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Journal of Udib Wastedlabor Legendsack, Armok's Priest.

24th Limestone, 1077, Early Autumn

So here we are, looking again for another fool willing to manage the great fortress of Ardentdikes. We barely started Autumn and we have gone already through two overseers. No wonder the place looks chaotic. Our veterans have seen enough horror to not care about anything anymore. Our migrants have given up on trying to accomplish any task in a reasonable time. And our nobles and medics... well, it's a good day when they don't send somebody to meet Armok earlier than expected.

Then, about me...



Yeah, that's me. What could I say? When I'm sober I feast, and when I'm tip I drink. When I arrived, I used to be a decent jeweler, but now my skills are rustier than Ardentdikes' levers. I could spend weeks fondling a blind cave bear's droopy ears. And my only notable relationship is with this dual god of fertility --and I'm not quite enthusiastic about one of his halves. I'll be honest, I wasn't looking forward to a great career in this fortress. But then, while I was laying drunk in the cemetery, with my back against S' Mengdalzat's coffin ―still reeking of Uzbad's deadly blood―, I heard a haunting voice coming from across the corridor.



"Udib..."

I was scared to death. Were the dead talking to me? Or was it something worse, an evil spirit that had caught me off guard? I crawled towards the wall ―which, now I remembered, led to Urist McDuck's basement― and put my ear to it.

"Udib... I can't smell the blood of our enemies. Why can't I smell the blood of our enemies?"

"I... I don't know."

"Armok's thirst must be quenched, Udib. Beasts shall be sacrificed. Prisoners must be punished. Sharpen again our weapons and bring them to battle. Lest Armok decides to fill his chalice with dwarven blood instead."

No more words came through the wall. I left to think about the daunting task I had ahead.


25th Limestone, 1077, Early Autumn

I spent the entire day surveying the fortress, trying to find where work was an urgent need.



Food and drink aren't in short supply. But, to my dismay, instead of a military I only found a ragged band of broken squads. The only decent team is The Channels of Catching, six axedwarves led by Urist Tomesglad the Bases of Failing the Palace Guard. The Complex Flags has four untrained recruits led by legendary swordsdwarf 'Katana', and there isn't much to say about the other.

Caged prisoners are scattered throughout the entire fortress. We have many goblins and trolls, an ettin on a platform over the burning dikes and a bronze colossus caged in a tower with two worryingly unidentified levers.



The famed magma flooding mechanism that once purged Ardentdikes' curse is entirely deconstructed, along with whichever contraptions were employed to power it.



There's forbidden items laying here and there, some of them tainted with forgotten beast extracts. I spotted Babylon Stakesquids sitting in a hole below one of our stockpiles, complaining about his hurting feet. There's a walled section of cavern below, with a steel bridge over lava and the corpses of Rentorian and a migrant called Domas covered in forgotten beast extract. Access is blocked by another bridge.



Down in the caverns, I found the great mausoleum open to any uninvited guests able to fly to the island. As proof, the corpse of Ushrir the Black Tomb was still laying near the stairs in the middle of a pool of its own blood.



Further down, a mechanism to flood with magma the second level of caverns laid unused and open to any horrors willing to come through the channels.

As I kept descending, a distant roar of steam caught my attention. I heard the shrieks of Dethe, the shelled blob of fire, stubbornly trying to dry the poisonous sea.



Praying Armok for it not to find its way to the booze stockpiles, I headed back to the upper levels to start working on McDuck's wishes.


26th Limestone, Early Autumn

I started giving orders to these lazy beard pullers, which they disgruntingly started to follow on threats of releasing McDuck. I could get used to this.

I ordered the work on the mausoleum's towers to be finished, sent some workers to floor over some ponds of deadly blood, and opened the cavern flooding magma chute to prevent any nasties coming up through it. Armok won't be pleased if sacrifices don't take a bit more effort.

I interrupted Katana Wordypaged the Gladness of Bravery, who was leaving the kitchens to go to sleep, to ask him about the sorry state of our army and their ill equipment. Apparently, his squad recruits refuse to wear anything but adamantine, and we only have heavy uniforms for axedwarfs. He promised me to sort it out by the next day if I let him go to sleep already.


27th Limestone, Early Autumn

The military overhaul is complete.



The Channels of Catching has been designated as the Candy Corps. Dwarves will be promoted when the required adamantine sets are available. A position of honor was reserved to my master Urist McDuck.

Heavy soldiers were sent to the The Problematic Syrups, led by Katana, and The Armored Savageries, led by Astesh Craftedfeet, who, despite having no fame to speak of, achieved legendary skills with his axe. A lighter melee milita was assigned to The Fortresses of Gravel.

Fikod Splatteredseal, the only marksdwarf in the fortress, was given the command of the Bolts of Enjoyment.

Finally, I decided to head the bottom of the barrel in an unarmored squad of Armok's priests, with proper red robes and the exotic, ceremonial weapons the military won't need. I've called it The Sacrificial Stockades. Hopefully we'll have a temple and a training arena set up by the end of the year.

Releases water over the wells. Sorry, no mechanism of doom or impalement.

Engraved 5x5 with food stockpile, statues, 4 chains, 4 beds, well in the center, waterfall on top of the well.

I wanted to give them a table and chairs too, but the rest of my dwarves started to ignore the huge hall and go to the jail to eat.

Ingish Whirledhame the Suspiciously Elvish Duke has an entire palace for himself, including a royal golden sculpture garden and a hall guarded by dozens of tamed drunians. It contains items valued in excess of 2 million dwarfbucks. And yet, he keeps getting unhappy about the artifact mechanism in my manager's bedroom, which happens to control the fortress' magma trap.

Ingish Whirledhame's thin frame now bears enormous thick layers of fat, he's slow to heal and totally clumsy. He likes earrings, rope reed fiber cloth and pickle berry wine. He keeps asking for nickel silver items, even though the metals need to be imported and silver can't be recovered from the magma trap he wants to disable.

Ingish Whirledhame the Suspiciously Elvish Duke never was an accomplished crafter. His only creation worth mentioning is Lustrouswander the Ordered Dusk, a cedar bow. It's decorated with bands of fungiwood and adorned with rings of cedar and saguaro rib wood.

Ingish Whirledhame has two godnesses, two dogs and no friends. He also likes to walk naked around the fortress.

10/10

Because SATW rules.

Scrub burrowing the haulers. That gave me another idea.

If there's a long path between the item and the stockpile, the pathfinding algorithm will have to test a lot of possible paths. To cut on that, we could place small chained stockpiles in the corridors, in direct sight from each other. Once an item is placed in the chain, the dwarves will have to path only for very short straight lines between links, until the item reaches the destination. To help further, the path between links can be marked as high traffic area.

I've done a quick test and some dwarves drop and pick the item all the way through the chain. Others will haul for a few links and then go do something else. It's like having a small army of maildwarves carrying packages from post office to post office.

Best pathfinding is no pathfinding. Burrow them in their factories, China style.