Chapter 80: Colossal blunderYear 138 to 140Killcount: 60With Modesty dying in a very anticlimatic manner, I find myself without any worthy narrator. Truth be told, we have reached a point where it's probably better to just let things run their course and wait for something noteworthy to happen. As such, two whole years pass, during which the fort receives fresh migrants and newcomers, bringing back the population to an eventual 174. that's including many births as well, around ten or so.
Dumat is dead, and Modesty lasted exactly a year. Still, I find my experience to be lacking if I'm not picturing the fort run, in my head, by one of those dwarves. So I start looking for a new overseer. The fortress in front of me is the same as it has been for over 40 years, but I find myself looking at a totally different cast of dwarves. A few nobles remain, but they are all mostly insane or incompetent, or comatose. None of them truly fit the mantle of overseer. None but Bembul. He who arrived a few months before the end of the civil war in 103, became a master brewer and cook over the following decades. His job was to keep the fort drunk and the soldiers fed. Up until the fateful day where the soldiers were few, and the meal many. On that day, Bembul joined the Magical Gloves and became a fighter, alongside legendary brewers Besmar and Firsal. After the megabattles, Bembul finds himself to be the only survivor of the entire army, alongside a cripple and a guy unconscious for the last decade. Whisperwhip has asked much of him, and he answered faithfully. Bembul is worthy to lead both the army and the fortress as far as I'm concerned.
While browsing for an overseer, I find myself looking into the family and relationships of the dwarves, something I was very bad at doing up until recently. This is essentially why I've discovered that many important characters in the story were in fact chicks about three or 4 decades into the thread. This is also why I woke up after twenty years and realised one of our elite soldier was also the youngest princess of our civilisation. In fact, the more I look into things, the more I notice how many, many dwarves share the same family connections. It seems the queen being immortal led to many, many royal children, all scattered thorough the years. It seems that the citadel of clutches is really into consanguinity, because everyone I see seems to be descended from either the royal couple, or maybe two others. For example, Tun the duke is actually from the royal family himself, being the grandson of queen Cog Floorquest. His father was some prince, apparently, of which we have at least 7. Essentially, everyone is everyone else's cousin, aunt, or grandnephew.
I spend some time checking each new migrant, to see if they are related to someone I know. Each profile reveal tons and tons of connections. This fisherdwarf is the father of 5 of our dead soldiers. This other is Tun's niece, and cousin to 70 people in the fort, dead or alive. Actual number. Quite tragically, many migrants are the parents of past residents, who probably came to visit their children. Sorry, people, everyone you loved died horribly. Confronted with all those disapointed relatives, I take a look at the graveyard, filled by hundreds of coffins without any slabs. The mourning dwarves don,t even have the luxury of visiting the right tomb, as most of them are un-labelled. I never cared about slabbing all the victims, until I pictured a legion of crying women wandering the crypts, praying to Kadol that one of those tombs is actually their son's.
While most of the migrants could be summed up by
''Cousin Urist, dabbling grower who likes fishing'', there will be three dwarves who will stand from the lot, greatly so. The first one is a qualified strand extractor, something I would move earth and sky to keep alive. Hilariously enough, this is exactly what this story is about. Let's start from the begining, shall we?
* * * * * * * * * *
As Modesty is still alive, wandering the halls like a maddwarf, we receive a forgotten beast, like clockwork. It seems like the animals in the trap room will take care of it, until the syndrom kick into action and most of the fighting felines fall unconscious. I decide to open the bridge and dispatch the soldiers to finish the job.
The beast is slain, but before it falls appart, our foe takes Aristotle with it, tearing the glass engineer to bits as most of the squad is too unconscious to help. With a single squad lacking some members, the state of the military is somewhat deplorable. Thankfully, Commander Bembul is a legendary fighter and trainer, and the migrants are plenty. Everyone claiming to be a peasant or grower is given a steel plate instead, because we have no farms and many, many things to decapitate. The Joyous orbs now count 7 recruits, 1 legendary commander, and two dudes out cold.
As I said, I've been browsing the relationship screen, and noticed two things. first, Bembul has a daughter named Kogsak, and second of all Kogsak, like basically every child born in Whisperwhip, has no husband, no friends and no children. This, I read on the wiki, is the result of having essentially zero breaks in all her existence. Apparently, people can't socialize unless they are off-duty, which happens rarely with zero idlers on average. In most forts this make little sense, but here i can easily picture it.
