The Meddling of Wizards

In the beginning, there were three mighty and terrible wizards, each residing in a tall tower, each in a different corner of the earth. The goblins, greedy as their race is known to be, struck at one - but the wizard drove them back with hideous beasts (of the wizard's own creation) and terrible magics, the likes of which rendered the earth barren and could be seen from miles away, as lights flickered in the very heavens. The wizard, terribly angered, hunted the goblins to their lairs; in tower and burrow he sought them, and scoured their civilization from the face of the earth. And nevermore, in that part of the world, would goblins trouble any soul.

But the other wizards lived in far parts of the earth - and goblins troubled another of them, attracted by the treasure for which wizards are known. This wizard lived in the farthest north, and for a time the cold, and the magic and servants of the wizard, deterred the goblins; but then came the demon who the goblins served, cloaked in perpetual fire. It dueled with the wizard for nine days and nine nights, while the goblins fought their way to the tower's peak; and in the wizard's strength was broken, and from the heights he was cast down. His hand he sacrificed for escape, and fled elsewhere.

In the greener lands to the south he found refuge from the demon's forces, who hounded him in his escape; there, a deep cave gave him a hiding place, foiling the pursuit. That place was ruled by a minotaur, whose origin dated back to the Beginning; though the wizard was not the power he had once been, still he had strength enough to defeat the crude beast, enslaving it and empowering it, making it his right hand; the minotaur Zarasmoth Lightslayer.

It is the custom of the dwarves to venture outwards; not for all, but a few, to journey together to far lands, in an attempt to gain land and glory for Dwarfkind. Seven dwarves travelled so to found an outpost on the wild slopes of Mount Umunum, and therein established a small but swift-growing town, which they named Zirilfotthor. Fields were planted, and walls built; windmills constructed, and defenses set. For a few, fairly peaceful years, they traded with human, elf, and dwarf alike, and were troubled by nothing but kobold thieves and a few goblin raiding parties, readily repelled.

Then, with a shock, came a great procession: the minotaur Zarasmoth Lightslayer, leading nearly half a hundred monsters behind. Their shapes were many, from floating sac to bounding leaper to giant, mishappen crab; and all were abomination. The minotaur demanded parley, and the dwarves reluctantly opened their outer gates, and sent their least important negotiator, Reg Bimulzest, out to speak between the inner and outer walls, while marksdwarves watched carefully through arrow-slits and parapets.

The minotaur looked down on the hapless negotiator sent to it; thrice the dwarf's height, Zarasmoth clearly had no use for it. But bound by the wizard's strictures, it spoke to the negotiator, demanding tribute for its terrible master.

Bimulzest, trembling and afraid, refused; following prepared orders given for just such a circumstance.

But it was clear that the minotaur, too, was ready for this. It flew into a rage, tearing the negotiator in two and charging through the (stone) inner wall. Marksdwarves, panicking, loosed single bolts and fled. Zarasmoth destroyed any dwarf caught in its path, but focused on its mission: to clear the main entrance to the fortress proper, and to kill every living dwarf therein. In the long, narrow hallway leading to the heart of the fortress, the dangers were many; pits opened up beneath monsters' feet, swinging blades emerged suddenly from the walls, and darts shot out, covered in poison. But Zarasmoth charged onward, blinded by rage and hate and pain; pits it overleaped, blades it shattered, poison it ignored.

At the end of the tunnel waited the best of the defenders; the two greatest soldiers among the dwarves of that outpost, their names Zasit Astabsam and Tekkud Lokumthestar, wielder of axe and spear respectively. They fought the minotaur to a standstill for a full five minutes, defeating its terribly-powerful blows with shield and spear; then the minotaur surged forward, shattering Tekkud's arm and spear in one movement. He posed to take Tekkud's life; and with a single stroke, Zasit's axe claimed Zarasmoth Lightslayer's head.

Then the monsters surged forward as a wave of hideous flesh; the traps damaged by Zarasmoth's assault, their force overwhelmed Tekkud and Zasit, incapacitating the latter with a burst of acid (dragged away to an infirmary by a nearby civilian) and killing the former. The battle spilled outward, barely contained by a mixed force of veteran and conscript dwarven warriors; potash maker fought side-by-side with trained swordsdwarves, and with all their utmost were barely able to stop the flood of wizard-made creatures. From the last redoubts, marksdwarves volleyed bolts at the monsters until their quivers ran empty, then charged to crush skulls with the crossbows themselves. Dwarven blades rose and fell; and still it was all they could do to hold the monsters back, even as they saw the corpse of Zarasmoth the minotaur dragged away, until the monsters withdrew, as though triggered by some signal, and ended the battle in bloody-won victory.

The dwarves of the outpost Zirilfotthor cleaned up the bodies, patched their walls and reset their traps. The dwarven caravan came, and the mayor of Zirilfotthor pleaded for reinforcements, help, an army from the Mountainhomes liason; the liason promised nothing, but agreed to speak to the elves and humans and request their assistance, should he pass that way.

Emigrants came; they were pressed into the swelling military of Zirilfotthor, and trained day and night. Hammers pounded endlessly on forges in the deep halls of the fortress, making weapons and armour for the time that the wizard's forces struck again. The dwarves built their walls higher, and forged traps better than before. Catapults went up, white-cloaked in snow, on the towers of the dwarven walls.

