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From the Journals of Aban Brothertreaties, Granite the First, 191:

Well, we made it. I’d rather not think about how we made it, as apparently our queen and her guards thought that “shoving everyone on a raft and pushing it in the direction of the island” was a good plan. And here I was thinking that we could start building from the shore we were actually on. Silly silly me.

For a few days, we drifted in the sea. Then we drifted, and drifted, and then, just as I thought we might be lost for good, and doomed to a life trapped on a rickety boat, we hit a rock and sank.

 Fortunately, one of the others spotted that we were near some sort of shore, and it was just a matter of wading to safety! If we aren’t at our real destination, well, there’s nothing to be done about it. The others seem to think we are (more on them later). Safely ashore on Nightmare Island. That... that doesn't sound like it makes sense, does it?



I suppose that makes us the first dwarfs to set foot on this island. I’ve walked up and down the shore a bit, and it honestly doesn’t seem all that bad. There’s some large white birds overhead, doing bird things, and I think I can see some trees past the dunes, but nothing that seems hungry for dwarf blood has leapt out at us yet. Maybe the whole nightmare thing is just a myth? Well, we’ve still got to build that bridge, and that’s enough of a nightmare for me.

Anyway, there are a six others who have been sent out here with me. Seven people to build one bridge? Ugh. Well, I’ve met a few of them. First there’s:


Carries an axe, calls himself the “Soulchopper”. Well, it’s good that someone here knows how to fight, just in case. The whole Soulchopper thing is a bit unsettling, though. “The Soulchopper of Nightmare Island”. Yeesh.
Next:



He’s a mechanic. That’s probably good.



A miner.



Also a miner. He seems to have some ideas on how to actually start building this thing, which puts him ahead of me.

There’s two others who I haven’t talked to yet, (perhaps due to the fact that we’re all sopping wet and miserabale.) Well, I’m sure that I’ll get a chance soon. It’s not like there’s a way out of here. It's time to get to work. I think I'd like shelter and food first, but I'm not sure about the others. Maybe I should call a meeting? I do love meetings.

(Ok, there's the introduction out of the way. Things should move faster now that I'm actually playing. Hopefully)

I'm interested in hearing about that. I used to work at a chinese restaurant, and man, prepping the general tso's was a pain. Curious to see if the method you use is any different.

(I hope this makes sense. I can never tell.)

From the Journals of Aban Brothertreaties, Bookkeeper, middle grade.

It’s odd. While life in the Mountainhomes has been tense these last few years, what with people being forced off on one mad venture or another for our mad queen, (being made to build a tree house in a volcano, chop down every on a glacier and whatnot), I never suspected that I would be one of them. I mean, I tried to keep my head down, spent most of my days down in the storerooms keeping a count of all of my district’s tower cap buckets (338. Someone up there’s got a fondness for the things). Innocuous, is what I tried to be. Kept myself to myself. It should have worked!

I did not really expect to have my door kicked down by two burly soldiers, (would it really have hurt them to open it?). They were grinning. Well, it wasn’t their door lying in two pieces on the floor, so they could afford to look cheerful. Personally, I liked that door, and was sad to see it go. Now, people generally do not break down your door in order to present you with a nice gift and a pass for a few days off work, so when they wordlessly handed me the scroll, I figured it would be bad news. And, well, here’s how it read:

A Royal Message from her Majesty, Queen Bomrek the Mighty

“Good morning, and a bright and cheery hello to all of my friends and readers. Though aren’t you all both, really? I sure like to think of us as friends. Anyway, this letter is winging its way to you from my lovely new garden, where I’ve just installed a marvelous little elk bird bath that should bring in all the jolliest little critters from the caves. You know, as I was having the bath put in, I couldn’t help but wonder about that mysterious land known as Nightmare Island. Such unpleasant name could surely only describe the most lovely of places, don’t you think? I thought about sending a few of my good friends over there by boat to see what wonderful things they might find, but then I had a brainstorm! I thought, why build a little teensy bridge to the island, so that all of you, my lovely wonderful friends might get to experience Nightmare Island for yourselves! I know, I’m such a generous absolute monarch who holds all of your lives in my hand like so many mewling insects, ready to be crushed out of existence if the thought of doing so pleases me. Anyway, I thought I would just burst if I didn’t get started on this new project right away, so I’m having this little letter sent to my best and most wonderfully lovely of friends. They’re so lucky, I can hardly stand it, because they get to start building my marvelous bridge! Ta ta!
PS. And big extra thanks to Marjorie Watts, who sent in that lovely recipe for carrot and crundle cake that you’ll find on page 72. It’s lovely!”

Journal Continues:

I turned the paper over. There was no page 72, or even a page 3. And I'm sure that Marjorie can't be a real name. Oh well. It’s easily the cheeriest death sentence I’ve ever received. (Not that I have a large number to compare it to, but, you know.) Any protest I might have made about this whole thing being, you know, a rather bad idea fell on unsympathetic ears. The guards were more interested in hauling me out of my room and down to a waiting wagon. (Quite a haul, but I’ll leave that out. The details are painful.)

So that’s how I’ve ended up here, on this wagon. I and six others, tasked with building a bridge to, (or from, depending where we end up. Considering events so far, it could go either way.) “Nightmare Island”. Yes, I’m sure it’s a lovely place. I’m sure of it.



Oh gods.

(Ok, so the basic idea: Build a giant bridge. With fountains and giant statues and suchlike.  The bridge is across the ocean. It’s something I’ve attempted, and reattempted once before as a community fort, but rather than try to resurrect that one, which is a bad idea, I’m starting a new one! It has the fortress defense mod, for extra fun. It is a community fort, so feel free to request a dwarf and make up a character and so on.)

Ahem: New Version starts here: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=93958.msg3012722#new

Urethral sounding. Imagine a herd of Violent Urethral Sounders. They can fly and they know where to fly to.

Yes, yes, that would do it. There's some of that good old fashioned horror.

"The forgotten beast Vus has come! A great undulating catheter. It is long and skinny and it squirms and fidgets. Beware its deadly-"

Ok, no. I'm done. I'm done forever.

Edible is... good, right? Better than some of the alternatives?

I'll give one more vote to the Forgotten Beast Art Contest. There's a lot of fun to be found there, I think.

Man, that just gives me a craving for kielbasa. You can't get it where I live now; they're all a bunch of Scandinavians out here, eating hotdish and corn or whatever. Such a shame.

I pan fried some lake trout today. It had salt and pepper on it. It was good.

That is not something I would want to run in to in a cave. Or anywhere else. Most excellent.