Thus follows the log of Nish Durallolor, Expedition Leader of The Primitive Fountain:
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Log of Nish Durallolor, Expedition Leader1st Granite 200Well we finally got here. Looks like the last expedition here didn't meet with much success - not a hole in the ground and I think I spy the remains of an unfortunate yak in the distance:
There doesn't seem to be much else to see here either - just snow, snow, snow, as far as the eye can see. Bleurgh, give me a nice warm cave any day!
First order of business, order the forcible removal of those nasty trees. Plus, we could use the wood. Here's hoping no Elves come whining at us. Now, time to strike the earth!
Author note: I think I did something wrong, Nish the 'hunter' has only come with a leather robe and cap. What happened to the other stuff? I also realise that since he owns it Kogan cannot have it. Oh well.Almost immediatly the weather turns against us:
I can't wait to get myself below ground. I'm colder than a... very cold thing... out here. I think icicles are beginning to form from my nose. I think I'll go nag the miners to get digging.
14th Granite 200Thank Armok, the weather has cleared up!
Perhaps I can finally shake the snow out of my beard and clear the icicles from my nose! I'd wager those Elves have had a hand in my misery here somehow.
21st Granite 200I went for a short walk today, and saw something quite worrying:
Some honey bees have a hive... on the frozen river. This doesn't bode well for whether the river will thaw or not. I'm hoping we've just got a case of spectacularly stupid honey bees here, because otherwise we might be in real trouble later on.
5th Slate 200Damnations! May every elf responsible for this burn in the fires of Armok's wrath - we've struck an aquifer! Useful, perhaps, in a place cold enough to freeze my snot solid, but I'm more upset that my carefully laid plans have been scuppered. Time to redesign everything.
26th Slate 200Oh my... may Armok have mercy on all of us:
I got Kogan, who has keen eye, to do a quick count - there's 11 giant badgers out there... waiting. Watching and waiting.
28th Slate 200Thank Armok! Using the stone that Vucar and Urvad *finally* pried out the ground, we have a complete wall surrounding our encampment. If any badgers come to attack us now, then we'll be safe - we hope. The bridge is being connected to a lever as I write this:
4th Felsite 200I might have said 'Thank Armok!' before, but truly it applies now - for that thrice-damned snow has finally gone! And to add to that joy, part of the river has unfrozen! I am somewhat confused to note that the honey bees are still there - somehow:
Are perhaps some of the bees flying and clinging to the hive to keep it out the water? I'm not sure.
5th Felsite 200Alas! Alath has been struck down, by those Armok-damned badgers. I shall mourn his death as a friend, may his spirit watch over us all. Note: get someone to make a memorial to him pronto, we don't want his sprit watching over us *too* closely.
Kogan has bravely volunteered to take over woodcutting duty. With his military skills perhaps he might even kill some of those badgers. I hope. We can't afford to lose him too.
Also, I heard some mutterings from the others - apparently the giant badger in question has been given the name 'Ibeshom'. Given that that translates as 'Roastcrush' in the common tongue, it is perhaps an appropriate, if not optimistic, name.
Author's note: Normally I'd quit after losing someone this early on. But for your sakes I shall continue!21st Felsite 200The badgers have gone, Ibeshom along with them! May they never again return. Instead, we have some reindeer - now I pray they will prove to be less deadly than the giant badgers.
6th Hematite 200I am not happy. I have slept in the dirt recently, slept in the grass recently, slept uneasily because of the noise recently, have lost a friend to tragedy recently AND had to watch that friend decay. I am also making a point of complaining due to the lack of chairs. No matter how much the other dwarves try to reason with me that none of us are carpenters or masons enough that we can make chairs, and therefore to quit whining, I will not do so! We need chairs dammit.
7th Malachite 200Our first wave of migrants! Let us see what they bring to our fledgling fort:
I don't imagine we'll have much use for a shearer, though his fighting skills might come in useful. I don't think we need a clothier either. The others don't look so bad - an armoursmith is just what we've been hoping for, and we can always use another miner. I suppose a mechanic is useful too, right?
9th Malachite 200Well dammit, someone left some cheese to rot:
Nasty purple stuff is everywhere.
27th Malachite 200We used up all our milk stocks - they are now all cheese. I am running out of meangingful things to put into this log, but I remember what old Morul back at the Mountainhomes told me - 'May you never live in interesting times. Interesting times have a habit of being deadly.' I guess that means things are going well!
25th GalenaWell not much has happened to report! However, I've just heard word from the miners that we have strucks some caverns:
26th GalenaWell, I am impressed. I went down to have a look at these caverns myself, and... I am gobsmacked. I stared down into the inky blackness and could see absolutely nothing - it went down further then we could see. As an experiment, I picked up a nearby rock and tossed it into the cavern. None of us heard it land. I have ordered the caverns walled off for now - I might not have heard the rock land, but the scrapings and scratchings that I can hear are more than a little frightening. We don't want to lose more dwarves.
