17th Moonstone, 229Welp, it appears the “throw everything in a ditch” plan was a bad idea journal. Aseaheru, Shiner, and an Engineer who's name I don't know were all killed because they didn't have the good sense to not walk where stuff was being thrown. Evidently the three deaths were too much for Citrine, and she snapped. Snapped Adil's bones actually.A potash maker died soon after as well.Almost nobody blames me amazingly. Citrine blames all of the deaths in the last few months on me of course, and she's within the right to, but that doesn't give her the right to assault a superior officer. She calmed down after Adil was hauled away for treatment.27th Moonstone, 229Parson brought it to my attention that the hospital is woefully under equipped for our population and another incident like the one that claimed four lives could very well spell doom for the fortress, especially. There's a space across from residential where a glass furnace is sitting, so I'll give a sketch to Lizard while she's recuperating and have her draw up the plans.1st Opal, 229Only thing of note to happen was Dragonfly naming his falchion. Acesquashes, The Bridle of Rending.7th Opal, 229And a week later here I am writing about another named piece of gear, this time Mad Bomber's shield!12th obsidian, 229Fucking chaos dwarves came in force, a large elk bird cavalry force, mostly bowdwarves, with a pack of ironhide centipedes and speardwarves backing them up. We buttoned up for the time being, and we're just going to hope they either get bored and leave on their own or enough of their pets die on the traps that they run away sobbing like the xelics did. For some reason the Wolverines haven't collected any ammo, so we can't just out shoot them until they do.
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Predictable, and merciful. A few elk birds dead outside, and the chaos dwarves retreated. Mostly anyway.19th Obsidian, 229One of the wounded from that dumping incident succumbed to her injuries in the hospital. There's six left, so we're going to wipe them out if they don't cut and run.Or more, the Hammerheads are. Maskwolf needs to get over whatever hang-up he has about killing the chaos dwarves; they aren't dwarves anymore, they're... They're something else now. If anything, killing them is a service to the dwarf that might be trapped inside.
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Report of the first skirmish is in. Three dead bowdwarves and mounts. Maskwolf is confirmed to have killed two of the dwarves and a mount while Thor got the third and a mount as well. Mad Bomber put down the first bowdwarf Maskwolf slew's mount. I told them to check around and deal with any lingering chaos dwarves, and that they were doing well; I'm proud of the whole lot of them.
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Report is in of the second skirmish. Unlike the bowdwarves, the speardwarves made no attempt to flee and attacked Mad Bomber, who was leading the charge. One ignored him, and got kneecapped by Maskwolf as a result. Mad Bomber broke one's spear hand with a parry, and Thor knocked one's leg out from under him, hit him in the gut (and based on his appearance when he came in the second time, prompting projectile vomiting from the chaosdwarf,) and smashed his head in.
Mad bomber used his second hammer (he simply strapped his shield to his right arm to make use of the second hammer) to kill the second, and Maskwolf did in the last, lifting the siege officially.21st Obsidian, 229Kat got really secretive out of nowhere during a party according to Selore, and booted an engraver out of the crafting shop before he could finish Rakust's headstone. Remains to be seen what it'll be but it'll be wood.1st granite, 230Happy fuckin' new year journal. As expected, what was produced wasn't some amazing shield or impregnable door, it was yet another worthless fucking bauble. Well, not worthless and sure it's pretty, but I'm a practical-minded dwarf, not an art enthusiast. We really need a museum for these stupid things.3rd Granite, 230All of the wounded that didn't die are up an about again, more or less happy that they were looked after and tended to in a timely fashion. I've ordered much of the current hospital dismantled to be used in an expansion of the prison and the supplies to be moved to the new hospital. We're going to put some statues in there and use it for a sculpture garden from now on.14th Granite, 230Maskwolf named his hammer today. “Hallfence, The Sands of Bridging.” Seems he may have finally gotten over what he's had to do in the line of duty, and is now taking everything in stride!5th Slate, 230All's quiet here. And this unnerves me greatly. The hospital move went well, and traction benches are being installed, slowly but surely. I've put in for the Goannas to take in all the kids who've come of age and for their own barracks to be constructed at the end of the main entrance hall. If anything gets by the rest of us, they'll have to force their way past Lizard's shield wall, a set of weapon traps, and one set of double doors.9th Slate, 230The hives have produced the first output according to a very happy Mayor Nuri. Good for her and her hive wardens I guess.27th Slate, 230It rained for the first time since we first settled here today. Clouds just flat-out opened up after what sounded like a cave-in in the sky; it was refreshing, if annoying, to see the blood and viscera of the past few years washed away.
The ponds filled up a little bit for a few hours, and a good deal of the grass turned green again, from being healthy rather than from a chaos dwarf puking up his last meal on it.8th Felsite, 230It's late spring, and that means -it appears as if Splint stopped writing in a hurry--
Goblins. Pretty large group of hammergoblins to be specific. I called the Ripperjacks out with my squad to meet them head on. Toad led the charge, but Ferro got first blood.The goblins surrounded Toad but wound up tripping all over eachother while Ferro took off his foe's head after blocking to swings of the greenskin's maul. Pretty funny actually, since the was a cave croc dragging a trail of confused and off balance goblins!
Once it was dead with their sergeant, they broke and started running; by that point four other goblins were dead too. I'll give credit to two of them though, who stood and fought while the rest ran for it. A cluster of people were pretty quick to head out and claim the clothes off the fallen goblins, which was also pretty funny to watch.15th Felsite, 230Never fucking fails.[These guys are really unoriginal. Discounting swapping bows for crossbows, it's basically the same force composition as before, just with more dwarves, more centipedes, and horses instead of elk birds for one squad.]
