Sunday, March 16, 2014

Datanerith Entry 9: A Day of Drudgery and Dingoes at Datanerith


Meet Stakud Rithrithar, the Ranger of Datanerith. See him posed next to a dead dingo? We'll get to that.

Stakud is scrawny for a dwarf, and bald, with a long mustache and beard arranged in double braids. He is focused, impatient, and has a very undwarfy penchant for sleeping outside, on the grass. He was a member of the most recent migrant wave to the fortress; he contributes by hunting the local wild animals. Stakud is, in no small part, a reason why the fort didn't starve during the lean months.

A feral weasel was harassing Udil, the fisherdwarf, and what did Stakud do? He shot the weasel and dragged the carcass back to the butcher, Eral. Wasn't even ordered to. He's just doing his job.

Now, about those dingoes.

The "d" stands for "death." Also, "dingo."

The pack of dingoes that arrived was much larger than the one that showed up last year. Ten dingoes, instead of six. And, of course, they were on this side of the river. They immediately, and aggressively, started attacking poor Udil. He's fine, by the way, he just ran away a lot. Between weasels, alligators, and a pack of dingoes, he's actually getting pretty good at that.

I called for the militia. There were three left: Ral, Tirist, and Melbil. I double-checked to make sure that Tirist and Melbil both had their crossbows, and Ral Nerkadol, the militia commander, took her axe. She had a crossbow, too, but she really likes that axe. Whatever. All three warriors met at the fort's entrance, and as a team, they rushed the first dingo they saw. Well, I say "they." What I mean is, Ral buried her axe in the dingo's fucking skull while Tirist and Melbil sat around trying to figure out how to do a suplex with a crossbow.

When it comes to killing dingoes, a copper battle axe is actually better than a piledriver. Maybe someone will tell this to my dumbass soldiers?

So Ral is leading the charge, here. That works, I guess. As she leads her two cheerleaders to the next attack, they run into Stakud, reloading his crossbow over the bodies of four dead dingoes. The rest of the dingo pack, seeing that there was no easy prey to be found at Datanerith, beat a hasty retreat. Stakud didn't even know there had been a call to arms. He's just doing his job.

2 comments:

  1. Looking forward to the next installment!

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    1. Thanks! The (tentative) plan is to do one a day. I've got enough of a backlog to do that, definitely. If I build a big enough backlog, though, maybe I'll be comfortable kicking it up to twice a day!

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