I've been playing for several versions and for a large number of forts, including several that got as far as the economics and even the arrival of a king, but I've never seen a megabeast. At first I considered myself lucky, but after a while I started to want to try my hand against some of the big boys. I wasn't, however, ready for one to show up in this fort, less than a season after I started training my first military dwarves!
But there he was: "Litop Fathrinou, the Titan, has arrived!" Oh, crap. Lockdown mode: I gave the order to get everyone inside, immediately - drop what you're doing and go! The dwarves obliged, while the titan - luckily for us - meandered around the edge of the map arguing with himself whether he preferred his dwarf meat fried or grilled. My small squad of recently-drafted archers were summoned to the roof of the entrance, crappy wood crossbows and bone bolts in hand. They weren't going to be enough. Nor, most likely, were my measly few stone traps going to bring him down. Locking down the fort as best I could, I prepared for the worst.
I didn't want to lose this fort. It was a good spot: magma, a river, plenty of obsidian, trees and plants galore, a ridiculous number of gems, and plenty of marble for steel. Sure, there had been setbacks. The rhesus macaque skull totems littering the fortress might lead one to believe we'd won the war versus the monkeys, but if I'm to be honest, about half of my first seasons' trade goods skittered off the edge of the map. And the mysterious disappearance of the water in all the ponds had made fishing difficult, and left a number of perilous empty pits in the scenery. Goblins had attacked early, and were turned back only through the combined efforts of a few traps, 2 war dogs, and some determined miners learning to turn their picks to a task more appropriate for war. All of which we'd survived, but this: this would end us.
And so I looked upon Litop the Titan with despair as, apparently having decided that he'd be fine with dwarf tartare, he charged towards my entrance. The archers opened fire as he drew close, and even managed to make a dent in his tough hide, but the tiny wound drew closed in moments. Runners sprinted forward to let out the few measly, wounded war dogs caged near the entrance, if only to delay the inevitable.
Litop kept coming, though, until his rampage brought him within a few feet of my entrance. Dwarf and dog alike tensed, ready to strike. But his approach slowed, then stopped... He turned away from his attack, and began to advance east, away from the fort. Confused, I looked to where he was now headed, and my heart sank as I saw poor Sakzul Limulner, trapper, asleep in the tall grass.
I still don't know what possessed him to nap outside. I've ordered no traps built; I can only assume he was hauling wood back to the base. He had a room, and a finely constructed one at that. I don't know if dwarves can be born with narcolepsy, but this poor fool is a definite candidate. The titan didn't care why he was there, though; he simply bore down on his newfound appetizer with obvious anticipation.
Luckily for Sakzul, a titan isn't the quietest of creatures, and he woke when the beast was mere feet away. Unarmed, unarmored, untrained, and groggy, what else could he do? He screamed and ran. The titan, enraged at the tidbit's tenacity, gave chase. Sakzul managed to just barely stay one step ahead, but being a new migrant with no training in agility (or strength or toughness, for that matter), his lead was fading fast. I knew it was just a matter of time for poor Sakzul, and figured I'd at least let the doomed little guy go out fighting.
And so it was that Sakzul Limulner, lifelong trapper and new arrival at Osusterith, was drafted as a wrestler and told to attack a titan. To his credit, he did not balk when the order came down; simply stopped running, turned, and awaited his opponent with the macabre, quiet calm reserved for those soon to die. The titan plodded forward, menacing and hungry - fifteen feet away, then ten, then five. With a great roar the massive monster lunged forward at Sakzul, and... disappeared.
The dwarves, collectively, blinked in confusion, as Sakzul calmly strode past the archers, the dogs, the miners, and the rest of the fortress, plopping into bed to finish his nap. A quick check revealed the trapper was totally unharmed in any way. I rescinded the "stay inside" order and began scouring the area, trying to discover how a Titan could wink out of existence.
A brief search turned up nothing at first, until I decided to look down, and there he was - Litop Fathrinou, titan, bellowing his fury and consternation at the bottom of an empty pond, trapped and helpless. It seems Sakzul, as a not-even-dabbling newfound wrestler, had fallen back on the only trick he knew: he tripped him. Right over the edge and into the pit.
Though I was tempted to leave the beast as a reminder to others who would think to challenge my hardy citizens, some of the less iron-willed haulers refused to come anywhere near the pit. The archers were summoned, and though eager for another try at the abomination who had so scorned their earlier attempts, they held back. A lone figure, newly crafted crossbow in hand, advanced from the back of the group to the edge of the precipice. Sakzul Limulner, Marksdwarf, took the first shot.
The titan laughed as it left barely a scratch in his scarred hide, but it was followed by another, and another, as the crossbow-wielding dwarves spaced themselves out around the pit and fired again and again. Litop's roars became howls, his howls became whimpers, and his whimpers became silence. The titan was dead.
