I wrote a story! - Treasure Dwellers
Hey, I finished a piece of fiction. It's been a while since that happened. Maybe a very long while, depending on how you count. Like, more than half my life. So in a way, this is pretty big for me. I'm aware of many things that could still be worked on here, but, well, I had a deadline. I'm happy I actually managed to take it from start to finish, and if I'd been more perfectionist with it that might not have happened. Now that I've done one, maybe there can be more, and maybe the next one will be more polished. I hope you enjoy it. Comments are very welcome.
And, hmm, it's a pretty light story on the whole but mature themes are present.
Treasure Dwellers
A most wretched little goblin finds the corpse of an unlucky adventurer, caught in a trap. It isn't first on the spot, though. That dreadful, ugly, stupid ratwoman, always first at everything! Oh, he'd like to chase her away... but she is probably stronger, and anyway it surely wouldn't do to get on the wrong side of her family. The goblin waits, hides, bites its lip, resents. The ratwoman takes her time, searching. The pickings are rich. Opening the adventurer's mouth, she even finds a gold tooth to draw out with the little pliers she carries with her. Those are nice pliers, nicer than anything the goblin has ever owned. Does she really need all this treasure? The goblin wants to plead with her to share, but he knows that it's no use. Who would be dumb enough to share? The ratwoman is almost finished, she is standing to the side, looking over the body as a job well done. In its hiding place, the goblin in turn is looking with BIG eyes. Will she actually leave the boots on? Good leather boots, hardly damaged by the trap, it seems. The goblin is hoping against hope, but also shaking its head in shock that someone could be so wasteful! And whatever else the ratwoman was, he would have thought her sensible in matters such as these... Indeed, she slaps her forhead, ”Was I really so silly as to almost forget?”, and kneels down to remove the boots, and then the silk pants as well.
Oh. Well there's something to look at, at least. The goblin's eyes go a little wide. Not so with the ratwoman, who has little interest in human men even if they are alive. She leaves, now. And, of course, leaving, she looks in the goblin's direction and gives a little wave. The goblin steps out of his hiding place, obviously useless now. He doesn't give the ratwoman any further acknowledgement, though, and she ignores him back. All of the goblin's interest now is on checking the corpse to see what the rat might have missed. Usually, she misses nothing. And if it isn't she who gets the things, it is something else. The goblin is the lowest of the low, and very rarely gets anything. He lives on rats and hope. The hope, always the hope, that maybe this time... And actually, this time, there is something. Two copper coins and a pipe, oh joy! The goblin is ecstatic for a moment, two whole copper coins... He is dancing. But he stops. He worries. Will he get to keep the treasure? Probably not, there is always something that will take what you have from you. He will do his best to keep this, though. He takes the coins, the pipe, and an ear to eat. Rats have been a little hard to come by lately. He'll come back for more meat, he'd take more right now, but it isn't safe to stay too long. The grues go in these rooms... damn them, they will surely take all the meat before he can come back, but better that at least than they take his. Ok, last look. Take the shirt? It's torn, and that's a horrible color - there was a reason the ratwoman left it! For a second the goblin dreams about dismantling the trap - it's got nice, shiny metal parts, that could be useful for making a weapon - but it's too dangerous, you can't know if these things are fully sprung, and then there's the grues, of course. So the goblin scurries off, back to the little niche in the wall of the big cave where he sleeps... (no actual sidecave for the goblin, the big monsters take those!).
The goblin doesn't really own anything. He had a bird skull, but it was took, he doesn't know by what. Apart from that, it's really just been enough rats to keep him alive, and hardly that. But now... The pipe goes behind his ear... but the coins, to save, to hide... it is a hoard. A treasure.
While looking for a place to put the coins, the goblin is making plans. He could probably actually buy some food in the human village, a fish maybe, to get through winter, and not just on rats. Or something warm to wrap himself up in... or, of course, some ale. He's tried that once or twice, oh, it's good... But it is also good to have a hoard! Maybe he'll just keep the coins... The humans will probably not sell him anything, anyway. Beat him, rather, if not kill him. But he should steal some ale, some time, again.
Oh, curses, there's no good hiding place near enough where goblin sleeps. But he can't carry them around, either. No pockets. No clothes. So the coins have to go on the floor. He covers them with dirt, as well as can be done. There they lie, two copper coins, one halfway on top of the other. Within an hour, a pill bug crawls in under it, and makes its home in this treasure hoard.
