Diary of Taupe II, Mad Doctor
Day 1
Today is my first day as mayor of Doomforests. I earned my title very recently, thanks to my fantastic qualifications at both being alive, and also representing 100% of the voters. I used to be a mere doctor, and yesterday I would make the healing of my fellow dwarves a priority. But i am a mayor now, so I must think of the fort's well being first! So nobody is being saved except me for now.
I made a list of my year-long mandate's objective, and which one i shall prioritize. Three of them are crucial. they were the key selling points of my mayoral promise. that's what got me elected, really. I'm not sure I would vote for myself again next year if I failed to fulfill those points. some others are just extras, but not crucial to my continued existence. Let's go over them quickly.
Point A: Sealing off the surrounding area.
Point B: Saving the remaining engraver from his necrosys-inducing fever (Optional)
Point C: Preventing a ghost infestation.
Point D: Kill or seal off the megagoat (optional)
Point E: Make contact with the autumn liason.
Point A is obviously a matter of life and death. Point b is very optional, as time and ressources are playing against me. Point C is kind of vital if I want to live past summer and prevent this place from turning into a gigantic haunted deathhole (As opposed to the regular gigantic deathhole it currently is). Point D is basically extending point a so that the goat is either neutralised, or at least locked from the exterior world. not important for me but, yaknow, kinda nice for the general inhabitants of the earth. Plus there is this whole revenge thing I'd like to get going. We'll see. finally, point E is the main focus of my long-term plans. not sure how I'll achieve that, but come the third season of my mandate, i must be ready to receive both the liason and the merchants, and trade with them. Only then may I enable more migrants to join Doomforests after the last liason dared to leave unhappy. (Shame on the previous mayor, really)
Alright, this meeting with my cabinet went smoothly. Mostly because my cabinet is made of metal and not actual underling bureaucrats. It's an actual piece of furniture is what I'm saying. Look, I'm low on manpower here.
i may need a larger cabinet. Since i can't hire anyone at the time, i decide to instead claim every single nearby office as my own. The dinning hall is now my personal dinning room, and also my office. I claim the luxurious chamber once belonging to Darzoth as my own, because shiny gold, y'all. It is filled with corpses and miasma, tho. So I also claim the northern dormitories as my secondary multi-bed relaxation chambers. I manage to locate the alive-yet-rotting corpse of the engraver, and install him in the other dorm, the one we sealed a werekid in a few months back.
While browsing my new quarters, I meet Smunstu, a goblin bowman who happens to reside in the chamber next to mine, which is a cage inside the shooting range. Smunstu is not the most pleasant fellow, as the lack of shared language, age-long war between our kind and the whole war prisoner things make it difficult to have a fulfilling discussion with my new roommate. Plus i don't think anyone has fed him in weeks. In order to enlarge my cabinet, I decide to bestow upon Smunstu the title of Minster of Agriculture. A harduous task for someone like him, no doubt. Yet, the Ministry of Agriculture can afford a few bad politics. Unlike Astville, who'se fate was sealed in part due to a lack of food, Doomforests has plenty of booze and food stockpiled. In fact, according to my ledgers, I have enough food to sustain myself and the other zero surviving members for approximately longer than my life expectancy.
I inform Smunstu of the new borders of our fort. Until further notice, none in Doomforests may leave the boundaries of the Doctor's Lair without mayoral approbation. Smunstu seems unhappy about the situation (and his life conditions in general) but I'm sure he'll comply. I start discussing some important agricultural matters with him.
''Minister Smunstu, The outside farms represent a threat to our survival. I may have to let them go to waste and seal the corridor leading there. Say nothing comprehensible at all if you think your ministry can accommodate the loss of those farms.
-Glarggg blarghurgh herrf!!!
-Well, it is settled then. I thank you for your time.''
Once Minister Smunstu is done eating the required paperwork, I set myself to the task. Those farms can be accessed by climbing monsters of all kind, and sealing the access shaft is the simplest method. My government has neither the time, nor the resources, to add a second layer to the farming enclave. I grab some boulders lying in the western offices, and spend the rest of the day patching this entrance.
Another entrance leads into the fort for now, tho that won't be my problem once I've sealed myself in. Locking down the military tower is not important to me right now. instead, I'll need to build a wall between me and the monster. This will require a lot of stone, tho.
Thankfully, i am able to locate a dead miner and reallocate the tool to myself. If need be, I may have to dig random walls to grab some stone to complete the work. I'll need a pickaxe to move around and expand anyway.
