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Author Topic: Immortalitytower; We Live, We Die, We Live Again.  (Read 84173 times)

TechnoXan

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Re: Immortalitytower; Not a Tower, Life Expectancy Fifteen Hours
« Reply #255 on: September 30, 2015, 08:54:05 pm »

Yay! Towers! We should totally make that my-I mean our penthouse sweet. Maybe with catapults?  :P

PS, do I have any relatives?
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By the by, if your wondering why I use so many smiley faces, its because I smile a lot when I talk. So I use them here so I don't come off the wrong way.


And so it begins...
OPEN THE GATES!

EoyaBosan

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Re: Immortalitytower; Not a Tower, Life Expectancy Fifteen Hours
« Reply #256 on: October 01, 2015, 04:31:57 pm »

Yay! Towers! We should totally make that my-I mean our penthouse sweet. Maybe with catapults?  :P

PS, do I have any relatives?

By popular demand, catapults will be added to the tower, just as soon as things quieten down a little...

I'm sorry to say your wife, father and little sister are dead. At least your pet peacock is still fine.



~~~~



Project Fornicate with the World is complete! There is now a vertical shaft running down the fortress, connecting to all three caverns, the surface and the fortress, with each entrance separable by a raising bridge. No longer will the poor creatures of the caverns be deprived of the opportunity of rolling around in horrid goo until their eyes rot out of their heads.

During construction, however, a shocking discovery was made...





What's shocking about this is that Flame Avuzudist is alive and well, currently a member of the military.



Given the number of dwarves in this fortress sharing the names of certain other dead dwarves (but with incrimental roman numerals), I figured this was a simple error in naming and that the Flame in the military was actually, properly speaking, Flame II. But this doesn't seem to be the case. For one thing, unlike the other dwarves with the same first name, they also share the last name.

More curiously still, despite his corpse being right there in the cavern, Flame does not appear in the list of dead units, nor in the list of dwarves available to be memorialised - even dwarves who are only missing (their body hasn't been found) can be memorialised, but not Flame. It's not at all obvious how he died either: he's skeletonised, so it was clearly a while ago; there's no blood near the corpse (as it's in the caverns, blood would remain there indefinitely), and the body isn't mangled or missing any parts, strongly suggesting a non-violent death.

If Flame Avuzudist is alive, then whose is this corpse in the cavern and why is it identified as his? And if Flame Avuzudist is dead, then who or what is that thing bearing his name currently in the military?



Never mind, the mystery will have to be solved later; there's trading to be done!

I found we have a small fortune in earthenware trinkets lying around, so I went ahead and sold every one of them that I could get to the depot in time, simultaneously fleecing the merchants of every last scrap of steel, to be melted down and repurposed. Here's a before and after:





Hopefully flaunting that sort of wealth will attract us a few more migrants. Also possibly goblins, megabeasts and such, but let's not worry about that.

Despite my elation at the successful trading, something about the Flame business still troubled me. He seemed awfully shifty all of a sudden, as though he were hiding something...



Perhaps it's just my imagination.



Speaking of which, I rather wish that was just my imagination! Snang emerged from the first cavern, and set about gleefully murdering the dralthas nearby. With a few quick lever pullings, PFTW opened up a path for her from the first cavern to the surface, to introduce her to the horrid goo and infernal dust.

Snang had other plans, however. I had earlier begun extending the well shaft upwards to construct another well nearer the surface, as many dwarves had to travel down about sixty z-levels and back to wash all the pus from their horrid goo-induced blisters (and believe me, there was a lot of pus to wash off). Snang found a way through a hole in the cavern ceiling into the well shaft and from there, through a temporary access tunnel, into the lower fortress.



I desperately tried to block off the staircase from the residential layer downwards, at the same time ordering the military into position should the blockade fail.

Dammit, where the hell is Flame when we need him?



Right now, the only thing keeping Snong from the fortress proper is two flimsy stone doors.



Will the doors stall Snang long enough to block off the stairwell from above? If not, will the military be able to take her down? What is Flame's secret? And how long will the new Senshuken last before dying horribly? Only time will tell!

~~~~

You know what? The dead Flame thing is genuinely really unsettling me - especially how, almost immediately after I noticed, he fell into a secretive mood. I know community forts often become quite convoluted and difficult to understand, but this is the first fortress I've seen actually violate time and space just to mess with the overseer's head.
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TheFlame52

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Re: Immortalitytower; Not a Tower, Life Expectancy Fifteen Hours
« Reply #257 on: October 01, 2015, 04:57:09 pm »

heheuehueheehheheehhheuueheheee

But seriously, I laughed a bit. Now here's hoping I live to finish my artifact!