Much deeper in the dungeon, the Dragon. It has a name, but most of the other inhabitants of this place know it only as the Dragon. Its treasure is legendary, amassed over centuries. Its hoard fills five large rooms, almost to the roof. Coins and coins, all metals, sizes, and denominations... Chests, sitting around on top of the big piles of riches, some safely locked, some open, too full of further bounty to be closed. Rings, weapons, cloth, wine, books of magic and enchanted objects... gems... Most things you might imagine and some other.
Now, remember the pill bug under the goblin's coins...
If you could explore the piles, and start discovering the life within, it's probably the antfolk you'd discover first. There are more of them than of any other kind of creature, many more, and for long they have been running this place as their own. It wasn't always so, of course, in fact their histories tell of several great wars fought to claim their rightful home. (The descendants of the few surviving pixies, driven off to live as well as they can in another part of the cave, tell a different story of that war and, of course, will disagree quite strongly on the ”rightful” part.) The enclave of tiny servants of Bacchus making their home in the great wine racks are staying, though. The antfolk have been forced to accept this, after all too many warbands having been driven insane by their intoxicating enchantments. And anyway, they make good trading partners. Then, there are the metal eaters. They come in many different kinds. Most have little intelligence, if any. They can be a destructive pest, but they do have their uses... They create caves in the treasure piles that make good living spaces, and the antfolk have found some uses for their feces, and are looking into ways of systematically harvesting it. (Some varieties of the beasts are better for this than others, though.)
There are several ghosts, of adventurers killed here - by the Dragon, by its various defensive spells and traps, or by the treasure dwellers defending their home - and others haunting various objects in the piles. There are demons, djinni, spirits caught in magic objects, and a wizard that has caught himself in one old book. (He is actually quite happy there, but somewhat worried about the moisture levels). There is a poltergeist, Old Zeirlon, thought by some to be the ghost of an older dragon that first collected much of the treasure. There are other such singletons, odd middle-sized or in one case very small creatures (of course, they must be ignored by dragon and not be worth attacking for the antfolk, or alternatively too small for even them to notice) that for some reason or other have moved in. There are two treasure-loving imps, brother and sister, who hate each other. A sentient toad stays on good terms with both. Then, in the toad's ear, a small flea is silently making plans for world domination.
Then there are things living on the Dragon. They are a separate system, and they are strangers. There is a truce with them, but even with their differences all the treasure dwellers still share a sense of community when they think of these outsiders.
Finally, thoughts, awareness, arises among the strange structures and magical energies of the treasure piles. Such sentience will form and dissipate in various locations, and it is typically not too stable. Only very rarely will a mind for the whole treasure form.
Well, and also, of course, there are various ”prosaic” organisms... rats, in particular. Not too many, though - the ratfolk keep them in check.
One day, an adventurer comes here - a luckier one than the one we saw earlier, it seems... She is a strange one, not a human, not an elf (though she has the pointed ears), nor any race anyone recognizes. But she is recognizable enough as a Thief! She sneaks in when the Dragon is out. She avoids the traps - it appears she has some skill. She dodges the poltergeist's barrage of heavy gold bars, sweeps away the antfolk warband that has been sent out to stop her... This one is dangerous. How much of the treasure will she disturb, destroy? As it turns out, very little. She is quite careful as she moves into one of the inner rooms and searches out a single small, blue flask. Then she goes out again, leaving the treasure dwellers to go on with their existence.
The stranger strides further, quickly, with great determination. The goblin only just manages to hide before she gets to where he sits and looks at the two copper coins he has now miraculously been able to keep for several weeks (and that are still, as it happens, home to the same pill bug). The stranger leaves the dungeon. She goes down to the human village to get her horse, and then she rides. She rides and rides for oh so many miles, for a year if it isn't for two, and then she comes to another cave, at the end of the world. She steps off her horse, walks into this strange cave. Further and further in she walks until she can't stand up anymore, then she crawls, she squeezes through, and out into the light on the other side. She comes out through a little hole in the side of an oaken chest in the treasure chamber of a titan. Quietly, she sneaks away to a place where she knows the titan doesn't go. She whistles for her mount, her snrtk fly Asdoria. The animal comes and she climbs onto its back, and pats it for being so good and waiting. She thanks the powers, Asdoria will allow her to get out of this strange gigantic house in less than a month, and then back to more normal reaches of the world in maybe another month. For, Goddess, these Titans' lands are anything but normal. The strange world inside the chest was almost more like home - at least there things were of a reasonable size. She thinks of that Dragon's treasure room, and the things she saw that lived there. It is really only now that she realizes they were living in a treasure in a treasure. So strange... She muses - what if there is an even greater giant, whose treasure chest she and all around her is still inside? He, nah, it couldn't be...
