12.3: TowerEnded 1101-1103 (Era of the Expedition Leader)A thin mist had rolled down from the mountains, on the morning of
12th Hematite when Muthkat and its six companions arrived at the foot of the Tooth of Sinew. The flat plain of the grasslands was broken only by a single pond, and sparse trees were dotting the land.
The seven dwarves debarked, and started planning:
“Should we dig into the mountain”? Spoke
Udib, their miner and mason.
“I’d rather keep closer to this pond”, said
Kivish MineCaught, their expedition leader and fellow conspirator of Muthkat’s. “We don’t know how the caves look, this may be the only source of water we’ll ever get.
There were no counterpoints to that statement. The seven dwarves kept discussing their future home until the sun rose and the mists receded. Kivish planned an entryway that could be sealed with hatches if needed. It opened to farm plots furrowed in the soft sand, and connected to a future central staircase. The plan was to go through stone columns to bypass the caverns; ideally, they would reach magma and dig a small smithy, before digging for copper and likey breaching into the second or third caverns.
But that was for later; in the remainder of this year, they all had plenty to do much nearer the surface.
Ilral, their woodcutter, had already been eyeing some nearby gingko and birch trees for logging. Well, so-called woodcutter; she was barely a novice. More importantly, she was a skilled axe-dwarf who’d served as caravan guard before becoming involved in the conspiracy, and ‘retiring to more peaceful pursuits’. That at least had been a brazen lie, as she fully intended to become TowerEnded’s first squad leader; Ilral did not pursue peace.
The jobs for the first days were decided upon. The three miners would only dig; it was paramount to secure their belongings in a space below ground, in sand and stone. The woodcutter would only cut trees; and the last 3 dwarves would do their best to collect a few fruits and berries from the surface, until space for a food stockpile was excavated.
Once that’s done, two of them would haul food indoors, while the carpenter would labor in an above-ground workshop to make a fort’s first batch of wooden necessities -- buckets, wheelbarrows, two step ladders to pick some apples, and six beds for a small dormitory.
There was no true soil at the foot of the mountain, only a thin layer of yellow sand that supported the sparse vegetation of the grasslands, where the grass didn’t give way to the Desert of Equaling. Under the one layer of sand lay a large span of obsidian, 4 to 5 urists tall; either a result of some ancient cataclysm, or perhaps laid down at the making of the world. They had already decided, before even leaving, that this area would be kept for housing and temples. Under that, the crafting areas of the fort would be made, in the 5 urists of diorite above the basalt layer holding the first cavern.
Several designs had been proposed: separate areas dedicated to different crafts, three sub-forts that could be easily cut off from one another, even a human-inspired castle with housing and most industries in an above-ground fortified keeps. But in the end, what won out was the old tried and tested model of a central stair with rooms radiating out from it. Plant processing, thread processing, and food processing chambers will stack themselves neatly in the diorite layer. One layer is left as buffer; the last, on z-level 139, will become the site of a general crafting area: stone, gems, wood, and the craftable refuse (bones, skulls, horn, teeth and shells) will all be processed here.
One month later, some measure of stability had been gained. A starter fort had been dug in the soft sand under the surface. The farming areas would likely last unchanged for the entire life of the fort; perhaps the northern room would be further expanded for grazers, but aside there’d be little need for change. For now, their wagon goods would share a room with their animals, until their proper place was excavated. And Muthkat was in the process of getting an office; an extremely modest office:
The surface now held only a few bits and bobs that would soon be moved indoors, an obsolete carpenter’s workshop, and two farm plots that were more aspirational than usable; the aboveground plants that might have grown in them were still laying in the food stockpile, unbrewed and uneaten.
If, by impossibility, a tower siege were to spawn at the beginning of autumn, the fort would survive with nothing lost. It would be an incredibly slow-moving fort, with only seven dwarves in it, but nothing would be truly needed, or missed, until the siege would lift.
1101.05.23 Greetings, my dear Ducim! I’ve recently come into the possession of a chair and a table, so of course I just had to write you a letter! A very short, very rushed letter, because you’d not believe how much work there is to do, and how little time we all have. We’ve come here on the 12th of Hematite, and today may well be the first time I’ve had more than five minutes at a time.