I don't know how to do mechanics, but I'll have to learn if i want to achieve all my projects. I designate an area where I will eventually build a mechanist's workshop for myself. I'll need some gears. Here's why:
In his last moments, the previous mechanist was ordered to add one cage o the staircase. the minotaur is now stashed there, waiting to be unleashed. My plan is very simple, and also very crazy. I will wire the minotaur to the lever in the baron's room, and also wire the remaining crundles to the crundle lever. there will be a third lever, this one for Smunstu and his two goblin friends locked in the cage room. Once the wiring is done, I will seal the area from my own section of the fort, and pit the minotaur against the Beast. The weakened minotaur will be killed off by the goblins. Once the goblins are victorious over the minotaur, I assume maybe one of them will be alive. that's when I'll unleash the crundle to finish them off. I'll deal with the crundles with a fortification dug into a wall. I still have Sodel bow, and I'm confident I can locate enough bones around to make a friggin quiver of bolts out of them.
* * *
Day 2:
I've double-checked my plans, and readjusted them slightly. According to my medical knowledge, the Forgotten Beast i call the Supergoat is no longer blind. I cannot risk to go near it to complete the long process of cage-hauling and wiring. it's just not safe. Instead i will focus on completing a full wall between me and it as fast as possible. Time to locate an easy source of stone. It pains me to say, but the only stockpile I have access to right now is a leather stockpile.
My first fever-induced plan to slay the Megagoat was to channel above it. I spent some time checking the easiest path to build above it nd unleash earth-shaped hell on its head. Then I realised that any accident or poorly timed cloud dodging would fuck me up. If I channel the ceilings and get caugh in a cloud, i could get knocked out or killed, which would mean the end of Doomforests. I cannot take this chance. This is why I've engineered the megabattle project.
It seems that by spending so much time thinking of going above the beast, I forgot the idea of going
underneath it.
The staircase I'm used to leads to the caverns, but i just remembered that there is another basement access. It leads to a giant stone stockpile. If i can mine into it then seal the entrance, All m stone needs will be met, both for the walling offs, the mechanisms, and the ghost slabs.
The forges underneath the main halls also connect to the graveyard, and the hospital, which connect to the emergency water channel. If I can get there in time, I can save the engraver! (which I've named Minister of Health). Bad news, tho, the water won't be flowing there for a season. No water for you, Minister Engraver-Guy.
* * *
Day 3
Ok, change of plans. After much deliberation, I decided not to dig for the stone stockpile, mostly because the original staircase leading there is very, VERY close to the Supergoat. If I go there, I'll probably be spotted or scented, and die. Instead I need a new source of stone. here's my backup plan:
An easy source of boulders would be to dismantle the extra workshops in the farming cavern. somhow I doubt I could, or would have the need to, operate multiple farmer's workshops at the same time. there is a corpse lying there, tho, and deconstructing workshops is as lenghty as simply mining for more boulders, without the benefit of expanding my lair.
No, i need to plan this thoroughly. I cannot waste my labor. time is of the essence.
* * *
Day 4:
Whomever designed this place sure like useless corridors. The southwestern section of the fort consists of long-ass corridors leading to nowhere, 3 offices, and then another giant corridor. I guess this was initially a mineshaft. I have no idea why people decide to expand at the end of it instead of, I dunno, nearby or on another floor.
That being said, the absurdly terrible urban planning skills of past Overseers is providing me with a relatively safe area to dig into. I could connect the cage room/kennels to this section of the fort by a short tunnel, then use the stones around to block the southmost part of the corridor. This should give me access to some nice offices and furniture, and a place to expand and put up workshops. I desperately need some room that's devoid of countless corpses and endless clouds of miasma. According to the uncompleted hauling jobs report, there should be close to 30 boulders lying there. Enough for the wall, as well as a good amount of tombstones. From there, I can probably dig a new tunnel into the cavern staircase, seal it off from the fort and the caverns proper, and do my wiring of the cages undisturbed.
I have some crazy plans for water too, but they are risky. If I ever need a well, say to save minister Engraver-Guy, I could dig a new shaft into Astville, seal the initial staircase and the door to the caverns, and wall off the magma forge perimeter to prevent flyers from entering. That would leave us vulnerable to magma monsters tho, which is a risk I'm not gonna take for now. Still, If I secure the fort and attract newcomers, I could send them there and lodge them in Astville, and a magma forge is always a nice adition to any lair, especially without access to wood. But that's for later.
For now, I have some stone to acquire. Wish me luck, well-crafted gold cabinet!
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Topic: The Hastening of Doomforests (Read 431120 times)