Carved in Stone

Hey folks!

Just wanted to say a big thank you to the people who joined over the last few weeks. It means a lot. 

I don't have much to share in the world of game right now. I'm in the middle of shipping Dungeon Local 001 copies to Kickstarter backers, as well as getting ready for my next Kickstarter in August (look for a special preview soon). I was hoping to find some time to get some other smaller projects done, but I've gotta pay the bills and so I've been focusing on freelance and contract work.

But, I don't want to leave you all hanging, so below you'll find a short story I wrote a few months back. Wasn't good enough for the publisher I sent it to, but I think it's alright.

Thanks again everyone

- Michael

Carved in Stone

Here, carved in stone, is the tale of the Immortal Ashmore. Queen of the Never-Starving Horde. Vault Breaker. The Survivor Thrice.

This is the last tale I will tell of the Immortal. I have been her scribe for five generations. I was with her during Calamity First, when the seas drank the Earth and the glass cities were submerged. I fought with her in Calamity Second, when the vaults opened and the old rulers of the Earth made war on those who survived. I was with her when she broke her first vault, and we found enough ever safe food to feed hundreds.

I have seen her survive thrice. I have seen scores of minor hordes and survivors flock to her, to hear the tales of her survival, and to reap the rewards of the Never-Starving Horde.

It is with a heavy heart that I carve these words.

May we all know the Immortal’s generosity. Whenever a vault was broken, every member of the horde shared the bounty of ever safe food and never rot clothes. When medicine was found, or the rare pills that grant ever life, the Immortal took first, but never last. She shared with me these precious things that let her survive, so the horde would always know their history.

She led us through the cities of towers long since ruined, to secure what few cans of ever safe food remained. She would lead us to a vault and celebrate with us in their breaking. And in those rare times when the vaults below the Earth bore no fruit, and no other horde could be found to trade with, she would open her own stores, and command her captains to do the same. Thus the Immortal Ashmore retained her title. No one in her horde would ever starve.

Until we crossed the sea.

It was out of necessity that we came here, out of her love for her horde and those who followed under her banner. A year had passed since we had broken a vault.

And so it was that the Immortal Ashmore broke the old covenants. We raided other hordes, we plucked food from the New Farms, which we had sworn a century ago to never touch. The Immortal loved the Never-Starving Horde. Understand that these terrible things were acts of love.

Even I, her scribe, not fit for anything but writing the new words of the world, unable to lift a blade, nor drive, nor care for weapons. With me she shared her troves of dead words, books full of indecipherable script, of letters mismatched and unreadable. How could anyone in the old world speak these words, how could anyone make sense of them? The Immortal gave me time to puzzle through them. Like I, she was convinced that ancient wisdom was hidden there.

And thus the Immortal Ashmore and her scribe found in old books a new vault in a distant place. The pictures showed rows upon rows of dead words, far stretches of black rock that soaked up the sun, and a detailed map of hundreds of tunnels beneath. A vault far deeper and more complex than any we had broken before.

But between the Never-Starving Horde and our new prize was the ocean. The poison water that no horde had crossed, that no Immortal had survived.

But the Never-Starving Horde had broken all covenants and all creeds. The minor hordes fled from us, and there was nothing left to raid. The Immortal would not let us starve, would not bring us to taste a person’s flesh. And so her trucks and war wagons and all things that protected us from the sun were converted to ships. We fashioned hundreds that would take us across the sea.

I weep as I carve these words. I cannot remember how many we lost to storms and mountainous waves.

But when we arrived, all that was forgotten. The vault lay before us, and how glorious it was then. Ever strong stone spires, fashioned like thorns, jutted into the sky. Black rock lay upon the ground, drinking in the heat of the day, so that even in the middle of the night it was warm enough to make water steam. At the center of this slab of inhospitable rock was a cavern, made of more ever strong stone, and carved into it all the dialects of the old world. It was all dead language. All dead words. The Immortal and I puzzled over them, and the pictures carved next to them. They warned of death. Of plague and sickness. They warned of harm to any who pierced the vault.

But we had seen all these warnings before, on the vaults of the families that survived Calamity First, where the oceans rose up and drowned the world. These were the defenses of those with plenty, who looted and hoarded before the Calamities. We had seen all these warnings, and still the Never-Starving Horde was victorious. The Immortal Ashmore had led us to a new vault, a vault more grand and deep than any we had broken before. And so she would become the only Survivor Thrice to walk the Earth.

