I'll go ahead and post the logs here. CHM16, feel free to delete them and move them to where it corresponds
Log #1
From the diaries of Lafiel Crazedwork, Engraver, 3rd of Granite, Early Spring 1052
I guess today I got a promotion.
After deciding that Meanmelter's term was over, all the dwarfs in the fortress began arguing chaoticly about who should be the next one in charge, like the unlawful bunch of bandits they are. Seeing as how they were going to enlarge that discussion to the next age, I just slammed the smoothed stone of the wall of the Meeting Hall, and told them that I was in charge for this year so they had time to find someone else for the next. Amazingly, they agreed, so now I'm stuck. At least now we'll get something done. I swear, I'll kill myself before hearing those good-for-nothings quarrel over everything again.
First thing I did was take a look at the numbers. With the new farms that Meanmelter had in good time built in the caverns deep below us we seemed quite well in terms of food and spirits. I instructed the farmers to plant some pig tail crops as well as all the other kinds of seeds we have available, for right now we need much more than just food, and to have some fiber cloth available would do wonders to us.
As for the rest of the fortress, well, it could use some work. There have been some huge spaces carved in just a year, which is truly worthy of praise, but maybe because of this most of this space is mainly empty and filled with rocks. Some of the corridors are almost unwalkable. This has to be corrected at once. I've also got a plan for the entrance. Right now the fortress has an entrance through a little hill on top of the mountain we're carving in, but it is not very defensible, elegant, or dwarvely, so I've ordered the whole hill to be leveled. Then...
I've also laid plans for a dormitory and a hospital in an empty floor. I know dwarfs are very tough, but most of us miss having some beds for a change. We've already endured a year, and if we have to spend the next nine ones here I want it to be in better conditions.
We have a seemingly endless supply of copper, but no fuel at all to use it. I can't bring myself to use the logs we have stored - Armok knows when we'll get another supply and for what will be needed. I don't want to tell the guys they can't have beds because I burned all the timber in the forges. So the metal will have to wait for now.
7th of Granite, Early Spring 1052
I've noticed there are a couple of of dead animals thrown around in and outside the fortress. Also, there seems to be a damned corpse IN THE MEETING ROOM. I've instructed the miners to carve a refuse stockpile right alongside the workshops that have been setting up in the last days, and set an area outside to leave the corpse. Some dwarfs asked to carve some kind of tomb to let the remains of our friend rest in peace, but I've told them the time will come. For now, he'll have to wait. Not that he has much to do otherwise!
25 of Felsite, Late Spring 1052
Bit by bit, the work is progressing. The hill above us has been already half-removed and the dormitory and infirmary are in place. Looks like we'll need some more beds, because we got a whole bunch of migrants a couple of weeks ago. About 15 of them, and most amazingly not all of them were useless.
With the new population, I've appointed Meanmelter, the commander of the militia, to be the new sheriff and keep order between the newcomers. As crazy as he is sometimes, this is a job that he surely knows how to do! I've also charged the surgeon of the fortress to cake care of the hospital management as the medical chief. He knows little of actual medicine, but until someone better arrives, he'll have to do.
Yesterday we got ourselves some Elven traders as well. Despite some cries for their heads and their booty, I'm gonna get them there out of here alive and rob-free. We need their wood BADLY, and we'll get more in the long run being on good terms with them. We exchanged logs, plant seeds and some barrels for rock crafts that I had prepared for an occasion like this, and that was it. They have insisted on staying for some days to recover from the journey. Oh well... at least they'll be of use as bait if goblins decide to appear.
Log #2
10th of Hematite, Early Summer, 1052
Well, I feel like an idiot today.
Having heard from some of the miners that there was an aquifer somewhere near, I had begun to look for it a month ago - since its water would be really convenient, much better than the muddy liquid down in the caverns infested with savages. I looked, and looked, down the valley, with no results. Then, when I told a miner to expand a bit the stockpiles, he advised not to because at the other side of the walls there was an aquifer they found LAST YEAR. Damn me and my memory.
Anyway, now we can have as much water as we please, with no worries.
15th of Hematite, Early Summer, 1052
Why won't I keep my mouth shut.
A miner was instructed to go above the aquifer carving a corridor, and then to dig down and build some kind of well we could use. The idiot instead dug down, not to the aquifer, but to the stockpile wall, releasing a wave of water into the rooms. The echoes of the seemingly endless flow of water were heard in all the fortress, and a few moments later everyone was working on sealing the flooded part of the stockpiles and preventing the water to get to the rest of the room and, most importantly, to the stairs.