Even large group of chaos cavalrydwarves this time. Mostly on elk birds, but a few are using more sensible mounts. However this attack is a serious one, as one of the leaders includes one I think is wearing a nobleman's regalia. War leader most likely. That one has to die. The order's gone down to have the west and south gates shut; that will buy us some time from the bowdwarves and centipedes to the southwest. All of us are heading out, barring the Wolverines (because those idiots STILL haven't gathered their ammo!)
I sincerely pray we all make it through this alive. Guide our arms well, and keep us safe Amas, and please give us the courage to do what must be done upon our former kin; we will endeavor to die well, should that be necessary, and all who fall to our blades and hammers, we ask you guide to the next world so that they may know peace.
Ok, so I'm going to give an account of the following battle OOC, mostly because I think it'll be a bit funnier this way/slightly quicker.
First up, is Mad Bomber who at the time actually startled the horse mounted dwarves, what with him running out alone (initially,) brandishing two hammers menacingly with what probably looked like a beat-up wooden board strapped to one arm screaming obscenities at them. He then proceeded to cave in the skull of the nearest chaos dwarf's horse as his opening attack.
He then forgot about the owner of said horse who he left on his face in the grass confused as to what the hell just happened, and chased another guy onto the cave-top, before spinning around and beating the complete shit out of him and smashing in his head, while Thor pursued one speardwarf and Maskwolf another.
By this point, the war leader and his men were in position and opened up, only for every single shot or have them blocked/batted out of the air on the first volley.
the war leader's cadre. By this point though, Toad and Citrine were out of the gate, and all the other swordmasters were charging towards the gate as well. The speardwarves however, were having great difficulty controlling their horses, which were completely fucking terrified of three hammerdwarves and scattered in all directions. Shortly after, the elk birds were as well. This appears to be a trait of the animals, not their riders, as the animals lack the [LIKES_FIGHTING] tag, prompting them to run if confronted unless cornered.
By this point, one horse was riderless, as Maskwolf had bashed his brains in.
All while the other troops were blocking arrows like they weren't even inconvenienced. Oh, and the centipedes started chewing on a cat that got left out.
kitty
However, in spite of killing another dwarf-horse team and the riderless mount, this son of a bitch is the one I wanted dead the most.
However, I was distracted by killing centipedes, who happened to be closer.
Mad Bomber and Thikut however, would not be deterred from their quest of violently ending chaos dwarf lives.
In fact, Mad Bomber One shotted a chaos dwarf as if to make a point. He then proceeded to run down the now riderless elk bird and throughly tenderized it while Thikut menaced some now assuredly terrified bowdwarves.
And here is the kill count to this point
Finally, after chasing swift mounted dwarves around, it came to the 14 year old Thikut of the Ripperjacks, up against chaos dwarf War Leader Meng, a chaos dwarf many decades his senior I'm sure.
He did well, carving up Meng's only remaining bodyguard and then chasing him down, cutting Meng's mount out from under him before going after himself.
Yup, literally disarmed him, more or less, and then cut his skull open. Evidently he wasn't even a soldier, just an unarmed butcher who was in charge of commanding, not leading. This appeared to completely shatter the spirit of the enemy, who ceased firing and focused on running like hell after that.
However, in the final stages of the battle, Citrine was killed, having bled out after having her feet cut off by a chaos swordmaster while she was wailing on a speardwarf. Maskwolf saw her die, and while wasn't able to avenge her, he did finish the speardwarf off.
16th Felsite, 230We won, by the grace of our gods. Thikut killed the enemy general, shattering the spirits of the enemy, but our victory was cheapened somewhat though, as not everyone came back. Adil suffocated to death when a centipede bit her, and Citrine was killed as well. Both her feet had been lopped off and due to her being smaller than the average dwarf, she quickly bled to death. Never seen Maskwolf so... Angry before. I thought he was going to blame me but he says his anger is directed at both the chaos dwarf who killed her and himself for failing to avenge her.
I told him that no death will go unanswered, and that we'll make an effort to kill every chaos dwarf swordsman we find. He nodded, and went into the food stockpile to fill his flask.
Honestly, the battle was a long and bloody one. We scarcely got more than a few minutes rest throughout the whole debacle, and the only way we were able to find Adil and Citrine's bodies were their gear amid all the dead centipedes, horses, elk birds, and chaos dwarves. I informed the forgemasters to give them their due, and forge for them sarcophogi of steel and iron. I put out a call for volunteers during the party celebrating Thkiut's role in breaking the back of the enemy offensive, and two answered: Dakost Rocksharks who offered to replace Citrine, and Oddom Foldedsabres, who volunteered to lead the squad. Some said that Tholtig or Erush should lead, but they had already turned me down on the grounds that since they'd both been in bed during the battle, they had no right to the position.
In a few days, the Goanna barracks will be complete and more dwarves will be training to meet the enemy, but will it ever be enough?
Ok, so, big bloody battle happened, two axelords died as a result. Got the new hospital almost finished (still needs traction benches,) the jail was expanded, and it appears Citrine won't be getting jail time for assaulting Adil, nor can Adil accuse her anyway.
First bits of honey have trickled in, and some royal jelly even got used in a stew along with longland flour and cinnamon spice. And my god, sooooo many screenies.... SO MANY.
So, once again Happy New Year guys! Time for me to get some fucking sleep.