Winter has come, it is time to see whether the hive has enough food to last out the cold wind of winter, and live on to the fruitious spring this land will bring to us. These are our stocks as they stand at the beginning of winter, they're all rough estimates, but hopefully they're close enough:
Though the river has frozen over, our small water spring hasn't, so we won't have to worry about producing drinks. Not yet, at least. The miner that our allet attacked "for justice" is still sitting in the stairway, starving, dehydrated and miserable. Since the only other miner is still "attending a meeting" and following the allet, the hospital can't be mined out, and thus the miner cannot be given proper treatment.
The regent's room was finally smoothed out. He still claims that it isn't of high enough quality, so I ordered images to be engraved everywhere they could in the room. Hopefully some images of our miner being murdered in cold blood will make him shut up. I later noticed a large amount of raw fish in a barrel, and ordered one of our spare carpenter's workshops to be deconstructed in favor of a fishery. Hopefully we can make those fish edible before they rot.
(Author's Note: Found my first bug (besides all of the ants and beetles
) one of the engravings reads "Engraved is a Alnebkarat Minibimakhakab rendition of an image of a . The image is the symbol of The Cuffed Galls, a local formic government." I'm not sure why the entity has a nonexistant image as their symbol, but I figured it might be involved with some of the language raws)
The miner finally died, I'm not sure whether the dehydration, starvation, or bleeding did him in, but someone found him dead in the staircase. His body was put in the refuse pile, right next to the former regent. I'm not sure how well the formics will be able to handle the second death in the hive. We've also run out of coral fungus spores, so we won't be able to rely on our underground farm for food.
The miner finally got around to digging out the hospital. I'm not sure if he intentionally waited until the other miner was dead, but it sure seems that way. I ordered six beds to be created. Hopefully we won't have more than six injured formics at a time. I also had some cabinets and coffers made, to store materials and such.
With the regents room now fully engraved, I asked him how he liked it. He said that it's good enough quality for a bedroom, dining room, and office, though he doesn't like the statue of a treelord looking over him while he eats, but it isn't good enough to serve as his tomb. With a sigh, had more statues made. I'm not sure how much more he expects.
The others are starting to complain, the piercing wind of winter is making our meeting hall cold, even though it's deep below the earth. Hopefully it won't get cold enough to give us all frostbite. The water grub larvae is starting to grow into adults, too, so we'll have more we can milk for water in case of emergency.
Our next objective is to furnish the barracks and begin a military. I ordered the carpenters to make some weapon racks and armor stands. With those we'll be able to outfit our barracks, and then we can begin drafting some soldier formics into our military.
Four more statues were moved into the regent's room, but he still claimed that it wasn't fit to be a tomb. Since the barracks project is mostly furnishings, I ordered the miner to dig out an offices, so we can employ an scribe.
The armor stands and weapon racks were completed and moved to the barracks, as were the doors and chairs for the office. Everything was going quite well. And then the regent request we make catapult parts. Since I knew another formic would be beaten within inches of its life if we didn't make them, I ordered for more workshop areas to be dug out.
I went through the fort and found six soldier formics, and designated them to be a military squad, telling them they could train in the barracks neat the entrance of the fort. The decided to name their squad "The Hidden Walls" for reasons unbeknownst to me.
With a new generation of pack beetles birthed, I ordered the older ones to be butchered. Hopefully we will be able to fashion armor for the military out of their chitin. The siege workshop was also constructed, its first (and possibly only) order was to make catapult parts. Hopefully they'll be made before the regent's arbitrary time limit ends. More statues were also made, for the regent's room.
The first of the two pack beetles was slaughtered. It's body provided a whopping 23 meals worth of meat. The other pack beetle was slaughtered shortly after, bringing us to 53 meals of meat.
Some workers moved more statues into the regents room, and he finally told me that he was content with the quality of it. Truly, things seem to be looking up for our hive.
The regent imposed a ban on the export of catapult parts. Truly, it would be a terrible crime if we were to trade away our only set of them. One of the hounds that the migrants brought gave birth to whelps, which will most likely be slaughtered once they fully mature.
Spring has finally arrived, and our food stores have not only sustained the hive, but grown since the beginning of winter:
Truly, the hive is prospering. Not only have we survived a whole year, but we're able to produce food from domestic animals, farming, and fishing. We have enough industries providing food and drink that we could shut ourselves off to the outside world and still survive for years. Not only this, but we're able to start a military, and support a regent. Truly, out glorious formic queen would be proud.
(Author's Note: Since the last two updates haven't had many images, have a bonus image of the hive as it stands at the end of this update)
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