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Author Topic: Whisperwhip: a megabeast steakhouse (Circus Edition)  (Read 135795 times)

Immortal-D

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Re: Whisperwhip: Syndrome testing facility
« Reply #150 on: May 31, 2015, 09:59:48 am »

*applause* lol.  You could (and should) make a catalog of every FB that has impaled itself on the military of Whisperwhip.  Seriously, this might be the only Fortress to ever exhaust the world's supply of Forgotten Beasts.  Plus the effects of various symptoms will make a contribution to !SCIENCE!.  Hopefully other Dwarves can recognize the telltale signs in the future, allowing preventative measures and ultimately avoiding the tragedies of this Fortress.

Taupe

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Re: Whisperwhip: Syndrome testing facility
« Reply #151 on: May 31, 2015, 12:44:37 pm »

Yes, i'm definitely planning something like this. There's a lot of patterns i'm starting to notice. I'll be honest, i've bern trying to exausth the FB supply for some time (or at the very least the lot of them that can reach this continent) but so far there's just increasingly more of them every year. Like, 3 fbs per chapter, what the hell is that. Maybe it's the wealth, but I have no poibts if reference. Is almost ten million good? I feel like any fortress with gold/silver/steel access would crush thay in a few years.

I know we are running low on Titans, at least ob the northern continent. FBs on the other hand xan arrive through the caverns which mean they can probably cross oceans. Maybe there's actually an aggro radius that increases based on many factors... wealth pop years... that would explain why more beasts are showing up. The world around Whisperwhip is slowly becoming aware of this place. I have no idea how many beasts remain, but my short time in the legends screen hints that theres still a lot left... A LOT.

Ps; Id the second has miraculously survived ten years. Aoon enough, he'll be able to form his own squad of teenagers.

FallacyofUrist

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Re: Whisperwhip: Syndrome testing facility
« Reply #152 on: May 31, 2015, 01:16:03 pm »

The poison... syndromes... everywhere... yet no paralysis?
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Re: Whisperwhip: Syndrome testing facility
« Reply #153 on: May 31, 2015, 02:53:45 pm »

I think one creature had paralysing blood, but the only casualty was another beast that walked too close to it. It died from a head-shot and never affected the dwarves.

Rest assured. We will probably see new creepy syndromes before this is all over.

Edit; its totally possible that one of the many sting, bite or spittle carried paralysis. They just have a terrible time connecting against armoured master dodgers.
« Last Edit: May 31, 2015, 09:08:39 pm by Taupe »
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Taupe

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Re: Whisperwhip: Syndrome testing facility
« Reply #154 on: June 01, 2015, 01:07:16 pm »

CHAPTER 65: Fishing
Year 230
Dumat the Broker


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The mlitary is in shambles. No commander, no captain of the guard, no bookkeeper.

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While we technically have 15 surviving members of our army, keep in mind, most of them are crippled like this one. Others include Rovod, who has been in the hospital for 3 years now. I liked the guy, and it's cool that people are trying to save him, but obviously this is not going anywhere, and we are spending very crucial dwarfpower to making soap and thread and that's not even considering the two doctors tacking care of him day and night. If I was to snuff him out with a pillow, I'd get 5 more useful dwarves within the hour, just saying. The remaining soldiers are mostly feverish or cruised, except for two of them who actually slept the whole thing and never went into battle.

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The squads are merged into two. Captain Aban is promoted to captain of the guards, and he will lead the Turquoises of hair. Orion is the strongest surviving dwarf, and he has a cool name, so i ask him to be our new millitary commander. Bookkeeper Led died during the fight, so we still need a bookkeeper...

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My main issue right now is not to fill in nobility spots, but rather to fill coffins. As it turns out, a lot of our dwarves are currently sitting on the bottom of a relatively shallow lake. They are inches from the ledge, yet nobody will get them out. This needs to be adressed before they turn into ghosts. We could just ignore them and slab the ghosts, but that would mean leaving beloved citizens and heroes of this fort right in plain sight, and let's not mention the like 9 artefacts they were carrying on them. We need to fish them out of there...

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I dispatch some workers to dig three little basins near the bank of the lake. The mayor, meanwhile, starts to order some floodgates, and then goes to build 3 levers. We'll install them, connect them to the lake, and let the bodies slide into the holes. Water evaporates, we get the goodies, bingo, easy.

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It would seem that half the population is inneficiently trying to retrive the corpses, while the other half is indulging in tantrums. How did nobody mentally prepare for the death of all their loved ones to a forgotten beast? You'd think they'd be sort of ready for that sort of thing by now.

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Heres three pages of a child going berserk, and being slowly and viciously torn asunder by war animals. You read it. I read it. Everyone saw it. Spoiler alert, it didn't make the mood go up.

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i don't feel like dying horribly, so I order most of the animals to be trained for war. Once that's done, I'll claim them for myself, and use them as defence, in case somebody goes berserk and tries to kill me.

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Another berserk child, another massacre in the dinning hall. I wish this didn't happen.

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I have a good idea of how we'll be using our stockpile of obsidian. Coffins, coffins, coffins!

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While people are bleeding to death, or being posessed byobscure forces, I decide to order some barricades so people can't sneak in from the backdoors. Don,t want anyone to steal my awesome hippo, it's one of the few misguided pets I got that actually survived all this mess. I love you, hippo!

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The caravans are there so sealing the place is not a great idea, but i get the non-insane kids to remove constructions of the flooring near the entrance so we can erect a wall there quickly if need be. Don't want to die to a goblin invasion because half the army is crippled and the other half is sleeping.

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The workers get to work on our fishing operation. Sometimes a guy shows up and dig one square, then runs back. Then a week later another guy comes over and grabs a bolt. Work is slow, is what I'm saying. Maybe it's the corpses. Or the body parts. Or the miasma clouds. Or the everburning monster corpse. Or maybe it's just a combination of all that.

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I'm told that the posessed dwarf has taken many gems from the stockpiles. Maybe we'll get a good artefact? I'm keeping track of our gem numbers because we have like 2 of every single gem type on earth, and I'm slowly encrusting them into some furniture or another just to unclog the list.

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Then just as I'm discussing wood and gem prices with the elf caravan and how I'm actually gonna seize everything anyway, goblins show up. An ambush assaults the front gate without warning, and some people are caught off-guard.

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Two of our senior engravers and miners decide that the logical response to this is to run away into more goblins. A full-on siege appears, and they are killed.

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The soldiers gather, the citizen tantrum, Whisperwhip at its finest.

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In the chaos, a pig bone dagger is completed. While weapons are always interesting, bone daggers are... slightly less so. While no one doubts it's efficiency in striking quickly at a target, it's worth mentioning that a bone dagger will not pierce a strong carapace or a steel armor, no matter how many gems you put into it.

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While the army is dealing with the goblins, I get several complaints. Tun wants more querns and doesn't care that the masons are busy retrieving corpses and building defences. Some soldiers can't even leave the hospital. Meanwhile, the tantruming continues. Calm the fuck down, Erith, please.

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There's not much the workers can do upstairs, so I turn my attention to the caverns. Work is painfully slow, and it doesn't help that everyone has to go through 5 different levels of the tunnels and an entire bridge twice to get any task done. As part of our cavern-optimizing efforts, I designate a new tunnel dug, at the end of which we'll put bridges. that way, we can go to the fishing operation in less than a fucking week.

Obviously, the miners go all the way to the other side and start digging from there. Those guys, i swear.

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I've set up a bunch of workshops meant to decorate statues and doors made of silver and obsidian, and a bunch of them are ready. I order them delivered to Olin bookdeer's tomb, and declare it a memorial hall where people can chill. This should keep people happier, and most importantly spread out. having people relax in different isolated areas means they are less likely to die from a tantruming dwarf, or see it die while throwing one.

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Before the statues can be delivered, I am bombarded by strange messages. I mean I've seen people fall asleep, but they have beds and rooms and enough time to get there, why are people falling unconscious suddenly? Is this new? Have they always mentionned such thing as cancel: unconscious?'' I can't tell. i feel like it's new, otherwise I wouldn't be that surprised.

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I spot a guy on the table of BASE1, halfway through his lunch. He's not sleeping, he,s just, litterally, unconscious. Passed out. Then i remember.

The fever. The dust carried a strange fever. I assumed falling unconscious from it was the result of hitting the rocks... turns out there was more to it. Around the fort, random dwarves just... collapse for a few hours, pass out, and get up. things are growing stranger every day. Better check with the head doctor.

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The head doctor is also unconscious.

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And blind. What is going on.

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i take a trip to the hospital, and soon find out what i should have checked way earlier. i mean i did take a look at the health of the citizens like a day after we faced Amas Spithole the Washed Spurl, but then i assumed that everyone would be fine. Not I know better. Erith, as well as many more, is suffering from a severe fever that prevents him from being awake half the time. Also blindness. despite all that, he's prone to throwing tantrums in his sleep.