How could we know different? Maybe in these dead words hides the warning we missed. But why make it seem like such a valuable thing? Did they not know what would happen to the world, how their language would die on delicate pages and black screens. Did they not know the desperation of hunger? The madness of thirst?

But now all these questions are as dead as the words that surround me. They were also carved in stone. Meant to last. Why not bury something important here?

And so the Immortal Ashmore brought forth the digging machines, and we started the work of breaking the vault. Her machine’s split the earth and forced the secrets of the underground into the sunlight. In vault breakings of the past the mere presence of the diggers, the unbearable sounds and weight of them churning the earth, was enough to force the occupants to surrender. They would offer their never rot clothes, their ever safe food, and their precious ageless pills to the Immortal Ashmore. They would spill forth like tumbling rocks and beg the Immortal to spare them.

But this vault would not break. The tunnels had collapsed long ago. The diggers worried that another horde had found the vault, and brought down the tunnels behind them. But the rock speakers said that this was an old event, the collapse done by those who made the vault.

“Then whence could there be food, or clothes, or safe water?” The workers argued. If none had gone in or come out since before Calamity First, what good could there be?

We were short of food ourselves. Every day we hoped to breach the outer walls of the heart of the vault, and every day we were disappointed. The pit widened and widened, until it was a chasm, a great canyon through the center of the awful black rock’s heart.

The machines choked, starved for gasoline. The workers fell ill from lack of food and water. Rumours spread of dissent. It was at this point that the Immortal confided in me the terrible truth. Her stores were now dry. Her and her captains were just as starving as the workers below. That for her to survive thrice, for the horde to be never starving, we had no choice but to breach that vault.

At this point every soldier and assistant, every driver and scribe and child of the horde was digging. We dug with swords and rifles and with our bare and bloody hands. We dug as those beside us collapsed from exhaustion. We dug despite dissension and arguments and brawls. Some said that whatever lay beneath us could only bring ruin, that no thing buried so deep could provide sustenance, but those like me who believed in the Immortal Ashmore spoke back.

“She will be Survivor Thrice, the first in the world,” I said, “What could harm such a woman?”

And then we cracked the vault.

It was a small and cramped passageway, so small that only two or three people could stand abreast, and their heads and shoulders would press against the tunnel’s walls. On the floor of this passage were buried long canisters, as tall and wide as I am. I have carved their likeness here, and found as many as I could and put them at the bottom of this great pit.

Inside each canister were three layers. The first was ever strong rock, the second made of soft metal, good for weapons and tools and pots for cooking. The third layer, the core the other layers protected, was full of strange things. Not stone. Not metal. Each as small as a knuckle bone, and each warm to the touch, even when they laid buried before Calamity First, over a thousand generations ago. They glowed as well. A soft green or blue, but only visible in complete darkness.

There were dozens of these canisters in that first passageway, a frustrating puzzle to us all. They smelled of nothing we had smelled, but tasted just like stone. And as the days passed and the dig commenced, we found hundreds more passages, thousands more canisters.

And thus came the curse. The horde rebelled. The workers, the children, the diggers. Even some of the captains and soldiers too. They rushed for the Immortal but her bodyguards put them down like dogs. It was a stalemate at first, but the curse broke both sides.

Maybe you will have a name for it, you who read these words. Maybe it is hidden here, in the words of that dead place we call the past. It ignites a terrible burning on the skin, turning it red and black, but there is no flame. It made us too weak to move, too sick to rest, and yet no other signs of disease. It killed us all, and had no discernable form.

The Immortal Ashmore may have quelled this revolt were it not for the curse. It came for everyone, regardless of our loyalty. Some raided the Immortal’s stores, and claimed there was food and water within. They fled the horde, but our loyal scouts found them just a few hours away, consumed by the curse, doomed to die like us, surrounded by cans of ever safe food.

Within one week of opening the vault, all who remained was myself and the Immortal. She could not speak on her last day. Just murmur and cry out in pain, and beg for those in her horde who were already dead or gone. When she died I found secreted beneath her bed enough food and water to feed dozens. I used these last gifts to give me the strength to bury her.

You who read this now, turn back. This is no great place. This is no vault. Nothing is buried here but death. The only thing that remains is the Immortal Ashmore. Queen of the Never-Starving Horde. Vault Breaker. Survivor Thrice. Doomed to Die.