Somehow, it worked. One of the dwarfs was trapped inside, but the miner carved a ramp so he could get out before the room filled completely.
The carpentry has received an order for four water pumps. If everything goes well, the stockpile should be recovered in a couple of months. But it was very dangerous. These kind of things. Must. Not. Happen. Ever. Again.
28th of Hematite, Early Summer, 1052
A new wave of migrants came. I don't get what they come here for - either the King hates a lot of people or they got lost. Anyway, every hand is welcome - I've got plenty of work for them. Also, I've put some of them under the orders of Meatmelter to start some kind of training. I somehow expect unwelcome visitors soon.
The hill has been removed at last. I've given the masons plans for a new surface complex, being a wall surrounding the entrance and sealed with remotely-controlled floodgates, with the Depot on top, accessible by stairs and a retracting bridge accessible from a nearby ramp for the trading carts.
On top of this access we'll build a tower.
Last year I grew tired of the whines of the miners and masons that had been working in the soon-to-be workshop areas, dug into Orthoclase. Being the superstitious bandits that they are, they said it was a bad omen with worried faces. Remembering that, I got an idea. What better way to tell the guards that surround us here and the king that commands them what we think about them and their traditions? We'll build a tower of the shiny yellow stuff. The taller the better. And then we'll bury our DEAD in it. And we'll build it in such a way that every trader, emissary and visitor will HAVE to go through it, with plenty of time to admire the crafted coffins and the statues that guard it. You don't like it? Too bad. Shame we can't somehow surround it with black cats and broken mirrors.
10th of Malaquite, Mid-Summer, 1052
Still alive, but barely.
We got a visitor alright. But while we expected goblins, and equipped accordingly, a FUCKING FOREST TITAN came down on us, flying from nowhere. It threshed one of the hunters that were outside with no effort, and then came tumbling toward our half-built entrance. The floodgates closed, but with a single kick the beast broke them out of their place, and down he came.
Four squads were rushed to charge the beast, then five, then six, and everyone in the fortress not a child, dead, or dying, was pummeling the beast like there was no tomorrow... seemingly, it wasn't. The Titan managed to heavily injure 5 more dwarfs and kill all the war dogs that had valiantly charged alongside their owners, before being knocked over by the pure pressure of the crowd. We spent a whole day kicking his guts to make sure he wouldn't get up again. By then, 3 of the injured dwarfs had bled beyond any hope. When we recovered the other two, we realized one of the two, our former trader, was missing a foot. We brought them to the infirmary, and proceeded with the work. The corpses were brought outside, to wait for the tower that still was in the first stages.
Log #3
3rd of Limestone, Early Autumn, 1052
It has been a very bad month. While the casualties were relatively few for what it could have been (one of the injured dwarfs is back on duty), it seems that the incident made surface all the hardships everyone has gone through during this year and half. More and more people have begun throwing tantrums at the slightest provocation, and it's driving everyone mad. Meanmelter has been really busy these days. Luckily we don't have a prison as of yet, or half the population would already be in it. Plus, it looks like we're running out of alcohol for some reason. I've instructed the distilleries to get on it, but they say they're lacking barrels. Can't blame them, I guess.
Such a mood has its good uses, though. When a Yeti had the misfortune to intrude in the fortress, it received such a pummeling it'll never forget, even in the afterlife where it now is.
15th of Timber, Late Autumn, 1052
Another sad week. If this goes on, I'll start believing in that Orthoclase curse myself.
While the tantrum wave continued through the whole season, some merchants from the mountainhomes arrived. The look on their faces after going under the almost-built tower was priceless; it was really worth the effort. Can't wait to see them watch the whole thing.
While they were staying and we were preparing to trade with them, Meanmelter suddenly flipped, like many more nowadays, and punched someone. But instead of one of us, that "someone" was a caravan marksdwarf. Needless to say the fight was short, and while we tried to save his life, Meanmelter hastily bled out of his several bolt injuries. The dwarfs under his squad claimed for vengeance, but I stopped them somehow - The king could use that as an excuse to wipe us out. While damning their ancestors and swearing future vengeance against them and their families, we exchanged much-needed alcohol for some prepared foods we had plenty of. The smirks of the guards were difficult to bear calmly, but we all promised they'd pay for the blood they made our comrade ooze today. Pay for it MANY times.