And, hmm, it's a pretty light story on the whole but mature themes are present.
Treasure Dwellers
A most wretched little goblin finds the corpse of an unlucky adventurer, caught in a trap. It isn't first on the spot, though. That dreadful, ugly, stupid ratwoman, always first at everything! Oh, he'd like to chase her away... but she is probably stronger, and anyway it surely wouldn't do to get on the wrong side of her family. The goblin waits, hides, bites its lip, resents. The ratwoman takes her time, searching. The pickings are rich. Opening the adventurer's mouth, she even finds a gold tooth to draw out with the little pliers she carries with her. Those are nice pliers, nicer than anything the goblin has ever owned. Does she really need all this treasure? The goblin wants to plead with her to share, but he knows that it's no use. Who would be dumb enough to share? The ratwoman is almost finished, she is standing to the side, looking over the body as a job well done. In its hiding place, the goblin in turn is looking with BIG eyes. Will she actually leave the boots on? Good leather boots, hardly damaged by the trap, it seems. The goblin is hoping against hope, but also shaking its head in shock that someone could be so wasteful! And whatever else the ratwoman was, he would have thought her sensible in matters such as these... Indeed, she slaps her forhead, ”Was I really so silly as to almost forget?”, and kneels down to remove the boots, and then the silk pants as well.
Oh. Well there's something to look at, at least. The goblin's eyes go a little wide. Not so with the ratwoman, who has little interest in human men even if they are alive. She leaves, now. And, of course, leaving, she looks in the goblin's direction and gives a little wave. The goblin steps out of his hiding place, obviously useless now. He doesn't give the ratwoman any further acknowledgement, though, and she ignores him back. All of the goblin's interest now is on checking the corpse to see what the rat might have missed. Usually, she misses nothing. And if it isn't she who gets the things, it is something else. The goblin is the lowest of the low, and very rarely gets anything. He lives on rats and hope. The hope, always the hope, that maybe this time... And actually, this time, there is something. Two copper coins and a pipe, oh joy! The goblin is ecstatic for a moment, two whole copper coins... He is dancing. But he stops. He worries. Will he get to keep the treasure? Probably not, there is always something that will take what you have from you. He will do his best to keep this, though. He takes the coins, the pipe, and an ear to eat. Rats have been a little hard to come by lately. He'll come back for more meat, he'd take more right now, but it isn't safe to stay too long. The grues go in these rooms... damn them, they will surely take all the meat before he can come back, but better that at least than they take his. Ok, last look. Take the shirt? It's torn, and that's a horrible color - there was a reason the ratwoman left it! For a second the goblin dreams about dismantling the trap - it's got nice, shiny metal parts, that could be useful for making a weapon - but it's too dangerous, you can't know if these things are fully sprung, and then there's the grues, of course. So the goblin scurries off, back to the little niche in the wall of the big cave where he sleeps... (no actual sidecave for the goblin, the big monsters take those!).
The goblin doesn't really own anything. He had a bird skull, but it was took, he doesn't know by what. Apart from that, it's really just been enough rats to keep him alive, and hardly that. But now... The pipe goes behind his ear... but the coins, to save, to hide... it is a hoard. A treasure.
While looking for a place to put the coins, the goblin is making plans. He could probably actually buy some food in the human village, a fish maybe, to get through winter, and not just on rats. Or something warm to wrap himself up in... or, of course, some ale. He's tried that once or twice, oh, it's good... But it is also good to have a hoard! Maybe he'll just keep the coins... The humans will probably not sell him anything, anyway. Beat him, rather, if not kill him. But he should steal some ale, some time, again.
Oh, curses, there's no good hiding place near enough where goblin sleeps. But he can't carry them around, either. No pockets. No clothes. So the coins have to go on the floor. He covers them with dirt, as well as can be done. There they lie, two copper coins, one halfway on top of the other. Within an hour, a pill bug crawls in under it, and makes its home in this treasure hoard.
Much deeper in the dungeon, the Dragon. It has a name, but most of the other inhabitants of this place know it only as the Dragon. Its treasure is legendary, amassed over centuries. Its hoard fills five large rooms, almost to the roof. Coins and coins, all metals, sizes, and denominations... Chests, sitting around on top of the big piles of riches, some safely locked, some open, too full of further bounty to be closed. Rings, weapons, cloth, wine, books of magic and enchanted objects... gems... Most things you might imagine and some other.
