The guardsdwarf stumbled and fell to the ground again. He managed to pull himself into a corner and turn around, spear held out before him. It was clear that he would never escape the demons. He watched their ranks approach, vowing to impale at least one before they took him.
"Go!" the Commander had shouted to him, as demons swarmed up from below. "Take Zulgar and collapse McDuck's chamber, before it's too late! We'll hold them here as long as we can!" Zulgar and the guardsdwarf had raced back up the stairs, leaving the sounds of battle behind them.
But it had not been not long before they began to hear the demon horde surging up the passage behind them. As they had approached the end of the hidden passage that led to the cultists' lair, Zulgar had said that he would hold them there. "You're faster than I am," he had said, when the guardsdwarf protested. "Without me holding you back, you just might make it in time." Readying his crossbow, he had taken a position behind the pile of stone blocks outside the entrance. The last thing the guardsdwarf had heard from him had been laughter, before a massive explosion had shaken the earth itself. The guardsdwarf had been thrown to the ground, suffering bruises and, he thought, a broken foot. The sounds of pursuit had quickly resumed.
As the guardsdwarf steadied his spear and prepared to make his last stand (figuratively speaking), a solitary figure appeared from a side-corridor and strode out in front of the demonic host, carrying an axe. The demons surged forward.
The guardsdwarf watched in fascination as Urist McDuck began cutting down demons left and right, moving like smoke through their ranks. He seemed almost indifferent to the foes before him, only bothering to kill them because it was slightly faster than stepping around them. As McDuck advanced relentlessly through the horde, the guardsdwarf remembered the last words of the leader of the hooded dwarves:
"The way is opened…" The moronic cultists hadn't just given the legions of Hell a way into the world; they'd also given McDuck a way
out of it.
The guardsdwarf heaved himself to his feet, supporting his weight on his spear. His duty had been to prevent McDuck's escape. In that, he had failed. But he could follow in McDuck's wake and leave this dying world, to bring warning to others that Urist McDuck was on the loose in the multiverse.
* * *
Journal of Urist McDonald, Restaurateur
18 Timber, 1088: On receiving news of our victory over the goblins, Monom Adagbomrek (one of our traders) became peculiarly secretive and stopped talking to anyone. He's piling up various items in one of our craftsdwarf's workshops.
24 Timber, 1088: We traded with the dwarven caravan today. We gave them lots of fine bone crafts in exchange for alcohol, cloth and thread, meat, and cheese.
In other news, Monom started working on something today.

28 Timber, 1088:

Monom emerged from his workshop bearing an elaborate wooden crown, "Crabembrace the Bristles of Stopping":
11 Moonstone, 1088:I heard some moaning noises as I passed by the hospital this morning, I took look inside, then decided to track down the doctors and find out why they weren't helping the wounded.
"Can't you see I'm drinking?", Vabok shouted at me. "It's my break," Vucar informed me. "Union rules say I get a full two weeks off regardless of the circumstances."

Well, pardon me! Armok forbid you interrupt your free time to tend to the dwarf with a sucking chest wound.

27 Moonstone, 1088:A dwarf called Thikut Oddomrinul decided to hunt the "big game" in the caverns. It was a little
too big for him, though.

I've dispatched the militia to end the earthworm menace,

but in the future no dwarves are to roam around the caverns.
28 Moonstone, 1088:Letterdrummed is an ex-worm.

1 Opal, 1088:It has come to my attention that there are no fewer than four diplomats wandering the fortress, waiting to speak with mayor Morulrigoth. He claims that he's "too busy" to meet with them, so I've had him confined to his chambers until they are all satisfied and go away.
20 Opal, 1088:Well, it took almost three weeks, but that's one diplomat gone.

Now he can meet with the next one.
23 Opal, 1088:The liaison has announced that the queen wants to make Moltenchannels a barony!
Of course, we can't be a barony unless we have a baron, and I know just the dwarf for the job!

In other negotiations, we requested steel, pig iron, and flux stone from next year's caravan.
26 Opal, 1088:The northeastern watchtower is complete! During times of war, our marksdwarves can fight from its top level, raining death on our foes.

And during times of peace, they can go down to the second level to relax and grab a bite to eat at a newly-opened McUrist's!

Furthermore, the watchtower can be sealed off from the rest of the fortress in an emergency (though at the moment it is far from self-sustaining, so don't count on being able to live there indefinitely)
15 Obsidian, 1088:There's a cloud of dust on the horizon, like a lot of people approaching! Customers, perhaps, here to partake of the fine cuisine at McUrist's?
I guess not.
18 Obsidian, 1088:We've the sealed the fortress. We left the drawbridge open as long as we could, but we had to leave two unlucky dwarves outside, and they fell to the undead. A handful of zombies managed to get over the drawbridge before we raised it, but the militia met them with overwhelming force and put them down.
19 Obsidian, 1088:Scouts report that even more undead have appeared.

There are now no fewer than
five necromancers in the field.

21 Obsidian, 1088:The zombies are rather futilely assaulting our gates. A couple of them have fallen into the moat, including one elf corpse that shows no signs of giving up, despite being little more than a vaguely elf-shaped pile of ashes.

Meanwhile, our marksdwarves and bowdwarves are mowing down the zombies out front.
(Ń = undead, Red background = dead dead)
The zombies just sit there and take it. It's good target practice, I suppose.
The necromancers (there are only three now; the other two seem to have wandered off) have set up camp a ways off, and are doing nothing to support the attack.
23 Obsidian, 1088:I'm out of my depth here. I'm a businessdwarf at heart; I'm not the one to command troops in a battle against the living dead. I'm preparing to step down at the end of the month.
27 Obsidian, 1088:Just as I was putting the finishing touches on my notes for the next overseer, I got word that one of our jewelers had gone all quiet.

He grabbed a single gem and began furiously working at it.

28 Obsidian, 1088:Today is my last day as overseer. For my successor, here is a summary of the status of the fort:
The undead are still here. At the recommendation of Commander Sauvage, I've begun readying a potential surprise attack on the necromancer camp.

If we assemble the militia here and seal the passageway behind them (in case things go wrong and we don't want to let the zombies into the fort), we can dig up into the middle of the necromancers' camp. There are zombies within easy call of the camp, but none in the middle of it, so our militia may be able to overwhelm the necromancers before they can call on their minions for aid.
The magma-cleaner is largely complete. All that remains is to provide power to the pump stack and to finish extending the nozzle so that it dumps magma into the courtyard. Don't forget to include a way to turn it off!
Here's the final report on the status of the fort:
And here are the results of the most recent census:
Oh, and one more thing. While I was going through the tablets detailing the orders for each level, I noticed something odd on one for one of the very lowest levels (beneath the magma sea; it's extraordinarily unlikely that we'll ever reach it):
I've no idea what to make of it.
Anyway, best of luck to you, oh Anonymous Successor! And if you ever need to grab some food while you're on the go, stop by McUrist's! We're opening new locations all the time!
While I won't go so far as to say that my turn was uneventful, I do seem to have gotten pretty lucky and none of the potential disasters became an actual disaster (the scary forgotten beast was taken down immediately by a lucky shot, the ambushes and sieges came at times when almost everybody was inside, etc.). Of course, that just means that the next turn will have to be twice as much Fun as usual to balance things out. The save can be found
here.
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Topic: Moltenchannels - The magma flows - FINAL TURN (Ardentdikes II) (Read 386580 times)