I've arranged that, when the tower is finally completed, Meanmelter's remains be buried in first place on the top floor, as honoring of his, if sometimes crazed, hard-working service for our fortress.
Log #4
4th of Moonstone, Early Winter, 1052
Finally, the orthoclase statue has been placed on top of the 20-story building, and thus the Cursed Tower is finished. The alunite scaffolds are still in place (most of them, anyway) so the dead can be carried to their coffins, but if (god forbids it) the 60 tombs are filled they won't be necessary anymore.
Let the king come now, if he wishes. With a bit of luck maybe we can drop the whole thing onto him. Surely that's what Meanmelter and the rest would want, anyway.
With this project out of my head, I've begun two other enterprises. On one hand I'm starting sort of a farm of those subterranean trees, in a large room next to the Meeting Hall. Some dwarves have said there's no need to mud-ify the floor for them to grow, but I don't want to take any chances. So I've ordered one of the pumps that we used to drain the stockpiles rebuild, to pump water into the room.
On the other hand, seeing that we're not finding any coal or anything that we can use for fuel (I still don't want to burn the wood), I've instructed the miners to keep probing the deeps of the mountain, to search for some kind of magma pool that can be used to make some much needed fuel-free smelters and smiths. Some of the first layers dug have shown lots of obsidian, which according to the miners is a good sign.
Notes from Bim Orrunnish, militia commander, 16th of Moonstone, Early Winter, 1052
(...) so it turns out Lafiel was nowhere to be found. The situation was tense; after Meanmelter's death Lafiel had assumed the role of sheriff, and her not being around seemed to encourage dwarves to smack themselves out with even more energy. In the last weeks several dwarves had been afflicted with strange obsessions or sudden rage strokes. At least two injured dwarves had been killed in the infirmary by a berserk leathermaker, blinded by its obsession with a bar of metal he couldn't find. Other ones had wandered out in the snow, seemingly possessed by a peculiar melancholy, until they dropped dead. Lots of fights with less radical results had erupted in the fortress, as if still carrying the pain for the Titan that came half a year ago. One of the crafters finally spread the word: Lafiel had been seen in one of the workshops, hitting some piece of microcline with a tool, seemingly in random ways. (...)
It looked like another one of us was going to be lost to the madness, but one of the most ancient dwarfs in the fortress was confident that she would snap out of it. Somehow the fortress life went on, with the number of fights timidly decreasing, and a week later Lafiel came back from the shop, seeming a bit lost in her thoughts, and with an exquisite microcline ring in her palm. She didn't say a word except to ask for some reports about those last days, then she went right to the dormitories and passed out for a whole day. (...)
From the diaries of Lafiel Crazedwork, Sheriff, 15th of Opal, Mid-Winter 1052
At least, looks like the madness spiral has come to an end. After weeks without a single dwarf flipping out we can get on to better things.
One of the causes of this episode may have been, in my opinion, our in general meager habitacles. Maybe we don't have enough beds to start a project of individual rooms for everyone, but we can at least embellish whatever we already have. The hospital and the dormitory will be treated that way, and some statues will be added if available. Whatever can take the dwarfs a step farther from enraging, we'll do it.
In another order of things, miners have stumbled on a giant 20-z level pit in one of the caverns. It seems to communicate with a larger cavern below. But for the moment, no signs of magma. I like not to go deeper, but it may be the only choice...
6th of Obsidian, Late Winter, 1052
Seeing as a new dwarf is about to take my place in a couple of days, I'm putting everything in order so I can get to my new full-time job of sheriff with no troubles. I've ordered a set of rooms alongside the infirmary for my use in the future, with a similar set in the other side of the corridor for future needs.
I can't help but to feel anxious. In two years (mainly in this one) we have already filled 12 of the 60 tombs I have prepared. I'll pray to Aroz so we don't have to build another such tower before our 10-year incarceration period is out. May Armok guide our picks and our hearts.
The Meeting Hall, workshops, and future tap farm:
The PIT OF DOOOOOM(tm)
And a view of the orthoclase tower using StoneSense
NOTES:
* We have plenty of ores: Gold, Silver, Iron, and tons, tons, tons of copper. But if we don't find magma soon they're as good as clay.
* No problems of food, and lots of drink right now, but the production process needs to be looked into.
* Levers:
NE lever controls the retracting bridge.
SW lever controls the floodgates to the exterior.
SE... should control the floodgates to the upper floor. Not sure if they're even there, though.
Author
Topic: The Tainted Band of Fools - Survival Game (Read 21198 times)