Now, remember the pill bug under the goblin's coins...
If you could explore the piles, and start discovering the life within, it's probably the antfolk you'd discover first. There are more of them than of any other kind of creature, many more, and for long they have been running this place as their own. It wasn't always so, of course, in fact their histories tell of several great wars fought to claim their rightful home. (The descendants of the few surviving pixies, driven off to live as well as they can in another part of the cave, tell a different story of that war and, of course, will disagree quite strongly on the ”rightful” part.) The enclave of tiny servants of Bacchus making their home in the great wine racks are staying, though. The antfolk have been forced to accept this, after all too many warbands having been driven insane by their intoxicating enchantments. And anyway, they make good trading partners. Then, there are the metal eaters. They come in many different kinds. Most have little intelligence, if any. They can be a destructive pest, but they do have their uses... They create caves in the treasure piles that make good living spaces, and the antfolk have found some uses for their feces, and are looking into ways of systematically harvesting it. (Some varieties of the beasts are better for this than others, though.)
There are several ghosts, of adventurers killed here - by the Dragon, by its various defensive spells and traps, or by the treasure dwellers defending their home - and others haunting various objects in the piles. There are demons, djinni, spirits caught in magic objects, and a wizard that has caught himself in one old book. (He is actually quite happy there, but somewhat worried about the moisture levels). There is a poltergeist, Old Zeirlon, thought by some to be the ghost of an older dragon that first collected much of the treasure. There are other such singletons, odd middle-sized or in one case very small creatures (of course, they must be ignored by dragon and not be worth attacking for the antfolk, or alternatively too small for even them to notice) that for some reason or other have moved in. There are two treasure-loving imps, brother and sister, who hate each other. A sentient toad stays on good terms with both. Then, in the toad's ear, a small flea is silently making plans for world domination.
Then there are things living on the Dragon. They are a separate system, and they are strangers. There is a truce with them, but even with their differences all the treasure dwellers still share a sense of community when they think of these outsiders.
Finally, thoughts, awareness, arises among the strange structures and magical energies of the treasure piles. Such sentience will form and dissipate in various locations, and it is typically not too stable. Only very rarely will a mind for the whole treasure form.
Well, and also, of course, there are various ”prosaic” organisms... rats, in particular. Not too many, though - the ratfolk keep them in check.
One day, an adventurer comes here - a luckier one than the one we saw earlier, it seems... She is a strange one, not a human, not an elf (though she has the pointed ears), nor any race anyone recognizes. But she is recognizable enough as a Thief! She sneaks in when the Dragon is out. She avoids the traps - it appears she has some skill. She dodges the poltergeist's barrage of heavy gold bars, sweeps away the antfolk warband that has been sent out to stop her... This one is dangerous. How much of the treasure will she disturb, destroy? As it turns out, very little. She is quite careful as she moves into one of the inner rooms and searches out a single small, blue flask. Then she goes out again, leaving the treasure dwellers to go on with their existence.
The stranger strides further, quickly, with great determination. The goblin only just manages to hide before she gets to where he sits and looks at the two copper coins he has now miraculously been able to keep for several weeks (and that are still, as it happens, home to the same pill bug). The stranger leaves the dungeon. She goes down to the human village to get her horse, and then she rides. She rides and rides for oh so many miles, for a year if it isn't for two, and then she comes to another cave, at the end of the world. She steps off her horse, walks into this strange cave. Further and further in she walks until she can't stand up anymore, then she crawls, she squeezes through, and out into the light on the other side. She comes out through a little hole in the side of an oaken chest in the treasure chamber of a titan. Quietly, she sneaks away to a place where she knows the titan doesn't go. She whistles for her mount, her snrtk fly Asdoria. The animal comes and she climbs onto its back, and pats it for being so good and waiting. She thanks the powers, Asdoria will allow her to get out of this strange gigantic house in less than a month, and then back to more normal reaches of the world in maybe another month. For, Goddess, these Titans' lands are anything but normal. The strange world inside the chest was almost more like home - at least there things were of a reasonable size. She thinks of that Dragon's treasure room, and the things she saw that lived there. It is really only now that she realizes they were living in a treasure in a treasure. So strange... She muses - what if there is an even greater giant, whose treasure chest she and all around her is still inside? He, nah, it couldn't be...