Dwarf Fortress (4) - Team Liquid Project - Page 9

We now return to the glorious adventures of Nemen Risasgirus Gethdazkud.

He is known as 'the Splattered Cleft' for the undoubted manliness of his blood-splattered face.

He is a hero of the realms, having slain many night trolls and brigands.

He is heir to the Crusade - the hunt for Martyrtomb.

When we left off, Nemen had just been issued a grand quest - to kill a nefarious megabeast. This is the kind of quest that wins you a princess and a kingdom.


I'm still waiting for the update that lets you trade noble children for megabeast slaying.

Unfortunately, it is also the kind of quest that has to wait. Nemen says nothing, but shelves this new duty. Martyrtomb calls. Before we leave, Nemen swipes a bunch of armor from the castle. An adventurer knows better than to march into battle without adequate protection. There's a reason we're a legendary thrower. Arrows can hurt. Fortunately, this castle is decently equipped, and we end up with a proper set of bronze equipment.


We're a little behind on our shoe fashion, but there ain't no peasant wenches where we're going.

Having a breastplate and a mail shirt is not overkill, no sir. The breastplate does not cover arms, and Nemen likes his arms. The mail shirt will prevent the dismembering blows we so gleefully deal out, especially because there are no vambraces to be found. So, popping his mail-shirt collar out from under his breastplate, Nemen swaggers off into the night, followed by his rag-tag army of followers. He really hopes the lord doesn't wonder where all his soldiers went.

The hardest part of finding a fortress is finding the damn fortress out in the endless wilderness. I compare maps - Martyrtomb is situated in the Mire of Boulders, which sounds like a godawful place to want to build a fortress. Armok save us from whatever drove dwarves to push boulders into a swamp. Hell, maybe the place was named after Martyrtomb's failure in the first place. In any case, Nemen's path is westward, past the Remarkable Forests towards the shores of the Putrid Oceans. Dwarves pick weird sites.

Our first obstacle comes from how close we are to the sea. No longer are we crossing narrow brooks, but truly raging rivers. Did Nemen learn to swim when he was young? Why, yes, of course. Is he going to swim across a murder-fish-filled river while encased in armor? Hahahahaha. I employ an alternative method. I chill. And in proper snap-freeze fashion, so does the river.

Or it could just have been temperatures dropping for the night.


Ask not 'how does an entire water system freeze instantly?' Instead ask 'how do I weaponize it?'

On the other side, some sort of 'Thrips Woman' assaults us. I don't know why. The remnants of my injured forces, many of which have died of wounds inflicted in the previous quests, immediately pummel her.


Black eyes are the least of your worries, miss.

We collect some free combat XP and move on our way. Slowly. Equipping all this new armor with no skill in using it has resulted in our move speed being agonizingly slow, turning Nemen into a well-protected but relatively harmless creature. This is not good, but neither is losing your upper body to a thrown loincloth. Our surroundings, fortunately, are largely non-hostile, so we move quickly across tremendous amounts of ground. Days pass as the Mire of Boulders is found and passes ceaselessly beneath our feet. Was the world always this big? Or is my memory too small? It doesn't matter. We're getting close.


Why yes, I did get lost and have to loop back around from the west, thank you for asking.

Those of us that survived the trip are greeted by the sight of a shattered civilization. Supplies and bodies litter the ground. The dirt is slick with blood and gore, as dwarves rot in the sunlight. There is no order to the wreckage, no sign of retreat or ransack - as if this fortress had been broken by a force of nature that made no distinction in its targets. There aren't tornadoes in the Mire of Boulders, are there? Sea-borne hurricanes? What had struck down this place? Regardless, where you find dwarves, goblins are rarely far behind. Nemen and his forces move in quickly, and are ready for when it happens.


The real story here is two ranged soldiers trying to bite each other to death.

Goblins are here in force. Nemen takes a bolt to the leg and falls to the ground. Anything dealing that much damage at range is not something we want to deal with. Whipping out a crutch, Nemen rises and commences a slow, shaky retreat to the west. Dabbling crutch-walker gives us no bonus speed over crawling, and we've no time to run circles training it.

By the time we escape, only a few of us are left alive. Martyrtomb has repelled us at the gates.


Three of them can't even walk. We shall crawl to victory!

Nemen takes a little bit of time to rest, healing his wounds - the gash on his leg is not severe and he makes a full recovery. And with that, we're once again ready for war. This time, we know what we're up against. This time, we will deploy a weapon of disproportionate power. The Right Arm of Nemen shall unleash a bitter, steel hail.