EDIT: What happens if I see my own corpse? Do I become horrified that I died?
« Last Edit: October 01, 2015, 05:01:24 pm by TheFlame52 »
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Taupe

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Re: Immortalitytower; Not a Tower, Life Expectancy Fifteen Hours
« Reply #258 on: October 01, 2015, 05:16:51 pm »

Hey it's that corridor again. It worked wonderfully at repelling ogres in the past. I'm sure it will be as successful against giant doves from hell.

TheBiggerFish

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Re: Immortalitytower; Not a Tower, Life Expectancy Fifteen Hours
« Reply #259 on: October 01, 2015, 05:36:19 pm »

That corpse...Is CARPING WEIRD.
It's like the premise...IS SECRETLY REAL.
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TheFlame52

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Re: Immortalitytower; Not a Tower, Life Expectancy Fifteen Hours
« Reply #260 on: October 01, 2015, 06:26:37 pm »

Do I have another turn? Gimme another turn.

Deus Asmoth

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Re: Immortalitytower; Not a Tower, Life Expectancy Fifteen Hours
« Reply #261 on: October 01, 2015, 07:26:47 pm »

Considering how bad our luck has been with poisonous liquids so far, I vote that we leave this beast well alone.
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Taupe

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Re: Immortalitytower; Not a Tower, Life Expectancy Fifteen Hours
« Reply #262 on: October 01, 2015, 09:07:53 pm »

Considering how bad our luck has been with poisonous liquids so far, I vote that we leave this beast well alone.
We just need to wall off the caverns and let it wander to the surface. From then on we can observe the awesome success that is Project Fuck The World, or begin apologising profusely to every decimated migrant wave.

Plus, yaknow, we get to see exactly how long the infernal dust takes to decimate non-dwarves. We could take notes and chart the surviving times of various creatures. That way we get to claim that we're scientists, not just psychopaths.
« Last Edit: October 01, 2015, 09:09:28 pm by Taupe »
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Urist McVoyager

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Re: Immortalitytower; Not a Tower, Life Expectancy Fifteen Hours
« Reply #263 on: October 01, 2015, 09:11:16 pm »

Science is always important. But it needs more flaming cats. Can't we build bridge-based catapults and fling flaming cats at the dust and goo?
« Last Edit: October 02, 2015, 08:35:27 pm by Urist McVoyager »
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Sarrak

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Re: Immortalitytower; Not a Tower, Life Expectancy Fifteen Hours
« Reply #264 on: October 02, 2015, 12:03:36 am »

Science is always important. But it needs more flaming cats. Can't we build a bridge-based catapults and fling flaming cats at the dust and goo?
Can I borrow this for my sig? !!Cat!! science with catapults is awesomely dwarven!
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Science is always important. But it needs more flaming cats. Can't we build bridge-based catapults and fling flaming cats at the dust and goo?

It's time for the ATHATH Death Counter to increase once more in celebration for the end of the world.

EoyaBosan

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Re: Immortalitytower; Not a Tower, Life Expectancy Fifteen Hours
« Reply #265 on: October 02, 2015, 06:06:23 pm »

Thanks to an act of divine intervention, Snong was, mercifully, unable to destroy the doors, and the stairwell was successfully blocked off. However, this came at a price: she would now remain where she was, refusing to give up breaking down the doors, until someone/something went and disturbed her - also meaning she would never find her way through PFTW to the surface (and horrid goo).

At that moment, upstairs, a certain enigmatic dwarf made a dramatic announcement:





Eager for any insight into the Flame mystery, I quickly set about analysing it. What could it mean? Why a weapon rack - to suggest we lack weapons? Or a more metaphorical, abstract lack of defences? Why the two images of "putting to rest" a dwarf and the founding of our fortress? Is it trying to say our fortress will be put to rest soon? How ridiculous - when the fortress is going from strength to strength! I mean, perhaps there's a slight forgotten beast problem, but that's already being dealt with...

While preparations for Snong's demise were being made, an unexpected visitor was found outside the front gate.



No, not a rabbit, but a large rat! It wandered all the way from the cavern, through PFTW, through the horrid goo, across the mountain and into the fortress entrance just to say hello. Then it walked into a weapon trap and I had to put the poor thing out of its misery.



It wasn't alone, however! Just behind it, a foul, malicious little creature snuck in and picked a fight with a poor innocent carpenter. Naturally, I couldn't allow this to go unpunished.