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More people turn up. They fall down, and get carried to the hospital. They are suffering from a curse. That's bad. But, they aren't bleeding or rotting! That's good. However the guy who can diagnose the problem is also cursed. That's bad. However, Dr. Melbil has well trained assistants. That's good! they recommend a supplement of potassium benzoate.

...That's bad.

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The non-cursed dwarves have begun to dig the channels, and at long last the floodgate can be installed! Or it could, if floodgates weren't impossible to install on a slope. Ugh... You, go get rid of it! He falls unconscious. Someone else, get on it please?

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We'll also need levers. I'd usually install them in the base, but at this rate it will take ten thousand years to wire the levers to the floodgates, so I ask that they be placed next to the draining system. Obviously the lever associated with the only finished reservoir is the one they build last. Hurry, we have ghosts on the horizon!

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The workers return with horror. Bomrek the hammer lord has risen from the (lack of) grave, and now terrorizes the miners and mechanists. Our whole project is a fiasco. Bomrek's pit is the most advanced, and he's already a ghost. By the time we install the floodgates for the militia elite, and wire it, we'll have a dozen ghosts on our hands. I leave orders for the workers, to finish the project anyway, because we need more steel and less corpses. I know they,ll take forever. It doesn't matter, the fishing has failed.

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Suddenly, Tun irrupts in my office. He demands something.
''How many querns.
-Not querns, Dumat. I DEMAND a table. In my tomb. a crystal glass table. the end is night, and i want a prettier tomb.
-Ugh, fine, you,ll get it in a few days.
-Also i want three querns.''

I leave another note to manager Stukos, an order for one (1) crystal glass table. We have tons of sand bags, and i nominated a young peasant to glassmaking last year. That won't be an issue at all. Clearly as I write down this note, I can't possibly imagine that the next chapter will revolve around that fucking piece of furniture, and change the fort forever...
« Last Edit: June 01, 2015, 01:14:45 pm by Taupe »
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Taupe

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Re: Whisperwhip: Syndrome testing facility
« Reply #155 on: June 03, 2015, 02:05:04 pm »

CHAPTER 66: A table
Year ???231???
Dumat the Broker


Spoiler (click to show/hide)
A few days ago, I filled a work order for a crystal glass table. It would seem the glassmaker failed to do his job. Normally i wouldn't care because seriously fuck fancy industries when the army is dead and everyone is busy building roads against monstruous enemies, but Tun our beloved duke has been bugging me day and night. ''When's my crystal glass table gonna be ready, Dumat?'' Soon, I reply. I go and take a look to the magma forges.

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''What's the problem? I ask the glassmaker. Why isn't the glass furnace working? tun wants a fucking table
-We don't have the correct workshop.
-It's a magma glass furnace. all you need is sand, and it makes glass! What's the problem here?
-Sir, we actually need a kiln, which is a very different thing.''

Ugh, fine, we'll make a kiln. The pillar containing the magma forges is filled up to capacity, and I don't feel like stretching our already busy workforce just to expand the lava channels for a magma kiln. We'll have a regular kiln, somewhere, doesn't matter. We'll use some fucking charcoal, build the table and move on with our lives. Where's our architect? Oh, it's the mayor, and she's busy fixing some floodgate in order to fish out dead people.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
We wait, wait, and wait. Finally, we have a kiln. Now make the table!

''Sir, we can't just make a crystal glass table, we'll need potash!
-Then make some.
-We can't because we are using all the potash for the farms. Unless we cancel fertilizing, we'll be out of potash as soon as the potash makers take it out of the... whatever potash is made in.
-Fine, I'll disable the fertilising for now.''

I give orders to the farmers. Stop fertilising everything.

I wait, but still no potash. Fuck, I forgot the mushroom farms. they have been running autonomously for 30 years, so i seriously forgot we even had them. never really changed anything about them. don't fix what's not broken. Unless the local ruler is a huge cunt, I guess. There's no popular saying that a douchy enough noble cannot defile.

I wait, but still no potash. apparently telling people not to fertilise simply means ''don't do it right now''. They stopped fertilizing the surface farms, used all the potash on mushrooms, then resumed potashing the surface farm three weeks later when the season changed. I tell people that there will be no more seasonal fertilizing. Not now, not next season, not on this farm, not on any farm.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
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The mayor rushes into my office, screaming about cabinets.
''I heard about Tun, and his table. Does that mean every noble can make demands?
-I... what do you want.
-I want... i want a copper cabinet in my bedroom.
-Fine.''

I tell the metalworkers to make a fucking copper cabinet, and bring it to the mayor's room myself. When i get there, I notice that the mayor already has two copper cabinet. ''What if the others get stolen?'' she simply explains. Fuck nobles.

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While manager Stukos and i are fucking around with production queues and work orders, new ghosts have appeared. The Bronze General himself is now haunting the caverns. That's great.

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Even in death, the general's antics are making my life a pain. He's started haunting the new tunnel, preventing workers from finishing it. Now everyone is forced to take the atrociously long detour. Again. Thanks, general.

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The first floodgate is activated, and within instants, the items and the corpse located near it are flushedinto the channeled area. i assume someone must have picked up the corpse, because i don't even see it in the pond. Which is a good thing, because the lever is malfunctioning, and we apparently can't close the floodgate to let the pond dry up. Engineering at its finest.

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Back on the surface, some dwarves have died from their fever. Some of them were tantruming, so i say good riddance.

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I finally manage to get some potash done without it being spent on more fucking longland grass. Now we can make a fucking crystal glass table and move on with our lives. Yes, Tun, I get it. you want a prettier tomb. Just fucking wait and let me sleep.

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We don't have charcoal. we need it because it's not a magma kiln. fuck. I make a batch, and it vanishes. What? Apparently there are two furnaces that have not been dismantled in the stone workshop district. For about ten years now they have been used to fill management orders, and exhausted our charcoal stockpile. Every time I asked something smelted, people decided to use both those furnaces and the magma furnaces (altho that explains a lot of weird error messages). I dismantle the culprits, and order a new batch of fucking charcoal.

We are out of fucking trees.

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Where are the woodcutters? In the hospital, feverish. Yay. I wait about a month and simply hijack a trade caravan of its wood supply, then have it fried up in the furnaces.

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Time is of the fucking essence. Tun's demand is turning red, just like his face. If this goes on for too long, he'll probably execute someone for incompetence. Reading back my latest journal entires I can't help but feel this is a label that could apply to me as well as to the glassmaker. Time to make some pearlash, because we have some potash available! The kiln operator grabs some charcoal, put it in the kiln, and goes to get some potash.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
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...Then he cancels the whole thing. There is no potash available, he says. Yes, there is, but you took so long to grab it that some dude took the potash and started moving it to the nearby stockpile, which is 7 inches away from the potash workbench. The kiln operator showed up, saw that the potash he needed was being used for at least 10 seconds, so he just said ''fuck this'' and left, throwing the charcoal away. now he's in the caverns gathering bolts. Is this real life? I know whom I'm having executed now.

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We finally get the pearlash going. two bars, two precious bars, and it only took two seasons to make! Good job, dwarves of Whisperwhip, your industrious fervor is known the world over! Now can we please get this fucking table out of the production chain and into the fucking tomb?

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''I've solved the first floodgate problem, it's closed now!'' announces the mayor, oblivious to the fact that the whole point of the floodgate was that we'd let very water in and wait for it to vaporize. There's really no point in having a 7/7 pond filled, floodgate or not. Those people, i swear.

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Yes, they are making the table! At last, in seconds the workers will grab the pearlash and...

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OH MY FUCKING GOD! He grabbed charcoal, put it in the kiln, walked all the way to the potash workshop, and once again saw that a guy was taking 5 seconds to put the pearlash bar into the bin a few feet away. So naturally, he cancelled the project once more and now he's in the cavern dragging crundle corpses.

I don't give a single fuck. Everyone in a ten miles radius is a kilnperson now. Or whatever it's called. Get. The fucking. Table.

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Ok, here's what people are telling me now. To make crystal glass tables, we need not only potash which is essentially a mythical substance at this point, but also rock crystals. What. Do we not have a lot of crystal glass around already? Just use that. No? that's not how it works? Oh, I see, when we make glass, we are not actually making anything useful, we are actually creating the shittiest of gems out of our asses. Those 150 green glass things I ordered to empty some sand bags? all useless, except they can be cut, THEN encrusted on stuff.

Wow, ok, I'll have to dedicate one dwarf to glassmaking, one dwarf to glasscutting, and one dwarf to glass encrusting. In time everything we have will be adorned with dangerously sharp glass shards weaved in intricate patterns. Clearly this can't end poorly with a nation of drunk people.

