Opinion: Bring Back the Tribute-Obelisk of Golgripper the Masticator of Limbs
That’s right, you’re reading this here, and it isn’t a joke. I, a concerned and furious citizen of this undermountain, did spake these words and convey them to the moleish and cowardly carvers of this mockery of a daily news-slab. I dare to say what any delver worth their canary-bat should: the continued absence of the Tribute-Obelisk of Goldripper the Masticator of Limbs that once lay at the heart of our fair city’s Grand Hollow is a mockery of all that we have propped and beamed.
Was it not Goldripper who most boldly led the Far Tunneling from the Undercoast, where now dwell only those who delve not but wring their hands, and would sooner swing fishing poles than axepicks? Was it not Goldripper who most astutely recognized the wealth of strands of Earth-Nerves that ran throughout the peak we now house our heads and forge our souls under? Was it not Goldripper who most bravely routed the turbulent and vile Countess of the Scrabbling Munch, tore her arms and tentacles free and devoured them, and who planted the Victory Spike in her mantle? Was it not Goldripper who, having secured an endless font of wealth by strike and stratagem, so selflessly had all the spoil of the war heaped into his Tribute-Obelisk where it would not benefit him but instead ward the prosperity and ventures of all who followed?
If it weren’t for granddelvers like Goldripper the Masticator of Limbs this undermountain would be as barren stone fit for dead bats and live crickets. And how do we treat this memory? With scorn! We have piled scree and rubble upon his deeds, poured pig-iron slag over his titling – his Tribute-Obelisk was ‘taken to a secure workshop’ to be ‘repaired of vandalism’ by ‘skilled chiselmasters’ and now it has not returned! This is a plot, a plot by the Scrabbling Munch – yes, they are not dead, not as we were told, for Goldripper was BETRAYED by his advisors and they were saved by whispering in weaker delver’s ears of hidden veins leading to rich pustules of the deep earth! Long have they bided their time, and now they walk among us – ask yourself of a delver: who are those that gain from besmirching the great history of our undermountain and seizing the tribute of its founder, and find yourself the answer: THEY ARE THOSE WHO MUNCH. Wrapped in stolen delver-hide; hidden under knitted delver-hair; swaddled in foul undelving LIES, they plot to use the wealth of their ancient foe – our founder –to deliver us to their conspirator-Scrabblers that envy our might and glory in our downfall! We must tear them out, pebble and boulder, hill and peak! Cast the vermin from the highest chambers unto the World Above! Redraw the great sigil in their lymph! Rend riven the paws of the slavish beasts who publish this travesty of a palsy-gripped news-slab and chain their weakling limbs to axepicks and orecarts that they might redeem their blindness in honest labour!
We should also bring back the Tribute-Obelisk of Goldripper the Masticator of Limbs, as I have indicated in this editorial’s title. Praise to you and yours,
–Your Thoughtful Neighbor
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Opinion: Don’t Bring Back the Tribute-Obelisk of Goldripper the Masticator of Limbs
Please don’t put that thing back. Please, for the love of a straight and true shaft that doesn’t sag. Do you enjoy having money and neighbours that actually like you? We only just started real trade with the Scrabbling Grip last century but nowadays that’s where half our crafts go, and putting up a giant statue announcing we revere the delver who backstabbed them after they did all the actual work of fending off the Scrabbling Munch is not a good way to keep the scutetokens flowing – or the nectar. Does anyone else want to go back to sloughfungus smallbeer? I don’t. You don’t. Nobody does. It’s just not practical. Nothing about putting that tribute-obelisk back up is practical, and more than that, it isn’t a good moral example.
Do you want to tell your joeys that when they’re in trouble they should mine their friends for all they’re worth and take a fast rail out of town? Goldripper did it – drained Agate Current dry of credit and left them to fracture, and folks nod his obelisk and call him bold.
Do you want your neighbours to swear on stacked shale that they came up with every blueprint and floor plan you draft? Goldripper did it – would’ve settled two ranges over with nothing to live off of but moleverines and flint had his fartunnelers not persuaded him otherwise. He took their ideas and wrote his name on them and folks nod his obelisk and call him astute.
Do you want your axepickers in the breach to call for a charge against the foe, to watch you fight and bleed and fall, and then sink their blade in your spine once you’ve burnt your brown fat to the quick in their name? Goldripper did that to the Scrabbling Grip, and he did no better to anyone else that spoke against him, and folks nod his obelisk and call him brave.
You know better than that. We all do. We all have for a long, long time, and the only reason that stupid thing was still standing was because the few people that would’ve cared are louder than a rockslide in a nursery.
Whether it really was taken down to fix the vandalism or not who cares, just don’t bring it back. Praise to you and yours,
–Grontle Gemcrack, Your Tired Neighbour
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Opinion: Gee, I Get Why People are Upset About the Obelisk, but Can’t We Get Along?
Well this is a fine what-do-you-mean and a real mudotter in the brewvats, if you’ll forgive my foul words (old habits)! It seems like our neighbours are rowdier than a rat with a king tied to its tailbone, and over just a little piece of stone.
I understand that everyone feels right deep in their guts about this. Goldripper was a proper darksaint of mine and my poucher before me, and hers before that – grow up strong like Goldripper; think ahead like Goldripper; gnaw at that problem like Goldripper would on a limb – but I’ve also caught the whistle from other neighbours that maybe he was a complicated sort of delver and sometimes he made a mistake. I mean, he masticated a lot of limbs, sometimes in the hurry of the collapse you just drop the wrong tools, right? And by drop the wrong tools I mean masticate the wrong limbs, if you feel my carving here. For instance, if he’d gotten that Second Great Mine he pushed for we would’ve ended up brawling with the Scrabbling Grip, and some of my best friends are Grippies – coprolite-on-copper, they’re pretty much nearly normal these days! So maybe some of his ideas weren’t always perfect. On the other hand, some of my OTHER other neighbours said that if we don’t put the obelisk back up we’ll forget Goldrippper ever existed, and that sounds like a real bent-beam of a time to have because I don’t know how we’ll make sense of our history slabs when there’s some delver mentioned all over the founding and nobody knows what his name was. Also they told me once we’re confused like that the Scrabbling Munch will invade us from the surface with minewheels that shoot lightning and rain. That’d be a proper bucket of ammonites in your breakfast, wouldn’t it?
So what if we try putting HALF the Tribute-Obelisk back? Or all of it, or none of it, but half the time, or something. So that everyone can get along. Praise to you and yours!
-Clurg Shoemetal, Your Friendly Neighbour
Newsvein Uncovered: Tribute-Obelisk of Goldripper the Masticator of Limbs Revealed to be Fraudulent
Chiselmasters under the Grand Hollow have submitted bonded and alloyed testimony on the nature of the Tribute-Obelisk of Goldripper the Masticator of Limbs being a piece of slovenwork.
“The stone rings true enough to eye and feel,” Grand Carver Muush Crunchstab declaimed in subargument prime, “but a fingerspan beneath is hollow as sucked spider eggs since its erection, with a false bottom spanning ‘twixt a sealed bolthole-path. As Obelisk it bare satisfies, as Tribute it denies in totality. Throw it to the overmiddens and spit on its makers. Strike that last comment. Too tardy? Damn.”
The Accounts and Ledgers Geode has expressed extreme interest in the possible location of the missing tribute. Undermayor Goldripper VII the Buyer of Big Delves decried comment on his family and ancestors.
More is very likely to pointedly follow. Praise to your and yours.
-Vunk Plungebrick, Master News-Slabber