Celem's Log
Moonstone - Wow, I haven't written in my journal since the summer. I had always planned to keep a regular log, yet the events of this summer and autumn have defied logic and kept me running flat-out from dawn to dusk.
Where to begin.....
Well firstly trade with the humans went well, we exchanged some well cooked prepared meals for a few odds and ends of weaponry in iron and bronze, plus all the alcohol they had brought with them. It was not a moment too soon really, the booze supply had run out the week before and despite the new freshwater well, tempers were frayed.
Real disaster struck as the humans left the depot in late summer however. Without warning a horde of hamster men swarmed the bridge, making it into the depot airlock as the bridge dropped to let the humans leave, unfortunately to enable our haulers to remove the carcass of a reindeer calf that had just starved to death the internal bridge was also down, the combination allowed the chittering freaks to rush onto the bridge proper.
Thankfully these things were not initially hostile, causing instead waves of panic through the citizens who dropped the goods bartered from the humans and fled hither and thither across the bridge. Cracking open the envelope containing threat instructions from 'Towerdude' I realised that our defensive plan basically involved piling everyone into the little tower and waiting for hostiles to leave... Fair enough I thought, they may not be hostile but they certainly stop us working... So I called the dwarves into the tower.
Plan sounded good, in practice however not many dwarves made it into the tower, instead ending up trapped at the far ends of the bridge, scared to approach the tower which now had the hamsterman swarm outside it. After a week or two of almost comical panic I was forced to intervene however, it appeared that the hamstermen wanted to leave, but were as afraid of the dwarves as the dwarves were of them. Stalemate.
I gave a shout up the stairs and our militia trooped down and out to slaughter the trespassers. It was a sight to behold I can tell you, the hamsters stood little chance as the militia cut a swathe of red through their numbers. All was well and the enemy fleeing when a terrified hamsterbeast took a blind swing at our mason as it fled. The stoneworker nimbly dodge to one side, only to find a distinct lack of rock beneath his feet causing him to plummet into the sea below. Dwarves rushed to the edge as the hamsters faded into the distance, but nothing could be seen but a faint plume of spray. Damn!
But wait...it gets worse. Once we had properly mourned our lost brother I directed the dwarves to the depot to retrieve the remainder of the goods bartered from the humans. Right as they approached the depot however the corpse of the reindeer calf (dropped in the scare of the hamstermen and later overlooked) rose with a clattering of bone and creaking of sinew. Back fled the dwarves, pursued by the shambling monster. Again I ordered our militia into combat and they swiftly dispatched the rotting corpse. It was so swift infact that it could have been beautiful, the rotting reindeer having time to swing only once before sucumbing to a hail of hammer blows. Of course the dwarf at whom this blow was aimed dodged expertly.... SPLASH! Not again!
This was getting bad, over the next few days we got the booze and weapons out of the depot but grumbling had begun amongst the dwarves, particularly the militia. Apparently undead attacks had not been in their job description. You see what happens when you let the buggers unionize?!
Turning a deaf ear to their complaints I began construction of my great autumn project. Farming on the exposed beach had proved futile, with the planters being interrupted constantly by animals, and so I had decided to have a small tower constructed that would link at the third floor to our bridge. This was intended to allow our farmers to continue to plant and harvest, even when the outer airlock was closed and the bridge isolated from the mainland.
As early autumn set in work continued apace on this, interrupted only by reports of a human peering at the dwarves from the seabed by the coast. Apparently one of the summer caravan guards had fallen prey to the reindeer corpse too, dodging to his doom in the same way as our militiadwarf and mason. Thankfully the undead horror could not climb the ramp to land but its haunting visage peering from beneath the waves terrified the dwarves assigned to construct the tower. Meanwhile the corpses of said militiadwarf and mason had both also reanimated on the seabed, neither moving but both right beside the bridge they had fallen from. This meant that dwarves moving from our residential tower to the landward end were forced to tread a narrow track down the center of the bridge to avoid seeing this unpleasantness. In addition many goods stockpiled at the sides of the bridge were now completely unreachable, with haulers fleeing in terror before laying hands on the items in question.
This was getting messy.....