''Hey, nice rotting cheetah corpse, you are carrying.
-Thanks, I found it losing all of it's legs to the most recent deadly plague, while I was fleing from a 3-headed squirrel from hell.''
Awkward small talk is awkward. Still, it would be a real shame if all of those awesome family trees eventually vanished not because they died to a giant monster, but just because they failed to ever, ever spend two minutes making friends. Thus i decide that once we are done clearing the piles of corpse on our doorstep, I'll give some dwarves a bit of free time. Yes, people being friendless automatons helped with the traumatising events we went through, and yes eventually someone may eventually replace our awkward antisocial engineer as ''public figure'', but in the long run it'll be cool to have family lines perpetuating themselves. I tell the squads to only have 6 people training instead of 10, so they can have some time off. I also decide that, as the daughter of the Militiz commander, Kogsak was gonna be a badass in her own way. And no not by remaining one of our ten legendary bonecarvers.
Kogsak, I decide, will be known as Lady Grace, for she will be the one special dwarf who will learn to fire a bow. I give her the south-west barrack all to herself, the one with the old aborted shooting gallery. You may remember it as ''That one corridor i tried to turn into an assassin training ground'', which resulted in exactly all but one assassins being dead, and the survivor becoming a duke. Still, there is something to be done here, but I don't feel like understanding how archery ranges work. Instead, I order that one Bronze Colossus installed there, with a row of fortifications. Kogsak will waste all the bad arrows on it, since it won't feel the pain. Genius! High-level marksdwarf training with no maintenance, I'm so smart. In fact training against an invulnerable live target will be so efficient, Kogsak will be able to take half the months off so she can browse the dating scene.
With many migrants, it seems like a good time to grab all the crap lying outside. We'll need all the clothes we can get if we are to keep everyone satisfied and junk exposition-free. While this is going on, the masons work on improving the kitchen, while our miners and woodcutters are outside, preparing a massive expansion for the castle. Needless to say, I have the soldiers stationned outside at all time to prevent accidents. Another soldier bites the dust defending the fortress from a siege. At this point it's obvious that Ustuth and Immortal-D's squad, the True Handles, have a hard time covering the outside against giants and goblins, as well as the caverns all at once. It's about time the new recruits are tried and tested, and I know just the way.
Just to prove how badly we need a second squad ready to dish out the pain, a ranger goes to get some game in the caverns and come face to face with MAGA PABOVNAQUUZ, a giant hairy winged worm with a poisonous bite. ''Not sure i got enough bolts for that'' he declares while running upstairs. Once the beast has been carved to bits by the True Handles, I order both this squad and Bembul's Joyous Orbs stationned inside the fortress. At the same time, the elven merchants are here. Each squad is to cover one cage stockpile, while all the prisoners are marked for trade. As I learned in the past, when a hauler tries to move a caged goblin, it actually escapes. Because moving a cage containing a goblin and moving a caged goblin are two different things.
About 50 goblins and half that many critters are freed by the civilians and massacred by the soldiers on that day. Much time is saved on cage-wiring and hauling that way. The only problem is that 1-civilians have to get right next to the freed prisoners, and 2-Sometimes the soldiers don't kill the goblins as fast as they are being freed. This leads to the death of recruit Lor (who is instantly replaced by another peasant), a burlesque scoobi-doo chase cross the halls of Whisperwhip, and about 5 injured dwarves, including two surgeons trying to get their patients out of there.
Of special mention is Manager Stukos. That guy is slowly becoming my favorite dwarf, to be fair. Sure, he locks himself in various construction project like twice a year, but he's always there to fix the major problems and do the dirty work. No wonder his son and grandson are such ballers. While most civilians respond to the goblin threat by running away and screaming, Manager Stukos instead chooses to stay there and punch them. He just open up cages and then proceed to strangle the occupants just because why not. He makes it out without a single scratch, despite fisticuffing a dozen goblins because he feels like it. I'm not sure if he's just bored, or trying to impress his grandson who'se job it actually is to kill the gioblins with a legendary candy axe, but the end result is that ol' Manager Stukos is now a novice Fighter and wrestler across the board thanks to this little adventure.