Starting in summer has rushed us even worse than the old accounts have claimed. The sweet pods were nearly left unplanted; we’ve all pitched in to put the damned seeds in the ground, and we still have three left over until next spring. But plant them we did, and we’ll have some syrup for the traders.
We’ve secured ourselves indoors, of course, with all the goods and animals received on the embark. This allowed us to finally get a good look at them, and, well… there’s a reason they were cheap. All of them have some fault; either they’re small, or sickly, or lethargic, or some combination of the above. The lot of them are getting butchered as soon as their replacements are either born, hatched, or purchased:
Five days ago, we started carving the fort proper; this is why I even have time off, we’re all waiting for the crafting room to be dug out. Then it’s off to hauling stone, so Ezum can start making some diorite crafts and Udib can start cutting blocks.
1101.07.16 Traders have arrived, without a liaison; if they try to blame us for their absence, do let me know. They’ve also brought only steel anvils, no iron ones; because you know what a 3-month old fort can definitely not afford?
Steel anvils. Kivish had some words about this. The good thing from that whole shouting match is that the caravan does in fact carry iron and silver goods, so we’ll have a small but steady source of good metals.
We’re not completely destitute, mind; we do have seven barrels of syrup (and I’m so glad we got to plant those few sweet pods at the start of summer), and some diorite crafts. Delivering the crafts has proven to be a thorough annoyance, though: a flock of buzzards kept swooping for them, and the dwarves hauling them by extension. You’d think after the first two dozen they’d figure out diorite isn’t edible, but no; they kept going at it. We eventually gave up on trading crafts this year, that’s how much of an annoyance those flying rats have been.
We have little need (or wares) for most of the caravan’s goods; Kivish picked four metal bars in case of moods, a few barrels and bags, a bit of cheap silk, leather, and military goods that require leather -- waterskins, backpacks, and quivers. In the end, trade concludes with a pitiful balance:
I’ll try to fork this letter on them; I hope it will reach you, and find you well.
Your dearest friend,
Muthkat BridgeBow.
(Kivish’s private notes):
1101.08.19 The fort receives its first batch of migrants; five people of no notable skill. One of them is an adequate miner, and she’ll effectively replace Udib in our miner trio; Udib will be a dedicated mason from now on. Two have smithing skills -- an adept furnace operator, and an accomplished metalcrafter. For now all four are sent off hauling, while the last bits of the abovefort are getting finished.
The miners remove the nearby slopes from the mountain’s base; only one passageway is left, and we build a few traps in it. Realistically, it’s going to primarily catch animals, but it will also force any invaders coming from the mountain to either travel over traps, or risk climbing down a steep mountain edge:
1102As the new year starts, we’ve come to a point where we can expand downwards; hopefully, the staircase we have marked out at the beginning of the fort won’t run into any caverns, lakes, or the magma sea itself.
1102.01.21 At least one of those hopes is dashed: a corner of the staircase opens into the third cavern.
We quickly explore the cave; it has three separate lakes, each with its own connection to the edge. If we intend to secure it, it’s going to be a pain… but secure it we must, the last thing we can afford is a forgotten beast dropping by right now, before we’ve even started training a military.
Some nearby veins of malachite get carved out, before we miners head downwards looking for the magma layer. The rest of the fort begin the doubtlessly-frustrating process of walling up the cavern with Udib’s diorite blocks.
1102.01.24 Three days later, migrants arrive! Twenty new dwarves for TowerEnded, including two children. Their numbers include one legendary mason,
Ezum GlazeSabres, who’s welcomed to the crafting level with great enthusiasm. For now, he’ll carve diorite blocks alongside Udib, but in the long run, he’ll be handed the entire obsidian stockpile to carve furniture. Another notable dwarf is
Lokum LancerSeer, who’s skilled or proficient in every smithing job. One
Degel DoorGlazed is a high master leatherworker, one
Kikrost BronzeFloors is a great bone carver. Besides these notable dwarves, we now have three new miners, two woodcutters, and a weaver.
