Overseer's Log, Longshanks - Autumn, 1063
The season started well. The caverns were sealed, the snail-beast was still down there, and we had a bit of a breather. After completing an exhaustive examination, my initial hunch was confirmed - this fortress was designed by crazy dwarves. I already knew about the warren of passages honeycombing the mountain, but the halls made no sense. The more I talked to the ones who had been here a while, the stranger it sounded... necromancers and crundles, cultists and vampires and I don't know what. Something seemed to be drawing werebeasts and monsters to this location, and I suspected that whatever it was produced hallucinations in dwarves. Had to be hallucinations, because I'd never heard such a farrago of rubbish in all my days!
Within the first few days of Autumn, I rounded up the miners and gave them a strong talking-to. If we were going to survive here, we needed some better and more logical facilities. I'm not a shouty dwarf, but they got up my nose, and I told them all what I thought of a fort designed like a jellyfish's unmentionables, with a few choice suggestions besides. After that, they seemed to realize I meant business. Following my directions, they expanded the food storage area, dug some new storage areas for empty pots and barrels, and even dug a coop for all the poultry that had been wandering all over the damn fort, shitting in the floor and whatnot. Once the nest boxes were in, and the birds were laying eggs by the basketful, I ordered the slaughter of every animal that didn't have a name, a pedigree and an important owner.
While all that was going on, I stopped by the kitchens for a wee drink, overseeing being thirsty work and all. All the gossip was of some metalcrafter, something or other Wheelmists, who found a glowing gem lying in the floor. No sooner had he picked it up than he started muttering to himself, eyes flashed purple, and next thing we knew:
He was yelling that his name was now TechnoXanII, whatever the hell that means, and demanding all sorts of things like gems. This was a bit of a poser, since we had no gems in the whole fort. Luckily for Mr. Plays-With-Spirits, the caravan showed up at that moment with some gems and cloth for sale! I bought them out of food and steel, trading them anything I could lay hands on, and TechnoXan or whatever his name turned 200,000 Urists worth of gold, diamonds and amethysts into a TOY BOAT.
The liaison didn't have much news, but we were made a duchy. Just goes to show how desperate things are in Stroking that they would advance a shithole like this! I still kick that jackass Obok every time I walk by him. We could have been in Painturns instead of stuck here in this dump.
Once the wagons showed us their asses, I kicked into high gear. We set up new forges, cut down enough trees to make charcoal, and set up some new smelters. Ah, it does me heart good to smell the smoke of burning wood again! At the end of the season, we memorialized or buried the last of the dead. To celebrate, I ordered a memorial well dug in the hospital and forged the whole thing out of gold and silver.
Just before winter came, though, the cavern mists drew another monstrosity to loose on us.
The winter's task is figuring out how to get it to fight our dear Shedim... seems to me that something webby would trap the dusty one and attack it but get bathed in dust. We might actually be able to use them against each other. Think I'll go have a drink and ponder it.
- LONGSHANKS
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Topic: The Hastening of Doomforests (Read 450701 times)