After this experience, I declare the joyous Orb fit for duty, and they are stationed outside to protect the construction site, while the more experienced True Handles have to deal with things like dralthas, cave ogres, and the occasional Forgotten beast made of steam. Now, that's two of our squads being somewhat operational. What about the third one?
Well, as it turns out, Kogsak is having a hard time becoming an elf-person, mistress of the bow. Not because she's clumsy (altho her character sheet tells me she is) but mostly because Lady Grace is very, very dumb. I told her to grab some wooden arrows and station in front of the fortifications to shoot the Colossus. As soon as she reaches 3 or four squares in front of the fortifications, she declares her position to be ''close enough'' and stands there. She's not a rank 10 shooterydoobabe so she can't shoot across fortifications unless she is next to them. nor will she move next to them. Thus she doesn,t improve her shooting. telling her to actuall attack the Bronze Colossus 4 squares in front of her leaves Kogsak baffled, and she just runs away on break because she can't puzzle out how to attack her target.
Normally, I would give up, but I really want to have a legendary bowdwarf (for no reason whatsoever). So I come up with a plan: I'll dig around the firing range, maybe 2 or three squares, so that ordering her to station there will leave her 2 or three squares behind, thus in front of the fortifications. Sounds easy enough, right? Well, except for the fact that the workers won't dig out the area because there's a colossus there and they are fucking pansies.
So. New plan. If they can't dig around the place because they are scared, I'll carve a staircase from below, starting in the stone depot and ending next to the Colossus pen. digging the first two squares is ok, but then the workers can see the colossus through the fortification and panic. Then they flee. Picture this. I have to lock the barrack door otherwise people try to dig from there, meet the colossus and run away. Locking the door makes the miners go all the way around, from below, use the staircase and THEN they eventually get scared, so they run through the firing range toward the locked door, which I must unlock to let them out, which prompts the ten next miners to try and use that door, which scares them etc.
Now any sane person would realize just how pointless this endeavor is and just give up, but clearly this is not how I roll. Instead I have people take the stairs, dig another corridor left of the first one, and then tell them to dig the final square from there so they can't see the Bronze Colossus through the fortifications. It almost works, but team scary miners refuse to dig the very last patch of stone in front of the fortifications, leaving a very awkward corridor. I try to station Kogsak back and forth into the tunnels and after about 30 orders she finally stumbles upon the correct spot, and proceed to shoot her target! Except not, because she forgot to bring her crossbow. Then 30 orders later she realize she forgot her arrows. Then another 20 orders later she is tired.
To put things in perspective, between the time I told Lady Grace to fire her fucking bow at a target to the point she did, the generator was activated and mined three times, it's content carved into blocks, said blocks used to finish an entirely new food complex, and part of a new exterior wall. Ten women moved to the fort, became pregnant and gave birth. Two forgotten beasts were carved into meat, as well as a cyclop. Two sieges were vanquished, dumped into lava, then their gear
as well as every single item dropped by invaders in the last 5 years were claimed and stored/melted. A forest was chopped down, and the mountain atop which this forest grew was laboriously rzed.
Between the moment Kogsak received an order and successfully followed it, Duke Nukem Forever was anounced and then released.Oh btw, that mysterious cow that got stamped into the porch like some years back by the bridge? We excavated. It was still alive. And enraged. the soldiers had to put it down. Let that sink in. The cow was atom-smashed into a concrete set of stairs, then came out four years later, alive and angry.
''Hey, let's dismantle this fully-compact structure of stone we built twenty-five years ago and...
*MOOOOooooooOOOOOOoooooo!!!*''
* * * * * * * *
Anyway, our first guest of honor was a simple strand extractor, and he has been living in the fort for quite some time. Let us now introduce our second guess, shall we?
Right off the bat, when I look at his skills, I know Edzul is no ordinary dwarf. He has the charisma and social skills to be elected mayor right here right now. He is also very skilled in many, many random activities, as well as a fine warrior. He's apparently incredibly tough and very strong.
When questioned about his combat experience, Edzul informs me that he's slaughtered various animal and animal people, in a place called the Prairie of Worth, an area famous for being the first time I ever hear about it. The groups and societies he claim to have been part of are also new and obscure to me. Most of the dwarves in Whisperwhip come from various settlements of the Citadel of Clutches. They belong to a church caled the Cult of Bronze, and all their fights come from fighting elves in the Dune of Dignity.