I look around in my general encyclopedia of rocks and stuff (actual name), and learn important things about rock crystals, which we absolutely need. Thing one, they are very fucking rare.
Thing two, having sand alone is pointless if you don't also have rock crystals. Thing three, traders will sell and carry cut rock crystals, and rock crystals blocks. Thing four, none of those things are adequate, we need raw rock crystals, which cannot be traded. Thing five, rock crystals are the rarest of things, there is no way of knowing where they'll be found, and the chances of actually having some around are incredibly slim.

Ok, so, everyone cancel your lunch plans, we are emptying this fucking mountain.
« Last Edit: June 03, 2015, 02:09:14 pm by Taupe »
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FallacyofUrist

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Re: Whisperwhip: Syndrome testing facility
« Reply #156 on: June 03, 2015, 05:30:46 pm »

If you're doing dwarfings, dwarf me as the glassmaker, name Aristotle, custom profession Glass Mechanic.

If not... well, it's an interesting scenario.
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Taupe

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Re: Whisperwhip: Syndrome testing facility
« Reply #157 on: June 04, 2015, 01:04:10 pm »

Aristotle is a 25 yo peasant and dabbling glassmaker who has been conscripted in a new terrible squad as punishment for not making the table. He is the son of Zasit the mighty, who died while doing a backflip that killed two forgotten beast. Additionally, he is the Duchess' nephew, and the cousin of ID the second.

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« Last Edit: June 04, 2015, 01:06:06 pm by Taupe »
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FallacyofUrist

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Re: Whisperwhip: Syndrome testing facility
« Reply #158 on: June 04, 2015, 01:29:21 pm »

Ha. Sounds like me, except without all the good stuff. Carry on.
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Re: Whisperwhip: Syndrome testing facility
« Reply #159 on: June 05, 2015, 10:34:46 pm »

CHAPTER 67: The dig
End of year 231

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The mining operations of Whisperwhip have never been too impressive, for a dwarven settlement, let alone a dwarven capital. Tetrahedrite is the best we ever located in terms of metallic ore, wielding copper, and a pinch of silver when Armok feels generous. Most of the metallurgic industries of the Wilted sack revolve around smelting copper shields and silver spears to empty some room in the stockpiles. No iron short of goblinite, no readily available coal, and no flux stone means that steel here in the savannah is as rare as it is precious. The only way of getting it is by smelting caravn goods, and the caravans are prone to insanity, plagues and accidents. It's not that the dwarves of Whisperwhip aren't greedy, for greed is the very nature of all dwarves. They have simply been busy with constant war and the annihilation of timeless atrocities on a weekly basis, leaving little time for mining excursions. Wealth is of little importance to a dead dwarf.

Until now.

Duke Tun, high noble of Whisperwhip and regent of the Citadel of clutches, wants a crystal glass table in his tomb. short of the fabled adamantine, or maybe pure refined platinum, crystal glass is the rarest and priciest of material. The main requirement, rock crystals, cannot be traded or sold, they can only be found deep underground. Locating them is a pain, for there is no way of knowing if there are any in a region, short of finding a vein or stripping the entire mountain bare.

I have no desire to do this, but it seems that we must now dig down into the core of the planet, hoping we'll find something ludicrous and unobtainable, to satisfy the whims of a tyrannical and stupid noble. Luckily, i know where to start. When BASE1 was founded, I ordered a staircase to be dug down to the north of the main chambers. It goes downward for a few levels, then stops. It was meant as a way to compartmentalize the fortress, since I didn't want to have just one single staircase running all the way to the center of the Windy Realm. There was to be one bridge room between the base and the coliseum, one between the arena and BASE1, and another between BASE1 and this new exploratory shaft. The idea was scrapped when caverns were found nearby, locking any progress between an onslaught of goblins and the ever-present threat of a new forgotten beast.

Nowadays, the corridor intended as a bridge room is left unused, mostly filled with furnitures and random stockpiles. I order some of the crap moved, and send the miners to continue the staircase. The great thing about it, is that I know for a fact that it bypasses both cavern layers. We'll dig for a few more levels, and create some mining tunnels, just to poke at potential riches.

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Ten levels below BASE1, a first set of tunnels are excavated. The miners locate no interesting stone whatsoever, until someone comes chanting with a new gem! ''I found it, I found it!''. A quick look reveals this new gem to be a rose quartz, not the fabled rock crystal we are after. Altho, you gotta admit, ''rock crystal'' is a fucking generic term that could easily apply to any fucking gem that exists...

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Before we can dig more than a set of stairs and discover a gem cluster, something new and dramatic happens. Can you guess what it is? If you answered ''a new forgotten beast'', then give yourself a congratulatory pat on the head, because a winner is you!

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Whatshisname gathers the soldiers outside BASE1, ready to meet the fiend in battle. Look, I have honestly no clue who's running the army right now. It was the general, then Asmel, then Drokles, then Atir, but we found Atir's parts on the river bank last month, so I'm guessing it's probably The other captain. They have similar names. Aban? Yeah that guy. We have about 15 or so surviving veterans, including Rovod and a few cripples. Good news is, If the soldiers can shoot the monster before it moves in too close, then his extract won't be too much of a problem.

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Some guy named Uzol emerges victorious after tanking the creature amidst the smoke and the miasma, where so many fated battles took place previously. The workers responded quickly enough to the alert, and suspended work on the fishing ponds in time to avoid being eaten alive. Good job, Uzol, you are now the killer of a mighty beast. Like everyone here. Who is Uzol? No idea. Most of the soldiers I knew are dead now. Whenever the current millitary leader dies, they come at me for a replacement, and I lazily point at the one guy who'se name vaguely rings a bell.

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Speaking of empty administration position, we still have no bookkeeper after Bookkeeper Led died horribly. I decide to promote my oldest friend Squiddwarf, for his heroism with the obsidian generator, and also because he's feeling rather lonely now that the other elder engravers committed suicide. I think he'll be a suitable candidate, since he's already recording the fort history, and bookkeeping is just that but with numbers. He's been keeping track of the forgotten beasts with some fancy drawings of late, so there's that. As a noble and founding member of the fortress, he gets one of the fancy rooms right above the kitchen, with cool engravings and his own weapon rack.

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Excavation continues while the battle rages on, and soon the miners have cleared a small section shaped like a diamond. Appart from the three rose quartz mentionned earlier, this is a disappointing floor. I order the stone to be stockpiled around the central staircase, as I don,t want those things hauled back to the base one by one, and I'm certainly not going to stand there while the miners do their thing, forbidding every stone I see.

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Let's go two floors down, and if there's nothing there, we'll just dig some ten flights of stairs and try our chance deeper... Initially we find some more gems, and boring stone. Just as I'm about to move to a new location, the miners announce something...

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Another cavern! How dangerous, yet perfect! If there are some new gems and ores to be found at this depth, we'll be able to see many samples along the cavern walls. The place looks empty, for now. The only inhabitants we can see are overgrown plants preventing passage. I order the hole to the west blocked as soon as possible, and cancel the mining plants for this area. Instead we'll dig a single corridor to the south, which will be easy to seal in case of danger. Conveniently, it leads to a rather large plateau, devoid of most obstacles, meaning we'll be able to explore at least a little before hitting a maze of fungi and pillars.

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From what I can tell at first glance, this cavern, unlike the others, is dry, instead of featuring an underwater lake filling half of it. By simply finishing the tunnels, the miners have a fair estimate of what they can find here. Emeralds, in large clusters, as well as pink tourmaline and some sphalerite, which should cover all our zinc needs, which are essentially none ever. I let them go and grab the closest of each type, so the metalworkers and jewelers can appraise them. If they are worth a fortune, maybe we'll stay here and strip this place of its riches. Otherwise, we must dig deeper, ever deeper, to get some rock crystals.

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Oh, by the way, all those workers who were feverish, are apparently out of the hospital. Whatever the disease left by Amas Spithole was, most of the afflicted manage to overcome it! Good news, we'll need all the help we can get to pursue this absurd quest for a fucking table.

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I'm showing our new gems to manager Stukos, asking that he gets a work order for cut emeralds, when suddenly his face starts to shiver. He storms off, talking in rhymes and dancing through the corridors, looking for a suitable workshop. He's been taken by a fey mood!

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Another noble comes storming in. It's the mayor, and she has the report on the fishing operation. apparently, not only did we not retrieve the corpses on time for them to rest peacefully, we actually failed to retrieve them at all.
''Well no, it's not that we didn't retrieve them, it's more like the whole process failed so spectacularly that there isn't anything left to retrieve.
-What.
-The soldiers, their corpses and their gears now exist in a realm outside of reality.
-No.
-I'm serious.
-I know you are, I just, this is not an answer that is supposed to exist.
-No, that's what I assumed, but somehow when the soldiers drifted through the open floodgates, they simply stopped being part of the material plane. they register somewhere on the inventory sheet, and we have a vague idea where they should be, but there's nothing there. nothing to touch, nothing to see. we just have a vague understanding of where they should be.
-...
-Also I failed to activate the floodgates correctly and all three reservoirs are filled and useless now. bye!''