With 29 able-bodied dwarves, sealing the cavern proceeds much quicker; as much as possible, we respect the boundaries of TowerEnded. Meanwhile, we miners have found a warm wall on level 120:
Exploratory shafts prove that level 118 is completely cold, so 119 must be right above the magma sea; we punch a hole in it to check:
So it’s settled: level 119 is where our first smithy is going to be. Four smelters will be soon built, to smelt copper from malachite, and a forge gets built from our only anvil and a block of obsidian:
1102.04.01 Summer opens with a zombie invasion; not even a year in, and Pestrat has found us! There are only 26 zombies, quite small for a siege, but all except one are former dwarves; we’re all sure this was done on purpose to frighten us.
They emerge from the mountain, despite the tower being off to the south; this also means they’ll travel over the little cage trap corridor we made last winter, and 8 of them are already dealt with:
We take refuge inside; all of us are accounted for, all of our animals are accounted for, and we lock the hatches.
1102.04.25 TowerEnded has its first dwarven death:
Ilral TatooedTrade. It had no relation to the zombies on the surface: she drowned in the cavern lake. I do recall there was a tree on the edge of the lake, and we decided to cut it down so the wall can be shorter; we’d have left it well alone if we’d have known it would cost us such a dwarf.
She will surely be missed; on a personal level by the many of us who were her friends, and by TowerEnded as a whole, as we were relying on her axedwarf skills to train and lead our squads. Instead, she sits at the bottom of a lake, beyond our ability to retrieve her.
A slab was engraved and built on the entrance to the cavern.
Regarding the surface, we have reached a conclusion: we’ll profit that Pestrat did not send any kobolds yet, and will trap the zombie horde. This should allow us to break the siege, despite our complete lack of a military. A winding corridor is dug through an unused room, originally intended to be part of the grazer’s pasture:
By the start of autumn, there are no more loose zombies in TowerEnded:
1102.07.15 The trade caravan arrives, and, wonder of wonders, has brought iron anvils. We buy all five of them, and we’ll expand the smithy as soon as we finish with the cavern.
1102.08.19 Eight more migrants have arrived. A master weaponsmith,
Medtob SideWhip, is sent straight to the forge, where he can create some copper axes and crossbows to begin with. Three others have arrived with marksdwarf skills, making five crossbow-dwarves in TowerEnded; perhaps it’s time we create our first military squads.
Two squads have been created: one of crossbow-dwarves, with six members, and one of axe-dwarves. The axe-dwarves will receive copper axes and shields, and be given no jobs except training in a small barracks by the entry.
Lokum can make their armor later, after we expand the smithy with three more forges (plus a glass furnace and a kiln)
The zombies have been divested of their weapons and armor; they wore no iron, and very little silver; they did have a bit more bronze, which is certainly better than the copper we can excavate.
1102.11.26 The first birth in TowerEnded:
Domas FootSyrup was born to two of the migrants from the spring wave.
11031103.02.11 sees the arrival of 23 new migrants; this pushes TowerEnded to 63, above the 50-citizen threshold, and means I’ll cede authority to a mayor, come summer.
1103-02-13 Nazom SeduceAura the Lie of Veils comes to the third cavern; this beast is a long-time enemy of ours, having plagued the Cudgel of Time since 77. BittenLashes, ElderCraft, and TorchHumid have had to deal with this creature enough times that we lost count. BoltsUrn, when it was owned by Floor of Perplexing, was also repeatedly devastated by it.
This time, it stops before our walls; it has no way in, but it also refuses to leave elsewhere.
1103.04.27 A new beast has arrived, beside Nazom; it’s an enormous hairy scorpion bearing a long, straight horn; it undulates rhythmically. We cannot find any mention of it in any records. Unless we’ll be later corrected, we must conclude this is the first time anyone has seen this creature. We have named it
Enira.
Enira then dies very quickly to Nazom.
One of my last acts as expedition leader is to establish another axe-dwarf squad; the mayor, whoever they may be, can deal with housing and training them. I’ve ensured they have a full set of armor and weapons; copper armor and weapons, but that’s what we have.
1103-04-17 Kel TundraGlazed was selected as mayor. She’s a middle-aged dwarfette who arrived in the spring migration wave. She’s installed herself in the mayoral offices that we’ve dug out at the end of last year, and has officially taken over the fort.
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Topic: The World Of Bones - Succession World - Ended (Read 30096 times)