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Do we know what happened to the conglomerate codex? I just figured it was in the library all along. We do have a tavern actually, right next to the library. I made mugs for it and assigned a tavern keeper (who died cleaning the caverns). NCommander is broken by stress or something and mopes around for a month or so every season now. He seems to spend the rest of his time obsessing over wealth in the temple instead of working. Was probably a bad choice as the replacement tavern keeper. Salo should still be just as secure as ever.

Some filler from winter;






             Zutthan Authortrumpets Ranger's Field Journal

                              Tosid wrote this

                      Iden's Notes





I wanted to get some plumphelmets planted right away but digging was slow so I rushed to build the temporary workshops needed to melt what precious iron things we had stockpiled until Avuz had iron bars to make his boot. The two of us then finished digging the farming area including a cistern for a well and punched through to a pocket of groundwater. We cleared up some clutter while the flooding dryed up then got our food supply planted safe in the ground. Feeling quite confident.



(Nearby in the soil layer the Imic memmorial aqui-power facility meets it's power output requirements using up most of the wood - He was back-washed in during flow-starting and wouldn't get out - and Flame and Spish throw the levers opening the magma hatches and powering up the pump-stack.)



It started with the smell of smoke.



Then came the smell of panic.



The outer trade bridge is compromised but it will buy donkey a moment to escape the doomed depot hall.



The inner bridge and donkey are secured before the outer fails.



After a moment to relax it is decided we must source some magma-proof rock if we still hope to survive here. There were murky pools on the surface so it's likely only obsidian will be found there now.
Stopping work on some optimistic bedrooms to cut an exploratory stair to the predicted obsidian location proved a bad idea. Apparently there's an aquifer here.
Initial flooding control was lackluster to say the least.



While significant loses were accepted and plans altered, motivation remained a problem.



Perseverance eventually proved successful while carelessness seems to have released some foreign prisoner temporarily. We're not really much worse off then before.
Poor doomed donkey.

Blind joke?

                    Zutthan Authortrumpets Ranger's Field Journal

                          Tosid wrote this



As soon as the nefarious cloud is gone the three of us return to the floor construction. There is a lot more commotion then normal to the north and east where the cloud had passed over a group of travellers.
Before long we see a human bard crawling slowly and painfully towards us from that direction.



We paid it no mind but it's howling attracted the attention of some of those that had been changed by the cloud. Zutthan saw the first, a naked dwarf poet husk, while getting a log. He slipped away from that one as it drove the human bard south.



He didn't see the human dancer husk I guess though. "Always check for a trailing attacker." It jumps him by the small construction. I rally Mistem and  try and charge through the dwarf poet husk to join him.



It us takes too long to defeat the dwarf poet husk. Zutthan collapses and dies while tanking a shield-beating right as we get there and the human dancer husk leaps at Mistem.



Mistem didn't have a chance. I should have left him to care for the other three.



The fight was difficult and long but the thing had no edged weapon. I weathered a few blows suffering nothing but bruises from it's shield before finally splitting it's head asunder like it was soil.



After sleeping most of the bruises off my old unhealed wounds are real noticable. Still feels bad. Back to work. Finished the big floor. Very weak. Brought a few things inside. Don't want to seal the surface in case I get too weak to re-open it. Must keep working, the other three are still injured. Faint. I need to secure water inside then I can seal us off from the surface and maybe I can get them recovered with some time.
Slow.
Hard to dig.
Tired.
Can't hold pick and book at once.

I don't like waves. Magma would do wonders for much of the surface.

                  Zutthan Authortrumpets Ranger's Field Journal





Fuck.



It was brutal. That cowardly shit's corpse beat the strands out of the two of us. Knocked a bunch of Tosid's teeth out. Practically bit toes off of both of us. We just could not slow it down. It took a couple days to mangle it enough that it stopped moving.



We take a break from working for a while. We're a mess of wounds each. I'm cleaning the rabbit blood from the levers when I realize we slashed Urdim's corpse to ribbons and then bones but there had been absolutely no blood in it and there was none here where he had died.



My mind flashes back to the strange human visitor.