Winter passed into spring, and the elves came, laden with food and rare creatures. They confessed to having no word from the dwarves; the negotiator of Zirilfotthor sought to persuade them to aid, yet could gain little from them. Only when, at last, he noted the dwarves' sparse use of wood for their constructions - and the blasted and barren wasteland surrounding wizards' dwellings - did he manage to gain some slight commitment from the elves; three elven rangers, said to be invisible in woodlands. They were sent to join the dwarven scouts, to watch the borders, for when the wizard's creatures inevitably returned.

Spring heated into summer, and a month more passed; then the word came from the scouts that a great column of creatures was approaching, led by the undead minotaur Zarasmoth Lightslain. With them were humans; the dwarves feared the worst, and heard it from the human leader's own taunting mouth when at last the column arrived on their lands. The liason had met with the humans, and told them of Zirilfotthor's plight; and the humans had decided to join forces with the wizard instead, and join in the plundering.

Catapults rained boulders and flaming pebbles onto the attackers as they came, and some fell, but the rest continued undeterred. Marksdwarves on the ramparts fired one volley of bolts at the foe as they came into range; then a shower of arrows and foul poisons struck them in return, and the surviving dwarves fled into the tunnels. Quickly, the humans felled trees, and broke the walls in three places with them; in rushed the forces aligned against Zirilfotthor, and finding no resistance similarly shattered the inner walls.

Now they entered the tunnel, seeing no alternative; but the minotaur Zarasmoth was slower now, having lost his life, and so the humans rushed ahead. Many of them fell to slicing-blade and falling rock, but over half their number emerged at the end of the darkened tunnel. Their leader, the opportunistic Stephen Oilhunted, torch in one hand and blood-stained mace in the other, called out challenges, taunting the dwarves who would not face him. Then he turned to the doors to each side of him, calling out to his followers, "Bring up the rams!" He waited impatiently; then, slowly, his eyes turned upwards as he heard a terrible rumbling. He had just begun to realize what was coming when a highly-pressurized stream of water burst from a vent above his head (and several others nearby) and blasted him to his knees.

This was the last improvement the dwarves had made to the tunnel; the last and the best. Water from a reservoir high up the mountain upon which Zirilfotthor sat was pumped by windmills spinning in the mountain winds, compressed and sent racing through long pipes to the entrance-tunnel, all activated at the flick of a switch. Now it wrought havok on the invaders; humans and monsters fell and drowned, helpless against the torrential outpouring. The few surviving humans, still outside the tunnel, turned and fled; this they would not follow. Bodies and debris floated in the entrance as the outpour subsided; among them the blood-stained mace of Stephen Oilhunted.

But through the water swam the slimy and squamous monsters of the wizard; not all of them, but those designed and carefully warped to live beneath the realms of light and air. They swam through water-clogged traps and over now-useless pits, and slowly, but with increasing frequency, began to hammer on the inner doors. Following them came the undead minotaur Zarasmoth; with his life went his need for mortal breath. It was he who hammered down the last gates of Zirilfotthor, stepping mindlessly over the ground where he was slain before; water pouring over it as it entered the last defenses, it seemed to the terrified dwarves like some dread leviathan. Bolts showered it, but to no effect; and never did dead Zarasmoth make any sound.

Monsters rushed forward, and dwarves met them hammer-to-claw, axe-to-talon; no ground would they relinquish. And as Zarasmoth stumbled forward, demolishing walls in his path, five brave dwarves stood before him. Their names were Iden, Astesh, Moldath, Alath, and Goden, and no one of them deserted their duty. Still they were no match for Zarasmoth, fueled by dark sorcery as he was; Iden was smashed into a wall, Astesh's head caved in, Moldath's leg ripped off (and killed by blood loss), Alath torn limb from limb. Goden stood alone against Zarasmoth in the end, left arm and leg both broken. But he, with his dead and dying companions, had lured Zarasmoth to a high ledge, overlooking the reservoir that powered the deadly water-trap; the combatants stood on the very brim. Zarasmoth reached out with one powerful arm and ended Goden's suffering; but the sorceries that gave him such power offered no grace. He tottered, awkwardly on the edge; and then plunged, eighty feet down to the bottom. No bubbles rose.

The dwarves of Zirilfotthor won their battle, though many tombs were dedicated that day. They buried their dead and used their foes for fertilizer; they re-armed their traps and rebuilt their walls, and planned for revenge, to end the threat of the wizard of the cave once and for all. (And after that, perhaps, they might consider the treacherous humans.) Their efforts were sped by the appearance of an envoy, a strange creature a third the height of a dwarf; it spoke of peace, and alliance against the wizard of the cave. For wizards are known for their quarrels; and it appeared that at least one other bore no love for Zirilfotthor's foe. And all seemed well for Zirilfotthor, for peace had been found at last.

But their tall reservoir stood unused; another was built. Inside were piled stones, and stones upon stones; just after the battle, even to the day, the dwarves began to cast down stones within the reservoir, burying whatever lurked within. It was named forbidden, for fear that Zarasmoth might yet lurk within, hungry for destruction; and for hundreds of years, so it remained. Thus do man and dwarf alike rightly fear the meddling of wizards.

(This is a sort of weird relative of Dwarf Fortress - which you may recall being mentioned in my posts a time or two before. Just giving credit where it's due.)