Author's note: The caverns went down a tremendously long way - so far that I went down as far as I could, and this picture shows all I could see at the bottom:I make it 64 z-levels deep, that I can see. It probably goes down further.29th GalenaYes! Our long chair-less nightmare is over!
1st LimestoneMy, time is getting on - it's autumn already! We expect merchants soon, hopefully they will bring us fine quality booze from the Mountainhomes. We have thusfar been subsisting entirely on what we brought with us, and having now gone 2 seasons drinking nothing but, it tastes like an Elf has done something in the barrels. Maybe... maybe they have. I'll post a guard tonight.
3rd LimestoneOh.. oh Armok. I wrote earlier about getting Alath a memorial, poor victim of the badgers that he was. We, I'm ashamed to say, forgot. And it looks like he has come back for revenge.
18th LimestoneAlath's been haunting various bits of the fortress, following people around, sightless eyes staring after people in confusion. I've caught a glimpse of him myself a few times... it is a visage of horror. I can hardly stand seeing what was once my friend like that, moaning and scraping and shambling through walls. I've seen a few of the cats standing there, hairs pricked up and staring intently at something I can't see. More than once they've run yowling through the fortress. I am scared.
(Haunting the food stockpiles!)
4th SandstoneAfter a month of haunting us, Alath has finally been put to rest. We can all be thankful that he chose not be malicious in his return, instead contenting himself with freaking out everyone nearby. It could have been worse.
In other news the giant badgers have returned: (thankfully without Ibeshom)
and we have been mining a substantial amount of hematite. We hope to kit out our fledgling military-to-be in steel.
21st SandstoneLet's see what they're like:
Plus 1 child. They look like good candidates for our future military!
2nd TimberWe have a bookkeeper. He tells me he really isn't cut out for this sort of work (
Author's note: He has 'very little patience') but I told him to put up with it. We're not pansy Elves.
11th TimberWell I'm pretty miserable about sleeping on the dirt all the time. Screw mining hematite, we need bedrooms!
16th TimberAt last! The merchants!
1st MoonstoneBrrr, the snow's coming back. Nasty stuff.
5th MoonstoneSo we finally hauled all those mugs to the depot. The traders were perfectly happy to take about a billion mugs off our hands in return for useful stuff - leather, food, drink and 2 ropes. I guess mugs must really be in demand at the Mountainhomes.
23rd MoonstoneWe started up our military! 4 of the more... useless... dwarves have been volunteered into service. They're busy punching the living daylights out of each other in the barracks. I guess that counts as training.
26th MoonstoneCursed be! I decided that we need to get to the magma sea... but on the way down, our miners struck microcline! May Armok deliver us.
4th ObsidianWell by Armok's beard, the miners have struck another cavern!
23rd ObsidianAnother cavern has been found deep underground.
I can't help but notice how waterlogged all these caverns are. Bah, we need magma, not this pansy Elven water!
27th ObsidianAs part of our tunnelling down, we had to go through, not around, the second cavern. Protected by a raising bridge and some walls, we now have a foothold in these underground depths.
[Since taking the photo]The bridge has been raised, but that stupid miner's pet guinea pig is stuck outside. Oh well, no great loss if the crundles eat it.
28th ObsidianOur miners continue downwards - and have struck damp stone. We don't know the source of the water permeating the rock, but I have told them to mine it anyway.
1st GraniteSpring has sprung, it's the end of our first year here! Time has flown quicker than an Elf off a drawbridge.
I flip back through my log entries, and am impressed with what we've done here. What was previously barren, empty land is now home to a thriving community of 16 dwarves. We have farms, food and drink enough to feed all of us, the rudiments of a military, some bridges as a defence and a mug industry! The bedrooms are also to be shortly fitted, and we have plans for a dining room. We've thusfar struck 3 cavern layers, and my beard is tingling that we'll find magma soon.
We've lost only a single dwarf - not too bad - even if that dwarf did subsequentely come back.
And to top it all off, we have a Legendary dwarf among us - Urvad, founder and miner.
What a shame it's once again cold enough to freeze off a were-rat's ass.
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As can be seen, I decided to set up right around my wagon, which was just about smack bang in the centre of the map. Currently no plans to do work on anything lse outside, for underground is where any true dwarf resides! I think things have been going pretty easy - no invaders came to visit, only one dwarf down, and already one of the four military dwarves is entirely kitted out in steel. No artifacts yet though.
And that concludes this installment - one year down! I'll try to keep going, no guarantees though! xD