Why does anyone even bother with bows? Nemen's an arrow-throwing ubermensch.

The fight is brief, but it leaves Nemen with badly crippled companions. The goblin, annoyingly, had iron armor - better than anything we have and completely unusable due to its size. It also meant Nemen took awhile to pound on the goblin's helmet, which proved resistant to bronze two-handed swords, nails, teeth, and crutches. Eventually, the cruel and unusual array of weaponry breaks the goblin's skull, ceding to Nemen control of the entrance to Martyrtomb.


Get off that fortification corpse, you'll ruin the property value!

We find another goblin near the doorway, one that relieves Nemen of the last of his companions. But we've done it. We're at the entrance. Nemen carefully edges around a few traps and enters the trading post.


Guys. Seriously? Traps out there?

The fall of Martyrtomb is evident - goblins, with perhaps a side of nightmare weather. Its history, though, is something we know little of. Nemen takes a brief moment to admire the art of Martyrtomb.


It's no Planepacked.

A dingo man? This could have been dreadful to the safety of the fort, though Nemen has heard dwarves often hate to host children in their fortresses. Perhaps this statue signified their reverence of a creature that came to remove the nuisance of babies. The ways of the dwarves are strange indeed.

Further inside, a curious contraption is discovered - a set of traps that have no harmful properties. Perhaps these were established as some sort of dwarven honor ritual, helping their enemies train as they attacked, thus granting the dwarves a better fight. Surely, they have no actual defensive value. Nemen gawks at the dwarves apparent lust for war, and gives the devices a whirl himself. He comes out with a greater understanding of his armor and how to use it!


WHICH ONE OF YOU MADE THESE

Nemen's journey continues deeper into the heart of the fortress - to the first stairway. This path is guarded. It's time for war.

Let it begin, the great battle of our time.

Man to man goblin.


'Pikeman', 'her silver pike'? Someone's confused here and it's not Nemen.

The goblin instantly gets a tremendous amounts of attacks off with a slow pike, a result of Nemen's turns taking a hilarious amount of time due to his heavy armor. Fortunately, the first volley of pike-strikes do next to nothing, also due to his heavy armor. This is our one advantage - the goblin's soft weapon will be unlikely to penetrate our bronze plating, while our own attacks should do exceptionally well if they avoid the goblin's iron armor pieces.

Nemen's shots will have to count.


An attack during or after an attack is a counterattack. An attack following a parry is a riposte. This error bugs me!

The goblin parries the strike, then whirls the tip of the pike into Nemen's arm. The mail shirt, that lovely trinket we so admired earlier, takes the force of the blow and leaves us largely unharmed. It's time to try something different - a heavy, long weapon like a pike loses much of its leverage when parrying away from where it is held... Nemen strikes low!


I attribute this success to the Goblin Feminist Movement allowing their lady-soldiers to wear silk shoes.

Nemen's stabbing attack gores clean through the goblin's foot and severs it entirely. The goblin limps away, traveling down the staircase in a panicked retreat. A triumphant cry, and our hero vaults after the cowardly foe.

Only to find something waiting for us.

The goblin wasn't running away.

It was luring us.


dont flame me bro

Thus, the adventures of Nemen came to an end, as he was laid to rest within his goal of Martyrtomb.

The tale of Nemen is perhaps not the longest, nor the most glorious, that is told. It is not the most exciting, or one with a great moral.

In fact, I don't know why it's told at all.

Goddamn Martyrtomb.

Jol was a man, and by gods, did he dress bright. Not only was it right there in his name, but years of cavorting around in fancy clothes, looking like some sort of loot pinata to invaders, had solidified his reputation. That wasn't important anymore. What was important was that being chased by trolls, goblins, and occasionally kobolds on a dare, had led to him being surprisingly competent in handling armor.

He therefore inhabited heights Nemen would never aspire to. Moving with armor on.

For all his fancy nomenclature, Jol was a bit of a brute. Superhuman strength, toughness, and dexterity led to a man that was a force of nature when unleashed, particularly when wielding a mace. Few things could withstand his thunderous strikes - and to everyone's surprise, Jol had the presence of mind to learn about three of them: he learned to read words, swim in water, and hide in the darkness. No ordinary thug was Jol - knowledge truly led to greater bashing.


There's a reason I always put a point in reader, but you're not gonna find out today.

