Just found another setting Ciaphas Cain could rescue from unremitting bleakness; the setting of Dwarf Fortress.
Ciaphas Udirtherleth, Overseer of Zuglarkosh (Dwarf Fortress Crossover)
So there I was, sitting in the back of the tavern, fresh out of my near-death escape from that Necromancer's lair and my weeks-long journey home (made possible, albeit far from stress-free, thanks to the fact that I'd stumbled into a particularly fanatical warband of tree-loving, woodcutter-butchering elves) when in walks this slicked-back noble. He promptly strutted right up to my table, putting on a shit-eating grin that had to be seen to be believed as he informed me that I, Ciaphas Udirtherleth, the Human Hero of the Dwarven Empire of Thalal (don't look at me like that, I'm not the idiot who came up with that stupidly redundant name), had just been blessed with the "honor" of an Overseer position at one of its outposts.
Yeah, right. "Honor", my ass. I was already halfway convinced that this was yet another attempt by Thalal's higher-ups to get me killed in glorious fashion so my name could be added to the truly ridiculous number of martyr figures they worship (in case you didn't know, Thalal is run by a death cult), and promptly became fully convinced once I had the opportunity to do a bit of surface level research. As it turns out, this outpost is stuck out in the ass-end of nowhere, smack in the middle of a mountain range dubbed the "Sharpened Spears of Supremacy". Its name was what truly solidified my assumptions of the place; it was named Zuglarkosh. For those of you who can't understand why, keep in mind that that name means "Shipslaughtered" in our language.
But as with the rest of my unwanted adventures, there wasn't really much I could do to wriggle out of this one. The Ïluls themselves had signed off on the paperwork, after all, and that meant any attempt to wriggle out of this "honor" would end in their not-so-secret police arranging for an "unfortunate accident" to befall me. And honestly, there are about a billion other, better ways to die (whoever said that Dwarves are entirely opposed to torture of any sort for any reason obviously hasn't met Thalal's "Secret" Police).
If only I'd known precisely what sort of hells I'd be dragged through during my career as Zuglarkosh's Overseer. Had I known, I would have publicly released all my journals as evidence of my false reputation and happily submitted myself to the "Secret" Police's tender mercies.
My initial impression of Zuglarkosh is handily summed up by the following phrase; what. The. Fuck.
Firstly, just getting there was an adventure in and of itself. For one, I had to deal with a truly stupid number of unicorns on the way to the fortress, and even got dogpiled by four of the things at once at one point. I'd thank Armok for Jurgen and his obsidian flail, but I know the fucker, and invoking his name like that would be simply begging for trouble. And then there was the maze of traps I had to navigate just to get in. And after all that, there was the matter of the guards nearly murdering Jurgen once we actually reached the front door. It took some very fast talking to convince them not to gut him on the spot. Even then, they refused to stow their weapons in his presence, and their knuckles were going white from how tightly they were gripping the hilts of their picks. Seriously, not even the Thalal priests are this twitchy around my Kobold aide, and they uphold intolerance and xenophobia as essential virtues one must cling to if one wishes to live a long and happy life.
My opinion of the place wasn't improved by the sight of the interior. Dwarves have a bit of a tendency to slap decorations on damn near everything they make, and as a result, you can learn a surprising amount of information via a cursory inspection of their architecture. The engravings here made it all too clear that I was far from the only one who had trouble with Unicorns. I couldn't throw a dead cat inside without hitting a depiction of one of the things. Every such depiction featured said unicorn striking a dwarf down as he assumed the fetal position and begged for mercy, kicking a dwarf into a magma flow, even laughing as a betentacled horror did something unspeakable to a dwarf in a truly concerning number of murals. All of a sudden, the maze of traps I had to navigate didn't seem quite so insane and nonsensical: evidently the residents had learned the hard way that a little paranoia is a very healthy emotion to express when those things were around.
And speaking of the architecture, lets take a moment to talk about it, shall we? By Armok's ass, Zuglarkosh was a mess. Highlights include workspaces sitting outside the main fortress right in the open, a bloody huge hall with a roof held up by matchsticks, saliva, and a prayer, a "great hall" built to seat eight despite the fortress having a population of seventy-four (not counting me and Jurgen), a room full of levers of unclear purpose, a bunch of unused catapults that just screamed "fire hazard", and some incredibly cramped living quarters.
After I got settled and made it clear that Jurgen wasn't like the rest of his kin and wouldn't butcher all the dwarves in their sleep (Kobolds don't even do that, but try telling that to these nutjobs), I was able to do a little reading on Zuglarkosh's history. And ho boy, what a history it was. From the very beginning the outpost had been plagued with clusterfuck after clusterfuck after clusterfuck; the mob of homocidal Unicorns outside the gates that still haven't been properly dealt with were just the beginning of the outpost's issues. After the Dwarves reached a sort of unstable truce with the things, the luckless saps found themselves having to deal with a horde of frighteningly martially-inclined Kobold brigands (hence their fear of Jurgen). And then food shortages. And then floods. And then magma flows. All of these still-unresolved issues were compounded by the fact that the settlement had been bounced between multiple previous Overseers, all of which had wildly different ideas of what a functional Outpost looked like, and some of which were outright crazy. Between the increasingly labyrinthine layout of the place due to all the half-finished/forgotten projects, the periodic outbreaks of megalomania and supervillainy among some of the previous Overseers, and the ongoing pressures of all the previous issues I'd listed off, it was a minor miracle the whole settlement hadn't collapsed into a mess of flames, smoke, and insane Dwarves yet.
At least the previous leader had been nice enough to leave a short list of suggestions for his successor, aka yours truly. All of them were pretty good... and unfortunately, all of them had to be put on the backburner for the moment. I had more pressing things to worry about. To say that I had a lot of work to do would be the understatement of the Age.
And that was before I learned the lengths to which Armok would personally go to fuck me over...
AN: For those of you who are wondering about the meaning behind that last comment... Armok is a god that likes conflict, warfare, and suffering; things Cain seeks to alleviate in Zuglarkosh. And there are... certain creatures deep underground that can be brought up to the surface with the help of a God. And in this AU, Emili is one such creature. I think you can connect the dots from there.
Oh, and if it isn't obvious from the name, Zuglarkosh is a homage to Boatmurdered. A few details have been changed around, to reflect changes in the game since those days, but the premise of an Outpost that was passed down between multiple different leaders and was cursed with horrific luck remains the same.