dog pieces in the wheel barrow, and seeing how much water they could add before the wheel barrow overflowed. Occasionally, they would add some math to the chalk board. It was all very strange and confounding to see. A crowd gathered to watch.

When they were done, Architect Hana announced that one beak dog has a volume of approximately 150,000 cubic centimeters. He also said that there was enough edible material on a single beak dog to support one dwarf for four and a quarter years, assuming proper preservation and plenty of brew to go with it.

Lokum and the rest of the audience applauded this feat of geometry and mathematics. They were really, really impressed. There were people pushing their way to the front to pat the architect on the back and offer him drinks.

Am I the only one who thought it was strange that our architect was throwing food on the ground and making soup in a filthy wheelbarrow? Maybe I’m just getting a little crazy. That must be it, because the alternative is that everyone else here is crazy, and I’m the only sane one. Which can’t be the case, because that would be horrifying. Please don’t let that be the case. Let’s just go with the “I’m crazy” option.

Thornbeard, Scout – I was enjoying music in the deep tavern with my old hunting dog and sweet Stathra. There are plenty of instruments now for visiting musicians to play. There is something special about hearing music from distant lands, played deep in the heart of the mountain, to the accompaniment of the hammers in the magma forges. The lighting makes it moreso; countless candles of beak dog tallow light the place. They flicker like fireflies or a starry sky.

Eventually, Stathra stood up with the musicians and sang a new song — the song of my own quest to the land of blue grass, where I acquired the unicorn horn, and brought it back for the glory of Zefon Yearlingfountains. It is an unexpected thing for a simple scout to hear a whole tavern sing one’s own praises, under the monster tallow candles. But it is a good thing.

Afterward, Stathra asked me if I thought I would ever go on some other adventure. I shared an idle idea I had about how the magma sea was the greatest unexplored frontier. That perhaps the icy nether-cap could be used to build an indigo dock on that fiery shore. The same material could be used to build an ever-chilled ship to sail the magma sea.

She smiled and said she would write a song about it.

Argus, Broker – No elven caravan this year. Again.

Maybe beak dog meat works as an aphrodisiac for gorillas and grizzly bears? It’s worth a try.

And so ends the tale of Alegate’s rise. Seven courageous founders, with a mandate from The Queen, built a stout fortress to guard the river crossing. That fortress was threatened by beast and army, yet every year it grew stronger. By the beginning of the ninth year, the citizens of that place had even brought the blood of the earth up to the surface, to create an imposing moat of searing lava.

When war broke out, and The Queen was threatened, her son and grandson were protected behind that searing moat. Would her son soon become King, and Alegate become the next mountainhome? Perhaps, but that is a story for another time.