Well, this happened. The corpses of our elite soldiers, and the various artefacts they carried, along with most of this fort's steel gear, now exists in a quantum state outside of our reach. Great?

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Thankfully, the miners have better news. by digging a few levels below the new caverns, they tapped into large veins of native silver and gems, and they assure me that no caverns should get in the way of mining them all out. The area to the north especially seems very pricey, filled with silver and gem clusters. It would make an ideal spot for a break room deep under the earth. The news of silver veins is also interesting; obsidian is nice, but it is nowhere as impressive as some metals like silver, iron and steel. While the obsidian generator is great to produce blocks that aren't worth nothing, I'd much prefer to use silver for statues and doors and, basically, everything ever. The miners tell me that while i was dealing with the fuck-ups of our mechanics, they excavated about 70 of these silver nuggets. Manager Stukos, get me a work order for...

Oh right, fey mood.

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apparently, he decided that despite all this awesome silver, sphalerite was the way to go. He's also decided to use wood to make drawings of gems. When we just found gems. What is this, an homage to the poor and simpler days of Whispwerhip? Now that you are a master crafter, do you think you could find some spare time to fill work orders? We'll need silver nuggets smelted, nonstop, forever.

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The future location of BASE2 (temporary name) is located 19 levels below the magama forges and BASE1. I feel like that's deep enough to warrant a rest area for our workers, with maybe a dorm. Once we have enough silver to create a new fort made entirely of it, I'll dispatch the miners to carve some rooms and space for a few tables. I'll make sure that we have the greatest furnitures, entirely made of silver, and encrusted with tons of bones and diamonds for this dinning hall. same for the rooms. sure, basically no one will use this place except a few miners, but I have a second use ofr it. because it is so far from the rest of the fort, isolated, it,ll be a great place to dispatch tantruming and miserable dwarves. They'll be free to get angry alone faraway from the sane dwarves, and stockpiling pricey items in a beautiful room will help them over it. for very angry dwarves, i may disable all their labors for a time, essentially keeping them here in rehab for a few weeks.

Just as im musing on this new project, the miners anounce that the level underneath contains something new. something exciting.
''Is it... rock crystals?
-No, sir. it is not. this is something you'll want to see for yourself.''

I go down the stairs, and take a look around. The miners are busy excavating the mandatory 9x9 central room where mined useless stones are stored. I see no crystals, no gems, and no metallic ores.
''What am i looking at?
-Marble, sir''

Marble. flux stone. I was told there would be no flux stone under this desert, but this mine shaft is located incredibly far north of our region. It is right underneath the mountain into which we carved our entrance, the same mountain we ran to hoping, accurately, that it would have a different geology, with no aquafier. While the rest of the area contaisn nothing suitable for removing imperfections in mettalic ore, it would seem that the edge of the mountain presiding over the Lavender Empire is leaking here, bringing with it marble.

Tun is nearby, bugging me about his fucking table. heis irritable, annoyed and impatient, and has been for many months now. He has not killed anyone yet, so it would seem that mandates and demands are different things. He'll just remain pissed forever as long as he doesn't get his stupid crystal furniture in his tomb. frankly, I no longer care. We have found something much greater here. silver, as well as flux stone.

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We can make steel. We can make our own steel bars. We'll need charcoal, tons of smelted iron helmets and spears looted from our enemies, but when we do get those we'll be able to make our own top-quality items. First, go grab some trees, and retrieve every iron item you can from the...

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Motherfuckers! More goblins, just as we need to go outside and grab some new stuff. Two workers pay dearly for their outside venture, as they get caught off-guard before the soldiers can gather on the surface...

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Meanwhile our hammerer is down in the caverns hunting cave crocodile, because having common sence is clearly not how Ustuth rolls.

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I was wrong! It seems that our current militia commander was, for a few months, that good old Orion. I know this now, because I've just been told that the militia commander is dead, and that Orion the dwarf is dead, and that both those statements are closely related. RIP, bro.

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I'm running low on candidates. as some injured dwarves are dragged to the hospital after the siege, I share a few words with our resident chief ragdoll engineer, dr. Melbil.
''Yo, Melbil.
-Yes dumat?
-Your wife rigoth, she's a soldier right?
-That would be correct. She is a good fighter and...
-'Kay cool. Tell her she's our new general, next time you see her. I'm off.''

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Rigoth, the doctor's wife, announces that having 13 soldiers to defend the fort against goblins and forgotten beast both is not enough, especially when half of those are blind, crippled, or in a coma for 5 years. She's gathered every peasant child she could find, and created a new squad for them to train. They'll be ready in two years, she says.
''Yo, you can't just randomly take those kids, I've told some of them to become weavers and mechanics and one of them is supposed to be a gemcutter!
-And how good are they at their craft so far?
-Well, they've been doing a lot of hauling on the side, so I'd say... dabbling?
-Level zero? Listen overseer, you'll find more untrained kids to fill the pointless jobs of this fort. I'm training new recruits.''

I look at the list of kids she took. One of them is Aristotle, that glassmaker who failed to produce pearlash spectacularly. Man, I hope he doesn't show up to a fight barehanded because someone was cleaning his sword or storing his breastplate.

Rigoth returns: ''I'm told we've begun steel production, so i took the liberty of requesting 20 steel breastplate with our reserves!''

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Just as I'm about to mention how much Rigoth is the most annoying general ever, I'm told the Bronze general is still a ghost, and he's now possessing some battle-trained cook, punching people around and breaking their arms. Wait, seriously? somebody get me a slab, here and now!

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After explaining how they shouldn't turn into a ghost and control cooks to break limbs after they die, Rigoth brings the new recruits to their designated barracks and starts instructing them on the rudiment of not dying.
''I've... read the flyer from the ministry of not dying horribly! says Aristotle
-Forget flyers, respond the commander. Today you learn to truly fight. Before any of you can hope to wield a sword, you'll need to get in shape. Everyone, grab a steel armor, an iron helm, and a steel crossbow. You'll be carrying those at all time, just to improve your strenght. when you can wear your armor confortably, without falling, the real training will begin, and you'll get your full set of armor, as well as a melee weapon of your choice.''

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Armor knows we'll need those kids one day, we only have 13 soldiers, and many of them are severely injured from the latest siege. It will be a while before Ral is ready to join a battle again...

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Rigoth rounds up the infirmary.
''Everyone able to wield a sword among you, go downstairs! The miners exploring the new caverns have sighted somne truly demonic creatures wandering in the darkness!''

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The soldiers rush downstairs, to face this new creature they call a rutherer.  In the meantime, the craftdwarves have finished the slabs i requested, and we can finally prevent the Bronze general from causing mayhem and fucking things up once and for all. Rest in peace, crazy old fool...

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Another child is found dead, swarmed by packs of naked mole dogs. We simply don't have the manpower to defend ourselves from so many cavern dwellers at once...

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It is clear that those new caverns contain riches, but also terrible dangers. Until we can gather a full squad of soldiers, we can't afford to run around in the dark while praying no goblins show up. I ask Manager Stukos to seal off this new place for the time being. Between silver mining and smelting, the creation of pricey new statues, and the beginning of our steel production, there'll be pretty of work for everyone anyway. In the light of these new industries, Tun has finally abandonned his demands, content with what we have found. ''We will be rich and impressive with these ores, crystal tables or not!''

While the dead were accidentally ejected from reality and subsequently put to rest, the living have unravelled the wonders and riches of the earth. Whisperwhip has entered a new era...


*    *    *    *    *    *    *
OOC: With this chapter, I now have 2 packs of a thousand screenshots compressed and archived. A good 300 more are on stand by, until I have enough free time to include them in an update. I probably have enough material for 6 more chapters right now. I've been playing a lot in the last week, partly because I was too tired and wrecked by my allergies to leave the house, and partly because things are getting progressively more tense. Starting with the great beast megabattle to where i currently am at, the fort is walking a finer and finer line between incredible success and total eradication. The only thing preventing me from writing everything right now is that a chapter will usually take about 2 hours to write, and usually leaves me drained, so I can't really do more than once every two days even if i want to, otherwise the quality will suffer. I really want to wait and clear my backlog of screenshots before I continue the playtrough, but I just can't, because this thing is getting really tense and addictive. I'm aiming for about 3 new chapters a week for the next 2-3 weeks, unless real life gets in the way. Stay tuned!
« Last Edit: June 05, 2015, 10:51:37 pm by Taupe »
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Taupe

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Re: Whisperwhip: Syndrome testing facility
« Reply #160 on: June 09, 2015, 03:09:42 pm »

CHAPTER 68: Golden gate
Year 232

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For a while, everything in Whisperwhip seems bound to succeed. Miners are working frantically, everyone is hauling some crap around, and the smelters are working nonstop to produce silver and pig iron. It looked like we were in for an era of peace and prosperity.