Edzul travels alone. He has no family, no friends, and strangely enough to worshipped deities. One of the secret reasons I've been browsing relationships and profiles, appart from seeing strings of cousins and pages upon pages of dabbling farmer skills, was to spot specific dwarves. The first one is Cog Floorquest, queen and necromancer. The second is Princess Kunil, her daughter: heir to the throne and, interestingly enough, cursed vampire. now I,m fairly certain Edzul isn't lying about not being a dude, so Kunil is out of the way. But that's the second weirdest person to ever move to this fort (mostly because you can't top a giant giraffe from hell pretending to be a rotting human girl pretending to be the goddess of death and murder pretending to be a bureaucrat). Is Edzul a vampire? Probably.
I have Bembul keep a close eye on him. To isolate the new migrant and keep tabs on him, I designate one of the rooms in HAVEN as Edzul's. There we'll be able to check if he eats, drinks, and I guess murders. He seems rather happy, and never indicates anything about good meals and decadent drinks. edzul's only two thoughs are about admiring a piece of furniture and... receiving water lately? I'm not too sure why that would be, especially since I've been zoomed on him every second ever since he moved to the fortress, and he never received water (nor had any reason for this to happen).
Edzul also claims to look like someone who is 144 years old. Which is... strange, since it's the year 140 on the calendar. Apparently he's the first of his kind. That could explain a lot, but since the only ''first dwarf'' I know of is Cog Floorquest and she's a MIA necromancer queen, I'm still wary of them as a whole. I eventually stop watching Edzul closely because ''stuff happens'' momentarily after, and as such, I cannot tell if he is a dangerous vampire, or a strange, sad dwarf. I've been thinking a lot about his case before writing this, however. If truly he is one of the first of his kind, it's very possible that he never got married because there wasn't anyone of his age to wed. That would explain the lack of family. Friends only seem to include people in the fortress, so maybe Edzul had tons of friends before he moved here. Finally, the food in HAVEN so far consists of a giant chunk of 200 forgotten meat, and save for Bembul (who is very busy) all the new brewers are dabbling or novice. The booze moved to HAVEN is most likely from the newest batches, and the meat is uncooked. If Edzul truly spent his stay here living in HAVEN, then it's possible none of the food he consumed or drank provided any thoughts. That's farfetched, but not impossible. Still doesn,t explain why he immediately ''received water'' upon his arrival, but let's ignore that.
So, maybe Edzul isn't a vampire. Maybe he's the oldest dwarf ever, who moved from another civilisation to come here, in this cursed place, a few years before his last breath. He never worshipped a god, he never knew love, and for reasons untold he abandonned everything he knew to come here. Despite high social skills, his kills and skillset suggest a dwarf who spent most of his life alone, tending animals, foraging and growing his own crops, as well as making his own rudimentary clothes. All of the things he killed, he seems to be wearing a piece of as jewelry. What happened to your civilisation, Edzul, and why did you forsake it? Why have you been living so many years as a reclusive hermit, only to move in this cursed place at the end of your days? How does one feel after spending what accounts for one's race entire history
alone, while every other dwarf mated and raised a family?
Whenever I take a look at him, and follow his actions, Edzul visits the crypts, or the temple of Kadol. He stays there for hours, until someone else appears, at which point he immediately turn around and sneaks away. I've seen a lot of shit in this fortress, and I know the survivors have endured much, yet looking at Edzul makes me think he too, carries a tragic past. The more I reflect upon him and his untold story, the sadder I get. I almost
wish he was a vampire. Then the solution would be simple. Alas, I fear there is no cure for what afflicts Edzul's lonely soul.
* * * * * * * *
As the strangest and newest guest of Whisperwhip wanders the crypts, the rest of the fortress has been improving the colossus pen. Someone dug from the staircase through the sand wall, freeing the beast, only to trap it in a new cage trap. The useless areas are blocked, and the pen is made entirely out of fortifications, and a 1-large corridor goes all the way around. by stationing Lady Grace anywhere in this corridor, she ends her move next to the fortifications and empties her quiver. At first she uses palm arrows, but with the next quiver she starts shooting silver arrows, despite my strict orders. Idiot, you'll kill our target dummy if you fracture it like that too much. I take Kogsak off the case for a few moments, hoping she'll grab the right arrows when she returns. Around the same time, our newest strand extractor enters a fey mood, and start collecting items. I complain about his choice of workshop, cursing myself for not training him minimally in armoring or weaponsmithing, and then forget about him. there's a lot of artefacts I'm not linking, because who cares about wood scepters at this point. Despite training about 20 novice armorers, all the new strange moods come from children and unskilled dwarves.
