Spring 203
I saw Rickvoid muttering to himself, his hands up to the wrists in what I swear to Armok looked like a lump of REALLY rotten meat. The blood gnats follow him like a halo. I think I did the right thing moving him downstairs.
I didn't look closely at what he was doing. Looked like he thought he was writing or something. Whatever. Just so long has he keeps doing good work and doesn't try to stand next to me.
[OOC: I think you meant Elf-SKIN. But if it's Elf-FLESH, I'm going with it...]
Lolol has announced that she will henceforth be known as Koji. Never really paid that much attention to her. Good miner. Acceptable smoother. Our two migrants engravers are apparently in the habit of laughing at her detailing skills, but she never asked for the job.
At some point, we've got to get the dining hall engraved. Don't trust any of them to do it right though. I order a whole lot of bedrooms and workshops smoothed. One of the engravers is trying to tell me that workshops don't have to be smoothed. I'm stroking a Kimberlite mechanism (so cool, so deep blue. Not like that crappy microcline stuff.) and not listening. It's not smooth walls on the butcher's shop I want, it's better engravers.
I paid a visit to Neo's old bedroom, wondering if we should give it to Neosen when that fellow heals up. I discover Neo's old clothing (minus his left shoe and sock. Funny that.) strewn all over the floor. I'd forgotten about the superstition about not touching the belongings of the dead. I order it hauled away.
I also find his axe. He's had it with him the whole time. This sort of raises the question of what the various saps I ordered to take on the woodcutting duties after Neo were actually doing.
I think of having a serious talk with Mebsuth about this. Then I remember that Mebsuth, miller, is now Mebsuth the legendary Champion and I think again. Whatever. I find the fish cleaner who was supposed to take over woodcutting and tell him to do it, at least until a more promising sucker turns up.
Speaking of fish cleaning, there's a bit of a problem. We have almost no bones and shells left, and no meat or fish on the accounts. This is a bit of a worry. The food situation is not important because of the amount of plump helmet we have, but we need bones and shells. For moods, and to keep Rickvoid busy. I don't like to think of the possibility of Rickvoid idle.
Initially I'm thinking that we're just not catching any fish, then I'm told otherwise. We got a pretty fair catch of rainbow trout and chad in the winter, and the turtles are back within the perimeter, so where are the bones going?
Then I discover that the saps I've got on cookery duties have been grinding them up to make biscuits. I put a stop to that. The lads will grumble about the lack of prepared meals. Feh. Let them eat tallow.
We really need more animals.
Oh no. I didn't wash and now I have elves! We trade a couple of mechanisms and lots of Ubid's crafts (he's actually getting not too terrifically terrible. Also having more than mudstone to work with helps a little) for some booze of some description, a bin of cloth, and a couple of wooden weapons for sparring. We didn't need the cloth, but let's show willing.
While the Elves are here I put the champions on guard. They turn up holding their crossbows from the wrong end and half of them have empty quivers, but they do turn up. Any goblins will die. And, considering the marksmenship of our gallant defenders, probably very slowly.
Speaking of crossbows, I've put up a workshop for our Bowyer but I can't bear to order anything from him. A crossbow, to me, is a hammer that shoots people. It should be made of iron or better. I don't want wooden hammers. Even if they do shoot people.
One of our children is all grown up, and become a peasant. I explain to him his duties to the community and draft him forthwith.
This is Fogcrystal. Nobody stays a peasant for long here.
After trading with the cannibals I get back to cooking keeping the books. It's a little sad. We are a poor fortress. We just haven't had the right combination of migrants to make real money. We have metalsmiths, blacksmiths when we need armourers. We have amateurs making clothes.
Someone is tugging on my sleeve. It's a leatherworker. He's complaining that the tanner is doing all the leatherworking and that he isn't being given a chance to practice his skill. He's right, of course. It's a pity he wasn't around when we had leather and needed it made into things.
I tell him he'll be doing all future leatherworking.
Someone alerted me to the presence of our new Werewolf, "Angry Arthur", near the southern wall. He isn't making trouble but his presence is disrupting silk-gathering. I send out the boys.
Goden, our ex-trapper, turns up first. It really impressed me how the almost untrained (with a crossbow) Champion waited until Angry Arthur was right on top of him before shooting him point-blank in the nadgers. It would have impressed me more if he'd then hammered the thing to death instead of firing more valuable iron bolts into it with painful slowness. Eventually, our ex-milker turns up and hits the werewolf with the blunt end. That's it.
Some migrants turn up. A gemcutter, another blacksmith, a weaponsmith (useful), several peasants, two woodcrafters (bleah), a pump operator (wait...that's a PROFESSION? I thought it was a predicament), a dyer (we can use that one eventually), a milker (drafted), a trapper.
Owing to the bone shortage I get the woodcrafters on making training bolts. We are not short of wood. I order an iron axe forged and give it to one of the peasants, because clearing the forest from around our walls is taking a while. Most of the others I put to fishing or general masony/furnace operating/farming tasks. I'd like to draft more, but it's limited by our armour production. I've had to establish a second smelter.
I tell the pump operator that since his shirt's the right colour, he'll be working with me as a mechanic.
Hey, I'm now the mayor. I go mad with power and order all turtle shell exports prohibited. I find myself dissatisfied with my own housing arrangements, and order a new suite of rooms dug out for me. We strike coal while we're at it.
The migrants actually bought some animals this time. There's a she-donkey calf, meaning our donkey can have a child bride, a mule that I can't kill because it's a pet, and a cow and bull calf. Eventually, we can have inbred redneck cows.
Our horse remains a bachelor.
Author
Topic: Fogcrystal. A Domestic Comedy with Werewolves (Read 10397 times)