Summer 1055, in which the Duke finds love and the danger of the Great Work impacts a founder of Alegate.
Fark, Chief Medical Dwarf – Architect Hana’s team has been busy on the lava moat project.
They have dug a long ramp connecting the surface to the magma sea. From the barbican courtyard, hot and buzzing with mosquitos, you can step down the ramp to a place with cool air, surrounded by nothing but the soothing bones of the mountain.
It takes a long time to walk all the way down a 140 story ramp. Some times, you pass a mason tapping grooves in the stone for the cart wheels. But mostly the ramp is empty. You have long stretches with nothing but the light you brought with you, and the sound of your footsteps echoing off the stone. It gives a dwarf a lot of time to think.
As you near the magma-filling chamber, the first thing you hear is the rushing water. It runs down an aqueduct from the Silent Lake eighty stories above.
The moment when the Silent Lake was breached.
Once in the chamber, the water runs through a channel to spin a water wheel. The wheel is made of crimson bloodthorn, and turns an indigo axle of frosty nether-cap. The axle drives a series of sturdy stone gears, which in turn pull great iron chains connected to the cart-filling mechanisms in the trench.
Laborers (brown) push carts into the magma trench. The yellow checkers represent airborne magma mist — very dangerous. The red figure is a child playing make-believe on the cart-tracks.
The place smells like river and fire. The air is moist from the water works, but the magma in the trench lends its own metal-and-fire smell to the place. It is warm down here by the blood of the mountain. Like a welcoming hearth.
The architect says there is still work to be done before they can start moving magma. But it is a very dwarfy place. These works in the heart of the mountain brought a tear to my eye, and I feel no shame saying that.
The iron floodgate being opened, and the magma flooding the cart-loading machines in the trench. The machines were built with metal and stones with particularly high melting points.
Thornbeard, Scout – A deep cavern patrol was walking the ashen shore of the Silent Lake, and found a feral troll. It was a wooly beast, four times the size of a dwarf, and armed with great tusks and horns. It was rattling the grate that protects the aqueduct to the magma-filling chamber.
They killed it quickly. That thing could easily have smashed the grate and climbed down into the magma works. Thank Zefon Yearlingfountains the soldiers found it before it could surprise the engineers and destroy their work.
Turns out troll blood is cyan.
Fark, Chief Medical Dwarf – The Duke is all moony-eyed over a soot-covered charcoal maker. Her name is Gel. She’s from a Vigorous Confederacy settlement in the shadow of a city burnt down by The Dragon. For some unfathomable reason, she traded that daily reminder of doom for this frontier where she can enjoy regular invasions from the jungle and attacks by legendary beasts. She must be fond of doom.
It’s a strange match, Gel and the Duke. Which is fine. I’m not jealous.
Maltose, Duke – The white-maned Law Giver of the Vigorous Confederacy visited in person again. He was, as ever, a gracious guest. I shared with him dwarven rum, distilled from sweet pods grown in Alegate’s own subterranean farms. He shared the story of one of his three sisters.
She had been a ranger in her early years, and then a mercenary. Six months ago, she joined a Vigorous Confederacy force of humans and dwarves in assaulting an elven settlement. Despite her advanced age, her archery was so refined that she is credited with personally striking down 19 elves in that battle. In the end, though, a vast force of elves overwhelmed the attackers. The Law Giver’s sister was one of the last to fall, struck down by a seven century old elf.
I chose not to mention what the elven diplomat had told me last spring about elven after-battle habits. Instead, I offered the elderly Law Giver another drink.
Argus, Broker – This Vigorous Confederacy caravan was the biggest yet. We gave them all the battlefield loot they could carry. We got a couple replacement yaks, writing materials for the library, and enough exotic sea-fish to feed the fort for a year. Our forges have a backlog of work, so we also bought some large armor to fit human mercenaries.
The wagons took a safer route, but the guards (Ü) and porters (U) leading their donkeys, yaks, and camels (D, Y, C) walked the edge of the chasm.
Fark, Chief Medical Dwarf – Alegate finally came to its senses and replaced me with another mayor.