But everything changed when the goblin nation attacked.  Quickly, I order the masons to produce a barricade on the front door. Our current army should be able to defeat the invaders, but their low numbers mean it will be tight...

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Some workers decide to disregard my orders, and run away to produce some creation of their own.

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Worst still, two more dwarves give up on the wall's construction, and react to the invaders in thw worst possible way imaginable: they run away through the enemies and jump in the middle of their ranks. What?

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The soldiers charge outside to salvage this mess. They are absolutely unable to save the two idiots from their self-imposed fate, and soon we have more dwarven blood splattered on the ground. The goblins are driven away, a few of them killed, the others simply retreating.

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The new artefact is completed shortly after. A blood thorn casket. While not entirely useless, it still ranges very low in terms of value. regardless, it is crafted from the bones of our worst enemy to date, Amas spithole, the deadly dust forgotten beast. As was the case with Asmel, I order this coffin to be the future resting place of our current champion, Momuz. Most of our champions now have a tomb crafted out of the bones of teir fallen enemies. not bad.

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I've been grossly unimpressed by our wall-making abilities. since we'd have to suffer such a fiasco every time we need to let someone in, I decide to build a golden bridge that will seal the fort from enemies with the push of a lever.

Just to reiterate the order in which this 35 years old fortress does thing
1-kill every titan
2-kill every forgotten beast
3-make the fort defendable using bridges and a front door.

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Before I'm done with our new magnificent bridge, a new forgotten beast appears in the...

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Before I'm done with my previous sentence, a new forgotten beast appears in the caverns.

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The lobster charges toward BASE1, and rigoth and her soldiers move in to intercept it as fast as they can.

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Alath, resident kill-stealer, makes sure to steal the glory from our captain of the guard. Again.

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The second he learns that the entrance is cleared, Tun the duke decides to grab his crossbow and goes hunting for some crundles. He informs me that apparently, it's safe because the other forgotten beast is nowhere to be found. ''probably down in the lowest cavern or whatever'' he explains.

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The local elves come to admire our new golden bridge. I politely ask for all their wood in exchange for the sight. we need all the free wood we can get, since some workers are still feverish, and the fort's population is slowly going down. Wood is needed for charcoal, which we need a lot of to make steel.

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Given our short supply of available helpers, I also decide that it is time to build HAVEN, our new base down in the mines. There people will live happily far away from the main fort, amidst emeralds and silver veins, in glorious guest rooms. I designate an area which should be big enough to contain a dozen tables, many statues, and a few food stockpiles.

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While moving around, I'm reminded by the fast-moving surgeons of Whisperwhip that rovod the hammer lord is still miraculously alive. He was the sole survivor of the three dwarves who defended us against Simo the terrible beast, in vain. Lady Asmel herself did not survive the terrible curse. Rovod has been in a coma for many years now, and he probably will be like this until people stop feeding him tediously. Despite not doing anything, he is a beacon of hope for our soldiers, as he still remains a member of their sqad, and his continued existence reminds them that tough dwarves can survive everything.

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Inspired by the poetry of it all, someone is taken by a fey mood, and produce quite a valuable diorite crown, representing the Quuen. Her rise to the rank of monarch is a well documented fact in Whisperwhip, yet none could be certain of her current whereabouts. Every year, a peasant creates an artefact crown or scepter or ring representing her, hoping it will tip the scale and convince her to appear. Little do they know, that the queen's arrival will be the last documented fact about Whisperwhip...

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Our first batch of pig iron bars is finally out of the oven! Things are moving rather slowly, thanks to the large distance we must walk to haul marble, ores and charcoal to the forge. it cannot be helped, sadly.

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The fort now has 128 living souls, according to Squiddwarf, and a quarter of those are useless children. I guess it doesn't help the productivity much. In time, they may grow up and become productive members of this society, increasing our military might and industrious efficiency. Frankly, tho, i have a hard time believing that. They will die before it happens, or shortly afterward. Our real hope of bolstering this fort's ability to do things lies in migrants. The last wave of migrant was in 106, 26 years ago, if you exclude the queensguard showing up without a queen. since then, the population has been relatively stable, remaining around 170. for each soldier that died or miner that fell prone to an accident, a baby was born. For two decades and a half, whisperwhip has been a tight population unwelcoming of new migrants. today, tho, the situation has changed. We need new blood and we need it fast. I send word to all our colonies, asking for help with our newly created steel and silver industry. Not even a lie, this promise of wealth and prosperity sounds better than the alternative, ''hey FBs have killed everyone important come stay for a while!''.

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A few weeks pass, but nobody comes. i receive some polite letters from most of the Citadel of Clutches members. It seems that after the caravaneers spread words of the curses, goblin legions, and general disfunctionality of the new capital, none would dare move here. I can't really blame them, but by Armok can I fucking curse them all.

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And then I learn that a new ghost is possessing a child, and using the tantruming kid as a vessel for general and misguided vengeance.

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We also have something called a flesh ball infestation, which frankly sounds like a very troubling thing. If half of this ever reached the outposts, we'll need years of PR before any migrants can agree to move here. We are on our own for now.

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That means, we gotta work smarter, not harder. We can't just have everyone running around and hauling pointless crap. Every move now must be efficient, and deliberate. Cutting trees in the caverns is dangerous. going outside is also dangerous. The solution is to link the dumpatorium to our workshop area through a tunnel, which we'll use to haul logs efficiently. Then the entrances to the dumpatorium will be sealed off from the surface, giving us a safe access to underground trees.

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The bridge should improve our defenses by a great amount, giving the soldiers some time to murder the local monster population. Crundles are trying to sneak inside the base, and a few children lost their lives recently to mole dog attacks. we now have a zero tolerance policy for stuff living on dwarven ground.

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I spend some time taling with manager Stukos about our current tasks. Obviously making silver and steel is important. While strange at first, I'll let those orders for cut gems go on. Raw glass is useless, and since we have it, we might as well turn it into decorations. Silver doors and furnitures will fill HAVEN and keep depressed people happy, so it's a good idea to let our most recent jeweler get some training. He'll be cutting gems and encrusting silver furnitures nonstop for the rest of his life, making the fort a better place and clearing some of our inventory space.

Lye and ash are somewhat useless now that we don't fertilize, and are a drain on our precious wood supply. I order them discontinued.

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In fact, the farms themselves will be discontinued. We don't need more food, as forgotten beasts provide us with enough meat to survive and apocalypse, and we have tons of plants stockpiled. Fertilizing, growing, harvesting and cooking new crops is a hidden drain on our dwarfpower. Even tho it sounds crucial to a fortress, we have reached a point where we won't need it. Not for a while. This miraculously frees up about a dozen dwarves, whom i dedicate to hauling of rocks and engraving, because all our engravers are dead. Manager Stukos is also an engraver now, thanks to that artefact he made.

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The first step of our cavern overhaul has been completed. From BASE1 to the second caverns, there is now a clear and unobstructed path. A long corridor paved with stone blocks lead to a ramp, which connects right into the downward passage to the second layer. This should save considerable amounts of time for corpse haulers and hunters, as well as soldiers. It also reduces the risk of someone being locked away by new mushrooms while on duty.

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I turn my attention to the ghost problems, and order our now pimped-out spare slabs to be engraved. I'm not sure where those ghosts are coming from, since we were able to grab the corpses and bury them. Could it be that it took so long to grab them from the caverns, that the ghosts came out before the bodies hit the coffins? That only shows how much we need those caverns to be improved. a good dream, but one that will require much time, and ten times the dwarves we have now. simply constructing this section of blocks took forever. hopefully the added ex-farmers will improve the workflow. It had become impossible to get something done efficiently now that jobs take place far below in the mines.

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Another problem that must be addressed is the lack of food stockpiles. The kitchens are working nonstop to produce quality food and reduce the amount of ingredients lying around, but while it reduces the number of bad food units we have, it still takes a lot of space. I've stockpiled some of it in random places, but now it's time to pack this crap somewhere else. The initial tower we built contains a lot of free space, and that should help the soldiers restack provisions when on duty fighting goblins. Squiddwarf has taken a good look at most of our storage, and determined that many stockpiles are poorly set. Some of BASE1's supplies contain unworked leaves and plants producing nothing but dye, and others have venom in them. We spend some time making sure that the storage areas next to dinning halls and dorms are only allowing real food and drinks, while the rest of the plants will be kept in the less useful spots.

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Tun has been hunting a lot, and he now have a better map of the second caverns. He can pinpoint more accurately where the goose FB is living, and assures us that it cannot escape. Tun, you idiot, gooses are birds! They can fly.

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Meanwhile our more useful nobles are busy engraving the central areas of the mines. good job, Manager Stukos, you are a real addition to this fortress, no sarcasm.