Thankfully my stern leadership won out, I issued orders forbidding many of our stocks to avoid haulers wasting their time only to get scared, I also informed everyone that traffic was restricted to the center of the bridge. In this way work gradually resumed. and the shoreside farming tower neared completion. I was on a clock though, the little booze we had aqcuired from the humans was furhter depleted when our bonecarver hurled several barrels into the ocean from the bridge in a blindrage. I was shocked to find moral had fallen so low in our little community. Once he had calmed down I was able to ascertain that he was indeed deeply unhappy with life at Terrorhounds. The single cramped dormatory was barely adaquate with our newer arrivals, and whilst the food was good the booze bought from the humans was mediocre at best and hadnt lasted. Dwarves drinking water are unhappy dwarves!
With my suspicions raised I conducted a further survey of the inhabitants and was alamred to find moral to be exceptionaly low across the board. The military were verging on psychotic. Whilst happy to sit and train in the barracks (where I had been pleased to see them sparring regularly) they were not happy with the number of callouts they had recieved recently to put down threats on the bridge. Several animals brought by migrants had starved and reanimated in the meeting halls. The corpses were seized rapidly by my standing orders but were frequently dropped along the bridge in inaccessible locations when the hauler strayed too close to the edge and spotted a dwarven zombie or sea monster corpse. In each of these occasions I had ordered them to stand by while I waited for reanimation so that I could kill it in a more convenient spot and summon another hauler. These constant assaults were leaving them weary, and light injuries were being sustained since leather, bone and shell comprised the best armor we could muster. Bad news in the militia then, though the joy taken by hacking everything to pieces over and over again was keeping them inline...barely. The rest of the workforce was likewise pissed off. Bad quarters, no booze and little time to socialise had worn them to breaking point. these accidental drownings were going to cause a landslide...
Mid Autumn true disaster struck. It had been bad enough but this was getting out of hand! Work was complete on the farming tower, though whether I could get the farmers to plant without spotting a rotting friend could be interesting. I had just decided to sacrifice a bird...we dropped it from the bridge at a corner just out of sight of the rotting corpse scaring workers near the farm tower. The poor thing drowned really fast, but in the moments before as it thrashed and kicked I was pleased to note the nearby zombies on the seabed converging on it. This dragged them out of sight of the farming tower, hopefully. As the dwarves grabbed seeds and headed out I remembered a corner on the ground floor of the tower that we had never completed with all the corpses scaring folks. Cursing i sent a mason with the farmers to stop that leak, it left our airlock bridges of little use.
Alas! Too late! A swarm of boar men and women chose this moment to pour in sending the workers fleeing back. Biting back a curse I yet again sent the volatile milita to battle. I dont even need to tell you what happened. Hack, hack, bash, slash....SPLASH! You stupid bloody dwarves!!!
Dodge the other fucking way!
As the militia dwarf went down like a rock all hell broke loose. The boars fled, I saw this and sent the farmers out. Unfortunatly the returning squad was on the boil, most headed straight for the barracks but a swordsdwarf, foaming at the mouth put his bronze short sword straight through the stomach of the closest farmer. Boom, another dwarf down. I rushed the corpse away personaly and returned to the tower to find what I only too well recognised as a tantrum spiral getting warmed up. Dwarves in both the meeting hall and barracks swinging punches, bruises for now, but this could only get uglier. No decent home for 2 years of constant zombies attacks, the loss of friends to stupid dodging deaths, no booze half the time and a diet comprising of '101 things you can do to a fish'.
Time for drastic action! I disbanded the militia immediately and disarmed them, dumping them back into the general populace. This pissed most of them off even more and sent another few into tantrums. Fine, dont care, you aint holding an axe now. Next I got everyone out of that tiny room and invented a million and one jobs along as much of the bridge as possible. I sent them spread out to dismantle random bits of bridge, to give everyone time to cool down. Of course as soon as they headed for the blockpile blows started again but i swiftly had em off out again.
Ok, they aint killing each other I thought, now what? They wont be getting happier either...
And that brings us to today dear reader. To this bloodstained pit where the inhabitants are tearing each other to bits. As I think back over this year I shudder at the hand the fates have dealt us. I had us shut up tight as often as was possible, yet at everyturn we were harassed by wildlife, and the interruptions caused by the remains of our dead friends has cost us weeks of time. I am not even certain how many of us are left, the violence in the meeting halls when we take inevitable breaks to eat and drink together has escalated and there have been a number of murders. Some wander drowned in sorrow, unresponsive and desolate.
I must break through this winter and hold us together until the thaw! Surely some migrant will be stupid enough to venture here, I can offload the overseer's badge to the first sucker i see. HAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHHAHAHAH!!!!
Poll
2 (10.5%)
Author
Topic: Terrorhounds - the Plague of Plagues (old and new players welcome!) (Read 12883 times)