Foul night creature. We will capture it and imprison it forever so that it will only ever suffer for the life it stole from poor useless Urdim.
I'm digging the trap-bedrooms soon after when Tosid says four dwarves have shown up on the surface from the north. Mistem, Iden, Avuz and Imush.
The new dwarves are getting to work with some clean-up when a wandering human corpse interrupts things. The new dwarves are recruited and set on it but the delay allows Urdim's corpse time to re-animate and joint the fight. Not only that but a nefarious cloud rolls in from the north east threatening the area. While I wait for it to pass I pick up a silver battle axe the new dwarves had brought inside and Iden, Imush and Avuz and beaten unconscious. My ear burns.



I'm over-exerted but put down both zombies quickly. Iden and Imush are hauled off to one of the dorms under construction. Mistem tries to see to their injuries but wood must be acquired for some buckets first.



While on the surface I was able to scout out some plump helmet spawn. Firstly under guard of an named undead duck in a tree. Probably not a good idea.



Second cache was on the eastern boarder by a giant snail corpse and just south of that unending weasel husk battle. Definitely not going over there. Third and an almost easy spot is in a pile of goods on the shore of a stagnant pool on the western border.



We bring quite a few of the plum helmet spawn inside. I'm not feeling well. Weak. Tosid looks drawn and pale. Haven't been the same since the fight with Urdim's corpse. Our wounds are not great but do not heal.

 

Tosid and I decide to make a push to close off the opening into the dig site. It will take a while with the injured dwarves taking extra attention. As we begin I catch in the corner of my eye the foul night creature brazenly strolling into the dig site. As if we don't know your secrets cursed one. Trying to prey on the injured and invalid.



The thing walks with an uncanny smoothness. A water bucket nearly leads to disaster but is noticed and the unwanted visitor re-directed and trapped as planned.



The thing is walled in over the locked doors. Justice served.
Mistem, starts to work on his patients including making splints and weaving some cloth for bandages. Flooring over the hole on the ground level is nearing completion despite my and Tosid's health continuing to decline and repeated nefarious fog clouds.



Autumn arrives while we take shelter in the lowest section.

                      Zutthan Authortrumpets Ranger's Field Journal

Urdim said we'ld never live to make it here but I know the overland ways.

Bloodyhells. Everything they said it would be.



Tosid and Shem meet us and report no open entrances on the shore side either. Not unexpected. There's all manner of travellers and mercenaries around and some moving undead but none noticed their arrival either.
There have been rumours for a while the fort was overthrown by a cult. It may be more dangerous inside then out. Or there could be an entire fort of riches for the taking.

I strike the ground near center of the corpse-ring. The others find some tools close by.



Urdim rushes back warning of a giant bugs south by the shore and picks a safer axe.



He does very little work before the morning's events get to him. I let him take a break. He's only a moment.



After most of the work is done on the aquifer plug, a cloud of this nefarious-looking mist roils in from the south east. Urdim's fear seems prudent and we wait it out working at the bottom of the dig.



It's passed by the time we're finished. Urdim is pressured into breaking the last support floor since we can't spare the time for mechanics.



Everyone gets knocked out. I'm a little fuzzy but I think I saw a dizzy kitten fall out of a tree. While we let the dust settle we scouted out four barrels of dwarven wine in another trader's wreckage.

After a drink I noticed a new trail of fresh blood. Headed fom the tree it ended at the corpse of the kitten that had fallen out of it earlier. The very next time I came outside the cat corpse was moving. The four of us rallied together and kicked it to more death. Urdim and Shem get it floored over in a small hole.



I was working on delving deeper when Tosid shouted a warning. The giant Fireflies Urdim saw on the shore were pouring into the dig. Undead chitinous shells rained blows on me as I fought my way out of the dead-end of the dig.



Outside with the others, Shem yelled He'll distract them while we try to find weapons.



Shem's no militia dwarf but he unleashes a flurry of blows in a martial trance. Urdim cowers horrified wasting time while Shem quickly get's tired. When he collapses Urdim flees.



Tosid and I had to go far to the south east to get what we were after. We got back just in time to see Shem's chest crushed to pulp by the undead horrors. Poorly armed as we were, vengance must be ours. Shem's last sight was spattered with giant firefly ichor spilt by the shared spear and shield his sacrifice bought us.



Acrid slime rains down on me as I shove giant firefly corpse corpses on top of Shem's lifeless body in the shallow grave Tosid dug.
I'm sorry Shem. You deserve better then this but there is no time.



You can understand then that when the undead doe rabbits hopped onto the scene shortly thereafter our misplaced rage was inevitable. It was horrifying.
Tosid and I were worn to exhaustion beating down the unbeasts with our wooden weapons. Urdim, was confronted by a buck rabbit corpse that tried to enter the dig, he did well before collapsing from exhaustion on the ramp.