Jol came from a little village in the Hills of Flax. When your entire region can be named after a single, tangible noun, then that says a lot about the excitement of life there. It was time for adventure, for setting out, for getting away from the godawful snow.


If this was Runescape, Jol would already be rich.

We've got much starting information. True to the 'deal with it' nature of the world, Jol began with a questionable-quality bronze flail. Still, it was at least a decently dense metal, suited for caving in skulls. If the world was truly unfair, it'd have given us silver, and the bad luck would have rewarded us greatly. Second, Jol's 'dressedbrightness' consists of a wool dress. Either he's fitting some very specific masculine stereotypes, or was called to adventure midway through exploring a farmer's daughter. The world may never know.

Jol can sneak, dropping his move speed from the 1400s to 528, which, amusingly, is still faster than Nemen could walk normally. Our hero will be sneaking around a lot to build up experience, it's a stat that can be trained right off the bat and there's no reason not to. They should just let us start with Legendary Ambusher/Knapper/Thrower/Archer/Swimmer and be done with it, really.

The ground is caked with frost. Snow and ice build up against Jol's dainty slippers. We go indoors, a temporary shelter from the tormenting needles of the relentless chill. Jol is not the best in social circumstances (indeed, a point in empathy is a point not in hitting things), but he minds his manners and greets the first man he sees. A man named Hode.


Older women are responsible for 48,207 deaths a year in these lands.

Hode presents Jol with a quest, to kill Behal Mansionrisked the Cougar. Who knows what mansion was risked, or what crimes Behal the Cougar has committed in Searedabyss the Bloody Hollows. Perhaps a crime against decent innuendo. Jol can read and appreciate words, you know.

In any case, Hode chides our Mace Lord for daring to travel alone. He does not know our power, but he has Jol's best interests at heart. We're going to find some friends, and then bash some skulls.


I briefly considered renaming their professions to 'Bridgebuilder' and 'Thread Updater', but that would be in bad taste. They're about to die horrifically, after all.

Our own village is too boring to have other brave men - all the martial skill and adventurous spirit has funneled into Jol himself. We march to the Famous Hill, where a nearby village yields to us two mighty men, ready for war. We also collect some more tasks, for why not - there is much evil in the world to kill and be lavishly rewarded for.

The group sets out to the north, braving the snow that had somehow not fallen on the Famous Hill but lay everywhere else. It impeded progress, froze waterskins to ice, and made the surroundings boring, boring, boring. A village elder once told Jol, 'back in our day, we walked uphill in the snow both ways to slay dragons!' Jol is unconvinced of the veracity of this story. The man was a Potash Maker.

Encountering some Turkeys, we engage in some target practice.


From now on, all Thanksgiving Turkeys must be caught this way by the buyer. Bam, just solved obesity in America and created a new reality TV show.

Taking the clear shot, Jol maims the turkey gobbler's leg, then closes in to unleash more devastating blows. The battle tactics for blunt and edged weapons are similar - by crushing the bones in the limbs, the mace or hammerman removes the ability of his foe to attack or move, much like dismemberment. Hits to the upper body allow the attacker to knock out his opponent by damaging the lungs, in the same way the sword or axeman might cause them to black out from lack of blood. Eventually a clear shot at the head opens, and the head is destroyed. Jol has less ability to remove limbs entirely, but his attacks are more effective against armor, making him better-suited against foes from civilized races but less effective against big, fleshy monstrousities.


Jol's still wearing a dress during this, you realize. A pretty one.

We kill the Turkey Gobbler to realize we have no way of butchering it, because Jol did not bring anything sharp. Onwards, to the north! A good amount of the travel is done outside the travel screen, rapidly training our Ambusher skill: 1exp per step.


Is that the edge of the snow I see? At last, we can drink something besides the blood coating our clothes!

Our group at last drops out of hyperspace the travel screen near a mighty Fortress. No doubt the Lord of this place has tasks of great heroism for us to perform. Dragons to hunt, princesses to rescue and then abscond with. In that order, traditionally.


Pretty tempted to scroll one option down at this point.

We swipe everything of value in the Fort for compensation. Emotional damage. Wouldn't want a tantrum spiral.



A good haul! Jol now sports armored boots and a helm. He's replaced his terrible, terrible copper shield with one befitting his ability, and collected a second waterskin as well as a sword for butchering things. He's still wearing a dress - over some trousers and under a robe, but that might actually give us some protection. I'm beginning to think Mr. Dressedbright just put on everything he owned, called it armor, and stepped out the door. This still implies he owned a dress.