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Sadly, not everyone in this fortress understands how efficient work should be done. the miners, for example, decided that digging this tunnel from the safety of the fortress was stupid. instead they went all the way to the surface, traversed the bloodsoaked savannah, went down into the dumpatorium, took the stairs down, crossed the entire thing back, and began digging from there. Wow, people, just wow. Why are you so dumb.

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I ask Aristotle if we could make glass pots. Trees are now precious and used mostly for steel, and our prepared food is hugging most of the barrels. I need a constant supply of barrels for drinks, and using something else than logs would be awesome. Sadly, he informs me that all of the sand we had was used to make raw green glass. We have no more sand-bearing items. he explains this to me while sitting on a pile of 20 bags of sands. Lazy, useless bums, all of them.

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I have two ideas to improve our storage capacity. one is a new room dug under the courtyard, the other is a tower at the north-east corner of our walls. sadly, both of those would require extensive work from the masons and miners, and we simply have too much on our hands. When we run out of storage, expect barrels of food lying in stupid places.

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work continues on the poorly-excavated tunnel. It's been weeks, and people just haven't figured out they could dig the fucking wall in the stone storage. I've seen 7 teams go out through the surface, and coming back exhausted, claiming it was just too much work getting there to actually finish the job. it's sand, people, and it is right here right there. Just fucking dig it.

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The same thing happened with this other tunnel in the caverns. Instead of starting with the closest area, they went around the entire cavern complex, and started digging there. I swear, if this fortress wasn't so important to me I would strangle every last one of them.

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Rigoth comes to me, and explains that the new recruits' training is moving swimmingly. Which is a joke, as they are wearing steel plates and absolutely cannot swim. As a reward, I allow Ustuth Zasam, a 14 years old captain, to claim his own room amidst the noble district. Take whichever you like, kid, everyone else is basically dead.
« Last Edit: June 09, 2015, 03:11:18 pm by Taupe »
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Taupe

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Re: Whisperwhip: Syndrome testing facility
« Reply #161 on: June 10, 2015, 02:39:56 am »

Little change of plans, people. There probably won't be more updates this week, because I'm currently taking a turn in Icehold, which is a prison-glacier succession game. The population cap is absurdly low, only matched by the quality of life. If you want more lenghty updates with absurd amounts of screenshots, or if you want to join a cool, doomed and fresh community fortress, then make sure you go there and take a look!

Whisperwhip will be back next wednesday...

Taupe

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Re: Whisperwhip: Syndrome testing facility
« Reply #162 on: June 16, 2015, 04:35:13 pm »

CHAPTER 69: Snake shaft
Year 232

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Riches are found while excavating the headquarters of HAVEN. The room will be filled with native silver, emeralds and rose quartzes. It's almost a shame that this place is so unbelievably far away from the main fortress, because it will be gorgeous.

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Adding to our wealth is this new artefact, a bracelet. I'm very annoyed at all the kids starting work on stupid bracelets, so I've been researching about strange moods. Apparently, giving minor training to a dwarf will focus his attention on a certain task should he decide to create one. for that reason, some of the young soldiers and haulers were allowed to become weaponsmiths and armorsmiths. We've queued a few copper helmets and spears, hoping they'll get some non-zero experience in those skills, and hopefully create artefact swords rather than bracelets like this one. Sadly the newly grown children will have to suffice, as once again the fortress has attracted no migrants...

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Aristotle tells me that we are absolutely out of sand. I've told him to grab some more, helped by the many iddlers we currently have, which is a rare thing. Cancelling any non-essential tasks right now means that apart from steel and silver smelting, weaponcrafting ntroduction and some furniture decoration, the fortress isn't doing anything. Even the mining has slowed down, since we have about 350 silver nuggets stockpiled, and enough marble to last for a while. Making glass pots should also save some precious logs. Sure, they aren't rare, but the available trees are either in dangerous locations or very far away. Most of the time, it's both. Sand is easily available in the upper levels of the base.

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With the dinning room for HAVEN complete, begins work on a small number of bedrooms. Anyone who becomes too depressed will be sent here for some time. Of course our most beautiful statues will be put there. The combined efforts of proficient gem setters, legendary bonecrafters and great blacksmiths is starting to result in statues worth upwards of 3000 bucks apiece. Not bad! The combined efforts and ingredients also means there's more chances that these items bear or represent something a specific dwarf passing by might like.

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For a brief moment, the fortress is a quiet and busy nest of workers, each improving the wealth and industries of this fort. One of them creates another artefact, a naked mole dog bag...

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SUDDENLY A FORGOTTEN BEAST. I have no idea how it got here between checking the price of the artefact and pressing a key to examine it. This is the actual order in which the screenshots are taken.

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So as I said a naked mole dog leather bag, which is not too remarkable save for the fact that it depicts me, Squiddwarf and 5 now-dead dwarves laboring to create the begginings of this great fortress. Now let's pay attention to this future-dead forgotten beast, our greatest and most prolific export.

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it is dead.

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So is our marble surplus. I send the miners to get more. The stone is abundant in the northern part of our region, but I have no idea how deep the formation goes. Because it can only be found right underneath mount Towerpartners, we could run out of the stuff rather fast, if the veins only extend to a few z-levels. On the bright side, equipping our current militia with full steel gear won't be too hard once the crafters are high level, since we don't exactly have a lot of soldiers left anymore.

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That being said, I'm told by the doctors that some of the veterans are wielding crutches, and sometimes fighting with them. I've placed a command for a few steel crutches, in case this could make a difference.

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Currently out of obsidian for blocks and slabs, I order a new activation of the generator. BASE1's crafting area is once again busting with activity and half-rotten cheetahs. There are so many curses and diseases circulating among the animal population of this fort, nobody blinks an eye anymore when they see a grotesquely deformed and half-necrosed feline sprinting by.

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All this work has paid off! The combined wealth from architecture, artefacts and statues we created has added up to a whooping million urists of worth! A planter celebrates by becoming possessed...?

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I'm not sure if reaching a milestone prompted the crafters to stop trying, or if this planter is sending me a message about the quality of clothings in this fortress. It is true that we haven't had a clothsgiving in a while, and most of the goblin invaders still lie outside in the bloodsoaked vestments.

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Another forgotten beast attacks, cutting my desire to be a good-hearted overseer short. A feathered serpent breathing a deadly spittle, this could be easy or bad...

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Here's a very important information. I may or may not have forgotten to complete the actual barrier around the magma dump. Like, I know I told myself ''we need to do that next'' but then something obviously happened, or pathfinding problems too place, or something. well, the bottom line is, the dumping shaft is currently NOT sealed from the caverns at all like i assumed it was, and this feathered winged serpent is apparently very aware of it.

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This just in. The currently busting with activity BASE1's crafting district is now also home to a flying deadly serpent. Uh oh...

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For reasons I cannot fully explain because I'm obviously not a serpent, this forgotten beast fucking HATES this specific goose and its pals. Instead of roaming through our fortress, it is absolutely content with murdering the passing birds near its entry point. The workers are hiding in the obsidian generator, while the army is mobilising...

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What could have been a deadly rampage is thankfully contained through the power of delicious, delicious poultry. The soldiers show up, and murder the snake casually. It is butchered, and added to our food stockpile. Oh, the irony.

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In the following days, countless animals suddenly drop dead. It's too sudden to be a coincidence, so I must conclude that the deadly spittle of the feathered snake was, indeed, deadly in some way. the surviviving goose must have contracted a syndrome, and introduced it to the local animal population. Yaknow, just another day in Whisperwhip, really.

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That's fucking enough. We won't be taken by surprise yet another time. I send some workers to finally seal the magma shaft, to avoid such a situation in the future. Unfortunately, they explain that adding a upper level to the walls to reach the celing will be a long and tedious endeavor that may take a lot of time.

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Like a dozen animals drop dead while he explains this. ''Yeah it's something we have to do no matter how long it takes'', I reply.

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Bugbat populations from the second layer of caverns are making their way upstairs and they are attacking the masons working above the magma shaft. These creatures are a real pain, as they can't be destroyed as soon as they are spotted. mostly because they fly, or appear in unreachable locations for non-flyers. Sadly, by the time they are in range, dispatching the soldiers is almost useless. The fools fail to find a correct pathing to the bugbats, or the buggers will fly out of range, resulting in mostly wasted time for the squad involved. The unpractical solution is to wait for bugbats to move close to us and dispatch them individually, or rely on the hunters wandering the caverns for fun.

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One day, one fateful day, the hunters hear some noises in the lowest caverns, currently sealed. They claim it is coming from a mysterious creature. a cave dragon. Those are like normal dragons, but they have adapted to live underground. I ask them one, crucial question, a question that would change this fortress for better or worse. Without this simple noise heard briefly in the corner of a sealed cavern, the bottom mines would have remained sealed forever, leaving our miners happy to work around HAVEN and acquire untold riches. Looking back on things, I realise that spotting this dragon for but a brief moment between two spots of ''fog of war'' has been the cause for untold deaths and great deeds.