Tosid passes out asleep while walking back to the ramp to save Urdim. We havn't eaten since arriving. I can't win with just a shield so I head back south east after a weapon. It's too far and I feel sleep overtake me just before returning to the dig site with wooden sword.

Tosid tells me by the time he reached Urdim the head of one of the doe rabbits was chewing on him as well. He dispatched that easily and the fight now almost two on one retreated deeper into the dig as the buck rabbit corpse was backed into an alcove. I relieved Tosid trying to keep the thing from finishing Urdim while he worked on getting a cage trap set up we could drive the thing into.



Tosid can't decide between getting me some food and building the trap. Eventually I managed the sever the thing's head with a lucky strike from the wooden sword spraying the walls with blood. I have got to eat. Urdim can rest for a moment. An important looking human coming down the dig passed while I was getting a cranberry Tosid had brought. She looked like she thought she was supposed to be here.



She must have thought it was Bloodyhells proper as she left after seeing the dead-end of the dig.



I found Urdim's corpse. A bad way to start the summer. I though he would be fine, he was only bruised badly, no other signs of injury. I though he just needed to rest but I'm no chief medical dwarf.
I call to Tosid to ready another shallow grave.

-There must be quite a pain with airlocks with that drake.

Airlocks! You misunderstand our security system, we're running open door surface to magma sea policy. Fast and loose. We don't have the dwarfpower for lever pulling and everyone's pretty chill anyways.

- Is Efamidipí a titan or FB? How come you still have doors? Poor goblin poet.

I don't know but it is a poet killing machine. Murders visitors like nobody's business. Everyone seems to pay it or the murders no mind and it's not interested in buildings either so we're just gonna pretend like nothings happening and keep letting visitors in.

- 14 FPS is bad :<

We'll beg for 14FPS before long

Bloodyhells, I can see it all now. It is ugly. It is bloody. It is hell.

The fort is a total failure. We were given a last chance; delve deep into the territories of evil, fortify a position and strike against Tosid Rushaxe's necro-horde.
The King would have been smarter to have had us executed on the spot or earlier by the beard! For all the dwarven lives lost or irreprably twisted here we have only succeeded in creating a lack-lustre necromancer hang-out where the heretical secrets are spread through wandering poets who outnumber the 'staff.' The fact is though, I would have done anything at all to deflect the glowing fuchia gaze of Salo's undead eyes before it ripped me to shreds. Anything. Death gives one a certain reminder about it's supposed inevitability and I wonder about the King's true intent behind the Bloodyhells expedition.


I've come upon the overseerer's journal up in this tree. It seems obvious that the previously appointed elf-citizen overseer had left it up here while sneaking off to love trees as it has been neglected for quite a while. The current intended holder is too pre-occupied with artistic pursuits to effect leadership. We'll see what's going on.

Just under this tree a dwarf poet heads towards what must be a passage into the fort. It's hard to tell what areas of the fort might be secured when you can move through walls. There appears to be a main airlocked trade depot entrance on the shore in the south, littered with the corpses of fallen dwarves.


It leads to the right side of an expansive area in the soil layer where a little bunker guards the main stair into the old fort.



The stair from the half-completed shelter on the surface passes an open bridge into the fort through an empty room and a cage-trap hall. There's a hole and a stair that connects to the large soil layer.


The soil layer below connects to the underground wagon tunnels by ramps and stair in the room to the left of the four bridges. Corpse concentration is high here. The roof of the main stair bunker is seen lower right.


Going north leads to a demolished trade depot at the hub of the underground wagon tunnel network.


The main stairs from the bunker leads to the crossroads of the fort. All the necessities were focused here, workshops, hospital, prison, corpse pile, giant undead therapod labrynth, wine pond. Most roads from here lead to flood recovery efforts, corpses and/ or abandoned mystery projects.


Except down, well corpses yes, but 50 levels down another small roofed bunker guards an opening into the caverns. It's drawbridge is even walled over. Deeper we go then.


Ten more levels down we pass living quarters and storage before arriving at The Garlic of Vipers. A fairly quite tavern compared to The Chamber of Death which is the library next door who's floor is littered with mangled corpse parts. Nearby is an under-construction temple complex.


Directly below are farming and food storage.


Housing expansion.


And finally shop floor.


Shockingly sensible and functional down here.