We've nothing to train the thrower skill with, however - the fort only has two levels and not that much stuff. Regardless, we're better off than we were, and at no cost to us. The Lord may not have thought we were any good, but we'll show him. We'll show them all. And by pure chance, we encouter a way to do so before we even reach our tasks.


Bet you're glad I picked a blunt weapon now, aren't ya?

Tombs. Tombs are homes of powerful undead, and lots of treasure. They are cursed. Things that die there don't stay dead.

All I hear is 'combat xp'.


This is a surprisingly rare case of the game assuming your character is actually competent.

Jol approches the grey, grim walls of the tomb. The stone is dry and old, beginning to crumble in places. Nobody comes here to maintain it. A single door is set into the sheer face. This is not a place that wants multiple ways in, or out.

The lock is picked, and entrace earned. iGrok and Kurumi, our two lackeys, ready their weapons, and we sneak into the darkness.

Items lay strewn here. Offerings or remains, it no longer matters. A pair of cheap copper greaves, a stack of arrows now belong to us. There's a stone marker standing in remembrance to someone no longer remembered. We head deeper into the tomb.

And we are seen.


I did not walk here sneaking just for this guy to see me, what the hell.

This raises some questions. What is a mummy farmer? Two troubling possibilities. Firstly, this thing farms mummies, meaning his crop could be around, shambling from their plots. Alternatively, he could be a mummified farmer, in which case clearly even the lower castes of society have earned eternal life in death, and their numbers are without limit. Jol is not an anthropologist, however. He attempts to hit the thing.

The undead, especially one so powerful, must be approached with caution. Removed body parts will move under their own power. Our objective, then, is to shatter the limbs while not severing them, leaving this mummy with no tools to fight us with. The blunt weapon becomes ideal here, because we don't need living toes chasing us down. This creature is unarmed, so we must disable all of its limbs.

Swing for the right hand!




Ah, fuck.

Mummies are apparently pretty frail, for a single attack and a counterattack send two parts of the corpse sailing off. How much power does it take to tear someone's hand off with a flail, anyway? In the interest of science, we shall now name this unit the 'Jol'. Hands and feet take one Jol to remove. Mummy, you just got scienced. At least he's one hand down, so he can't grapple us, and one foot down, so we can't be chased. A living hand on the ground is probably a lot less dangerous than a mummy with that hand for wrestling. This might be looking up.

Then there's the matter of the curse. I don't know what it does but there's no good outcome from that. Jol's speed is drastically reduced, so he's not just throwing a fit when it says 'you feel horrible'.


herewego.jpg

With a gesture, the shattered parts begin to rise. Jol is unimpressed, for the fight goes well. iGrok stabs the mummy's left arm, dealing critical damage to it. Without a right hand and with a shattered left arm, the mummy no longer has offensive capability of note. A few already-smashed parts on the ground can be handled via the 'whack-a-mole' style of combat.

Things are looking up.

And then they aren't.

The mummy has one weapon left. Lunging forward on one foot, he sinks his teeth deep into Jol, and all of a sudden, we are caught in an unbreakable grip. The mummy and his dancing parts are unable to truly harm us, but we cannot escape the hideous, rotting jaw of the creature, and blood flows freely. Our flail is ripped from our grasp; it is a struggle to recover it. Panicking, Jol flails at the mummy, trying to smash the body, the head, anything that will potentially force it to release us. He grows pale at first, then faint, as blood flows unceasingly from the ragged, ripped hole in his flesh.

Suddenly, he is free - and only one smart option remains.


I hope the two inside are ok!

Jol runs into the night, in fear and in pain. The sounds of the battle fade behind him as he escapes the darkness of the tomb. He checks his body parts - all accounted for. His wounds are deep but not fatal, and should heal with a bit of rest.

His companions are forgotten within the tomb. Perhaps they will triumph regardless - iGrok has the glow of one who is legendary. It is not something Jol concerns himself about.

In fact, he concerns himself with a lot of things that aren't the thing he needs to worry about.

The Mummy's curse.

And with an otherworldly 'bing', it strikes.


I like to think the game really does have a malevolent power that can do this, to be honest.

The power of the curse erases Jol's entire life to the point no-one in his world ever knew of him. No saved records of him remain, for what value are saved games in such an Adventure? As the universe collapses around him, Jol ponders a last, cryptic thought.

'Why is 0.34.11 so damn unstable?'