I'm not too sure how much pain a colossus can endure before it breaks, so before I send Kogsak in I come up with the greatest plan of all. Like, it almost feels like cheating the game. First I'll craft ten thousand wooden bolts, and assign ten dwarves to a squad with nothing but wooden bolts and a crossbow. They'll level up fairly quickly, at which point they'll be replaced with new dwarves. the legendary marksdwarves will be allowed to ''hunt'' which I assume means they'll carry a crossbow around. In time, all the civilians will be trained killers able to defend themselves or man the walls if needed. It's not a problem if they're all hunters, I'll dispatch soldiers to kill monsters anyway, and if i forget about ten civlians with hawkeye training will gank a elk bird, which shouldn't cause any complications. clearly, I,ve stumbled upon a golden mine.
I immediately draft the first ten dwarves, and create the Earthen Wares. this squad includes the oldest dwarves, so I'm essentially raining our doctors and nobles as snipers. Shortcomings of this master plan peek their head when i notice that the earthen Wares have no bolts, because the manager is not approving anything because he's in the firing range having no bolts. I queue about ten stacks in each and every craftdwarf workshop. That's when I notice that our Strand extractor is still there, apparently not producing anything. He needs raw clear glass, which I know for a fact is a pain in the ass to make. I immediately queue up a bunch of every possible component (Ash, charcoal, lye?) and then remember that, hey, Manager Stukos is not managing anything right now. I visit the various workshops, and queue up stuff, hoping things will be done. I'm sort of busy juggling the shooting range setup, and following Edzul to pierce his secret.
Naturally, that's when our third special guest shows up.
Enter Prince Mistem, brother to the late Lady Asmel, and youngest son of the royal family. He shows up with his wife, and probably is bumped about discovering his daughter was eaten by a giant bird since her last letter. Regardless, Prince Mistem is of royal blood, and the highest honor this fortress has been graced with (Unless you count I guess Quula?), so naturally I give him one of the noble bedrooms, and greet him welcome. By which I mean ''every member of the nobility is hidden in a sandy tunnel and shooting a magical statue with palm bolts and pay no attention to him whatsoever''. A caravan from the colonies arrive alongside His Grace, which bring the promise of simply
purchasing raw clear glass straight off.
Modesty hasn't been replaced yet, so it seems fitting to offer this noble job to Prince Mistem.
He is of high birth, surely he will appreciate this position, I tell myself, oblivious to the fact that the three other members of the royal family I've heard about include a dark magic user, a bloodsucker, and a bloodthirsty mass-murderer. I tell the prince to visit the depot hastily, to which he replies by grabbing a crossbow and running into the caverns to shoot an ogre in the fucking face. did i mention he isn't allowed to hunt? cause he isn't. but hey, he,s a prince so i guess nobody orders him around. Dangerous murderers in the royal family, 4/4 so far.
So trading is out of the way for the raw clear glass, and I can't queue things via Manager Stukos for the moment. At least we have about 45 idlers right now, so someone will... wait why is nobody idle anymore, what are they all...
WHAT THE SHIT.Ok, so. Someone went to shoot the bronze colossus, and along the way they decided to drop their dirty used socks, as soldiers often do. Then someone said, I'll pick that up. The hauler presumably grabbed a bin, moved toward the socks,
then noticed there was a bronze colossus at the end of the corridor, and dropped everything. To which someone said '
'a forgotten beast biscuit on the floor? Not on my watch.'' Then people tried to grab random crossbows, and clothes, and barrels. Obviously I forbid everything and assumed this will solve the problem. But people want what's
inside the box, or seek to move the content in new, unforbidden boxes. Naturally they grab other bins and move toward the corridor, and discard the whole thing. I left the fort alone for about 10 minutes so I could check on our guest of honor, and during that brief moment people managed to forsake any semblance of productivity, and moved basically two thirds of our important bins in a corridor where they refuse to retrieve them.