I ask the hunters a simple question. You already know it.

''Can it be tamed?''

Taupe

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Re: Whisperwhip: Syndrome testing facility
« Reply #163 on: June 18, 2015, 01:25:38 am »

CHAPTER 70: Stealing candy from a dragon
Year 233

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Let's make this clear. I want this godamn cave dragon and I don't care what I have to do! First thing first, we'll need many, many new better cages. most of our cage stocks are used to store goblins, and we are short-staffed right now. too short-staffed to waste time wiring the prisoners and making an arena round. new cages it is. And no, don't care how much we needed that steel for armors.

HAVEN is now operational. People carried a giant forgotten beast carcass, meant to serve as food. Good enough. now we won't need to ride all the way up when working on the dragon-catching operation.

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It must be new year, for the traders are here and they bring us some much-needed wood. No time to get our own logs. must get dragon. Cage. Mechanisms. Traps. Gogogo!!

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Sadly the workforce is complaining about something or another. Blablabla the doomserpent that flew into the base has given us a deadly fever.

Lazy bums.

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Altho, i guess, maybe there IS a problem with this fort right now. that's a large amount of animals to die within a fucking half-hour lunch.

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Speaking of dieing, it seems Ustuth the hammerer has finally been killed by gigantic cavern monsters while hunting gigantic cavern monsters. I'm not exactly surprised. I decide to name someone I barely know, but who seems reasonable, to replace her. Skaiamechanic is a scared and craven person, and also a girl of logic. She will probably make a more sane hammerer than Ustuth.

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As soon as people are complaining about deadly diseases less, I order the caverns opened. There's a vein of emeralds I want to get, and i know for a fact that a flying monster is living in the bottom caves. If we are to catch the dragon, it must die before anything else. I also don't want random monsters to kill my prize by accident.

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Of course, attacking a forgotten beast will trigger a siege, and vice versa. Because Armok hates us equally, a caravan is currently entering the fort, making the gate-closing kinda tricky.

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Fuck those guys, really. The soldiers are busy preventing a dangerous flying monster from eating us all, or worse, our future dragon. The second the emerald cluster falls to the ground, this beast starts flying toward our base, entering the mined tunnel through an upward opening. Thankfully the squad is able to chase after it before the creature can cause too many horrible deaths. I order the  place trapped and mined of its riches while we're here.

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Some of these merchants are a bit slow. That's just their problem, really. Enjoy the trolls.

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But then I notice something terrible. a wagon. a fucking wagon is stuck outside. If this wagon is pillaged, or destroyed, we'll have like two thousand useless items littering the entrance to the fort. This will either means low framerates, or hours of hauling. I have no choice. The wagon must be saved.

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)
At this moment, I'm warned of something very, very terrifying. A gremlin, those pesky underground demons of legend, have made its way into our fortress. Unless it is killed, it will cause mayhem and fuck our already precarious defence system. I send the newbies to deal with it, while the veterans supervise the whole wagon fiasco. This will be their first real assignment.

They fail, and tell me the gremlin must have fled somewhere in the caverns, possibly maybe. Thanks, guys.

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There are also crundles preventing the engineers from setting traps that will prevent crundles from disrupting engineers. The real question here is, when did they learn to fucking fly?

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i mean, we haven't even unsealed the ground level of the bottom caverns. all those monsters are apparently coming from closed off mines, or through the aerial tunnel full of traps. both possibilities are illogical and very terrifying.

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Thankfully the new leader of the Lavender Empire is down in the bowels of the planet with her bodyguard, casually defending the mayor against various magical critters coming out of nowhere. ''that's such a pleasant place you've carved out for yourself, what with the rotting forgotten beast corpses and the dead monsters everywhere!''

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something goes wrong with the wagon. Some of it makes it outside, but a bull is forever teleported inside the stone steps leading to the main gate. Like the bull isnt on top of it, splattered. I is inside the stone, whose surface has not actually been damaged or removed. I don't even.

A bunch of human guards and traders also die. Whatever.

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Why yes, what a great time to leave, really. I'm sure that'll work out fine.

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Once people are done dumping a few corpses and hauling gold and wood for this season, I send everyone downstairs for real this time. the dragon is gone. It cannot be dead. Must not be dead. We will map this entire place, and find it. First, I re-open the caverns, and then send people to cut random trees or grab some gems lying around, just to slowly discover what's in here. hopefully a dragon is lurking somewhere.

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The miners claim they found many gems and stone veins. the upstairs workers are complaining about the siege outside our wall making them unconfortable. Sadly this has nothing to do with my fucking dragon so I ignore both groups.

Until...

One of the miners rushes into my office. Very excited, the lad is. ''We have found something. a stone... it's not like the other. you need to see this.''

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Holy. Fuck. Deep into the mines, past the now-familiar magma reservoir, lies something shiny. ''we almost mistook it for some spore flooring, sir'' but there is no mistaking it now. The far end of the cavern is partly covered by a sparkling ore. we have found the very peak of an adamantine vein. Had we left the caverns sealed, instead of chasing this dragon, we'd never have found the candy. Adamantine is the holiest thing know to dwarfkind, both a blessing and a curse. They say that many fortresses who found such a metal became suddenly rich, then crumbled mysteriously.

I've read enough about Quula and her origins over the years. I know where she came from. I know the secret of the adamantine spire, and what lies underneath.

We must thread carefully.

Yet, we must thread.

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Randomly sending people to mine this thing would be idiotic. first, we need something resembling a clear path to the excavation site. a tunnel is designated, meant to bypass many of the slopes and fungi formation leading to the southern part of the region. It's not isolated from the rest of the caverns, and we'll have to face monsters on a daily basis, but at least getting there won't be too long. At this point, short trips are in order. This place is so deep, that most of the workers will only be able to get here and perform a single task before they must head back to rest and feed. It'll be worse when they have to carry boulders back to base.

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While the miners pave the way for the adamantine operation, the woodcutters are dispatched to explore the place. I don't send the soldiers, because once we locate the dragon, I expect people to die or get maimed, run back home screaming with the beast in toe and lure it into the entrance traps, not fucking kill it. Soon a second magma reservoir is located, begining on this level. The other one we've tapped into goes all the way up to the first cavern.

Unlike the other two caverns, this new one seems devoid of an underwater lake, meaning more monsters can make their way across it and call it their lair, but on the other hand it,s much easier to fucking explore.

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The siege is lifted, and people are starting to feel real shitty about wearing rags. In the same vein, the furnace operators claim they have run out of things designated for smelting. Now i could tell them to smelt more fucking copper items, but instead this is a good time to get rid of all the iron helmets and shields littering the plains, or the stockpiles. I also declare a pants-gathering holliday to appease the population, and I guess diminish the amount of sighted genitals on an average day.

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Inspired by all those future metal bars, a smith is taken by a strange mood and claims a magma forge, working day and night to create something beautiful, made of silver. The result is a shining and pricey bed, commemorating the creation of Whisperwhip 35 years ago. I offer the bed to Squiddwarf, as a reward for his recent appointment into the nobility of this fortress, and his role as a founding dwarf.

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Some dwarves are not so happy about their lack of recognition. More ghosts are appearing every month, because apparently it takes longer for someone to fucking bury a dude than it takes for a ghost to get pissed. thankfully, we have a few richly decorated slabs kept around at all time, ready to appease a ghost. What if the ghosts start haunting the fortress because they know that'll give them a slab? Greedy bastards!

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Oh, who am i kidding, we're dwarves, we're all greedy. Thanks to the miners' keen eye, we've located the very top of this adamantine spire, meaning it'll be easy to get some of the stuff without too much effort. I order the area cleared of rocks and debris, just so we can see how large the top of the vein is.

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Soon enough, the miners begin to channel down around the vein while the soldiers are dispatching swarms of crundles, trolls, bugbats and dralthas to keep them safe. Raw adamantine now covers the ground, the dream of any dwarven civilisation!

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Alas, while this is happening, goblin thieves and ambushers have assaulted the civilians celebrating get-some-pants day, resulting in a casualty. Slowly but surely, our numbers are dropping, and yet no migrants will come and adopt this place as their own. It matters not! Soon we will carve wonders out of adamantine, and then none will resist the lure and riches of Whisperwhip, jewel of the dwarven nations.

There's just one single, tiny problem in all of that. A tiny, itsy detail that is proving more annoying than i could ever have foreseen.

Strand extraction take a fucking decade.
« Last Edit: June 18, 2015, 01:27:26 am by Taupe »
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Taupe

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Re: Whisperwhip: Syndrome testing facility
« Reply #164 on: June 18, 2015, 12:08:49 pm »

CHAPTER 71: Deadly weapons
Year 233

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Cavern exploration for dragons and precious candy come to an abrupt halt when a new foe is spotted down into the caverns. Not only is it located between the adamantine mine and the lower fortress entrance, but it also sports a deadly weapon: A dust with unknown effects. with many workers cut off from safety, and such a short distance before this beast enters the base, the potential for destruction is terribly high.

