... Or I could finish the year five days later, that works too.
SmallHands, Year 170From the diary of Malfoy, dwarven miner, doctor, and wannabe Hard Woman Making Hard Decisions.… and was successfully elected as overseer, once again. I am sincerely astonished by how easy people are to manipulate; one act of public bravery, and they suddenly forget all other harm you’ve done to them. I could write a book about that, as well; perhaps I will, in due time.
But I digress. My goals for this year have to be focused on the benefit of the fort, and perhaps even more importantly, the fools that live in it. No grand designs, no laying the groundwork for glory. I have to look only after the small fort of SmallHands.
The biggest problem I can see right now is that the fortress is no longer fully cut off from the surface. Salmeuk was right in sealing off the cursed fevering biome, but then for some reason he built a staircase opening into the tree farm that I ordered during my previous mandate. This endangers the fort because the tree farm itself was considered part of the fort and connected directly - why would it not be, it was supposed to be a safe sealed area.
As matters stand now, normal attackers can just climb down on the dirt wall to the floor, and any building destroyers also have the option of punching through the gem windows that overlook the pit.
The simplest fix is to rebuild the bridge the other way around, and also build a bit of wall to ensure that when that bridge raises, the outside is closed.
(ooc: the floor isn’t strictly needed, but in older forts I had issues with trees growing through bridges and breaking them; it may be fixed, but I’m not going to risk it)
Also on the subject of bridges, the outer bridge to the ‘arena’, the one which deconstructed due to magma, is being rebuilt out of magma-safe quartzite, and will be connected with magma-safe mechanisms too. Its new lever is moved indoors, in the main living area. The lever above has been controlling the inner gate since time immemorial, now the outer one can be near it too.
Lastly, there is still a way from the surface into the fort: the Tall Bar. It’s only available to fliers, and has been used by a bunch of buzzards to steal prepared meals. It can probably be handled with some minimal flooring, but the Tall Bar can also be isolated at the bottom, so it’s not as critical as the entry in the tree farm.
Another issue is the state of the graves; or, rather, their recent deconstruction. I didn’t see fit to cover it at the time, but a persistent anti-elven feeling has been pushed to the forefront by Recon. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem; the knife-ears are at best tolerated, but this particular iteration of anti-elven propaganda has burnt too brightly. For what may be the first time in history, actual dwarves were caught in its flames. All those deemed ‘infected’ by elven mores have been at best ostracized, and at worst purged; not only the living, but the dead as well. Recon had built a new and spacious catacomb, to which she will only allow those who were deemed pure:
Meanwhile, the old catacombs have been excavated; I suspect a full deconstruction was planned, but so far, most of the old graves were left where they were:
I quietly disagreed with this course of events; I didn’t say anything, though, as that time I was nearly an outcast, and expressing an opinion on one point of view may well have counted as an argument for the opposite viewpoint. But I did think it hypocritical, in light of how much importance we place on “the honored dead”. And not lastly, it was unnecessary; I pride myself in doing what is needed; but this, in particular, is not needed. There is no gain in interfering with the departed.
As if to prove the last point, some of the honored dead have proceeded to peek right back from the afterlife; one child, previously listed as missing, has returned and is now loitering around the under-surface. More will certainly follow, and normally I wouldn’t care, but as overseer this is now my problem. They’ll be memorialized or buried, and I hope that will be the end of it.
My policy of appeasing the dead has been rewarded beyond initial expectations: two more ghosts have risen and been memorialized before summer even started. A few coffins were carved from granite, built, and immediately occupied.
Spring brings with it the elven caravan, and the stuck-up, snotty, infuriating blowhard that elves call a diplomat. He demands we cease logging operations; with some back-and-forth, we come to a compromise number of 148. Salmeuk and I successfully conceal that there aren’t 148 mature trees in the entirety of SmallHands, and allow the tree-dwellers to think they have won a diplomatic victory.
About the caravan itself, there is nothing to say: a few trinkets were hauled to the depot, but there genuinely wasn’t anything to buy in return. The only real benefit of their passing was that the few worn clothes around the fort were all moved to the depot.
While the elves were milling about being annoying, it has come to my attention that two citizens of SmallHands are locked in cages; not as prisoners, but simply by misfortune.
They will be released immediately, and I’ll make sure they both know it was I who is responsible for it; having two people indebted to me can only serve me in the long run.
Next on the priorities, the smithy was thoroughly neglected. Steel making operations were never restarted, despite that the third cavern was sealed exactly so we can safely exploit wood. I order two wood furnaces built by the existing stockpile, and will have them turn all our available wood into charcoal. While I’m at it, I also put in an order for more bins.