Ok, this is officially stupid. Not only is this bad beyond relief, but I need people to actually
create raw clear glass instead of doing back and forth in this stupid corridor. Also I forgot
potash. Shit. Cancel the charcoal people, and also stop turning all the ash into lye... (Disclaimer I'm not an expert at dwarf fortress industry yet).to get anything done, I visit the forty bins and barrels, forbid them, then forbid everything inside each of them, then all the rotting junk on the floor, then the doors, then the people looking at the doors, then the peoplewho know these people.
Nobody. Goes. There. Anymore.
It looks like I'll have to deconstruct the walls and capture the bronze colossus again if I want to retrieve basically every tool and weapon we possess. I disband the Earthen Wares for now as, obviously, the bronze colossus pen will need some intense tweaks before it can be used again. I install traps in a chokepoint, then send a mason to let the monster free.
* Urist cancels deconstruct building: Interrupted by Bronze Colossus.*
That's when I realise what I've done. the first time around we let the Bronze colossus loose by digging a random wall. Now we can't approach the pen because all the walls are actually fortifications. nobody will go close enough to do the work, so I can't even unsuspend the job repeatedly like I'd do with a flooding structure. The solution, of course, is to dispatch the True Handles and let them gun the Bronze colossus down. Only steel bolts will truly affect the monster, and as Kogsak illustrated previously, soldiers don,t give two shits about which ammunition type i want them to carry. I order a thousand steel bolts to be made just in case, so the soldiers should be using those by i guess next year.
Before the soldiers can do any of this, they must address the fact that two forgotten beasts just moved to Whisperwhip. I check their location, and observe that they seem unable to cause any trouble, so we should...
...False alarm! Here's a third one, a giant humanoid made of coke, and it shoots web. for an extra dose of !!FUN!!, our newest friend Daz spawned about 5 squares from a mechanic fixing the dragon-possibly-maybe cages. A very close chase begins; if the mecanic runs in a straight line for too long, he'll get webbed and die in seconds. He eventually turns a corner and run toward the adamantine quarry, while Daz decides to take a different route and head straight toward the entrance of the fortress.
Before I can raise the bridge or trigger the trap, Daz has webbed most of our animals, lunched on a war lion, and is rushing inside the base. The True Handles are running downstairs, trying to intercept the monster. They meet the beast, who decides to simply... web the squad and keep moving toward the base. I don,t want to do this. they are not ready... yet i have to.
I dispatch the Joyous Orbs, hoping to delay the beast. Nobody is sealing the fortress, because everyone is still trying to find reasons to do back in forths toward the Colossus. Daz the coke monster must be killed, no matter what the cost.
That's when I realize where the beast is heading. It is bypassing the army, yes, but Daz isn't heading upstairs. It is rushing even further down, deeper into the earth. He's going to HAVEN. And there's only one person there. Edzul the strange hermit, living on his own away from every other dwarf, even amidst a fortress of 174. In a strange twist of fate, Edzul's incredible nature, and the doubts he seeded in my mind, just saved the fortress. Had he not been so suspicious, there would have been nobody in HAVEN. Not during the clusterfuck that is happening upstairs. I lock every door along the way, giving the army enough time to catch up and attack the beast. This floor, like the seven before it, get instantly filled with webs.
It seems the time they spent trying to poke the bronze colossus has paid off, because the True Handles are now relatively competent with a ranged weapon. You may remember the old squads as very fucking good sharpshooters, but that's because they spent decades on the walls dealing with sieges. The True Handles are few, and the product of dire times, so they've had little to no practice with a crossbow, having to meet each foe on the field as fast as possible. Recently, however, most of them attained level 6-7, with their leader Ustuth being recently promoted to professional marksdwarf, able to shoot through fortifications at a distance. As Daz the coke monster pounces on the nearest soldier, all his quadmates take out their crossbow and pelt the beast with heavy bolts, enough to give the beast pause. The beast is massive and quite impervious to damage, but the repeated volleys are sufficient to destabilise it and counter its attacks. Support fire and the timely arrival of a wardog gangbang give one of the squadmates enough time to escape from the webs. This dwarf is, obviously, Immortal-D.
