autumn 161Some migrants showed up. We alocate most of them to the militia and hauling duties, although there is a skilled armorsmith and clothier among them. Cmdr Kubuk gives them a quick tour of the fortress. "Here is the rocks who need removed from the dining room, here is the rocks who need removed from the hallway..." and so forth. Now that we have some dedicated haulers I can focus on carpenting beds while the miners dig out rooms to put them in. The barracks housing, poorly crafted meals, lack of chairs and piles of boulders in every room are increasingly making our dwarves unhappy.
One day while watching the baby zingers roll about the dining room I suddenly hear something like thunder and shouts from the depot level. "Set condition one throughout the fort, this is not a drill!" I follow the militia up the central staircase to find chief peasant Kerlig dead and on fire on top of an alcohol barrel. It is not at all clear what is going on here, but Megaman's hunting war cat Lam Isethmeng seems to know. The militia chases after it as it bolts out the door and pounces on a tall, reptilian figure. "The hunting War Cat bit The Intruder in the left upper arm and the severed part sailed off in an arc!", according to one of our recruits. War Cats hunt large vermin as regular cats hunt regular vermin. We return from the trading floor expecting to see a category 5 firestorm but instead the last bit of flaming Kerlig is soon extinguished in a pool of prickle berry wine.
Myth Busted - Booze is not actually flammable
Once the fort is calmed down, guards are posted just outside the doors to the central staircase and I attempt to reconstruct the event in it's entirety. Megaman reports the intruder was a lizardman, a species as disagreeable as the goblins but more discrete and clever.
"Have you ever encountered them personally, Megaman?"
"Aye, I once identified the body o' one after 'e blew away a dorf I knew an' got butchered by me hunting cat."
Witnesses report that Kerlig shouted, was blown back with a flash and a thunderclap, then hit by a fireball in quick succession. Not much is left of the body, but a gouge in the wall suggests a physical projectile was shot at him as well. We surmise this intruder was a spellcaster of some sort, likely an elementalist. A cloaked figure was seen immediately running out of the shadows toward the exit, yet we were able to make it up several z levels in time to watch Lam pounce on then shred a stunned looking Lizardguy not two wagonlengths from the door. I walk out to the depot room to consult with commander Kubuk, she feels our militia "couldn't catch a fucking cold". As Lam continues to eat the remaining half of our lizard corpse, Kubuk points out that it was wearing a dress or something, not a cloak. Furthur, the War Cat Lam was not incinerated with elemental magic, thus we must have caught a second lizard while the shooter got away.
The dwarven caravan arrives together with one from the Meowkin people. Both bring escorts into this apparently hostile region, so I stand down the militia and assign them to help with the hauling duty. Scooping up the War Cats leftover lizardman is the last straw for Cpt Catten Stelidal†th, apparently. He drops his equipment and begins babbling incoherently. Though our fort lacks a proper doctor, we all recognize the symptoms of the crazy. Our metalsmiths are sent to crank out some electrum goblets or some such trash for trade. Catten's wife is one of our skilled herbalists and appears just as unhappy about the constant stone engraving in the sleeping quarters and widespread vermin infestation. The dwarven liaison mentions a large migrant wave preparing to join is in spring, assuming a good report from the caravan, so we should prepare to appoint another apprentice herbalist or two.
winter, 161In the hopes of capturing future intruders alive for interrogation (and cat food!) I had a row of cage traps set up in the wagon entrance. A security checkpoint will placed one Z above it, where a guard dog will watch through floor grates to warn us of attackers.
Soon after, a nephilim caravan arrives. They sent their wagons onward, claiming their is no path to our depot. Except, you know, the one their pack animals took. Paper and I still have not met with the dwarves or Meowkin. As a negotiating tactic, we have busied ourselves with the more important tasks of hauling rocks back and forth and rearranging workshops. The merchants will see our indifference, and have no choice but to earn our buisness with rock bottom prices. Catten succumbs to the crazy sooner then expected. His wife is miserable and equally unable to cope with stress, so I preemptively assign their half finished bedroom to someone not fatally depressed.