Mayor Rimtar worked as an entertainer in the Drowned Langur for a couple years before coming to me and petitioning for citizenship. He had gotten along well with everyone in Alegate, and was quite the smooth talker. I approved his petition, of course. About three seconds later, the citizens held a vote and made Rimtar The Poet into Rimtar The Mayor Instead Of Fark.
It’s fine, really. I put you on track to have much better defences, People of Alegate. And before the job’s done, you replace me. I’m not bitter. He can have the fancy mayoral chambers. Thanks a lot, Alegate.
As I write this, I am sitting in the Drowned Langur. On one side, Scout Thornbeard is sitting with his lover Stathra. On the other side, Duke Maltose is toasting with his lover Gel. In front of me, Mayor Rimtar is regaling his constituency with yet another telling of how he once narrowly escaped being eaten by the famous giant lion, Squeezingclenches.
Maybe there’s a cabinet somewhere that needs to be made.
Maltose, Duke – Gel, my beloved, is remarkably religious. Where I come from, a dwarf picks a deity or two. Gel was brought up in the Vigorous Confederacy, though, and picked up the human practice of praying to many gods and monsters. Gel prays at 22 of the altars in the temple, including the Roc altar.
That takes her a lot of time, but it makes her happy.
Argus, Broker – Another blind cave ogre showed up and kicked in the big microcline door. This is a pattern. I told the masons to make ten spare stone doors and stack them in the deep barracks. We’re going to need them.
Thornbeard, Scout – Sweet Stathra got hurt.
She noticed a frayed garment discarded on the cart tracks and went to pick up the litter. What she didn’t know was that the engineers were testing the tracks, to see if they could shove a cart down the ramp from the surface, and expect it to make it all the way down to the magma-filling room.
The iron cart hit Stathra hard enough to smash her hand, and send her flying. The engineers say it’s a good thing it hit her in the long flat run in the clay delvings — deeper below ground and the cart would have been traveling much faster.
Ouch. Aside from the busted hand, she did a lot of skidding and bouncing after the collision. Fortunately, she was wearing sturdy clothes of coarse plant fiber that Argus purchased from the elves. It protected her from some nasty road rash.
Fark performed surgery. He cleaned the wound with langur-tallow soap, sutured the artery and set the bones. It looks like there’s no infection, praise Zefon Yearlingfountains. Fark’s theories about soap sound crazy, but maybe he’s onto something.
Fark (purple) brings a bucket of water and soap to clean the wound, then thread for suturing. A helpful dog trainer (green), trailing dogs, later arrives to put the soap back in the chest.
Stathra’s treatment log.
Fark, Chief Medical Dwarf – Okay, engineers, great job making those tracks. It is an impressive feat of dwarf-craft, and you should be proud of yourselves. But if that’s what an empty mine cart at low speed can do, we can not risk collisions involving iron mine carts that have gone down hundred-plus story ramps. Especially if there could still be magma in those carts. Even if no more dwarves with overdeveloped senses of tidyness get hit, I’ve seen dogs on the tracks, and cats chasing creepy crawlers up the ramps. So no more free-falling carts. Guide them down by hand.
I know this will slow down the operation, and I know you were looking forward to seeing the carts return on their own. Sorry to disappoint you. This is just the way it has to be.
To avoid going through wild caverns, there are places where the tracks had to spiral down within natural pillars.
Argus, Broker – I saw an engineer looking around guiltily on her way downstairs. I decided to follow.
She was carrying a bucket and mop. First she went to the magma-filling chamber. She ducked under the gears and stepped over the cart tracks, and disappeared up the cart-ramp.
I caught up to her at a hairpin turn in the track. She was mopping fish scales and gore off the walls and ceiling.
When I lowered my eyebrows at her, she said the cart that hit Thornbeard’s lover was not the first test. They had told Fark about the plan to send the cart down the ramp from the surface, but had not shared with him that they were hoping to ride the carts down.
For the first test, they had put a big salmon — about the weight of a dwarf — in a mine cart and sent it down the ramp. The cart came out the bottom of the ramp, but no salmon. The salmon had flown out of the cart at this high speed turn. It was clear that no one would be riding the carts down.
She asked that I not tell Fark what they had been planning. I just grunted.