As the beast is busy dealing ith dogs and webbing them, Immortal-D dodges out of the attack, and dashes into the doorway, unnocupied by sticky webs. From there he proceeds to bash the monster, slowly but surely cutting off various limbs with his legendary axe, one by one.
The beast tries to follow, and Immortal-D maneouvers swiftly around it. Cokefiend and Dwarf both are locked in a duel, in the middle of the fanciest and least used dinning room on the continent, while dogs and friends can only watch from the next room. A daring dance begins... Immortal-d dodges every web, blocks every blow, and still, the creature refuses to die, even as its limbs are severed.
''Hey guys we finally made it!'' says a young recruit from Bembul's squad, punching the beast in the face from behind and sending the skull flying. Killsteal much? Immortal-D doesn't care, as he's already racked up over fourty kills since he joined the army two years ago. He knows he fought well, and he also knows another legendary kill awaits him upstairs. The fort is still in trouble, hostage to a foe scarier than any forgotten beast: their own ineptitude.
Immortal-D and friends station themselves near the colossus pen, emptying quiver after quiver. Naturally the dwarves will not carry the types of ammunition I tell them to, instead grabbing the closest quiver they can find. Hey, remember when I set every workshop in the fortress to churn out wooden bolts, and then manager stukos validated the orders because he was off duty and we made like a thousand more? Well turns out the bronze colossus isn't going down anytime soon. The use of steel bolt is a miracle rather than a common appearance, so I'm starting to realize bolts are not going to kill this beast. Remember when i was afraid that Kogsak would murder the beast is she emptied a quiver full of silver arrows? Well, I stand corrected.
Everyone move outside. I station the soldiers above the colossus pen, which is just one floor below the outside ground thanks to previously removing the mountain that was there. I dig a stair down, certain that it will solve the problem and allow the soldiers to descent into the pen. The way I understand it, (and boy am I about to stand corrected once more) is that stairs down don,t have to be linked to stairs up to work, that just makes them one-way. That's why the staircase on one level is diagonal to the floor below, and people somehow still manage to navigate the thing just fine. Turns out there's something I'm missing, because the soldiers won't go downstairs. Or maybe their ability to pathfind during station orders don't register such one-way stairs. Or maybe, just fucking maybe, the pen is 4 large, so telling them to move anywhere in it makes the soldiers think ''Hey I'm 3 squares away from there, guess this position is fine''. From Kogsak's first issues with the colossus to this giant inflated mess, the problem has come full circle.
The half-stairs I dug can,t be connected to a down stairs, because every square but one inside the pen is a patch of sand replaced by block flooring, which we can't exaclt reach and deconstruct. So i build a stairway above the only untouched spot, by which I mean
''accidentally channel it instead'', so I must build it from scratch, which gets interrupted because there's a hole now and people are scared of the colossus below. Ten thousand unsuspend orders later, we finally have the first part of a staircase under which we can build a connecting uppper staircase and finally let them soldiers move there on their own and kill that thing.
Funny thing about 50-foot tall building destroyers: it's actually pretty hard to slowly build things next to them? The second I try to unsuspend the second part of the staircase and notice it is simply
gone, I realize the obvious flaw in my plan. We have been spending months on this nonsence, at this point. The guy i was trying to save from a mood is long dead by now, but I can't just forbid the whole area and leave the colossus there, because all our weapons and tools are in the corridor and we ain't abandonning that shit.
As our masons are busy building a giant skybridge from the top of the food tower which I plan to just drop on the thing and hope it takes care of the problem, I have a stroke of wisdom, and remember that if i collapse the Colossus Room, then that will also destroy the room underneath. I send the masons in the stone depot to replace the stockpile area by a massive stack of stone blocks, to withstand the collision. Then I have an epiphany.
''I could have just built a staircase up''!So after three seasons of total confusion, convoluted plans, total fortress paralysis, a close call with Dan the coke monster, and thousands of wasted bolts, the masons build a staircase in exactly ten seconds. Immortal-d eagerly cleaves the beast bit by bit, and create a goblin statue. Then he climbs the staircase, jump in the pen, and demolish the fortifications himself. Everything is unforbidden, the haulers retrieve the entire inventory of the fortress and store it properly, and life returns to normal in Whisperwhip. I think I owe you an apology, Kogsak, because frankly, I'm no smarter than you...
The morale of this story is, using a bow leads to societal collapse.