1st Hematite, early Summer
There are six Giant Porcupines on the surface and our remaining merc, Crypt, wants to go hone his military skills. I have mixed feelings about this since we’re so shorthanded and his (claimed) skills are with a sword and we have only copper chopping axes. Raccoons have joined the Porcupines and while chopping axes aren’t that great, our guys have learned that punching ‘em in the head might bruise the brain. We need gauntlets from that copper, it seems. Well, first things first. Everyone is still sleeping on the ground and the miners are working on that first malachite vein; we can cold-forge some for quick copper (weapons and helms at the very least, there are always spiders about).
18th Hematite.
Aargh! One of those raccoons stole a box of library supplies still on the surface! Much as I hate “everything here” stockpiles, it’s past time to get everything inside. And the first crop of strawberries is blinking red; we can eat ‘em until there’s a brewery but for that, we’ll need to cut more trees for barrels. Or construct a stonecutter’s bench.
18th Malachite, mid-summer.
Migrants. Six including two children, no standouts, only one adult male. One guilded fisherdwarf youngster but the brook is a long, dangerous walk from the front gate. Which reminds me, we need a Depot.
Our pitiful estate to date. The brook is another 30 paces offscreen right. Lower levels are not yet much better, simple block rooms of function. We fashioned a Depot from gold bars, barricading it behind a raising copper bridge and the Metalworks is just getting started around that gold:
3rd Malachite.
Bolt BustyPlay, the fishmonger girl is enraged – she chipped a nail.
The boars are going to have to be moved away from the Depot front, they’re hassling the workers.
6th Galena, late Summer.
Gnolls! Six, and nine accompanying Giant Sparrows. One doesn’t generally worry about sparrows but “giant anything” in this biome usually brings trouble. Sure enough, they “killed” a scarecrow.
8th Galena.
AARGH!! A Gnoll made off with the library supplies. We only had one to start with (?), the raccoon that stole it earlier must have dropped it. A quick check and, nothing else of value on the surface. Which is good because the Giant Sparrows are now dive-bombing dwarves for fun (“runs for his life” spam) and we have no ranged weapons. Yet.
18th Limestone, early Autumn.
At least the animals are settling in: we have a new changeling and a tuskox calf. Followed by a mastiff puppy, despite her mother’s injuries. Digging continues.
5th Sandstone, mid-Autumn.
Migrants. Seven, no standouts if we disregard expert cheesemaking. Only two adult males for military training and one of ‘em raises this question: how does Post CoilChannel, that cheezer have “the appearance of someone 104 years old” in a world that is only 74 years old? He has a few former memberships but no Deity preferences and came to us without his wife or any of his thirteen children. He has killed a couple of Ashlander Elves recently in his previous home (and just how far does their “holding blood feud grudges” extend?) but here, he just had a happy thought about furniture and then went to sleep (?). He’s presently drinking but out on the surface away from the others with nothing around him but a tuskox corpse; a recent one, dead of unknown causes. He bears watching.
The other is perhaps the most useless dwarf we’ve ever seen: Wolf SackMaggot. He’s completely unskilled, clumsy, flimsy, a member of the Beast Warden’s Guild and came here with his equally useless wife after evidently abandoning their four offspring. He likes sterility draught – so perhaps those four children weren’t entirely his idea. He’s currently tending the silk moth hive.