With Catten's gently used clothes for sale as well, Paper trades with the caravans and I negociate with the liasons in our brand new meeting hall. Plenty of food and alcohol is purchased, with some metal bars and bulk cloth. I request several exotic metals in the hopes of better equipping our militia. Damascus Steel (made with vanadium) is stronger and sharper then Vanilla Steel, Iovium is denser then Platinum and as strong as bronze (it is also much less radioactive then commonly believed). Finally Oralchium, or heavy gold, is used to make the precision tools needed for "cutting edge" technologies.
The meowkin are playful humanoid catpeople. They don't bring a whole lot of useful goods, but I think they enjoy the adventure and sightseeing of a caravan trip more then the profit. From the meowkin liason I order Giant badgers, giant sparrows, giant mantises and some sort of seamonster crustation. They don't appear to eat meat or use animal products, so some wonder what exactly they do with all those exotic animals. I intend to train them for war however. I have put the construction of our drop trap on hold, it may be worth considering filling those channels with water and sea monsters instead. Further research is recommended, and in any case perhaps we can do one of each.
winter, 161 The Meowkin insist there is no path for their caravans to leave,
but they got in just fine. I am discussing this with one of the merchants when Kubuk arrives to tell me the Shedim are going to kill us all. Shedim are terrifying, semi intelligent beasts that rampage through populated lands in search of food. We had hoped none prowled these parts. Thankful for all the friendly saber armed cats around, all outside jobs are suspended and the militia is readied at the depot. From the surface walls we watch the Shedim beasts advance. They very likely stalked the caravans here, in search of food for their endless numbers. Tobul the woodcutter is trapped outside, but there is nothing we can do about that. As he dodges the attacks of a Shedim scout, his War Cat Rakust attacks from behind and achieves Metalfrills' second kill.
Tobul, Rakust and some War Kittens are eventually caught and killed, though they injure a couple more of the fast but frail Shedim Scouts. Three Shedim are caught in the cage traps, and several stay behind to try and free them while the rest move in. As they round the corner into the trading room, the pack animals go berzerk at the very sight of the beasts. A three way fight ensues between insane Yaks, one third of a Shedim war band and our militia and caravan allies. [Authors note: Seriously, the Meowkin caravan merchants went insane from being trapped to long the exact instant the battle started. They aren't trapped and never were.] We promptly ruin their day, with light casualties.
Every outside job is forbidden, so when several civilians wander out the only remaining explanation is stupidity. A long, stringy battle results as civilians, militia, caravan guards and Shedim all run around the wagon road killing each other. Fortunately, everyone important is either smart or armed and we only loose our bone carver Goden, and our promising new squad captain Bim. I was particularly concerned when Tomio charged outside toward the surface, but she mined the final Shedim's limbs like ore, and a stray War Cat finished it off. Tomio returns with some juicy fresh bluebells and a War Cat.
With winter and this battle both over, I feel my objectives as overseer have been completed. Our fortress is now established with basic living and production facilities for the migrants sure to arrive this spring. I can now retire from the position of overseer to focus on my long neglected alchemical experiments while someone else catches hell for all the rotting corpses in our depot.
[Ok so Megaman3321 is up. I suggest you breeze through the LFR references and readme, as its a fairly complicated mod. I don't know why the caravans cant escape. If they don't leave once the traps are deconstructed then they will go insane very soon, so watch out. You will need to crank out some more steel equipment and bedrooms for the spring migrants, and assign another herbalist. The dwarven caravan will bring Oralchium, which we can use to make precision tools to unlock much of the mechanical tech tree. I also recommend we look into the religious tech line, eventually it will let us convert some of our dwarves into spellcasters, greatly reducing civilian casualties when stuff like this happens. I have not found the caverns and have no idea where they are. Maybe take a look at our militia uniforms, they don't seem to be wearing clothes and armor properly.]
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Topic: [METALFRILLS] NO farming YES mods - Enlist Now! (Read 13835 times)