First of all, I'm sure most of you have already gone through everything I'm about to describe so I hope I'm not boring you in anyway but being relatively new myself, this was a torturous experience and I feel it is my duty to inflict this upon as many people as will read it.
==Entry 1==
In hindsight "Axelords of the Angry Death-God of Death" was a rather ominous if not redundant name for a Dwarven settlement far from the mountain homes of the Dwarf king, but having had a bit of experience raising a fort or two in my day without much difficulty, I thought nothing of it. Besides, the charter was cheap and the lands were tame and far from the haunted lands of the undead. What could possibly go wrong?
To be fair what transpired next was more or less completely my fault. I situated my entrance about 20 tiles away from the lava pit and placed most of my initial settlement there, stockpiles, carpenter workshops, the whole setup while I start carving out an entrance. I lost my first miner because I situated the bridge too close to a fish population. Dammit, they've tasted blood, I hope that doesn't come back to bite me in the ass. I retrieve his pick and start carving out the farming caverns when I notice that my woodcutter has suddenly caught on fire. When I reach the surface, what I see before me is a wave of FIRE cutting a path across the flatlands. Why I have never encountered a fire imp before, I'll never know, but I learned a few quick lessons that day.
- While weak, fire imps have the insane ability to shoot fire.
- Said fire will torch anything within it's path until it hits water, including dwarves.
- Dwarves hate fire.
- While Dwarves hate fire, they will instinctually leap towards it, often twice if not actually following the path of burning destruction until they ignite, then they will streak across the map at high speeds to insure the flames are fed plenty of oxygen. Then they die, usually 50 miles in the opposite direction of the water source they started next to.
Luckily the river stops the flames from reaching the other side of the map. Unluckily the imp takes out my trader and wounds another dwarf. As an added bonus a fire man spawns inside my fortress and ninja assassinates my wounded mechanic. Wtf. All my buildings, my food, and my wood has BURNED to the ground, and I'm left with 3 guys, one of them wounded.
I'm seriously fucked, I lost my entire leadership and we haven't even made beds to sleep on.
If that wasn't bad enough a horde of macaques comes and literally steals the clothes off the backs of my dead dwarves AT THE SAME TIME that 3 kobloid theives arrive.
What else could go wrong?
Frak me.
==Entry 2==
About halfway through winter, with nothing to eat except the charred shoes of my former companions and nothing to do except stare at the giant pile of bones they left behind, I began to lose hope.
I spent most of my time reflecting on my life choices such as not to apply to dwarven medical school, or not sleeping with that slutty dwarven girl in dwarven community college because her beard wasn't long enough. Luckily, before supplies ran out, a band of
tasty migrants happened upon us, possibly tipped off by the merchants who I hurriedly unloaded several articles of silk clothing on the season before. They didn't seem to ask many questions about the clothes, even fewer questions about why the land was a scorched wasteland of death and destruction for miles around.
I was in luck, there was a blacksmith and a hunter, to capitalize on what remained of the wildlife, as well as a compliment of farming type dwarves and a craftsdwarf.
Things were going to be okay now.
==Entry 3==
No wait, fuck. I didn't notice this.
You know, the giant WALL of fire that for some reason was inching it's way across the map. You'll notice from the picture that although it is winter, there is no water in the ponds as there has been no rains all year. As an added insult, a fire imp spawned as well, possibly the same one responsible for the burning death that was approaching.
Yeah, they didn't survive. I don't know if I'm just cursed with particularly flammable dwarves or if it's some sort of environmental things, but they go up quicker than kindling. I palm the last of the dwarven rum and head back into the grave that is my fortress.
On the bright side, I was prepared for their arrival.
==Entry 4==
Things are actually improving. Despite the stench of burning dwarf chunks that can be smelled for miles, we keep receiving steady doses of migrants. Although the fire imps, the volcano, and the growing aggressiveness of the fishes keep curtailing our numbers, we are able to keep a steady population of about 20 dwarves and even managed to get 3 of them up to legendary status. By this time I have lost ALL my original dwarves, but as long as I keep up the dread pirate Roberts routine, I'm able to keep them from tantruming, although they are the most unhappy lot of dwarves you will ever see.
==Entry 5==
More fires. God the fires.
==Entry 6==
I have had enough of the fish population as of late. So far they've killed most of my fisherdwarves and my peasants keep leaping into the rivers to their death. I can't blame them, I've thought about it myself from time to time, but this time they took out my legendary bone carver and I've had enough. I've issued an order for some of my markdwarves to head out and get rid of the sturgeon threat once and for all.
==Entry 7==
Oh gods...
==Entry 8==
I've given up all hope now, evidentially fish that have tasted Dwarven blood gain some sort of mystic powers and are now capable of taking down dwarves in a single blow. The entire fish population is now named. I've stopped trying to keep the dwarves away from the river. I forbid everything I could find, yet another dwarf dies and i'm left to seek out every little piece of him to forbid to keep the rest from following in his footsteps. I'm convinced they go there, despite my orders, knowing death will take them. Apparently being torn apart by fish is better than serving under my command. I can't blame them. The other day an Armorsmith with a baby in hand jump into the river and die. Some say it was the fishes again, I know better.
All the rum is gone.
==Entry 9==
I saw a beautiful thing today. Our last legendary dwarf died, and while normally this would be meaningless compared to the endless sea of death I've born witness to so far, I have to say that I was moved by his heroism. Having spotted a kobloid thief, he immediately lunged himself upon the intruder taking both himself and his opponent into the river. Then he started choking the kobloid,
while drowning. I've never seen such suicidal courage before. And as I hurriedly packed my things into my pig tail bag to make my escape out of this wretched hellhole of death, I take pause to think, "had he not died a mere 2 squares from the door which would have lead to his salvation, this would have made for an excellent hopeful allegory."
But instead I find myself sneaking out in the middle of the night, abandoning the fortress and what few unfortunate souls remain to their own fates.
Fuck you Axelords of the Angry Death-God of Death. Back to the devil's own from whence you came.
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Topic: Behold, I bring thee a tale of Axelord! (Read 1460 times)