All soldiers are dispatched downstairs in an instant. that includes you, all the 10 new recruits who never faced anything more than a gremlin.

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As we feared, the beast is there in an instant, ready to enter the fortress. Stone engravers won't stop it, and neither will traps.

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In retrospect, this name is adequately fitting. The beast is know as Osnong, the Moist Cancer. such a long title means it has already killed many, in what I imagine must be a long and painful fashion...

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Some of the soldiers make it in time, as the beast spends a few moments chasing after some animal or another. They engage the beast in melee while people evacuate the area. the second it opens its mouth to breath the imfamous deadly dust, the fighters know that they'll all be affected. They prey to Armok that ''Moist Cancer'' is just a title for show.

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More fighters join the frey, even the less experienced rookies. The beast absolutely cannot make its way into the fortress.

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The combined might of old and new warrior is enough to vanquish the beast, but the trouble has only begun. Within a few minutes, Risen anounces that he is incredibly drowsy and winded from the fight.

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Aban, captain of the guard, also anounces severe pain, and a few injuries of his own.

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Over time, his condition worsens, and it becomes apparent that he, like many warriors of the past, is slowly dying of something horrifying.

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The deadly dust is causing pain and drowsyness. it also mildly burns and rots whatever it touches, meaning the entire body. But the real deal with it is that once it enters the lungs of a victim, it never quits. The dust accumulates in the respiratory system of the soldiers, slowly destroying their ability to grasp for air. the first victim falls dead, suffocated. it is like drowning, but out of water, while everyone looks at you, powerless.

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The chickens are next, not that we care that much.

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Then it unfolds. Animal, civilian and soldier, all of them suffer the same terrible fate, falling dead before they can reach the lower mining levels and reach the hospital.

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Six soldiers fall to the deadly dust right away. One veteran, and 5 of the ten young recruits.

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Sadly, this is far from over. Those were only the weaker dwarves. more corpses soon join the pile as stronger and more resilient dwarves try to fight the affliction, and eventually fail. Soon five more veterans join the death count... Not counting civilians and animals, this deadly dust has slaughtered eleven members of the army.

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Turns out, recruiting a bunch of teenagers and sending them to choke to death is a terrible idea. People are surprisingly angry at all those horrific casualties, and a bunch of tantrums and berserkers make their appearance. Thankfully, HAVEN dispatching manages to calm a few of them.

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In the middle of this mess, I have to keep a few masons sane enough to make some more fucking querns. Thanks, Tun, for understanding the pleas of your citizens.

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Even with so many deads, the show must go on. Many workers are threatened by rutherers and cave ogres on a weekly basis, and the surviving fighters must deal with these constantly. With so, so many unfilled positions, it is simpler to combine everyone into a single squad when it comes to veterans. 7 survivors, including Rovod in his coma, are joined by 3 retired soldiers, each suffering from blindness or some disabling injury over the decades. Yet, in the middle of this mess, cripples and blind dudes are the best we can afford, so they become a NEW squad, because the other ones have not been that successful lately. (also because I misclicked)

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)
That being said, before the overhaul of the squads, a lot of holes are plaguing the nobility title list. I have zero idea which of these guys could even bear the title of commander, let alone champion, until i drop by the hospital. Whisperwhip doesn't need a guy who can slay monsters, they need one who can survive them. In all these years, Rovod has been miraculously fighting a terrible curse that seeks to devour him whole. he will probably never wake, for he has been in a coma for untold years now, but so long as he repels his fate, he is a source of hope and courage for soldiers. after all, if Rovod can keep the reaper at bay, then maybe we can all hope to live through the next day as well.

In a strange twist of fate, Rovod fiercedike the romantic Sculptures is named Champion of Whisperwhip.

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...Oh hey, this is what our entrance looks like now. tons of broken arms and legs, bloodied rags, human and dwarven corpses. I'm not really sure what went on while we were busy with the forgotten beast, but obviously something did go down.

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If learning small and incremental lessons from the death of countless peers isn,t in my nature, then my name isn't Dumat Constructmirrored. We're adding a pit leading into the mining levels from the caverns, which will be covered by a raising bridge. Add traps and a spot to possibly seal the place, and suddenly you have a place with at least a semblance of defence.

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A pack of deadly rutherers survey the digging site, as the dwarves try to clear the level above the vein of adamantine. we want to see with our eyes how big and spirally this thing is. Once everything above and around the vein has been cleared, we'll start channeling down the rest of the first layer. because strand extraction takes apparently infinite time, we've slowed our aquisition of adamantine a bit. it's pointless having ten thousand rocks around if the strands are produced once a year...

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Adamantine is not the only thing that I want from these caverns. exploration continues, and we discover a pool of magma. That makles three of them, and from the looks of it there won't be a fourth one. most of the area has now been mapped. I have to conclude something sad now. The cave dragon is gone. thankfully, we found no corpse, so it is possible that it simply migrated to another region and will return!!

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Well I didn't open these caverns and caused the death of two dozen dwarves just to NOT get a new dangerous pet that will strangle and eat us in our sleep. From what I'm told, rutherers are gigantic and they CAN be tamed. Those south are a nuisance that could destroy the miners, so they are killed, but I spotted a few packs near the dragon's apparent residence. Installing a few cages there could be a great move, allowing us to get both the dragons if it returns, or any rutherer that comes that way.

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)
in the background, someone created a new artefact, a useless bauble illustrating the founding of another settlement by our civilisation, the Citadel of Crutches. Not that it,s very exciting, as none of those dwarves have migrated here since the population drop. Are we trying to appeal to this audience with the artefact? maybe.

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Wowowowowowowow someone is throwing a tantrum and started bashing our fortress maskot, the adorable and crippingly depressive tigerman diagnoser! stop that, you fool!

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)
To HAVEN isolation with you, then. nobody touches my Tigerman diagnoser. He was briefly mayor once, yaknow. People never got to producing too much furniture for HAVEN, so I queue in a few cool shizzles and set the decoration workshops to add bones and teeth and gems and whatever.

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Beware! A giant serpent with Lidless eyes, and deadly dust weaponry has come! both serpents and deadly dust have caused major trouble for this fortress in the recent year, so its really like the forgotten beasts are learning and evolving with each new appearance... Thankfully, this monster spends a few days immobile, at the edge of the upper caverns. Our army is in no shape to face this thing, and we've sort of learned our lesson about deadly dust. The safest and more sound course of action is obviously to seal the caverns and give up on fighting forgotten beasts. after all, sending the soldiers would simply result in countless deaths and a tantrum spiral.

But the soundest course of action is not how we dwarves of Whispwewhip roll, mind you.

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There will be blood, and it won,t be ours. The area west of BASE1's bridge has been flattened and excavated thoroughly, and I'm going to use that to our advantage. A few levels above it, connected to BASE1, I order the miners to dig a large area. beneath it are a few empty z-levels overseeing the battleground, as I've been calling this flat and bloodied surface, for many battles against charging beasts took place here, right before the bridge.

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Another chamber is designated above the first one. You've seen this design in action, you know what's up. Only this time we are not facing a stuck, unmoving foe, but a live and deadly opponent. We'll need to finish this thing before it decides to move, and also somehow find a way to lure it into the trap area instead of the bridge...

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The soldiers protect the workers as they install the simplest bait I can think of; old statues made of shitty stones, of poor quality. Hilariously enough, I browse the lis and locate a statue of a worm. how deliciously ironic for a bait...

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Unfortunately, before the thing is even close to being finished, the beast pounces foward, ready to taste blood. It starts wandering the lake and make its way toward the entrance of our fortress, and in the background a ghostly apparition is bothering the workers, nullifying our trap projects. We'll have to retreat and seal the bridge, until we can get a better army to retake the caverns. I am saddened by this, but hey, it's about time I learn not to take on deadly creations of nightmare for absolutely no reasons, i suppose.

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Wow, someone apparently smashed a bridge apart in frustration. Wow.

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The upper bridge may be in terrible shape, but it is not this one I'm concerned with. With the snake monster moving at absurd speeds, what matters is that the lower lever be activated, and fast. By working on the trap, we've given up on an early cavern sealing, meaning that if it crosses the bridge, it WILL enter the base. I lock the doors and order a plug installed, using the nearby lightweight blocks stockpiled in BASE1 for this occasion.

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Oh hey, another forgotten beast. Welcome to the party. This one's on the second cavern layer, so its entry point will also be the bridge, meaning if the snake gets in and trashes BASE1, the tarantula also slides in.

Raisethebridgeraisethebridgeraisethebridgeraisethebridge

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Fuck. A second too late. We are in for some fun times...
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