Bay 12 Games Forum

That was the problem - I hadn't forbidden the socks of dead dwarves, of course.  Ugh, of course!

Morons.

Everyone is safe inside now.  Well, everyone except me, of course, and the others who died.  And Ogrin the Eye-poker, who was the next to arrive, a little too late, to save us, who died in combat with a Skelk.

But then everyone was safely contained inside, and work was able to continue.  The Bridge-of-No-Backsies that Aussie described has now been built, and that section of the cannon awaits only a dwarven sacrifice to be finished.  That, and the completion of the upper parts, of course.  Work on those parts was stalling out badly, and grumblingly I shuffled through the minds of the fortress once more - dismissing this one as too frail, this one as too slow-witted, until I came upon one suitable.  An animal dissector of very good intuition and empathy.  His pysche even managed not to go screamingly insane when I merged with it! 

Hm.  Not bad.  I hope I can keep this one.  Anyway, meanwhile, Mego was struck by his life's great inspiration, and seized a Mason's workshop and started to gather random shit all around the fortress. 

The rein-dead herd outside killed someone's cat then finally wandered off, so I let a few dwarves out to try to finish the walls around the Hellcannon 'barrel'.  Just as a mason, named Sigun (I almost took his body, in fact), was on his way out, he ran straight into an intruder on his way in!

So that went well.

Immediately following on the heels of that, we had a visit from some humans.  Since the Hellcannon gates were still unfinished and open... well... they couldn't fit the wagons but they managed to find a creative entrance to the fortress regardless.


I guess I will send someone to trade with them.  We have more than enough, but it seems it has been a while since we had any new goods come into the fort - they may have something interesting.

And Mego finished his item.  A rather nice throne if I do say so... I had it hauled to his chambers for him. 


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Okay, so maybe I'll be able to keep playing without killing everyone pointlessly and/or pulling my hair out after all.  Let's see what I can do tonight

We got a few more migrants today.  Among them was a metalworker who looked scrappy - he immediately picked up an abandoned axe and started following the militia (The Crystalline Scholars) around... so I guess we know what his profession will be.  Seanhl, by name.

Speaking of the militia, the dwarves of the fort seem disinclined to follow my old standing orders about staying indoors where its safe... this damn "El Presidente" who immediately resumed his post seems to be too overworked to notice that no one is paying any attention to their burrows.  So, the only thing to do was to confront the problem head on, and give our dwarves-in-arms a little field experience for the safety of the fort.  MantisMan the axedwarf was the first on the scene - and took a bit of a beating in the fray, but with the others arriving shortly thereafter, the clattering menaces were soon laid to rest without any serious harm done.

No sooner was the militia back indoors and the workers again happily wandering outside for no good reason, however, when a large herd of skeletal reindeer crested the snowy horizon.  Tasrak II and arcangelsd of course had wandered off to the south of the fort for no reason I can imagine, and thus ran directly into the herd.  There was no way the militia would mobilize in time to reach them.  Both were carrying picks - so they both immediately became honorary members of the Crystalline Scholars.

MantisMan was again first on the scene -- by entirely too great a margin for her own good.  She was soon pulverized by thrashing hooves.

Did I mention MantisMan was my mother?  And you know how Dwarven mothers are about their babies, in combat?

*siiiiiiiiiighhhhh*

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I seriously can't figure out why no one will stay in the fort anymore.  It would make an extremely lame way to die after all this, and is preventing me from focusing on the actual Project.  But they simply are not paying attention to the burrows anymore.  I temporarily switched them off, in order to allow new digging... and now switching them back on, everyone ignores them.  I'm at a loss.

I have been haunted by visions of death...  I think my mind is still rattled from my experiences.  Fortunately, it was not real.

(Twice I've had dwarves slip out of burrows/I forgot to put them back in them, wander out, get slaughtered by Skoxes... and then be saved by grace of the game crashing.  So the good news is that Arcangelsd, Dariush, and.. uh... baby Catalyst (yeah, AGAIN) aren't really dead.  The bad news is I lost about an hour of playing.  I shall regroup with booze and tacos for a fresh assault.)

Your design is interesting, but flawed;  You need a means to fully contain the demons within your HellCannon, or they'll just get bored of being contained and go back down to Hell.

That is planned - there will be a gate to keep them in the collection chamber once I am finished hollowing it out.

Quote from: CatalystParadox on May 08, 2012, 11:40:40 pm

Why Aussie, dear Aussie.

The aquifer's just in the way, it has no bearing on the real project.

I'm building the Hellcannon, of course.

Oh, of course.  But do you know how to rig it so you can safely weaponize the Clown Car into a one-time surface-clearing wave of death?

Oh, it's not designed to be a one-time weapon.  If my design works right, it should be not only capable of seperating the clowns into multiple waves for controlled release, but even putting them back in the box afterward.  Very much reloadable, so long as containment holds.  Also, containment would be the reason I need a new aquifer breach, rather than going through an existing one (of which there really aren't very many)

Of course, it's also possible i have no idea what I am doing, am wrong about basic principles, and it will simply kill us all.

Either Tasrak, or failing that, my username. And if it is my username rename him.

Ah yes, I see him.  Tasrak II, Priest of Armok - he's alive and well, and appears to be currently helping with the aquifer breach that is FINALLY proceeding. 

Me, I'm hoping to hear at least a couple more opinions before I decide whether to post the save or kick myself in the ass and get on with writing.  Meanwhile I'll try to squeeze in some time at least laying down as much of the parts of Project IfYouHaventFiguredItOutByNow... that absolutely need to be designed before I pass it on to avoid confusion/disaster as I can.

So yeah, if you're frustrated with my slow ass pace, speak now.

(The following was found scrawled in scraps and fragments in various hands, all deposited in a particular corner of the fortress, for reasons unknown.

I should never have joined the crew to construct the topside of the project.  I have been underground too long, and the sun-sickness kept me from evading the rampaging skelk that came for us.  While the others made it safely inside, I weaved, disoriented and blinded, and wandered into the hills - soon surrounded.

Though managing to escape the first encounter with no serious injuries, I stumbled off in the wrong direction yet again, seeing the fort in the distance too late - only when the four beasts stood between it and me. 


The brutalization of my tender mortal flesh was far from over - and after I had finally writhed free of their clutches and staggered around them toward the entrance, they managed to close to me once, twice more to kick my ribs and bowl me over.  Wheezing blood in the snow and crawling, I thought I was finished--



(...but the notes are still being written )

Update:

The damn skelk followed me down, and I was too weak to get away.  But I had one trick left up my sleeve, one plan, one masterstroke...

Go down fighting like a dwarf.


My remaining arms may have been a useless limp thing on my torso, but I swung it anyway, and by Armok I connected.  I fought that damn skelk as it made its way down the corridor, battering and goring me, even as it bit me in the eyelid and shook me by it... And I led the damn beast right into the traps.

I had but a moment to gasp for my breath - it wasn't coming easily, gurgle might be a better verb - when two more clattered down the ramp.  I turned and staggered away from them, trying to escape - they were finished by the traps as well... but my vision faded, and went black.


Something of a setback.

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So, I think now might be the most appropriate time for me to bow out (semi)gracefully, and donate the remaining half of my turn to someone else.  This has been rather obviously not the best time for me to have a turn (for a large variety of reasons) leading to my poor follow through on updates.  This would, sadly, mean leaving my half-finished monstrosity of an engineering project for someone else to figure out or not, but in a way isn't that how all such projects should be?

I'd be happy to go on (its certainly not that I don't WANT my turn) if it be the will of the Fortress, but I can't really promise much of an improvement in my pace.