There isn’t a decent weaponsmith in the entirety of our fort (not that there’s much of it). I choose someone who isn’t in line for any other strange mood, and get him crafting some silver bolts; it’s not the best material, but we have loads of it. His name is Edzul, and by sheer coincidence he actually likes bolts. Sometimes the stars align. He’ll join our existing furnace operators and the master armorsmith, named Solon (he’ll get to work too, after we stockpile some steel).
(ooc: there used to be some steel available, until somebody used it for
statues, of all things. Honestly, why not make them out of silver, they’d have been much more blinged out)
SmallHands has an industry that we dwarves usually ignore: bee keeping. From what I have been able to find out, a long-dead citizen was responsible for pushing this through; a complete lunatic who thought he was a colony of bees in dwarven shape. I would scoff, but I’ve seen dumber. Since his (their?) passing, not much has been done in the domain; honeycombs are harvested, but not processed, and royal jelly isn’t collected anymore; all available jugs are full, and stay unprocessed in an extract stockpile. We have some jet stone that can be carved into more jugs; this will allow the existing honeycombs to be pressed into wax and honey. I’ve never had mead before, I’m looking forward to it.
Another project to begin this spring: finally dealing with all the corpses from the third cavern. My fellow dwarves often complain about seeing corpses, but never bother to handle the situation. So, since my tolerance for whiners is minimal, I ensure everybody receives permissions for butchery and tanning. There are five butcheries in the cavern, and two more closer to the surface. I expect that by the end of my turn there won’t be any more ignored corpses laying about.
Food receives not an overhaul as much as a minor tweaking. Before, all food in the fortress was stashed in a series of 5x5 rooms, each holding a separate stockpile. It was annoying to designate each stockpile for the kitchen, so I decided to knock down a few internal walls and just have one ‘pile for each main type. In related news, all that royal jelly is getting cooked.
The new arrangement has three stockpiles, for extracts, eggs, and meat + fish + cheese. All plants were moved two levels lower, where they have clearly been before, judging by the container stockpile and workshops. The old cook, Aban, was fevered; he was removed from all crafting duties, like all fevered dwarves have been. Two others have been appointed fortress cooks, and left to prepare lavish meals until either the input stockpiles run out, or the target stockpiles are filled. By the end of the year, one has been recognized as legendary and the other is not far behind.
The military has begun the year as small, but skilled; seven dwarves are in the Siege Breakers, and all are legendary. The Siege Breakers squad is completed with three useless morons, and the marksdwarf squad, The Swamp Hunters, is recreated from the ground up. New barracks and archery rooms were made in two unused rooms; the archery targets are facing the tree farm.
All military members are un-fevered. (ooc: I advise you leave them to train; on the other hand, that’s one third of the fort right there. So really, do as you will)
For the fevered legendaries, I devised a different path. No, not involving the necromancer; the only place they got ‘enlisted’ is in the library.
It’s entirely possible the fever will also impact their writing abilities; nobody knows at this point. So I can only let them be, and watch the results.
Another thing I asked done: building display furniture wherever possible, and showing all manner of artifacts. With this occasion, nearly a dozen artifacts were dug out from bins or workshops, and I discovered we have both an artifact bucket, and an artifact chain. This sounds like a great opportunity to rebuild the well:
Summer has passed without the human caravan; autumn did have the dwarven caravan, with whom we made some modest trade; they had no wood, stones, metals, or silk. I ordered some for next year, but I can only hope they treat our requests with more seriousness than we treat theirs.
At the end of the year, I can at least say we have finished processing the corpses in the third cavern. There are still loads of corpses in the other two caverns, but dwarves don’t see those, and what they don’t see they don’t get angry about. They can rot where they are, I’m not keen on punching it out with forgotten beasts.
----
On the list of things that didn’t fit in the narrative: during winter, I emptied a bunch of bins by way of dumping, and will be sorting the metal items for melting. There was a lot of crap in them, ranging from worn clothing to masterworks and artifacts. Despite my repeated
complaints advice, people keep putting all possible finished goods in a single undifferentiated stockpile.
Those are evil! Stop making them!There is a quantum stockpile in the melting area; so far, it doesn’t include the metal cages. It has six pages (on my laptop screen) with various items; most of them are iron, and most of them are from outside the fort.
The third cave is indeed a poor tree farm; it could likely benefit from an extended flooding, and an even more extended session of channeling and expansion. At level 34, we have the lake from cave 2. Cave 3 begins at 26 and ends at 22 (technically 21, but that’s a bit too close to magma). At its most ambitious, this could be a multi-layered excavation, with three channeled out levels and one ‘floor’, descending from level 34 to 22. It’s probably never going to be made, but I can still dream.
Save:
smallhands at the start of year 171.
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Topic: Smallhands - nearly 40 years and still tiny! (Read 447191 times)