Wooooooooow, fortress was right. It was massive and built into the side of a mountain, there was no worry of space or defensive capability. Dwarven craftsmanship was remarkable, this ancient fortress stood proud, not a stone out of place, The gates were massive and somehow made of stone as well. In fact, you might need a troll to push it open, luckily it was open, the chains operating the door mechanism were broken… Lucky us.
"Wow ten thousand people could easily fit into this fortress and still be spacious" Maro said
They decided to camp outside of the fortress, so they could clear it, ensure it was safe.
"The last time I was here was over a century ago…" Kadrin pondered. "Built during the ancient Dwarven Empire, survived and passed down the generations through the era of Petty Kings… to be abandoned once the Demon Lord came…now probably infested with fucking Goblins. I will make this my life mission to restore at least one part of my culture."
He continued " the funny thing is… this would be considered a mid tier fortress, the ancient capital was said to be entirely trimmed in pure white marble, from the servants quarters to the Emperors throne… such a shame"
Kadrin had a heavy heart, from the most powerful race to exist on the continent to being forced into manual labour in the mines to survive, treated as second class citizens to their ancient enemies. Looking at the massive gates, he was hopeful.
"Amen" Maro whispered
"Yeah, you do like men" Gnarlo, shocking everyone from behind as they all forgot about him again.
Kadrin spit on the floor with a stern chuckle
"You know this place best Kadrin… hows the layout and how many men would we need to clear it" Maro looked at him
"Hmmm it's larger than you think, records indicate it could house 50 thousand in siege situations so at least 20k could comfortably live here during peace… We don't have the people to occupy the entire fortress, we aren't even going to try to patrol the entire place, a recipe for our guys to be picked off… Lets start with securing the courtyard and the first floor"
Kadrin was making a crude drawing in the dirt "Dwarves are logical if anything, each floor should be very clearly marked and symmetrical…looks like it goes almost 100 metres up the mountain, around 15-20 floors up and who knows how deep it goes. We start with the courtyard and the first floor, they are the largest and most easily defendable. Once cleared, we can dish out rooms to everyone and start fixing this place up slowly…"
Dwarf's were excellent at making siege resistant castles, every floor had one large easily defendable and sealable stairway up or down, every floor would be a gruelling fight in case of war.
"If that's the case… if we're going slow, let's clear the courtyard with all our men… immediately issue guard details, give people time to bring everything in. Clear the first floor with 25 men, we'll post guards and barricades to the sub levels… work our way on clearing what's above us so no-one gets to throw rocks on top of us or ambush us and then eventually we go down until every floor is ours" Maro explained as he was pointing at the crude maps.
"Thats all well and good from a safety perspective… but all the good shit is underground… Only guards and peasants lived above, I know for a fact there is still an industrial distillery down a level or two… also the lords and petty kings of this fortress would have their chambers at least 10 floors under ground… The older the fortress the deeper it went."
Maro bit his tongue… "An industrial distillery… Treasure… Sorry Kadrin, I am tempted but the upper floors are a dangerous unknown… if it was just for peasants and guards we should clear it out for housing space anyways for the future"
They lined up 100 Dwarves, shields up and marched through the gate… nothing in the courtyard… It was vast, if the ground wasn't solid granite, they would have been able to lay down farms.
Even though the courtyard gates were open, the first floor gates were not… It took one punch from the troll to bust it open… and again nothing.
After exploring the entirety of the first floor, all they could find was old Goblin activity and there was evidence going up and down.
They quickly barricaded the stairs going down and set up a temporary guard post in the building closest to the stairs. They set up another guard post at the stairs going up and went back to clearing out every room on the first floor.
It was large to say the least, they were almost 400-500 people as a group now, more than half were women and children. They could comfortably live in the massive courtyards in tents if they wanted, but after everything everyone had gone through… your own house/room seemed like a dream.
They sorted out all their supplies in a warehouse in the courtyard, let everyone pick out places for themselves and got to prepare a feast for tonight.
Maro chose a large noble's house for him and his Elf lady friends and Maro actually went to help everyone with the feast preparations. But in reality he was just taking stock of the beer and wine left… a month tops… fuck. Whatever, that was a future Maro problem.
That night was the first time in a long time people were able to relax, they ate their fill and drank till they passed out.
Gnarlo and Maro even saw Kadrin take home a nice Dwarven lady and with that the party started wrapping up. The devious two were taking bets on how many times Kadrin said "aye" trying to court that woman.
"Thank fuck for stone walls and doors" Maro said to the Elves as he walked them 'home' with his arm around each one… still smiling like the devil himself.