A hospital is next, got it! It won't help with containing an inevitable werechinchilla plague, but there's no reason why not to build it. I think we even have spare beds.
Regarding military training, labor is the most precious resource right now, more valuable than safety.
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The very first day of summer I've announced that we're not planting cave wheat. With no sheep, llamas or other respectable livestock, we're forced to base our entire textile industry on plant cloth. Crying shame, but what can you do?
At least we can't complain about the lack of ore and coal. Too bad there's no iron or even copper to make tools and weapons from. That doesn't mean we can't designate a place to store all those resources.
Speaking of metal, I ordered to make some trinkets in case someone decides to come and visit this town. They will then wander through the praerie, telling everyone they meet there's gold in them hills. We'll have folks coming from all over the world. No doubt some varmints will come see our riches too...
People keep complaining about the lack of meat in our diet, and look what happened: meat conveniently came to us. Ten langurs is the biggest threat to our fortress so far, and if we can't defend what's ours against monkeys, we're definitely doomed.
Bringing down the horde of varmints was a collective effort. We're not equipped for battle, but we didn't need to be this time.
We did lose a quite important thing to the monkeys though. One of those furry little bastards took the zinc cone hat that was apparently someone's family heirloom or something.
Not many people had realized, but I've been expecting a child until recently. Litast Icywound is the fourth child I've brought upon this cold, unforgiving, monkey-filled world. I've got some cold stares for that, probably because now half of the fort's population is children. They're all jealous that I have four children at the age of twenty one, and those geezers all have one or none. Folks just are like that.
Finally! It's not a huge migration wave, but it's something. We've got three farmers and two fishery workers. With them came three kids, a baby alpaca, a cavy, a goose, and a mule.
I had the miners dig deeper. Within a layer of marble are veins of malachine, as far as I know it's an ore of copper. Even deeper were veins of galena, a source of lead and silver. We can now make proper weapons and armor, although I'd rather have solid iron. If we're feeling fancy, we can also make brass and electrum with things we have access to.
One of the tykes turned twelve today. I don't really know her parents that well, but she's Khalari's niece. Zutthan is... a very average dwarf, truth be said. She expressed a will to join the militia, and who am I to deny her that 'honor'.
It's now the first day of autumn, and the only thing to do in the new hospital is placing the traction benches where they belong. We have more gypsum that we know what to do with, so once we get the kilns, we'll have no need for splints.
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Another short update, but there really isn't anything remotely important happening. I can't do a whole lot with how the fort is right now.
I continued to place basic facilities that I usually have in place by the end of the first year. The migrant wave was really underwhelming, but it's something.
We've got some useful metals deeper underground, so we can make our own weapons. We'll have to import iron and steel if we want really quality armor though.
The monkey incident was unfortunate, but it's a great lesson why you shouldn't put all stockpiles together just by the entrance. Just a month later, and the zinc cap would have been moved to a safer stockpile where monkeys wouldn't have stolen it.
I'm not used to a two and a half year old fort looking and "functioning" like that. I don't want to sound like I'm whining or anything, because everyone has their own style, but whatever was in place at the start of my turn made it actually harder to get anything going. I'm not really having much fun with this one, so I may just finish early if that's okay with everyone.