And, before I knew it, the preparations were complete.



A firing squad, composed of selected non-blind civilian dwarves, each with a crossbow and 30 bolts, ready to turn Snong into a giant dove-shaped pincushion, just as soon as an engraver to come carve a fortification in the wall next to her. A sizeable gap was left to prevent Snong's noxious secretions reaching them, and the rest of the military was stationed just upstairs in case of disaster. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, the untrained crossbowdwarves' being unable to fire through a fortification from four tiles away, that's what. Unfortunately, there wasn't any easy way around this without creating a whole new setup. With full confidence in Immortalitytower's military, I took the brave step to simply deconstruct the door and ordered the melee military to charge in, with the crossbowdwarves hanging back just behind them.



It was highly successful. The crossbowdwarves released volley after volley of bolts, shattering bones and tearing muscles all over Snong's body. One or two blind melee dwarves had limbs torn off, but they were only flesh wounds. I was on the front line, hacking away with my legendary pickaxe, dealing blow after blow.



Hah! This is easy, I thought to myself. I mean, doves are such peaceful creatures, I bet this one barely even knows how to fight back. And if it was forgotten in the first place, it can't be very dangerous, now can it?

Can it?

~~~~





















It was going so well, but nobody could quite strike the necessary fatal blow. She just methodically tore apart dwarf after dwarf, shrugging off her injuries and the continuing attacks. Once it was obvious the battle was lost, I set about trying to wall her off again, but she was too fast and quickly got into the residential layer, which had simply too many open corridors to make any effective blockades.

I drafted every available dwarf into an emergency squad - some even had time to make it to the weapons/armour stockpile and themselves - but they barely even scratched her. Snong was "pale" at this point, with multiple severed arteries and damage to internal organs, and I hoped she might bleed to death, but she just kept on killing. I've never seen so much blood.



Finally, we were left with just two surviving dwarves: a pair of children, taking refuge in the courtyard outside the main entrance.

You see, for all its negative reputation, Dwarf Fortress is a fair game. It always gives you a chance, if you're tenacious enough. Already, I was seeing how I could micromanage my way out of this one: really, all I had to do was hold out until the next migrant wave.

I'd get little Ilral and Atis into the food/drink stockpile upstairs by means of a temporary burrow and designating a meeting area there (children, stray animals and new migrants always path to the nearest meeting area). Then I'd lock the doors and they could survive there almost indefinitely, provided Snong either didn't notice them, or alternatively got stuck trying to deconstruct the door. If Snong did get in, I'd burrow one in one corner as a distraction and get the other to safety. PFTW was still open, so they could in theory get to the third cavern, which has water. Food would still be a problem, as would the wildlife, but I'd deal with that when I got to it.

So yes, as I was saying, Dwarf Fortress is a fair game. It's not like the game itself actually hates you and wants t--











https://youtu.be/NraXvyyCYas


















~~~~

Gosh, I forgot how much Fun this game can be! And I didn't even have the excuse of being high on pain medication. That was just... wow. I mean, I guess it's my own fault for underestimating a forgotten beast, but I really thought twenty well armed, armoured dwarves would be enough to put it down, one way or another.

Thankfully, I happen to have a backup from just before the start of this update. I'm usually opposed to savescumming on principle, but I hope I might just be forgiven for this one...
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TheFlame52

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Re: Immortalitytower; Not a Tower, Life Expectancy Fifteen Hours
« Reply #266 on: October 02, 2015, 06:43:59 pm »

Shoulda played it out to the bitter end. Who knows, maybe the goblins would have killed the beast before succumbing to its poisons and you could rebuild from the ashes. It's happened to me.

Taupe

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Re: Immortalitytower; Not a Tower, Life Expectancy Fifteen Hours
« Reply #267 on: October 02, 2015, 08:09:28 pm »

Reclaaaaaaaim.

AbstractTraitorHero

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Re: Immortalitytower; Not a Tower, Life Expectancy Fifteen Hours
« Reply #268 on: October 02, 2015, 08:17:51 pm »

Wait if you reload is my dwarf still fine actually liked the dwarf saw a lot of myself in her besides the fat part i only weigh 140 pounds
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Urist McVoyager

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Re: Immortalitytower; Not a Tower, Life Expectancy Fifteen Hours
« Reply #269 on: October 02, 2015, 08:39:46 pm »

Sarrak, be my guest. Just use the new edit I made to fix the typo that glared at me like the flaming red eye of Sauron.
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