It's really too bad demons can't reanimate, the army of the dead would be self-sustaining then.
Which reminds me. What are you doing with vampires, LW?
Surely they will be getting a special military squad and/or corpse dungeon staffing?
I don't think he has any, since the fort's sealed.
I did have plans to screen migrants for vampires, ranging from false-drowning chambers to simple corpse screening, but no vampire will ever show up here. Which is a shame, as they could have been highly valuable. A vampire can stroll right through a necromancer horde just to stab the necromancer, and they'd make great corpse haulers/clearers.
Also, I just had some major werelizard issues in my newest fort. Didn't do it deliberately, but now I have a squad of five werelizards safely contained and training, including one of my founding seven as the commander. Poor sods. I shall attempt to act by your example and offer them respect.
I try to respect all of my Dwarves in this Fort, that's why it's especially unfortunate for the were-dwarves that things were done... As they were done. Try to keep them away from good furniture when the full moon comes; I use the two ones I still have to demolish unwanted schist and slate armour racks. And though they don't need to ever eat or drink, it certainly keeps them happy!
In the mean time my Dwarves have begun incorporating demon bone into fashion statements. Around 30 steel spikes are being put into place (with over 20 already in position), cage traps and a giant cave spider are being prepared and the forgeworks are hard at work (with the number of forgemasters growing from 3 to 14 over the years) to refine more steel for the military, but developments in hell itself have been quiet.
Most work has been quite mundane, with the Dwarves working through the winter to renovate the incredibly old waterways and cisterns, which had begun to sprout underwater trees in them (amongst other fungus). Also managed to install a new working river-control bridge, so when the river thaws all of my architects won't horribly drown to death. It will keep the reservoir capacity at maximum, and will also keep my Fort's legendary architect Kogan employed.
Saw a child crawling about to get to work deconstructing some scaffolding atop one of the newly completed towers, doing all of this without functioning legs. Looked up his history and though I don't really know how the hell he got injured (I'm guessing it was demons or gravity) I feel pride in
dat efficiency. Two months from entry till discharge! Doc Onul's surname Nazushtakud is also somewhat fitting, as it means Bloodmachine. Things like these should more than make up for all the moments when patients come in with total organ failure and blistering. I suspect things will be quiet all through the Fort for a while.
The surface world is still derelict of all life, with not a single creature roaming the paved killing fields of Silentthunders. The Dowding Observatory is empty, there is no need for a Dwarf to man it. It has been a long time since Ravens have been seen in the blood red skies. The crackle of magma, the pattering of raining dwarf blood and the rude shouting of the mechanics as they set up the southern perimeter's wall spikes are all that can be heard under the sun. Elf skeletons litter the surface, but they stay dead. Due to heightened security, no Dwarves bother to pick them up and bring them to the corpsepiles. Within the walls of the Fort is a Kingdom unto itself, there is nothing for the Dwarves outside. The walls grow higher, and to the southwest lie the ashes from the last titan attack.
The first cavern layer is still recovering from the genocidal flood that was unleashed when draining the cistern, strangely no living thing can grow in this layer - despite all the violent irrigation. It is comforting to know that the cave spiders (the small kind) survived the flood, as their silk webs have begun reappearing on what are now islands (albeit muddy webs).
The second cavern layer is infested with various FBs composed of flame (or ones that shoot flame), so the undead don't have much of a chance to snowball into a horde anymore, the FBs just incinerate their fallen bodies. The trees and giant fungal structures have grown so dense that traversing the cavern layer beyond the Fortress killing field is not feasible for any large number of soldiers. Despite the dense pseudoforestry proving resistant to burning, periodic fires sweep through the undergrowth, these fires now common to all but one of the islands in this layer. In the middle is a crocodile composed of mud that was trapped by the dense growth of plants and fungi, a long time ago. I intended to catch it but it was never safe enough to return to finish the job, and it has remained trapped there ever since, always remaining in the same spot. I imagine by this point trees have begun to grow on it, around it, maybe even through it - it is composed of mud, after all.
The third cavern layer has a zombie hairy earthworm with noxious secretions lurking in the depths, but not much else - I don't even send Marksdwarves to the magmaforge walls to kill it anymore, as it appears to be motionless when undisturbed, forever waiting for something in the waters. It could be a valuable corpse, as only its brain is damaged. I don't know whether it'll ever leave the subterranean sea.
Hell itself is just one massive monument to the battles that were. The corpses and chitin of creatures that have never been seen again lie in pools of strangely coloured blood, amidst a sea of glowing endless pits and dark rolling slade hills, peppered with crossbow bolts of copper, bronze and steel. Of the killers of demons, few traces of them remain. Here lies a pile of Om's salt, a raven leg, a copper breastplate... Only small footprints left behind, of the beasts, corpses and dwarves that stood taller than the forces of hell. The Fortress that stands in the spire stands as a limestone bastion of Dwarfkind, white upon black stone, yet it seems to have become one with the terrorscape. At the spire breach, where it all began, a massive web over 50 spans wide and as tall as hell itself stretches across entire glowing pits. It too is quiet, its creators long dead, its victims long gone. Even the living demons, flying in their cackling packs of brutes, feel like ghosts that forgot to die. They are gargoyles roaming the halls of violent calamity, aimlessly scouring the land for nothing, like seagulls in Brighton.
An old friend was caught in the 3rd cavern layer, having somehow escaped the corpse factory. All that is left of the snake that an elven caravan once left in Silentthunders is a skull, a spine and a few aged scales. This is one corpse which will not be reused, it will be given rest in a burial at magma sea.
The spire corpse factory is almost entirely reclaimed. What few body parts have not been recollected are ones which will not resurrect, with only a few exceptions here and there. The factory is being incorporated into the subterranean fortress complex now that the spire is secured (unfortunately, secured in such a way that much of the adamantine is unreachable). Once the masons are done making stone blocks for the reservoir renovations, construction should resume in hell itself. There is a particular glowing pit I have in mind, to be the site of a brand new Colosseum.
Author
Topic: Ravens are murder. [SPOILERS] (Read 162629 times)